Hey, Steve. I have some questions about Michelle’s season. Are they still planning to travel for hometowns? Do you know if and where they’re traveling for overnights? Where will they hold the rose ceremony after hometowns, since The Marquette will be open for bookings by then? You had previously said that Michelle’s season would wrap the second week of September. How is that possible if hometowns can’t even start until Aug 27? Thanks!
Comment: As far as I heard, it’s still the plan to travel for hometowns. And if that happens, then yeah, maybe you have to extend the final days of filming a few days, but I don’t see it last much past mid Sept. They have to start preparing for Bachelor at beginning of October and the crew needs some sort of break.
______________________
Yes, only have seen Monday. But my thoughts are:
Too much Demi.
Not enough Spade.
Comments?
Comment: Spade is gone for good. Yeah, I wish they’d make him permanent BIP host next season.
______________________
Hi Steve,
Paradise MIA questions: what happened to Bennett the Harvard guy from Tayshia’s season? And what happened to the other Victoria from Peter’s season, the one who was dating Farmer Chris? Are they showing up later? They seemed like Paradise shoo-ins to me. Bennett I believe said he felt a little too old for this crowd. And Victoria F. isn’t on. I’m sure they tried to get her, but I guess she didn’t want to do it.
Not that you need another opinion about this, but I hope you’re wrong about Greg (although I’m sure you’re not.) I don’t know if he was an abusive manipulator or not. But clearly a lot of people think he was. If the show really wanted to be more progressive about race and gender issues, then they wouldn’t promote someone who many people think is a misogynist.
Comment: “Clearly a lot of people think he was.” Define a lot? And where is the “a lot” coming from and what were the reasons? We’re in this culture now where anyone can say anything and the masses believe it. If Ducks Moy doesn’t run their stuff, is the feeling the same? An IG account that literally says in their own bio “this account does not claim any information published is based in fact,” yet any story they ever publish about Bachelor Nation is always taken as fact and run with 100 times. It’s pretty sad what they’re doing and I’ve said ever since they came to start making a name for themselves, I’m not a fan. Ducks Moy does EXACTLY the thing that people ultimately had an issue with when it came to my reporting in the past. Yet people eat up whatever she posts. Go figure.
______________________
Hi Steve,
Do you know what happens with Ivan and Jessenia? I didn’t see anything in the spoilers.
Comment: Jessenia leaves Ivan for Chris Conran.
______________________
hi steve! have you heard what location michelle is going to after hometowns? or are they staying in minnesota for the rest of filming?
Comment: No, they are gone after the next ceremony. I have not heard where they’re headed to for overnights and final rose ceremony yet.
This is just a statement not a question. I applaud you for not covering Demi in your recap, when she and the producers tried to make it the Demi show last night. Demi the attention seeker thrives on that, so the best thing you can do is ignore it. We all knew James would give her the rose, with the producers pushing him to do so. I guess it came down to the producers thinking they’d get more TV gold from Demi than Goddess Victoria, lol. Nor will I the rest of the time she’s on. No point.
I hope we will see more conversations with Joe and Serena and Kenny and Mari. I mean if the engagements are real and those couples found a connection, I as an audience member would like to see a possible love story, emphasis on IF and Possible.
Thank you
Comment: Remember, we’ve got 2 episodes a week for the next 4 weeks both at 2 hrs each, so there will be plenty of time to see other relationships form.
______________________
Hey Steve,
I haven’t watched any Bachelor/Bachelorette since mid Matt’s season but have been following along on your column, so thanks for delivering each week.
I understand you are in a no-win situation when it comes to commenting on Demi and I respect that you leave your thoughts out of the column, but can I vent all of mine? I’ve never LOVED Demi, but I always thought she made good TV and her comments on what was happening often made me laugh. However, last night I thought she came off poor. She wasn’t funny. She wasn’t cute. It seemed like an over-the-top, hypocritical performance. To me, it seemed played up for the cameras (which is why they keep asking her back I suppose), but also sad and insecure. Maybe I should care more that Brendan has someone he was seeing at home, but didn’t Demi do that last season? And she freaked out on Brendan before she even knew that. I mean he told her (which may or may not be true) he didn’t even know she existed while on their date. Again, I understand you probably can’t comment on this, but I’m interested to see others response to the Demi performance we saw last night. It was bizarre but maybe expected. Thanks for your input into this weeks Reader Emails.
