‘The Bachelorette’ review: Eric Hill leaves after Andi Dorfman argument; how it happened
Monday night’s episode of “The Bachelorette” was probably the worst of the season, mostly because it contained just about everything that we hate about the entire series. Did you want a completely unoriginal date repelling down the side of a building? You got it. How about milking a guy’s sad story for air time? That happened to with Dylan.
Then, you had our least-favorite group date of the entire season, where you have machismo people competing with each other in some physical competition. This time, it was basketball. It basically makes athleticism into a prerequisite into finding love, and that’s somewhat sad. Of course the team with the basketball coach in Brian was going to win! The fact that Andi continues to give group-date roses to people who are good at things is also worthy of an eye roll.
We have to say that we didn’t find anything that interesting in any of the dates tonight, mostly since they were so by-the-numbers and predictable thanks to everything that we have seen on the show over the years. What was a little more shocking to us was both that the show didn’t really hold a whole lot back when it comes to Eric Hill’s departure, and also how it was handled by producers.
The fight between Eric and Andi revolved around something that many viewers at home probably have felt while watching the show before: Doubt about the experience, and the way in which the show handles much of it. Time and time again you see much of this referred to as the “process,” which can be hard to sit through. Sometimes, people just aren’t comfortable having these formal conversations strategically placed when it comes to camera shots.
We don’t know if we would’ve said “TV actress” like Eric did, but we sort-of feel where he’s coming from. Andi is being herself, but herself as a TV character, where she is trained to do and say certain things. We had zero problem with him calling her out on most of the facade aspect of the show, and we don’t really feel like it tarnishes his memory or anything else. Granted, we also understand Andi being upset over it. This is just two people who clearly expect different things out of the show. So he left, and she moves on. The only thing we wish is that the show had cut out Andy’s self-congratulatory “I am trying so hard!” speech to the guys, since it was her trying to make a villain out of a guy who was just being honest. It was understandable she said it, but we didn’t need to see it.
The thing here is that the show did something surprising in that rather than showing the Rose Ceremony tonight, Chris Harrison sat down with her to talk a little about the guy. It was a little awkward, but the effort that the show’s part was at least somewhat appreciated. Eric seemed like a genuinely good guy, and we hope that people discover some of what he actually did in life in addition to just a few episodes on a reality show. So we’d give the show itself a D, but this interview gets a B+ for just including it over something silly.
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Photo: ABC