Good morning and happy Wednesday!
We are back with Week Two of the Bachelorette. Thank you to everyone who reached out about last week’s recap, other professional recaps they listened to or read, or wild fan theories about who they think is F1. Truly you are only saving me from myself as I work it into any and all conversations I have. And yes, one of the people we interviewed for the SEO team last week did wish me luck in my bachelor bracket in his thank you note so I am aware it’s a problem, I just have no desire to change.
In other exciting news, today I’m in THE OFFICE! That’s not relevant to this bracket whatsoever, but it’s exciting despite the fact that I haven’t actually left my apartment in two days and clearly needed to pop some Allegra.
Anyways, we would normally get into how we are all performing in our bracket right about now but in true form we’ve activated my biggest pet peeve of this show SO FREAKING EARLY INTO THE SEASON and we did not have a rose ceremony. Why? BECAUSE OF NO REASON OTHER THAN MANUFACTURED DRAMA. But it’s fine. I’m fine. All this means is that we are going to be on a super weird schedule and one of these days are going to have two rose ceremonies in one episode and I hate that for all of us.
But onto the show itself!
We start with an uber sexualized date because ABC is nothing if not refusing to learn from previous seasons where they got a lot of flak for making people uncomfortable. But Katie is SEX POSITIVE which you know because they say it every two minutes even though I’m starting to think ABC doesn’t actually know what that means as they try to torture one of the men who is saving himself for marriage as though sex positivity doesn’t mean being supportive of everyone’s choices around sex.
But Katie has outsmarted ABC (at least for now because she gets too deep into the cult). She is kind and supportive and reiterates that she has respect for everyone and their personal choices and I’m trying to not get too excited but it seems like rather than spending the next nine weeks on a made-up societal construct we might have actually addressed it in the most adult way possible for this show and are going to move on???
Other than putting a 31-year old man in a situation so uncomfortable he breaks down into tears, nothing really different happens. We get the usual uncomfortable date montage. Some C-list actress comes in to quiz the guys on female anatomy which they all ~shockingly~ fail. They have to get up and perform why they would be the world’s greatest lover for Katie which mostly results in a slew of creative rhymes.
We then get into the happy hour where nothing exciting happens but Katie does the thing Tayshia did on her season where she lists a bunch of potential date rose contenders before handing it out to people. So it goes something along the lines of ‘Connor, you were surprisingly good at music, Mike you opened up and were respectful during the date, and Thomas we made out so aggressively all of America saw my Spanx so…Thomas you get the group date rose.’
During the date we also have the guys at the house getting a date card where we find out that Greg will be getting a 1on1. We can pretend that this is to make up for the fact that Abigail on Matt’s season got the first impression rose and then never got a 1on1 date and it was wildly blasted on Twitter, but let’s be real. The producers are hoping that Greg will be so clearly a front-runner a coalition of men in the house will rise up to take him down because he’s so much farther in his relationship with Katie than some of them are.
Katie drives up to the house (resort? hotel? compound? I quite honestly don’t even know what to call where they are staying other than its actual name, a Hyatt Regency because it looks so category defining) in a pickup truck to get Greg for their date.
She talks a bit about how she loves the outdoors (our Pacific Northwest Queen) and how she and her dad used to go fishing and camping and whatnot and asks Greg if he also loves nature and Greg lies through his teeth about how much he loves things like trees and rocks.
To be fair, Greg said he loved fishing and Katie does take him fishing. Unfortunately for Greg it appears as though when he said he loved fishing he more meant ‘my Bumble profile has a picture of me holding a big fish I definitely did not catch by myself.’ And here’s the thing, Greg is adorably bad at everything camping related so we are going to give him the pass. But Greg needs to learn you can’t lie too much about your interests. You can FOR SURE exaggerate – I can say I love sporting leagues and what I really mean is I love the great sport we are all observing together, reality TV. But you can’t say you love camping and not know how to put up a tent, too easy of a giveaway.