As for Brendan, I agree he came off as a bullshitter and liar. Seems odd Natasha knew nothing but maybe she didn’t. I understand Brendan’s behavior may be problematic, but I didn’t seem to care that much? (Admittedly, maybe I have a bias from liking him with Tayshia.) With the current BIP seasons, I just assume everyone already knows everyone in the franchise. And that there are varying levels of relationships among them. To me, Brendan came off more as someone that just didn’t seem to realize what he was getting himself into (first with Demi and not knowing how she acts) and then with being called out about Piper. Should he have known better? Probably. But it came across, to me, like he didn’t. I take issue with stringing Natasha along and not being as forthcoming – but it seems like that is part of the game many play in paradise. If I remember correctly, Brendan didn’t really know much about the show when he went on Tayshia’s season. Granted, he’s now been through the process once and maybe he should’ve had a better idea going into BIP, but yeah, he did seem like he didn’t have a clue what he got himself into.
Lastly, I wondered if you had thoughts on the quick Victoria L/Tahzjuan disagreement. I do not like Victoria L’s behavior and think she needs to run away from this franchise; however she hasn’t bothered me as much on Paradise. The other girls didn’t really seem to take issue with her either, but of course we haven’t seen much of her. You said Tahzjuan was your MVP so far and I have liked her, but I thought she her reaction when speaking to Victoria was a little much. Not a self-implosion, but heading there. I didn’t understand what Victoria had done wrong? I guess she thought Victoria’s “apology” wasn’t genuine and I honestly couldn’t say if it was or wasn’t, but Tahzjuan even going to Victoria seemed unnecessary and perhaps producer driven. I thought Tahzjuan did the opposite of how Tammy reacted to Serena C, so I was curious how you saw it since you applauded Tammy (as do I).
Thanks!
Comment: I mean, Victoria did call Tahz aggressive, and I didn’t see it that way at all. Then she got up and left and called her a psycho. I didn’t see anything that Tahz did that warranted being called that.
______________________
Hi Steve! With all these bachelor rumors and circulation going it got me thinking. I know Greg seems to be who ABC wants. But there has definitely been some rumors about Andrew S being bachelor instead. I have few questions.
We know ABC’s track record with POC in this franchise and mistreatment of their POC contestants. I would guess Andrew S is in mix for bachelor. My question is would ABC pick Andrew S another POC as a lead (and I say another as in) right after Matt’s disaster of season? I like Andrew S a lot and I think he would be a good lead. But I find it hard to believe that ABC would pick 3 POC in row to be the lead unfortunately due to their track record. And also because their first season for a man of color as the lead was a disaster and led to the firing Chris Harrison. Of course the disaster is not Matt James’s fault at all. It’s all on ABCs lack of doing their jobs and their ignorance. What do you think? Do you think they would pick Andrew S for a possible redemption/do over of Matt’s season?
Comment: He’s certainly someone they’ve talked to. He finished high enough on Katie’s season and has a storyline to where he’d be a candidate. He also said on a podcast he wouldn’t do it. So I have no idea if he’d change his mind so quickly, or, if they truly even want him.
______________________
Hi, Reality Steve,
First things first….as a fellow lover of all things Olive Garden, I’ll say a prayer that you are indeed, the first customer in line on Monday, at the new Vegas Olive Garden.
Who knows? Maybe you’ll even get a prize for being one of the first 50 through the door, or something like that! One can only hope….They should give me a lifetime supply of breadsticks if I am.
Just a couple of things about the episode last night. Totally agreed with your take on Victoria (P?). Bad look all-around, I’d say. One thing I did want to mention……like you said, she started with her therapy “mumbo jumbo” talk, but one thing she did that really irritated me: Did you notice that she
starts out the conversation with Tammy and Kelsey, saying she wanted to keep it “healthy” and was talking calmly, but when she was finished saying her peace, she would NOT listen to anything Kelsey or Tammy had to say to respond to her.
