Well, today starts 48 hrs of madness. A 2 night, 4 hour finale where we see the culmination of what happened in Iceland, while also having the live segments happening in front of a studio audience in and out of commercial breaks. In addition, probably getting the announcement of our “Bachelorette” at the end of tomorrow night’s episode. Then the reveal of all the possible men on her season on the “Bachelorette” Facebook page is probably coming early Wednesday morning as it did last season when Katie’s guys were posted the morning after Matt’s ATFR. There will be alumni in the audience tonight and some of them are already hyping this two night finale, and yeah, it’s a lot. Is it hyperbole? That’s up to each of you. It’s definitely something we’ve never seen and there are a lot of moving parts. I’ve got it for you here. Like the spoiler for Arie’s finale was, “they filmed his breakup with Becca and we see all of it.” That spoiler definitely couldn’t do that 30 minutes of breaking up justice. So will this? I guess we’ll see. Now, I don’t know exactly how they will spread this out over two nights and what tonight’s episode ends with, I just finally have for you everything that happens in Iceland. Maybe that’s all shown tonight and tomorrow night is a 2 hr ATFR with all 3 women confronting Clayton, along with the “Bachelorette” reveal and probably meeting of 5 of her men like seasons past. Or maybe tonights episode will bleed into the beginning of tomorrow’s. Whatever the case, here’s what to expect on what went down in Iceland. I did not see the episode myself, but lets just say I heard indirectly from someone who did, so this is a paraphrase of everything I’ve heard:
-At the final 3 rose ceremony, the “Rose Ceremony from Hell” as they’re calling it. Clayton has already sent Susie away, so that leaves only Rachel and Gabby. Clayton tells both of them that he’s in love with them, and that he was intimate with both as we’ve seen numerous times all season in the promo. Both of them walk away crying to make you think they’re leaving. They don’t. Clayton practically begs each woman to stay and they do. He ends up giving a rose to both of them.
-Both Gabby and Rachel then meet Clayton’s parents.
-After Gabby and Rachel meet his parents, Clayton makes the decision that he wants to talk to Susie still. This I believe is when we saw in the promos of Jesse knocking on a door. That’s him going to Susie’s room to tell her Clayton wants to see her.
-They meet up, Clayton apologizes for how everything went down when they last saw each other, and he asks her to stay. She agrees.
-Susie then ALSO meets Clayton’s parents.
-After all 3 women have met Clayton’s parents, Clayton decides that he’s in love with Susie and makes the decision to send the other two home.
-Clayton speaks with both Rachel and Gabby separately in their hotel rooms, telling them that he wants Susie and that he’s in love with her.
-Been told that Rachel was more sad at this, and Gabby was more angry at him. We kinda see a glimpse of that in the promos. He pretty much just begged each of them to stay at the final 3 rose ceremony, to then only turn around and let them go a couple days later because he’s in love with Susie.
-There is a final rose ceremony day. Clayton has a ring, and Susie arrives in a final rose ceremony dress like a regular final rose ceremony we’ve seen in the past.
-At this final rose ceremony, I had reported two weeks ago that Clayton proposed and Susie rejected the proposal. That did NOT happen. However,…
-Clayton did tell Susie he was in love with her. Susie tells Clayton in return that she is NOT in love with him, and she walks away.
-Clayton leaves Iceland single.
-In terms of what’s happened since that day, with all the interviews Clayton is doing, it’s making it seem like Clayton and Susie have somehow rekindled. I’ve never been led to believe that Clayton is with Susie, and while I think he’s single, I really have no idea if he is or not. I guess that’s where the “nobody knows the endng yet” comes in. Because he definitely left Iceland single, so I guess it’s just a matter of where any relationship with Susie stands now. A lot on the table in terms of what could’ve happened these last 3 months. Some signs have pointed to them being back together, and some haven’t. We will see on Tuesday night where their relationship stands.
-There is zero chance he is rekindling anything with Gabby or Rachel. They have nothing to do with anything since they left Iceland. So Clayton is either back with Susie or he’s single. I’ve been told single, but it’s nothing I could get confirmed. A full blown, “Yeah, we patched everything up after Iceland and we’re dating now” would shock me. But maybe they’re trying to rekindle something I guess is a possibility. Just a weird way to start a relationship between these two. It’d be very similar to Colton & Cassie. We’re gonna see Susie tell the guy to his face she’s not in love with him and leave him single. Any relationship going forward would be them trying to convince us that she really likes him as much as he loves her. Can it happen? I guess. Likely to lead to a long term relationship? Hard to believe.
