Women Tell All: Bachelor 28, Episode 10
The one where everyone yelled over one another followed by several hot seats that served as Bachelorette auditions.
I’m not gonna hold y’all, when I turned on my TV and realized The Bachelor wasn’t coming on until an hour later, I was ready to go to bed! Women Tell All is arguably the worst episode of the season and I did not think it’d be worth staying up for, but I tuned in, mostly to see how Fantasy Suite Week ended. Let’s get into it.
The Women Are Back
When Jesse announced that he was starting with the women tell-all, instead of Kelsey’s ominous note to Joey, it was a sign that the note was likely nothing at all.
As expected, Maria gets the biggest applause and Jesse dives right into the drama that took place between Sydney and Maria. Watching this back made me realize how stupid the drama was, and isn’t it always?
There’s no resolution here. In fact, it was so odd to watch women like Jess and Lea not being very nice during the season, only to watch Maria and the other women turn around and be just as rude during the Women Tell All. I stand by what I said a few recaps ago, they’re all wrong and I’m not particularly rooting for any of them.
Lexi’s Hot Seat
We revisit Lexi’s time on the show, sharing her struggle with endometriosis, wanting to have her own kids, and ultimately choosing to leave because she and Joey’s life timelines were too different.
I’ve loved how much we’ve gotten to hear about Lexi’s journey on this show and through social media. She shared her egg freezing journey online and gave some behind-the-scenes tidbits of just how well Joey responded to her diagnosis.
Personally, of all the women from this season, I want to see Lexi (or Rachel) as Bachelorette. Lexi has already made it clear what her timeline is, so I’d hope that would mean older men, maybe a recent-ish divorcee or two with young kids. I know the girlies online are clamoring for Maria, but I just don’t want to see that. I’d love to see her on my screen again, just not in that way.
Maria for Bachelorette?
I feel like I am the only one who isn’t that interested in a Maria Bachelorette season. While I love her outfits, her attitude, and she’s got huge sex appeal, she’s kind of annoying. She clearly likes to be the center of attention, and after meeting her family, I get it. She’s the favorite and she moves through the world as such. Good for her.
Give us Maria in Paradise, if it’s coming back, put her on a new Bachelor Nation podcast, let her host a group date, or even crash a future Bachelor season, but please, do not give me her as Bachelorette.
Jesse tries to get to the bottom of the Maria/Sydney/Lea hate and although no real resolution is made, they do decide to squash the beef. Which was likely the right move for all their futures as girl boss™️ Instagram influencers.
Back to Tulum
Joey arrives back at his hotel room and receives a card from Kelsey asking to talk. It’s unexpected and he begins spiraling and assuming the worst.
Kelsey arrives at his room and shares that the process has been hard on her, but she wants to continue it with him and meet his family. She says she’s been missing him so much. Although it was good news, Joey looked pissed. I don’t blame him. This felt like weird mind games to me and an unnecessary move to drum up drama. I don’t think Kelsey had malicious intent, maybe production got to her, nonetheless, it was kind of lame and a waste of all of our time.
Rose Ceremony and a Final Goodbye
Joey is sporting a cute brown linen suit as he asks the women to bear with him as he gets through the final rose ceremony. He reminds them that his biggest fear is getting to the end of this and his feelings not being reciprocated.
His first rose goes to Daisy and the second goes to Kelsey, which means Rachel is going home. She immediately starts crying and when they have their final chat Joey shares that he made the decision he did because he just couldn’t get there and doesn’t have those feelings of love for her.
Rachel starts blaming herself for not opening up more to him sooner and instead of getting her crying monologue in the car, we’re taken to the Women Tell All studio where she’s crying watching it back.
When Joey and Rachel get a chance to see one another and chat, she confirmed what I’d felt about the two of them all season: they had a genuine friendship and that’s really where their connection started, and unfortunately ended.
Rachel was also given a chance to speak out about the racist hate she’s gotten from Bachelor Nation after getting a rose over Maria during Hometown Week. It turns into a PSA about not being an internet bully and while I appreciated it, I think once again it missed the mark. The last time we saw a segment like this was during Peter’s season, when Rachel Lindsay led a talk about the racist comments some of the Black women, in particular, were getting on social media.
Not only do I expect Bachelor Nation to be better, but I expect production/Jesse/the leads to call a thing a thing while on the show. Contestants of color regularly get fewer followers and more hate than white contestants, especially women. Bachelor Data has been tracking this for years. Even if people aren’t sending messages directly to these contestants, the comments on social can be brutal. Yes, these are real people, no you shouldn’t be sending anyone hate, and also this isn’t just about petty bullying on a silly reality show. These types of comments and hate show an implicit bias that goes a lot deeper than what these half ass PSA segments offer. Maybe I’m expecting too much from this franchise, but if Andy Cohen can do it with Housewives, and Nick and Vanessa Lachey on Love Is Blind, surely one of the longest-running reality TV dating shows can do better.
The last 20 minutes were filled with bloopers, funny unseen footage, and a look at next week’s finale. Even though the edit makes it look like the finale will crush us, I’m starting to think it’s a fake-out like Kelsey’s letter was. We’ll see. Until then ✌🏾.