TV & Movies
Bachelor Fans Loved This Detail From Joey Graziadei’s 9-1-1 Guest Role
The crossover episode keyed in to hyperspecific tropes from the reality show.
Joey Graziadei’s Bachelor season may be over, but he hasn’t strayed too far from Bachelor Mansion. The April 4 episode of ABC’s 9-1-1 started with a Bachelor-themed scenario, featuring Joey, Jesse Palmer, and a lineup of limo arrivals. It lived up to the chaotic vibes of every Night 1.
The fictional episode began like an actual episode of The Bachelor, with Joey greeting his first few suitors, including a flight attendant in uniform and a dental hygienist.
But then things quickly took a turn for the worst. A woman stole a Bachelor limo and sped onto property. She initially pretended to be a contestant named Conchata before revealing that she was actually an obsessed fan named Bailey from Sheboygan, Wisconsin.
“I have dreamed of this moment since I was 21 years old. I never had the courage to apply. This is me applying,” she said, before gluing herself to the mansion driveway. Jesse then called emergency services — who, it turns out, were Bachelor fans themselves. One responder even captured the drama on FaceTime.
Despite his fictional season being gatecrashed, Joey (ever the empathetic king!) still took time to comfort Bailey as the crew prepared to remove the pavement around her with jackhammers. “You know, I actually have a cousin that lives in Sheboygan,” he said, before tenderly wiping away one of Bailey’s tears.
Fans loved the reference. “Joey used THE THUMB!” wrote one viewer on Reddit. The “signature wiping away the tears,” was “a nice touch,” another agreed. (If you kept up with Joey’s IRL season, you know he indeed spent lots of time wiping away tears while listening to his suitors’ stories.)
Actor Oliver Stark, who plays Buck on 9-1-1, told Variety that the actual Bachelor film crew worked with the ABC team “so that it would feel 100% like an episode” of the reality dating series. He had nothing but praise for Joey and Jesse’s acting chops. “It makes me question the moments in The Bachelor,” Stark said. “Are you guys just acting, because you were really good at that?”
