Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - They Have To Begin the Proposal (Bachelor Finale Recap)

Episode Date: April 8, 2025

The guys talk about Daniel's obsessive quest for free firewood, Soren's pallet-based home improvement projects, and the emotional carnage of The Bachelor finale. Plus, a brainstorm for new reality TV concepts that would make network executives both rich and morally bankrupt.Follow the guys on Bluesky:https://bsky.app/profile/sorenbowie.bsky.social/https://bsky.app/profile/danielobrien.bsky.socialThanks to Shopify for sponsoring this episode. Sign up for a $1/month trial period at shopify.com/qq

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Oh, I looks good. Or a new kettle for when you fancy a cuppa. Oh, I needed this. Find everything you need limric.ie forward slash Riverfest and keep up to date on our socials. Brought to you by Limerick City and County Council. Live 95, proud media partner of Riverfest Limerick. We've done this 29 times with just the men. We've done, there's the women, there's the bachelor in paradise, there's golden bachelors, the golden bachelorette. Like, we keep doing this to people.

I felt a little, felt a little weird about having watched the whole thing. tonight so what's your favorite Daniel O'Brien two best friends and comedy writers if there's an answer they're gonna find it I think you'll have a great time here. I think you'll have a great time here. So hello again, and welcome to another episode of Quick Question with Soren and Daniel, the podcast where our two best friends and comedy writers ask each other questions and give

each other answers. I am one half of that podcast, senior writer for last week tonight with John Oliver, author of How to Fight Presidents, Daniel O'Brien. Joining us as always by my co-host, Mr. Soren Buie. Soren, say hello. Hey everybody, I'm Soren Buie. I'm a writer for American Dad. I don't have any books under my belt, but I've got a family. I've got a young son and a young daughter and running out of steam. Yeah. Thank you to Shopify for supporting Quick Question. Shopify is a platform designed for anyone to sell anywhere, giving entrepreneurs like myself the resources once reserved for big business.

Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com slash QQ. I thought we weren't going to do these intros anymore. Not at all? Well, I feel like the song does a pretty good job of describing what the show is. Okay, yeah, I would love that. I think maybe we could just be like, we just, you know what we should do?

What? We should like fade up on us laughing. Yeah, I got it. Just told the best joke. And oh, you're here too? Come on, come join us. Come listen to what we're talking about. I was thinking we were gonna start

for the Patreon episodes, especially, just start talking talking because some of the podcasts that I listen to behind paywall, that's all they do. It's just like you just hear one voice and he's like, are we going? Okay, great. So I had an idea for a game. I was like, that's good. I don't need any setup at all because I clicked on this thing because I wanted to listen to it. But so as listeners know, we've been recapping The Bachelor every other week on this show. But before we we now have the stunning finale. But before we get into that, just a quick update on how my life is going, which is fine.

Everything's really great. But new ownership, home ownership, new ownership, new ownership. That's what they should call it. They should call it new homership. I, we want to have a confusing with the discuses ship, I suppose. Sure. That's a Soren. That's very funny. Really, really good. So we want to get a fire pit in the backyard and have fires going pretty damn near every night once it gets to that point. Okay. Terrible for you, Longstock.

Go on. I have, with no relevant history or explanation, I have decided that firewood is not something that I should have to pay for. And I'm going to stick to that for as absolutely long as possible. And I'm just like driving around because in my mind's eye, in my memory, I have seen piles of firewood in my travels with signs that said free firewood on them. I don't know if that's true, but it feels true to me. And so I'm always driving around looking for piles of free firewood or just looking for like, people leave wood in the streets all the time

and wood in parks and in forests all the time they do it. They leave it in the forest. The trees are leaving it in the forest, frankly. They leave it everywhere. Perfectly good firewood. So fresh, it's still breathing. And I just, again, there's no explanation. It's not like when I was younger, firewood was free.

We didn't have a fireplace. We didn't have firewood. I just in my bones was like, no, this is not one of the things that I should pay for and I'm going to do everything I can to prove myself wrong or right and then adjust from there. And so I'm looking in curbs and picking up wood when I find it. Looking in curbs? Yeah.

And taking a peek inside. Oh, nothing in this curb. I was walking Jackson the other day down the street and I saw they were chopping down a bunch of trees at this lot. At this lot that was for sale and I went to go watch the machines because first of all, it's really fun. It's really cool. They pick up a tree with a crane.

They drop the crane into like a witch. It's all very fun. And I watched for long enough that one of the guys in charge came over to speak to me about it and I was like, can I have some of these logs? And he said, do you want them? I said, yes, for firewood. I would like them. He's like, OK.

Do you have a truck or something? I said, no, I don't. I didn't think that part of the plan out yet, but I just wanted to like, you don't got to worry about that. I worry about that. Can I have them? And he says, yes, absolutely. And he asked where I lived and I said, I'm just down the street.

And he's like, OK, how about this? Give me your number and you text me your address. And when we're done, we will just drop them off for you. I was like, great. And I get home. I talked to my wife, very excited about the hero shit that I've done to get us free firewood. And I talked to the guy and he gives me a time.

