A. Холостяк #24 Peter Weber

barish

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“The only thing that was ever wrong with me was my belief that something was wrong with me.” (c)

barish

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“The only thing that was ever wrong with me was my belief that something was wrong with me.” (c)

barish

Бедная Тамми!

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“The only thing that was ever wrong with me was my belief that something was wrong with me.” (c)

barish

Интересные там были зрители!

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“The only thing that was ever wrong with me was my belief that something was wrong with me.” (c)

barish

Back to Sharleen:
In the evening, the torch is officially passed from Champagne-gate over to Alayah-is-”fake”-gate as Sydney uses her 1-on-1 time with Peter to vent about another woman in the house. Remember, this is only the second week of filming—a Bachelor week is typically 4-5 days, making it about a week and a half max of filming. It’s the second Group date Sydney’s been on, making it the third or fourth bit of 1-on-1 time between her and Peter (each of which tends to be somewhere between 10 and 20 minutes). She hasn’t had a 1-on-1 date. Trust me when I say Sydney and Peter are still VERY MUCH in the getting-to-know-you phase. Are they really close enough for her to be “warning” him about other women, in WEEK TWO? The show hasn’t even left Los Angeles yet!

Last season was the first time I felt there was developing a habit of contestants running and tattling to their Bachelor (Colton) over every little interpersonal tiff. Sadly, it would appear that trend has bled over into this season. It’s par for the course that all the ladies aren’t going to get along (I mentioned over at Flare how perfectly primed they are to be irritated by every little thing), but by mentioning their grievances (or even hinting at them, à la Sydney) to Peter, it becomes blown out of proportion, both in terms of his reaction and overall screen time.

At least with Colton’s women, the Onyeka-vs-Nicole tattling didn’t begin until Thailand, in Episode 5. The tone was less to do with anyone “warning” Colton and had everything to do with the women rubbing each other wrong and tensions being higher. Tayshia was the season’s “warner”, when she warned Colton about Cassie and Caelynn. But that was nearing Hometowns, they had all had 1-on-1 dates at that point, and she had lived with both women for far longer, long enough to have at least a semi-educated opinion on them as people. (Oh, remember how much good that “warning” did? That is a prime example of why no one should EVER “warn” the lead about anyone. Nothing was going to stop Colton from picking Cassie.) I didn’t even condone that tattle sesh, but it at least had FAR better legs than Sydney’s.

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“The only thing that was ever wrong with me was my belief that something was wrong with me.” (c)

barish

Back to the Group Date: because Peter is even less calm in the face of rumors and drama than Colton was, he does the WORST THING EVER by putting Sydney on the spot IN FRONT OF THE OTHER WOMEN and asking her to name names. WOW, this was terrible. In what world is this an OK thing to do?! He’s betraying Sydney’s trust by revealing what she revealed to him, AND he’s outing her as the girl who talks shit about others to him. SHE is the one that has to go back and live with these women, not him! I found this an insanely callous, short-sighted, and incredibly SELFISH thing to do. It prioritizes his wants and needs over others’, especially Sydney’s, but also for ALL the women; it needlessly hurts Alayah’s feelings (when he could have just done his own fucking research!) AND makes every woman there sit around WAY longer—IN THE COLD. Hell, it was cold enough for Peter to COMMENT on it and even accept a blanket…

Just imagine sitting out there in a cocktail dress for SEVERAL hours, waiting for the Bachelor to have his 1-on-1 time with every woman there. Peter just went through this last season; it’s not like he wasn’t aware of this in the back of his mind. Ooooh it grinds my gears so bad just thinking about this, about how selfish this was of him. Could he really not sleep that night if he didn’t know BY NAME the woman Sydney was talking about? Does he trust his own instinct so little?
If I were Sydney, I would be unbelievably turned off by this. He couldn’t even pull her aside to ask? I would blame this on producers but countless Bachelors and Bachelorettes of seasons past have pulled contestants aside to ask them to name names. Production is no excuse in this situation. This was one of the shittiest things I’ve ever seen a lead do.

__________________
“The only thing that was ever wrong with me was my belief that something was wrong with me.” (c)

barish

I’m getting worked up so to cool down, I’ll close this “date” with a moment that made me laugh out loud, and that’s Peter’s reaction when Alayah begins to cry…

The face of a man who’s in WAY over his head.

