Katie meets some of the parents in an extremely dramatic Bachelorette “Hometowns”
Greg: Broken-hearted hero or evil gaslighting monster?
TV Reviews Katie
Heads-up, y’all: I am coming to you live from Long Beach, Indiana, where I am holed up in a beachhouse with my 14-year-old daughter and four of her friends. So I have a few helpers watching The Bachelorette with me this week, the kind that groan in pain whenever there’s kissing (and obviously, there was a lot of kissing this episode).
Young teens being teens, they had lots to say about Katie’s three contestants, even as I tried to explain the overall concept of The Bachelorette (“Does she kiss the other guys like that?” one wanted to know as Katie and Blake made out numerous times on their Canadian date). The girls’ introductory thoughts: Blake “looks like a brick” and Greg “doesn’t look as much like a brick.” But this was a really rough episode for an introduction into The Bachelorette. It’s funny, at the beginning we were all kind of making fun of it, and by the end all six of us were riveted, hanging on the edge of the beach house sectional and screaming at the TV. (“Don’t break Greg,” said one of my daughter’s friends. “I hate her!”)
I am torn. I feel like if Greg had just trusted Katie? She basically said everything she could possibly say without blowing the ending. On the other hand, like she said, the process isn’t easy for her either, and it was wrong of him to try to force her into a place in the relationship that she wasn’t ready to be in. She didn’t want to say “love” while she was dating multiple people, and she stuck to that.
So let’s ask the panel. Don’t know if it was his Teen Beat good looks, but all my co-watchers were on Greg’s side. They zeroed in on the moment when Greg poured out his heart to Katie and she replied with, “I just love looking at you.” Sample comments: “She was giving him absolutely nothing,” “She was keeping it surface level,” “They were on different levels in emotional vulnerability.” (Kids these days.) You could see Greg frantically try to grasp for some semblance of normalcy in a relationship that started in the most unnatural way possible. When Katie called him her “number one,” he was obviously frustrated that she was still using Bachelorette terminology to define something he wanted to take to the real world, where roses are just a flower. I think she did seem removed, but probably due to contractual reasons, because she’s not allowed to come out and say, “It’s going to be you.”
But… if Greg couldn’t just hang on for one more week after all these weeks? That relationship went from storybook to a dumpster fire in a shockingly short amount of time. You’re having a fight on national television—which is not normal times! Let her give you the final rose and you can work it out afterward. But since they were already so at emotional odds at this point in the game, it’s probably good that they broke up. We do not want to sentence Katie to a life of fights with Greg where he gets mad at her because she didn’t say what he considered to be the right thing. During their second talk outside, when she was on her knees and he was still saying that he deserved more, even my local fan club started to turn on him: “He shouldn’t have said that.”
It was still sad, though, and incredibly emotional. The girls and I were riveted, even as we realized that we were basically looking at a bathroom door and ugly carpet for about 15 minutes, which is a credit to this show. And thank god Kaitlyn was there instead of Chris frickin’ Harrison, someone who has gone through what Katie’s been through and was able to be there for her. You gotta wonder, though: Katie was one of the strongest Bachelorettes we’d seen in a while and her group of guys (with a few exceptions) was pretty stellar. So if that combo can’t make it, or wind up with an actual love story, like Katie despaired, isn’t it all just for nothing anyway?
Stray observations
- More commentary: “Wow. Seven knocks.”
- Also: “She says the same thing about every guy.”
- My insightful daughter with about 50 minutes left to go: “There’s no way these 50 minutes end well.” I mean, with me as a mom, she has watched a lot (probably too much) TV.
- Props to Blake’s intense mom in the leather pants. Also to his sister for calling him out as a serial Bachelorette dater.
- Justin’s mom bringing the logic over the phone: “I’m not quarantining for two weeks to make small talk for a few hours.” Have any other contestants had parents who refused to participate in Hometowns? I feel like once Justin’s parents didn’t show up, that was a flag. Not blaming them, I totally get it, but it was not a great sign for the relationship. I like Justin, especially his reactions, but it’s so surprising that he’s made it to the top three. Well, two, now.
- Also, how is there a man under 70 named Herb?
- But: “Okay, guys, who do we like best overall?” “…We like Herb.”
- The teens also found the Silhouette commercial to be hilarious.
- Pro tip: Just don’t ever wear (breakup) blue on this show.
- Man, Greg even got an in memoriam montage. That rain scene was brutal.
- I hate talking about grades on here, but I honestly had no idea how to grade this episode. Went with B+ for the high dramatic factor, which was excellent.
- Next week: Big Finale! I think the girls are too disillusioned to join me.
11 Comments
The end of the episode really turned me against Greg. He was being totally unfair to Katie; clearly he had checked out, and was looking for an excuse. He knew he was on a show where the lead dates multiple people, and it’s ridiculous that he couldn’t go along with it. I’m now pissed at him for hurting Katie.
I disagree. He made it clear that he understood what he’d signed up for—yes, it was difficult for him that she was dating multiple people, but that’s not what upset him. It was that he really did pour his heart out and was more vulnerable with her than he’d been before, with anyone (supposedly), and she kinda brushed it off and talked to him in “game speak”. He knows it’s a game! But he needed her to level with him as a human and partner within that game. Once she didn’t do that both during the night portion of their date, then again when he came to her room, it was over.I don’t think Katie is a bad person. She’s emotionally intelligent and a great Bachelorette. This was uncharacteristic of her, honestly. Maybe the stress of hometowns was getting to her, and she short-circuited into only communicating in game speak. But she definitely botched this.
