Bachelorette Season 13, Week 4: Race to the Bottom

The good thing about a week off from the Bachelorette is that I get a week off from getting worked up about a bunch of guys I shouldn't care about.  The bad thing is that I forget about the cliffhanger drama and just assume it's all over and done with.

But no, here we are talking about Lee and Eric.....still. Lee is an idiot. Lee has to explain that his grandfather getting cancer was sad. Nobody has to explain cancer is sad. Lee uses a knife that his grandfather carried with him to carve the word "enchanting" in a piece of wood that looks pretty much like the handwriting Andy used when putting his name on Buzz and Woody's feet. Lee sucks. Eric is pretentious and annoying, but Lee truly sucks.

Bryan and Rachel have a conversation that includes all the hottest buzzwords: vulnerable, future, drama, charming, 100% real....we've got #bachelorettebingo! There's no 50/50 pot at this bingo game, so they settle for aggressive kissing.

Lee continues to patronize every guy in the house. Kenny's pissed off because Lee interrupted him. Lee decides that the best way to deal with an angry person is to laugh at them, which sounds like a great way to get punched. Rachel is having a hard time talking to Bryce, whom I will henceforth refer to as Poor Man's Wolverine.

One of my favorite things about this season has been the fact that nobody has mentioned race, despite this being the most racially diverse cast ever. It hadn't been mentioned, that is...until now. Rachel somehow thinks that the guys arguing means that people are going to blame her race for the drama. I honestly don't get this line of thinking. There has been much bigger drama on this show between an all white cast. I'm guessing she thinks that people will not just see it as "drama," but as "black person drama." She said that she's getting pressure from all sides....about what? Who is pressuring her? I don't think I've seen one negative thing about her online yet. People (and by people, I mean fans of the show) generally love her and see her as one of the "best" bachelorettes in the show's history. She's straight forward, she commands the room, and she's not just sitting around waiting for the guys to fight over her. Just frustrating to me.

Now we've got a rose ceremony that nobody really cares about. They already 86'ed the kooky dude, so you know the only other villain they have (Lee) is safe. Anyone who they've invested any time in showing on TV is also safe. In the end, it's Diggy and Poor Man's Wolverine who leave. I don't get sending Diggy home, he seemed like a pretty chill dude.

Rachel then toasts the remaining guys, saying that she hopes they can move forward with no drama and negativity. This coming from someone who kept Lee around. The Bachelor franchise is just a giant manifestation of that girl in high school who would get drunk and make out with her best friend's boyfriend at a party and then cry about how she's "so sick of drama" when people get mad at her for it.

Time for the show to leave LA (but not the drama) behind, and head to South Carolina. Dean, a life-sized, animatronic Ken doll, gets the first date. They park a jeep in a field and drink champagne on the hood before a blimp appears on the horizon. You'll never believe this, but Dean is afraid of heights. Conveniently for ABC producers, a blimp crashed and burst into flames at the US Open which you gotta admit is some pretty convenient timing for them. Miraculously, Dean is able to overcome his fear of heights to pilot the blimp and make Rachel feel like she was the one to give him the courage to ride in a goddamn blimp. The blimp cockpit is basically a glass bubble that made me nervous watching it on TV from my couch, so I have a hard time believing anyone with a true phobia of heights would be calm at all in an actual blimp.

Of course, the blimp does a fly-by of the resort the guys are staying at, and of course they're all out on the balcony as it comes into view. The side of the blimp says "Dean and Rachel are in here," and this pisses Eric off to no end. "I can tell they're having a good time," he moans, as he plots a way to get that blimp on the ground.

Anyone seen Eric?

After the blimp lands (safely), Dean and Rachel talk about their upbringings.  Rachel's parents are still married, which leads Dean to say "that's really rare these days." A great conversation to have with a woman you want to marry (in theory, at least). He then divulges the sad story of his mom dying of breast cancer 11 years ago, and that apparently this is the first time he's talked about it. IN ELEVEN YEARS. If you go eleven years holding your feelings about your mom's death inside...there is no way you're a functioning member of society. You need therapy, Dean!

Group date time! They take a yacht. "Feel free to take your shirts off," Rachel croons, as she makes no attempt to shed any clothing herself. (#doublestandard) The date includes "competitions like limbo, pushups, and a rap battle. This concludes with a spelling bee. I'm already annoyed. Spelling is not something that's hard...if you do things like, oh, I don't know, READ. You read a book, it's got words, you see the words, and pretty soon, they look familiar, and damnit, then you know how to spell them.

I have to give credit though, they didn't give the guys simple words. I was anticipating guys going out on words like "utility" or "phony," not "boutonniere." Seriously, how many people have ever seen the word boutonniere written before? You hear the word two or three times in high school, and that's about it. Tough break for the guy who got that word. Josiah ends up winning, spelling the word "polyamorous."

Now, let's talk about Iggy. Last time we saw Iggy, he was talking about Eric to Rachel. I gave him props for following up that conversation by sitting Eric down and letting him know about that conversation. Iggy now has an issue with Josiah, for being kind of arrogant about winning the spelling bee. I think this had more to do with Josiah being a cocky drunk than anything else. Iggy started to get annoyed because Josiah was drunk and he wasn't. Iggy, dog, I've been there. But don't go trying to make it out to be something it's not. Now he's trying to act all high and mighty again, telling Josiah that he told Rachel he's causing tension in the house. This leads to Josiah, being the cocky drunk he is, blabbing to America about Iggy "shooting steroids in his nuts." Weird comeback, Josiah, but we'll allow it. So much for leaving the drama in Los Angeles.

Now back to our other beef: Lee vs. Kenny. Lee tells Rachel that Kenny was acting aggressive. Rachel asks Kenny if he was aggressive. Kenny says yes, but not to the level Lee made it appear. Rachel doesn't seem to buy Kenny's response, so now he feels he needs to pull Lee aside and get aggressive with him again. 

Nope.

To be continued.....