The Bachelor, Season 21: Week 2

Guys, it’s week 2, and I really, genuinely almost had to turn off the TV in the middle of this episode. This week: everyone is in wedding dresses, Danielle M. gets the first helicopter ride of the season, and Corinne takes her top off. Oh, also Christen is going to confront Nick about sleeping with Liz, then he might get slapped. LET’S JUMP IN!

Corinne first offers up a toast to Nick finding love with one of the women in the room. PUKE. The next approximately 45 seconds or so is simply an ode to Nick. Seriously, it’s like the producers and editors just wanted to prove that all of these women would easily be diagnosed with Stockholm Syndrome. Chris Harrison walks in and says “Congratulations for being here”. Wow, I get goose bumps just thinking about that accomplishment! Chris asks the girls what they like most about Nick and Danielle M. says that she loves that he’s got a nice, calm, strong confidence about him. “Very cool.” responds Mr. Harrison. LOL. This week there are going to be three dates total, two group dates and one 1-on-1 date. REMINDER GIRLS: there are 22 of you here dating the same man so a few of you may not get a date this week! But here comes the first date card of the season! “Corinne, Vanessa, Sarah, Alexis, Hailey, Lacey, Brittany, Jasmine, Raven, Danielle L., Taylor, Elizabeth W.: Always a bridesmaid…Love, Nick”. Yo, why was Liz not on this date, she was LITERALLY A BRIDESMAID WHEN THEY MET. I know they (spoiler alert) wanted her to break up with Nick on their date, but seems like a sincerely missed opportunity. Corinne, shockingly, has never been a bridesmaid. HUH?? WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT? Something tells me that she doesn’t have a ton of close female friendships in her life. Editor’s disclaimer: I will continue to say, until the day Corinne leaves my TV screen, that I do not love bashing other women, but she is just quite honestly one of the worst people I’ve ever seen in my life. So all of the women hop into these convertibles and take a trip down Kanan Rd. to this crazy mansion. They walk down this set of stairs to the backyard and it all looks so familiar. No seriously, this HAS to be the place they shot the season 1 finale of UnReal, right?! Courtney Shea, Rachel Dorfman, can anyone help confirm this for me??? Anyway, they find Nick just participating in this weird photo shoot with this man that is wearing either a romper or a shorts set that looks like a romper. They all give Nick a hug and Alexis walks up and says “I don’t know if you remember me, I’m Alexis”. Spoiler alert: Alexis is the greatest Bachelor contestant of our time, I’m obsessed with her. Nick gives this little speech about how group dates are kinda weird and that although he’s been on a bunch of them, he was never really the guy that was super comfortable on them, so they shouldn’t feel pressure to be great. K, but like, if you’re good at group dates on The Bachelor franchise, something has to be seriously wrong with you, yes? Apparently the date this time is doing this weird wedding photo shoot with this photographer whom I’ve gathered is named Franco, and they’re all going to have weird themes and then Franco is going to choose someone who has the best chemistry with Nick for a special surprise. Sorry, but who the eff is Franco???? All of the girls get their “themes”, Vanessa is an 80s bride, Alexis is the shotgun bride, Brittany is the Adam and Eve bride, which is not a thing, but it does require her to be completely topless. The rest of the girls have some other weird themes they don’t show us and, lololol, some of the girls aren’t even brides, but get to be bridesmaids for the photo shoots of the other women. They all go back to get their makeup and hair done and Corinne will not stop telling everyone she talks to that she already kissed Nick. Gurl, no one cares, truly. She’s apparently “full of number 1’s”. Oh, okay, cool, can you be FIRST TO GO HOME THIS WEEK?!?! Corinne thinks that she’s clearly the hottest bride, and also Taylor apparently thinks that Corinne is trying to psych her out. Taylor, I do not know how to tell you this, but Corinne has never thought of another human in her entire life, so she’s not trying to psych you out, she just genuinely has no tact. The rest of the girls finish getting ready including Brittany whose body is immaculate and Corinne is clearly pissed about it. She even says that she will “literally punch Brittany in the face” if she steals her thunder today. We cut to commercial at this point, and this was when I first started to get the idea that maybe, perhaps, I could not stand to see the sight of Corinne on my television screen any longer. I take a deep breath, take a sip of my wine and decide to power through.

