It’s the second week of the 954th season of The Bachelor, which centers on Peter Weber, who is a pilot. (Did he mention he’s a pilot? And that he’s seeking a co-pilot?) Last week, the show left us on a cliffhanger, with Peter and most recent Bachelorette Hannah Brown weeping and staring longingly at each other’s mouths. This week, that issue was resolved (or rather, “resolved”) in a real damn hurry. But lest we all get distracted and switch on over to Antiques Roadshow, some enthusiastic and/or confused producer on the show made sure to stir up some drama involving a crying woman and an honest-to-god champagne crisis.
Did The Bachelor actually eat food this week?
Surely he must have, at some point. Actually, it’s possible he ate some Reddi Wip and pancake syrup:
There’s a brief shot of the blonde in the black jumpsuit (I think maybe her name is Mykenna; in the early weeks there is precisely zero point in learning anyone’s name) carrying that can and that bottle back into the room. It goes totally unremarked. Did someone eat something off of someone else? Was there a weird dessert-into-gaping-mouth situation? No idea. It’s not a definite yes, but it’s not a definite no, either.
It is a mark of how much drama this episode contained that something involving whipped cream in a can and Aunt Jemima took place, and those forlorn bottles are the only evidence.
What didn’t The Bachelor eat this week?
Bruschetta and grapes
Do these people not know that you shouldn’t drink champagne on an empty stomach? There’s so much champagne drama—so much endless champagne-related drama—that there’s even less food that no one eats on these dates than the average episode of The Bachelor. Peter did not eat any of the very large toasts, nor the green area that seems to be grapes, on the non-canceled portion of his group date:
[Grabs deerstalker cap, puts it on] But someone did!
Breakfast
Some people ate breakfast. Peter was not among them. Not even, like, an airport breakfast sandwich.
Did anyone eat anything at all?
There’s the breakfast, and the missing bruschetta, but again, this is the champagne episode. It is called both a crisis and a scandal in the episode; the internet has already started calling it a -gate. It is also very obviously manufactured. Kelsey leaves that bottle she brought from home (or “brought from home”) just... out there. Then Hannah Ann, who later wears a “sassy hat” that clashes and is not all that sassy, says something about having been instructed to pour champagne, and she “accidentally” heads for the wrong one.
To be clear, I used those quotation marks not because I think Hannah Ann was particularly dastardly, but because I would bet money that some producer pointed her right at that champagne bottle (she says the name “Trish” or something similar). And you know what? It was the smart thing to do, reality-TV-wise. Here are but two of the wordless reactions to champagne-gate from other contestants. There’s this gem:
Multiple stages of shock and awe! Then there’s this masterpiece:
Kelsey was very mad and cried a lot; Hannah Ann kept the drama rolling the next day. But what really matters is this: Peter tried to make it up to Kelsey by opening another bottle of champagne, and this happened. Please, please hit play.
That, friends, is a champagne novice. Perhaps if she’d opened that bottle to drink at home she’d know enough not to get a full tot of bubbly right up the sniffer.
Who most deserves a plate full of macaroni and cheese or a huge piece of cake or something?
Sure, Victoria F.’s whole schtick may seem a little exaggerated (“I’m meek and shy,” says the woman who last week introduced herself to the world with a joke about the self-lubrication of delicate areas of the body) but no one likes to feel as though they don’t belong and aren’t seen by the people they admire. She, too, deserves some champagne.
Next week: Champagne-gate, week 2. If there’s any divine power out there, let someone have to push a broken cork through the neck of a bottle of wine and then show them fishing the bits out.