“The Bachelor ”recap: Tears, truces, and toxic online hate

Joey faced his many exes on "The Women Tell All" reunion.

The time has come, rose lovers, for Bachelor Nation to make its biannual pilgrimage to the Tealight Candle Thunderdome for the ritual re-airing of grievances.

Let’s recap!

The WTA begins with the cheering Thunderdome audience waving signs production handed them at the door (“Maria 4 President” “Hottest Bachelor Ever!”). Jesse Palmer assures us that the women who will be telling all are currently backstage, as is our Bachelor — who is inexplicably standing shirtless in the dressing room and staring at himself in the mirror.

Um, you okay, buddy? Maybe the poor guy still has PTSD from being forced to crash those Bachelor viewing parties, where he was mobbed by shrieking women demanding selfies. Speaking of demanding, shrieking mobs, please welcome the women of The Bachelor season 28!

No question who wins the introduction applause-o-meter: Maria, hands down. Looks like the sprinkle heiress has a clear path to Bachelorette status if she wants it. Anyhoo, enough chit-chat. Cue the drama montage with awkward picture-in-picture reaction shots!

All the greatest hits are covered: Jess announcing her “smoochie-poo” with Joey, Sydney calling Maria a bully after Madina said she felt “bullied,” Lea scolding Madina for being nice to Maria, Jess snapping at Maria during the cocktail party, and so on. Maria, being the common denominator with most of these conflicts, comes out swinging. She blasts Lea for saying that the threw the “steal a one-on-one date” card in the fire “for us as women in the house.”

Other women jump in to say Lea’s decision felt like “a performance,” especially given how she acted toward the women later. Madina agrees, telling Lea, “I feel like it was really frustrating to hear you call yourself a girls’ girl, and then pull me aside to tell me how to act.” Hard agree, Madina.

Uh-oh, some blonde woman whose name I couldn’t tell you if I had a gun to my head just started talking over Madina. Palmer, please get control of this situation!

Come on, dude! Put your back into it. How about, "It stops shouting over the other women or else it gets the hose again. That's right, Precious, it gets the hose!" Madina finally gets the floor back, and she asks Lea to apologize — which she does. With that settled, Jesse pivots to a new topic: “Shut the f--- up”-gate. Maria swears she never said it to Lea. “Because I said it!” interjects Lauren, one of the sisters. “I’m the one who said, ‘shut the f--- up.’ She was telling me to practice patience, and be quiet, super condescending for no reason.”

Lea is understandably upset having all this fire directed her way, and during the commercial break she walks backstage to have a private cry. Jess shows up to comfort her. “It’s going to be over soon,” she says. “Don’t let it get to you. It’s not worth it.” Just before the show comes back from commercial, Lea returns to the stage, and Maria, seeing that she’s okay, hurries over to give her a hug.

Awww, that’s nice. And we’re back! Madina says she probably shouldn’t have used the word “bullied” when she was talking about how Maria’s comments about her age — which, you may remember, were something like, “She’s not even that old” — but she did because she felt “backed into a corner.” Sydney insists her “truest intention” was only to “stick up for a friend,” but Edwina is 1-800-NOT-HAVING IT.

“That’s not what it was!” she interrupts. “You just never liked Maria — that’s what it was.” Jess tries to get in on the shouting, asking Edwina why she is making such assumptions, and Edwina shuts her down. “I saw it. I observed,” she says. “Don’t try to stop me from saying what I feel.”

The audience LOVES it, because they are 100 percent #TeamMaria. Sydney tries again, explaining that she and Maria “communicate so differently” — which is just a softball pitch for Maria’s next home run.

Stay down, Sydney! Don’t try to get up from that blow. Jesse wants to hear from Jess next. What was her fight with Maria really about? Jess says the conflict was brewing for a while, because every time she would try to add her “two cents” into a conversation, Maria would interrupt her and tell her to “zip it” and “shut up” and so on. Maria vehemently denies this — and unfortunately, she does this by interrupting Jess several times. “I said, ‘zip it,’ and that was not shut up!” she fumes. “And that was one time.”

Jess forges ahead, saying she felt “shut down” by Maria several times before their blow-up in Spain. “The way she handled things was not okay,” says Jess. “And she’s not taking accountability for that.” There’s some more back and forth shouting, so much so that Palmer is finally compelled to interrupt again. “It’s only a two-hour show,” he jokes.

