The real fun of the evening comes when Amy Schumer brings Kaitlyn and the boys in for comedy 101. She’s way funnier than I am. I wish I could just quote her version of events but that would take too long.
Amy is a big fan of The Bachelor franchise and of Kaitlyn. Kaitlyn is her favorite contestant to ever appear on the show which is not surprising given their shared sense of humor.
In an ITM, J.J. says he’s always wanted to be a standup comedian. Well, at least that would be A job. I have a feeling J.J. is going to tank. Actually, they all probably are.
Amy to the guys after hearing their first attempt at humor: “You’re gonna be great.”
Amy in her ITM: “This is gonna be a massacre.”
There’s a lot that goes on during the guys’ prep to take the stage but the best part is what transpires between Amy and J.J. He tells her the pickup line he uses at bars which he thinks is hilarious: “Hi, I’m J.J. I’m divorced, I have a kid, and I live with my parents.”
Amy’s brows furrow: “Is that true?”
J.J.: “It’s totally true.”
J.J. somehow manages to miss Amy’s priceless expression, a combination of shock, disgust, and pity for Kaitlyn. The dude is oblivious to what a tool he is and he’s going to get even douchier by the end of the episode.
J.J. continues, worried: “I feel like I’m too smart for like 90% of the audience. They won’t get me.”
Amy: “I just want to make you feel better. You aren’t.”
The joke flies completely over his head.
Amy in an ITM: “J.J.’s a sweetheart. He’s just missing charisma, humility, and a sense of humor but other than that I think you should definitely hire him to be the next bachelor.”
Can Amy be on every episode?
Now it’s time for the guys to perform.
Ian’s first up to bat. He looks like the hot guy from the Old Spice commercials so he makes a joke something to the effect of, “You’re probably wondering why the guy from the Old Spice commercials is up here talking to you. I don’t make any money off the commercials. I just have a lifetime supply of it because I sweat like Juan Pablo at the Women Tell All.”
Everyone in the audience laughs which means they’re all Bachelor fans and again, all women. Because you won’t get that joke if you don’t watch the show. It was a decent joke and I hate to be a wet blanket, but I very much doubt Juan Pablo emitted an ounce of liquid from his pores at the WTA. He didn’t give enough of a sh*t.
Joshua tells a respectable welder joke.
Chris, “cupcake”, manages to be the funniest of all despite claiming not to be, though his nerves are obvious.
Tony is up next. Here’s where the train skips the tracks, sparks fly, there’s a catastrophic explosion, and when all is said and done, there’s a deafening, awkward silence. I don’t think Tony knows what a joke is. Instead of a comedy routine, he treats the audience to a monologue about who he is, something about love and the universe, and how blessed he feels to have this opportunity. It goes on so long that women in the audience are literally giving him the signal to wrap it up.
J.J. comes up next and uses the opportunity to poke Tony some more. He’s unimpressive as a comedian. Either that or I’m one of the 90% who isn’t smart enough to get his humor.
Kaitlyn and the guys transition to another posh location and Kaitlyn sits down with some of the guys. We find out Joshua has never been in love before (this doesn’t bode well though Kaitlyn is all smiles for the camera. He will be on the show a while but he will not make final 4).
And then we get to see Tony again. He sits down with Kaitlyn and he tells her that he voted for Britt but now it’s like “the switch has totally been flipped” since he spent time with her. When did he spend this alleged time with her? I can’t recall him speaking more than a couple of sentences to her until now. He tells her that Britt wore her heart on her sleeve but Kaitlyn’s like a combination lock. You can’t just unlock her with a key. You’ve got to twirl the dial this way and that (he uses accompanying hand gestures) until you unlock her and then it’s just pure gold.
I don’t think Kaitlyn got a single word in the conversation. She said “Mm… hmm” a lot and nodded a lot but her face said, “Can I get a razor? I need to slit my wrists.”
Meanwhile back at the mansion, we see the guys not on the date f*cking with Justin. They’re all standing around the kitchen counter talking when they hear knocking. Justin runs to the door but no one’s there. The guys then take turns knocking on the base of the counter out of his eye line and Justin gets fed up and goes and searches the entire property looking for the prankster. The guys in kitchen crack up. So we know Justin’s not the sharpest tool in the shed. He’s out. My final 4 list is shrinking.
Back on the date, J.J. and Kaitlyn sit down and he talks about his daughter again. This is a huge turn-on to Kaitlyn for some unknown reason. I doubt she’ll have the same reaction to his lack of employment and housing. But ignorance is bliss and J.J. gets a kiss. Though it’s never a good sign when a girl says, “I’m glad you did that,” after you kiss her. However, given the poor showing by most of the guys on the date, the only person Kaitlyn can reasonably give the rose to is J.J.
His reaction in his ITM? “Knowing I have a rose ceremony tomorrow where I just get to watch everybody suffer and stress out. I love it.” You, sir, are a douche.
Oh, but it gets worse at the cocktail party the next night. Shawn, Ryan, and Cory didn’t get dates this week so all the guys agree to let them get some one-on-one time with Kaitlyn before anyone else does. As soon as Kaitlyn walks in the door, J.J. steals her for some alone time which pisses off all the other guys. And our Bachelorette 2015 villain is: J.J.
His next ITM leaves no doubt: “More than anything right now, I’m feeling smugness wrapped inside of cockiness wrapped inside of confidence…”
I bet he’s going to cry like a little girl when he gets sent home. That will be fun for me.
Ian and Kaitlyn finally get some decent alone time and he tells her about his accident. Ian gets the kiss he’s been practically foaming at the mouth for since before he even got out of the limo. Kaitlyn is definitely feeling it with him but I still see it falling apart once he questions her morality with regard to making out with all the guys on the show in a few weeks.
