“The Bachelor ”recap: 10 things we learned from “The Women Tell All”

Every season, there comes a time when the contestants assemble in the Tealight Candle Thunderdome to rehash old drama, reunite with their “ex,” and show off for producers in hopes of landing a spot on Bachelor in Paradise. This week, that time arrived, rose lovers!

Here are 10 things we learned from The Bachelor: The Women Tell All.

Chloie remains a Bachelor Nation fan favorite

It was close, but our "plus-sized" (a.k.a. human-woman-sized) model/queen won the introduction applause-o-meter. I’m bummed that The Bachelorette is taking a break, because I think she could have had a good shot at landing the gig. Ah well, there’s always Paradise.

The girls are still salty about that basketball date

Remember back in episode 2, when Zoe stole Grant away during the basketball group date? It feels like that happened a full century ago, so no worries if your memory is hazy. Anyhow, the ladies are still annoyed. “It looks like [they were gone] just 5, 10, 15 minutes. She was gone with him for an hour,” notes Beverly, who looks healthy and fully recovered from her appendectomy. “So, we were sitting there with the kids twiddling our thumbs.” Alli Jo adds that the kids left school to appear on the date with Grant and the ladies, so Zoe ruined their day, too.

Speaking of Zoe-related drama, Sarafiena takes a moment to apologize for her snide remark about Zoe’s dress. “I take full accountability for it,” she says. “It was quite possibly the worst thing I’ve ever said.” (If that’s the case, ma’am, you are way nicer than I’ll ever be.) Though Zoe isn’t at the WTA because she’s still in the running to be America’s Next Top Fiancée, Sarafiena says she’s apologized to her and they’re now “good.”

Rose and Dina are still salty about Carolina

To hear Rose tell it, Carolina wasn’t at all upset when Rose told her about Grant’s alleged “I was thinking about you when I was dancing with Carolina” comment. In fact, Rose says that Carolina, who was her roommate, was pumping her for about everything she discussed with Grant. “At the end of the conversation we were laughing and giggling,” recalls Rose. “There was no part of me that thought she was upset about what I had told her.”

Carolina tells host Jesse Palmer she’d prefer to address the situation when Grant is on stage, but she barely gets those words out before several of the other women start jumping down her throat for monopolizing Grant’s time that night before the rose ceremony. “You chose to bring it up that night when you already had a rose,” says Parisa. Bailey (remember her?) starts berating Carolina for her bad timing, but when Carolina tries to defend herself, Bailey just talks louder and at a shriller pitch. Pretty soon, it’s just a cacophony of shouting.

Take note, rose lovers: We’re barely 20 minutes in and Palmer has already lost control of the room. “Ladies, ladies, ladies!” he calls out, to no avail. “Can I just…” Finally, the host pulls out the only tool he has — a commercial break — to calm the chaos. When the ads are over, Carolina jumps in with her side of the story. She claims that when she told Grant what Rose said, she asked him not to “make it a thing” or “investigate” it — but none of the women are buying that. “What did you think he was going to do?” scoffs Vicky (remember her?). “He’s dating 25 of us. Obviously, he’s going to say different things to every single person.” Vicky gets it.

Though Dina and Carolina were last seen hugging it out before the rose ceremony in episode 5, the two women have sense taken some not-very-veiled shots at each other on social media. After playing a few of the posts — including one in which Carolina revealed she has screenshots of her DMs with Dina — Palmer asks how their short-lived truce fell apart. Dina explains that her video about defending Carolina was just meant as a tease for the upcoming episode — sure, Jan — so she was disheartened when Carolina responded with a “threat” to reveal screenshots of their conversations. Carolina, unsurprisingly, isn’t buying Dina’s explanation, and the segment ends without any closure. In fact, Carolina’s so upset, she walks off stage in tears. Girl, you do know you’re not on a group date, right? Grant isn’t going to show up to comfort you.

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It's official: Linda the no-drama llama is the REAL star of the season

First of all, she got her own dressing room.

Second, producers gave Alexe a Hot Seat segment just so they could bring the furry fan-favorite out on stage, too. (No offense to Alexe — she’s a nice young woman, but Linda is who the people really want to see.)

That’s a love story I can get behind.

Sarafiena made her mom proud

Sarafiena memorably told Grant that she wasn’t going all-in on kissing him because she knew her mom, Velma, was watching. And Palmer was so curious to find out what Sarafiena’s mother thought of watching her daughter on The Bachelor, he asked her himself. Let’s roll the videotape!

“I can confirm I did watch it,” says Velma in her video message. “And when I saw the kiss, I turned away for a little bit — then I laughed. I’m so proud of the woman you have become. I love you so much, and remember…”

Oh my GOD, I love her. And she’s single! “Golden Bachelor maybe?” teases Palmer, as the crowd erupts into cheers. Yes, please!

We interrupt this recap for a moment with Hakeem, the undefeated picture-in-picture reaction shot champ.

I’m still not interested in watching The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, but I am looking forward to seeing Hakeem — an adorable contestant from Jenn’s season of The Bachelorette, in case you forgot — on Paradise this summer.

Dina is ready to find love again™

It took a while for Dina to process her breakup with Grant, because in the moment, she was just kind of shut down. “I have emotions, but I hide from them,” she admits. “I wall up a bit, but later on I may process it and think about the emotions that I had in that moment.” Dina adds that she was even a bit closed off during her hometown date with Grant in Chicago, because she was upset about her family not being there — yet she didn’t want to show her distress in the moment. “I didn’t want to deal with it head-on,” she says, adding that she “dodged” his question about how her family’s absence made her feel.

