Clayton isn't Ready for Marriage, Here's Why: Bachelor 26, Episode 11
For everyone involved, I hope Clayton is single.
Former leads spent much of last night and today hyping up this two-night finale. Nick Viall said it would be unlike anything we’ve ever seen, Becca Kufrin used a dumpster fire gif to share her feelings on the episodes, and Ben Higgins and Serena Pitt said it was crazier than they imagined.
This happens every season, this build-up to a finale, but this time, I really believed it. I found tonight’s episode to be underwhelming, given all the hype surrounding it, but I still have plenty of opinions, so let’s get started.
The camera plans across a live studio audience and Jesse Palmer intros “the most dramatic finale in Bachelor history,” he even got a fresh haircut for the occasion.
We start with Clayton in a church when we ain’t heard this man even utter the word faith until the last 50 seconds of last week’s episode. 🙄
Clayton doesn’t feel great about his actions the previous night. We get the “I’m so broken,” clip and then we see Jesse and him talking on a park bench. Clayton is still confused and feels blindsided by Susie’s boundary. He says his trust is shattered and that none of what happened made sense to him.
Can someone explain to me the context in which fucking two women and confessing your love for them a week before you get engaged makes sense? Can someone let me know how they expect their future spouse to handle a boundary or any disagreement?
I’m just tryna see something. Is it normal to expect the man that ‘loves you most’ to not fuck other women before you get engaged, or nah?
Clayton watched Susie leave and is still trying to blame her the next day. Does he have any introspection skills at all?
Throughout this entire episode, he fumbles over his words, acts so confused, and begs women to fight for him without once showing what he’ll bring to the table. He lacks empathy, he lacks care in his delivery, and he lacks basic critical thinking skills. This is not a man who is ready to be married.
He knows that he has a rose ceremony to go into, and decides to put it all out there for the two women left, knowing that both women could choose to opt-out.
This conversation with Jesse puts into context the clip we’ve gotten all season of him sharing that he was intimate with both of his final women. Given the context, his choice to share makes sense to me. Now, should he do it at a rose ceremony, probably not. I would prefer the man I’m dating to respect me enough to let us have the convo one-on-one (with a camera crew and boom mic, of course).
‘The Rose Ceremony from Hell’
Going into the rose ceremony, naturally, Rachel is nervous she might be going home because Clayton could have stronger feelings for someone else. This is so interesting to me. Show or not, if a man is telling me he loves me, I think I’m going to hold near that I’m his final pick.
The women are waiting for Susie to arrive when Rachel wonders if she went home.
Clayton takes the walk of shame up the steps in a fantastic coat. Not the point, but worth mentioning. Rachel looks terrified. Clayton begins sharing what happened between him and Susie and what’s happened over the last few days. Finally, he spits out that he was in love with Susie, is in love with the two women left, and that he was intimate with both of these women.
Gabby begins crying while Clayton swears that he still believes he can end this journey with one of them, but he isn’t sure who he will pick. He gives the women the floor to ask their questions.
Let the bullshit begin.
Clayton says that he’s not sure where his mind is at, he feels shattered that Susie left, but he's still confident that his wife is standing in front of him. He didn’t say those words exactly, but that was the gist. Is he dumb? Is he so invested in his season ending ‘the right way’ that he’ll push through the pain he’s clearly feeling and drag these women along for the ride? This is selfish.
Both women take time to process. Gabby says she doesn’t want to be at the end if it’s going to be like this. Rachel is in disbelief at Clayton’s feelings for the other women.
I imagine this is much worse than what these women expected. You can accept that you just weren’t picked, that he connected with another person more, but to hear that the man you exchanged feelings of love with, shared similar feelings with two other women days before you’re supposed to get engaged is too much.
I think this was Susie’s hang up too. A lot of the conversation last week made it seem like Susie couldn’t handle Clayton having sex, but I think what sent her packing was the revelation that he loved other women and wasn’t quite sure who he’d pick, even after sharing that he loved her most.
Jesse checks on Clayton and he is still being so short-sighted and self-centered. He says all of this is happening because he chose to be vulnerable. WRONG. All of this is happening because he felt he had to express feelings of love to keep all the women there. He made assumptions based on one woman’s feelings (Serene) so he swung in the other direction using very few critical thinking skills.
Gabby confronts him and asks him to explain why Susie left. She also reminds him that exploring does not mean expressing feelings of love. She asks him how he can justify sharing he loves her and then sending her home. Clayton says whoever he picks he loves the most and that all the other love was real, but that it was stronger with someone else. The answer isn’t good enough for Gabby and it isn’t good enough for me either.
