The Bachelor 20 - Ben Higgins - NO SPOILERS - Discussion

Thanks @GuardianAngel and @Litta123

I'll post my questions here as well for anyone to answer. I'm sure @theKeptGrits, @MiaHawk and @locoforbach would be interested in everyone's answers as well.

1) When did you sleuth that Lauren was F1 and how?

2) Was one girl more popular with the posters than the others? I liked Lauren for Ben but would have picked JoJo and Becca to be my friends.


3) Who was the least popular contestant? I couldn’t stand Emily. I thought she was a bully.

4) What did you think of the Leah black eye situation? I thought I was so clever (weren't we though @theKeptGrits - you took one for the team that day thanks) remembering that she had a black eye in the preview of very first episode and really thought she was going to come back as we didn’t see the black eye before Ben booted her. Was there any other blatant TPTB lies like that.

5) It also came out that they changed the order of the FS and Lauren was actually last. That completely changed things for me. Did they do that any other time or deliberately manipulate the edit to mislead us?

6) Did you sleuth any gossip or relevant info about the contestants that they didn’t show on the season?

7) My all-time favourite part of the whole season (and yes that does include all the mushy lovely stuff on ATFR) was JoJo’s mum taking a swig out of the champagne bottle. That was just brilliant television! I laughed so hard I gave myself the hiccups. What did everyone else think of that moment?

Rolly wrote:

theKeptGrits wrote:@katiebelle
You're the best... it's been great to be unspoiled with you.

Here's to us and future BRATS!!!

What are BRATS?

Very early on in the season it was just me and @theKeptGrits posting. tKG called us brats and then at the exact same time we both posted acrostic poems.
tKGs was
B= Bach/bette
R= rants
A= agreements
T= trendsetters
S= socializing

and mine was
Brilliant
Reasoning
Analytical
Theorists

So BRATS is a combination of both but we decided we were "kindred spirits" and the Brat name has become our nickname for posters on this thread.

What would your acrostic poem be?

Katiebelle, great questions. This thread has been a highlight for me this season. So impressed by all of you for staying unspoiled.

1) When did you sleuth that Lauren was F1 and how? Somewhere last week, I used the edit to identify that Lauren was F1 based on conflict resolution. The screencaps, both the ordering of them and the shadows, proved the edit.

2) Was one girl more popular with the posters than the others?  I think that people liked most of his girls this season, but Lauren was the runaway favorite. A small contingent sprung up who thought that Jo was a better match. It was actually a very pleasant season regarding "teams;" I'd been on this forum and FORT during what I call "Board Wars" and this season was like living in a utopia almost.

3) Who was the least popular contestant? Very little time seemed to spent on the contestants that the board didn't like, which I found refreshing. Most posters seemed to recognize the roles played by each girl. I loved Ben's girls. I'd say that Leah probably got the most flack for her handling of everything in the Bahamas.

5) Did they do that any other time or deliberately manipulate the edit to mislead us? In this season, the HTDs were out of order as well. In other seasons, yes!

veg_out wrote:Katiebelle, great questions. This thread has been a highlight for me this season. So impressed by all of you for staying unspoiled.

1) When did you sleuth that Lauren was F1 and how? Somewhere last week, I used the edit to identify that Lauren was F1 based on conflict resolution. The screencaps, both the ordering of them and the shadows, proved the edit.

2) Was one girl more popular with the posters than the others?  I think that people liked most of his girls this season, but Lauren was the runaway favorite. A small contingent sprung up who thought that Jo was a better match. It was actually a very pleasant season regarding "teams;" I'd been on this forum and FORT during what I call "Board Wars" and this season was like living in a utopia almost.

3) Who was the least popular contestant? Very little time seemed to spent on the contestants that the board didn't like, which I found refreshing. Most posters seemed to recognize the roles played by each girl. I loved Ben's girls. I'd say that Leah probably got the most flack for her handling of everything in the Bahamas.  

5) Did they do that any other time or deliberately manipulate the edit to mislead us? In this season, the HTDs were out of order as well. In other seasons, yes!

Thanks @veg_out Cool name by the way - I assume it means the same as chillax?

After only a year of watching I have come to the conclusion that you rarely can trust the edit TPTB show. I think for the Bette we are going to have to sleuth a lot more from the screen caps - they never lie!

And yes - Leah didn't give a satisfactory answer at the WTA. Did she even say sorry?

Oh - just had a thought! Are any of these women going on BIP? I wonder which men from Kaitlyn's season would get together with the women from Bens'? That could be interesting!

Rolly wrote:Before the next season starts I need some words of wisdom about being unspoiled. There must be very few threads you can really go to. It's kind of exciting to think about doing it differently next time. This seems like a friendly group!

@Rolly We are! We are! We would love to have you here!

I don't know if I could offer any good advice because I am in the position of living on the other side of the world where I am not bombarded with SM and general media spoilers. I'd have to go actively looking for them to find them.

Maybe if you stayed away from the dreaded RS (I really need to check this guy out - he doesn't seem to have a very good reputation on this site) and talk to @sophienette, @theKeptGrits, @MiaHawk and @locoforbach and see how they did it.

Katiebelle wrote:

snipped...

Oh - just had a thought! Are any of these women going on BIP? I wonder which men from Kaitlyn's season would get together with the women from Bens'? That could be interesting!

Katiebelle we know for sure that Lace is going on BIP since CH asked her. It is also speculated that the twins and Lauren H will be there.

Loved reading all your thoughts about the season. Now that Ben's season is over, I will be checking out the French and Aussie Bachelors and see how I do predicting without spoilers.