We come back, I’m clenching my jaw, and seeing this hoard of women walk down these steps in wedding dresses, again, I have to say, THEY SHOT THE SEASON ONE FINALE OF UNREAL HERE THERE’S JUST NO WAY IT’S NOT THE SAME PLACE. Sarah is up first and her theme is “Vegas Wedding”—the quality of these photos is, honestly, not excellent, sorry Franco. Hailey is up next and has the “Biker Wedding”. In the middle of this, Nick grabs her hand and puts it on his ass. Cool, I guess. Alexis is next for her “Shotgun Wedding” and she’s fake pregnant and I’m dying. They’re staging that Nick is helping Alexis give birth at this wedding? That seems like the more pressing issue than getting married, but okay. Vanessa’s “80’s Wedding” is kinda funny, but she randomly has bridesmaids. Jasmine, one of the bridesmaids, just grabs him and kisses him and that’s not great. I think I skipped over it, but at some point Jasmine said that doing a wedding photo shoot for a first date seems a little sudden. UM, WHAT’S THAT, GIRL WHO BROUGHT ENGAGEMENT RINGS TO MEET THIS GUY? Danielle L. is next and her theme is “Traditional Wedding”. Huh? He just makes out with her for awhile, like a lot of making out. Taylor is next and has a “Princess Wedding” and she does look fab in her dress. Again, Corinne is pissed that another woman could look beautiful. Real nice, Corinne, real nice. Taylor and Nick share a cute kiss, I guess. At this point we quickly cut back to the mansion mostly just to get a shot of Liz chatting with a few girls to tell that that “she didn’t kiss [Nick] last night”. Lol, tru. Back to the photo shoots and now it’s time for “Adam and Eve Wedding”. Wut. That’s not a thing, it couldn’t be less about a wedding at all, just an excuse for the producers to put the very chiseled Nick Viall in a very tiny piece of clothing. They just bite an apple really awkwardly together, I’m not loving it. Also, Corinne thinks she would have looked better in that outfit. OH, OKAY. Brittany walks back to the girls and they all stand up and clap for her EXCEPT CORINNE. Man, oh, man, I almost turned if off at this point, Corinne could not be a worse person, or so I thought at this point. Corinne is up next with a “Beach Wedding” theme. They’re literally in a pool, also, beach weddings don’t often involve the bride simply being in a bikini. They climb into the pool and are super awkward and eventually Corinne takes her top off and makes Nick cover her bare boobs with his hands. Dude. I do not care if any woman wants to be topless, I mean, go for it, but THIS WAS DUMB. It infuriated me so much. What do you expect this guy to do? Just like not put his hands on this girl’s boobs and embarrass her? I don’t know, maybe he should have told her no, but that’s a real shitty thing that Corinne did. Seriously no class or respect for any other human on this planet. Do you think she makes her nanny hold her boobs when she can’t be bothered to wear a top? So, it’s time for Franco to choose the winner of the photo shoot and choose the girl who he thought had the best chemistry with Nick in these photos. Franco chooses Corinne. The world weeps. I genuinely thought that this episode was going to be about Corinne acting like a damn fool, but Nick actually being attracted to someone else on the date and that making her mad, but no. It’s just an episode about Corinne being a dick and still winning everything. The parallel to our current political climate is not lost on me. So, the extra special thing that Corinne wins, though, is just a second photo shoot? Uh, okay.

Alright, so the women end up at the wonderful LEVEL building in DTLA. Did LEVEL start sponsoring The Bachelor? I seem to remember this is where JoJo and Luke started their passionate makeout seshes. Corinne OF COURSE steals Nick first and the rest of the girls just sit there silently watching this horrible woman go talk to a man they’re trying to decide if they can fall in love with. They just started making out right away, but finally are able to stop and Corinne tells Nick that when she feels something she “feels it with [her] whole heart”. Nick is somehow “impressed” by her? Uh, literally how? They can’t even talk for more than 30 seconds, though, without starting to makeout again. Next is just a montage of Corinne talking out of her butt to the girls while Nick drags each of them away and just instantly kisses everyone. I mean, look, I don’t blame the guy for wanting to kiss everyone, but is any talking actually getting done on this date? We pause with Raven though and Raven talks about her last relationship which ended because she walked in on her boyfriend with another girl. Yikes. Nick’s apparently been cheated on before, too. Interesting. Honestly, would not have guessed that, but I suppose puts him into perspective for me a little. It made him focus on what he wants, though, which, hmm. Really? Corinne? Then Raven says that she’s not calling Nick an asshole, but she’s attracted to assholes, so she kinda likes him. Lol. Nick can’t even argue with that. They’re kind of precious together, he’s clearly a little nervous around her, which I never ever would have guessed.

