Once again, the women have told all—or at least they have told some.
There was definitely something strange about tonight's reunion episode of The Bachelor, given that the franchise has been through some serious turmoil since its taping on Feb. 4, and none of that could be addressed on screen just yet. Chris Harrison was still the host since this was filmed before he stepped aside. There was no discussion of racism at any point.
However, the show did manage to find some things to talk about.
The first half hour was spent rehashing the bullying that plagued most of the season, with somewhat surprising results. MJ got the chance to defend herself after the way she treated Jessenia, and the other women all expressed how unhappy they were with Katie, accusing her of telling on them to Matt James just to get ahead in her relationship. Anna did apologize profusely to Brittany for spreading rumors about her and Victoria apologized to Katie for some things she had said about her.
Abigail, Katie, Pieper and Serena P. all sat down with Chris to hash out their doomed love stories with Matt, and Matt showed off his post-Bachelor beard. The ladies all had the opportunity to address Matt, and they mostly all just thanked him for the opportunity. MJ and Victoria, who were sent home after major issues with bullying, questioned his decision to send them home.
Then there were some mysteriously unaired dates, bloopers, a confrontation with Matt about his open-eyed kisses, and a trailer for the final episodes, which you can watch below. And that was pretty much it.
As the show reminded us via onscreen text at the beginning of the episode, this was all recorded on Feb. 4. Chris defended Rachael Kirkconnell to Rachel Lindsay on Feb. 11, and posted a statement about temporarily stepping aside on Feb. 13. It feels like there could have been time in the past two weeks to come up with a way to address the situation on the show before the live finale.
Instead, Women Tell All focused most of its attention on the bullying, just like the rest of the season did. For the most part, the women accused of the bullying got more time to talk than the women who felt bullied, and it was just exhausting and disappointing.
This season was very clearly filled with a lot of amazing women who didn't get the screen time they deserved, and Matt clearly has a personality that might have been really entertaining to get to know on TV. Instead, we got a mess that's only going to get messier.
But at least we got to see some of the women stick their hands into boxes full of bugs!
The Bachelor airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on ABC.