The writing was on the wall even before The Bachelor’s self-coronated “Queen” Victoria Larson first stepped off her palanquin to greet this year’s sample of man meat, Matt James. Regardless of how much would be her doing versus the show’s producers—who know just how to capture everyone in their worst possible light—it was clear that Victoria would be a royal pain in the ass.
Despite this troublesome monarch’s obnoxious performance on Night One—which included stealing our Bachelor away from one of the horniest groups of contestants this show has seen yet not once but twice!—Matt kept the “Queen” around for a second week. And to no one’s surprise, this Monday’s installment saw Victoria making good on all that awful potential so many Bachelor fans clocked during the premiere—ripping pages out of the franchise’s long-established villain playbook at a feverish clip.
But Victoria’s “performance” this week was not the kind of drama Bachelor fans actually enjoy; as this cantankerous contestant’s “not here to make friends” energy quickly sprouted into a one-sided feud with her roommate, Marylynn, it all felt so predictable as to become headache-inducing. Despite Victoria’s insistence to the contrary, the exchanges that made it to screen, at least, sure make it seem like she decided to bully one of the gentlest people in the house—and then told Matt the opposite.
The direction this week’s episode would take became obvious within minutes—right after Bri Springs received this season’s first one-on-one date card. “Why do you guys think he picked her?” Victoria asked. As other contestants tried to echo Bachelor shepherd Chris Harrison’s advice to focus on their own experiences—or “the journey,” or however he put it this year—our petty “Queen” got impatient.
“First of all, I didn’t even talk to Bri,” Victoria said, “so I don’t have that little friendship that you guys have. And second of all, I wanted to be on that date, so I’m not happy about it.”
“I think all the girls that are happy for Bri are all fake as shit,” Victoria said later in a solo interview. “The reality of the situation is, we’re all here to date Matt; we’re not here to be in a sorority.”
Bri’s one-on-one with Matt was largely standard Bachelor fare; he took her on an ATV and did some donuts before crashing it, and then they got in a hot tub and had a dinner together that they barely ate. In a genuinely tender moment, the two bonded over both having grown up without their fathers present, and Bri ultimately accepted a rose.
Meanwhile, at the house, Victoria raged on: “I hate this girl-power bullshit,” she said, adding later that all of her housemates “are either lying, or fake, or fucking losers.”
As the contestants realized that there will only be two other dates this week—a group date and a second one-on-one—Victoria stewed some more. “I would honestly not want a group date based on how I feel in the group right now,” she said. “I don’t feel like I can be my most authentic self... Although I would do it for Matt, but it would still be like, I would rather wait for a one-on-one.”
So obviously, she got stuck in the group date.
As the other women slated to join this (enormous) group outing tried to accept their fates, Queen Vicky couldn’t help but tweak their nerves. “Now you guys know how I felt this morning—and you all were so rude to me, and this was the issue I had all day,” she said. “I’m here to spend time with Matt. That’s what’s important to me, so if that’s not important to you, that’s perplexing to me.” (Ma’am. Seriously, we get it.)
This was also when Victoria seemed to choose Marylynn as her designated nemesis. She accused her roommate of being “so rude” to her. And what did Marylynn say that was so mean? According to Victoria, she’d said: “I want to pick your brain and understand you, and see why you act the way you do.”
That is, of course, not how Marylynn remembered their exchange; instead, she said she’d simply been trying to understand Victoria.
“We have to room together,” Marylynn said in a desperate plea for sanity. “We have to live together. I’m trying to make it better.”
Victoria’s response?
“Oh my God, I’m so over it,” she said, storming out of the room and removing her suitcase from their shared bedroom as Marylynn murmured, “I just don’t understand what’s happening here.”
Victoria then launched into a rant: “Marylynn, she’s psychologically disturbed,” she insisted. “Literally. Like, I’ll sleep on the couch... I’m gonna be with Matt and the rest of it is just, like, ridiculous. I literally am a queen and I can’t wait for Matt to send her home so I have my own room—as I should.”
Given all this, I’m sure you’ll be shocked to learn that despite her instructions to the group—“Just don’t be negative tomorrow, you guys...”—Victoria was also disruptive during their shared date.
As the women tried on white dresses to snap their dream wedding photos with Matt (an echo of last season, with “Bachelor’s beloved photographer, Franco on deck once more) the “Queen” put on a crown and stalked at least one of the shoots. She appeared to cut the line to make out with Matt under the wedding arch, and had him remove a garter from her thigh.
The wedding shoot eventually gave way to a food-slash-paint fight that saw Victoria’s team, well... victorious. (Sorry.) So during the cocktail party, several women took their shot at convincing Matt to keep them around—including the “Queen” herself.
Victoria’s main play was to insist to Matt that despite her confident exterior, she—like Shrek and onions—has layers. “I have a lot of sides to me,” she said. “As much as I come across confident, I want you to know that, like, I’m also human.”
Matt James and "Queen" Victoria Larson
Craig Sjodin/ABCAs Victoria detailed some of her insecurities from earlier in the date, Matt responded by complimenting her, and challenged her to “continue to own who you are, because it’s beautiful.” (To which all of Bachelor Nation responded with a resounding “NOOOOOO!”)
After their discussion, Victoria swanned into the room where her fellow contestants were sitting. In a solo interview she said she hadn’t “been deep like that with a guy in a while,” and that “the rose would mean so much to me tonight.”
Wouldn’t you know it, though—it was just at that moment that Matt entered the room to take the date rose and give it to someone else.
Specifically, Matt gave the rose to Lauren—who immediately had to deal with Victoria asking, “Were you expecting that?” and talking about how, actually, she thought she was going to get the rose.
Matt eventually went on his second one-on-one date with Sarah—and after that came the cocktail party ahead of this week’s rose ceremony, which got cut short after some explosive drama left one contestant blacking out, seemingly from anxiety. Would you believe that Victoria was at the root of all that, too?
It all started with Marylynn’s conversation with Matt. After being left out of both the one-on-one and group dates, Marylynn was understandably anxious to find out how Matt felt about her—and overjoyed when he gave her an orchid after remembering it was her favorite flower.
The other contestants responded positively when a happy Marylynn emerged toting her flower—but right at that moment, Victoria decided that Marylynn was “toxic,” and that she simply had to tell Matt about it right away.
Anyone who’s seen even one episode of The Bachelor can guess where things went from there. Victoria dubbed herself an “empath” and blabbed to Matt that Marylynn “cries and manipulates situations” and is “straight up toxic” before insinuating that she’d been bullied into sleeping on the couch. Marylynn denied all this to Matt, who left her crestfallen. When Marylynn tried to resolve... whatever this is... the “Queen” responded by saying they were “like oil and vinegar.” She stormed away, once more, while insisting, “You’re too much for me.”
“Marilyn definitely needs to go home tonight because I hate her,” Victoria said. “I’m not going home tonight. The Queen doesn’t go home.”
Most contestants, at this point, were fed up with Victoria for monopolizing so much of the cocktail party with her trumped-up drama. Sarah said she was grateful to have received her date rose, protecting her from elimination, but admitted that she was “overwhelmed.” Minutes later, she collapsed during the rose ceremony, telling producers that she was blacking out.
As I said: All of this is such rote drama for The Bachelor that one could have predicted almost all of it before the episode even began. As Victoria hurls insults, skepticism, and hostility left and right, she appears pathologically unwilling to self-examine. Maybe Victoria is just on the receiving end of the show’s infamous “bad edit.” But whatever the reason, this “Queen” sure is coming off like the ultimate “Karen.”