Time for Date Card #2! “Danielle M. – Our relationship is about to take off…Love, Nick”. Oooh la la. I think everyone on the planet likes Danielle M. Liz is apparently excited for Danielle M. and says so in a very non-convincing way during her confessional. Liz has hella beautiful teeth, though, gotta give it to her.

When we come back to the wonderful LEVEL building in DTLA (#ad), Corinne says that she already misses Nick so she doesn’t want to waste any time while she’s here. Alexis chats with Nick and says that “the first night [she] was a dolphin, today [she] was a pregnant person”. Lol, I love Alexis. Nick wants to know more about her other than her great sense of humor. Just as Alexis starts to talk, Corinne saunters on in and even Alexis literally says “Wait, what?”. Corinne LITERALLY SAYS “I’m interrupting you.” UM OKAY, CORINNE, OKAY. YOU MESS WITH MY GIRL ALEXIS, YOU ARE GONNA NEED TO GO THROUGH ME FIRST. She somehow just keeps getting worse and worse and worse and worse. Even now, writing this, my heart rate is truly rising due to my sheer anger toward Corinne. Alexis joins the other girls and tells them that Corinne interrupted them. All of them just think she’s super disrespectful, which she clearly is, but come on, Nick is apparently okay with it. How are none of the girls asking Nick if he likes Corinne? Imagine being on this show and finding out that Nick actually likes Corinne. Like, for real, if a guy likes Corinne, there is NO WAY IN HELL we would even get along. I know that the producers want to keep her around, and rightfully so, look at the passion she’s stirred within me, but wouldn’t you as one of the other girls just want to know if Nick can see through her bullshit? Also, Corinne is straight up trashed this whole time. Get your life, girl, for real. Taylor is up next and every time I see her lower third that tells me that she’s 23, I just get a little uncomfortable watching this actual grown man try to connect with this person who is, essentially, a baby. I mean, she is insanely smart and mature for sure, but she looks and acts 23, which I am genuinely happy about for her. 23 year olds should look and act like they’re 23, that’s what makes the world go round. SURPRISE, MOTHERFU**ING SURPRISE, THOUGH, CORINNE IS BACK. Man, oh man, this was the last straw for me. I stood up from my couch, let out a frustrated sigh, and literally went to make a batch of chocolate chip cookies to cool down. This girl thinking she can do whatever the hell she wants without consequences is exactly why people my age get a bad rap. I will go to my deathbed denouncing Corinne and her behavior. SHE IS DEPLORABLE. Taylor heads back to the girls, tail between her legs, and finds Alexis who immediately asks “did he touch your bubble butt?” DYING. HOW IS THIS GIRL NOT CURRENTLY ON MY COUCH BEING MY BEST FRIEND. Taylor, then, being a smart and strong, albeit young, woman takes back the mic and goes to interrupt Corinne. Corinne FREAKS THE EFF OUT. Even though she’s already said once that girls who get pissed about being interrupted should just go home now, apparently what Taylor did was disrespectful and Corinne does not have a place for it in her life. Taylor and Nick chat while Corinne is freaking out and she tells him that she loves when he gets interested in a certain topic and just goes with it. So, like, she loves his single track mind? Oh, okay, cool. Taylor eventually walks back and Corinne just sits next to her and asks if everything is okay between the two of them. Taylor’s like, yeah, whatever bitch, life’s fine. Corinne can’t stop saying that it seems like Taylor isn’t fine. NO CORINNE, IT IS THOU THAT ISN’T FINE. Corinne gives this INSANE speech about interrupting Nick and whomever he’s talking about and Bachelor Nation and I all hang our heads in shame. How did @theyearofelan let this happen? This girl is horrific. Oh! It’s not over yet! Nick gives her the group date rose! Kill me! Corinne says that her dad would be proud of her, even though she was naked, he would be proud. Oh, man, do I sincerely doubt that. Also doubting that she has a healthy relationship with her father. Just a hunch.

