Bachelorette Jenn Tran reveals her Final 2 after an emotional confrontation with Devin, then tears into Sam M on The Men Tell All -- along with everybody else -- as the cast rehashes the season so far.
This season's "The Men Tell All" special of The Bachelorette might just as well have been called "The Bachelorette Tells One Man Off." Jenn Tran did not hold back when she got her chance in the hot seat, letting the season's most clueless villain have it.
But long before Jenn came out to sit next to Jesse Palmer, and have her green dress declared her best look of the season by one suitor, her Top 2 men were revealed after Devin's emotional confrontation, which kicked off at the close of Monday's episode.
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View StoryAfter that, it was time for the men to lay into one another, with Sam M definitely taking the brunt of the heat. Sam N got some good-natured ribbing, but people seemed to mostly forgive his aggressive dating behavior, considering he was a relationship virgin.
Anyone who can look back at their first relationship and not cringe about something ... isn't remembering that something.
Aaron took a little heat for his condescending behavior in the house, and particularly his giving Devin a self-help book, including from his twin brother in the audience.
A Bachelor Nation alum who was on the receiving end of a self-help book himself during his Bachelorette season, Jesse told his brother, "I don't think the book's the move. I don't think anybody should tell somebody that they are or aren't ready. We've all got our own journey."
Aaron taking potshots and saying Devin was treating the show "like a game" here at this special was also an odd take, considering Devin is largely considered the most genuine guy there. And he made it all the way to Hawai'i.
But did he make it any further?
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View StoryDevin's Heart-to-Heart
Devin finally reached his breaking point with all of Jenn's not being able to say the l-word back to him when he'd say it to her over and over again. He was tired of being the safe bet for women, the fallback option when the guy they wanted more didn't work out.
As viewers saw Jenn declare her love openly to the emotionally-withdrawn Marcus on Monday, it looked like she was on the verge of self-sabotaging things with the guy who appears to be the most into her ... and she appears to be the most into.
Let's face it, she's totally into Devin, but afraid to be into him because she thinks he's too good to be true. There's gotta be a catch. At the same time, she has a history of choosing the wrong men, so are her worst instincts standing in the way?
That's what Devin needed to find out when he went to talk to her, fully prepared to leave if she couldn't give him the affirmation he was needing from her at this stage of the game. Is he a safe bet or someone she genuinely sees a future with?
If he knew she'd said "love" to Marcus and not him -- which he expressed was one of his biggest fears -- we're not even sure he'd have gone and talked to her at all. He might have just packed up and bailed.
When they started talking, it really seemed like Jenn wasn't quite sure why Devin was so upset. He never quite came out and told her he needed to hear the l-word, but he certainly dropped a lot of very heavy hints.
Alas, it looked like they kept missing her over and over again, as she was saying a lot of things that weren't the word "love," while saying she didn't know what to say and wasn't as good with her words as he was.
What Devin is is sincere with his words. And open and honest. That's what he's looking for.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, she seemed to get it -- or someone clued her in in a quick scene edited out -- and we saw her tell him, "Devin, I do love you, you freaking idiot."
Was she unaware that she'd said it to Marcus, who couldn't say it back to her because he's not there, while leaving Devin hanging in the wind after he said it over and over? We honestly think she kind of was, taking poor Devin a bit for granted ... which he was recognizing.
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View StoryJenn's Final 2
Luckily, they navigated that conversation and it was the validation Devin was needing. That means we're wrong about how Jenn's journey ended because Devin did get a rose and make it to the Final 2.
At the final Rose Ceremony before the proposal one (that she rejects before it happens, per teasers), Jenn cut Jonathan. Considering neither of them had expressed any sort of love and the fact they just seemed to have a great friendship (with at least some benefits), it was a choice that made sense.
When Jonathan joined "The Men Tell All," he acknowledged that there was love in both of the other relationships and not his, so he wasn't surprised, either. He also knew that he was holding himself too much in reserve for too long on the journey.
So now it's time for another bad prediction. This time, we predict either Devin leaves at Final 2 or she rejects him first. Then, at the proposal moment, she realizes Marcus isn't really the guy for her, and stops him from proposing to go chase down Devin -- unless that shot of her Monday night knocking on a door was a super-s--tty red herring.
Either way it plays out, she has to wind up with Devin, right? He's the one who's devoted to her. Marcus just isn't ready for that kind of commitment, and certainly not on this timeline. Ultimately, though, we just don't think he's ready at all.
Marcus will take his uncertainty into next week's three-hour finale where he'll come face-to-face with Jenn's "protective" brother and her traditional Vietnamese mother -- neither of whom seem all that impressed.
They don't seem all that smitten with Devin, either, with Jenn's brother saying he won't be giving his blessing, and mom telling her daughter that this whole process is just too fast. Jenn set us up for that, though, sharing that her traditional mother was definitely struggling with this whole process.
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View StoryThe Men Tell Off
Outside of Devin's conversation, and that teaser for next Tuesday's episode, the bulk of this two-hour show was all about Jesse sitting down with the boys to unpack their world-jetting journey with Jenn as she tried to find love.
