| Lauren Piester 6. Juli 2015 – 20:43
Is it August yet?
We’re beyond exhausted by this season of The Bachelorette and even more exhausted by the idea that there are still three weeks to go before we finally reach a conclusion to this emotional insanity.
We’re tired of watching Kaitlyn cry. We’re tired of watching Shawn cry. We’re just tired of tears in general, and we would be saying we can’t wait to get to Paradise for plenty of makeouts and convos with raccoons if it weren’t for that new promo that just shows everyone crying.
There are other emotions, people. Did you not see Inside Out?!
Nick and Shawn were not the only men in tonight’s episode, but they might as well have been. Ben H. and Jared were there, but they’re not really potential husbands. They’re more like vaguely dramatic obstacles in Kaitlyn’s relationship with either Nick or Shawn, as if such a thing were even necessary.
Joe was invited on the three-on-one with Shawn and Nick, but his time on that date didn’t last all that long. He told Kaitlyn he’s in love with her, and she told him she’s not in the same place while she cried and asked him to say something not make it OK. And that was the last we saw of Joe and his puffy vest.
WATCH: So. Much. Crying. In this Bachelor in Paradise promo
Jared didn’t even get to see Kaitlyn for four days before being booted during the rose ceremony, and he even offered her his coat when she walked him out to shed some tears over saying goodbye to him. Underneath that Disney villain visage and patchy facial hair, he’s still a true sweetheart.
Speaking of sweethearts, Ben did get a full date with Kaitlyn, and it was pretty darn sweet, sweater and all. When he expressed a desire to talk all night as opposed to doing other things that might be expected on an overnight, she immediately assumed he was a virgin. (He wasn’t.)
He also expressed fears that he’s unlovable, because he has clearly never seen his face or heard himself speak, and Kaitlyn quickly assured him that was crazy talk.
The rest of the night was all about the greatest rivalry of the century, or the week, or whatever. The remains of the three-on-one date should have consisted of Nick and Shawn battling it out for the overnight rose, but there was no rose. Kaitlyn simply informed Nick that she would see him at the rose ceremony, and that she needed some time to talk to Shawn.
Shawn got all cocky without knowing what the evening ahead truly held, and it would have been sad if it weren’t for all the cocky.
CLICK: Find out who is heading to Paradise from Kaitlyn’s season
In the end, Shawn actually handled Kaitlyn’s Nick at Night a lot more gracefully than anticipated. He truly didn’t seem to care about the act of sex with another guy (just like how Kaitlyn did not regret the sex itself), but he was way more concerned with her sex partner, who he does not like.
Mr. B. did take a moment to compose himself in the “gents” room, but he soon emerged and said he wasn’t going to quit the show. He wasn’t thrilled, obviously, but he could get past this.
“I don’t want to make this about him. At the end of the day, I’m here for you and you’re the only thing I want out of this,” he said, dreamily.
Could this all be turning out much better than expected?!
Not so fast.
At the rose ceremony that sent Jared back from whence he came, Shawn was the first to be offered a rose but he first needed to talk to Kaitlyn again. He still wasn’t thrilled, but Kaitlyn rightfully told him that he has to trust her and let her figure this all out on her own. He agreed, and accepted his rose.
Up next, Kaitlyn and Nick had their fantasy suite date. First, they visited a church, and then a pub, and then a prison, and all we would like to know is who has been scouring our dream date diary for ideas here?
MORE: Catch up on last week’s (depressing) episode
It was all well and good and only mildly cringe-worthy (“the first time I touched some privates” was a thing Nick once confessed to in church) until the two of them sat down in the prison (???) to talk. That’s when Nick unleashed his own dislike for Shawn.
It made sense, until he brought up some strange instance when Shawn was apparently bragging about being “eskimo brothers” with some country singer (because they both slept with the same girl).
“But whatever,” Nick said. Kaitlyn tried to refuse to let him brush over this odd comment, but it was brushed over anyway and we got no further explanation.
“I didn’t really want to bring it up,” he told Kaitlyn, grinning.
Sure.
Their date ended with them supposedly eating a bunch of chocolate in the fantasy suite and then enjoying a breakfast of poached eggs the next morning, which reminded us that we were hungry. We genuinely spent several minutes thinking about those poached eggs, until Shawn was calling the hotel’s front desk to find out which room Nick was in.
He knocked on Nick’s door, and that’s where we thought the episode was going to end. Instead, we got to see a few minutes of their conversation before being hit with a “to be continued.”
Basically, Shawn doesn’t like Nick. Nick doesn’t like Shawn. Neither one has ever taken the time to get to know one another, and apparently neither one can just sit back and handle the fact that it doesn’t matter in the slightest that they don’t like each other, because Kaitlyn is going to do who and what she wants regardless of this little cat fight.
CLICK: Which Bachelor/Bachelorette couples are still together?
She may cry constantly. She may not be the bachelorette we once imagined her to be. She also may have lost the “bubbly happy Kaitlyn” she still believes herself to be somewhere along the way, but damn if she doesn’t do exactly what she wants to do when she wants to do it in a way few bachelorettes ever have before. We still know hardly anything about her, but we respect the hell out of her.
We are also tired of watching this, because it’s just become such a mess of convenient plot twists and a weird movie soundtrack and perfectly legitimate but excessive tears.
To sum up, our feelings about this show are very complicated. We just want to see someone happy in the end, but we’d like that end to get here sooner rather than later so we can all move on.
Plus, creator Mike Fleiss has finally promised us that we won’t have as many cliffhangers in the future, tweeting, “We will have fewer “to be continued” episodes next season. We listen to !!!” So we’ve got a lot of things to look forward to after this season is finally over and done with.
Elsewhere in Bachelor Nation, Britt and Brady have decided to try the long distance thing, and we wish them all the luck in the world.
The Bachelorette airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on ABC.
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