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As an advertisement for ulcerative colitis medication fades to a close, a glamorous logo plate for “The Bachelor” shimmers on screen, letting you know that it’s time to tune back in. We’re about halfway through the episode, the third one of the first ever season with a gay Bachelor. The man picked for the role was Kurt Hummel, a self-made fashion designer who says he’s “picky to a fault”.
To give us a quick update, the narrator welcomes us while a few flashes of images play on screen: a full moon, a red-faced Blaine swinging at Sebastian, an emergency vehicle with lights flashing (that will not actually appear in the episode, it’s just there for suspense).
The man on screen, then, is a contestant named Matt Rutherford, who’s conveniently recapping the events he’s just witnessed. He’s been watching from the background, so his talking head interview lets us in on the hottest gossip of the episode so far.
“Blaine went ballistic,” he explains to the producer who’s sitting behind the camera. “I think all the jokes really got to him.” He nods gravely, referring to a series of catty comments made in the earlier date segment of the show. “And he swung at Sebastian, who, like, ate it and went right down to the floor. Like…” he scoffs. “I don’t think I ever watched a guy, like, lose a fight harder or faster. But for some reason, Kurt is just-” his lips blur and a tone sounds as he swears, “-into it, for some reason.”
For comedic effect, the picture on screen cuts to Kurt and Sebastian in their current position, with a pool chair fastened into a makeshift hospital bed. Kurt is playing nurse over scraped knees, carrying on conversation with Sebastian. An entire party worth of single men, complete with drinks and activities, is inside the mansion, completely ignored by the both of them.
Then, we cut to the party. Blaine is fuming. A gaggle of hot gay men are speechless and shiftless by a punch bowl. One of them is wearing a crown and a sash, but he looks just as miserable as the rest of them.
We get a closeup on him, standing awkwardly; It’s Karofsky. He won the “Mr. Bachelor” pageant mini-game after a heartfelt song, and got 30 minutes extra time with Kurt after the event. He was feeling pretty good about that time, until this dumb after party happened. We cut to a talking head interview, with a still-crowned Dave explaining his side of this.
“I thought I was doing pretty good, because I got a crown and a kiss, but this is…” he breathes out a slow gust of air through a tight ‘o’ in his mouth. “This is kind of beyond, actually. It kind of feels like we’re all missing out on valuable Kurt time because Sebastian fights like a punk bitch.” The words are said with obvious distaste. “And it’s weird, because he’s, for some reason, really proud of being like that…?”
To prove Dave’s point, the show provides archival footage from over a week ago. Sebastian is eating breakfast, standing at a kitchen island. Across from him is another contestant, who’s stirring his oatmeal between Sebastian’s words.
“Yeah, my dad taught me how to fight. He’s a lawyer, and, um-”
“So are you, I know,” an unimpressed Jesse finishes the sentence.
“And I like to think I fight like a lawyer.”
“I fight like a dancer, I-”
Sebastian completely barrels over the ridiculous thing Jesse was about to say, which would have also made for great TV. “What I do, is I just go-” a censor sound, “-limp. Best case I get it on film. I let the guy whale on me. And he’s like… bro, hit me back. And I won’t stop doing whatever thing he’s hitting me for, but I’ll be like… acting like I’m halfway to death during a fight, keep saying shit, just to get punched again. Because that way, I get the footage, take it to my dad, and he sues the shit out of them. And boom, if you thought me punching hurt? Wait until you have to pay me millions for my face, which is insured, and all the evidence is on my side. That hurts.”
“So you just… let them hit you?” Jesse asks. The archival footage Sebastian nods, and then we cut to Jesse’s interview in the present.
He’s utterly unimpressed. His lips are pursed, then he sucks them in, then he releases them to deliver his verdict. “Someone was going to punch Sebastian. It was always going to happen. That guy was not going to get through this season without getting punched.” This is actually entirely true, especially with the producers fanning the flames of this conflict for weeks now. “Am I surprised that Blaine did it?” Jesse sucks air in through his teeth. “A little. Would’ve guessed Karofsky first, but… am I surprised that Sebastian’s whole, like, mind-control gambit on Blaine and Kurt worked? Do I even think he has one?”
The producer behind the camera, Sue, shrugs. She’s waiting for him to answer, but the fool keeps asking her questions. She gives him a lethal eyebrow raise and a clearing of the throat before he’s spurred into action (and speech) again.
“Here’s my hot take.” He gives her a forewarning look, like the tea he’s about to spill is just that hot. “There is no way he is actually that hurt.”
In case the viewers want to investigate this claim with their eyes, our vantage point shifts to right outside the mansion space where the post-date cocktail party is being held. They’re in a frankly gorgeous show-property in Brazil, so the weather’s balmy and perfect for the night air that the two are gulping in with their stolen time.
On a reclining chair, an expensive but rarely-used piece of furniture that’s color-matched to the tiling of the huge pool beside them, Sebastian and Kurt are sharing space while Kurt tends to his wounds after getting “beat up” by Blaine.
If Kurt Hummel is being honest with himself, he knows that if things were serious, he wouldn’t be the one with the first aid kit. He’s fine with it, because even if it’s all a show, he’s still getting to live out a fantasy.
