‘The Bachelor’ Recap, Season 22, Episode 3: The Endless Sorrows Of Traumaliese

There comes a time in every archaeologist’s career when you must come to terms with the fact that a remarkable discovery isn’t that remarkable after all. Perhaps it’s a mandible that turns out to be cracked, or a new species that’s actually an old species, or an ancient race car driver who, after the effort is taken to reanimate him, turns out to have no discernible personality.

We return to the excavating our disappointing discovery this week with the women of The Bachelor still suspended — as if in amber — in the disbelief that this man is worth vying for. Even the contestants were expecting more of them to be eliminated last week, but the emphasis seems to be on keeping the pool fully stocked. If you’re still into the guy, you stay. Arie’s first impression has a shelf life, and the more women he keeps in the mansion, the more he can draw it out.

To that end, Chris is encouraging the eighteen remaining women to take time wherever they can. He’s directing his speech to the entire group of assembled women, but speaking straight into Krystal’s eager, throbbing eyes. Our little Upwardium inflecticus specimen is on the group date this week, along with Maquel, Jacqueline, Fouren B., Tia, Marikh, Drama Major Bekah, and Queen Bibiana, of course, so we can guarantee a clash. Their date card said “It’s all about the ring,” and that means that the women are going on yet another date that’s conducive to whiplash. As Tia ruefully tells the camera, hot off last week’s demolition derby, “I just got the shit beat out of me a couple days ago on a group date.” So probably she won’t again.

Narrator voice: “She will.”

That’s because Raven 2.0 is going with the rest of the women on a wrestling date, chaperoned by two women from GLOW who seem to have been giving the direction to make as many of these women cry as possible. Unfortunately, they’re able to swing just two out of eight: Queen Bibiana and Raven 2.0, not nearly enough to touch Nick Viall’s record on Volleyball Island last season. The victims this time around are Tia and Bibiana, who are upset about being unnecessarily disrespected by strangers while on a televised fighting date with their boyfriend and six other women who are also his girlfriends. Can. You. Imagine.

All I have to say for the women making fun of them for their reactions is that your time will soon come, ladies! Except maybe for you, Bekah. She is in her element somehow, and seems to be immune to all the problems of this experience. Including the fact that Arie’s upper lip is melting like a candle under these lights, and that he’s wrestling Kenny King while dressed as a cater waiter.

We’ve sort of lost the plot with all of these costumes, is another thing. Maquel is a lunch lady for some reason, even though everyone else is sex cats and booty babies. Definitely the focus here was on making sure everyone gets whiplash and cries, and not on what costumes make sense together.

In the second half of the date, where the injuries are merely emotional, Krystal kicks things off by snagging Arie first. In her breathiest, baby-est voice, she asks Arie if he wants her to be aggressive or hang back, and he makes the crucial, Swimfan-esque error and says to do what feels good. Our anthropological knowledge of this particular species of female suggests she won’t be satisfied until she’s wearing you as a skinsuit, so godspeed, young Car Boy. Godspeed.

And godspeed to anyone who crosses paths with Krystal, in fact, because she’s coming for your frontal cortex. If you don’t protect yourself, she’s gonna burrow her way into your brain and get in your head like nobody’s ever done before. Just last week, Queen Bibiana seemed to be holding her own with Krystal, and now here she is, using her group date one-on-one to complain about another girl. Oh no, girl. Maybe on another season can you get away with calling out a fellow competitor and couching it as concern for them. But this time around, if you don’t keep Arie’s dick hard, you’re going out in the gown recycling. And this does not look like a man with a raging boner.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if he isn’t leaning into your face to vocal fry about “how good you were” on the date today, you’re out. And for as much as I love Bibiana, she’s clearly out. Which, frankly, is good news, because he doesn’t deserve her. He deserves Krystal and Bekah, the latter of whom gets the group date rose, much to the confusion of the former. Back at the house, she has a whole speech prepared for Marikh about how women are really insecure around her, and how she and Arie already know they want to end up together, and this process is just a formality. In which he should probably let her know that when it comes to predicting who’ll get the rose, it’s as easy as noticing who comes back to the group with the least lip gloss left. This isn’t rocket science.

This week, the one-on-one is inexplicably getting handed to Fouren S., someone who’s had so little camera time that, gun to my head, I couldn’t have picked out of the crowd. “I don’t know much about her,” he says, “but she’s beautiful, she’s mature, she’s got a great job, and I’m definitely going to send her home in about 27 minutes.” (I added that last part, but he may as well have said it.) A barrell with wine on it has been abandoned in the middle of this vineyard, and the two of them stand at it and awkwardly talk over and around each other. As the Male tells us repeatedly, what’s great about today is that they have time to talk about everything… like cardigans and how many hours they sleep a night.

Our girl Fouren S. has some guards up in the vineyard, but they don’t go down any as she gets distance between herself and the grapes. At dinner, she’s talking about her friends, her last relationship, her mom’s eye infection. Arie is so bored he’s literally eating, which I’ve genuinely never seen on The Bachelor before. When it comes time to reach for the rose, they both make an “eek” face. It’s that bad.

“I can’t give you this,” he says, and then stumbles through the explanation, “I know your family’s important to you, I don’t want to take you away from what could be at home.” Which translates on the Rosetta Stone that we dug up next to this guy as, “You talked too much and not about me, and the only phrase I was able to pick out was “my family.” Literally you just talked too much. He really wanted it to work, but the connection isn’t there.

