Throughout this season of The Bachelorette, the rules that govern this world we know and love have been (sort of) thrown out the window, which has proven difficult for both viewers and contestants. Not only are the men grappling with how to handle dating someone on television who is dating a number of other people, but they’re struggling as their expectations for how that awkward situation should go are upended.
The structure of a typical Bachelorette/Bachelor episode is so rote that the fact that there’s barely been a Rose Ceremony at the end of any episode this season is really throwing off viewers, who are used to things happening in a pretty normal order: the recap of what happened last “week,” one-on-one date, group date, some other drama, cocktail party, Rose Ceremony, someone goes home. (The show was ostensibly still shot in that basic order, it’s just not being presented as such.) And of course, a lot of other rules are being broken; Kaitlyn, as we know, slept with someone before the Fantasy Suite date, and she’s had other one-on-one time with dudes off camera. This is good for her—it’s allowed her to try, as she’s said, to date each guy as if they are the only one. But it’s been a struggle for the men, who are used to a set of rules that allow them some understanding of what’s going to happen as time progresses.
This week’s episode centered on Kaitlyn’s guilt about Nick—not that she had sex with him, but that she knows the other men will be upset. She spent a good portion of the episode reassuring various men that she cared for them. This dynamic is at odds with the fact that Kaitlyn’s the one in charge here, but seems to be a byproduct of the weirdness from which this season began (two Bachelorettes). Kaitlyn and front-runner Shawn had not one but two private conversations in her hotel room about how she told him that she felt more strongly for him than anyone else, and how that’s made it hard for him to watch her date other men.
Kaitlyn: You’re freaking me outtt.
Shawn: Are you in love with me?
Kaitlyn: You can’t put me on the spot like that.
Shawn: Yes or no.
Kaitlyn: I’m falling in love with you.
Shawn: It’s just so hard falling in love with somebody and just sitting back watching you go on dates and talk to other guys.
Shawn knows how this game is played; Kaitlyn contractually cannot tell him she loves him on camera. She’s also being told by producers to spice up who she gives roses to and when, so he’s asking an awful lot of her to show more commitment. But “going through this is a nightmare,” Shawn told her. To Kaitlyn, things probably feel the same way—just that her nightmare is figuring out when she’s going to tell him and the other men that she’s slept with Nick. When Shawn returns to her room to have basically the same conversation again, we hear her say, “I’m freaking out, I don’t wanna go through this,” through tears.
“When we talked off camera, you said some things to me that made things very difficult. You know, like when you looked me in the eyes and said, ‘I think you’re the one,’ that’s tough,” said Shawn.
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