As a follow up, and after further reflection (this was an incredibly riveting piece of television), I’ll add some caveats:- It’s reality tv, it’s partially scripted/manipulated by producers, and we didn’t see the entirety of their argument, let alone their entire relationship, so all of this is conjecture based on what we did see.
– In line with the above point, it’s definitely possible that Greg was just acting. (Acting really well.) The cynic in me could definitely believe that, but for whatever reason this felt real?
– I’m sympathetic to Greg in this fight, although he was definitely lashing out at Katie at times during it, but in the end, I think it was also evidence that he wasn’t ready for marriage. She filled the hole in his heart left by his dad’s death: that is both very touching and also unsustainable. He needs to fill that hole for himself. You can’t rely on another person to fix you! Greg bared his soul, got a shallow response/not the response he was looking for (Katie to end the game and go home with him), started spiraling and retreated inside himself. He was hurting, and when people are hurting they’re not always the most articulate, but relationships also require us to navigate fights and work through them with trust, patience, and care. He couldn’t do it. He just shut down. So although Katie erred in her initial response, Greg also didn’t handle it well.
(also since Katie didn’t end the game to be with him, clearly he wasn’t head-and-shoulders above the other men)
Katie was bad in that moment. “I love looking at you”? Come on, that definitely sucked. But Greg used that one shitty moment to have an excuse to be an asshole. There was nothing she could have said to him to make up for one bad response. If they did stay together I guarantee you he’d be bringing up that moment ten years into marriage.
He’s a manipulative Manbaby.He kept telling her to be Katie. WTF does that even mean? There was nothing that would’ve satisfied him. She could’ve said she’d leave right now, and I bet he’d have said it was too late. She’d already ruined everything and he was out.She dodged a bullet, cause it would’ve been the first of many conversations with him crying about how she wasn’t giving him something he couldn’t articulate, and it was all her fault their relationship wasn’t working.
He panicked. D-Day fast approaches and he’s not that into a commitment. So he played the “It’s not me, it’s you” card.I can’t see her with any of them. Still.
Andrew was the best bet, really. Or Michael A. if he could have stayed a few more weeks.
If there’s an episode where everyone on the show gets run over by a bus in slo-mo, or has their face eaten by leopards, I would be interested.
So many people on Twitter referred to Greg as “gaslighting” Katie and I’m like…how? Call him a douchebag or mean all you want, but gaslighting is such a specific form of repeated emotional abuse, it’s not just anytime anyone in a relationship says hurtful things or disagrees with their partner. If you’re going to call him a gaslighter, be specific about how he’s gaslighting Katie otherwise you’re just diluting the term to the point of meaninglessness. I really haven’t been a fan of Katie or Greg (or this season in general) so I ended up seeing both of their sides in the fight, but my main takeaway was that Greg needs major therapy to address lingering issues. When his best friend told Katie they’ve never talked about his father’s death, that was concerning to me, and when his big romantic speech to Katie was all about how she’s filling a hole in his heart left by the death of his father that was…even more concerning. I think given how he clearly hasn’t moved on from his dad’s death, how production on this show has pushed him to talk about it, and how he seems to see this relationship as a band-aid for his grief, it’s not really surprising that he blew up when Katie didn’t give him the affirmation he need at that moment.
Wife and I were on Greg’s side immediately post-confession. She was being creepily superficial, and it reminded me of how she comported herself during the Men Tell All (you could tell she was trying to make sure she said the right thing every time.) Which is completely her right, there’s probably immense pressure to stick the landing for your season and give at least the appearance of fairness. But “I just love looking at you?” is not the kind of response most people want to hear after they’ve seemingly bared their soul to you. So we understood why Greg was upset that night…Up until the end when Katie was crying at his feet, practically admitting that he was her pick, and he still didn’t budge from his position that she was being fake. He wanted to be mad, and it wasn’t fair to Katie to leave her like that.It seems to me that he panicked. One of two reasons: Fantasy suites are coming up and jealousy caused him to react defensively. He’s like, if we’re doing this, we’re doing this now, but Katie can’t be “realer” than she was being at the end by virtue of the show. Or he just wasn’t as into the thought of proposing someone he barely knows and who couldn’t promise him a real commitment when he needed it. Either way, he ultimately handled that as badly as Katie did the night before.I don’t like any of these three, and I hope it ends without an engagement. Katie deserves a better end-game. Not an inevitable breakup. -Greg, ehh. I cared more when he was hanging out with Connor. Been weirded out by their relationship since Katie said he looks like her ex.
-Justin…yeah, dude, sorry, I have no idea why you’re still around. I feel for you. Maybe Paradise will give you a chance to shine.
-Blake, ehhhh. I mean, the hockey was cute, Katie dressed appropriately ‘90s for meeting his Canadian family (his mom’s outfit was wild), and Blake and Katie sure do love being handsy with each other. But his sister had a point: this is Bachelorette number three that Blake’s apparently “madly” in love with, but I haven’t seen you two spend a genuine moment of real-ness with each other since the beginning.I mean, Andrew might not have been my pick for end-game with Katie (he’s Bachelor material, bayyybeee), but I would never have skipped over his “hometown” segment. I would have never doubted their chemistry, y’know? Michael A. and Katie feel like two ships passing in the night at this point, and it just made their whole thing more romantic for me. Even though they probably weren’t at the same place in life, and Katie was kinda cold-blooded during the Men Tell All. Also, the in-memoriam montage for Greg and Katie was one of the funniest things the producers have ever done.
Blake’s mother dressed up like Jon Bon Jovi and there’s no other way to put that accurately.