There’s no other way to say this: last night’s episode of “The Bachelor” was a train wreck.
First a little backstory: before the start of this season, our leading man Nick Viall attended a wedding for another “Bachelor couple,” Jade and Tanner. After their special day, Nick drunkenly hooked up with Jade’s maid of honor, Liz, who (surprise, surprise!) turned out to be one of the women this season competing for his heart.
Instead of doing what any sane person would do — pull Liz aside to clear the air — he basically tried to pretend like it never happened. That strategy blew up in his face when he invited Liz and five other girls on a group date to the Museum of Broken Relationships. While on this group date, the girls had to play-act breaking up with Nick as part of a museum exhibit, and Liz decided to go nuclear. She tells everyone exactly what happened and confronts him in front of the entire group.
Was this the best decision she could have made at that point? No, but after Nick spent the entire day pretending he didn’t know her, she finally lost her freaking mind. Nick responded by kicking her off the show — but only after he made her feel like a crazy person. Which is NOT COOL.
Nick then tried to spin the entire situation around and call Liz a fame-seeking slut. After their drunken night in a hotel room, he apparently asked Liz for her phone number. She declined, explaining that she knew he was about to be on “Bachelor in Paradise,” where he would spend a month drinking and hooking up with Jen. She (understandably) figured he was just trying to be nice and asked for her number when he wasn’t really interested in her. I mean, who forms a meaningful relationship after a one-night stand?
It was gaslighting at its finest.
It’s very clear Nick is not in this for the right reasons and will likely fail again at his fourth go-around on “The Bachelor” franchise.
The two most important questions going forward are: 1. How does ABC come back from this? 2. How do the rest of the girls continue to pursue Nick week after week knowing the kind of guy he is: a manipulative jerk who’s only interested in getting as much sexual payoff as he can while getting paid for it?
Nick is a very different bachelor than we’ve seen in previous seasons. It’s his fourth time on the show, and it’s clear he’s in it for the free shrimp and scuba trips, not finding the love of his life. Nick is such a terrible bachelor, he is forcing the network to be honest that the show is really just about getting a bunch of drunk twenty-somethings into a room and creating volatile situations merely for the ratings.
You can watch our discussion about last night’s episode here.
P.S. Brielle is done defending you, Nick.
P.P.S. Bre was right and Brielle was wrong.