And I say, yeah, you he gives me a time and I say yeah you could just like drop a bunch of logs off in the backyard we will clear our cars out of the driveway the driver goes right into the backyard you can drop them off and he was like do you have a like a splitter? I was like sir no we don't even have the fire pit yet. That's a little bit of a cart before the horse situation, sir. You don't have to worry. If you get the logs to me, the rest of this problem is taken care of. I will figure it out. I will hack away at these trees.

I will do it safely. I will come up with a solution. I will rent a splitter Cover the fact that I refuse to pay $10 for a bundle of firewood I'll rent a $500 machine to do it and He calls me a little bit later and he says why don't you come down the street and we're just about done here We're loading up the trucks Point out which logs you want. Oh yet And so Shay and I go there we're like like, this one, this one, this one. And the guy's like, this is, oh, this is going to burn great for you.

Those are the ones you want? Okay, no problem. You got it. Several hours go by, nothing happens. Our cars just sit out of the driveway. Shay goes to her workout class. I just sit patiently waiting for them to come by with logs. I take Jackson again for a walk at about 7 p.m. I see the truck is full of logs and it's abandoned

and there's no one around at all. And so I text the guy back and like, hey, remember, were you going to drop off those logs? And he goes, yeah, change of plans. No. What? drop off those logs and he goes, yeah, change of plans. No. What? We got called back to the yard and it didn't seem worth it to just drop off like a couple of logs down the street. Just wasn't worth the time for us. Just so you know, like it only,

it's only really useful to us if it's a bunch of logs that we're getting rid of. And I was like, okay, I guess I understand. Thanks for letting me know. When I called you. Now. Yeah. And he was like, yeah, and I'll let you know

if I ever have other wood to give away. I don't think he's ever gonna do that. No. Because I don't think he's ever gonna have wood to give away. But also he doesn't wanna coordinate that shit. No. And when I looked at the truck that had all the logs on it,

it had a bunch of... It had its list of services, which were tree removal, stump removal, firewood exclamation mark. So I imagine this is actually part of their business. Was it scrawled on after the fact? Was it like all the other ones were clearly printed and then just recently one was added? It's like, guys, I got an idea. There's a market we were not aware of for some reason. But I thought this was my ticket. I still in my gut believe that there are people in the world who have too much wood that they know what to do with.

Can I ask a couple questions here? Yeah, go ahead. What? Was the wood still on the truck? Like, the truck was still there. Was the wood still on it? The truck was still there and the wood was like strapped down to the truck. How strapped down?

It's strapped down and sore and I'm really telling you that these are like tree trunk logs. Yeah. So like in terms of like, it's bigger than your torso in terms of like the types you'd be getting. Yes. Yeah. So you can't just go pop them out there one night. You can't sneak over there and take them.

No. You must know that that was my first thought. Yeah. Now, okay. My other question is, so did you touch any of this wood? Did you see it? Because it was a living tree, right? Yeah.

So you might've dodged a bullet here because a living tree, if you try to like burn a living tree within like even like a month, it's way too sappy inside. Like it's all moist and everything inside. You got to really let firewood dry out. And maybe that's the process you're paying for when you buy firewood. Well, soren, it's April. I was going to let it dry out as soon as I got the logs and then Googled firewood to see all this stuff that you're telling me right now.

Where are you going to let it? You're not exactly in the desert where you are. No. Kind of in a swamp. As it gets rained on more and more, it also gets worse and worse. The blogs at the bottom get so waterlogged that you can't even use them. So you have to have some sort of, you got to go buy a tarp too. Like there's a lot of things you've got to do along the way.

And if it's for a fire pit, you don't want... There is no limit to the amount of money I will spend to not have to pay for firewood. Hahaha! Some of you folks know me as a writer or an author, but really, I consider myself first and foremost a podcaster. It is a business. When I started this podcast, me, me by myself, when I started it, it seemed like I had to figure it all out on my own.

Ideas, setup, recording schedule, logos, it was all very overwhelming and every day seemed to introduce a new decision that needed an answer. What do we call the podcast? Who's Daniel? When you're starting off with something new it seems like your to-do list keeps growing every day with new tasks and that list can easily begin to overrun your life. Finding the right tool that not only helps you out but simplifies everything can be such a game changer. For millions of businesses that tool is Shopify. Shopify is a commerce platform behind millions of businesses. That tool is Shopify. Shopify is a commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10%

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Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at Shopify.com slash QQ. Go to Shopify.com slash QQ. Shopify.com slash Qq, shopify.com slash qq. Do it! Let me give you one other option that I think might work for you. Every time you go behind a grocery store, you're gonna see a bunch of wooden pallets

that they don't fucking want anymore. They're just sitting there, and some of them are broken even better. Those wooden pallets burn great. They are rarely treated because they're designed to be fucked off anyway. Like they're like a one-time use type of pallet thing. And after they're done with that job,

they're great firewood. You just gotta take all the nails out and everything, but you just, you pry them apart. There's not a lot to actually do. It's kind of fun work. When we used to go do bonfires at the beach, we would first spend basically a week just collecting pallets from behind grocery stores.

