Bachelor 25 - Matt James - Feb 1 - *Sleuthing Spoilers*

Ruqibabe wrote:

blueblues wrote:

Ruqibabe wrote:Anna should have resisted the producers after they encouraged her to spill the tea about Brittany.. Their hand smells all over this issue... I give Anna kudos for taking responsibility for her action.. Jmo

She didn’t though. When she ”confessed” to Matt, she downplayed what she did as much as she could. She made it sound like it was an off-hand comment that slipped out of her in the heat of the moment, when in fact 1) she gleefully told Victoria, who she knew would spread it, 2) talked about the rumors in some detail in ITMs and 3) confronted Brittany in front of the group in the most humiliating way possible.

She gets no pass from me whatsoever, producer encouragement or not. I don’t think I will ever forget the ecstatic look on her face when she “spilled the tea”.
JMO

How do we know she downplayed her role when we might not be seeing the whole conversation? We need to always remember that we see only what they want us to see. How do we know that she wasn't ENCOURAGED by the producers to tell Victoria? Yes, she is responsible for her decisions but we don't know how things were prepped behind the scene. 
I am not excusing her lack of judgment and her messiness, I understand she is human and likely to screw up multiple times, i am happy that she owned it at the end of the day and graciously exited. Its not really about the mistakes made but the aftermath... JMO

Re: the bolded While I’m glad Anna apologized I think it’s ultimately about the impact her actions had and will have on Brittany. Saying I’m sorry is so easy, but Brittany will have this follow her the rest of her life and she now has another guy she dated airing gossip about her too as a result of Anna’s actions.

I’m only watching clips on YouTube. Did Anna apologize to Brittany? I hope she does so if she hasn’t already and says what she can to clear Brittany’s name. jmo

If he was really interested in Rachel - why the extra girls ? To have something more for the show - more drama - ?
Why is he crying buckets - as we saw in the preview talking with Chris H ? He shouldn't be having doubts or worries about Rachel. Is it going to be about falling in love with both women ? It seems he had a great time with Michelle but he was different with Rachel. And interesting that we did not see his interactions with Bri at the cocktail party after the farm date.

CHO wrote:If he was really interested in Rachel - why the extra girls ?  To have something more for the show - more drama - ?
Why is he crying buckets - as we saw in the preview talking with Chris H ?  He shouldn't be having doubts or worries about Rachel.  Is it going to be about falling in love with both women ?  It seems he had a great time with Michelle but he was different with Rachel.  And interesting that we did not see his interactions with Bri at the cocktail party after the farm date.  

It's suspected that his crying is due to his interaction with his Dad who shows up on the show. I find it curious tho that they air scenes of Michelle crying that had nothing to do with tonight's episode and the very next morning, RS doubles down on his spoiler that she gets let go early.

I don't think that Matt has already decided on Rachael although clearly she's a frontrunner. He had a great 1st date with Michelle but he's still getting to know her so it's not surprising that he's not falling for her yet. It kind of reminds me of Sean with Catherine in that it's easy. With Rachael, it seems more like chemistry but not sure about deeper.

@luvnunity I agree with everything you said.. what we see so far with Matt and Rachel is physical infatuated.. maybe the producers are editing out their key conversion and saving it for the end. I guess two never being in love people is a better story than they align on multiple issues.. Maybe they would be our season's Zayshia but I am not holding my breath since I havnt seen Zac's level of maturity with Matt. Just maybe Matt and Rachel would mature together.. 


MJ got defensive. She could have owned her mess and apologized to the folks that were offended, instead she got defensive.. This issue should ve been squashed immediately..

@CHO They strictly added new girls just for the drama, nothing more than that. Plus, since when has the show ever really cared if a lead was not connected to most of their contestants. This was just a way for them to add a new twist, and shake things up. Maybe they liked this idea especially after testing this in Tayisha's season because they saw how the OG contestants acted with the newbies. From what I understand too, the international Bachelor shows do this anyway and the newbies are called "Intruders".

Obviously, the show got the drama from these late additions so you best believe they will do this again down the line. JMO.

@Ruqibabe I like what you stated "Just maybe Matt and Rachel would mature together.."

This could be true because really there is a lot of maturity growth needed especially when it comes to having the mindset and heart of being ready for marriage. JMO

@albean99 @luvnunity I am with luvunity. I honestly think Matt already decided on Rachel and Michelle is the backup or close second.. The way he assures Rachel from the first night is enough to believe that..  Matt gives the other ladies a rehearsed speech and default answer to everything but he is deliberate and intentional with his words to Rachel..

@gabriele i agree though that this was just something terrible to say about anyone. Brittany's didn't deserve the whole drama.. Anna wanted to remove Brittany from the 'game' by bringing up that rumors.. the cutthroat environment that was created this season is super unhealthy. The producers created the hunger games of bachelor season. Its just so unfortunate that things had to get this low. 
I hope Anna would reach out to Brittany after watching this back and apologize to her.. i hope she would apologize at all the interview she does.. This whole thing was just distasteful..

IMO it is way past apologies and nothing she could possibly say would make her words disappear off the internet. I would refuse any apology. Sometimes, sorry is not enough. It is so easy for people to say sh*t and then when they realize they have screwed themselves, to think that an apology will fix it. Nope.

A couple of more thoughts -- I didn't like the way that MJ kept talking/shouting over Jessenia. MJ was trying to claim the opposite, that Jessenia was talking over her, but I didn't see it. Jessenia even asked MJ at one point, "Are you finished?" and waited for a response before talking. I think this was a good example of bullying on MJ's part. I also had to laugh at MJ claiming several times that she promoted "harmony" in the house. Umm, no.

I also find a lot of what Matt says and responds to have a canned feel to it, like he was coached. He knows the show's vocabulary, so he picked it up somewhere. But very little of what he says comes off as genuine to me. It has more of a feel of what fans would expect him to say.

Ratings:

ABC | The Bachelor (5.3 mil/1.4, read recap) dipped a tenth in the demo but still dominated the night in that measure.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/tv-ratings-9-1-1-162451234.html