Love’s a game and this year we’re playing. For the full rules and intellectual justification of The Verge Bachelor Fantasy League please see this explanatory post. For a little background on why this is poised to be the best-ever season of The Bachelor, see this essay by culture editor Chris Plante:
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Kaitlyn Tiffany: *Sportscaster voice* Welcome to the final four! It’s hard to believe that we’ve made it this far or that we’ll ever make it to the end. This week on The Bachelor, Nick Viall visited the hometowns of every woman he has left to choose from. At each home, he asked families, “Would you be okay with me proposing to your child?” and every time, he was met with a resounding “Um, I guess.”
Annually, this episode boils down to a series of theme parties at which four women are asked to turn their probably normal lives and families into caricatures for the benefit of TV. For Raven, this meant donning cutoff jean shorts, talking about “frog-digging,” and taking Nick for a marathon make-out sesh in the swamps of Hoxie, Arkansas. For Vanessa, this meant wearing a hideous fake fur vest (+3) to her home in Canada (remember the fur trade?). The theme of Corrine’s date is wealthy people, whereas the theme of Rachel’s date is frank discussions of race in America. Some of what happens on this show is useful, where the bulk of it truly is not. Though to The Bachelor’s credit, that is an accurate statement about all sports as well, and the end prize of “true love forever” is still way more worth it than Super Bowl rings (which are hideous and cumbersome).
i have a lot of thoughts about this ep of the #thebachelor so far but mainly about how 2 make a spinoff called dads of bachelor contestants
— hollace doyle (@h0llace) February 21, 2017
This is a high-stakes episode for the remaining women, as each has only a few short hours to prove to Nick that her family is the most chill and fun, her hometown is the least gross, and, if you’re Corrine, that you have enough accumulated wealth to make life a walk in the park forever. If you watch closely, the hometown dates can tell you everything you need to know about the rest of the season.