And then that's all we would burn the entire time. And we make huge fires out of these. So they're relatively safe. Which you don't want to burn as treated wood. Like that's like the real threat of if you come across something out on the street and people are like, I got all this extra wood. You're like, yeah, but where did it come from? Like, oh, I took down a fence. You're like, that will kill me. If I read that in, it will make my lungs bleed.

Okay. That's good to know because that was a question that I had as I'm driving around idly looking for wood in the street. Then I'll see someone is throwing out a chair that's been painted and stained. And I think, yeah, wood is wood, right? Nah, I should go home and Google if wood is wood. I should bring in a second party to answer some of these questions that maybe my gut doesn't really know. You have to have not treated wood.

And if you find that, then you're all set. So like, yeah, definitely when people, they cutting down trees or like, especially dead fall, like something like a tree fell down, oh, that's the dream because that tree's already on it. It's on its last leg anyway, so it's drying out anyway. But yeah, if you can find those pallets and they, I promise they're like everywhere.

You can find those pallets. They are, and two quick stories about this. It's very funny how easy it is to get them because I'm reminded of years ago, one of my brothers really wanted a palette and wanted to like paint an American flag on a palette as like a cool, you know, people have seen these in yards. Was it 9-11, what was going on at the time?

Just a patriotic guy. And he just thought it would look cool. And it's a project and projects are fun. And it does look cool to have these painted American flag palettes in your yards. And he truly waited until the dead of night to sneak in somewhere and get one of these palettes that after he'd done recon and scoped it out for weeks to make sure no one was going to miss this one pallet. It's very funny that you could just like that high school soren can just take them, that

you could just walk around somewhere. You just go take it. I guess occasionally they're like, no, we return these to the truck. But generally, no one's back there either. No one really cares. Right. Well, no one really cares. That was my second point about grocery stores specifically because the food pantry where

I volunteer, we get some of our donations from Stop and Shop, which is a grocery chain out here. And that's not normally the part that I do, but sometimes I fill in and I go to the back of the Stop and Shop and there's just like a door that's like an employee's only door. It is not locked. I walk in there and I see whomever is in the back and I say food pantry and they are like, yeah, they couldn't be fucked. They're like, yeah. And they just like indicate a couple of boats of groceries that the store doesn't want anymore that I am to take. They don't ask my name. I don't sign anything. I don't write anything down at all.

I just take stuff and put it in my car. And it's a couple of trips. And often, whatever first guy I saw when I said food pantry, he's gone. He's doing something else. And I see other guys. We're all just like a bunch of guys in hoodies and jeans walking around in

and out of the back of the grocery store doing stuff, not questioning each other. It's a pretty lawless environment. Yeah, fast and loose back there. I mean, that makes me also think that you've got to like a long game here with the food pantry because at the end of that, you've got those like veggie boxes or whatever all this is in, those cardboard boxes. We have to give the banana boxes back. Oh, because that could have been your, that's your kindling right there.

They're clutch boxes, but yeah, we can't hang on to those. That's shocking. That they're, what do they want them for? They're covered in fucking wilted lettuce and stuff. They put more stuff in them. Gross, that's disgusting. Why? We're doing what's supposed to be burned.

Sorrent, the federal government just froze like $5 billion reserved for food pantries. This happened like yesterday. Give us our boxes, let us reuse boxes and cut corners and save money where we can. Okay. Well, I'm at least, at least steal their palettes. Yeah, for sure.

So I redid my son's closet. I don't know why I'm just calling it his. I have a daughter as well. They sleep in the same room. I did it for both of them. I have two closets in there and one of them I was like, you're not even using this one. It's a sliding glass door closet, or sliding mirror closet. And I hated it. And I was like, let's just turn this into a reading nook. And so I pulled it out and I put a platform at the two feet up so they could sit on that. And then the back wall of it, I was like, let's do something really cool. Let's do that thing that I see at bars now all the time, which is you take a lot of one by threes, you stain them kind of different colors, and then you mismatch them along the back wall. So they take up the full room. There's no gaps or anything like that, but they are not like the

joints don't meet up or anything like that. So I was gonna do that and I was like, where am I gonna get wood for this? And I was like, you know what's got a lot of one by threes? Fucking pallets. So just went fishing around for pallets and got a bunch, sanded them down and then now they sit in my children's broom. So yes, the pallets are, I don't know,

maybe they're not free, maybe they're mad that I'm doing this, but I'm encouraging you to do it as well because I've never been caught. I'm going to do it. I see lots of pallets all over the place. And a thing that I've always believed just because it's always worked for me is if you walk in somewhere with confidence and just start doing things, no one will question it. That is how I've gotten a lot of stuff in my life. It's just like, walking over and picking a thing up.

And if someone looks at me and say, hey, how you doing? I'm putting this in my car. And they're like, no, yeah, of course. Cause none of us know what we're doing. No one knows what anybody else is doing. Nobody gives a fuck what anybody else is doing. Here's if you're like, the lawless or the lawful side of you

was concerned in any capacity, I would encourage you to also go at night, just take a hammer or crowbar, fuck up a couple pallets and come back the next day and then be like, oh, these are broken, I'll take them. Because they're gonna be like, they've got no use for that. You know what they can call that?

The mallets at the pallets. The mallets? You and Ron are tests. Just go out there. Just take out some anger. Mallets at the pallets. That's really nice, Daniel. Thanks man.