Then, as she walks away from the girls, she says something about how she has to draw a line and keep her boundaries as an explanation, but here’s the thing….Just by her action of stating her thoughts, but then not being willing to listen to either of the girls respond, she is showing her immaturity, Big Time. Kelsey even said something like, you talked and I’ve barely gotten to say anything, or something to
that effect.
Victoria…..time to head back to the leather couch and yellow legal pad.
Or, maybe just grow the hell up.
Second thing…..So sorry to see David Spade go. Loved him as the BIP host. He’s perfect for the job. Hope he comes back for future BIP programming.
Thanks, Reality Steve, and best of luck at the tables! I’ll be rooting for you.
Comment: There were a lot of things Victoria said that had me scratching my head last night. Not a lot of it added up.
______________________
Hey Steve –
Have you seen Heels on Starz? It is a drama about a small, family-run wrestling territory. Ep 1 was promising. No, but I plan to.
For this season of BIP so far, I’m liking that there is a lot of mixing of white people and BIPOC (you can’t spell BIPOC without BIP!). Seeing people who are conventionally “TV attractive” like Champagne Girl garnering no interest is sort of a refreshing change. Which is surprising, because I honestly thought that Kelsey would be a hot commodity down there. Could it really be she’s considered “old news” since her season was (gasp!) 2 years ago?
Do you think Victoria P’s relationship or Brendan’s were well known to most of the cast or that producers asked those in the know to hold onto those bombs until needed? It would seem likely in normal life that people would say something like “Hey, what are you doing here? Aren’t you dating….?” when first encountering them. Obviously others knew because they were talking about it. I just think producers don’t let contestants bring things up until they allow them to, which is why it wasn’t more out in the open about the those two.
While Brendan is a bad liar, both Victorias got caught and then immediately attacked those calling them out so I think that made them worse than Brendan.
Prediction: Now that Pfizer’s vaccine is FDA approved, the excuse/anti-vaxx crowd is going to go heavy with “It was a rush approval for political purposes.” God, I hope that parents have their kids mask up at school and ignore this group of crazy governors.
Comment: Yeah, I’ve already seen that reaction from some. And based on the author at the Atlantic that I brought up in my podcast with Emily O’Brien (Drew Armstrong), the one who only interviewed unvaxxed people for his article and wanted to get reasons why, he said that was the #1 reason he heard from the unvaxxed. They didn’t like that it wasn’t FDA approved. Which is fine. Granted, we can break that down (and we did in the podcast) as to why that’s short sighted, but fine, lets give them that. Well, now that’s not an excuse anymore. I’m reading they expect about 20-25 million of the 90 million unvaxxed to get it now that it’s FDA approved. It’s a start, and hopefully momentum will continue. But with so much misinformation out there, again, I have to temper expectations.
______________________
Hi Steve,
Regarding last night’s episode with Victoria P, Kelsey, and Tammy- the one thing I guess I found so bizarre in the whole thing was that Victoria P kept saying to Tammy and Kelsey “we are friends right?”
Like she was looking for validation on that and it was the most important thing- more important than her relationship with James. All I kept thinking was that with friends like that who needs enemies?
Why wasn’t she more mad at them? If my “friends” ratted me out instead of coming to me first I’d be pretty mad. Her response was pretty awful to James too, but in my opinion if Kelsey and Tammy if they are really her “friend” don’t look good on this one either. It’s not like bachelor where they are competing for the same guy.
Haha- maybe I’m old school on this one but “friends” don’t betray each other!
Thanks for your columns and recaps! Love them!
Comment: I see what you’re saying, and yes, I too am also curious why Tammy and Kelsey wouldn’t go to Victoria first. However, knowing this show the way I do, I just have a gut feeling they were told not to, because it’s more dramatic if they tell James first, he tells Victoria that Tammy and Kelsey told him, and now she can go confront them. That’s just my guess is that they weren’t allowed to confront Victoria first.
______________________
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.
