There were three women named Carolina, Dina, and Sarafiena.
Dina felt betrayed by Carolina.
Sarafiena wanted to console Carolina.
But Carolina stepped foot in the arena.
Carolina acted like she was the center of attention — the prima ballerina.
They all started to fight like it was an episode of Xena.
The ladytestants attacked like a pack of hyenas.
“We don’t hate you,” said Sarafiena.
“I played myself,” said Dina.
“CAN I FINISH TALKING?” shouted Carolina.
I don’t know who Grant will choose, but it won’t be one of these bambinas!
If my attempt at a nursery rhyme was all you heard about the “Women Tell All,” you wouldn’t be missing out on anything. From start to finish, it was “The Carolina Show,” guest starring Dina and Sarafiena. Honestly, if this whole episode was just the first segment before the first commercial break the first time Carolina got piled on and fought back against the other women, that would have been a pretty good “Women Tell All.” As much as I love Dina and Sarafiena, there were some bigger questions about the whole season that I desperately wanted some answers to, and I could have done without product placement for both Secret Lives of Mormon Wives and Disney’s live-action Snow White. And the decision to have Linda the Llama backstage doing her makeup before the episode started was the most fun decision made all night. Let’s get into it.
Jesse starts the episode by asking “Should we start spilling some tea?” The crowd reaction to Chloie still puts her in the lead as the fan favorite, so maybe she’ll be the first plus-size model on the beach in Paradise. Carolina has decided to pull a Melania Trump and have her jacket do the talking for her and try to get some catchphrases over. Her pocket on the front of her blazer says, “What’s your question?” and the back of her blazer says, “Crazy and Evil.” Everyone keep an eye on Etsy and RedBubble to see where Carolina will launch her line of “Crazy and Evil” merch.
The montage of the season gives us a few previews of the drama we’ll be unpacking tonight. Zoe stealing Grant, Ally Jo versus Zoe, Sarfieina making a comment about Zoe’s dress — it would actually be good if Zoe were here for this. Shit. Also, shoutout to Zoe for being an early-season villain who makes it to the Fantasy Suites! I feel like the last villain to make it to Fantasy Suites was Victoria F., and we only thought she was a villain because of that stupid “White Marlins Matter” merch she modeled. The ladytestants say that one of the reasons they were upset with Zoe on the basketball date was because the kids had “taken the day off school.” Ladies, I need you to be so for fucking real. Sarafiena said that her comment about Zoe’s dress was the worst thing she’s ever said. Sarafiena … c’mon Sarafiena … we’ve all been girls in the ninth grade. We’ve all been on a three-way call that could be held against us in court. But thank you for apologizing.
In terms of further drama, we’ve got Carolina making out with Grant during the singing challenge, Rose claiming that Grant said he was thinking of her while he was dancing with Carolina, Carolina on the date in Scotland, and Carolina versus Dina. If you were in that back row, you should have just stayed in your hotel because all the action was with the front-row ladies. Carolina’s defense is that she really didn’t think it was a big deal to climb on top of Grant and make out with him because she was the only person who hadn’t kissed him yet! She asks who hadn’t kissed him by that point and over half of the women raise their hands. Well … she felt like she was one of the only ones. Jesse tries to start the conversation about the whole Rose-Grant-Carolina triangle of miscommunication and Carolina says “I REALLY WANT TO WAIT FOR GRANT TO BE HERE!! HE, TOO, MUST BE HELD RESPONSIBLE!!!! BRING ME HIS HEAD!”
The women all start talking over each other and Carolina suddenly says, “I feel like you all are the type of women to blame the other woman when your man does you dirty.”
Carolina … what the shit are you talking about!! Carolina makes it really, really hard to root for her. Because in so many of these conversations, she’s got a point! It is fucked up if Grant said he was thinking of Rose when he was dancing with Carolina! If he was going around saying things like that, you would question if he was there for the right reasons! She says later in her hot-seat moment that when she told Grant about her epilepsy, she felt he didn’t reciprocate with anything emotional. That would be really tough! But then she says something like, “I feel like you all are the type of women to blame the other woman when your man does you dirty,” and you’re like, “Jesus Christ, Carolina. Stop defending yourself! You’re making it so much worse!”
Then it comes to Dina and Carolina’s drama, and I was not prepared for there to be outside reading. For those of you who aren’t glued to TikTok, Dina posted a cheeky little clip teasing the next week’s episode, saying that she defended Carolina but then got played. Which all happened on-camera. Then Carolina, in her fashion, took it way too personally and took it way too far and made a post threatening to reveal something in Dina’s texts with her. Dina finally says, “I bought you another week in Madrid. You were gonna go home that week, but I vouched for you and got you another week, babe.” God damn. That is why you don’t go toe-to-toe with a Chicago lawyer. There should be an entire new The Good Wife spinoff dedicated to Dina slicing down defensive divas. At this point, Carolina walks off the stage as Alexe is getting introduced for her hot seat.
Girl … you can’t claim to be this badass bitch, then walk off silently weeping when Dina comes at you. I would love to have someone really dive deep into Carolina’s psychology because, boy, I bet it’s interesting in there.