We're cooking today. I think our listeners don't know we start every episode before we record, we play a game of zip, zap, zop and some other improv games just to get our brains firing, just to make sure like we're loose and we're ready to go. That's the most untruth-ic. That's why we complain about doing this show is because we release like 40 minute episodes. It's like a three and a half hour process

to get us in the zone to record, just so we're like. It's like flashbacks of us. And like, just in Sketch County groups that I've been in and stuff where you're backstage, somebody else is already on and you're just waiting for your guys's group and you're trying to play fucking improv games, whispering, trying to get warmed up, trying to get those muscles juicing up. Okay. I want to talk about something else, Daniel, entirely. Okay, great. Which is, did I have a song for this? Bachelor, bachelor, bachelor update.

Probably wasn't it. No, I mean, it certainly wasn't a song. I think maybe there was a robot voice previous. I can't remember. Anyway, first of all, big mistake on my part. I usually do these every other week because as I was figuring out how much show there was, I was like, well, I don't want to talk about this every week. And I can give Dan, it's so easy for me to recap four hours of The Bachelor in 20 minutes because nothing fucking happens

on this show. I was completely wrong. The season finale happened two weeks ago. Everyone has stopped talking about The Bachelor. Nobody gives a shit anymore, including me as I watched it. Oh man. Again, I'm coming to this as somebody who has never watched the show before, and I was floored by how much air they have in the last episode. It's a two hour long episode and you bounce back and forth

between the bachelor making his decision in this case, the Dominican Republic, and then also the studio audience with Jesse, your like Carson Daly two dimensional fucking host, as he's like, he's kind of like narrating it for you. He's like, and now he's got a big decision to make. Let's take a look. And he's also bringing in people to talk to them. He's like, so he brings in people who were just recently on the show. He brings in, it's a big advertisement too. So like the golden bachelor comes out

and like we get to learn who they are a little bit before their show starts. Talk about bachelor in paradise. It fucking sucks. Did they use this space to announce the next Bachelorette? No. That would be smart. Yeah, I think maybe they just haven't, maybe they're not that far ahead, but they do announce like some Bachelor in Paradise people.

And I'm not really sure what that show is. I'm not sure what the conceit is, because they have a woman who was previously on this season of The Bachelor and they like ask her on the show, will you be on Bachelor in Paradise? And I don't know if that means like all the leftovers, just throw them together and see if any of them work. Like, or if they actually have an actual,

the premise of the show, which is you have this golden child. You have somebody who you believe is the best of us and you put them in the middle and you say, and now all of you fall in love with that person. Right. So it's not clear to me, but it is a big, long advertisement. The set, I mean, I wanna just paint a picture for you.

Somebody gave a set design, a person free rein and boy, you can see somebody just like run wild. This is a set that is, the stage is purple and it's lit up. And it's also these weird little octagon shapes. Like you would expect to see, I don't even know where you would witness, Tron maybe. Like these little octagon shapes. Then there's around them, I wanna say 500 candles

of different sizes and everything. And it's meant to be maybe intimate. I'm not really sure. There's a lot of- Oh, it looks like hell. Yeah, there's a lot of business happening on the walls. It's a headache to look at. The whole set is a nightmare.

And the audience, you're on the audience for a very long time. For whatever reason, as you're watching the Bachelor, you get a little box down in the corner of the screen where you just see the audience reacting. So you as a human know what you're supposed to also be feeling, but the audience is in complete darkness so you can barely make out these people that are sitting in the audience and what their reaction is. You're just sort of like, I spent a lot of time squinting at the

screen being like, is that supposed to be there? Did they just fuck up? Okay, so now that I've set the scene, I wanna tell you like what happens in the episode. He's, you remember, if you will remember, Latia and Juliana, those are the two women that he's like having a hard time deciding between. Latia is this woman that he has, she is the platonic ideal of wife that he's probably seen in his head all this time.

And if you look at his mom, there's a lot of similarities. High cheekbones, very thin face. And the other one, Juliana is like bubbly and fun and actually has a personality and now he's torn. And oh, and also both of them insanely attractive. So like he whittled it down based on the body type he likes as well. But you look at these two women and like he's telling them both that he loves them. He's also struggling with the choice and I don't know how much of it is manufactured and how much

is actually him, but he does take moments during his like one-on-one interviews with either Jesse or just with the camera where he just stops. He's like, I just gotta think. And it's clear that there's a ticking clock. He ends up, hey, Grant, you knew this part was coming. You knew when you signed up for the show. There's gonna be a lot of that, it turns out, where people are shocked by the rules of the show all of a sudden.

So Latia shows up and they do a thing on The Bachelor, which I think is so fucking cruel, which is as these women come out to see Grant, he has to smile obviously, because he can't tip what's going on. And then these women have to begin with the, they have to begin the proposal. They're either gonna get proposed to or dumped in this moment. And they have to begin it. They're the ones who say, grant

during this time that I've gotten to know you. And then they start talking about like how they've fallen in love with him and he's got to just like eat that. And he's sitting there like listening to them get very, very excited. They're looking for any sign from him that they can find. So when he starts kissing them and stuff, like get more into it and they start explaining more. So this woman, Latia, comes out and she starts just like, she thinks it's in the fucking bag. She's like, I'm just so excited that we're finally able to talk about it

and that we can do this. And Grant's like, the gods is hard. And as soon as he says that, you just watch her face fall and she gets more than sad or confused. She gets fucking angry. Hell yeah. Angry in a way where like even the audience, the blurry little black, oh God, soaring.