Annoyingly the date is super cute though. I’m borderline confused how this is only Week Two because it feels like we are much farther in – Katie and Greg are all giggly together and are already on the ‘I might be falling in love with you’ train. That’s Week Four nonsense people!! They legit make a CAMPING TOILET and the make out while Greg is sitting on it (not using it for the record) and it’s cute instead of horrifying which is the only appropriate reaction here.
Thankfully we leave the great outdoors (I said what I said) and they have a traditional dinner. Katie had opened up a lot on the day portion of the date how it was emotional for her because her dad had passed in 2012 and she and her dad had a lot of camping traditions and now it’s Greg turn to be overly vulnerable with a stranger. He says that despite not talking about it during any of the super natural moments on the day date, his father actually also passed a few years ago and he’s crying, Katie’s crying, I’m crying, it’s a whole to do.
Greg was vulnerable enough to get a rose and despite not realizing Katie is making eyes at him and instead going for the hug every time she wants him to kiss her, they manage to make out in the back of a pickup truck while fireworks go off. Casual first date stuff.
We then flash to the final group date, which kicks off with agents of chaos Tayshia and Kaitlyn aggressively waking the dudes up with banging pots and pans and telling them to hurry because the date is about to start! They are told not to grab anything which naturally results in dudes in varying degrees of clothing (who wears a hat to bed??) leaving the compound.
The date is the classic group date motif: violence. The Southwest America version? Mud wrestling.
After the guys ruin multiple pairs of perfectly fine pants with mud that definitely won’t come out, we get to the real reason this entire date exists: Aaron and Cody. The producers didn’t want us to forget their four second fight during the first episode so they are paired together to have time to ~work out their aggression~ (read: get even more aggressive with one another).
Aaron wins because he’s significantly larger and it’s a totally unfair fight and then wins the date competition overall, not because of any athletic skill but because we need to move the plot along. Katie asks leading questions to get Aaron to talk about it (while simultaneously proving she is not cut out to be an actress) and Aaron essentially says that they know each other from home and while he doesn’t want to get into it, he would consider Cody to be ‘malicious’ which is a rather strong claim. No other detail is provided beyond some vague ‘not here for the right reason’ and something about social media.
As an aside, what is up with all this knowing each other from home? I don’t want people with preexisting issues! I want a bunch of strangers slowly driving each other mad! Also as this week clearly shows if it’s before the show starts we don’t have the ability to roll the tape and see who is clearly in the wrong! How am I supposed to decide who is wrong without seeing it?? (Not that anyone asked, but Cody’s wrong in my opinion based on very little evidence).
Cut to the group date where Katie asks to talk to Cody for his side of the story. Here is where I’m convinced Cody did something super shady. Because he had the most WHO ME response, started talking in very grammatically correct sentences and couldn’t make eye contact. For the record, I still have NO IDEA what their drama is about and worry I will never, but again, I don’t need to even know specifics to know Cody is shady af.
HAMMERING IT HOME, Cody then asks to talk to Aaron and rather than being like ‘oh what did you say to her’ or ‘hey you accused me of things (mysterious things) that aren’t true’ he full on goes ‘why did you tell her we knew each other?!’ MY MAN. That’s your issue? That he acknowledged he knew you? During Peter’s season we had a girl legitimately tell Peter that she had never met another contestant and they had gone on a girls’ trip to Vegas together and everyone raked her over the coals for being shady. That’s the weirdest of things to get mad at and therefore I’m Team Aaron. Technically I’m team just throw them both out, but alas.
Anyways Katie has a moment to herself and then decides to just kick Cody off which I didn’t even realize was an option. She seems way too over his nonsense and he seems cold and detached so now I’m even more convinced that there is secret footage that needs to be released, ideally at the Men Tell All.
Katie is sad and insecure and is having a moment and Andrew S. comes in and is super freaking cute. He comforts her, tells her how wonderful she is, and they bond about growing up without a ton of money and feeling like the weird kids in their classes with their hand-me-downs and thrift shop clothes AND THEY’RE BOTH SO WONDERFUL I CAN’T. They make out because Katie has taste.
