There’s a famous saying that if you run into an asshole in the morning, you’re out of luck and run into an asshole, but if you keep running into assholes all day, that’s not a bad omen. You’re an asshole, and all the assholes you keep encountering are normal people who are completely rational in their furious responses to your assholes. Someone needs to translate this saying into Icelandic for Clayton, as no one on the island can believe his aggressively wrong decisions throughout The Bachelor. (Well, everyone except Jesse Palmer, who is contractually obligated to keep quiet by constantly calling Clayton “brother”.)
Clayton got mad at Susie last week after she reacted badly to his revelation that he was in love with all three of the final three contestants and had sex with two of them. But that anger evaporated in the season finale on Monday night, when he received the same response from the two remaining women, Gabby and Rachel, as well as from his family.
Now everyone is mad at Clayton, not the other way around. How could he “fall in love” with all three? (You keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think.) We’ve heard of love triangles, but what the hell are they? Love rhombus? And why did he have to tell everyone that he loved them, filling their hearts only to break them? As person after person explains to Clayton that he messed up, he gradually realizes that he cannot shout out the same sounds that he addressed to Susie at all his gathered lovers and brothers.
At first, Gabby tries to leave after hearing his story. “To say that the woman I’m leaving with is the woman I love the most… is the wrong answer,” she says. “Love is not measured.” Her departure brings Rachel to tears as she realizes that she is now the only woman left and has apparently won The Bachelor by default. These are not happy tears. “I’m the last one here,” she cries, “and not because he chose me.”
But miraculously, Clayton coaxes them both back from the edge. He pursues Gabby and forces her to return. When he asks her if she will accept the rose, she lets out a dejected “Yes”, the least enthusiastic reception of a rose in the show’s history. Then everyone clinks glasses of champagne sadly.
Both women agree to meet his family and everything goes smoothly. His parents sympathize with Gabby and Rachel, who seem glad they gave Clayton a second chance, and both seem to feel closer to Clayton after his family’s warm welcome. For a second, it seems that Clayton can really succeed.
At the end of the episode, Clayton informs his family that he has made a decision. They can’t wait to find out which of these two beautiful, charming and brave women he has chosen, and he tells them that his heart belongs to Susie, the girl who left him last week.
Clayton’s parents are confused. “Clayton, when someone leaves you, they leave you and they’re done,” his father says. “I think you were too carried away by the one that slipped away. Clayton tries to explain that Susie really loves him because “she could have left at any moment”. His mom jumps up. “She did! She went out! It was a really brilliant performance by both parents who couldn’t believe that their big stupid son had two wonderful women like Gabby and Rachel fall in love with him, but really couldn’t believe that his heart was tied to another woman. .
And that’s what makes Clayton the dumbest boy on the planet. Gabby and Rachel fought for him, which is what he achieved by tearing Susie apart last week. They overcame one grief and risked another for it. They mourned Clayton bitterly. Susie didn’t do any of that. She left voluntarily, was not particularly interested in being persuaded to return, and it did not seem to touch her. Maybe she was heartbroken and hid this pain on camera, or maybe she just didn’t like Clayton and it was an easy way out of the relationship.
You can read Monday night’s episode as Clayton’s malevolent plan. He bonded with Gabby and Rachel, but ended up using them to sort out his feelings for Susie and test his ability to bring a crying woman back from the brink. But I don’t think Clayton can think ahead like that. Have you seen this season? Does it look like a planner? Does he look like a guy who thinks things through? He’s more like a Labrador Retriever: he tells everyone he meets that he loves them, and if he poops in someone’s shoe, he kind of thinks it’s their fault that they didn’t make it clear that shitting shoes is illegal. .
When Clayton and Susie’s relationship fell apart, Clayton blamed Susie. Then, for the same reason, his relationship with Rachel and Gabby went wrong. He does not understand what love is, so he tells everyone that he loves them. He does not understand that if he tells everyone that he loves them, then everything will complicate his life and hurt everyone’s feelings even more than the show requires. And worst of all, he doesn’t seem to understand that two women love him and one doesn’t. He’s a guy who runs into assholes all day and it really doesn’t matter if it’s because he’s really evil or just too dumb to realize that his actions have consequences.