The blurry little the shaded audience that you can't really see. They're like, yes. Like you could see arms go in the air, like people cheering when she's doing this because it is diabolical, it is weird. And we learn a lot about Grant in that moment that we didn't know previously, which was there's a lot of behind the scene shit happening where he's talking to these women that is not recorded. And the things that he was saying to Latia make me think maybe he's a monster. Yeah no. Yeah, so she's confused, but mostly angry.

And she's like, she's doing a lot of, he's like, I hope this doesn't change the way you think you feel about me. She's like, how could it not? How could it not change the way I feel about you? Does, listen, I know Juliana. I've known her for as long as I've known you. She's wonderful, she's sweet.

She's the perfect person. I'm glad that you love her. There are a lot of conversations that the two of you are gonna have to have about me. Oh boy. And so we find out during this time that, oh, during this time and then also they do this other terrible thing, which is they have her on the show.

They talk to her for a little while in that little room or the ugly set and ask her about how bewildered she was and why it was so hard. And then they bring Grant out and Grant's got to talk to her in front of everybody. And so he can answer some questions. The things that she reveals are that he had at the early on in the show, I would say by episode three for us, he was saying to her, the rest of this is just a formality. You are my person. Fuck. I like you.

You're the one. He was always like, he was ahead of her emotionally at every stage and she was just playing catch up. So she is guarding herself obviously, but he was at every turn being like, you're the one. They called her mom on FaceTime early to be like, she's the girl. And so Latia is like trying to like, she's emotionally being like, okay, I gotta fall in love with this guy quick. And so she's like giving herself permission to fall in love a lot

more and like open up to him a lot more. Apparently the entire time that they were in the Dominican Republic, he was saying all this too, and he was doing things like he was giving her a notebook when they were in Scotland, I think, which was not—that's like the middle of the show—he gave her a notebook and said, write down all your thoughts as you do this. Write down everything that happens because I want the two of us to go through it later and just like read it and reminisce about this time that we had together. want the two of us to go through it later and just like read it and reminisce about these this time that we had together. He's giving her every indication that she is the one and then fucking bails on her at the end. And she is rightly angry and was he doing

that with the other ones? I don't know. I don't know. There was one moment the tip to maybe that which was if you remember, Carolina, she was the moment that tipped to maybe that, which was, if you remember, Carolina, she was the one that everybody turned on. She had been in a group date with this other woman named Rose. Carolina won the group date and kissed him on a stage. They'd rapped to him and it was really awful and weird. Then she straddled him and kissed him. The other women were like, I don't like that much. That's not fun to look at. And then later, I guess in private,

Carolina and Rose had been talking about that. And Rose revealed to Carolina, you know, he said to me that when he was up there kissing you, he was thinking of me. And then that became that got blown up on the show because Carolina revealed that to Grant and to the show. And then Rose was like, she never denied that it happened. She never said like, I made that up or anything. But she was like, obviously it fucked her up, derailed her entire time on the show and she left on her own accord. I think that he might've actually said that. I think that he might've been telling these women kind of anything. And he was probably, he came into it open, ready to fall in love.

So he's treating it. He's treating each of these women like they might be his wife, like he's dating them independently, which I understand that's conceived show. There are certain things that you just probably should not say to another person until you know for sure. And he was like crossing that line left and right, I think. So that was crazy to watch. It was crazy also to finally see real Latia. Latia was a person I felt like I never really saw who she was. She was very put together and also just, I didn't, maybe I thought there was just was

no personality there. But then when she was hurt, you saw it. And I was like, oh, this sucks. This is not fun to watch. This is really hard. Within, I wanna say an hour, he's got to propose. So after he breaks up with this woman and it does not go well, and he's pretty bummed about it too.

And it's a woman that he was in love with. What he's saying is to be believed. He loved this woman too. He says breaking up with her, and then he's gonna go propose to this other woman or she going to come to the same spot where he just broke up with somebody and he's going to propose. He does that. Julian is pumped. Julian is very excited. We get to see them on the, they come out on the stage with Jesse and like the, it's like Latia was never there. Like the energy has completely shifted. Everybody's, Grant's talking about how this was the best day of his life.

And just 30 minutes earlier had broken the heart of this other woman and broken his own heart, I assume. So they come out and they talk about what they're going to do. And you finally get some logistical talk of where are we gonna live? How is this actually gonna work? They come out, Jesse says to her, let me see the ring. And he shows her, she shows him and she says, oh, Jesse says, Grant's got great taste. And you're like, no, he fucking doesn't.

