The women competing for Gerry Turner’s heart on ABC’s Golden Bachelor might’ve been all smiles and compliments so far, but this week, the stakes are finally getting real—and so, too, is the tension.
Gerry—a ridiculously charming 71-year-old retired restaurateur and pickleball fan from Indiana—is out to find love as the franchise’s first elderly leading man. As nice as it’s been to watch Gerry and the fun, fascinating women of this season exchange pleasantries, that peaceful cocoon could only last for so long. Now, three weeks into this “journey to find love,” jealousy’s thorns have started to puncture. The inciting incident? A talent show.
The Bachelor/ette’s talent shows are entertaining enough during traditional seasons, but this might be the best in the show’s history—and not just because Ellen, a 71-year-old retired teacher from Florida, chose “Sex Ed” as her gift and proceeded to lead the room in a chant of, “A hooha is a vagina.” (Although that did happen, and it was something to behold.)
Franchise alum Kaitlyn Bristowe joined Gerry and host Jesse Palmer at the judges’ panel as Gerry’s dates debuted such abilities as push-ups, stand-up comedy, and singing. April chose “beatnik” as her talent (which, in this case, seems to mostly mean delivering a humorous motivational speech) while Nancy presented the most bewildering one of all: catching a glob of whipped cream in her mouth after tossing it into the air.
And then, there was Leslie—a fitness instructor and dancer who says she once dated Prince. Leslie impressed her competition with her fancy footwork on stage, but she also seemed to ruffle at least one of her fellow contestants when her routine got a little racy. (Meaning, she sat Gerry down in a chair and danced around him and in front of his knees.) During a confessional interview, Susan—a 66-year-old wedding officiant who did karate on stage—offered, “Leslie is a very talented dancer, but she got a little dirty there, a little sexy there at the end. Maybe it was a little much.”
The thing is, though, that Leslie’s presentation was genius. Not only was her dancing on point, but she also ended on the perfect comedic button: busting out a Tupperware and telling Gerry, “But wait! I bake, too.” Incredible, iconic, no notes, et cetera.
In the end, Gerry picked Joan—a 60-year-old private school administrator from Maryland who presented a funny, sincere poem in spite of her obvious nerves. The title, “I Just Hope I Don’t Vomit on Your Shoes,” pretty much said it all. And yet, from the moment Joan started reading, her victory was written all over Gerry’s tearful face. (Cue my first grasping reach for the tissue box.)
Maybe it’s a byproduct of casting older people who actually know what they want, or maybe it’s just Gerry, who by all accounts is a hell of a guy. But whatever the reason, the thing that keeps setting Golden Bachelor apart is how open each contestant is about their true feelings, and how gracefully they express them.
How unfortunate, then, that Joan had to return home right after her talent-show win, and the one-on-one date that followed. As she informed Gerry, her daughter had recently had a baby through a complicated C-section; the morning after her date, Joan received a text that made clear to her it was time to go home and be a mother first.
“I get it,” Gerry told her. “I understand. I can’t tell you how disappointed I am. I was so excited this morning, I was out of bed dancing. I was thrilled that we had a conversation like we did.”
(Cue me frantically reaching for more tissues.)
Both of them were biting back tears as Joan said, “Although I know I’m doing the right thing for my family, I feel like I’m doing the hugely wrong thing for us.”
Ellen and Gerry Turner.
John Fleenor/ABCCould Joan come back later this season to pick this connection back up? (Pretty please?) Only time will tell, but wilder things have happened in Bachelor history. I, for one, will be lighting a candle.
While Ellen got her rose during this week’s second one-on-one date (which came with a pair of Neil Lane diamond earrings and a hot air balloon ride) one of the women left back at the mansion wasn’t feeling so great. As mature and evolved as everyone involved in this season seems to be, it’s hard to overcome human nature—and that includes jealousy. Kathy, a 70-year-old retired educational consultant from Austin, Texas, has evidently grown tired of listening to frontrunner Theresa gush about her connection with Gerry.
Theresa, a financial services professional who celebrated her 70th birthday during the show’s premiere, has been a standout from the beginning, and last week, she got the first one-on-one date of the season. Theresa clearly didn’t mean to frustrate Kathy when she talked about her and Gerry and their “magical,” “off-the-charts” date, but Kathy was clearly not her most eager listener. As she put it, she’s not the “proper quorum” for these thoughts.
Retired realtor Edith, who sadly went home this week, said it best: “It’s the tension that we’re dating just one man. We are getting a little bit jealous, and I think that’s going to create a little bit of chaos.” No kidding.
Later on, in a move straight out of the twenty-somethings’ Bachelor playbook, Kathy seemed to stir the pot with Gerry when she said she’d had a hard day at the mansion because of “meanness.” Was Theresa being mean, or was she just oversharing? Were any of her words really like “daggers”? Hmmm. In any case, Gerry being Gerry, he decided to turn Kathy’s tough day around by giving her a rose.
When Theresa confronted Kathy to find out how she’s upset her, Kathy said her talk about the date and her connection with Gerry seemed territorial and dismissive—at which point Theresa started to cry. (Now, this is the show I’m used to.) No matter how many times Theresa insisted she didn’t mean to make Kathy feel the way she did, Kathy wouldn’t let it go.
While Kathy seemed unbothered about their conversation in the end, Theresa retreated to a bedroom and confided in Faith, who agreed she was never “boastful” about Gerry. And then, when our ever-attentive leading man caught wind that one of his dates is upset, he came in to tend to her feelings—a detail Theresa promptly shared with Kathy right after they make up at the rose ceremony, fanning the flames all over again.
“I can’t decide if she’s dumb as a rock or knows exactly what she’s doing,” Kathy said as the episode closes. While I believe that Kathy might be taking things a little too personally where Theresa is concerned, I also empathize with the pain of getting stuck listening to someone who simply cannot catch a hint.
Unsurprisingly, season previews indicate there’s more of this to come. Let’s just hope this doesn’t end in one of the show’s dreaded two-on-one dates; I’m not sure that sweet, gentle Gerry could handle it.
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