‘The Bachelor’ Recap, Season 22, Episode 9: The One Where The Women Try To Warn Us

Like a drunk-dialed voice mail from your best friend, “The Women Tell All” episode of The Bachelor was full of a lot of things you’ve heard before. But just when you’d be thinking this was all just blacked-out rambling, something would happen that made you sit up in bed and whisper urgently into the phone, “Are you safe??” (“Oh my god I love you so much, remember sophomore year when we — omg look, a pile of glassandallofmyblood! Anyway I miss youuuu I love our brunches, why didn’t you pick up?!”) Just like one of those late night phone calls, throughout hours one and two of this week’s two-night Bachelor extravaganza, the incoherent babble was dotted with moments of true, ominous foreboding.

“I know what you did,” one contestant will tearfully warn Arie Luyendyk by the end of the night, causing his smoothly-tanned mask to twitch in discomfort. Another contestant puts her head into her hands; clearly these women — or some of these women — know something we don’t. And it’s upset them in a way that repeated, violent group dates with an unfeeling mannequin that can kiss good never did. So whatever it is, it’s big, but we can get only the sketchy outlines of The Deed throughout the show, sandwiched among “most memorable moments,” chirpy in-fighting, and a collection of “bloopers” that’s just Arie describing himself over and over. “Murr” is right.

Your friend always finds her way home one way or another, but in the meantime, let’s retrace her steps and see if there are any clues to what’s coming in this rambling, two-hour episode. It’s an episode of The Bachelor, so you know we gotta talk about how old Bekah M. is. Even though she was surrounded by multiple other women aged 23, 24, and 25, the 22-year-old took all the is-she-ready-or-isn’t-she heat this season because of her 14-year age gap with Captain Vanilla.

The only new information to add to this equation is that Chelsea is a boss, and both TWTA and this whole season needed way more of her. “When Bekah was learning how to finger paint,” she tells the camera, “Arie was learning how to fuck people.” Damn, girl! I think we just realized why your boy sent the single mom home so early, because whatever he did, he knew she’d roast him in the comments if she was close enough to see it. And she kept her mouth shut during the show, so it seems like it happened after her time.

And if you thought we were going to see any of that fateful bus footage, you can think again. We danced around it for basically a full hour, but ultimately the only new info is that Krystal called Arie a “needle dick.” Which is such a fun, specific insult from someone who admittedly did not see Arie’s dick that it makes me a lot more intrigued about Krystal. The only new Krystal info is that she did try to connect with some of the women off-camera, according to Seinne, that Caroline thinks she’s “a sociopath,” and that Olivia was sent home way too soon.

The week-one-eliminee spoke for the entire audience when she asked where dat upward inflection got to, and the answer is clearly: it goes right the hell out the window when the fitness coach gets pissed. Which she finally does for the first time on the program, speaking clearly and genuinely as she claps back at the seventeen women all trying to snatch the wig of an accredited Bachelor Villain™. Every time Krystal started to speak, it sounded like someone threw one banana into a money enclosure and every primate there was fighting for the chance to rip it to shreds. The girl has taken enough heat on social media, maybe we don’t need to start chittering and throwing feces the moment she says something that rings slightly untrue.

Although turds would’ve been coming straight out of my butt and onto my hand after Krystal claimed that the reason she talked like that is that she lost her voice before coming onto the show. And apparently didn’t find it for six weeks?? Even Chris Harrison threw some poopies on that one, so just like Krystal, we all have our moments of weakness. The good news, though, is that her brother is apparently no longer homeless and making a go at life off the street, so that’s an amazing outcome from a season that had a lot of armchair psychologists questioning Krystal’s mental health.

Bekah also speaks to that missing persons incident, and it’s everything you’ve already heard, including the fact that it was indeed on a marijuana farm. But the hidden nugget of information here, that Chris Harrison delivers via speakerphone to Bekah’s mom, is that Bekah might go missing again over the summer. And that’s because she’ll be…on the beaches of Mexico as a part of the cast of Bachelor in Paradise. A destination on the exact opposite end of the relaxation scale from a marijuana farm, but with just as little phone service.

