I'm Recapping The Golden Bachelorette
I'm Recapping The Golden Bachelorette
Let the journey begin.
Some professional news: I’m very excited to share that I’m writing recaps of The Golden Bachelorette over at The Stranger! We’re five weeks in, and I’ll be doing this until we see who gets the final rose. But Megan, you might ask, you are a serious reporter who covers abortion policy in the absence of Roe, why are you writing about this very silly show?
The short answer is because I wanted to, and it’s exhausting to cover bad news all the time. Journalists! They’re just like us!
But the long answer is that ever since I fell down the Bachelor franchise rabbit hole in 2022 (I was injured! please keep your judgments to yourself!), I have wanted to do this, but no publication that has ever employed me or responded to one of my pitch emails would let me when I asked. Until now!
There are already so many funny and smart people recapping this show to the point that it’s basically a cottage industry, but I just knew that the goofiness of the franchise combined with a little Burbank Industries sparkle would be a successful blend. This is why I devoted one of my paid newsletters to mining the queer subtext and rigid gender performance on the show, and why, when I saw that a retired naval officer from Seattle was a contestant on this season, I asked The Stranger if I could write about the show for them, and The Stranger said yes! Say thank you to The Stranger!
I would also like to say thank you to my friends Ezra and Michelle, who have never met each other but are readers of this newsletter and are responsible for fully dragging me into the pit of Bachelor lore. Thank you for putting up with my lengthy texts about this show that I send semiregularly! Frankly, it’s good I’m getting paid to write about this show, because otherwise I would simply be a nuisance!
Anyway, here’s a glimpse at my latest recap:
Captain Kim’s elimination two weeks ago was really a harbinger of doom for this season of The Golden Bachelorette: Last week, we said goodbye to pharmacy field trip boys Charles L. and Gary, and I’m really starting to get worried because, with each elimination, the remaining contestants are getting increasingly dull. Soon enough it will just be Joan Vassos surrounded by some empty golf shirts and no-show socks.
But that day is not today. So let’s watch a grown woman cry while gently dabbing her under-eyes, because anything more effective would disturb her makeup, in between ads for Halloween drinks at Applebee’s, magnesium supplements, and Marshall’s, which is using Chappell Roan songs to show they are a Cool Department Store. (Get that ad money, Kayleigh Rose!)
It’s week five, seven men remain, and Pascal’s back must be tired from carrying the remains of this season. As his laundry journey continues, he’s graduated to hand-steaming his clothes, which he is doing in his underwear, while Girl Dad Keith relives his trauma from last week, when he struggled to express himself verbally with Joan. “I just wasn’t me,” he says in a self-castigating tone. He never knows what’s going on in Joan’s head!
Right now, what’s on Joan’s mind is a coffee date with Trista Sutter (née Rehn), the first Bachelorette, who is 51, because that’s how long this show has been on. Trista was also an important moderating voice on The Golden Bachelor, pulled in for a consultation with Gerry (pronounced like Gary) like some wise elder stateswoman.
Trista’s advice to Joan is to “share more,” and Joan looks at Trista like she’s a wise oracle of love. Joan says once again that part of her heart will always belong to John, and that she still feels guilty about trying to find love again, and now I’m wondering if maybe Joan should have gone to therapy instead of The Golden Bachelorette.
What I’ve been up to: I went to Palm Springs again! After my first visit last February, I made a promise to myself that I would not let another gloomy Northwest winter go by without a trip to the desert, and I fulfilled this promise early by going again already! I’m hoping the vitamin D will make Seattle’s early sunsets a little more tolerable.
My friend Julia and I stayed at the cutest updated midcentury hotel that was adults-only, where we were upgraded to a VILLA (?!) and read books next to and in the pool with boozy slushies and guacamole. SoCal Megan was once again freed from her practical PNW routine, although I did not drive a Jeep through a small sandstorm this time around.
When I came home, I watched Still Kicking: The Fabulous Palm Springs Follies, about a musical theater revue in Palm Springs featuring retired showgirls and burlesque performers and showbiz professionals in their 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s. The shows ended in 2014, but the documentary is great, and explores how ageism makes older people into “a secret society,” even though the Follies are just as fun to watch as their younger counterparts—if not moreso! Also, the master of ceremonies calls Palm Springs “God’s waiting room,” and it’s a joke, but also so true, and not just in the classic “a lot of retired people live here” sense. The desert really does feel ineffably magic and hyper-real every time I visit.
What I’ve been reading and listening to: I read and loved Margo’s Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe. I didn’t really know much going in and that’s probably the best way to read it. It’s one of my favorite things I’ve read this year. I read it in the pool in Palm Springs, laughing contentedly the entire time. I’ve also been listening to Blank Check’s series on the filmography of David Lynch. I love David Lynch, and they really get what makes his movies so good—what I’ve always seen as an almost childlike sense of morality and wonder, combined with a deep understanding of violence and fear, permeated by a curiosity about the strangeness and mystery of the world. I don’t have a high tolerance for two-guys-talking podcasts but the episodes in this series are already like two hours long and I would gladly have listened to more.
What I’ve been watching: This art history lesson on Candy Land, a board game I was obsessed with as a child for purely aesthetic reasons. Once I had a Candy Land-themed party in college and dressed up as Queen Frostine. What a fashion icon. Lord Licorice, too.
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Playing you out: At the end of a newsletter discussing David Lynch and desert magic, I have only one option: dream pop. Here’s some of the best.