Well, that episode tied itself up nicely, didn’t it?
Since the start of the season, we’ve been seeing promo after promo for this week’s episode, which culminates in some fairly explicit coital activity between Kaitlyn and everyone’s favorite villain, Nick Viall. I’m using the term “explicit” loosely here, so for those of you who were thinking this episode involved some kind of “Game of Thrones” style fornication, I’m sorry to disappoint. “The Bachelorette” would never show actual sex — they’re too classy for that. But we did get to hear some heavy breathing while staring at a shot of a closed white door, so that was fun. Anyway, more on that later.
This week starts, as every episode of this season, right where we left off the previous week. That means that we get to hear even more of Ian’s rant, where he essentially calls Kaitlyn every mean name in the book while she just takes it. Ian can’t understand why Kaitlyn likes the other contestants more than himself. I mean, he’s deep. He went to Princeton, and his deepness has only become deeper since then. Did I mention he’s deep? The fact that a grown man is using this word over and over to describe himself just tells me how unintelligent he must be. Tell us about your eating club, Ian.
The only great part of Ian’s unceremonious exit from the show is his final quote in the car on the way out: “Oh man, I need to have some sex.” Despite its hypocrisy, as he has just condemned Kaitlyn for being a human with functioning sexual organs, this quote could be the slogan of the season. Being the bachelor or bachelorette is a stressful job — ask any person formerly in this position, and he or she will attest to that. This season seems to be placing a particularly huge burden of stress on Kaitlyn. Over the course of six weeks she has had perhaps more unfavorable outcomes than any single season of this show, constantly being placed in the position of sending guys home before rose ceremonies or coping with contestants choosing to leave on their own volition. Maybe it’s Kaitlyn who needs to have some sex.
Which leads me to my next question: Can we really blame Kaitlyn for making a bad decision? It just so happens that after Ian’s insulting conversation with Kaitlyn, the person who shows up to comfort her is none other than the guy she seems to be most attracted to — Nick. He tells her everything she wants to hear, explaining how Ian is stupid and deep conversations are boring. It’s an intoxicating combination: not only has Nick successfully begun seducing Kaitlyn physically, he’s also seducing her emotionally, giving her every reason to want sex with him. Also, he bites her finger.
Then, of course, comes Kaitlyn’s one-on-one date with Nick, where they frolick around Dublin getting whiskey-drunk together. How Irish of them. Watching them suck face in random parts of the city is downright nauseating, but what’s even worse is having to watch the poor Dubliners witness their ferocious makeout sessions in person. My apologies to the people of Ireland; you did not deserve this.
After a romantic evening of dinner or making out and drinking heavily in an Irish cathedral, Kaitlyn makes the bold decision to invite Nick back to her hotel room, proclaiming excitedly in a confessional that “whatever happens, happens.” Translation: Kaitlyn wants sex. There’s no other way around it. When a girl says “whatever happens, happens,” that’s almost always code for, “I don’t want to actually say I want sex out loud, because that seems slutty, but yeah, I want sex.” And with that, Kaitlyn has opened a Pandora’s box that has remained tightly sealed since the origin of this show.
In the midst of all of the drama and think-pieces that this episode has created, here’s what I have concluded: Kaitlyn’s inability to control her raging horniness does not make me hate her. I’ve grappled with this a lot, because I do understand how the other guys, particularly Shawn, might feel betrayed by some of her actions. But in the end, Kaitlyn’s drunken foray into the bedroom with Nick just makes her more relatable in my eyes. Yes, Nick is a grade-A douchebag, but like so many of us, Kaitlyn is blinded to this by her infatuation with him. Her only mistake was telling us that she knows the difference between lust and love, because she certainly does not.
I’m also just having trouble figuring out how “The Bachelorette” is trying to condemn Kaitlyn for this. This is a show whose central storyline involves one person maintaining polygamous relationships with as many as twenty-five people at a time. Trust and fidelity are stressed as the most important elements of a relationship, but only insofar as it benefits the show’s narrative. It’s wrong for Kaitlyn to have sex with Nick, but it’s totally cool, and expected, for her to engage in PG-rated intimacy with eight different men in the span of one week’s time. It’s a show that condones a certain type of sex — sex that is showered in rose petals, swept under the rug, and rarely discussed in explicit terms. It’s a show that allows its central figure to have sex with three contestants, but no more, at a specifically allocated time and place, under the narrative that sex is a sacred act meant for two people who have taken the time to get to know each other deeply and intimately. It’s a show that essentially propagates a kind of romance that was present in the nineteenth century but is all but extinct in the twenty-first.
In other words, I can’t hate Kaitlyn, because she is just being a normal 21st century young woman, making normal human mistakes and learning from them.
But I can still hate Nick, because he’s gross and says things like “I want to know every part of you.”
I do want to take a moment to acknowledge the group date, mostly because I love Tanner and think he deserves more screen time. Kaitlyn has just had sex with Nick and now she’s dead, giving us a literal interpretation of Coach Carr’s wise words, “don’t have sex, because you will get pregnant and die!” Seriously, this is the biggest waste of a date ever. There are so many other great things to do in Ireland besides this. Couldn’t they have all gone and kissed the Blarney Stone together? That would’ve made for some great, easy confessionals where Kaitlyn could compare kissing the Blarney Stone to kissing one of her eight boyfriends. “Kissing Ben Z. is way better than kissing the Blarney Stone, if you know what I mean.” But no, instead, we get to see the guys give Kaitlyn fake eulogies while she lies in an open casket laughing uncontrollably for no reason. But the best part by far is Tanner openly acknowledging the fact that Kaitlyn never hangs out with him, ending his eulogy with, “in case you forgot, my name’s Tanner.” #Tanner4Bachelor.
Next week, we’ll return to the sex, drama and hopefully Shawn won’t have an emotional breakdown and leave the show. My only wish is that maybe, just maybe, Kaitlyn will see how manipulative and horrible Nick is and send him packing sooner rather than later. Here’s to hoping
