In terms of the rest of the ATFR, a few notes on it:
-Bri really got screwed, didn’t she? She was there. The initial press release said we’d hear from her. But as I said, that filming was close to 6 hours long and we saw 40 minutes of it. Bri got left on the cutting room floor unfortunately. But she’s making the rounds on podcasts now, so, if you wanna listen to her and her thoughts, you can check her out there.
-To hear Michelle say that after Matt dumped her, she asked production if she could see him for just a couple minutes and he turned that down was pretty embarrassing for him. I get that he wasn’t in a right head space at the time, but I’m sorry, there was no excuse for not giving her the respect to hear what she had to say back then. At least Matt owned up to it and admitted last night he shoud’ve heard her out, because that wasn’t a great look on him.
-Again, Emmanuel’s conversation with Matt was powerful, moving, and something this franchise badly needed. You know the scary part? If Chris doesn’t make a horses ass of himself in that interview with Rachel Lindsay, Chris is the one up on stage last night talking to Matt about what it was like being the first black Bachelor and everything he dealt with this season. I’m cringing thinking of that now after seeing how well Emmanuel handled it. Trust me, we were in better hands last night.
-Rachael looked broken. She’s lost weight, her spirit was gone, and you could tell that was incredibly uncomfortable for her. No one should be canceling her. And it was great seeing how many of the women on her season supported her in her IG last night. But if you’re someone that feels the need to continually call her a racist or a white supremacist in her comments or DM’s, you’re a sick individual. All she can do is be better, learn, and educate herself. Ever since her first statement she made on IG, to that 7 ½ minute video, to her on stage last night AND her IG post last night, she’s done nothing but show she’s at least trying to be better. Isn’t that all we can ask for? It’s not like she’s shunning this. It’s not like she’s not owning up to what she did. She’s never made one excuse for anything. The treatment online I see of Rachael is disgusting. Makes me glad this season is over so it’s not a topic anymore. People are really f****d in the head I tell ya’.
-Is it different for Chris? Yes. Because he’s not getting nearly the hate she is. The other difference is Chris is 49 years old. Rachael is half that. Both were 100% racially ignorant and racially insensitive. But Chris is a TV host. He has to be held accountable. If being held accountable means he loses his job for good (which I still don’t think is going to happen), then so be it. Where does Rachael go from here? She’s not a TV personality. She’s not a model. She doesn’t have a job in the public eye. She just has to go back to doing whatever it is she was doing, and every job application she fills out for the rest of her life, this will come up. For the short term, probably not gonna help. But I hope she really keeps doing what she says she’s doing, she learns from this, the trolls stop, and she can just move on with her life. She’s being held accountable just like Chris is, it’s just that Chris has a public job so we’ll kinda see as a viewing public the ramifications of what he did.
-Here’s one thing I really didn’t understand whatsoever about what Matt said last night in regards to Rachael. He said he was hoping it was just rumors and they weren’t true. What? That makes zero sense. It wasn’t whispers of people talking that you could easily play off as rumors. This was physical evidence that we all know he saw from the second it came out. What do you mean you were hoping it was rumors? Totally baffling. And his first statement talking about this stuff even referenced the fact he wanted to hear Rachael address it herself and to not be too hard on her. Something is missing here.
-With a 6 hour ATFR and us seeing only 40 minutes of it, clearly they wanted to focus on all the dead silence when it came to Matt answering questions. I think Rachael came off much better than him last night. She owned her past behavior, she was vulnerable with Emmanuel, she was emotional, and you can tell she clearly is still in love with Matt. Matt? From what we saw, he has a really hard time expressing himself and I don’t think provided clarity to anything whatsoever.
Just an odd, uncomfortable sit down all together.
-And for those asking, no, Matt is not dating Heather Martin.
-I’ve heard things behind the scenes that make what we saw on the ATFR last night between Matt and Rachael laughable. But without proof, it’s just stirring the pot. If either of these two want to some day address what REALLY happened over these last six weeks, then maybe they will. The second I do, half of this franchise’s fan base will jump down my throat and frankly, I’m over it. I’m moving on to the next season and I’m glad this one is behind us. Just know there’s much more to the story than what was shown last night.
-Speaking of the “Bachelorettes,” even though I had spoiled what was coming with their “curveball,” I was at least expecting them to give it more than 3 minutes of airtime. Geesh. While the announcement surprised the unspoiled, to barely have much conversation, or how it all came to be, or what to expect on their seasons going forward was doing both Katie and Michelle a disservice. I’m looking forward to both of their seasons because, while it will be different, I’m much more interested to see if anything’s changed about how this show is produced. Or are we gonna get the same ol’ same ol’? And how has production addressed their complete lack of understand for BIPOC contestants on their show? An answer any time this century would be nice. I won’t hold my breath though.
Thank you all again for following along this season. I know it’s been two seasons in a row without episode-by-episode spoilers, but with these seasons being filmed in one location due to COVID, it’s a lot tougher. But I was able to get you all the important details of this season, you knew the ending well in advance, and even knew the details of how the finale played out a couple weeks beforehand. On to Katie’s season. I’m sure it’ll be more of the same moving forward. So follow along here and on all my platforms for all the latest. Tomorrow’s “Reader Emails” will be the last one until Katie’s season starts, so get those in while you can. Podcasts will be out every Thursday during the offseason per usual. This week we’re bringing back on Chad and Lizzy from the “Game of Roses” podcast as I promised at the beginning of the season, and also, probably one of the singles from “Temptation Island.”
Send all links and emails to: steve@realitysteve.com. To follow me on Twitter, it’s: www.twitter.com/RealitySteve. Instagram name is RealitySteve, or join my Reality Steve Facebook Fan Page. Talk to you tomorrow.
