If you watched Monday night's episode of The Bachelor, you might have come away from it a bit uncertain about who will seize the title as this season's resident Wild Card.
We call this honor the Luke Parker Award for Excellence In Keeping a Decades-Old Reality Franchise Fresh Through Batsh-t Insanity.
For many viewers, the front-runner is Alayah Banavides, who returned to the show and stole the group date's symbolic flower, despite the brutality of the six-on-six football game that was disappointingly not referred to as the Rose Bowl.
Alayah seems to be this season's most manipulative contestant, but if we're talking about the lady who delivers the most drama, the Luke Award has gotta go to Virginia Beach smoke show Victoria Fuller.
The show went into uncharted territory with this week's storyline about Victoria dating Chase Rice, the country crooner who serenaded Victoria and Peter at the end of their one-on-one date.
That part was definitely planned by producers, but the fact that it nicely intersected with Alayah's return when the prodigal pageant queen spilled the tea within minutes of her return?
That might've been a fortuitous coincidence.
Anyway, if you haven't been keeping up with our Bachelor spoilers, and you wish to head watch the rest of the season with no foreknowledge of how things play out for Pilot Pete, then now is to grab your parachute and and bail out.
In other words -- SPOILER ALERT!
As many of you are no doubt aware, Victoria makes it into Peter's final three, but that's where things fall apart for the 25-year-old.
As with the Chase situation, Fuller's past catches up with her, when former friends from her homwtown allege that she seduced their husbands.
Now, every time we write about this story, we like to point out that even if the allegations are true, the married men are far more at fault than Victoria in this scenario.
That said, one can see why Peter might be a bit wary after hearing a story like that about his potential wife, and it's not hard to see why he decided to cut ties.
As a result of this narrative, going into the season, all eyes were on Victoria.
And after last night's run-in with Mr. Rice guy, fans are more curious about Fuller than ever.
So who is the Virginia-based jokester with the "dry sense of humor" who's causing so much turbulence for Pete?
Well, according to her bio, Fuller is a Medical Sales Rep and former substitute teacher in local Virginia Beach schools.
She's currently working on her M.A. in Economics, and she's been open about her struggles with anxiety.
She's also spoken out about the bullying she's endured from Bachelor fans.
“Bullying is NOT ok. Nor is it fair,” Fuller wrote on Instagram last month. “Especially when casting judgement and basing opinions based on pure speculation, assumptions & LIES.”
We'd like to take this opportunity to co-sign that statement.
We've reported on Victoria extensively so far this season, but we've endeavored to see both sides of the story, and to identify unconfirmed rumors as such.
And folks, at this point, it's basically all unconfirmed rumors.
The big difference between Victoria and someone like Luke P., is she hasn't been accused of anything malicious, and we haven't seen her engage in any toxic behavior.
Luke Parker? That guy was a bully.
Victoria? Let's all withhold judgement on her for the time being, mmm-kay?
