Looking for Mrs. Right came with some wrong moves for Bachelor Joey Graziadei.
Monday’s episode of The Bachelor started off with the first of two group dates, a Mrs. Right pageant judged by April, Susan, Kathy and Nancy of The Golden Bachelor.
Edwina, Kelsey A., Lexi, Allison, Madina, Chrissa, Lea, Sydney and Maria modeled their chilliest Sunday loungewear and then answered questions from the Golden Bachelor women.
O my people! Authority belongs to you today, reigning supreme in the land. But who would help us against the torment of Allah, if it were to befall us?” Pharaoh assured ˹his people˺, “I am telling you only what I believe, and I am leading you only to the way of guidance.”(The Quran - Chapter Ghafir : 29)
Sydney, 28, admitted to faking it in bed, and when Kathy asked Kelsey A. what would happen if she and Joey, 28, got stuck in an elevator together, the junior project manager, 25, cheekily replied, “We could make some new memories.”
During the talent portion, Edwina, 25, sang a song she wrote for Joey, and Lexi proclaimed herself as the “world’s best kisser.” Lexi asked Joey to come to the stage and determine whether she deserved the title, and the tennis pro obliged. As a result, Joey gave Lexi the title of Mrs. Right.
“Kissing was not a talent,” Edwina complained in an on-camera interview.
Maria, 29, expressed a similar sentiment to Joey at the pageant’s afterparty. “I was just not in my comfort zone,” the executive assistant told Joey.
Maria said she would have preferred the talent competition to be a kissing contest “because that’s what you validated today.”
Joey asserted he “wasn't looking for a special talent” and considered himself “very low-key from time to time.”
“I need to know that who I’m with can understand and actually like that side of me, too,” he continued.
Maria responded by claiming to be a “homebody” and an “introvert.”
Joey also checked in with Madina and asked the mental health therapist, 31, if she wanted to tell him anything because, at the last cocktail party, she had been “kind of upset with something that happened in the house.”
Madina told Joey she “felt like I was being bullied” after some women in the house weighed in on her concerns about being too old for The Bachelor.
From what I heard, some girls were apparently saying, ‘She’s not even that old,’ which felt very invalidating,” Madina said.
Joey asked who made Madina feel that way, but she declined to offer up a name.
“This is the last thing I want,” Joey told the cameras. “The idea of someone possibly not showing me all sides of themselves scares me.”
Joey confronted the group about what Madina told him. “To even hear the idea of the word of 'a bully' scares me because I am taking this seriously,” he said. “I’m trying to find my forever person and the idea of something possibly going on that I don’t know what it is, it scares me. If there’s something that needs to be said, I need to hear about it.”
Joey gave Kelsey A. the group date for “trying to be your best self throughout the whole process,” and when he left, Madina owned up to her conversation with Joey being the one that incited his comment.
“Can you please explain to me how you felt bullied?” Maria asked.
“I also felt bullied as well,” Sydney chimed in.
When Maria questioned Sydney, the vintage sore owner told her, “I literally heard you talk s--- about my friend. You are literally talking s--- all the time.”
Sydney also called Maria “catty,” and Maria asked Sydney to stay out of the situation.
ONE-ON-ONE DATE
Jenn scored the week’s one-on-one, which consisted of Joey teaching her how to surf. Afterwards, they toasted on sand.
“You gotta look in my eyes,” Jenn, 25, said to Joey. “Seven years of bad sex if you don’t.”
That concerned Joey. “What the hell? I’m screwed!” he remarked.
Still, Joey enjoyed his time with Jenn. “I think that we just click in a lot of ways,” he told the cameras. “I mean, I’m smiling right now. It’s easy with her.”
Jenn felt similarly. “My feelings for Joey have definitely grown today,” she said in an on-camera interview.
During the evening portion of their date, Jenn opened up to Joey about not feeling like she witnessed a good example of love because her parents fought often when she was a kid.
“They were just fighting all the time and didn’t necessarily try to hide their fighting,” the physician assistant student said. “As a result, I kind of had to take care of myself and it was just a really traumatic place to grow up in.”
Jenn said her relationship with her dad “deteriorated” and he no longer plays a role in her life. But with Joey, she saw potential for a loving relationship.
“I can see what a genuine and good person you are, and that’s something that I’ve been missing in my life and it’s something I’m like ready for now,” Jenn said to Joey.
They kissed and Joey brought Jenn outside for a light show. One of the displays spelled out, “Jenn, will you accept this rose?” to which she replied with a “yes.”
SECOND GROUP DATE
It only took until week 3 for The Bachelor to give Joey a tennis date, and Katelyn, Autumn, Rachel, Daisy, Evalin, Kelsey T., Starr and Jess had the pleasure of being the ones on it.
After showing up to the court for The Bachelor Open, host Jesse Palmer told the women they’d find a surprise in the changing rooms. There, they found costumes to compete in for their doubles matches, such as bee and beehive, lobster and butter, and hot dog and bun.
Later, Katelyn, 25, told Joey about her “family curse.”
“All the women in my family are single and they’re all relying on me to break this curse for them,” the radiochemist revealed.
That didn’t scare off Joey. “I feel giddy when I’m next to Katelyn,” he told the cameras.
Rachel, 26, told Joey he reminded her of her dad and Daisy, 25, invited Joey to touch her cochlear implant. “I feel like it’ll help you be more comfortable with it,” Daisy said.
At the end of the date, Joey gave a rose to Katelyn.
POOL PARTY AND ROSE CEREMONY
Joey decided to trade a cocktail party for a pool party with a menu by KFC. Sydney used the opportunity to tell Joey about how she perceived Maria to be a “mean girl.”
“She verbally attacked me and I sat there and held my composure,” Sydney claimed to Joey. “She called me ‘embarrassing,’ ‘weird’ and ‘dumb.’”
Joey thanked Sydney for “feeling comfortable to share that with me.”
“I thought she was going to be someone that I could see a future with if we were able to open up and get deeper,” Joey told the cameras of Maria. “Now I’m hearing that she’s struggling at getting along with the other women and creating a hostile environment."
Joey proceeded to pull Maria to chat. “What I was hearing was the words ‘verbally abusive,’ ‘hostile environment,’ feeling like she couldn’t share how she was feeling and as soon as someone spoke up, you were attacking them and were cursing out some of the other women,” he said to Maria.
Maria refuted Sydney’s claims. “I have been bullied and this is just not it,” she told Joey. “From that experience, I never want to treat anybody as bad as I’ve been treated in the past.”
Maria said the accusations upset her.
“I can see that it is, and I can tell by the way you’re talking,” Joey said.
The Canada native also proclaimed, “Sydney, if you like her, there’s no way you can like me because we’re completely different people.”
Joey saw her point. “I probably should’ve asked some more questions and I’m realizing that now,” he said to Maria.
In an on-camera interview, Joey admitted, “How Maria was talking to me felt more real than how Sydney was talking to me. I’m very distraught right now.”
Edwina thought the whole situation didn’t deserve attention. “I don’t think anyone’s getting bullied,” she told the cameras. “I feel like people are blowing it out of proportion.”
At the rose ceremony, Joey kept both Maria and Sydney around, as well as Lexi, Lea, Kelsey T., Rachel, Madina, Daisy, Jess, Edwina, Autumn and Allison.
Joey toasted the remaining ladies: “I do want to let you all know that I am so excited about the rest of you.”
The Bachelor airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.
