#alexis waters

Here’s What Happened Monday

Welcome to Dallas! This place is sweaty and will make you fat in a heartbeat, but there is just nothing that Rachel isn’t loving these days. She’s in her hometown and is ready to show off her boyfriends to her mom and her pregnant sister, who, if you remember from last season, are amazing television.

Peter’s Family Time

Rachel wants to give Peter the time and respectful distance to figure out his feelings, but she also feels the need to subliminally pressure cook those feelings so she takes him baby clothes shopping. Subtle as a flying brick, our Rachel.

After baby time, but before entering some absurdly gorgeous Dallas mansion, Peter tells Rachel he’s falling in love with her. It was the emotional bolster she needed, and they enter to meet Rachel’s family: her ball-busting superhero mother, her no-nonsense and very pregnant sister Constance, her overly-defensive-about-being-white brother-in-law Alex, and some others. Notably absent (again) is her federal judge father, who (again) will not be caught dead on The Bachelor (duh).

Peter tells the family that he told Rachel all along he wouldn’t say he loved her until he truly did. Her sister nods like it’s the most sensible thing she’s ever heard. In private, Constance tells Rachel, “We remember Nick. Don’t be a ding dong.”

Peter tells Mama Lindsay he doesn’t know if he can be ready for love in two weeks because reality and also that he won’t ask for permission to marry Rachel until he is certain. Their conversation makes a lot of sense, which is jarring for The Bachelor.

Dead Eric’s Family Time

To fuel his already suffocating anxiety over the day ahead, Rachel takes Dead Eric up a high tower overlooking Dallas. He shakes in fear remembering the last time he fell to his death and demands a safety hug. Later, in this same tower of nerves, the two share champagne, Dead Eric expresses his jitters, and I wonder out loud to no one in particular how the hell he’s made it this far.

Rachel and Dead Eric show up to meet Rachel’s family. Her sister greets them in a large white tunic with a giant bedazzled necktie-collar thing looking like the pregnant Easter Bunny. She takes Dead Eric outside to grill him on his general existence. Later he meets Mama Lindsay and his flattery levels reach Defcon 1. (“I love your marriage, where did you get it?”) Mama Linds listens to all his clichéd nonsense about love and strength and lovestrength with a straight face, but for whatever reason accepts when he asks for her permission to marry her living daughter.

Bryan’s Family Time

Rachel and Bryan and Bryan’s stupid elf face take off to brunch it up with Rachel’s girlfriends. These are the girls who signed Rachel up for The Bachelor, so we immediately know that these are the type of girls who sign people up for The Bachelor. They are blonde, they are Texan, they are armed with mimosas, and they are ready to be obsessed with Bryan. Bryan flashes a bit of his smarm, and oh, they take it.  

Upon meeting the family, Bryan tells them he loves no woman more than his mother and just wants to love the same woman over and over and over and he never makes it clear whether he’s still talking about his mother or Rachel. It’s weird for everyone. At dinner, he gushes that he felt Rachel was his girlfriend on the first day, which pregnant Constance is not buying. The Lindsay family sass is out in force against Bryan and Rachel is deeply displeased that they are not charmed by him. Perhaps she forgets that they have never experienced his slobbery make outs, and thus don’t understand her reasons for liking him.

Constance pulls Bryan aside and tells him he’s full of shit if he thinks he really loved Rachel after two weeks. He responds with “Well I love you too,” and she’s like, “It’s been ten minutes, creep.”

Rachel tells her mom she loves Bryan and Mama Lindsay tells her love is impossible in two months. Burn. She still gives Bryan her permission to marry Rachel though because up is down and left is right and this is Trump’s America.

Dead Eric’s Spain Time

Rachel arrives in Spain with one modest carry-on and, no doubt, eight men the size of The Mountain carrying in the rest of her bags. She is down to her final three, which, if you follow The Bachelor/ette, you know that means this is the episode where she gets to make sweet, sweet love to all the boys in the Fantasy Suite.

Her first date is with Dead Eric, who, despite knowing his fear of heights, traps him in a helicopter. He soldiers through, shouting things at random intervals. They discuss their emotions, make wishes at an ancient monastery, then make out a lot.  

Later, at dinner, Dead Eric struggles to respond to Rachel’s questions about real-person feelings but finally pulls out the L-word from his big dead heart. She hands him the note from Chris Harrison inviting him to join Rachel for a night of hanky necropanky, and he accepts.

The next day, wearing nothing but shorts and slippers, Dead Eric says, “I’m ready for life to happen to me,” and I laugh out loud.

