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If \u201cThe Golden Bachelor\u201d raises the stakes for romantic gameplay, \u201cFBoy Island\u201d lowers them like a limbo stick. One contestant, Vince, jokes with one of the women that they have \u201cshared trauma\u201d because they have both entered into ill-fated engagements on previous reality shows. But \u201cFBoy Island\u201d is wise in its own way, and one of its insights is that being a nice guy is not everything. Many men are eliminated from the show not because the women suspect them of being FBoys but because they simply dislike them.<\/p>\n
And then there is Gerry. On \u201cThe Golden Bachelor,\u201d he plays the consummate nice guy \u2014 a father of daughters, a grandfather to granddaughters. As he bounces from date to date, he performs the work of seeing women. He holds their hands, compliments their outfits and listens to stories about their dead husbands. He kisses them and brings them flowers. But he is not there to make friends. If \u201cThe Golden Bachelor\u201d believes that women over 60 are deserving of love, it also believes that some are more deserving than others.<\/p>\n
After Joan leaves, drama brews between Theresa and Kathy, 70. Theresa tells a group of women that she and Gerry had a wonderful date and a strong connection, and that he spoke of a potential future with her. This rattles Kathy, who rats Theresa out to Gerry, accusing her of gloating.<\/p>\n
In the real world, a woman tells her friends about her exciting date with a new boyfriend. But inside the mansion, her friends are also her rivals, and her boyfriend is their boyfriend, too. When natural social laws are suspended, the producers can meddle however they like. Nice Gerry sounds chilling as he parrots a longtime \u201cBachelor\u201d catchphrase: Confronted with drama in the house, he tells the camera, \u201cI\u2019m not here for that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Golden Bachelor\u201d is still \u201cThe Bachelor.\u201d Its cast of older women manages to make the most artificial of shows feel deep and real, but this also makes it hard to watch. Gerry comforts Kathy and punishes Theresa. At that evening\u2019s rose ceremony, he makes Theresa wait and wait for a rose, shaking in a little dress, before he finally saves her from the brink of elimination. For the crime of being excited, she is reminded that Gerry has the power to make her disappear.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n