__________________
“The only thing that was ever wrong with me was my belief that something was wrong with me.” (c)

barish

__________________
“The only thing that was ever wrong with me was my belief that something was wrong with me.” (c)

barish

Сидней ест ложечкой авакадо на кухне...

__________________
“The only thing that was ever wrong with me was my belief that something was wrong with me.” (c)

barish

THE FIRST POOL PARTY ANY EPISODE 3 HAS EVER SEEN

Wow, this looked like a mega fun pool party. The women got to sit around the same space they sit around all day, every day while their gallant boyfriend ran around trying to get to the bottom of trash talk. (If you can’t tell, I feel really bad for Peter’s cast of women.) Peter would end up not chatting with 8 WOMEN, and is it just me or did he not even GET IN THE POOL? We didn’t even get the usual shots of a game of chicken! The pool party of a lifetime.
First things first. Peter pulls Sydney aside and (RIGHTFULLY) apologizes for putting her on the spot during the Group Date. She’s shockingly forgiving (likely thanks to the potent combination of a Group Date Rose + the ever-looming power inequality) and proceeds to tell Peter to not only listen to her, but to trust his gut….

Peter, being the self-assured, confident, gut-instinct-following man he is, proceeds to poll every woman he talks to about Alayah and her authenticity. This is where I felt we got a glimpse into which woman is most likely rooming with whom. Kelsey, Natasha, and Lexi were the three uninvolved women willing to throw Alayah under the bus. We know Alayah is friends with Hannah Ann, who is not friends with Kelsey. We saw Sydney venting to Natasha last week when the Group Date was cancelled. We haven’t seen much from Lexi but I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s in the same friend group. And trust me when I say that in these early stages, a HUGE factor in what friend group you’re in has to do with what room you’re in. You do the majority of your venting after hours, when the cameras are gone and producers aren’t around. That’s when the lights are out and you’re in your bunks. Trust me when I say that’s when the early season bonding happens.

__________________
“The only thing that was ever wrong with me was my belief that something was wrong with me.” (c)

barish

The big thing to happen during this “pool party”: Victoria P tells Peter that Alayah had told her not to tell producers that they already knew each other. (That sentence makes me dizzy.) And this is where things start heating up.
Just to be crystal clear, we know Alayah was Miss Texas 2019 and Victoria P was Miss Louisiana 2019. So right off the bat, things are fishy. Even if they’re not close, it’s a given they would know each other at least peripherally. So I found this odd to say the least. I’ll circle back to that.

Peter, being the man who can marinate with information for awhile and is conscious of not making his women sit around even more than they already have, proceeds to pull Alayah aside for their second chat. (PS, the first chat—the one where he trusted his gut and just chatted with her—went great.)
There’s a VERY telling audio detail here, and it was sneaky as hell. Watch Peter approach the women…

Give that moment a listen…

__________________
“The only thing that was ever wrong with me was my belief that something was wrong with me.” (c)

barish

Now, remember when Lexi told Peter that when a camera’s around, Alayah’s voice will go up “5 octaves”? We see the following clip for “reference”…

First, notice how a camera is around from beginning to end in the above clip. Just for accuracy’s sake, I want to point out that Alayah’s voice going up has nothing to do with a camera. She is simply chatting with the bartender about spicy margaritas and then greeting a friend who touches her elbow. If anything, the clip makes me appreciate that Alayah is kind and friendly with the bartender, but suffice to say it’s a benign clip. What’s more important is that you listen to it: Audio 2
As you can tell, the “Hiii!” is the exact same clip, taken from the above moment and inserted where Peter joins the women two .GIFs back. This is our first clue that production is out to screw over Alayah big time. It’s subtle, but they’re clearly encouraging the narrative that Alayah’s voice DOES transform depending on Peter and the cameras, that she IS fake, she IS annoying, she IS manipulative, she is all the things Sydney claimed she was.

