The Bachelor franchise is something I love to hate and hate to love. No matter what I have going on in my life, you can bet on the fact that I will be in front of a TV tuned into ABC at 8 PM sharp every Monday.
This season stars Peter Weber, a 28-year-old pilot who made it to the final three in Hannah Brown’s season of The Bachelorette before getting his heart broken when sent home after their infamous night in the windmill.
The first two episodes of the season have already brought us so much drama: from the return of Hannah Brown to #ChampagneGate, it seems like Chris Harrison might actually be right about this being the “most dramatic season of The Bachelor yet.”
This week’s episode begins with a one-on-one date between Peter and Victoria P. (despite no one having any memory of her receiving a date card? OK.) They do some cute yeehaw-themed activities and Victoria opens up about her dad dying when she was young and her mother’s struggle with addiction soon after. Of course, Peter told her how deserving of happiness she was and gave her the date rose.
Back at the mansion, Kelsey and Hannah Ann are still trying to resolve the mess that was #ChampagneGate. Hannah Ann repeatedly exclaims that she “isn’t a champagne stealer!” and Kelsey said the issue wasn’t actually about the champagne. And then she says she doesn’t even like champagne. WHAT WAS THE POINT?!
Elsewhere in the mansion, we learn about some women who haven’t gotten any spotlight yet. Alayah, a former pageant girl, is yelling drunkenly in the kitchen as the next date card arrives. Sydney states that she can tell Alayah is fake. Very coincidentally, they are both going on the next group date, which involves pillow fighting to “relieve tension” in the house, which looked very similar to the following:
Conveniently, Alayah and Sydney are chosen to fight each other, and Alayah emerges victorious. Sydney is quite obviously upset and, as soon as Alayah is back from her chat with Peter, the two women have a chat themselves in which Sydney continues to call Alayah fake, just to her face this time. She expresses this concern to Peter as well, who exposes what she said in front of all of the ladies on the group date. Talk about awkward.
For some reason, Peter gives the group date rose to Sydney, leaving Alayah pretty upset. To make matters worse for her, multiple women come to Peter and share that Alayah does indeed act differently on camera versus off. Alayah temporarily remedies the situation by going to Peter directly and convincing him that she is actually here for the right reasons. Everything seems to be going well for her, until Victoria P. pulls Peter aside to let him know that Alayah had asked her not to tell producers that they knew one another before the show and that Alayah seemed very excited about all of the opportunities that one gets from being on the show.
Peter confronts Alayah and she explains that she was worried that her and Victoria would be “disqualified” if producers found out they knew one another (as if Hannah and Caelynn weren’t relevant members of Colton’s season?). Peter doesn’t seem convinced and decides to send her home during the rose ceremony. However, right after the ceremony, Peter tells a producer that he doesn’t feel like he made the right decision sending Alayah home.