Other people talk to Katie but whatever, we peaked at Andrew and so naturally Andrew gets a rose.
We then move on to the cocktail party. Now I want to say that I am obsessed with both of Katie’s date night dresses (especially this one which could be mine for the very low cost of the entire newly increased employee referral bonus) but her cocktail one is a toss-up. It’s this green one for reference. I really liked it but have a text from my mom saying ‘don’t like this dress’ and I believe I saw some recap online calling it ‘a Slytherin’s prom dress’ so. I am okay accepting I have terrible taste.
Katie gives a cute toast, talks to Michael the dad who didn’t get a date about how she was confident enough in their connection so that’s why he got no time this week (shocker: they end up making out) and then she talks to Karl WHO SUCKS. I have left out my Karl tirade until now to save us all, but he for context this episode bombs the standup date earlier, compares dating Katie to a business deal, and has ‘I need to get my 15 minutes of fame’ written all over him.
Karl decides during his 1on1 time he is going to gaslight Katie about people being here for the wrong reasons. When she’s like cool can you give me names Karl essentially says no but to be vigilant – you can trust me – she gets in her head about it EVEN THOUGH IT’S ALL A SCAM. Here’s what Karl doesn’t understand. He is not smarter than the producers. He is not smarter than all of us at home. If you’re going to be shady, be better at it. Find someone else in the house to target and get put on a 2on1 date. Make it a whole to do. I mean c’mon, Aaron at this point is such an easy target! Instead Karl goes with the mysterious everybody and anybody and it’s obnoxious.
Katie is upset because she has been properly spooked and gives a speech to the guys about being here for the right reasons and again, this feels like Week Four nonsense. There are way too many guys at this point for this nonsense. The guys in the house are freaked when she leaves and ask who talked to her and Karl repeats what he said to her to them like an idiot and they all get upset with Karl and yell at him. They’re like cool who isn’t here for the right reasons and Karl miscalculated and is like I’m not going to say anything, I’m going to let them come forward and obviously no one does so he just keeps yelling back. Karl forgot to make friends for his army before he started his little war, but I hope we only have to see him for a bit more.
And that’s our show because obviously we don’t get a rose ceremony because WHHHHHY would I want that WEEK TWO?? Apparently a lot of guys start to lose the plot next week though and Katie tweeted that a lot goes down at the rose ceremony so it’s worth waiting for even though that feels less like the truth and more like something she is contractually obligated to say.
But before I go! I wanted to call out some guys that were also highlighted (or at least in a funny meme or two) that were (unfortunately) not interesting enough to work their way into the recap.
JOHN:
What is there to say about John? He is one of the smallest dudes (which likely means he’s huge in real life, just not as massive as these Superhero Chris lookalikes) and makes a lot of funny jokes during mud wrestling about how he’s going to get murdered which is incredible. John also at the cocktail party is talking to another dude and is just raving about how wonderful all the other guys are and it in fact turns out that John is here to make friends.
HUNTER:
Truthfully I don’t know anything about Hunter other than he wrote Katie a cute letter or something, but I used a Twilight meme earlier so it is only fair to include this here as well.
CONNOR THE CAT:
Apparently the kiss we saw between Connor and Katie was so awkward last week (which is news to me, it didn’t look SO BAD it needed to be acknowledged??) he asked for a redo and made a joke about not being as weird with his hands and then immediately is doing weird things with his hands. If you told me that he was trying to snap her neck here, I would totally believe you.
AND THIS RANDO:
Apparently there was a man named Kyle also on this show last week, but I definitely didn’t see him last week (he for all we know could be the guy I accidentally wrote the name down as Germany??) but he got some in the moment interviews this week so welcome to the party Kyle.
And that’s a wrap! In other non-episode related news, Bachelor in Paradise is currently filming right now so we have much more drama awaiting us in future months.
Catch you all next week!
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