The Bachelorette's 'Week Off Whacking Off' Was Another Reminder That Katie Thurston Is Not the Star of Her Own Season

To put it mildly, this season of The Bachelorette has been the most uninteresting trainwreck since Thomas the Tank Engine took a turn too fast and rolled slightly down a hill, learning a valuable lesson about paying attention to the task at hand. But now that all of the bullies have been ejected from the house and all that remains of the men are the fans, the nice guys, and the guys who are only there so Katie can ride them in the fantasy suite, the show is starting to lose steam. Sensing this, Katie decided to issue the men a challenge which she dubbed the WoWo Challenge because you cannot say “whacking off” on ABC, apparently.

The challenge was supposed to up the sexiness factor in the house with all of these men getting blue-balled for love, particularly Blake, who volunteered his masturbation schedule even though literally no one asked. Allegedly, he jerks off every single day, sometimes twice a day if it’s been a rough one at work. Get help, Blake.

In an effort to redirect all the energy they could have dedicated to rubbing one out in the showers and clogging the drains in their sprawling hotel, Katie instead chose to have the men partake in a more creative exercise. With the help of RuPaul’s Drag Race alumni Shea Coulée and Monét X Change, the men were asked to throw shade at each other. But also debate each other. But at the same time express their love for Katie. Does that make sense? No? Okay, I didn’t get the purpose of this either but some of the guys got pretty solid one-liners—including beefcake Aaron, who referred to Hunter as a leprechaun trying to steal Katie’s heart of gold. Greg, who chose to write a poem for Katie, also did not understand the assignment.

But instead of shade-throwing, sexy music, and two hours of jerking-off euphemisms, the men just became more and more agitated with each other and did the thing that they’ve been doing all season. They came together to eliminate one of their own and finally, after six episodes, that action backfired on the snitches. Because of his status as a superfan, Hunter was caught in the crosshairs of the other men who felt that he wasn’t there for the right reasons and who were probably still mad about the Bash Ball challenge from last week.

So they got together to waste time on their dates to talk shit about Hunter and cast doubt in Katie’s mind, once again robbing her of any basic decision-making power. But it would seem that after weeks of being influenced, swayed, and manipulated by these men, Katie had had enough. She canceled the cocktail party and went straight to the rose ceremony which was essentially a purge, in which she eliminated four men.

Hunter was out along with his detractors, Tre, Aaron, and James. Those men are now free to jerk off as they please; however, the remaining men are still trapped in that New Mexico hotel with Katie who has done absolutely nothing to create connections with them other than smile and share precisely two sad life stories. No wonder they all cried when Connor B was eliminated before his solo date—they’re more attached to each other than they are to the show’s star.