We’re now more than halfway through this episode where “all of Arie’s ex-girlfriends get to confront him,” and he has yet to show his dad bod on this stage. Although his needle dick is starting to come through loud and clear as the women start to compare stories about how unsatisfying their goodbyes are. Tia probably has the most to be upset about, next to maybe Krystal and Seinne, all of whom felt utterly blindsided by their eliminations and subsequent cold goodbyes.

After everything they’d been through and how great everything seemed, all three of those women — and basically everyone eliminated all season — just wanted more of an explanation. Even after having watched the footage, Tia is confused about why she was sent home over Kendall, who can’t guarantee she’s ready for marriage. But don’t worry, Chris Harrison is here to clear everything up, with an adorable little anecdote about how Arie told him right after Tia’s elimination that he wasn’t sure if he made a mistake. Cool. Great. Love that. Thanks for sharing.

She is glad she went through it, because now she sees what she deserves. (To be ghosted with no explanation by a professional car driver who couldn’t make eye contact with her after meeting her parents.) But don’t take it from me, take it from the man himself, who’s finally strolling in with thirty minutes left in this goddamn broadcast.

He has some slight unfinished business to take care of, which he dispatches rapidly. Tia wants to know why he sent her when he had doubts with Kendall, and he gives her the “it’s not you, it’s me.” Jacqueline wants to clarify some of his comments about her PhD schooling being an “obstacle,” which he responds to with a basic, “thank you so much for that, and also what is your name again?” Bekah wants to rub his nose in the fact that he got scared and bailed because of the age difference — and he just nods and puts his tail between his legs like a dumb little puppy who just ate all the old monkey shit off of the stage.

It’s all normal The Women Tell All stuff, and then there’s Caroline. Right smack-dab in the middle of all the other women tossing the dude softballs, your girl steps up to the plate with a fucking ninja star. Beautiful eyes filling with tears, beautiful lip quivering in indignation, she delivers the following monologue right into Arie’s putty face, line by ominous line.

“I know what you did. And I don’t know how you could do that. I just really don’t understand, but I really hope you found what you’re looking for.” She doesn’t want an answer from him. He says it will all play out in the weeks to come.

Drag him, Caroline. I don’t know what the hell she’s talking about, but it’s really refreshing to see the women go to bat for each other. Especially because Caroline doesn’t even give him a chance to respond — “tune in next tomorrow to see why I did what I do” — but says she just needed to put her feelings on the record. Whatever this offense was, it seems like it was big, and most likely perpetrated against Becca, because of the remaining women, she was Caroline’s closest friend in the house.

But as quickly as the moment came, it was gone away again, and Krystal was slinking out to the couch for her own moment with Arie. Which, was another softball, because he’s apparently seen the season back as well, and knew that he could fling a few handfuls of dookie and come out looking clean himself.

Krystal brings up the very valid point that their goodbye was cold, something that I pointed out myself when I watched the episode. He’d been encouraging her bad behavior for weeks and insinuating that their connection was a strong one, and as soon as producers let him off the hook to send Krystal home, he switched off like a light switch. When he left her on that two-on-one, it was at the table, walking away with Kendall without even giving Krystal the chance to process what happened. He ghosted her on national television, and she deserved an explanation. Even if she did repeatedly call him a needle dick.

But he doesn’t have that explanation for her. (Shocker.) What he has instead is some heavy shade, saying that looking back, his goodbye to her was pretty appropriate, based on the behavior he witnessed on camera. He says he saw a completely different side of her and maybe kept her around for too long, which the type of reminiscing that simply Isn’t Done on these shows. If you couldn’t see the other side of her, that’s on you, dude, because it was all there for the noticing. But sure, you go ahead and keep gaslighting her because you read on the internet that everyone would like it.

Literally it escalates to the point where everyone is chanting for them to play the clip from the bus where Krystal goes off. But they can’t do that, because Arie has to go back to his isolation chamber, and we have to bring out John Cena? And Leslie Mann? And that guy from The Mindy Project? They have a movie coming out called Blockers that you’re supposed to care about more than The Bachelor, I guess, a show that you’re voluntarily tuning into for four hours this week.

Because you know you’re tuning into the finale after all that foreshadowing. I wanna know what the bad man did, so we can all yell at him next time instead of Krystal.

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.

Watch "The Women Tell All" episode of The Bachelor on Hulu