After seemingly the longest date in Bachelor history, the girls debrief a little at the mansion. For some reason ANY of them want to hang out with Corinne? Lacey chats with her and Corinne says that she surprises herself when she’s around him. Same. Lacey says, not to Corinne of course, that from an outsider’s perspective, it looks like Corinne got naked, so she got the rose. YEAH, THAT’S WHAT IT SEEMS LIKE TO ME. Regardless, Lacey is excited for Danielle M. to go on her date and she didn’t even know that girls could be that nice. Gurl, you’re hanging out with Corinne, the bar is PRETTY LOW. We cut to Danielle M. and Nick already in a helicopter and they’re kind of sweet and he’s pretending to be a radio traffic person, which, of course, is a dying profession, but, cool, Nick! They end up flying around in this helicopter and landing on this yacht that’s in Newport Beach. LOVE Newport Beach, genuinely. Nick says that this is finally the first normal day of dating that he’s had and he likes that Danielle M. is from his hometown (kinda) and that she’s just this down-to-earth Midwestern girl. Aw, that’s nice. Gives me hope for my own love life. So, I guess it’s because Danielle M. is just a cool girl with no drama in her life, we basically cut away from her date and focus on some other issues: Liz, namely. Liz, with perhaps the largest back tattoo I’ve seen in awhile, decides that she needs to open up to someone about her history with Nick and she decides to pick Christen. They lay out by the pool and Christen promises no judgement, then proceeds to hear that Liz slept with Nick and Jade and Tanner’s wedding and Christen CAN. NOT. DEAL. She even says that it’s not something that we should be seeing on a family friendly Monday night channel. What? In what world, Christen? Whatever, I’ll get over Christen’s holier-than-thou attitude, mostly because I genuinely don’t think she knows or has any real perspective on her own life. Liz does not hold back, though, she details EVERY part of her night with Nick in some pretty graphic terms. Broke the seal and can’t stop talking about it. I mean, if I were Liz, honestly I’d probably want to talk about it a lot, too, but sorta kinda poor Christen for having to hear all this detail about a man she’s trying to fall in love with. We finally get back to Danielle M.’s date and Nick has to literally recap both Andi and Kaitlyn’s seasons for her because Danielle didn’t see them. Hearing about his past, though, Danielle M. says that she feels comfortable opening up to him and letting him know that she has been engaged before. She was engaged for a couple of months when she walked in one day to find her fiancé having overdosed on drugs. She didn’t even realize that he was an addict. At this point, I’m genuinely crying because that is an intensely heartbreaking story and because Danielle M. is a genuinely nice person and I somehow already care about what happens to her in this life? Nick is surprisingly gracious about it and Danielle tells him that she’s always very scared to tell people she’s dating because in the past she has and then the men tend to run away. WHOEVER THOSE MEN ARE I WILL FIND AND I WILL HAVE A STERN TALKING TO, THIS GIRL DESERVES THE WORLD. Nick tells her that he admires her even more knowing that about her, but I am a little concerned that he’s going to break her heart and it makes me a little sad. She, thank god, gets the rose and they head to a ferris wheel. They get on and go truly SO fast, but it looks fun and romantic and Notebook-y.