Arie comforts himself after the painful elimination with some sad, soulful strolling on the patio with a rose, and Krystal comforts herself back at the house by condescending to all of the women. Meanwhile Caroline, the only person who was actually friends with Fouren S. — they were the JoJo Fletcher and Becca Tilley of this season, it seems — is worming her way even deeper into my heart by commenting about Krystal, “Stop being so condescending to everyone because you met his dog.”

Speaking of dogs, the week’s second group date is Ashley, Becca K., Brittany, Jenna, Caroline, Chelsea, and Annaliese, and they’re hanging out with — you guessed it — dogs. And this is where I, as a scientist, have to acknowledge an embarrassing error. During my field work last week I sided with Annaliese when she was traumatized by the car accident date. But now that she’s shared that she’s also had traumatic experiences with dogs, I’m beginning to see the land. And I shall call thee — Trauamaliese.

Traumaliese has to sit out and sweep up poops while the rest of the women do tricks with the dogs onstage, which seems like a good solution to being too scared to do anything, but she doesn’t feel the same way. She feels excluded and sidelined, and she’ll spend the rest of this episode vibrating in a corner, complaining about not being kissed yet. At the second half of the date, our girl has bra straps criss-crossing her cleavage and by god, she is gonna get that smooch tonight.

Narrator voice: “She isn’t.”

Normally this early in a season, the Male would be much more suave, and I’d have no idea whom he was going to send home. But all of Arie’s tells are so wildly obvious that it’s almost painful to watch him in conversation from one woman to the next. He has absolutely no interest in doing any emotional labor to help these women out, so the moment they need something from him, he’s out. Every indication points to the fact that this particular relic has only interacted with college freshman up until now, because he knows how to give them a glass of wine and compliment how their butt looks in yoga pants, and literally nothing else. Chelsea gets the group date rose.

Moving into the Cocktail Party, nobody knows who’s going home, and they think it’s because this man is unreadable. But no, ladies — it’s because he literally doesn’t feel anything except a desire to be on television and fuck Bekah. He warns his suitors, “When I don’t feel it, it just won’t work,” and then we watch him put that pithy saying into cruel practice over. And over. And over again all night.

Case in point: Queen Bibiana set up this beautiful outdoor cabana with a telescope and candles, and Arie brought multiple other women over to roll around on it all night. He gave a Fouren a first kiss on it. He asked Bekah if she wanted to get married on it. Bekah who already has a rose. And when Bibiana tried to get a second for herself, he came back at her with, “Can I get five more minutes?”

Literally we are watching Arie propose to Bekah, and all the other women can probably go home. Including her, because he’s getting dangerously into him. “I think you know that I don’t need you,” she murmurs, as Arie pants back, “Oh you’re good.” She calls him out on him being attracted to moms because their main focus is elsewhere, and Arie has to work for it, and he should honestly be embarrassed at how nakedly he wants to be read by this 21-year-old. “You’re so risky for me,” he throbs,” I love it.” Meanwhile, inside, Annaliese is whipping her head around the corner anytime she hears someone talk about their relationship deepening.

And can you blame her? There are seventeen women in this house, and sixteen of them have been smooched. (See above re: unnecessary cruelty.) And when the seventeenth, Traumaliese, approached Arie — THE KISSING BANDIT — and asked, if not for a smooch, for an explanation, he said, “I just don’t think we’re there yet.” I just. Do not think. We’re there yet. I’m at a place where I can be crawled all over by Jenna, who is a true gift on this series, but I can’t plant a peck on you, a woman who abandoned her life for months to come here and try to marry me.

Traumaliese is really trying to make the best of it, though. She’s telling the camera that some of the best relationships start between two people who were never attracted to each other to start, and I hope for her sake she gets sent home tonight. Girl’s got a plane to Paradise and an Evan Bass to catch. And she seems to know this, because she takes her fate into her own hands and goes to ask Arie directly if he sees a future with them down the line. He tells her no in the least romantic goodbye imaginable, and before the Rose Ceremony has even started, Traumaliese is going home.

But it’s almost better to be her than the women left behind, because the whole house is really upset. The Male is supposed to limit his rejections to the Rose Ceremonies, and to women whom the other contestants agree are unsavory, and he’s been doing neither. Take it from Bibiana, who tells the camera, “I don’t know what this man is thinking.” Girl, he isn’t. That’s the whole thing. He is here to suck tongues and hump gowns, and sixteen of you are in the way.

Chelsea and Bekah are safe going into tonight’s Rose Ceremony, which means only one woman is going home. (Is it just me, or are they dragging this season out in a crazy way?) The Roses go to Caroline, Kendall, Ashley, Fouren S., who, as the Final remaining Louren, gets to keep the name, Brittany, Becca K., Sienne, Krystal, Tia, Maquel, Jenna, Jacqueline, and…Marikh.

Which means that Arie sent Queen Bibiana home on the night that he defiled her cabana with other women, without ever even talking to her. Usually a beef between two women like the one between Bibiana and Upwardium would be enough to keep both on the show, but Arie is too dumb to even adhere to rules like that. I think this dude is so out of his element, in fact, that I’m pretty sure he told Bibiana to “get home safe” as he was saying goodbye.

Yeah dude, that’s right, call her an Uber. She has to get back to her dorm room stat. (By which we mean Paradise, where there are enough men — and cabanas — to go around.)

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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