He didn't do a single thing here. Please understand. This is just, even like the ring, even when he, there's like one moment you get maybe 45 seconds of him talking to a ring guy. That's not him. That's not, he's not making that decision. The producers decided every aspect of this love up until this point. And so you definitely get the feeling that they have been together for a little while, that they have known each other, that they had to be tight-lipped about this. Cameras were finally off and they got to know each other a little better. And I don't know if this is always true the show and they're just nervous or whatever.

Energy is fucking weird, man. The energy between the two of them is weird. It's not clear if like right before this they had a fight or if things just are not going super well, but they're really trying to be lovey-dovey on the show. Their faces are saying that and their lips are saying that as they kiss each other and stuff, but their bodies are kind of like away from each other. It does feel very much like Grant is in the moments

where he's thinking, fuck, did I fuck up? Did I go with the wrong one? And he's gonna be thinking that his whole life. His whole life, anytime there's a fight between them, he's gonna be thinking that. And she's gonna be thinking that because she's also, as much as she talks about how like, she's a strong woman and everything,

she's pretty insecure. She got fucked over by some dudes that she had been in a relationship, she got cheated on, she's never been anybody's first choice, she felt, and now she is, kind of. Right. But like that's the nature of the show. And so a lot of Latia's complaints are valid,

but also Latia was like, why were you telling other women that you loved them? Why did it take until now? It's like, well, Latia, that's the show. Like that's the show that you agreed to be on. That's like how it works. Right. So she says by the end. That's the show that you agreed to be on. That's how it works. Right. So she says by the end, she's like,

I don't think you're a bad person, Grant, but I think that you made some mistakes. It's like, what did you expect this to be? Yeah. But anyway, it ends really weirdly. It ends with there's so much fucking air in this episode. I can't tell you, it's enough to fill a zeppelin. I think the caveat there is,

I don't think you're a bad person, because if you're a bad person, then I'm probably a bad person for doing this show also. Yeah. It gets so way darker than I anticipated at the end. The conceit drops for so many of the people of like, well, it's like, you know, it was a game. I get it, it was a game, it's fine.

Everybody goes home and everybody feels like pretty okay about it. It's only surface deep. It's not that, it's like this person was genuinely fucked up by this show. Now this relationship is born on that person being fucked up. So you have two people who are keenly aware of

the fact that he could have been with this other person and was having sex with this other person. And then you're like, okay, you did it, you fell in love, off you go. And now they're in the world together, just existing and feeling that. And I think that that's a terrible thing to do to humans. It's a terrible thing to sign up for first of all, but maybe you just don't understand. And then the emotions might actually take you. And when the emotions do take you, well, you're not fucked for the rest of your life. I'm not watching the show again, by the way. I want to just get that out of the way.'s I hated the show that's unfortunate because it seems like you are the audience that the producers want you to be you're very emotionally invested in

it and yeah and and it sounds like you believe the reality they presented for you I did yeah I really did I by the end I did. Yeah, I really did. By the end, I did believe in it. I hope, I think I opened my heart, Daniel. Yeah. Because I think, like, because they, they can't end the show with all the contestants being like, this is a reality show and it didn't matter,

and I always knew it was gonna be like this. They have to play up that high drama. I know. She has to be heartbroken on stage. But I just don't think she's good enough at pretending to have been not true. I did fall into it. I fell into liking some of these people and then also feeling a lot of feelings at the end. But I don't think all of those feelings were intentional in their part. I will say that by the end, it wasn't like another, I've read books or I've watched shows like The Circle where I am deeply invested in the people now, where I'm like, I want to see them

succeed or I want to see them fail or I care about them in some capacity. By the end of this, I didn't care about anybody on the show, but I was just watching another human fall apart. I was like, this is rough. This is rough that we're doing this and that we've done this, what is this, episode, season 29 or whatever, that we've done this 29 times with just the men. There's the women, there's the bachelor in paradise, there's golden bachelors, the golden bachelorette. We keep doing this to people.

And I felt a little weird about having watched the whole thing. You know what's an, speaking of feeling weird, you know what's an untapped market, I'm gonna hit you with it. Just react, don't think. Okay. Teen bachelor, here we go.

Let's get the kids. Let's not ask any questions. Let's get these kids married. Let's put them up together. Put them on television, falling in love. Put them on a pedestal and watch them fall. Drop these kids in Scotland. Baby bachelor. Baby bachelor. We have to do teen first, obviously, but they won't see baby coming. No, nobody ever does. But everybody will get all of their anger out at Team Bachelor and then they won't have

anything left for Baby Bachelor and I think we could just run with it. Yeah, because they're going to start watching Baby Bachelor like, it's just going to be a parade of cute babies. They're not even capable of like, they don't even know what's going on. And then a few episodes in, your heart's gonna break when a baby sort of like tips its giant fucking head, just like drops its dome over to the side. And that's how the show indicates that the baby nearest to it does not get the baby rose pacifier.

And it's just gonna crush you. You're just gonna crumble. Right. Ah, I'm trying to think of how you could do a bottle episode. I don't think you could. I think it would just be a good fun pun. Yeah. That's pretty good.