Time for the final date card of the week: “Christen, Josephine, Astrid, Jaimi, Kristina, Liz – We need to talk…Love, Nick”. Liz and Nick certainly do need to talk, she says approximately 14 times. Also, who’s this Astrid girl? Surely she wasn’t there the first week, right? They pull up to TRULY A BLOCK FROM MY APARTMENT and now I’m pissed I wasn’t home when they were filming this. They head into the Museum of Broken Relationships, and this is actually an awesome date, good on you, producers. They went to this place on Chelsea this year (where my Chelsea fans at???) with Jason Biggs, and it actually seems equal parts funny and heartbreaking. Also, a cool place to go and talk about with a date. They walk amongst the things and Nick says that he even donated something to the museum and all the girls walk up to find a dried out rose and an engagement ring. Which one, though? It’s Kaitlyn’s apparently, which leads me to believe that he probably loved her a little bit more than Andi. He tells the girls that he looks at that ring and sees hope. Really? They get interrupted when they overhear two people just screaming at each other at the top of their lungs. They walk over and see two phenomenal character actors likely from Second City, which is a mere few steps away. The Director of the museum walks up and says they’re about to have a symposium where people are going to break up on stage and that all of the girls are going to have to break up with Nick in front of a crowd of people. Nick says that he’s expecting a lot from Josephine, which, same. He’s also just avoiding Liz a lot, and it immediately comes to my attention that HOOPS ARE BACK. Seriously, Liz is wearing hoops, then I reflect on the other group date, and apparently hoops are back in style! Who knew? So they head back to this symposium thing, which, I’m pretty sure should not be what this is called, and these other “couples” get up on this teeny tiny stage and start breaking up. So, are these people actually breaking up? Do they even know each other? I’m very confused by the whole thing. Astrid is up first (already forgot about her) and she kinda yells at him very timidly then breaks a rose over her knee. Kristina, the dental hygienist, is just very concerned for his oral health. Christen has kind of a funny bit about Nick calling her fat in front of other people and then Josephine gets up there and slaps him SO HARD across the face. She is living and giving and thriving in this moment, this is what Josephine was born to do. Liz is up next and I can already tell that whatever Liz is about to do is a bad idea. Nick avoids eye contact with her the whole time while she reads off this notebook and does essentially break up with him? She basically talks about how they met at Jade and Tanner’s wedding and how she wishes he would have fought for her and that he hopes all of the girls will be able to find a man to fight for them. WHAT? LIZ ARE YOU DELUSIONAL? He didn’t not fight for you, you literally just wouldn’t give him your number! Seriously, I was okay with Liz for most of the time up until now, but it’s super clear that you are a little bit cuckoo and also probably wanted to be on TV for awhile. It ends really weirdly and I half thought that she was just going to walk out and be like “k peace”, but, nope, she had to get a little more screen time. That’s basically the end of the “symposium” and the women head to an actual nightclub for their cocktail party. Nick talks to Astrid (who?) first and it’s clear he’s probably physically attracted to her, but the producers have not let us see any part of her personality, so I doubt she’s sticking around all that long. Nick seems bored with Josephine and also she reminds me a lot of Lauren H. from Ben’s season. Nick is surprised that Kristina is originally from Russia, but now that he reflects on her “slight accent” that makes sense. Alrighty. Nick asks Jaimi what her most interesting relationship was, which I think is actually a cool question to ask someone, and Jaimi reveals that she dated a girl once. She is confident and proud and YAHS GURL WORK. Nick is clearly caught off guard, but ultimately seems okay with it. Now it’s time to chat with Christen and Nick says that he thinks he can relax now, but NOPE, Christen is just going to waste her one-on-one time talking about another girl. Christen tells Nick everything that Liz told her and it’s weird and super awkward. Basically that takes up their entire conversation and Nick has to go talk to Liz about it. He wants to know if Liz is here to actually get to know him or if she’s using their past relationship as an excuse to be on TV. Nick grabs Liz and she kinda plays dumb which is very odd, and he tells her that while there isn’t a problem with the two of them having a past, because they’re both adults, it kind of doesn’t make sense that she’s here. They have mutual friends, after all, JADE AND TANNER, HAVE WE NOT HEARD THEIR NAMES ENOUGH TONIGHT, so why didn’t Liz take the last 9 months to get in touch with him if she was genuinely interested in him? She says that he was off shooting Paradise and doing a bunch of other stuff, which, fair, but she continues to just say words that don't make sense and both Nick and I eventually are like “Gurl, this isn’t adding up, there is no future with you bai”. So Liz leaves and Nick will probably never get answers because Liz is, unfortunately, a bit crazy, but I’m glad she’s not taking time from my girl Danielle M. anymore. The girls all notice that Liz and Nick have been talking for a really long time and Christen says that it’s probably because they have something to discuss and Astrid says, “That sounds non-specific, let’s specify”. LOL, for a girl I can’t remember, she might be funny. YES, LET’S SPECIFY. Nick walks over, without Liz, and says that he has to tell the girls something: he and Liz have actually met before, at JADE AND TANNER’S WEDDING, and they had sex that night. Cue dramatic music and cue TO BE CONTINUED. ARE YOU SERIOUS???????

Next week on The Bachelor: Corinne CANNOT handle it and Vanessa straight up asks Nick, “Are you looking for a wife or are you looking for someone to fuck around with?” GREAT Q, VANESSA, WOULD LOVE AN ANSWER, NICK.

Before my final bai, I have to give it up to my girl Alexis for celebrating her one year boob anniversary. She is a star and a half. I love her so. Until next week, BAI!