Peter’s Spain Time

Rachel and Peter explore a dank wine cellar with an old man who sings at them in a foreign language then gives them a key to their own private wine cellar slash crypt. Somewhere, Dead Eric curses Rachel for not giving him the crypt date.

A few glasses deep, Peter admits he didn’t ask Rachel’s mom for her permission to marry her yet. Rachel’s disappointment is momentarily diverted, however, when she just so happens to spot a child (subtle, Rach) who lures them into a bucket of stomping grapes. They just stomp, stomp, stomp, and it’s a romantic moment I’m sure, but I can only think of this.

Peter asks Rachel to commemorate the day by writing something on a wine cork, and she quips that he’ll finally get to see how bad her handwriting is. Peter doesn’t even know what her handwriting looks like, but somehow Rachel feels like it’s high time to get engaged. This disagreement over engagement, however, leaves us with a cliffhanger: is this a difference they can resolve? Probably not, because up is down and left is right and this is Trump’s America.

Miscellaneous

I will never understand why Chris Harrison is the one who invites the couples to bang.

These people are going to have such unrealistic expectations of traveling Europe for the rest of their lives. My roommate Babs once said, “if you’re not lost and smelly and afraid for your life ninety-nine percent of the time, you’re not doing abroad right.” Bachelorette vacations are that one percent.

Let me just say: if Peter gets sent home because he doesn’t believe in contractually-bound love timelines, it is going to be HILARIOUS when they announce he’s the next Bachelor.

Same.

Here’s What Happened Monday

Nick, our Bachelor and human equivalent of basement dry rot, brings his sad, sad family to Finland to meet his final two girlfriends. They make about a twenty percent effort to hide how much they hate Nick, The Bachelor franchise, and this purgatory they now call life. “Going through this process was excruciating,” are words that actually, really come out of Nick’s dad’s mouth.

Raven is the first to arrive to meet the cold, dead-eyed Vialls. She has her first deep chat with Bella, the youngest Viall, who you will remember has grilled her this way once before. The two promise to be BFFs no matter what happens, and neither is even remotely joking.

Vanessa arrives later. She talks about how much she loves Nick as Nick’s mother nods along in existential pain and Nick’s father bursts into uncontrollable tears. A new brother appears at one point, indicating that the siblings clearly have to take shifts through this circus of embarrassing torture.

Nick’s brother summarizes the available level of optimism by reminding us, “They could still say no – and given his track record, it’s not the greatest.” One can only hope, brother.

The Final Dates aka Winter Fun Time Between Strangers Considering Eternity Together

Wrought with uncertainty about his feelings for Vanessa, Nick does what anyone in his situation would do: he seeks affirmation on his fictional love for his fictional girlfriend from a fictional character in the woods. Nick and Vanessa find themselves nestled in a teepee with Santa Claus, who close-talks at them in what sounds like Dothraki then sends them on their way with a handicraft he clearly just regifted. This encounter clarifies nothing for the couple, who spend the next ten minutes sobbing and trying to talk themselves into a relationship neither of them wants.

Later, also wrought with uncertainty about his feelings for Raven, Nick does what anyone in his situation would do: he takes her ice skating to try to rekindle the feelings from their first date when they rollerbladed to Sixpence None The Richer and Raven told a cute story about beating in a man’s skull with a pointed shoe. And to make us forget that Raven might lowkey be a sadistic freak, puppies!

The Final Rose aka The Final Finnish Finale Finally

Neil Lane, a human man made of couch, comes to Finland to sell Nick a third engagement ring. More than anything else on the show, Neil Lane is the perfect reminder about how much of a huge sucker Nick is. He shows up, once a season, to sell Nick a giant, sparkly symbol of his imminent failure, and laughs his way right to the bank.

But Nick, new owner of a third engagement ring, isn’t laughing. He waits solemnly on a bear-skin rug to propose to a stranger because it’s the episode where he has to do that. But first, of course, he brings in Raven.

Raven. Our sweet, simple, Raven. She was always a favorite of mine. Every time I thought I had her figured out, she would show up on an ATV or drop a casual attempted-murder reference or shamelessly chat through cultural taboos. She was occasionally sassy but never, ever mean. She was always, from the beginning, way too good for Nick.

Nick. Nick gives Raven all the time she needs to profess her love one more time before he starts talking. At some point in his speech about his love for her he slips in the phrase “letting you go,” and that’s how we know he’s breaking up with her. Kind of in passing, kind of as an afterthought. It makes sense, because Nick is garbage. I hate this show.