That's pretty funny. I am curious about the Golden Bachelor ones because that I feel a little bit better about. Maybe this is the ageism in me talking, but the idea that you have somebody near the end of their life and it's like, well, who's in proximity to me? Can I just fall in love with fucking somebody? Yeah. And you bring in a couple of people and you're like, hey, can do you want one of these? And they can be like, yeah, her or him. And then you allow two people, two old people to like be in love for a while. Yeah. And you've got people who are like drops old enough that

they've, they kind of know what they want. They've been through the ringer. So they, they, they have a pretty good idea of, uh, what works for them and what they're looking for. And they're also, I think for the most part, not trying to use the show as a springboard to like future reality TV fame in so far as some contestants do that. And that seems like it comes with a level of no bullshit attitude that is very appealing to me.

Not appealing enough to watch it. uh, no bullshit attitude that is very appealing to me. Not appealing enough to watch it. I'm not gonna do that. But in theory, sure. Part of why I think I've been so, had such a dark perspective on this is that at the same time, like around, I've been, you know, I don't watch a movie all at once. I watch it in installments.

I watched this special by this guy named Daniel Sloss called Jigsaw. Have you heard of it? That's a special? Yeah, it's a comedy special. No, Jigsaw, no. Okay, so this is a comedy special that has been, before it was on Netflix, like he was doing tours of it.

It's famous for breaking up relationships. People go see the show and then they break up. It's just like, there's a high incidence of it. And then to the point where people are like, they bring divorce papers to the show because now they're following him and very interested in the things he has to say and they want to show him. Like, sign the manila envelope of my divorce papers. I think that would be so fun.

For whom? So the whole, the conceit of it is, I'm gonna butcher it a little bit, but like the conceit of it is, is that your life is like a puzzle and you're putting all the pieces together. Like the pieces of your career are one corner, the pieces of your family life are one corner.

And like you're just working inward and the middle piece is your relationship. And it, the pieces of your family life are one corner, and you're just working inward. And the middle piece is your relationship. And it's the person, it's that person. And that frequently when we get to finishing the puzzle, we wanna smash in a piece that doesn't quite fit. And then that doesn't really work. And so we start reorganizing the rest of the puzzle around a piece that doesn't quite fit.

And what we should be doing instead is just giving up on that because what you really need to do is just finish this puzzle, like get the right person and put them in there. And so for whatever reason, this is like the way that he's describing it. And he makes some good points. He talks about like, if you think that all the people, like millions and billions of people that there are in the world in your particular state even, that your one was a person who lives three blocks away from you. Like that person that you just happened to know from your life, like that was going to be your one. It's not likely. So a lot of people hear this and they start breaking up over this show. And it's like famous

for this. In fact, there are people who warn you. They're like, don't watch this unless you're ready to end your relationship basically. So I was like, great. Let's see what he has to say. I'm not in any danger of that, but watching it, I was like, okay, he's making some very interesting points. But also I think it's really dangerous, honestly. I think the way that he's presenting to people of what your significant other should be in your life and how much you should be writing on the significant other in your life is way too much to put on somebody else. He's like, this person is the center. This person is the center of your life. And if they don't fit, then get them out of there. Get somebody who does fit.

And it's like, but nobody, there's not anybody other than you. And you don't even like yourself all the time. Nobody's gonna fit that. And so if you hold somebody to that standard, you're fucked. That's a bad way to come into a relationship looking for that. And sitting throughout a relationship, just keeping an eye out for ways that they don't quite fit there is like a really detrimental way to live your life. And instead, I think the metaphor is flawed. I think that you have to think of it as like, is this somebody that like, are we going to grow in the same direction?

If I'm with this person, like maybe we've come from very different ways, different angles, but are we going to continue to grow in the same way and stay in the same lane? And if we are, then that's great. And there's so many people who could fit that bill. You can fall in love with lots of different people. I think- Yeah, go ahead.

The metaphor straining is the first thing that jumped my brain. Because first of all, when he's saying, you, go ahead. The metaphor straining is the first thing that jumped my brain because first of all, when he's saying it's, you're putting a puzzle together and you work towards the middle and then you want that last piece and the last piece doesn't fit. That doesn't happen with puzzles. Like it's very pedantic to call that out,

but like the puzzle manufacturer didn't send you 999 pieces of a thousand piece puzzle and then one wrong piece. So first of all, that doesn't happen. Second of all, if it did and his solution is to like forget about that and find the piece that fits, buddy, you're sending yourself up for a journey that's going to go nowhere. You're never going to find the one piece of this missing puzzle in the world. And the third thing that I would bring up about this is as a wife guy and as someone who specifically does lots of puzzles with my wife, putting the puzzle together is the fun thing.

Yeah. As a couple that does jigsaw puzzles together regularly. It's the journey. No, we never give a shit when the puzzle is done and complete. That just means like it's time for another puzzle, basically. You're just like, you're building this because this is a

thing that we can do together. And it's a thing in front of us while we're like, you know, you find a big chunk that connects to another big chunk and you're celebrating this win of this thing that you built together. That's the puzzle. The puzzle is not just like, oh, it's a boat.

