Bachelorette Recap, Rachel, Ep. 3: Never Have I Ever
Proof that they really need to go back to having rose ceremonies at the end of each episode: I almost didn't understand why there was commotion at the beginning of the episode, and had to dig really deep to remember that DeMario's "girlfriend" aka Tinder hookup showed up on a group date, got him sent home, and then he showed back up to the mansion to talk to Rachel.
In the seven days since I last saw DeMario talking to Chris Harrison in the driveway of the Bachelor Mansion, I drove 8 hours to and from Charleston, SC with my four best friends since middle school, discovered the most delicious dish in the country (the roasted chicken at Edmund's Oast), watched Wonder Woman (5 gold stars), and paid all our new house bills for the first time (halpppp). DeMario's relationship drama was so far behind me that the only reason I bothered paying attention to the first 5 minutes of this episode is because Rachel served such eloquence while telling him off that she deserves an award. As she calmly tore into him by using his own words against him, allowing no loopholes for a counterargument, I knew one thing for certain: If I'm ever charged with murdering someone-- most likely due to road rage-- I will hire Rachel Lindsay, esq. as my lawyer Plz&ThankuNoQuestionsAsked.
As DeMario sulked back down the driveway after pleading for a second chance and being thoroughly rejected, women across America lifted their chins a little higher, deleted all their ex-boyfriends' numbers in their phones, and silently retreated to their secret lairs to continue planning their takeover of the universe.
Rachel walks back to where all the other guys are standing by the front door, and they all ask if she's okay. I think the real question is if THEY are okay, because I'd be shaking in my boots if I were them, knowing that they have the wrath of a goddess upon them if they ever royally screw up.
Tickle Monster lightens the mood by putting on a pair of ginormous stuffed hands, which he uses to stroke Rachel's face. Who comes up with this stuff? Can we be friends? Can I be your assistant?
Without meaning to, Whaboom also lightens the mood by trying to throw Blake the Aspiring Drummer/Penis Lover under the bus. He says Blake has been bashing him because he's secretly in love with him. How does he know? Because the other night, he woke up to find Blake standing over his bed, slowly sucking on a banana. WHAT.
Rachel, with a face so straight that I'm further convinced she's the greatest lawyer of all time, confronts Blake about the banana ordeal. He assures her that Whaboom DEFINITELY made up this story because "I'm on an all carb diet, so I don't even eat bananas." You guys. I can't.
Rose Ceremony:
Dean and Josiah already have roses.
The rest go to:
Bryan
Bryce
Eric
Anthony
Will
Jonathan the Tickle Monster
Jack Stone
Matt the Penguin
Alex
Adam
Kenny the Professional Wrestler
Brady
Lee
Iggy
Fred
Diggy
We say goodbye to Whaboom AND Blake the Penis Lover. Rachel knows she doesn't need them to get ratings. We also say goodbye to Jamey..? New phone, who dis.
During their exit interviews in the driveway, Whaboom and Blake overhear one another talking. Blake is so convinced that Whaboom is the reason he got kicked off (Could it actually be your career as an "Aspiring Drummer"? Your obsession with your penis? Your face that resembles the most annoying kid in 10th grade that looked and acted the same in every single high school?) that he interrupts Whaboom's interview by telling him he's a pathetic aspiring comedian. Whaboom responds by telling Blake he's a clown. Thus ensues the most ridiculous fight to ever go down in the history of reality television.
Two 30-year-old men start making voices and terrible impressions of each other, screaming "You don't even know what funny is!!!", and topping things off with inaudible noises like little kids do when they're taunting their older siblings.
Thank God we have Ellen DeGeneres to save the integrity of this episode.
The 6 hottest guys in the house get a group card date to be on national television:
Bryan*
Jonathan the Tickle Monster
Peter*
Alex*
Will*
Fred
Okay, fine, 4 out of 6 are the hottest guys in the house. I'll let you take a stab at who I'm talking about.
