The Bachelor: Listen To Your Heart: Season 1, episode 4 performance grades
Three things are certain in life: death, taxes, and Chris Harrison stirring the pot. The theme of this week’s episode of The Bachelor: Listen To Your Heart was karmic justice, with a side of girl power for the ladies who knocked it out of the park.
This week’s episode of Listen To Your Heart was truly a masterclass in an epic rise and fall villain(s) arc. Instigated by none other than pot-stirring extraordinaire Chris Harrison, the mess that ensued in last night’s episode was more than I could have dreamed of. Seriously, I’m officially saying it – I freaking love this absurd show. I was expecting to hate-watch this nursing two bottles of Sauvignon Blanc, and I’ve found that one is sufficient as the entertainment has been A+.
Between surprisingly good singers – really, did anyone think we weren’t getting anything but bad, drunk karaoke flashbacks (well, with one exception)? – and absurd drama, I could not ask for more from this show and my six-feet-under expectations.
These performance reviews are dedicated to Sheridan Reed, who objectively won Listen To Your Heart by escaping Julia and ingeniously capitalizing on the release of his new single, “All In.” One woman’s karmic demise is another man’s revenge hit single. Let’s get to it.
Rudi Gutierrez & Matt Ranaudo, “Tennessee Whiskey” by Chris Stapleton
Vocal Performance: A
I named Rudi as my dark horse pick last week, and I firmly stand by that. While Natascha may reign ultimate queen of the pipes, Rudi is my favorite female singer in the Listen to Your Heart competition. She has the most unique sound to me, and her voice has POWER. She honestly has a serious shot at a career after this show with her Aguilera-esque tone, with the pipes to match.
Can we talk about Matt for a second? His 2008 hooded plaid-jacket from Zumiez and fangirling at the Plain White T’s in no way insinuated that Matt had a sultry drawl. Rudi took the lead again this week, but Matt stepped it up both in stage presence and soulful vocals. He sounded buttery smooth and held a much more evenly-matched candle to Rudi’s prowess this week.
These two also sound GREAT together. Probably more than any other couple at this point – their voices simply have incredible chemistry together and harmonize with expert depth. You know how some couples just sound like they’re singing the same song at the same time by happenstance? Their duets are impressively purposeful. I wasn’t expecting this type of song to bring out this level of performance out of them, but it absolutely worked. They probably won’t win, but they’re my favorite duo, specifically, in the series.
Interpretive Routine: A-
This section is yet again brought to you by Rudi – with that said, Matt actually looks like he’s supposed to be holding/playing the guitar, in comparison to Brandon’s utilization as a shield (both from stepping it up vocally and as a physical barricade between him and Julia). In back-to-back weeks, Rudi has just looked incredibly comfortable on stage. While Toni Braxton may have wanted to be more uncomfortable, PDA makes me legitimately squeamish, so I was more than satisfied with the level of onstage seduction. The moves were nothing groundbreaking, but sometimes just moving around the stage naturally more than suffices.
~Romance~ Level: A-
Again, if you ask me, their onstage flirty banter was more than enough, but I’ll kindly take my appropriate seat and defer to Toni Braxton. I suppose they could’ve made out mid-song, but some people are just less touchy-feely and it’s RELATABLE, OKAY. Plus, as we saw in the hilarious credit sequence, it’s safe to say the attraction levels between these two are not…turbulent (sorry).