Love ain’t even enough to sustain a relationship. So for Clayton to put so much weight on feelings of love is setting up his future marriage for failure.
Rachel is in her interview with producers exposing how insane Clayton’s words are. She speaks to him to get clarity. She tells him that it feels like their recent time together wasn’t special because he was saying and doing the same things with the other women. Clayton tries to explain that the love is different. I think what he means is that he is drawn to each woman for different reasons. This part makes sense, but as his brother will mention later on, there’s no way he loves each of them equally. He’s trying to comfort her through her tears, but he looks robotic and it’s as if he’s staring through her.
Clayton asks Rachel if they can take it day by day and eventually she agrees. He is still maintaining that he loves both these women. They return for the rose ceremony and Rachel accept’s Clayton’s rose. Gabby does not and she has to ask him to walk her out. Rachel is in shock like she didn’t know that she could say no too. Girl its not too late!
Gabby says she’s not in the business of competing for love with any woman. Clayton says a bunch of bullshit that doesn’t even matter, he’s still lacking empathy for the women in this situation. Gabby is asking him if he considered what it might feel like for the other women to find out that he’s measuring their love against one another and he’s still not getting it. Instead, he asks her to listen to her heart. Essentially another version of ‘stay and fight for this.’
Again, this cannot just be about love and feelings. Lets pretend for a moment that this show was actually about successful lasting relationships, not even marriage, just healthy relationships that run their course. Maybe some end in marriage, maybe some do not.
There’s this enormous focus on the process of falling/being in love on this show and it’s bullshit. When it comes to marriage for me, love is not enough. It is a big part of it, I wouldn’t marry someone I didn’t love, but I also wouldn’t marry someone without having sex with them, without understanding their personal beliefs and values, without seeing their work ethic, or talking through family dynamics, where they hope to live, etc. The issue with this show is that it is intentionally structured so that those deal breaker conversations—the ones you don’t want all of America to hear—don’t happen until fantasy suites and by then, not only are deep feelings involved but there’s this implied undertone that you’re gonna fuck.
If this show focused just a little more on life compatibility and less on love levels, maybe their success rate would be better.
That’s why I say Clayton isn’t ready for marriage. He’s pulling petals off a flower trying to decide who he ‘loves more.’ Not once has he mentioned what it might be like to live life with one of these women. Real life, the tough shit, where they might move, how he might support Rachel through the rest of her pilot training, or encourage Gabby after a hard shift in the ICU. No, this man is talking ‘bout some ‘I love you more.’ Sir, please grow up.
Anyway, Clayton says he can’t tell Gabby what happens next, but that she has to listen to what her heart is telling her. This felt wrong. I’ll stop short of using psych terms to describe the situation, but it was unfair for him to question if Gabby was listening to her heart. I don’t even understand why Clayton was forcing this shit to continue. If he loved Susie the most (and he honestly seemed the most torn up at the thought of her leaving) then why continue this process with the others?
In podcast interviews last week, he maintained that he was giving himself to the process and respecting the process fully, but what about respecting and protecting your relationship? Your future wife? Rachel said it best, how do they begin to move on from this?
A Panel of Leads
Next, we get a section of former leads who are in the hot seat with Jesse talking about the rose ceremony we just witnessed. Nick, Michelle, and Clare all agree that Clayton didn’t handle the rose ceremony very well.
Nick Viall said it best and I have to include his full quote here because he summed it up so well:
“Unfortunately he left out the most important thing, which is he told Susie that he loved her the most. I feel like that would be something these women would want to hear, especially Gabby has he was trying to convince her not to trust her gut,” he says. “I think Clayton might have the best intentions, but he never took the time to consider the position of power that he’s in as the Bachelor, and he never took the time to empathize with these women and what it would be like to be in their shoes. Unfortunately, I think you’re seeing a guy focused on finding love for himself and not finding love with someone else.”
Nick is completely right. Clayton has treated this process like it was about his love story and who he wanted to be with at the end, rather than mutuality.
Meet the Echards
It’s a new day, Clayton’s family is in Iceland and clearly reading from a script, commenting on the Airbnb they’re in and Clayton’s love journey. Clayton is excited to see them and his dad is looking forward to hearing if he’s in love.