-I expect the “Bachelorette” announcement to come Tuesday night, and my GUESS right now is it’s gonna be Gabby. Nothing solid, not confirmed, but after hearing some more things this weekend, that’s who I’m leaning towards. Also at our “Bachelorette” announcement, I expect them to bring out 5 guys from her season like they have in the past, since all the guys on the next season arrived in LA this weekend and have been quarantined. I only have one guy I know for sure, and others I thought I had looked to be cut last minute since they’re active on IG. But we’ll know who the men are shortly, and once they’re released (even though I’ll be on plane Wed morning when it happens), I’ll be posting their last names and IG and anything else I can find on Twitter and IG as the day goes on.
So there you have it. Gonna be a wild next 48 hrs that’s for sure. I’ve realized that Bachelor finale week is officially my busiest week of the season. I don’t do myself any favors by always going to Vegas on Wednesday of finale week every season, but hey, sometimes you gotta do stuff for yourself. Tomorrow ends 9 straight months of “Bachelor” related programming. Remember:
-Katie started airing June of 2021
-Went straight into BIP in August 2021
-One week off then straight into Michelle’s season Oct 2021
-One week off then straight into Clayton’s season Jan 2021
So yeah, it’s nice to finally take a little breather. Sure I’ll be spoiling what I can when “Bachelorette” season starts filming this weekend, but as you know, that’s a much slower time, less columns, and no “Reader Emails” until “Bachelorette” starts airing end of May/beginning of June. So while it’s my favorite Vegas trip of the year, it also comes at the worst time. Oh well. We’ll all get through it.
Enjoy tonight. Get your popcorn ready.
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.
dogmomma
March 14, 2022 at 1:17 PM
I have nothing against Gabby but I couldn’t watch an entire season with her being the lead. There are so many other better choices.
Nahu
March 14, 2022 at 2:05 PM
I feel bad for Clayton. Nothing turned out they way he had hoped for… But I guess you can’t choose who you fall in love with. He was not ready for marriage and has a lot to learn, but I wish his season had had a better ending. This season was like a mix of Colton’s and Peter’s and that’s NOT a good thing. He deserved better.
shenanigans
March 14, 2022 at 4:10 PM
Nadu, from my perspective, Clayton reaped what he sowed. He screwed three women within a week and expected one of them to understand that, accept it, and believe that he was ready for marriage (and a commitment to her). He treated it like a drunken fraternity party, rather than an opportunity to find his wife, which is why it ended so badly.
Hopefully, moving forward, the show will choose men who are ready for the what the experience can offer (a chance to meet a future wife). If all they see is ready sex with the three finalists, then they aren’t ready for anything more than that.
JMO
wisewords
March 14, 2022 at 4:45 PM
@Shenanigans, technically he screwed two, am I right? But still, I agree. Clayton acted like a frat boy. He was not mature enough for marriage. Really, this show needs to work on their casting. Instead of just going for big muscles, maybe they would do better to go for the whole package like they did in Joe Millionaire. Steven McBee was just amazing and so mature for a 20-something guy.
wyntre
March 14, 2022 at 9:49 PM
Saw a comment on Twitter that Clayton is like the guy who will screw the stripper at his bachelor party the night before the wedding. My husband added that he’ll then say “My bad. Didn’t realize not doing that was the rule.” I think that’s fair.
katmaybeck
March 14, 2022 at 10:27 PM
Okay well your spoilers for this episode are all correct! However I do hope it’s Rachel for the next bachelorette. She was so in love and more heartbroken than Gabby for sure. Gabby has the weirdest facial expressions that it’s so hard to read her… and she seems very awkward and talks like a kid.
I think Clayton is really screwing himself over by going back to Susie. She straight up said “I can’t leave here with you and can’t move forward.” Now Clayton is replaying it in his head thinking that she would have stayed if he didn’t get upset? It seemed pretty clear her decision and she obviously was NOT in love enough to fight for the relationship. You could see in her face when he told her she didn’t seem to care at that point. She stood her ground and left him. His family tried to explain that she is GONE and he needs to move on but he refuses to accept! Didn’t he want his families advice? I mean I know he has to trust his heart but literally two other woman stayed when they could have left him and he did also love them. If he wanted Susie so bad he would not have done what he did. He wasn’t set on her since he needed to sleep with the other two and explore those relationships fully to make his choice.
