This post contains spoilers for Monday’s The Bachelor.
Peter Weber! Peter! Weber! After the nonsense our Bachelor pulled during this week’s Fantasy Suites, he needs the kind of stern talking-to that always begins just that way.
It’s not that Peter had been, as he put it, “intimate” with other contestants after Madison Prewett explicitly asked him not to do so. That we knew was coming. No, the transgression to which I refer is a more insidious one: Doing exactly that and then begging like a wayward freshman-year-of-college boyfriend when it’s time to face the consequences.
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We all knew what was coming from the moment the episode began—or, really, since last week when that glum look spread across Peter’s face listening to Madison’s chastity plea. Peter “Four Times” Weber? Staying chaste during Fantasy Suites week? Forget it! Producers even forced all the contestants to stay in the same house; usually they’d be bunking separately by now. And they slotted Madison last in the overnight date line-up, forcing Hannah Ann Sluss and Victoria Fuller to listen as Madison talked herself in anxious circles at the thought of what Peter might be doing on his other dates.
So by the time Madison arrived for the dinner portion of her own date—after Peter had clearly slept with both other women—the showdown was almost immediate. “I can feel your heart,” Peter told her as they embraced. “I know,” she replied. “It’s racing.”
Then came what we all expected: Madison told Peter she’d never felt the way she does about him. And when she brought up the fidelity clause? Peter’s face could best be described as “Gerber Baby Caught in the Headlights.”
“Um, so, I just want to start off being very honest with you,” he said. “Honestly, Madi, like, I have been going through a lot in the past week. Because of what you did. You know, a lot of this revolves around the whole intimacy thing, and honestly I’ve been torn because the fact of the matter is that I do have the two other relationships right now.”
Madison made clear she was not judging Peter for any of his choices in life, but stood firm in what she needs. Crystallizing one of the weirdest facts of Bachelor life, she added, “I just can’t wrap my mind around, in a week from now, if you’re down on one knee and six days before that you slept with somebody else. I just can’t wrap my mind around it.”
After what felt like hours, Peter finally admitted that, yes, he had “been intimate” with other women on the show. “I can’t lie to you about that,” he said.
It was at this point that Madison left the table to go cry on the other side of a glass door. Producers milled around. Kangaroos looked on as Madison sniffled, as if to say, “What kind of show did you think you were on, mate?”
Peter eventually emerged to pull Madison into an embrace, placing his forehead against the top of her head and mumbling all of his regrets. “Madi, I’m so sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry. I hate this situation right now. So much, and like, I know how frickin’ tough this is for you. I can’t lose you.” After what felt like the longest silence in recorded history, he pleaded, “Say something,” Side note: (“Frickin?” “Frickin?!”)
“Don’t walk away,” Peter added, having entered into full-on begging mode. “I know I’m not perfect. I’m not even close. If you can honestly see you and me together forever, do not walk away. Please don’t. I know that I’ve hurt you. I’m sorry for that. Please don’t walk away from this.”
Alas, Madison did, indeed, walk away—at least for now. Previews for the episodes ahead, some of which have been used all season, show Peter’s mother pleading with him to bring someone home—and this time we also got a shot of Peter apologizing profusely to someone whose identity I simply cannot guess! Is this Cassie and Colton 2.o? Stay tuned to find out!
One could argue that Madison was in the wrong for somehow expecting exclusivity on a show that’s had this ritual since it began almost two decades ago. That is absolutely true. But this moment also forms a neat—almost certainly intentional—dialogue with Hannah Brown and Luke Parker’s explosive argument last season. Unlike Luke, Madison expressed her feelings calmly and without judgment.
Madison’s expectations were obviously foolish for this show, especially given that this season’s Bachelor made his name by “being intimate” with last year’s Bachelorette not one but four times. But Peter’s pleading also really grates how Our Bachelor can insist all he wants that he’s “in love with three women”—but for weeks, Madison has seemed like his clear favorite. Knowing that, there had to have been a more mature way for him to handle all this. And to those of you who ask, “What else did you expect from Fantasy Suites week?” All I’ll say is, fair enough—but remember: Tyler Cameron has shown us another way.