Every hot-seat moment and every question of “Where did it go wrong?” is incredibly boring because every woman who was eliminated was blindsided and was shocked they were going home. If that is happening, something has gone very wrong. Alexe said it, Sarafiena said it, and Dina kind of blamed herself for their relationship ending.
I’ll say it here and now: Grant sweet-talked everyone at the same level of intensity, leading everyone to think they were further along than they were. I don’t know if it was conscious or unconscious, but it happened and someone needed to bring it up. In past seasons, a Bachelor “leading on” someone would have drawn ire, but I think in a post-Joey world, every Bachelor has to be emotionally intelligent and vulnerable. And Grant validating everyone regardless of the status of the relationship isn’t a sign of emotional intelligence. Obviously he can’t give anyone a clue that he’s not going to pick them, but multiple women shouldn’t be blindsided like this.
Some highlights of the hot seats: They bring out Linda the Llama for Alexe. Sarafiena’s adorable mom sent in a video of her saying she’s proud of her daughter and laughing at her making out with Grant. Sarafiena also really pitches her mom being on The Golden Bachelor. Dina reveals that she was the one who ultimately told her family not to come on the Hometown date. Her brothers were very against the show and didn’t believe she could get engaged that fast and Dina finally said, “If it’s gonna be an issue like this, don’t come.” This shows a maturity that is frankly unheard of on The Bachelor.
The most upsetting thing I noticed during Carolina’s hot-seat montage was that she has a confessional look that is pants. Like pants worn as an off-the shoulder top. Am I nuts? It had a button and a waistband. It was pants. What the fuck is happening over at Revolve?
The highlight of Carolina’s hot-seat time is Dina interrupting and saying “You don’t even know what it means” and modeling a pitch-perfect apology that Carolina never repeats. Dina not letting her baby-blue pumps off Carolina’s neck is amazing. Dina woke up and put on those tiny little glasses and said, “Court is in session.” Carolina is mostly upset that Grant said he “clocked it” when Dina brought up how Carolina had been acting in the house. What did he clock, and when did he clock it?
And we’re going to get a Magic Eye painting of an answer because Grant is here in a dusty-rose suit! They have to let a few women tell him that he made them feel seen and heard because we can’t have a Bachelor these days if he doesn’t make you feel seen. Unfortunately, the strongest endorsement of Grant is Bailey saying, “We bonded because we both don’t like sauce and eat plainly.” Don’t like sauce? I need everyone to grow up. Dina says she was a little shocked to see him in a confessional saying not meeting her family could be make or break without bringing it up to her. Which is a valid point! It must be a fucking mind trip to see the lead say something in a confessional and never bring it up to you. Dina says that she was worried she didn’t make him comfortable enough to have that conversation with her. Dina, sweetie, don’t take that on. But again, this is a masterful cross-examination question designed to make Grant trip over his words.
Grant says his relationship with Carolina didn’t progress not because of other people’s opinions, other people just surpassed their relationship. Carolina says she had been getting a lot of validation from him but he “clocked” something. Grant says he just noticed something negative coming off Carolina and Carolina launches into “hard to be in an environment where everyone hates you.” Sarafiena rolls her eyes and Ally Jo says, “Yeah, you stayed in your room all the time and never talked to us. Don’t put that on us.” Sarafiena says, “We didn’t even hate you! We just wanted to have a conversation with you or console you and you could cry with us,” which is really sweet but also … too much pressure and too intimate for someone you don’t even like that much.
To wrap up, Jesse asks if Grant would have done anything differently and he says he would have watched his words and taken accountability. I would love two specific examples, Grant. Dina, your witness.
Then Jesse and Grant do chubby bunny and I gotta be honest, I fast-forwarded. Not interested. Then Jesse does some promo for Disney’s Live Action Snow White: CGI “”””Dwarves””””. I just looked at the Wikipedia for this and Dopey is the narrator.
We find out who is the sleepiest (Sarafiena), the messiest (Parisa), the cleanest (Dina, who has a laundry basket for show), and who loves the mirror most of all (Grant, who combs his goatee stubble). They also play the clip we all found on Reddit of Grant telling Rose he was vaguely thinking of her during the singing date. Everyone involves says it was a misunderstanding. Well, that all amounted to absolutely nothing!
Time for bloopers! Parisa lightly sautées herself in the sun with olive oil. Grant can’t say Edinburgh. “What is it? Eat-a-Burger?” No one can say any word over two syllables. And Carolina deeply smells Grant’s armpits. We’re due for The Bachelor to start featuring fetish content and if this is how it happens, I’m down.
Blah, blah, blah new format for Bachelor in Paradise yeah whatever GRANT IS JUST SAYING “I LOVE YOU” TO LITIA? Zoe says she doesn’t know anything about him?? Juliana is still saying she’s broken (but in a cute-baby-doll kind of way)??? These final two episodes look absolutely chaotic. Jesse says it’s one of the most shocking endings in Bachelor history and I do not believe that AT ALL. But Grant does look kind of stoic when Jesse is outro-ing the show, so I would put some money on the finale literally being a disaster.