Now the other two woman forgave him for this and were still fighting because they believed in what they had with him and really were in love. Rachel would have been an amazing second choice even tho his heart was still with Susie. Remember when Brooks left on Desiree’s season and she was heartbroken because she was in love with him? But then realized how AMAZING the other men she still had there were and grew to love Chris and get engaged and they are happily married. Clayton just continues to ruin things more and more for himself. He begged the two woman to stay and then to decide after sleeping with them and introducing them to his family that he wants to pursue Susie?? Well then why didn’t he call off the rose ceremony and tell them both that his heart was with her the whole time. Instead they have to go thru heart break twice??? Clayton honestly had a good opportunity to move forward and propose to Rachel and probably would have been together still but now he has no one. Karma’s a B*tch!!
katmaybeck
March 14, 2022 at 10:43 PM
Clayton acted so selfish and dumb by going after Susie again. And doesn’t he need to know how their sex is gonna be to propose?? He just couldn’t hold out for her and that shows he wasn’t thinking about anyone but himself. She is right to leave him and I’m glad Rachel and Gabby don’t end up with him now because he has some major maturing to do. I didn’t think he could f*ck up even more but he does. He has no clue what he is doing, wants to string them along so he has options but if he KNEW he couldn’t get over Susie then he really should have tried to talk to her sooner/before rose ceremony or ended the season early and went home because that is just not fair to Gabby and Rachel to make them suffer more thinking there was still a chance. He really just wanted the one woman who didn’t want him because he NEEDED Susie’s validation like the other two gave and his ego was hurt that she rejected him. Maybe he thought since he convinced Gabby to stay that he had the power to do it with Susie. He is crazy to think he can ever mend things with Susie after the way he treated her for HIS mistakes and literally he threw it all away and acted like she was worthless to him. ALL of the woman deserved better this season. He was def not ready to be a husband.
jlal
March 15, 2022 at 4:18 AM
I have very good reason to believe that we should all give Clayton and Susie a break when it comes to how things went down with them. They were manipulated and lied to by production. If you remember during the scene when Susie is talking to him, Clayton was one way and then after going outside and talking to producers he came back mad as hell. I commented on it at the time, how he seemed to turn on a dime. They were BOTH lied to and manipulated and didn’t find out just how much until later on. Not sure of the motivation, whether the show wanted Susie for the Bachelorette or just for the drama, or a combination of both. But, the show broke them up on purpose. Based on what I have heard about Jessie, I would like to think if Chris was still around it wouldn’t have gone down that way. Maybe I’m naïve, but I’d like to think Chris wouldn’t have bold faced lied to Clayton. Maybe Jessie did because he was manipulated too. He is just an employee and not a producer, but we’ll never now. I know the show always manipulates everything, but to sacrifice the lead’s happiness and lie the way they did to him and her is so over the top cruel. But, when Jessie said last night how they were trending the highest or something like that I thought, well there you go that is why they did what they did.
Now, knowing this doesn’t take away from the fact that Clayton was not mature enough for this show. He obviously doesn’t know the difference between being “in-love” and just loving someone or lusting after someone. He is not “in-love” with three women. He may love three women, but he’s not in-love. Gabby had it correct, you can’t measure love, not true love. We will never hear from Clayton and Susie what really happened because of their contracts. But, know that after they talked they figured out what happened and how they’d been lied and manipulated. They just can’t do anything about it. It will be interesting to see how they handle it on the ATFR, but I guarantee it won’t be the truth.
I also agree that Gabby will be hard to watch as bachelorette. Though, I do respect her more for standing up for herself and realizing (even if she went back) how messed up it was what Clayton was saying and doing.
Once again, I know production manipulates everything, but after finding out what I have and to what extent they are willing to go, I can never watch the show in the same way again.
keddo
March 15, 2022 at 6:32 AM
I understand it when dogmamma says she couldn’t watch an entire season of Gabby, but there’s something about her, her voice and expressions, that is appealing. There is a Jennifer Tilly charm to her, where she comes across as just a little bit ditzy (or a lot, in Tilly’s case), but when you pay attention, she’s more perceptive than she seems at first.
It raised my eyebrows when Clayton, in last week’s show when Susie was dumping him, said something about how he and Susie shared a common faith. I wonder, is he talking about a polygamist sect of the Mormon faith? Quite the thing to mention after telling her that she’s his first choice, but he just slept with his second and third choices. How could he not see the irony of that? In the Christian faith, assuming that’s the one he supposedly shared with Susie, adherents are exhorted to be holy and faithful regardless of the ethics of the surrounding society. Yeah, I know, for most “Christians”, their religion doesn’t go much beyond the box they check on a survey.
jlyoung
March 15, 2022 at 7:19 AM
I’m not sure what it is but I like Gabby as the bachelorette! I think she’ll bring a fun, quirkinesses to her role. I’ll definitely be watching!
dogmomma
March 15, 2022 at 6:11 PM
I changed my mind about Gabby being the Bachelorette and I think she is awesome after watching her respond to Clayton. She was very thoughtful in her responses and she handled herself like a pro. Team Gabby for me.