ABC; Getty ImagesGone but...kind of forgotten.
Such is the legacy of many a Bachelor (and Bachelorette) villain. They come into our lives for short but intense stints, occupying our every thought and frustration for two hours each Monday. (And, let's be honest, for a good portion of the day on Tuesday while we're reading recap after recap). We yell at the TV, we yell at our fellow Bachelor watch party members, we wonder how in the heck a person can eat so much deli meat, and also whether it's actually healthy to digest uncooked sweet potato.
But as intense as our relationships are with these overly entertaining garbage humans, they leave our lives just as swiftly. As soon as they are rightfully denied their rose, we collectively move on and find a new contestant to obsess over. (Except if you're Nick Viall, but we all know that redemption stories are few and far between on Bachelor Nation.)
Which is why we're going to ask all the Bachelor fans to come together in this moment to reminisce over a few of these villains of days past. We want to make sure they are actually gone but not forgotten, because reminiscing over these people is one of the best parts of watching the show. We have a long few months until the next round of villains descend, so why not ride this crazy train for a while?
Kelsey Poe, a.k.a. The Black Widow
"My story is amazing." Have truer words ever been spoken? Sure, if you're referring to the story of how Kelsey was dumped on The Bachelor. (That would be while in the middle of the Badlands, with the camera sweeping over to show her being left by Chris in a helicopter.) But if one is referring to the story of how they became a widow at age 23 and then went on to try to become famous on The Bachelor, then "amazing" isn't exactly the most appropriate word choice.
But that's what Kelsey felt in her truest heart of hearts: That she was a survivor, and she was so incredibly blessed to have a dead husband to talk about on her reality show. When things didn't go her way, she acted out. She laughed maniacally, she faked a medical emergency, she trashed the other contestants by saying things like "I am blessed with eloquence and I'm articulate and I use a lot of big words because I'm smart." And most of all, she told the most cringe-worthy story of her husband's death.
It was so cringe-worthy, in fact, that she was given the aforementioned nickname of The Black Widow. As in, the other contestants thought it wasn't entirely implausible that she could have caused the death of her husband just to be able to go on The Bachelor and get ahead simply on the merits of her tragic but amazing story. Hey, crazier things have happened.
Ian Thomson
Our man Ian wasn't a villain from the start the way that some other contestants are. Sure, he wasn't our ideal date—he was a little full of himself and took too many opportunities to remind everyone that he went to Princeton. That's not ideal. But it was the way in which he left the show that had the entire country's mouths agape.
Poor little Ian felt that he wasn't being given as much attention as the other guys, and decided that he actually was no longer into her (because he could only have feelings for someone who was pursuing him) and thus needed to be rid of this ridiculous show, whose entire premise is for the contestants to be the ones doing the pursuing, forever. Thus began the most outrageous temper tantrum we've ever seen on The Bachelor.
It started off innocently enough, with Ian telling the camera, "I don't understand why Kaitlyn wouldn't want me — Princeton graduate, former model that defied death and has been around the world a couple of times," but then it quickly devolved into the following: "I think I am a very eligible Bachelor, in this country and in this world. I am an enigma and who I am is a gift that you unwrap for life." Once he had that ridiculous confessional checked off his to-do list, he turned his anger to Kaitlyn directly.
"I came here to meet the girl that had her heart broken and was devastated by Chris Soules." he told her. "Not the girl who wanted to get her field plowed by Chris." He continued with "I wonder if you're really that shallow, because I don't see anything beyond the surface." And that's that.
Courtney Robertson
What is there to say about dear Courtney? That she once uttered the famous reality show f--k you "I'm not here to make friends," despite the fact that no one wanted to be her friend? That she actually thought star Ben Flajnik had good hair? That she was possibly the most anti-woman woman to ever be on The Bachelor? That she once commented in reaction to her fellow contestants winning a fun-spirited baseball game date "Who knew strippers could play baseball?"
What about that she refused to ever issue a true apology for hurtful things that she said, even calling her fellow women strippers? Or that she confessed to having fantasies of shaving a contestant's eyebrows off in the middle of the night? Or that she truly thought she was humble? Or what about the book that wrote a few years after her stint on the show, in which she actually used the sentence "In the Fantasy Suite we'd lain in bed, facing each other, listening to Bon Iver, with a fire crackling"?
But truly, the best way to paint a picture of Courtney's villainous qualities is to remember the time when, on one of her and Ben's dates, she forced him to participate in a mock wedding in which they read each other mock vows. And that after she made Ben spend time writing said mock vows, she just recited a line from the series finale of Sex and the City.