__________________
“The only thing that was ever wrong with me was my belief that something was wrong with me.” (c)

barish

This is where things get interesting. Peter asks Alayah point blank about what Victoria P told him. Note Alayah’s reaction and her immediate answer…

Depending on how you watch the above, Alayah’s expression could reflect either confusion or being “caught”. But based on what she says and what’s to come, I am 100% sure it is confusion. She doesn’t UNDERSTAND what Peter means because she knows Victoria, she knows that it would be known that she knows Victoria, and she’s simply trying to piece together what the accusation even is.

__________________
“The only thing that was ever wrong with me was my belief that something was wrong with me.” (c)

barish

She goes on the explain what she was trying to cover up…

Now things are getting VERY interesting. I spoke in my Flare recap about the lengths producers go to to make sure you don’t meet each other beforehand. Obviously, if you’re going to cast two women from the same year of Miss USA, that can’t be avoided. But if those two women don’t KNOW the other is doing it, it’s safer. Giving the producers the on-screen “shock value” of Alayah and Victoria P realizing they’re both there has a lot of value, after all. Alayah didn’t want to jeopardize her or Victoria P’s chances of getting cast, so she tried to maintain that bit of mystery to appeal to production, to increase the women’s value as potential contestants: the facade that they might be shocked to see each other there.

__________________
“The only thing that was ever wrong with me was my belief that something was wrong with me.” (c)

barish

Peter misses this disparity entirely, focusing on the fact that there was a facade after all rather than a) how it’s different than the accusation, and b) how incredibly minor it is. Notice how, despite Alayah’s above explanation, he resumes talking as though he hasn’t heard a thing and the crime is one and the same. Also note Alayah’s immediate correction…

To me it is obvious Alayah is telling the truth. Why do I believe her? Because her attempted lie actually makes sense. It makes SENSE to feign ignorance, to pretend not to know what one of 49 other beauty queens is doing. Is she totally, 100% innocent? No. But if she really wanted to lie she’d say Victoria P was wrong and that she’d never tried anything fishy. She not only admits to her crime, but does so without hesitation and with consistency and specificity. Yes, she tried to pull one over on producers (a major no-no). But there is a HUGE difference between pretending you don’t know someone entirely and behaving like you have no history, versus pretending you didn’t know they’d be there. One is a big, long-term act, the other is just a moment’s reaction. The difference is subtle but distinct, and in my opinion the former is WAY worse than the other.
Why would Victoria P tell Peter what she did? I don’t know. Perhaps she misunderstood what Alayah was asking of her, or perhaps a producer confused her into thinking that’s what Alayah asked of her. (I wouldn’t put it past them.) It simply does not make sense that Alayah would try to pretend she didn’t know Victoria P. Remember, it’s not like this is our first pair of Miss USA hopefuls. We knew the second we saw Caelynn and Hannah B’s “occupations” (their pageant titles) that they would know each other. Given Alayah and Victoria P’s pageant history, it is publicly COMMON KNOWLEDGE that they would know each other. In fact, I am so suspicious of this whole affair that I wouldn’t be surprised if the ladies’ occupations of “Orthodontic Assistant” and “Nurse” purposely replaced their pageant titles, just to build to this scene. Having a beauty queen in the cast is normally something production would be quick to make as public as possible—why leave us to find that out in a strange, under-the-radar way unless it were useful, unless it lent itself to some specific narrative?
It would seem Alayah’s blunder wasn’t in trying to pretend she didn’t know Victoria P was doing the show, but in attempting to outsmart production. Producers do NOT look upon this lightly, as evidenced by how aggressively they’re painting Alayah the villain. Let’s be clear: the mistake is in getting caught. No doubt have countless contestants pulled a Jed and come on with a boyfriend/girlfriend in the background. But get caught and you WILL be punished on national television.

__________________
“The only thing that was ever wrong with me was my belief that something was wrong with me.” (c)

barish

I cannot stress enough how disappointed I was in how Peter handled things in this episode. It bugged me that he couldn’t take Sydney’s words about nameless “fake” women for the vent sesh that it was. I HATED that he put Sydney on the spot and asked her to name names IN FRONT OF EVERYONE. I loathed how he insinuated a woman being “fake” could somehow be Jed-esque; this wasn’t about Alayah pretending to be single when she wasn’t. (In fact, Alayah’s attempted lie didn’t even have anything to do with her connection to Peter at all, so what does it matter?) Note how very different Peter’s actions have been than Hannah’s “stay in your lane” motto: Peter is encouraging his women to do just the opposite, which speaks volumes about his ability to read the women, or at least his confidence in his ability to read them. Hannah’s “stay in your lane” thing had to do with Luke P, the very person Hannah ended up figuring out ON HER OWN. (She was right to tell her men to mind their business.) Meanwhile, the real liar, the person she could have used a warning about, was quietly living amongst his friends, the other guys in the house. In short, where were Peter’s words of “warning” about Jed?