And then, of course, Vanessa. Nick brings her in, says he’s been fighting his love for her for a long time (huh?), and asks her to marry him. Vanessa forgets all of her doubts, values, and standards in the moment and accepts without question. Aaaand that’s it. Barf.

The lovebirds appear on After The Rose ten minutes later and give off the kind of vibes that only couples who have tried to smother their significant other with a pillow once or twice could give off. I hope, one day, one of them succeeds.

Miscellaneous

The only emotion I wanted The Bachelor to make me feel was feminist outrage, but Raven in the car saying love might not be possible for her… that kind of broke me. I caught myself screaming “YOU WILL FIND LOVE” at my hotel TV and it was a deeply sobering moment for me. This break couldn’t have come soon enough.

Raven: The Aftermath

Our episode opens with our dear, sweet Raven, emerging from her night in the Fantasy Suite to see the world in a whole new way. Not unlike Dorothy entering technicolor or this baby trying bacon for the first time, Raven spends the first morning of the rest of her life skipping through Finland, petting strange dogs, enjoying the newfound satisfaction that, if we’re really willing to stretch our imagination, we might actually believe Nick was able to supply her.

Rachel: Firsts and Lasts

Hairy shell of a human being Nick moves right along on from what must have been another meaningless date with Raven to his next date with Rachel. The Rachel date consists of everything the producers thought seemed “probably Finland-ish?” like petting disinterested reindeer and doing cross-country skiing (which, if you didn’t know, is just skiing without the fun). Then, of course, the date progresses to the part we were all dreading…

 Knowing that Rachel’s time on The Bachelor is limited, the best she could’ve done would have been to spend the next few hours in that Fantasy Suite holding her feelings inside, drinking all the red wine she could, and taking advantage of the disconcerting number of candles in the room to set Nick’s turtleneck collection ablaze. But instead, of course, she tells Nick he’s “rare and refreshing” (to which he actually, seriously responds, “I might be white but I’m still a minority” !!!!!!?????) and then tells him she loves him. Barf.

 Remember in high school lit class when you learned about dramatic irony, where the audience knows something the characters in the story don’t? Fast forward from Romeo and Juliet to Romeo and Rachel: as the two retreat to the Fantasy Suite, the woman who will be dating thirty dudes in two months tells us, “this is exactly the man I’m supposed to be with.” Lol. Nah girl.

Vanessa: Cold Hot Times

Canadian snow princess Vanessa emerges from the seven layers of the candy cane forest to meet Nick for their terrible, forgettable date. Already deeply concerned about his dedication to her and eager to express the collective sentiment of the American people, Vanessa states, “I want to murder Nick.” Across the nation, applause.

Nick reaffirms his love for her by proposing this cozy daytime activity: they don vintage swimsuits from Finland’s 1984 Summer Olympic team and run outdoors to jump in an ice bath over and over until one of them dies. Highly symbolic of their relationship, when they return indoors for warmth Vanessa inadvertently rejects Nick’s attempts to cuddle by retreating into the fetal position. It’s my favorite moment of the episode.

They spend the next several hours discussing what is guaranteed to be a doomed relationship. The logic in their conversation is hilariously flawed: Vanessa asserts that compromise is vital for a successful relationship but refuses to compromise on living in Canada. Nick believes Vanessa’s family is too “traditional” for him but that their compatibility issues may be rooted in being “too similar.” (Vanessa’s family tradition is crying, by the way.) Of course, because this is The Bachelor, this red-flag-laden conversation ends in Vanessa’s proclamation of love and Nick’s predictable silence. Barf.

The Rose Ceremony

Chris Harrison greets the women in his Finnish warlock coat and guides them inside for the penultimate Rose Ceremony of Season 21. As Nick struggles to gather his words, he and Vanessa predictably start crying, Rachel fights to maintain composure, and Raven stares dreamily at the ceiling where she thinks she saw a butterfly. Nick makes the crushing decision to say goodbye to Rachel, and I have to say I’m glad we weren’t blindsided by that. I hope Rachel invests in some waterproof mascara before The Bachelorette.  

Miscellaneous

Rachel, straight-faced, drops the line “I’m not in my head anymore; I’m all in my heart” then five minutes later rocks an unironic penguin onesie. #GetYouAWomanWhoCanDoBoth. This woman is going to be Bachelorette gold.

Did anyone else notice Nick wearing camo capris as snuggle clothes? I hate him so much. He’ll make the perfect sequel to Ryan Lochte’s douche-in-residence role on Dancing With The Stars.

My prediction for the finale? Nick cries, picks someone, probably hits on a producer as soon as they call cut.

Too funny not to share. The friendship between Alexis Waters and Rachel Lindsay is so freaking cute.