Always good to end the season on a good note. No, not last night’s finale. That was a shit show wrapped in shit. I’m just talking about literally giving you things that were going to happen before they happened even up until their last episode. I mean, yeah, the show probably isn’t happy, but not gonna lie, kinda took full enjoyment in ruining their Aven “surprise” 30 minutes before they went to air. Not to mention telling you the 5 women who were about to come out and meet Zach during the commercial break right before they did. Gee, how did I know this? Magic. That’s my answer. Magic. I magically know what’s gonna happen on this show before it happens. Everyone has short term memory when it comes to this past season already, but if you’re actually being truthful and not letting some narrative you already have about me infect your opinion, the bottom line is the amount of spoilers I gave this season was on par with a lot of past seasons. Didn’t have episode by episode spoilers, but you knew every main thing about this season before it happened. That’s what I’m here for. Be sure to tip your waitress.
Today’s Daily Roundup is now up and is longer than usual clocking in at around 35 minutes, but for good reason obviously – that finale last night had a lot of things to comment about. I felt I hit on most things I wanted to talk about and I’ll do my best to convey that in written form here today. But if you don’t want to read and just want to listen, the podcast is up.
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I’ll just start in the order we were shown things last night, and first start with Rachel and Tino. Bottom line is I thought that neither of them looked great last night really. I got this email during the show and I wanted to share it because it really encapsulates what I saw between them last night during their taped Happy Couple visit and what we saw on the live show:
Hi Steve:
I’ve been happily married for 32 years. Some times are better than others, but one thing we both have to try really hard at is when we disagree that we’re focused on the actual disagreement vs. “winning” the argument. They are definitely 2 different things.
Obviously I have no idea what the real “truth” is between Rachel and Tino. But the longer that segment(s) went on, the more I kept thinking this is about winning the argument, not solving the disagreement. It’s a dangerous trap.
Personally I don’t think either one of them came off looking very good. But I wish them both the best. It’s a crazy show and i keep on watching it!
Excellent take by someone who’s been in a 32 year marriage. I think all of us have probably been guilty of this at some point in the past with a partner. I know I have. So it’s not far fetched to call what we saw between them last night poor arguing skills that could’ve been handled much better.
Really couldn’t agree more. These two were horrible at arguing. To the point where I was confused what they were even arguing about at times. I hate this notion that today is Hot Take day and we either have to be TeamRachel or TeamTino and whichever one you are, you’re wrong according to the other party. How about I’m TeamNeither in terms of what I saw last night? Why does there have to be a Team anything? I thought things that Tino said and did were confusing, weird, and wrong and I thought certain things Rachel said and did I don’t understand or disagree with as well. Everybody makes everything so black and white when arguing about things in this franchise, when in my mind, there’s so much grey area.
For example, Tino brings a journal to this meeting because he had written down, I assume, some thoughts and some things that Rachel had said in their relationship and how it made him feel. He tells her, “You said this,” and she responds with, “No I didn’t.” And they couldn’t even agree on that. So how is the audience supposed to say with 100% certainty, “Oh, Tino was wrong.” Or “Rachel was wrong.” We don’t even know the details! If they can’t agree on what the other person said, and they were the two parties involved whether it was on text, over the phone, over FaceTime, or in person, how can any one of us sitting at home viewing that fight say we know for sure who was right and who was wrong? That seems preposterous to me. We don’t. We weren’t there. Seems like these two could’ve fought yesterday over whether the sky was blue or not. Their communication skills were obviously lacking and very poor. Hell, Rachel practically admitted that to Jesse when he asked how things had been since the show ended. And yeah, it really seemed like they were arguing to “win” and not solving their disagreement.
