The problem with finding yourself falling into an archetypical Bachelor character is that many women probably don’t even know it’s happening until the show airs. Take Olivia, a contestant on Ben Higgins’s season of the show, who seemed to have no idea until the show started airing that she would appear evil after editing, via comments about how she was going to marry Ben, “stealing” time with him, and generally behaving as if she was better than the other women. She was in it to win it, but what ended up happening is she lost, though not before being used to cause a ton of drama for at least a few episodes.
Corinne, the villain of this season, seems slightly more self-aware about her role than Olivia was, though she did all of the above last night, while adding a heavy dash of alcohol, many mentions of herself in the third person, and a lot of sexuality to the mix. Following a wedding-themed photoshoot group date that Corinne won after she took her top off (which the other women LOVED!), the group went to a rooftop bar with one of those bizarre fireplaces made of individual flames amongst a pile of rocks. They then proceeded to act normally: each cycled through talking to Nick individually while the others sat around and talked about how their talks with Nick went.
Much of the dynamic of these nights is women interrupting one another to talk to the lead, which is annoying but part of the deal. But Corinne took things even further, bolstered—we can assume—by alcohol and the heavy hand of a beloved producer, to interrupt various women talking to Nick not twice, but three times.
She knew this would annoy her fellow contestants women, but it rubbed Taylor, the last girl she interrupted, the wrong way the most. Taylor then fought fire with fire, and RE-INTERRUPTED Corinne’s conversation with Nick, which apparently was not okay.
“Guys, if you can’t handle being interrupted, why would you come here?” Corinne said, among other things—until she was interrupted.
“I’m really pissed. She re-interrupted me. Which I think is very rude,” she said to the other women. And then to the camera, with tell-tale red glossy eyes:
I interrupted Taylor, and then she came and re-interrupted me. There’s a way to go about things. The way I go about things is very classy and not directed to a character in general. The way she did it is very directed towards Corinne. I’m like, okay Taylor, if you take a direct hit at Corinne, I’m gonna say something.
She then tried to talk to Taylor directly, asking her if she had a problem with her. When Taylor wouldn’t take her bait, she gave a riveting speech to all the women:
Guys, we are all here for the same reason, I cannot stress this enough. It’s gonna get uncomfortable, it’s gonna get crazy, it’s gonna get weird. But you have to get used to this. We’re gonna interrupt each other. You’re gonna interrupt your friends. You’re gonna make your friends feel weird. You’re gonna make your non-friends feel weird. But we’re here for one reason and that’s Nick. And you have to do what’s good for you and you have to be true to yourself, not matter how it makes other people feel—you have to be there for yourself. So just remember that. No matter how weird it gets, you’re here for Nick, and that’s it!
The problem, of course, is Nick not only tolerated this behavior, he encouraged it, giving Corinne the rose for the night. But later, perhaps realizing he could only push his luck with the women fawning over him so far, he sent Liz home, the woman he had slept with at Jade and Tanner’s wedding, who had finally confided in fellow housemate Christen about what had happened between her and Nick. (In a sad turn of events, Christen ended up falling into the classic role I’ll call “BFF,” which is when you end up talking to your potential romantic partner more about other women than about the two of you. It does not seem like she will stick around long. The BFF never does.) Nick said he was still unsure of Liz’s intentions coming on the show (dare they be....fame?! Who would ever do such a thing, Nick?!), which is why he sent her home, but not mentioned was what he knows: that the women would revolt against him were they to find out he had slept with Liz, kept that information from them, and was keeping her around. The only way to save himself was to send her packing. For he too is not here to make friends.
DISCUSSION
I found this episode to be horrifically transparent. Here are the receipts:
1. Corinne coming right out of the gate as our Villain. She has seen this show before. She knows what she is doing. And it was so obvious that her winning the “challenge” and the rose were producer calls to stir the pot.
2. Danielle, our girl with the tragic backstory, gets the first one-on-one date. GEE I WONDER WHY. She gets to tell her story to Nick alone and is now safely in the role of the Sweet Widow. The Sweet Widow is also interchangeable with The Single Mom. (Though sometimes we get a 2 for 1 like with Juleia).
3. Liz. For fuck’s sake. Did you know that they had sex? At Jade and Tanner’s wedding? We all know what happened here. The former Bachelor community is a small town. They all know each other. Producers knew that her and Nick had a past so they brought her on to push the narrative that he is a sleaze. I don’t buy for a second that she actually wanted to be there on her own.
Side note: I read that producers actually had to convince A LOT of the girls not to leave the show. Apparently a lot of them didn’t like Nick AT ALL and stood through Rose Ceremonies juts hoping he wouldn’t call their name. I am 100% here for this.