Will The Bachelor Ever Become the Honest Fuck Fest That We Know It to Be?

Heyyy, can I steal you for a second? A brand new DirtCast is out and this week we’re digging deep on everyone’s reality TV guilty (or not-so-guilty) pleasure, The Bachelor, which somehow just wrapped up its TWENTY FIRST season. Time sure flies when you’re watching a guy date 30 women on his quest for true love.

While shows like UnReal have depicted a dramatized version of what goes on when you put dozens of people in a house, ply them with alcohol, drive them crazy with boredom, and encourage them to compete for the affections of one dopey idiot (all while cameras are rolling), we wanted our behind-the-scenes exploration to be a little more grounded in reality. Which is why we brought on our very own Bachelor/Bachelorette expert, Jezebel Deputy Editor Kate Dries, who has spent years—literal YEARS—investigating how the show gets made.

“In all the work and writing that I do, I’m most interested in the media we consume and how it reflects our values and shapes our values,” Kate tells us. “The reason I’ve used The Bachelor as an academic study of sorts is that it’s a really good test case for a lot of the topics I’m really interested in—women, relationships, how the media interacts and is influenced by the audience that is watching it.”

Our conversation—which covers Nick Viall’s most recent season, manipulations in editing, Reality Steve, and how, after all these years, The Bachelor is finally taking itself less seriously and getting a little more honest about how slutty it is—ends with a Bachelor play on the classic “Fuck, Marry, Kill” called “Fantasy Suite, Final Rose, Can I Walk You Out.” Please feel free to play along, using these helpful images below.

Juan Pablo, Chris Soules, Jake Pavelka:

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Based on backstory alone, a Russian orphan, a special education teacher, a neonatal nurse whose last boyfriend died:

And finally, rank these horrible Bachelor dates from the one you’d most want to go on to the one you’d least like to go on:

1. Swimming with aggressive pigs in the Bahamas (I accidentally said Puerto Rico on the podcast and I apologize).

2. Floating in an anti-gravity chamber and vomiting, then making out.

3. Shoveling manure on a farm in Wisconsin.

Here, for kicks, are the two “Fantasy Suite, Final Rose, Can I Walk You Out” questions that were cut for time:

Bro-y Chris Harrison, Concerned Chris Harrison, Angry Chris Harrison:

Jordan Rodgers’ haircut, Nick Viall’s haircut, Robby Hayes’ haircut:

DirtCast can be found on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, and iHeart Media.

Our show is produced by Levi Sharpe with editorial oversight by Kate Dries. Mandana Mofidi is our Executive Director of Audio. Our theme music is by Stuart Wood. This episode was mixed by Brad Fisher. Listen to our politics podcast, Big Time Dicks, here.