That’s right. And we haven’t even gotten to the first Hot Seat™. Lexi, come on up!

Looking back on telling Joey about her endometriosis diagnosis, Lexi says she was “floored” by his response. “He handled that so well,” she says. Past boyfriends did not have such a great reaction to her news; Lexi says they sometimes made her feel like “less of a woman,” which totally sucks. Our angel baby Joey, however, said that should they end up together, he’d like to have a “toolkit” on hand to help her when she had flare-ups. (All together now, rose lovers: Awwwwwww!)

Though she couldn’t stay with Joey, Lexi is grateful for the response she’s received from Bachelor Nation from viewers who have had similar experiences. “When I was going through that, I felt so alone,” she says, tearing up. “So to hear that I helped people feel seen is so special.” Moving forward, Lexi says Joey has set “an extremely high bar” for her next relationship. No lie detected.

Wait, I’m sorry — are producers really giving Jenn a Hot Seat™ segment? I mean, she seems like a nice young lady who got along with everyone, but her chemistry with Joey was… minimal. Did anyone really think she was going to make it to the end? She looks great, though. Love the earrings.

It is sweet to hear that being on the show has allowed Jenn and her mother grow closer, because it helped her mother see her as a full-fledged adult. And her mom does sound amazing: She came to America from Vietnam, gave up her medical school education to raise her kids, and then became a single mom but “never complained once.” Jenn adds that she’s also heard from other extended family members since being on the show, who reached out to show support. “It’s been incredible to hear,” she says. Okay, fine, I’m glad they did this segment. (But I still think Kelsey T. deserved her own Hot Seat™ moment, too.)

We’re half-way through, rose lovers, and the hottest Hot Seat™ has arrived.

Maria says watching the clips of her “journey” with Joey is sad, but “everything happens for a reason.” (Narrator: It doesn’t.) Dad, however, isn’t handling their breakup so well. “Joey has a hit out on him currently,” Maria says. “He should probably sleep with one eye open.” She’s joking, everyone! Don’t call the FBI!

Ugh, why is Jesse bringing up the Maria-Sydney feud again? This time, though, Sydney admits that she was “annoying,” and that she should have been “resolution-oriented” rather than targeting Maria. And Maria wants Sydney and Lea to know that the hate they’ve been receiving on social media “has crossed the line, and it is something I do not condone or respect as well.” More on that in a bit, rose lovers. For now, it’s all love. “I wanna make up!” Maria announces, before trotting over to give Sydney and Lea hugs.

We interrupt this recap to bring you a breaking Bachelor news bulletin: Joey Graziadei still can’t find his shirt. But he seems to be in good spirits.

Indeed, he’s definitely happier than the last time we saw him, when he found Kelsey’s ominous “we need to talk” note in Tulum. What happened with that, you ask? Palmer announces that we will now rejoin last week’s episode, already in progress, and find out.

Okay, I’m paraphrasing. “I feel like we made a promise to each other about being honest about communicating our feelings,” begins Kelsey. “I just wanted you to know exactly how I feel about it all. I just wanted to verbalize that it’s hard not seeing you, and the days in between are always so hard… I just wanted to tell you how much I miss you when I’m not there.”

Girl, are you serious? That’s what you wanted to say? You nearly gave poor Joey a heart attack. Once the Bachelor realizes that she’s not breaking up with him, he lets out an exasperated sigh. No, Kelsey — he’s not okay. “I was just confused, because there was just no way with how we left things before to think, like, something was wrong,” he explains. Joey goes on to say, in so many words, that he’s frustrated Kelsey left him such a vaguely worded note — one that indicated she was going to bolt — especially since he told her his biggest fear is the woman he chooses not choosing him back. “It just sucked that I had the beginning of that feeling just a few moments ago,” he adds.

Kelsey gets the message. “I feel bad for stressing him out,” she admits. “If I could do it over again, I would have wrote the letter differently.” (That said, I would bet $500 that producers were the one who encouraged Kelsey to use the phrase “we need to talk” rather than something more benign, like, “I miss you. Can we talk?”) Now Kelsey is understandably concerned that Joey might be so frustrated with her that he'll send her home at the next rose ceremony. Unlikely. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Mexican rose ceremony roll call!

Guys, the way Kelsey, Daisy, and Rachel are all genuinely happy to see each other! “No matter what, it’s going to be me, Kelsey, or Rachel that get hurt today,” says Daisy tearfully. “I love them both. Obviously, I want to be with him and the end of this. They’re two of my close friends, and I don’t want them to get hurt.”

