The Bachelor Recap: The Women Tell all About Arie, Krystal, and Bekah

6 minute read

The Bachelor is drawing to a close and as Arie gets closer to finding love — or at least a Neil Lane diamond engagement ring — his many, many ex-girlfriends are ready to talk. On The Women Tell All the women spilled the beans on Arie, Bekah’s age, Tia’s back stabbing, and what the heck happened to Krystal’s voice.

Here’s what happened on The Bachelor when the women told all:

Goodbye, Glam-Shaming

One of the sillier subplots on this season of The Bachelor was the very glamorous Marikh accusing the also-glamorous Chelsea of “glam-shaming” her for gussying up during a particularly messy date. Marikh is not here for Chelsea’s apology, even though she brought her a glam apology gift in the form of a conciliatory compact. Brittany however wasn’t here for any of this, loudly declaring, “Glam-shaming is not a thing!”

‘K Bye, Krystal

Once upon a time, Arie liked Krystal so much that he took her home to meet his family on the very first date — and not because he lives with them and she’s picking him up in her Prius. Then they went bowling and Arie invited a bunch of women along with them for drinks and she went from Cinderella to an Evil Stepsister in one temper tantrum. She also said terrible things about the other women, badmouthed Arie when she wasn’t with him, and pretended to be about peace, love, and understanding. In short, she was the perfect Bachelor villain. When Chris Harrison calls her on stage she says she has grown and changed and admits she made some mistakes. The women aren’t having it. A woman named Caroline gets tears in her eyes defending her friends from Krystal. Olivia asks the important question, though: Why did Krystal’s voice change. Krystal says that she lost her voice and even consummate Chris Harrison can’t let that pass: “For six weeks?!” and Krystal just nods sagely.

So Long, Seinne

Seinne was too good for Arie and even he knew it. Luckily, Seinne the Yale-educated world traveler is still looking for love and Chris Harrison is very interested in playing matchmaker and helping her find her special someone, as long as they aren’t too threatened by successful women. He probably wasn’t hinting that she would be the next Bachelorette, but he should have been.

Bye-Bye Bekah

Bekah took the stage to explain that she was very upset that people were judging her for her youth. “I’m sorry, I can’t control that I was born in 1995!” she declared, pointing out that other women on the show are just a few years older and people aren’t tweeting at them about their bedtimes. Or as Chelsea said, “Bekah was learning to fingerpaint while Arie was learning to #@* women.”

Chris Harrison wanted to do a little investigative journalism, though. He wanted to find out why Bekah’s mom reported her missing. Bekah explains that she took two weeks off with some friends to go “chill” on a marijuana farm in California and didn’t have phone service to call her mom, so her mom reported her missing, which does not exactly speak for her maturity level. Chris Harrison made Bekah call her mom right then to assure her she was safe — and to tell her that she would be missing for two weeks this summer on Bachelor in Paradise.

Ta Ta, Tia

“Heartbreak sucks,” said Tia. She teared up watching her own sob story, and gracefully dabbed her eyes. She was in love with Arie and even re-watching her experience edited for television, she still doesn’t understand why Arie chose Kendall over her. Chris Harrison casually asked her if she’s ready to love again, clearly testing the waters for an entire season of The Bachelorette set in Tia’s hometown of Weiner, Arkansas. Tia said she is ready to go on her journey for love, but Chris Harrison cagily didn’t extend an offer, instead waiting to convene a focus group on Tia before agreeing to anything. They’ve learned their lesson after forcing their audience to suffer through entire seasons of Farmer Chris and, well, Arie.

Arrivederci, Arie

When Arie stepped on the stage, the women either fixed their steely gazes on him, or fluffed their hair and leaned in. Arie told Tia it was him not her. Then Jacqueline defended Arie for calling her dreams of a PhD an obstacle and Arie applauded her for ending their relationship to follow her dreams. Arie confessed that Bekah’s age scared him off and she admitted that she was more of a risk than the other women, because she’s probably not ready to get hitched. Then Chris Harrison decided to give Krystal more airtime, inviting her on stage. She told Arie that she thought their departure was pretty cold. Arie disagrees, though: “I feel it was pretty appropriate.” Then he and Krystal rehashed the Great Bowling War of 2018 and everyone in the audience fell asleep until Krystal said she was mad that her boyfriend was dating other women and Arie laughed, “This is The Bachelor!” Then Krystal apologized for calling Arie this and Chris Harrison calmly informed her that Arie never heard that clip. RIP, Krystal.

The Real Dirt

The most exciting moment of the entire show was when Caroline, who was apparently on this show, rose from the crowd, pointed a finger at Arie and like some truth-speaking sibyl declares: “I know what you did and I don’t know how you could do that.” Then she settled back into her seat and no one acknowledge what happened and no one explained what that meant, but suddenly the finale seems much more exciting.

More Must-Reads from TIME

Contact us at letters@time.com