Lets get to Tino’s side. I didn’t have as much of an issue with what he was saying about his cheating as Rachel did, BUT, that’s not to say he was in the right at all. Clearly he was wrong. Are there levels of cheating? Of course there are. We’ve talked about this in the past. What I’m saying is he’s allowed to give his take on why he cheated without that being an excuse. He was explaining himself, yet Rachel immediately jumped in and told him he was making an excuse. I didn’t see it that way. However, I thought he did a horrible job of articulating it. They were an engaged couple and he kissed another woman, regardless of where he thought the relationship was at by some ambiguous statements Rachel made regarding a ring that, once again, they couldn’t see eye to eye on. But back to the cheating. So yes, if two people are engaged and one cheats, I don’t see why Tino isn’t allowed to tell her “This is why I cheated.” Anyone who’s been cheated on haven’t you at some point asked, “Hey, why did you do this?” Or at least been curious in your own mind why the person you love cheated? It’s like Rachel wanted to know how Tino got to that point, and when he was trying to give her an answer, she said he was making excuses. There’s a difference between explaining and excusing. I didn’t think Tino was excusing what he did. He repeatedly said he wasn’t. Yet Rachel thought he was. Really, their arguing made my brain hurt last night.
Another thing Tino did that Rachel had an issue with that I really didn’t was him stepping outside a couple times during their argument. What’s wrong with basically taking a deep breath during a middle of a heated argument and saying, “Ok look, I need a few seconds here. Let me step away from this heated situation and gather my thoughts.” Usually you do that because you’re so heated you don’t want to say something that you feel you might regret later on. I had no issue with Tino standing up and leaving a couple times for fear of really saying something stupid and making things worse. It’s not like he walked out on the conversation and never came back. WITH THAT SAID, where Tino messed up was after coming back from taking those breaks, he never really said anything that gave clarity to the situation. It was all very confusing and all over the place what exactly he was trying to say. So yeah, it must’ve been frustrating being on the other end of that if you’re Rachel. I didn’t feel he was gaslighting her or manipulating her. I just felt he was a mess in trying to articulate what he was tryin to say to her and it came across as a jumbled mess that didn’t help anything.
So we can sit and dissect every moment of that taped Happy Couple fight, or even what he said on stage last night live, but what’s the good in that? The bottom line was Tino cheated (no matter how minor he thought it was), and he broke Rachel’s trust. Maybe you agree with Rachel or maybe you agree with Tino, but that’s Rachel’s decision to make and she made it. Didn’t happen to me so I’m not here to tell her what she felt was right or wrong. To her it was wrong, and that should be all that matters. So the social media keyboard warriors attacking her and calling her a psycho, telling Tino to run, calling her bipolar – totally unnecessary and what I hate most about this toxic fan base. They act like they’re all morally superior to all these contestants because we don’t know a thing about these people doing the criticizing. But I guaran-fucking-tee if we opened up and dove into the private lives of these people who always have so much to say, we’d find so many red flags and skeletons, we wouldn’t know what to do with ourselves. You can disagree with Rachel and think she could’ve gotten past him kissing another woman while engaged, but then resorting to name calling because of it? How does that make you better? Gross.
30 minutes before the finale aired, I’d tweeted out that Aven was coming to the ATFR and he was going to ask Rachel out. To me, you can disagree with how Tino approached the argument last night, and be down on Tino for cheating, but I’m sorry, he didn’t deserve to be ambushed up there on stage like that. Send him off stage after he and Rachel basically break up, THEN bring Aven out. To do it like they did, then yet wanna claim they are anti-bullying is so hypocritical. They wanted a TV moment more than they cared for Tino’s well being and you can’t convince me otherwise. It’s bullshit of the show to do, it’s bullshit of Aven to agree to it, and I think if Rachel could take back her reaction and happiness about it all on stage, she would. And I say this because look, if I knew this was coming, don’t you think I’m aware there’s more to this? I’m telling you, that was production putting Aven up to this and him agreeing. I’d be shocked if they even go out on one date or even continue to talk. Rachel was in a bubble last night so she couldn’t have possibly known ahead of time, but hopefully in the next 24-48 hrs talking to friends and family that word will get around Aven was put up to that by production, he agreed to it, and there’s really nothing that’s going to come of any of that. Because they knew everything was gonna be bad for Rachel last night, they wanted to give her somewhat of a glimmer of hope, which is why they did that. Very similar to how they had the planned Tyler Cameron appearance at the end of the Hannah Brown ATFR. It was just to leave people with some semblance of, “Maybe this wasn’t a disaster after all” feel. Sorry. Not buying it. Nor should any of you. Trust me on this one. I’ve been dead on about a lot of things this season. I’m not wrong on this either. So when nothing comes of Rachel and Aven post show, will you THEN believe me?
