-There are many tropes that this show has had over the years. It’s kinda the same shit every season and I like pointing them out. Sometimes I like to take the stance of yelling “Get off my lawn” and say what bugs me about it. We can add a new one to the list. Usually we always see once travel starts, the group of men or women standing somewhere and yelling the leads name in unison, probably waking up the whole neighborhood. Or just annoying the piss out of the locals asking who these drunk screamers are. Now we’ve relegated these women to lining up in the kitchen, toasting each other, and still yelling at the same level as they would outside “Our wish has been granted!” Ummmm, if we’re being technical here, only one of you is getting their wish granted at the end of this season. So lets not get ahead of ourselves.
-The 10 women on the group date are told they will be playing a basketball game. Oh boy. This will go over well. Parisa and Alli Jo I don’t believe even know what a basketball is considering they’ve never played before. They didn’t do a good job of telling us who was on what team, but Jesse made mention of the fact that the purple team had all the taller players. Well, lookie here, the Purple Team won 18-2. If I didn’t know any better, I thought I was watching the Mavericks playing without Luka. Ba-dum-bump, psssshhhhh. Thanks. I’ll be here all week. Be sure to tip your waitress. Lets just say it wasn’t the most competitive game you’ll ever see. If you went out to recess and watched 3rd graders put together a game, you might’ve seen more organization and skills there is all I’m saying.
-It was on this date that Zoe put a giant target on her back. Again, this is something we see every season on this show. Did she do anything wrong? Not really. Because it’s something any of the other 9 women could’ve done during their practice. She pulled Grant aside and said I wanna go talk to you outside. Now, the reasoning for why she did was pretty weak. She said later because the date card said “shoot your shot,” she was just doing what it suggested. Kinda silly because those date cards have the depth and intellect of a kiddie swimming pool. Look, we know why she did it. Because a producer told her to and she went along with it. Devin did the EXACT same thing last season with Jenn during a group date where he literally pulled her aside and took her around the corner away from everyone else and they got ice cream. This pissed every other guy off, just like it did the other women last night.
-Now here’s the thing. I say that any one of those women could’ve done it themselves. However I do wanna make one thing clear. It’s very possible no producer suggested to any of them to do it, or, they didn’t think it was allowed. This is just how the show works. Maybe they knew by having Zoe do it, she’d accept and they knew how it would play out from there. So it’s possible the other women really didn’t have a chance to do that because they didn’t know it was an option. But the show got exactly the response they wanted from it, which is why they did it. Is Zoe the worst person on the planet? No. Does she deserve to be called names on her IG? No. However, within the context of this show, you do something like that, you 100% will isolate yourself from the other women and put a major target on your back. And oh yeah, when you follow that up at the after party by constantly stealing him away, you’re just pouring more salt on the wound.
-Yet again, it was the exact same playbook as Devin and Sam McKinney last season. Devin’s talking to Jenn at an after party, Sam walks in and steals her, Devin comes back in with a dessert tray and steals her back. Wash, rinse, repeat. Except playing the role of Sam McKinney last night was Alli Jo. She steals Grant away from Zoe, but Zoe just sits there maybe 20 feet from them, then steals him right back which couldn’t have been more obvious she was told to do that. I don’t care what Zoe does, but she has to know what she’s doing in all of this. She clearly could’ve gone about it in a different way and waited til every woman had their turn with Grant, but that’s not the “role” she was going to play. It’s all in the perception of the viewer. This is nothing new. We see this EVERY SEASON. Zoe is just the new one to “steal him for a sec,” and that’s gonna set you apart from the rest. It’s whatever at this point. I wouldn’t do what a producer told me to do like she is, but then again, you don’t play the game, you risk going home. But none of us should be remotely surprised by the other women’s reaction to her, and neither should Zoe.
