On Monday night, two Jezebel staffers with varying degrees of encyclopedic knowledge about the modern Bachelor universe watched the eighth episode of Colton Underwood’s season of The Bachelor. The wine was poured, and the virgin jokes flowed. This is their story.
Frida: It’s Week 8 of this shit, and we are in hometowns, baby! Before we get into it, I want to start by saying my biggest takeaway from Monday night’s episode is that Colton has no idea what he’s doing or who he’s going to pick. Watching him ask for permission from each woman’s father to marry her (which yielded some incredible reactions) reminded me he has been, and continues to be, a weenie.
Do you agree?
Lisa: I absolutely agree that Colton has no clue what is going on. I’m not entirely convinced that the season finale twist won’t be that he picks Khloe Kardashian instead of the remaining contestants.
The real shining stars of this episode were all the dads. We start out in Caelynn’s hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina, where her stepdad is hesitant to give Colton his blessing. I personally think asking for a father’s permission is outdated, but I appreciate that these dads at least kept it real with some healthy skepticism. Caelynn’s dad eventually gives his to appease her, and she and Colton watch some giant projections of her baby videos on the wall of her house. I kept waiting for her to crawl out of the video like Samara in The Ring, which would have been the only interesting thing to happen on that date.
After that, he goes to visit Hannah G., who makes him sit through an etiquette class, a.k.a. my personal hell. I get nervous going out to eat anywhere fancier than a diner, but Colton seems to do pretty well while balancing books on his head with a “confident gait.” Hannah’s parents are both still hesitant to give Colton their blessing, continuing the parental trend of being the only voices of reason on this damn show.
Frida: The dads really do make this episode, as each of them wrestles with the prospect of their daughter saying yes to this bonehead they’ve only spent a few weeks with and who’s still dating three other women. Colton tries to win them over by being all, “I know how decisive hometowns can be,” alluding the fact that he was on the other side of them on Becca’s season of The Bachelorette, but I think all that did was remind the dads this dude is a professional serial dater. Caelynn’s stepdad kindly suggests that maybe she could just “be friends” with Colton, and in fact, I wonder if he sent her home this week because he’s just hornier for the other three. Caelynn’s segment is so nice and wholesome it borders on boring.
The Hannah G. segment was easily the most troubling to me, because the etiquette teacher deploys this whole metaphor about how Hannah’s parents have been shielding her from pain her whole life with an “umbrella” and now they are looking to Colton to see if he can hold her umbrella. I felt uncomfortable and like you said, I resented that the show (and I guess, these real-life people) frame women as these small, meek creatures who need a big strong man to rescue them.
The dads really do make this episode, as each of them wrestles with the prospect of their daughter saying yes to this bonehead they’ve only spent a few weeks with and who’s still dating three other women.
Lisa: Then Colton goes to see Tayshia, who exacts the most perfect revenge on him for their bungee jumping one-on-one. What did you think of their time?
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