‘The Bachelorette’ Recap, Season 13, Episode 9: Tongue Bryan And The Clear-Headed Lindsays

Thank you all for so patiently reading my Bachelorette evaluations last week, and then taking the time out of your busy schedules to follow those up with parent-teacher conferences. It’s unusual that one class of soon-to-be-graduates would get so much attention, but when you failed to heed my recommendations about Tongue Bryan, I thought it would be best if you came back in. This isn’t a joke, Mr. and Mrs. Tongue — this is our last lesson before graduation, and I need to know I’ve gotten through to you today. Please let me get through to you today.

And in case you’re doing some fast math on a scratch pad underneath your desk and wondering why today is Parent Teacher conferences instead of Fantasy Suites, you aren’t wrong about the scheduling. Usually we would’ve set today aside for sleep-away camp, and we’ve held some time at the end for that, but Rachel’s sister Constance is eight months pregnant and unable to travel, so this is her only chance to meet the senior class.

Class is in session.

We’re holding it today in Dallas, Texas, the hometown of our fair Headmistress, and the first of our good strong boys to get some time is Vanilla Pete. And while we here at Rachel Lindsay‘s Finishing School for Wayward Boys do care about your health, we’re putting your ovaries in significant danger with a great deal of footage of Vanilla Pete in a children’s boutique. He’s touching rompers, he’s asking about ages, he’s thinking about the fact that he’s the only dude left who hasn’t said “I love you” yet, and you are not ready.

Our main concern with Peter, other than the fact that he might be too hot for a personality, is that he might turn down his first-choice college. This is an extended metaphor, but ol’ Creamy Softserve over here isn’t sure that he’ll be ready to propose even if he is Rachel’s last pick, so she’s pretty nervous about…writing him a recommendation letter at this stage. (Listen not everything lines up with this theme, okay?)

Basically everything we do right now is killing time until Tongue Bryan can muscle his way into the collective mouth of the family, so let me just tell you that the Lindsay Family loves Vanilla Pete. They love that he’s skeptical of the process, they love that he’s being honest with his feelings, and they love that he’s not dropping L-bombs like a total maniac. It’s a shortened process, and he’s not here to ask for any permissions to propose. He does tell Rachel a couple times that he’s falling in love with her, both privately and to her family, so he’s saying and doing all the right things, and in a perfect world, this is the only parent-teacher meet-up we’d have to have today. We’d all have closure on the situation and I could leave you with this delightful image of Peter drawing with Rachel’s nephew Alister.

But we don’t live in that world, so we have to inch mercilessly closer to complete desolation by Tongue Bryan. Standing in the way is Eric, who gets to see a little bit of Dallas before he’s introduced to the old fam bam. They go to Reunion Tower and Eric tries to pretend like he’s gone home with a woman before — once to Prom and once in college, a girlfriend brought him home for Thanksgiving. Eric that is so cute and you’re such a peach, but we are grasping at straws here, and that’s not like you. You’ve never been in love until Rachel, and she’s the first significant other you’ve ever brought home, and that’s literally all we’re talking about today, so prepare the way.

Right off the bat, Rachel’s sister Constance doesn’t think he’s on the same page as Vanilla Pete, or emotionally ready to start this process. But Eric is saying all the right things, underlining that he hasn’t said he’s in love with her yet because he’s careful with that. He won’t do it until he knows he can provide, protect, and take care of everything, to use his words. He asks for Mama Lindsay’s blessing, and she hands it over, with the caveat that it’s Rachel’s judgment she’s trusting, not Eric’s. But none of this matters, because it’s time for some tonsil hockey. Finally, the Lindsay Family is about to meet the strongest muscle in the human body — the Tongue — and try to remove it from Rachel’s body with minimal screaming.

Please welcome to the stage…Tongue Bryan! He’s starting his day with a lunch with Rachel and her two best girlfriends who signed her up for the show, and I’ll take this moment to remind all candidates to please keep their eyes on their own test papers. And yes, I said that to the entire classroom, but it was really intended for you, Bryan, after you began your date by asking whether anyone else met Rachel’s BFFs.

I was about to say this isn’t a contest, and then realized it is, but please just worry about yourself, because you’re about to meet an entire room full of people who can’t with your bullshit. It’s not these two women, though — the whole date is basically a cry for help, and they are not answering. Rachel says she used to think Bryan was a douchebag when she first met him, and they don’t bat an eye and ask whether he could maybe still be hiding his personality, given the fact that this process has only taken about two months so far. And instead of being creeped out when they ask if he’s said “I love you” yet, and he one-ups them by saying, “I’m in love with her,” they’re dazzled and reduced to a fit of giggles. Sure. Fine. There must be some kind of pheromone coming off this dude’s cheeks, and these women are suh. cept. ih. bull.

But you know who isn’t? Off-show Lindsays. They’ve never been tongued by the champ, and they have no reason to give him the benefit of the doubt. The moment Bryan starts talking about being an only child and how close he is with his mother, a shady storm front rolls in, complete with eye rolls, shifting positions, and all the side eye you could ever ask for.

By the time we’re at the dinner table, Constance is all but looking straight into the camera and shaking her damn head. The whole family is openly skeptical of him using the word “love,” and ask him point blank what would happen in his marriage if his wife and his mother bumped heads. Where does his true loyalty lie? Tongue Bryan dutifully says his wife, but he has a lying tongue in his head. His eyes are screaming, “MY MOMMY MY MOMMY MY GOOD MOMMY,” and Rachel’s mom sees that. She tries to ask a followup question, but Rachel swoops in with her indignation and her wet eyes to defend Bryan, and we lose the chance.