(Sebastian kind of feels like a fantasy. Kurt knows he’s a loudmouth who’s always embroiled in conflict, but he Kurt’s always wanted someone with a witty tongue like him. Maybe he’s just romanticizing things, which is really quite easy when he’s on the “most romantic version of life” show, but Sebastian’s exciting. He’s smart, hot, and just checked off Kurt’s “nonviolent” requirement.)
As Kurt gently dabs a generous amount of Neosporin over what is barely a shin laceration, Sebastian hisses. Kurt gives him a sympathetic look, which stretches into weirdly steamy eye contact. “Aww,” he murmurs under his breath, pushing out his lower lip a little as he finishes the application. Mentally, of course, he’s pretty stuck on the “green eyes” part of the equation.
We cut from this moment of wound-tending sexual tension to Blaine, who looks wild-eyed and dangerous. Behind the scenes, the producers are beginning to drive him legitimately crazy, stoking the spiral that’s just beginning to catch fire on camera in this interview. “I actually think it’s pretty ridiculous. Sebastian rags on me all day, and then monolopolizes the rest of Kurt’s tme after he makes me break. If I-” a censor beep “-go home because of this, I’m going to be livid.”
The editor seems to want to rub salt in the wound, because the image cuts back to Kurt and Sebastian, the latter of which is batting his eyes like a cartoon honey trap. “I know what you should do,” he says, his voice quiet and conspiratorial, an ill-masked eagerness beneath its hush.
“Yeah?” Kurt asks, an eyebrow raising. He’s committed to playing coy, even under the charm offensive of Sebastian’s lashes.
“Maybe you should kiss it better.”
To give the audience a sense of impending doom, the image cuts to one of the punch bowl boys, who’s taken notice of the fact that producers have made sure Kurt and Sebastian’s chair setup can be seen from the window.
Then, we see an interview with Sebastian, clearly recorded after any kiss has taken place. He’s beaming, and gives the camera the occasional lazy, self-satisfied smirk of I don’t even care if this makes me the episode’s villain in the final cut, because I got my time. “Kurt really doesn’t respect violence. He doesn’t find it attractive. That’s something I happen to like about him, it’s something we have in common.”
From behind the camera, April Rhodes completely ignores her clipboard, which has a list written by her boss reminding her to ask appropriate questions. She completely ignores this Post-It, because she’s been celebrating what Google Translate calls bebida cultural” during this leg of the trip, which has pretty much given her producer super powers. Her next question is borne out of her Icaran confidence, and so many Caipirinhas. “Why’d you target Blaine today? Was it because you knew you’d get him to crack?”
Sebastian doesn’t answer. He lifts a shoulder up, an uncommitted shrug. “I wanted time with Kurt. I got time with Kurt.”
The image cuts to the guy at the window, Chandler, and we get to watch him finish his action. He puffs out all his breath in a distressed sigh and wheels around, looking panicked. “They’re gonna kiss.”
A few guys make a point of turning away from the window. Dave doesn’t say a word, but Adam lets out a grunt.
“I’m actually getting sick of this.” The outburst, even if it’s delivered in a cool tone, earns looks of alarm around the room. Adam had been one of the saner guys, so if he’s reaching a breaking point with the nonsense…
“We can’t take him down tonight. He has a boo-boo,” Karofsky says, derision clear in his voice. His sigh is guttural and mad, but he reminds himself in his head that just two hours ago, he was the one who got to feel the sun shine on him. Some guys in the room haven’t even gotten to talk to Kurt today.
“This is torture,” Sam announces, but the image cuts to a couple that very much doesn’t agree.
Kurt is leaning forward, his eyes trained on Sebastian as his lips brush against the cut on his shin. It’s awkward in placement, and for the odd texture of leg hair and Neosporin on his lips, but those technical details are outweighed by an environmental heaviness, some kind of strange fume that Sebastian puts in his eye contact that Kurt gets high off of. He forgets that anything or anyone is watching them, and just lets himself be close to Sebastian> He has him in these spare touches, their distance mandated and enforced by the schedules of the show. I’ll take what I can get, Kurt things, his lips rising slowly from Sebastian’s skin. They’re staring at each other hard enough that someone tweets that it “looks like they’re trying telepathy”.
Sebastian bites the inside of his mouth in response to the look in Kurt’s eyes, like a sky about to storm. Kurt must see it, or maybe just feels what he feels, because he presses forward, trying not to disturb their position too radically. At first, lips press soft against Sebastian, a silent question, one that Sebastian answers with “yes”.
The scene cuts back to the party, where the boys are spiraling. Faces are buried in hands. Drinks are being gulped. At the sight of a kiss through a window, multiple guys are groaning out loud.
We cut to an interview of Matt again. He’s confounded. “I just don’t get how to, like… if Kurt likes a guy who loses fights, how to, like… win his heart? If that’s the whole thing, but he likes guys who can’t fight, what do I do?”
The episode cuts back to them kissing, further along in the moment, when they’re really starting to veer into make-out territory.
As a thesis, a button on this point, the segment ends with another part of a Sebastian interview where he’s talking about his conflict style. He still has that lovestruck, shitfaced grin while he answers. “It’s about playing the long game. It’s called strategy.”
They wrap up with an ominous musical sting and an uncomfortably long take of kissing that includes a flash of tongue, and cut to commercial.