Oh, I’m not done: I loathed when Peter told Alayah, “It’s not just one or two girls that have brought stuff up. It’s been multiple people who have brought stuff up.” There is a HUGE difference between people bringing something up on their own and having been expressly asked for an opinion about someone. I couldn’t stand how he sat Alayah down for a second time to accuse her about Victoria P’s claim yet didn’t actually listen to her defense. Above all, I disliked how righteous he became throughout all this. He said, “I want people that want to be here and for one reason.” It’s only Episode 3, so again, around 1.5 weeks of filming. Is he claiming he went on Hannah’s season solely to meet Hannah, with no slight curiosity about what the experience of this show would entail? That by Episode 3 he was there 100% SOLELY to become engaged to Hannah? Give me a break. OF COURSE ALL OF THE WOMEN HERE ARE NOT ONLY THERE FOR HIM. They would be insane to feel that way this early. All they require to not be there for the “Wrong Reasons” is to be legitimately single and to maintain an open mind.

Finally, I want to talk about Alayah’s “fake”-ness. I’m writing this at a restaurant that turns into a co-working space during weekdays. It’s nearing the end of the work day and I can hear the restaurant staff populating the space, preparing for the evening ahead. I can hear the hostess chatting with her co-workers, venting about her boyfriend. Then, I hear her calling customers on the phone to confirm their reservations. When she does the latter, she goes into a different mode, her voice goes up an octave, and it’s still her but… different. It’s less relaxed, less real, more “on”.

Does that make her fake?

We all have different versions of ourselves we put out there for different circumstances. I’m not going to talk to someone I’ve just met with the same level of familiarity I use with someone I know well. I won’t speak to the conductor of an opera I’m in with the same casualness and tone I use for my girlfriends. Do these varying degrees make me “fake”, that I’m not the same person across the board?

Someone being performative doesn’t mean they’re consciously trying to manipulate. Everyone puts on a bit of a mask when they’re meeting new people, when they’re in work mode, when they’re in new or high-pressure situations. Alayah’s biggest crime is having a pageant-y personality, something that may grate some on people if it’s something they’re not used to. But a pageant-y personality does NOT mean that person is fake, two-faced, manipulative, or a bitch.

__________________
“The only thing that was ever wrong with me was my belief that something was wrong with me.” (c)

barish

__________________
“The only thing that was ever wrong with me was my belief that something was wrong with me.” (c)

barish

MYKENNA как всегда переживает по поводу чего то...

__________________
“The only thing that was ever wrong with me was my belief that something was wrong with me.” (c)

barish

__________________
“The only thing that was ever wrong with me was my belief that something was wrong with me.” (c)

barish

Мне понравилась Виктория Р. на свидании с Питером и я его хорошо понимаю, потому что во многом такая же как и он!
То, как нам ее показали, тоже вселяло в нее доверие!
Но, мне понравилась и Алая в 1-м выпуске. Меня гложут мысли, что зрителями манипулируют, монтируя все так, чтобы в одном эпизоде человек был просто превосходным, a потом наоборот...

__________________
“The only thing that was ever wrong with me was my belief that something was wrong with me.” (c)

barish

__________________
“The only thing that was ever wrong with me was my belief that something was wrong with me.” (c)

barish

__________________
“The only thing that was ever wrong with me was my belief that something was wrong with me.” (c)

barish

__________________
“The only thing that was ever wrong with me was my belief that something was wrong with me.” (c)

barish

__________________
“The only thing that was ever wrong with me was my belief that something was wrong with me.” (c)

barish

Переходим к 4-ому эпизоду:

__________________
“The only thing that was ever wrong with me was my belief that something was wrong with me.” (c)