Biggest Loser: The Bachelor Rules
If you win Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, you will receive a million dollars. If you win The Price Is Right, you can get a new car. If you win The Bachelor, you’ll get a guy, which isn’t that great. What if the guy is not great? What to do if a guy hurts you? You can sell a car if you win it on TV, but you can’t take a guy to a used store and trade it in for a new one. The bachelor’s prize is strange because the winner must love the person in return.
Susie doesn’t want to play this game. She resents the concept of fantasy suites, an old part of The Bachelor. As we wrote last week, she plays by the rules of normal society, not by the rules of the show.
Gabby and Rachel also have problems with Clayton’s behavior, but not with sex. In fact, I don’t think any of them took much offense at the sexual element of Clayton’s love trapeze. (Still figuring out the geometry here.) They are considerably more upset by the fact that Clayton loves everyone. Gabby says it was okay for Clayton to explore other relationships, but adds that “exploration is not love.” And even if Clayton loved everyone, why would he tell them about it? Why couldn’t he “save it” for later? Rachel is just as devastated. “I’ve waited so long to hear it from you, and then I heard, and the next time I see you, [you’ve said it] for two other people.
But in addition to Clayton’s bad decisions, they also seem to disagree with the show’s format itself. At one point, Gabby angrily tells Clayton that “I’m not going to compete with anyone for love.” I mean, I’m on Gabby’s side here, but…yes, you! You are a member of the dating contest! You are literally competing with other people for love! And when Gabby withdraws herself, Rachel seems legitimately devastated that she won the show by elimination by collapsing to the ground when the others could have been celebrating. Everyone seems to be furious about the way this show is set up.
I think the catastrophic thing that happened here will be a turning point for the franchise. I suspect we’ll see people become a lot more clear about how they handle fantasy sets and what’s expected of them up front. And I think it will be a long time before anyone tries to tell a few people that they are in love.
But perhaps the big problem is not so much in the format of the show as in the prizes. Nobody wants to beat the guy who hurt them. If Clayton had done well, this wouldn’t have been a problem, but would-be bachelors will try very hard not to screw up so badly.
Episode MVP: Bachelor’s Location Scouts
For most of Monday evening, the episode takes place in three buildings. The first is a beautiful Icelandic farmhouse on top of a hill overlooking a beautiful meadow where Clayton’s family is staying. “My mom found it on Airbnb,” Clayton’s brother says on two separate occasions. Really? She did? Clayton’s mom found this perfect home on Airbnb? Did The Bachelor really leave the process of locating the filming on the shoulders of Clayton’s middle-aged Midwestern mother? Or was it some kind of cunning sponsor?
Because I’m pretty sure The Bachelor has people who choose buildings for filming. For example, they filmed a scene in Hallgrimskirkja in Reykjavik, a 245-foot-tall iconic church that is probably Iceland’s most famous building. The Bachelor also has an Icelandic choir that sings sad music while Clayton sits and mopes about Suzie with a monologue that includes the line “I’M SO BROKEN”, which was used in the promo throughout the season.
But the best choice of building has to be for the rose ceremony, which is held in Reykjavik’s newly built concert hall, Harpa. The unusual architecture of the building makes it an ideal venue: participants must climb long staircases surrounded by the building’s distinctive glass facade, and the ceremony itself appears to be held on a stage of some sort. But the building really shines when the rose ceremony turns into a disaster and Gabby and Rachel seek seclusion to talk about Clayton. They think they are crying in private, but they are in a concert hall. Phenomenal acoustics ensure Clayton can hear Rachel and Gabby’s hysterical sobs as he stands alone on the grand stage of the sinister location. I think Rachel hit some high soprano notes through her tears. Possibly the best choice of venue in the history of the show and the most memorable moment of the season.
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