Tongue Bryan is serving up a raft of shit at this table, and the only one gobbling it up is Rachel. Everyone else is looking at each other like, “After the other two, this?” He’s being questioned on his sincerity, and the whole family is keeping the pressure on. When Tongue Bryan goes to the bathroom to kiss himself in the mirror, Rachel scolds her family for being too hard on him, and gets upset when her mom very rationally says she’s inside a bubble for all this and needs an outside perspective. The family needs their own answers, and they’re going to get them, thank you very much.

Or what they’re actually going to get is spoken to off-camera to make sure they can adjust their tones before Tongue Bryan leaves. Constance never folds, calling him out on his effusive compliments for the family after just ninety minutes, but her husband doesn’t have quite as strong a stomach. He goes from defending Rachel’s mom against her daughter’s defensive outburst at the table to saying that the Bachelorette’s passion about Tongue Bryan is a great indication of how much she likes him. Which, yes, I agree with, but I fail to see how that’s a good thing.

Rachel’s mom has also had her language adjusted, which allows her to bite her tongue — pun intended — for an entire one-on-one conversation with Bryan. She allows that love might look and feel different for everyone, and lets Tongue Bryan stumble his way through asking for her blessing without making fun of him once. His body language with her is insane, leaning away from Rachel’s mom as she speaks, but again, she says that she trusts her daughter enough to know that she’ll be able to support Rachel’s pick. Although when they hug goodbye, Mama Lindsay can’t even make eye contact.

When we see this kind of turnaround in a parent-teacher conference, it’s clear someone has gotten to the teacher. And since Rachel’s mom is and was our last, best hope, we might as well throw some of the first footage of sleep-away camp in here. That’s right, babies. As if this episode wasn’t already full enough, we’re going to Spain and we’re starting Fantasy Suites.

Eric gets the first one, my sweet Eric who I never even bothered to give a nickname to, because he’s such a great, regular guy. The two of them go up in a helicopter, talk about how great it is that Rachel is strong and independent, and ring a wishing bell that Eric hopes gives him the strength he needs to tell her that he’s in love with her. But he needn’t have wasted his time on the wishing bell, because Rachel is the wishing bell this evening. She’s pushing Eric so hard during this dinner to tell her that he loves her that it’s uncomfortable to watch. He mentions that the hot tub in Copenhagen was one of the moments where he really turned a corner, and she’s like, “K, cool. Emotional or physical?” When he acknowledges emotional, she’s like, “And what did you feel?” She might as well have added, “Act it out. How many syllables? Just one? Does it rhyme with the bird of peace?” It’s a lot, and it does pay off, because she finally gets what she’s been angling for.

Proof of his love in hand, Rachel doesn’t even lean in to kiss him, which means his fate is sealed, as far as I’m concerned. She does reward him with the key to the Fantasy Suite, and their tousled sheets and Eric’s shirtless body the next day suggests they made good use of it. Or else they just thrashed in bed a bunch and talked about religion.

On now to Vanilla Pete, who enjoys a nice shout-singing by a Spanish man in a wine cellar, looking very rakish and charming, even though he’s not ready to propose to a stranger after two months after nonexclusive dating. He and Rachel get their own wine cellar at this lovely little restaurant, and are just getting to their different opinions on engagement when they’re interrupted by a small ghost. Everyone pretends she is a corporeal human child, but she appears with no warning, offers her hand to Rachel like she wants her to kiss it, and wordlessly leads the pair to their next activity, which is stomping some grapes.

Later on, grapes successfully stomped, they finally get back to the conversation. Rachel really doesn’t want to leave with just a boyfriend, and Vanilla Pete really doesn’t want to get engaged more times than he gets married. And he’s met Tongue Bryan, he can smell the blood in the water. He knows that as long as Tongue is around, his own future with Rachel is in jeopardy. He feels like an engagement is marriage, and he doesn’t want to commit to one without being sure of the other. Rachel vehemently disagrees, but says that as a couple, one of them is going to have to compromise eventually. And while Vanilla Pete doesn’t disagree, he’s also like, “I don’t want to compromise, and I don’t want you to compromise either, especially on something this big.”

So they just sit across from each other for a while and trade “I don’t know what to tell yous” back and forth until they run out of time for the episode and have to fade to black.

Rachel ends the episode by saying that she had hope, and Vanilla Pete just dashed it all to pieces on the rocks. Which is enough of a misdirect that I’m confident he’ll make it to the finale and that Eric will go home, but still doesn’t convince me that we’ll have ourselves a gap-toothed, vanilla little finale.

See you next week at The Men Tell All, and remember not to sit next to someone you’re just going to spend the entire time talking to. It may have been a while since I’ve seen you all, but I have no problem separating you as I see fit, so be on your best behavior.

Alexis Rhiannon (@mindtheclam) is a freelance writer and comedian who grew up in Portland, Oregon, and is now located in New York City. Her interests include reality television, bar trivia, pop culture conspiracies, and someday cleaning her apartment. She can be seen monthly at the improvised show Live Dubbed Sitcoms at Videology in Williamsburg.

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