Who cares? I guess, yeah, absolutely. If you wanted to keep the puzzle metaphor, it's that you're building this puzzle with somebody else as opposed to they are a fucking piece of that puzzle. I totally agree with you. It's reminding me of, God, I can't remember where I learned this. Maybe it was cracked, but that there was a puzzle manufacturer who, regardless of what the picture was, they were cutting it exactly the same way. So the same machine cutting each one of these

bits of cardboard. So they're the exact same puzzle pieces, but for different puzzles. And this guy figured it out just on his own. He was like, oh, a guy who did a lot of puzzles was like, oh, that's interesting. They're using the exact same piece in this exact same area. And so he started combining the puzzles. He started doing things like he would have, there'd be like a mountain scene or whatever, a landscape, and then he would put a giant lion face in the middle of it. And like- Humans are the best. People are so cool.

And I was, I'm thinking, yeah, you're absolutely right. Like it should, if you wanna continue with that metaphor, it should be like, hey, how, like, life can still be a puzzle. That's fine. That's, it's well-trodden, kind of tired, but go ahead. How you're building it, you're building it with this other person. You can choose.

There's lots of different ways to build it. But as long as you're agreeing to what that direction is, what the end result should be, then great. I totally agree with you. Once you're done with the puzzle, fuck that puzzle. It sits on your table for a day because you're like, well, there that puzzle. Yeah. Yeah. You don't, it sits on your table for a day because you're like, well, there should be some revenue. I should be feeling something about seeing it,

but I genuinely don't. I want it to be gone so that I can start something else. Right. Cause like a thousand piece puzzle takes up a lot of space in your life. You can admire it for an evening. And then after that it's like, oh, thank God we got our coffee table back finally.

Yeah. There are, I don't know if it was a trend at one point or like there's just videos of people online that like their mother was there finishing a puzzle and somebody would just come in and wipe the puzzle off the table. And the mom, you can hear the mom like shriek and be upset. It's funny. Yeah. But also who fucking cares?

Yeah. can be upset. It's funny. But also who fucking cares? At that point, when the puzzle's done, it's time to die. That's the point. If you liked what the puzzle looked like, just look at the box. It's still the same thing. Yeah. You just hope that the feeling you have right before you take your last breath is putting that last puzzle piece in. Not when you're 28, getting married or whatever. Daniel Sloss, I feel like I have to watch this. Yeah, so anyway, you can watch it. Is it funny? Oh, this guy looks like a prick.

It is funny. I think he's Scottish, it might be part of it. Oh, okay. Well, he's allowed to look like that if he's Scottish. I genuinely mean that. to look like that if you Scottish. I genuinely mean that. I'm watching baby reindeer too. I'm watching a lot of things, Dan. I'm just like open. I'm opening myself up to the world. Baby reindeer for the first time and I am like finding myself looking at people and being like, it's just a different look over there.

Or we just got like a different thing over there. Yeah. Everybody's just got like a different thing going on. Enough that sometimes I'm watching a show where it's like set in Pittsburgh or whatever and everyone has American accents but I still look at someone's face and I'm like, where the fuck is she from? Oh yeah, Wales. I knew it. We don't make faces like that over here. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Okay. Well, I've complained about enough of these things that I wanted to complain about. The Bachelor's done. I'm very happy that it's done. I hope that people listening who hated that I was doing this are also happy. I know. It's sort of good and bad for me as someone who simultaneously is like, fuck,

what are we going to talk about on this podcast? Oh good, Soren's going to take the lead on this episode. He's going to do so much of it. But on the other side of that corn is like, not a ton of room for me to talk. And that's my favorite part of the podcast. So what am I to do? Just listen.

Yeah. I don't know. All right, everybody. Well, thank you for listening to this episode. Listening to me in this episode specifically. It's a lot of fun. Just a quick question with Sorin and Daniel. You knew that. You guys liked our theme song.

That's by Merex. You can find their music anywhere you stream or you can go to merex.bandcamp.com for full albums. Our sound engineer, editor, producer, just the glue to the show, Gabe Harter, works so hard for us and not for you. This is gonna be a pinnipotent episode. We're gonna be talking about the music of the show. We're gonna be talking about the music of the show.

We're gonna be talking about the music of the show. We're gonna be talking about the music of the show. We're gonna be talking about the music of the show. We're gonna be talking about the music of the show. We're gonna be talking about the music of the show. We're gonna be talking about the music of the show. We're gonna be talking about the music of the show. We're gonna be talking about the music of the show. We're gonna be talking about the music of the show. We're gonna be talking about the music of the show. We're gonna be talking about the music of the show. We're gonna producer, just the glue to the show, Gabe

Harder, works so hard for us and not for you. This is independent podcast and we need him. If you liked listening to this and you want to see it instead, you want to see Daniel Ri, you want to see me wearing what looks like maybe a sleeping bag, you can come watch this podcast on YouTube or on Apple podcasts, or if you want even more of us, you can't get enough. We also do every other week, we do a smaller version of this podcast just for our Patreon subscribers. It's a lot of fun. It's a lot more damaging to our careers, I would imagine, the things that we say. And you might enjoy that. So you can find that through Patreon or you can find

that through Apple subscriptions as well. That's it. Goodbye. Bye. for you all right the answer's not important i'm just glad that we could talk tonight so what's your favorite how did you get two best friends and comedy writers if there's an answer they're gonna find it If there's an answer they're gonna find it I think you'll have a great time here I think you'll have a great time here