When Jordan from The Bachelor got all smashed on the second show of the season and whispered slurry nothings to the camera, the Internet was all over it.

TMZ found some dirt for us. The ABC producers may have lit the fire that created the hot mess that we all enjoyed on Monday night, and could be considered culpable in a reality TV scandal I am now referring to as Drunkgate.

Has the suffix ‘gate’ lost all meaning? Yes, it has. Watergate was serious. This is not.

Yesterday, TMZ reported, in the same story that was quickly picked up by the Daily Mail, that Jordan

“believes producers manipulated contestants by constantly refilling their glasses.”

Did ABC producers knowingly encourage, even facilitate, excessive drinking because they thought it would increase production value? Did they think, with proper alcoholic lubrication, someone might deliver a saucy soliloquy that would have the nation talking about the show?

They may have. Did it work?

Well, you’re not watching videos of Jordan clearly enunciating her deep and lucid feelings for Chris, right?

If a little alcohol loosens contestants up, eases the awkwardness of the mingling and gives these not-used-to-cameras-in-our-faces-yet gals some liquid courage, maybe a lot of alcohol could produce air-worthy results, too.

I can hear the executive producer in the booth now.

“Ready camera one. Take camera one. Zoom camera two to medium close up of Jordan. Why is Jordan’s glass empty? Would one of the runners please keep her glass full? She’s two sheets to the wind, and we need her at a full three.”

Obviously, that was a dramatization that I made up, but I really wouldn’t put it past reality show TV producers to consider alcohol a variable that can and does change the outcome of shooting, and because of that, to offer as much alcohol as the contestants care to drink.

I’m sure they didn’t force anyone to do anything, but if the girls are taking it, let them have it like Lionel Richie. All. Night. Long.

If you’ve watched shows like Jersey Shore and Party Down South, you know that they are based on drunken shenanigans, to the point of assault and battery. They dress a little better on The Bachelor, but the ABC producers probably know the same thing that CMT and MTV producers know. Reality contestants, like all other humans, start to act quite differently after three drinks. Raise that amount to a dozen, and keep the cameras rolling. Good, solid drunk moments can't be scripted. They write themselves.

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