Katiebelle wrote:

veg_out wrote:

1) When did you sleuth that Lauren was F1 and how? Somewhere last week, I used the edit to identify that Lauren was F1 based on conflict resolution. The screencaps, both the ordering of them and the shadows, proved the edit.

Thanks @veg_out Cool name by the way - I assume it means the same as chillax?

After only a year of watching I have come to the conclusion that you rarely can trust the edit TPTB show. I think for the Bette we are going to have to sleuth a lot more from the screen caps - they never lie!

Thanks, Katie! I agree with you that screencaps ofter are definitive though I have seen them mess around with them. For me, the edit tells the story of the season. It's nuanced and sometimes convoluted, yet it contains a ton of information to help us understand the choices made and the show's belief in the couple. Some seasons, the show doesn't even care about the edits b:c the final couple is a disaster.

Blondie on FORT often said, "Read the edit," so I go back to it often. The interesting thing about Ben's season is that some things in the edit were interesting comments by the show on who best matched Ben.

I may go unspoiled for Jo's season. If I do, I'll again be diving deep into the narrative. I hope that it benefits others in understanding the craziness!

To add to everyone's great comments on why we thought Lauren was the F1, there were also media net pics that were posted of the F1/F2 arriving to the FRC. I apologize I forget who brought them to the forum. Those pictures are stamped with numbers in the order they were taken.

I forget the numbers but lets say for example, JoJo arriving was 1500 - 1800. Various pictures of her walking towards Ben, then Lauren's pics arriving towards Ben. Walking across the bridge and down the path, they were stamped 2100-2800 so they were taken later than JoJo's.

Katiebelle wrote:1) When did you sleuth that Lauren was F1 and how?

IMO -

Sleuthing has to begin by trying to figure out what the lead wants from the experience because I think who they pick will be based on who will best give them what they want. All leads will say they are looking for love because that's what the show is all about, but I don't think that's true. If the lead is looking to promote some business venture then they won't necessarily pick for love. If they are looking for a "show business" career they will pick someone who can best fit in with that. If they are actually looking for love, they will pick who they love if they can (sometimes the "love choice" won't or can't work out and there's been a number of shows where this played out).

This season I think Ben was indeed looking for love so sleuthing really boiled down to trying to figure out who Ben "loved" and if it was possible to pick her (ie did she love him back?)

ETA - IMO had Ben been looking to build his "brand" and get into some sort of show business career and have someone pretty cheer him on while he danced on DWTS, and was not ready for a serious relationship yet - he would have picked JoJo.

Posters here put Lauren on a short list because they saw something in how Ben was interacting with Lauren on dates captured on SM even before filming ended. Watching the show unfold just supported that perception - it even became obvious to other girls on group dates who saw them interact.

If you tune out the end of the season "noise" that the show always seems to generate, something drastic had to happen between Lauren and Ben for him not to pick her - and it never did. Right through HTD everything went steadily in Lauren's direction and that "end of season noise" never changed the course that began very early on.

All other common analysis techniques (ie SC of the FRC to determine time of day, medianet file numbers) also fell in line with the same assumption and one of the things I always try to keep in mind is that there will be some consistency between different pieces of circumstantial information; if all roads seem to point towards Rome or you need some sort of complicated logic to explain something else, then Rome is probably the final destination.

JMHO

I forgot one other interesting screencap discussion. I'll link to it, but the gist of it is that a poster named @anggilestari suggested that we blow up and lighten a cap from the limo. The discussion that ensued was so fun (several pages long). GA was able to blow up a cap that showed the person in the limo was wearing a light colored dress -- so again more evidence that JoJo was F2.

Read from the last post on this page until page 67.

For me this is the entertaining part of screencap sleuthing. As a team, we work together to get "proof" to make conclusions, but at the same time build a sense of community in the forum. It's so fun.

ETA: The #teamtoast was in reference to an earlier SC discussion. Perhaps someone else can explain better because I don't remember the details. Again, the gist was that all a person could see in the cap was a piece of toast with the face of Jesus(?) in it. Like I said, I don't recall the details, but it was funny.

Wow, that's is pretty cool, I can't wait!

Litta123 wrote:I forgot one other interesting screencap discussion. I'll link to it, but the gist of it is that a poster named @anggilestari suggested that we blow up and lighten a cap from the limo. The discussion that ensued was so fun (several pages long). GA was able to blow up a cap that showed the person in the limo was wearing a light colored dress -- so again more evidence that JoJo was F2.

Read from the last post on this page until page 67.

For me this is the entertaining part of screencap sleuthing. As a team, we work together to get "proof" to make conclusions, but at the same time build a sense of community in the forum. It's so fun.

ETA: The #teamtoast was in reference to an earlier SC discussion. Perhaps someone else can explain better because I don't remember the details. Again, the gist was that all a person could see in the cap was a piece of toast with the face of Jesus(?) in it. Like I said, I don't recall the details, but it was funny.

- when analyzing s/caps, there are various opinions of what they see. Some see nothing, some see a puppy (that was me) some see a groundhog, next thing you know someone was looking for the toast with the face of Jesus (just like we hear in the news at times). IA Litta, s/cap sleuthing for me is the best.

@anggilestari a fairly new poster spotted something light coloured near the door. To the naked it eye, it was impossible to even consider what it might be since it was just a small blob. However @anggilestari pointed it out, I was curious and blew it up. Once I blew it up, I was able to see JoJo's arm or what I think was her arm, and part of her dress just like angg pointed out.