‘The Bachelor’ extended: On Nick Viall’s past with Liz Sandoz, faults, and future
The premiere of “The Bachelor” has come and gone, and we do think that by and large, it was every bit as entertaining / ridiculous as we could’ve hoped for. There was a chance to see some real romance break out in there (cheers to Rachel, who received the First Impression Rose), just as we also had some chances to see some pure silliness. Alexis the dolphin / Left Shark wannabe has some serious potential, while Corinne at the very least gives us something to discuss.
What we want to talk about above all else in this article, which is hopefully going be a part of a weekly series under the Bachelor Extended label, the entire story behind the appearance from Liz Sandoz on this season, her first night with Nick Viall, and how despite it going terribly by most accounts, she’s still a part of the show.
How did she turn up on the show in the first place?
Let’s start by saying that we’re not in casting; if we were, we would probably cast a rodeo clown, an actual Disney princess from Disneyland, and someone who works as a Renaissance Faire on this season. No boring jobs!
What we do think happened with Liz and this show is that there may have been some mutual interest. For Liz, maybe she saw this as a chance for redemption with Nick after not giving him too much of a chance after hooking up with him the night that her friend Jade Roper married Tanner Tolbert. She may have had a specific view of him through two seasons of “The Bachelor,” and after realizing that he was more than hookup material on “Bachelor in Paradise,” maybe she thought calling him at that point would’ve been weird. Showing up to “The Bachelor,” at its core, is much more of a hero move. Also, during “Bachelor in Paradise” airing Nick probably knew he had a shot of being the Bachelor anyway, and may not have been trying to date anyone else. Showing up may have been her only shot.
Maybe this narrative is fabricated by us and she just wanted TV time. Either way, we can see how the show got to having her on. They probably wanted someone on with a backstory built in, and maybe they didn’t want to tread on the former-contestant territory since Nick technically already had that in Paradise.
Did she handle her time with him the best?
Absolutely not. If we were her, we would’ve said something about the past encounter right away while saying that you made a mistake never contacting him and want to have another chance at it. Appeal to him emotionally and show a little bit of humility right away, since that can help him see that you are genuine and vulnerable. He knew who she was, so not saying anything turned it almost into a game.
During the conversation itself later, you could see that she was nervous and stumbling over her answers. We believe her 100% when she said that watching Nick on “Bachelor in Paradise” probably changed her perception of him, but she struggled mightily getting the words out in a way that sounded flattering. Nick probably could’ve let her off the hook a little bit by conceding that he could have fought harder to try to reach out to her, but we suppose that if he thought she wasn’t interested in anything long-term, why bother? She’d already said no once before.
Is there a future between the two?
So much of that is going to be based on how much she can move forward from this. To us, we’d tell every one of the women about it the very next morning just so that you’re not tip-toeing around and making things awkward. If they find out from someone that isn’t her, they are all going to be furious about it. Why wouldn’t they be at that point?
Even with that, this is going to be a tough road ahead for the two of them, just because they have this obvious hurdle there that needs to be talked about an explored, and there are no other relationships that are like that. These other relationships can start fresh and not have that sort of burden on them. Nick may think that many of these women would’ve passed their number along even if they didn’t have a night together.
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What did you think about this relationship based on one night of TV time? Share below, and click here (or the picture below) for some other news related to “The Bachelor”! As we said, this may be something that we continue the remainder of the season. (Photo: ABC.)