And here’s some breaking news, some that the Bachelor doesn’t even know: It was Dina’s decision to keep her family away from the hometown date. “I have a really big family. Half of [them] were okay with [being on the show],” she explains. Her brothers, meanwhile, did not “trust the process,” so rather than asking half her family to participate in the hometown date under duress, Dina chose to have Grant meet her friends instead. “I regret it a little bit,” says Dina. That said, she’s proud of the growth she experienced on the show: “It taught me that I’m able to put my walls down for the right person.” Can someone please get this so-called “ice queen” to Paradise, stat? She can serve as human air conditioning — and she might even find a partner who can melt her heart.

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Producers overestimated our interest in Carolina

Seriously, guys? You spent most of the Drama Rehash segment focusing on Carolina, and now you’re giving her a full Hot Seat segment? What’s left to say? Certainly, Carolina came prepared to steal the spotlight: She’s wearing a linen jacket emblazoned with what she believes were her iconic quotes (“What’s your question?” and “Crazy and evil”), and as I noted earlier, she huffed off stage in tears in another bid for attention.

When it comes time for her Hot Seat segment, Palmer steers the conversation toward her one-on-one date with Grant in Las Vegas, when she revealed to him that she has epilepsy. “Oh my God, I’m going to cry again!” says Carolina, wiping her eyes. “Sorry to the haters!” Okay girl, calm down. Of course, talking about such a personal and sensitive subject in front of an audience is stressful and emotional — no one thinks you’re faking these tears. Though her conversation with Grant went well, Carolina says she “spiraled” after that date because it made her relationship with him feel more real.

Guess what? Now Palmer’s asking about the Rose drama, again! As though we haven’t heard enough about it. He also asks Carolina if she thinks the women played a role in Grant sending her home. Girl, don’t answer — it’s a trap! Aaaand she walks right into it. “I’ve owned up to everything, I never went below the belt, I never punched down on anyone,” says Carolina. “And somehow all of the hate is on me, and no one else has taken accountability.”

Dina is quick to shoot back, “You don’t even know what it means!” The audience erupts into applause. Oh good, the segment CONTINUES after the commercial break — and once again, everyone’s yelling at each other.

For the love of all that’s holy, who cares? Can we move on please? Yep. It’s finally time for the Bachelor to make his way out to the stage.

Grant is on good terms with his exes (except maybe Carolina)

Most of the women have nothing but nice things to say to and about Grant. Dina, however, is a little miffed that he never told her that meeting her family was a “make-or-break” thing for him — which is something he said in one of his confessionals. “If I made you feel like you couldn’t express that, I’m sorry for that,” says Dina, as tears start spilling down her cheeks. Grant says no, that wasn’t it. “It’s just what was best for me,” explains the Bachelor.

Next, Palmer asks Carolina what she’d like to say to Grant. She wants to know why he told Dina that he “clocked” her behavior when he never gave her anything but validation. The Bachelor says he was just picking up on a vibe and her sad “demeanor.” Carolina says she was “bummed” because all the women “hated” her — and of course, this leads to more yelling and crosstalk. It’s all silly and repetitive, but this moment with Alexe made me LOL:

She’s like the real-life version of that Homer disappearing into the bushes GIF.

The segment ends with the event I’m going to take full credit for: A “chubby bunny” competition between Grant and Jesse. As you may recall, rose lovers, after Grant and Parisa played “chubby bunny” with Rice Krispies treats in episode three, I asked Palmer to challenge the Bachelor to a game at After the Final Rose. Well, we didn’t have to wait that long. Behold:

You’re welcome, Bachelor Nation.

Disney's product placement gets dumber every season

Oh, boy. Some poor schlub in the Disney marketing team had to figure out a way to integrate the new live-action Snow White movie into the Women Tell All. Their solution? Using the “Magic Mirror” to reveal some behind-the-scenes footage. We see Sarafiena (“the sleepiest”) napping all over the mansion; Parisa (“the messiest”) getting teased for the mess in her room; and Dina (“the cleanest”) explaining how she keeps her house so tidy, she doesn’t even allow garbage in the garbage can. Finally, Jesse calls on the Magic Mirror to answer this burning question: Did Grant really tell Rose he was thinking about her while dancing with Carolina?

This show has truly derailed. Anyhow, the mirror reveals the clip that many of us have already seen on social media. In it, Grant tells Rose, “Like even today, right? The whole dancing thing on stage and everything? I was thinking about you.”

The audience lets out a big, shocked, “Ooooh!” But come on! Grant didn’t say anything to Rose about Carolina! Here, we’ll let him explain it: “During the group date, we all were dancing… and when we were dancing, I was thinking about you.” Rose agrees that she “misunderstood” the comment, and thus, this beef shall forever be put to rest. (At least, until both Rose and Carolina show up on Paradise.)

At last, it’s blooper o’clock. They’re not great, but I did like watching Alexe struggle to pull the date card out of the envelope. I also enjoyed the montage of mangled words (“exastrified”) and Parisa’s creative use of olive oil. That girl is going to be hilarious in Mexico.

Grant loves Litia

There’s a lot of stuff we’ve seen before in the finale preview — mainly Grant agonizing over which of his final two women to pick. Though we won’t know who those two women are until after Fantasy Suites, it seems certain that one of them is Litia. Exhibit A:

Related: The Bachelor recap: One family is missing during hometowns

Sure, he says “I’m falling in love with you” to Juliana, but we only see him drop the l-bomb on Litia. Of course, we also see her getting upset that Grant is “exploring connections” with the other women in the Fantasy Suites, so who knows if she’ll stick around to get his final rose.

And that’s a wrap on the WTA, rose lovers! Were you annoyed that so much of the episode focused on Carolina? (I was!) Did the ABC-Disney-Hulu conglomerate convince you to see Snow White or watch The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives? And who do you want Grant to choose in the end? Post your thoughts below!

The Bachelor airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly