by

Suzanne Coleman, MD

This episode of “The Bachelorette” was full of the pre-requisite drama and crazy, stay tuned to find out more!  Let’s start at the beginning.

They are going to have the rose ceremony, you know, the one they were SUPPOSED to have at the end of last week’s episode?!  Omg, I can’t even remember what happened on that episode and NOW they’re having the rose ceremony?  Geez…  I feel totally disconnected from the show’s characters.  Am I the only one who thinks this is annoying?

But wait, before they even get to the rose ceremony, Kaitlyn has to deal with Kupa who seems to have gone off the deep end after she told him “eh, it ain’t gonna work for us.”  Kupa is yelling outside and everyone can hear him.  Kaitlyn ends up walking out there to tell him to basically grow up.  I think that how Kaitlyn handled things was good; she was classy and appropriately assertive when he was getting out of hand.

After she asks him to behave she goes back inside and they show that Kupa is still going crazy outside, but quietly, waving a drink in his hand as he gestures to the camera crew.  Maybe his drinking is part of his problem?  Unaware, back inside Kaitlyn hands out the roses from last week’s episode.  I can barely remember who most of these guys are or what happened, except “cupcake,” I can remember him :).  After it’s over, three more guys are gone, two of whom I don’t even think they ever showed in any of the scenes.

Next, it was on to today’s “date” festivities.  Sumo wrestling.  Wha’???  Yep, you heard me right!  Two massive sumo wrestling champions from Japan came to California to wrestle the tiny-in-comparison American boys.  L.O.L.!!  Hilarious.  Now, that’s good entertainment.  It was fun watching them easily push the guys around.

You gotta love those “diapers” that the wrestlers had to wear, how funny 🙂  I have a question though, and maybe I’m not alone.  Why did they pixelate the guys’ butts?  They don’t pixelate women’s cleavage.  It’s not really that different, and here we have just one more example of sexism in our society.  Let us see the butts!  I mean, seriously.

During the sumo wrestling, which is supposed to be all in fun, one of the contestants on the show, Tony, shows us again that he has some real mental health issues.  He gets very aggressive when it’s his turn to go, and then when he isn’t the “big man” he thinks that he is, his ego is hurt and he then deflects the blame for his extremely negative feelings on to Kaitlyn for “making” him feel that way.  He really needs to get some help from mental health professionals who can help him figure out his issues.  The things that he seems to do to try and get his life into better “balance,” like meditation, work to a degree in some ways but they are not sufficient to treat mental illnesses.  I hope he gets some help and can improve his ability to deal with life’s challenges.

Now on to the next date, a scary experiment.  For Kaitlyn’s one-on-one date with Ben Z., Chris Harrison set up this crazy “game.”  The two of them were locked in a dark set of rooms filled with scary stuff, like a haunted house.  They had to find clues in there and figure out how to turn those clues into numbers to open the door so they could get out before some “gas” was released into the rooms.  That was pretty creative I have to say!  I loved the part where the scary person wrapped in sheets that was on the bed got up and moved around!  OOoooo THAT was SCARY.

There were also things people are scared of, like live snakes and scorpions and pigeons in there.  “Wait, did you just say pigeons?” you ask.

“Yes, yes I did, pigeons.”

“Hmm, those aren’t scary…” you think.

“I know, I agree!” I say.

It seems that those were added especially for Kaitlyn who said she has a bird phobia.  I feel bad for her, birds are awesome.  Maybe not pigeons per se, but other birds like warblers and sparrows…  But it was funny to see her and Ben freak out at the things that scared them, as safe as they may be.

I don’t know what to say about the next group date, do you?  There are so many negative responses to it on facebook.  Kaitlyn had the gents talk to a group of young people about sex and the maturation process.  It was very weird, and awkward.  I’m all about education and people having the knowledge they need to make good decisions, but it was a bit odd the way that they did it.  During the episode they said that the kids were all actors, but still, odd.  I am hoping that like many kid actors they were much older than they were perceived to be, that would make me feel more comfortable about what happened there.

Now on to the really juicy stuff.  So the show has these two boys, I call them boys, because really they are so immature and strange, named Clint and JJ.  They are both very narcissistic and that makes them self-absorbed, but they also seem to have some seriously manipulative and abusive traits that make them appear to be little sociopaths (one in 75 men is a sociopath, one in 300 women is as well).  And like sociopaths, they also seem to lack empathy towards others.

I have always noticed that psychopaths (like both narcissists and sociopaths are) tend to be attracted to people with the same behaviors, and here we have the unusual mutual attraction between two men with many psychopathic behaviors.  It’s a bit scary to watch, but serves as a good example to everyone watching on how to AVOID people like this in your life!  HOLY COW.

The show ended with Kaitlyn about to confront creeper Clint about his lies and manipulative behaviors.  But, of course the show didn’t let us see what happens, we have to wait until next WEEK to find out.

I don’t know what they are thinking with their new format.  Almost all of the people commenting online are not happy about this nor about the other changes they have made, and they are saying they’ll stop watching because they dislike it so much.  I am wondering if the ratings are dropping off too, or if this is just a vocal minority speaking their mind.  As for me personally, I wish they would finish the show in one night like they used to, it’s hard to remember all of the details that lead up to the ending a week later.

Since we have the internet, I decided to try and find out how their ratings ARE doing.  I found that the ratings for last week’s episode were 5.37 million viewers.*  I also read that one of last season’s episodes was reported to have had the lowest number of viewers EVER at an estimated 5.6 million viewers.**  Uh oh, it looks like they really are losing viewers over these last few years, as this recent number is even lower than their lowest number EVER.  Maybe they should take a bit of time to read what viewers are saying online.  There are some really good suggestions on there as to what might be preferable to watch vs. what they have been doing lately.

They did post a call for new contestants at the end of the show, and these are live-in-person calls at various locations.  So maybe there is a chance that they are going back to the way more successful and popular format of several years ago.  We’ll see…

All things considered, Kaitlyn is growing on me a little bit, and that’s good.  This season should be interesting, there seem to be some good guys on it and she seems to actually be there to meet someone (but who knows…).  You can see that she is making strong connections with a few of them already.  Lucky her lol.

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Sources on viewer data:

*http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2015/05/27/monday-final-ratings-no-adjustments-to-the-bachelorette-or-american-ninja-warrior/408895/

**http://www.bustle.com/articles/25861-the-bachelorette-pulls-lowest-ratings-ever-andi-dorfmans-season-is-doomed