Clayton tells his family pretty quickly that he’s in a bad space. They look shocked. He explains what happened with Susie and his dad does more validating of Susie’s feelings in 30 seconds than Clayton did in the 15-minutes we saw last week. Clayton admits what we already knew, he still loves Susie and he’s still thinking about her. If Clayton realized this before introducing the other two women to his family, he should’ve said fuck the meeting of the family and went to have a calmer conversation with Susie. Instead, he makes his family meet these two women that he don’t even want frfr.
Gabby arrives and begins to make her rounds with the family. She and Clayton’s mom chat and she asks what made her want to stay after the rose ceremony. She says she didn’t think she could give up a man like him before seeing it through. She knows he’d be a good partner and father, so she wanted to keep going in the process. I hope Gabby was lying when she said this. I’ve certainly had to put on a happy face at a family event after an argument with my partner, but Gabby doesn’t know this man enough to lie about how great he is when they’ve spent maybe a total of 48 hours together.
We don’t get much else from this meeting of the family, which is telling. At the end of the day, Gabby says she felt she made the right decision at the rose ceremony, she and Clayton embrace, and he sends her off.
Time for Rachel to meet the family. When Clayton greets her, he checks in to see how she’s doing after the dramatic rose ceremony. She says she’s fine. We all know that’s a lie.
Clayton’s mom asks Rachel’s first impression of him, she said he was tall 😂. Friendly reminder Rachel was the woman who said she knew nothing about Clayton but was open to getting to know him in the first episode. Iconic.
Rachel tells Clayton’s mother that she sees Clayton as her husband and that he’s perfect for her. His mom says it speaks volumes that Rachel decided to stay after such a tumultuous rose ceremony. More bullshit. None of these women are obligated to endure the bullshit this man has put them through, especially when they’ve really only known one another for a few weeks.
In a normal situation, I’m all for talking it out and working to mend a relationship as long as you feel like none of your boundaries are being disrespected. But Clayton has given these women very little assurance and done nothing but embarrass them all season. From keeping Shanae for too long, to letting Sarah lie on him, and now this fantasy suite mess. Is this really how any of these women want to start an engagement?
Clayton and his dad chat about his final two women. Clayton is confused because he’s been so open during this process and doesn’t know how to choose. He hoped that his family meeting the two women left would help him make a choice, but all it really did was remind him of Susie. He seems shocked by this revelation, even though he literally told this woman he was most into her and told production some version of that as well.
Clayton’s family is talking about the two women and agree there’s no way he’s in love with both women equally. His dad presses him on his feelings and what’s so confusing for him. Clayton says what he has with Rachel and Gabby is special, but what he had with Susie was everything. His parents look offended because she left him. They feel like when someone walks away, it’s over and he should respect that. Clayton is saying all these nice platitudes about Susie, which means nothing because he was rude to her and let her go. He literally pushed her out the door.
The way his family reacts to his feelings about Susie is interesting. Similar to Clayton, they are fixated on the fact that Susie left. They make her seem like the bad guy for giving up so easily and walking away. But they’re forgetting she felt a line was crossed and wasn’t willing to compromise her expectations.
Clayton says that Susie was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of woman, which makes his Fantasy Suite actions seems even more egregious than they already did. It takes a little explaining and convincing, but his family says if Clayton feels so strongly about Susie, then he should follow his heart and try to talk to her. Like clockwork, Jesse comes in and asks what Clayton wants. He says he wants closure with Susie, or a chance to see if there’s still something there. Jesse shares that Susie is still in Iceland and the background music crescendos to a dramatic ending.
Another Panel of Opinions
Kaitlyn Bristow, Rodney Mattews, and Cassie Randolph are now in the hot seat talking about how Clayton should make his next move. Kaitlyn says he should pursue the women his heart wants the most.
Cassie, who also self eliminated during fantasy suites during Colton Underwood’s season, says that it’s important that Susie follows her intuition and doesn’t give in to the pressure of giving the show a good ending or pleasing Clayton and his family.
Lastly, Jesse asks Rodney what advice he has for Clayton. Rodney says Clayton needs to follow his heart and he has to think before he speaks (ding ding!) and pull back a bit because he’s got several women left and oversharing has already led to a lot of hurt.
That’s it for night one! Tomorrow we get to see if Susie will hear Clayton out, how the other women react, and if Clayton walks away from Iceland single. The new Bachelorette will also be announced. Any final predictions?! Personally, I think Clayton walks away single and is still single during tomorrow’s live finale. And that is probably for the best.