All the guys seem to be talking about J.J. No one is happy with him. Kupah says, “I think J.J. might be a bit of an enabler.” Um… Kupah. I think the word you were probably looking for is “instigator”. Pro tip: Don’t use words you don’t know the meaning of.
More happened at the cocktail party but it all really pales in comparison to what goes down between Kaitlyn and Kupah.
Kupah is concerned about why he’s still on the show. He barely spoke to Kaitlyn the first night yet somehow he survived the rose ceremony. He’s beginning to suspect he’s just another token black guy on the show. Kupah, I feel for you. I truly do. This show is discriminatory and I don’t condone it but you ARE just another token black guy on the show and if you had watched the show before you went on it, you would have known that’s what your role would be.
Still, I have to admire Kupah’s courage to address the ugly truth on camera: “I don’t want to be here if I’m just the guy who’s going to fill the minority quota.”
Kaitlyn and Kupah talk. He brings up the minority issue. She’s pissed. I think she doesn’t fully understand where he’s coming from and feels like he’s calling her a racist and accusing her of keeping him around because he’s black. That is one of the reasons she kept him around but it really wasn’t her decision. It was production’s. The irony of this situation is that I think Kaitlyn might be the first Bachelorette in the history of the show who would take a black man seriously as a potential husband.
But while Kaitlyn is clearly upset, she doesn’t seem to realize that she’s having a real conversation with someone about a real issue that he has a right to be concerned about. And instead of seeing it that way, she perceives it as an attack. Kupah, on the other hand, sees it as the first real spark of a connection between the two of them which it is. They’re being honest. Kupah thinks she’s been ignoring him. Kaitlyn thinks he’s been ignoring her. And they’re getting it out in the open.
An honest conversation to clear the air is not the end of something which Kaitlyn perceives it to be, it’s the beginning. And now that the air is being cleared, Kupah sees a way forward and now wants a chance with her. Kaitlyn now feels the opposite. She no longer feels a connection because of the tense situation.
I don’t think Kupah is right for Kaitlyn but I do think he unmasked a character flaw in her. She has trouble opening up which may include not being able to view honest conversations where people reveal negative feelings as anything other than “arguments”. Newsflash, Kaitlyn: If you want to get married, you’re going to have to get used to having negative feelings toward your spouse and him having negative feelings toward you and if you want it to work, you’re going to have to talk about it and resolve whatever issues come up. That’s love.
The conversation between Kupah and Kaitlyn was downright lighthearted compared to some of the hard conversations I’ve had to have in my time.
Kaitlyn tells Kupah she needs some time to think about whether to continue on with him but her thinking spot ends up being within earshot of Kupah talking to the other guys about the conversation he just had with Kaitlyn. He doesn’t embellish but for some reason, Kaitlyn gets offended that he’s telling the other guys what went down between them. She comes around the corner like an angry goddess and says to him, “Your voice sure isn’t quiet.”
She takes him into the house and tells him she has to let him go. He protests but she knows what she wants and for this, I respect her. I may not think she handled the conversation between them well but she knew what she wanted and when confronted with what she didn’t want, she didn’t hesitate to send the offender packing post haste.
I admire the fire and strength I saw in her in that moment and I’m just glad she’s the Bachelorette because Britt just doesn’t have the fortitude required to wrangle 25 guys. Kaitlyn clearly does.
Next, Kupah is supposed to have his ITM where he says his goodbyes but he fights production. “Just ask me the stupid questions so I can get out of here. I’m upset I got sent home. I wish things could have been different. Are you happy?” That’s not exactly what he said but you get the gist of it. He was being flippant about giving them the traditional answers they wanted.
Inside the house, Kaitlyn is filming her ITM when she overhears the commotion outside.
Cut back to Kupah: “I think this process works for some people like Jared and …” read: white people. He continues, “But I’m not part of this.” Read: “I’m black and I was never going to get a fair shot on this show so f*ck off for wasting my time.”
Kaitlyn gets scared something is going to happen so she leaves her ITM to go do something. What she feels she needs to do at this point is beyond me. He’s production’s problem now. The screen cuts to black and once again says, “To be continued.”
So once again no rose ceremony and ABC tries to leave us hanging on the edge of our seats with the threat of an angry black man on the loose in the Bachelorette pad. I’m sure ABC would have loved this to turn into the Baltimore riots but Kupah, whatever he lacks as a suitor, is just a man who is angry that he didn’t get a fair shot because of the color of his skin. And he has a right to be. But nothing about his demeanor struck me as dangerous. Ryan M., the drunken asshole from the first night, he was far more terrifying. He seemed ready to punch someone.
Kupah just seems like he wants to get the hell out of there and get a little jab in at ABC for f*cking with him. He’s not going to riot or loot or hit anyone. But, Jesus, show white bread America an angry black man and they’ll fear the worst.
ABC can go f*ck itself for being both racist in its casting of this show and in using it to their advantage when someone has the balls to call them on it.
At the tail of the show, we see Brady and Britt after having spent a week together, which is actually probably more time than Kaitlyn will get to spend with the guy she picks to be her husband. They’re an item. That was shot in March. It’s almost June. Think they’re still together?
Here are my picks for final 4 (4 of these 5 I think will be the final guys):
- Ben H.
- Ben Z.
- Chris
- Clint
- Shawn B.
See you next week!
Great re-cap. The race card was not only played, it was made impossible to ignore. Very bold of Kupah to bring up the minority issue, and the re-cap acknowledges it with spot-on sensitivity. Amy Schumer is always a delight, and I enjoyed the new “tool shed” nickname. Well done.
Touche. Solid arguments. Keep up the good spirit.
Keep on writing, great job!