Rachel lovesssss her jumper-dress hybrids. And Alex lovessss his patterned skinny jeans. After a little one-on-one time with Ellen backstage, Rachel joins her in front of the live studio audience during the taping of an Ellen episode. Next thing we know, Rachel and Ellen invite the guys out to take off their shirts and dance with all the screaming middle aged women in the audience.
To be expected, Bryan got the most dollar bills pushed down his pants. Will, Fred, and Peter were cute. Jonathan was every white boy in khakis (see background of .gif below).
And then...then there was Alex. This giant Russian twerked and belly-rolled his way into my heart. With zero inhibitions, he jerked his body around in ways that looked painful yet impressive, chaotic yet perfected.
I didn't have enough time to process what I just witnessed before the boys were thrust into a game of Never Have I Ever. They learned who already kissed Rachel, and we learned that Alex pees in the Bachelor Mansion pool.T
hat night, Rachel is in heaven because 3 of her Top 4 (so far) are on this date: Bryan, Peter, & Will. Too bad Dean wasn't there to make it 4 for 4. Alex is a solid substitute. After making out with everyone except the Tickle Monster, Rachel finally has to face the one guy she doesn't want to: Fred. Lil' Freddy-booboo, who she knew as the bad little kid at summer camp when they were young. Poor guy. He seems like a nice young man, but Rachel just can't move past the vision of him as an annoying little kid she had to babysit in 8th grade. He asks her if he can kiss her, but Rachel is too much Woman to give him sympathy for being timid. She wants a man who will suck her face off without asking. (See: Bryan) She tells him that it's awkward that he asked for permission, but then throws him a bone when he goes in for it anyway. The kiss doesn't look too bad, but her face when hugging him afterwards tells a different story.
Before giving away the group date rose, Rachel pulls Fred aside to tell him that she doesn't want to lead him on. She tells the camera that "it was like kissing a little boy," which made me feel really sad for Fred, because I guarantee she wouldn't have thought that if they hadn't had their history. He gets in the rejection SUV completely heartbroken because he thought he finally had a shot with the girl he's been in love with for 20 years. I actually felt pretty bad for him.
Group date rose goes to Alex, because Rachel wants to spread the love. Based on the make outs, though, she's the most comfortable with Peter, followed by Bryan in 2nd place.
Back at the house, Eric-- the one who talks like 50 Cent-- tells the guys that he doesn't feel like Rachel is being genuine about getting to know him. Iggy tries to stand up for Rachel, which causes an argument that I honestly don't care about.
Cut to the one-on-one with Anthony...uh...? We've literally never seen him on the show before, but I guess he's a contestant. He meets her "at the rodeo," which actually means Rodeo Drive, where she waits for him atop a horse. In the middle of the street. In L.A. So you know, another Tuesday morning. He hops aboard a horse that does NOT want to be toting around a guy who is 6'5", but bless its cute lil' heart for hanging in there. While Bachelorette fans snap pictures, Anthony and Rachel ride their horses down the strip, stopping at a few stores along the way. They don't even bother to get off the horses. Instead, they RIDE the horses INTO the stores. I don't know which producer made that happen, but props to their sales tactics. Anthony's horse pooped inside a high end yoga store, which was ideal.
That night, Anthony and Rachel have dinner outside on the side of a hill with downtown L.A. sparkling in the background. They have boring yet normal conversation, so Rachel gives him the rose, and they dance the night away next to a jazz quartet that set up in some bushes nearby. Anthony looks like a great kisser.
Group date #2:
Brady
Dean
Adam
Kenny the Professional Wrestler
Bryce
Lee
Jack Stone
Eric
“Sometimes in relationships, the women have to take charge. - Rachel”
In walk Raven, Alexis, Jasmine, and Corinne from last season! They planned the group date for Rachel and her men. Raven decided the most appropriate outfit to wear in front of her bff's new boyfriends is a backless white leotard tucked into jeans. The guys refused to look at her for fear of getting in trouble. Good boys.
