The Food That Didn't Get Eaten On The Bachelor, Week 8: Somebody Feed This Dweeb

Oh, what in the ever-loving holy hell was that interminable mess?

We're nearing the end of this season of The Bachelor, which is wild, because it feels endless, even when interesting things happen. Think of how long the Victoria business played out. And it's still going! Peter is having the same three conversations with the same group of women over and over again, and then new topics arrive and they get folded into the repeating chorus, slowly, slowly circling the drain, a slow but inexorable drain on joy and pleasure and consciousness and life itself. Oh god, where's the dog? Bring back the dog. Someone get Chase Rice on the phone. Could we maybe call Colton Underwood and get him to jump over the fence again?

Okay, let's step back. This week, Peter The Pilot Weber attempted to stay on script while one of his paramours threw hers out the window, and everyone was starving the whole time. We won't know what actually came of this episode until next week, because The Bachelor loves to milk a cliffhanger. And while it would be an exaggeration to say that the single reference to milk in the previous sentence is the most direct reference to food you'll see an episode, it's only a slight one.

He did not. He really could have used a snack. Would probably have helped his critical thinking.

In case I haven't already made this clear, I found this episode to be insanely dull outside of a few very stressful (though still overlong) minutes. As such, while I watched this whole mess twice—twice—it is nevertheless possible that my eyes glazed over at some point while Peter ate a single grape. If Peter ate a single grape, let me know in the comments.

He did, however, mow down on some faces and guzzle some wine.

It's been a while since we stretched the definition of food to include the lips on which Peter's chewing, and if we're not going to do that in Fantasy Suites week, when else are we going to do it? So Peter started sucking face very early in the proceedings after Madison pulled him aside for a post-rose-ceremony chat about sex, love, and the central conceit of The Bachelor. He then snogged Hannah Ann endlessly, as pictured above. His second date was with Victoria, and it contained much kissing. His third was with Madison, and it was also very heavy on the smooching, even after it became somewhat heavy on the silent crying.

Not one of those kisses was any less boring than the others.

Just endless sparkling wine everywhere. Justice for Kelsey.

It could also be a piece of chocolate cake and a dog bone, or an overcooked steak and a hunk of raw marbleized beef? Regardless, neither Hannah Ann nor Peter even looked at the food, and that's after a day spent Jet-Skiing and making out on sandy beaches. They had a perfectly bland conversation that came down to Hannah Ann saying, "Hey, if you put it to some of the other women you're currently in love with, that's gonna bug me, but I'll stay put, unlike some other people I could name." Then they read the Fantasy Suite card lovingly penned by some P.A., took out the gold key that definitely didn't actually belong to a door, and headed up to the penthouse.

That destination is important. The chat Madison and Peter have at the top of the episode—pretty difficult to watch—is Madison's attempt to tell Peter that she's chosen to wait for marriage before becoming sexually active. That doesn't happen, but she does manage to communicate that should he have sex with either of the other women he's dating, she'd have a very hard time continuing to be involved with him. She says more than once that it isn't an ultimatum, which seems to confuse him, because the boundary between "ultimatum" and "do what you want but just so you know if you do this thing I will probably leave" is pretty porous.

In the Fantasy Suite—which, again, is a penthouse suite, please keep that in mind when you get to the starter cabin Victoria gets—Peter and Hannah Ann find the above spread waiting for them. I think the dessert substance is cheesecake. I would also like to personally thank Hannah Ann for not saying something like, "No, I'm dessert," which is a real thing someone says on the Netflix series Love Is Blind. In that respect at least, you're doing great, Hannah Ann.

Anyway, they probably bang. Can't say for sure. And then Peter says he's in love with three women for what's possibly the first time in the episode but certainly not the last.

Seriously, that's what it is, right? Peter and Victoria's date begins with a helicopter ride, because making her take a small aircraft across a Great Lake and then forcing her onto rollercoasters didn't take enough advantage of her fear of heights. (Though maybe she's not actually afraid of heights?) Then they hang out by a waterfall and don't eat crackers, cheese, and charcuterie. As they don't eat, they say things like "I love everything about my relationship with Victoria except when it comes to communicating" and "I feel like we can talk about anything, I just feel like I'm really bad at conveying what I want to say."

I am so sorry to do this, but please read the following trail of characters as a sound, but imagine the most boring possible version of that sound:

skdskdsjdskdskdjsdsjdksskdkskdksdjskdjksdjsjsjdkjkdsjdksjskdjksdjskskaaaaah

After the picnic, they have yet another fraught conversation about how fraught their conversations are, while back at the group dorm—oh, did I mention the producers made Madi, Hannah Ann, and Victoria share a space while all this was happening, just to make Madi that much more uncomfortable?—Madi tells Hannah Ann about the non-ultimatum. It does not go over well. It goes over about as well as that single piece of sushi, that pile of rice with something at the center, and those two marshmallows shoved between two busted up Swiss Cake Rolls.

That guess is based totally on bowl shape and the fact that the thing in there could maybe be a dark loaf of bread. But who cares, the point of this meal is a conversation that should have been fascinating but was instead, yes, slow and kind of dull.

These are the most straightforward paragraphs about this dumb show I will ever write, so feel free to skip ahead if you're just here for the jokes about how Peter's a pilot. (Did you know? He flies planes. That's his job!) Everyone who watches and writes about this show will have an opinion about this scene and what it means. Some will say Peter was told directly what might happen if he slept with one or both of his other "relationships," and that Madi was right to stand up for herself and how she deserves to be treated. Others will say that Madison knew what she was getting into with The Bachelor, and to reject the premise of it at this late stage is unfair to all involved. Still others will compare her to last season's Luke P. (those people will be wrong; Luke's diatribe was about what he was owed by a woman he alternately idealized and shamed, while Madison's statement was about her own emotional experience).

Here is my opinion: The Luke P. comparison is nonsense, but as for the other opinions stated above, it's both of those things. And that's because Peter is playing The Bachelor, and "trusting the process," whereas Madison is just dating a guy.

So she walked. But she'll be back.

I mean, Peter is seriously lacking in nutrients. If you stayed for the episode tag on the end, you saw this happen:

So it's Madi who deserves the drink, but Peter really needs a meal.