We mentioned Aaron taking some heat from the boys for his condescending behavior, but we don't think enough was said about him telling Jenn on his way out the door that some of the guys weren't there for the right reasons, but it was up to her to figure it out.
It was such a s--tty and petty thing to do and no one called him out on it, though. They did ask him who he was talking about, though, and Aaron was willing to tell them.
"Two obvious one would have been Devin -- I feel like he treated it like a game," Aaron said. "I'll also say I was thinking about Sam N, the love virgin. This is not on-the-job-training, you should be ready."
Then he shocked the whole panel when he added, "I'll also say you, Spencer." Spencer noted they don't even know one another, while everyone would agree that Spencer was genuine with his heart and his intentions on the show.
But for all that Aaron was a bit of a blowhard on his time, and Sam N was a bit much, no one took it as hard as Sam M. And he took it all with that same dead-eyed, arrogant expression he wore throughout the season, whether that was threatening to fight one of the guys or failing to express anything coherent to Jenn.
He did admit that he misplayed a lot of his moments in the House and failed to use all those words to properly convey his feelings, saying he'd never been put on the spot to explain why he loved someone before.
He was called out for speaking in sound bytes and catchphrases, with plenty of video evidence of that, rather than just speaking sincerely or from the heart. Even on this show, he seemed to be saying "the right" things, but was it just something he read in a book (maybe from Aaron)?
One consistent response to all of his new comments was that people hoped he was sincere, they hoped he meant what he said. That they had to drop that caveat over and over -- Jenn did it, too -- indicates that if he is sincere, he's got a huge problem in that he does not come across sincere at all. Like, ever.
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View StoryThe 'Blatant Disrespect'
When Jenn finally came out, she laid into Sam M with a stunning monologue that tore him apart not even so much for how poorly he handled their relationship, reminding her of past toxic men over and over again, but for how he treated the other men.
In a split screen as she spoke, Sam M was almost expressionless, except for a bit of a smile toward the end.
"I'm gonna say this in words that you're gonna understand, so I'm gonna keep the main thing, the main thing here," Jenn said, referring to one of his favorite catchphrases.
"And You know what? I wasn't upset that you didn't know how to describe love. Clearly we're on very different emotional, intellectual levels. That's fine," she continued. "What I was upset about, though, is the fact I watched this back and saw how you interacted with all of these men, huffing and puffing your chest everywhere, the blatant disrespect to everybody."
"And then on top of that, our relationship -- everything was about you the entire time," she went on. "How you were feeling in the moment, what you wanted to do, everything resolved [sic] around you. And you watched that back, and instead of growing and learning from that, you decided to double down on that and have your friends and family go out online and defend your honor when you're a grown man."
"And instead of taking accountability for your actions, you decided to blame it on the producers, the edit, the TV show, whatever it was," she said. "And at the end of the day, the man that I saw on TV was exactly the man that I sat across from the entire journey."
"The thing is, I want you to be better from this," she concluded. "But if you don't take a step back and look at what you saw and take accountability for your actions and grow and learn, then I feel very, very sorry for whoever you end up with because this delusional world that you're living in and this denial is not going to work for anybody."
At this, Sam replied, "I think I came up here and took a lot of accountability, truthfully. I definitely lost myself in some of those moments there and I wished I could go back and redo them, truthfully."
"Truthfully," it should be noted, he said more than a dozen times tonight, which not only rendered it meaningless, but made us question whether it was indicative that he was not being truthful at all, but just trying to convince everyone he was. It all felt so performed and calculated, like he was playing a carefully curated (and apparently scripted) role.
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View StoryThe Men Tell All Chatter
(random asides and comments -- not necessarily strategy, but entertaining and sometimes revealing)
- "This is probably the end for me and it scares me to no end. But I can't keep moving forward without getting this off my chest." -- Devin
- "I need to have a tough convo and I just need you to be here with me on it." -- Devin (to Jenn)
- "Proposals are next week and I still don't know where your head's at, and that scares the s--t out of me." -- Devin (to Jenn)
- "I don't know how to be in a healthy relationship. I don't know how to be what you need me to be." --Jenn (to Devin)
- "I love you. I do. And sometimes I just don't know how to be as amazing as you are." -- Jenn (to Devin)
- "I took too long … to realize how incredible you are." -- Jonathan (to Jenn after elimination)
- "I don't do foot content … yet." -- Brett (responding to online reaction)
- "I shot my shot. I missed, I horribly missed." -- Sam N (declaring his love too early)
- "At least Devin was keeping the main thing, the main thing, which was Jenn." -- Jeremy
- "Do you think Sam M was keeping the main thing, the main thing? -- Jesse
- "If the main thing was Devin, then he was. Have you ever seen Mean Girls?" -- Jeremy
- "...truthfully…" -- Sam M (his favorite word tonight … but was it "truthfully" used?)
- "Get used to showering on camera. Lots of soap. Bachelor Nation loves a good lather." -- Jesse (to Grant)
- "There were a lot of alarm bells there." -- Jenn (about Sam M)
The Bachelorette Jenn's story comes to an end like no Bachelorette before her next Tuesday on ABC, while Grant Ellis teases what he's looking for as the next Bachelor below..