PS-- In case you were wondering how these 4 were chosen, they're all contestants on the upcoming season of Bachelor in Paradise.
They all take a party bus to an undisclosed location, on which the guys are encouraged to dance on the stripper pole in the center of the bus. Kenny is surprisingly good at this task, which we later found out is because he's a former Vegas Chippendale dancer (before he became a professional wrestler). How does a guy who seems so normal be so...not?
The girls lead the guys into a room with a mud pit in the center, surrounded by a crowd of drunk girls who have been convinced it's not embarrassing to yell things like "Show me your junk!" Why would they yell such a thing? Ah, well, because the boys will be mud wrestling each other in nothing but brightly colored chubbies. This disappoints Alexis, who said she was hoping for speedos. Miss her so much.
Dean is thoroughly not into the mud wrestling, but manages to accidentally beat Eric. After one homoerotic scene after another, the final match is Kenny the Professional Wrestler vs. Bryce, the guy with the widest jaw of all time. Kenny takes himself very seriously since wrestling is his second favorite job he's ever had (Chippendale dancer is #1). Bryce just doesn't want to die.
In an unexpected turn of events, Kenny goes limp halfway through the match, perhaps having body slammed one too many of his previous opponents in the tournament. He crouches on his knees and looks to the heavens, which gives Bryce the opportunity to jump on top of him for a few seconds like a spider monkey, which I guess counts as pinning him to the ground. Bryce wins!
The winner doesn't get any special treatment from Rachel because she doesn't actually like any of the guys on this date. (Except Dean.)
As the guys hose off in a way that seemed sexual on camera but probably wasn't in real life, Rachel's friends agree that Dean is their overall favorite. Raven shares that she quietly asked Lee and Bryce (separately) who they think isn't a good match for Rachel when they were on the party bus, and they both independently said Eric. This doesn't seem to concern Rachel at all.
That night, the only thing more awkward than the Chippendale lap dance Kenny gave Rachel was the confrontation between Eric and Lee. Rachel has no qualms stirring the pot by telling Eric that Lee and Bryce questioned his motives. This is how a game of telephone goes wrong, because neither of the guys told Raven that Eric has bad motives. They simply said they didn't think he was a great fit for Rachel. But "here for the right reasons" got thrown around a bunch, and the next thing you know, no one really knows why they're arguing, but they're really invested in their feelings nonetheless.
Bryce and Lee tell Eric that told Raven he is the least suited for Rachel because he's never been in love, thus may not be emotionally mature enough to get married. Eric forgives Bryce, but can't get past Lee's condescending tone. Lee is the resident country boy from Nashville, and really nails that evil southern drawl. He says all the right things, including the words "I love ya ta death" about 50 times, but has a gleam in his eye that makes you know he's subtly calling upon dark forces. He kind of reminds me of Dolores Umbridge.
Somehow Eric gets the group date rose.
The next night is the rose ceremony, which centers around Eric, yet again. This time, Iggy tells Rachel that Eric questions her authenticity. Rachel again tells Eric, which makes me think that maybe her goal as Bachelorette is actually to make these guy self-implode to further prove her female domination of the world.
Eric pulls all the guys together in the living room, and I think he's about to calmly apologize for any miscommunications, but instead he gets riled up and tells everyone to stop talking to Rachel about him. Lee obviously feeds the fire by muttering things like "wow" and "this is amazing" under his breath, just to make Eric even more mad.
Aannndddd we get a big ole TBC, with the light and airy topic of racism coming to the forefront in teasers for the next episode, as Will explains to Lee why he's coming across racist. Fun! It's actually probably a super important and relevant topic for this season to address, but let's hope producers handle things appropriately. We won't find out for two whole weeks because there's some basketball game on next Monday. Ew. Sports.