Joey, get in here and hand these roses out before your three potential wives implode from stress! And the final two are… Daisy and Kelsey. Not a huge surprise, but it’s still very sad to see Rachel cry. Joey leads her out to the Bye-Bye Bench, but there isn’t much he can say to make this moment better. “I know I have love for you,” he says. “It’s just, I wasn’t able to fully get there.” Rachel is, understandably, too upset to respond, so she and Joey share a long, tearful hug before she gets into the Reject SUV. He’s crying, she’s crying, people in the audience are crying.

Back in the Thunderdome, Rachel has materialized on the Hot Seat™. She’s crying, but they’re bittersweet tears.

“As emotional as that was and as sad as it was, I still think it was such a beautiful moment between the two of us,” she says. “You can see how much love there was between the two of us.”

We sure can. Joey, put a shirt on and get your butt out here.

Rachel kicks their conversation off with a joke. “Did you enjoy that?” she asks Joey, gesturing to the big screen where their breakup played out in glorious technicolor. “Yeah, that was fun.” She goes on to say that it made her feel better to see that Joey cried after sending her home. “I was like, ‘At least he was kind of upset that I left,’” she tells him. Like several of the other women, Rachel also wants to thank Joey for teaching her that her standards aren’t too high — and it is possible to have the romantic relationship she deserves.

From here, the conversation takes a darker turn. Jesse asks Rachel what her life has been like since the show ended, and she just breaks down. “The past couple days since hometowns, I don’t know why this is happening… I’ve just been getting a lot of hateful messages as soon as the episode aired,” says Rachel through her tears. “A lot of racist comments toward me, calling me the n-word or calling me ‘Jungle Asian’ all because I got a rose.”

Ugh. Even typing those words makes me so incredibly angry. Rachel says the day after the episode aired, she woke up and her social media was filled with hateful DMs, and people were making TikToks pretending to throw up every time she and Joey kissed.

Bachelor Nation, are y’all okay? Truly, what in the name of all that’s holy is going on here? I’d like to believe that no one who reads my recaps would ever commit online hate crimes, and fingers crossed I’m preaching to the choir here, but seriously — this is NOT OKAY. Rachel isn’t the only one who’s received toxic messages from trolls. Ladies, please raise your hand if you’ve been the target of online hate.

The Golden Bachelor’s Kathy and Susan, who are in the audience, raise their hands, too. Turning to the camera, Jesse addresses Bachelor Nation directly: “We love your strong opinions. But I think it’s so important that we uplift these women.” The Bachelor jumps in and asks people to remember how much “courage” it takes to be on this show. “It should never be met with hate.”

Rachel has the last word on this subject, and it’s worth repeating: “We’re not just faces on a screen… People are so quick to be little keyboard warriors and pop off because there’s no consequences, but we have to pay the consequences emotionally and mentally. Just be kind. Your words have weight to it.” Amen! Get it together, Bachelor Nation! Clearly, some of y’all need to touch grass — ideally, as you’re walking into a therapist’s office.

Okay, rose lovers, we’re heading into the home stretch of this Tell All. After the commercial break, Joey gets a chance to talk to the other women…. Including Kelsey T., finally!

“I actually talked to my dad right after the show,” she reveals, tearing up. “And he apologized for a lot. He’s very present in my life now.” Congrats, ma’am! You deserve to be happy.

And so do we. Bring on the outtakes and bloopers! We see Rachel’s impression of Joey’s rose ceremony shoulder wiggle; Joey stuffing his face with macaroons during his shopping date with Maria; and a silly montage of Jesse (fake) trouncing Joey at tennis. As for the bloopers, this may be the most culturally relevant one of all:

Normalize women talking about defecation!

The evening ends with an extended preview of next week’s “heart wrenching” finale. Kelsey cries to Joey’s mom about how much he means to her! Daisy worries that something “is off” between her and Joey! The Bachelor breaks down sobbing at the Proposal Platform™ and then… leaves in an SUV??? So much drama.

Holy cow, rose lovers, the season is almost over! Before you go, a few questions: Did any of the women surprise you tonight? Do you think Maria is a shoo-in for Bachelorette? (If not, who do you think it will be?) And how many macaroons could you eat in one sitting? Let me know your thoughts on Twitter @KristenGBaldwin or on Bluesky at @kristengbaldwin.bsky.social.

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