Monday, June 4, 2018

Bachelorette 2018, Episode 2

You know you're in for a good episode when Chris Harrison shows up and says "let me give you guys some advice." His advice is always "The Bachelor/ette is not here to mess around, and s/he will send you guys/girls home if you don't bring it." It's always turns the insecurity index up to 100, and somebody will crack and it will be glorious television.

The first group date is wearing tuxes and pretending to get married. They get in a large dressing room and the guys try on tuxes while Becca awkwardly stands in the middle of a dozen guys in various states of undress and says "I don't know what to do!" Lincoln is like a six year old trapped in a very muscular adult's body. He's like all smiles and giggles and single syllable words. "We're with the beautiful princess Becca! What else could a man ask for?" he gushes....because every man's dream is to get dressed with ten or so guys he's never met while a woman awkwardly stands in the middle of the room peeking through her fingers. It's a real life fairy tale!

Rachel and Brian (who are engaged but without a wedding date set) are held up as a paragon of what can happen on this show. The ol' we haven't set a date yet reminds me of people who shop at Aaron's Rent-a-Center....you want the 60" TV, but you don't want to really drop the cash on it. Or the ladies who buy dresses and strategically tuck the tag inside the dress to make sure your friends and the fellas give you the reaction you crave.

Turns out that we're not doing a wedding theme -we're doing an obstacle course. Rachel says that obstacle courses are dirty and hard, and that's just like a relationship! Becca says she wants a guy that's not going to cut and run when things get tough. I'm not sure exactly if she's saying that guys that suck at obstacle courses are bad boyfriends, or if a guy isn't going to try at the obstacle course would suck as a boyfriend, but I like to think I'm an above average husband, and I've never done a Tough Mudder, so.......

Anyways, Lincoln makes it sound like God willed him to victory in this obstacle course. All of the other guys seem to think he cheated (WHICH IS WHAT A SIX YEAR OLD WOULD DO!) Lincoln then says that kissing Becca is like riding to the moon on the wings of pegasus while dancing with unicorns on a pot of gold. Listening to Lincoln talk is the worst. He's singlehandedly disproving my long standing belief that everything sounds better when said with a British accent.
Hey Lincoln.......

 Lincoln then continues to yap, at one point having a chat with the picture of him and Becca taken earlier in the day. The guys don't like it when he talks to them, and they really don't like it when he talks to inanimate objects. Connor's had enough and frisbees the picture into the pool. I'll bet Connor feels like a real man for tossing a picture into a pool. Oh to be 25 again. He's strutting around, Jordan the male model is telling him that the whole thing was "epic" and then Lincoln loses his damn mind and tells a group of grown men he can't fight them because his mom would kill him. HIS MOMMY WOULD BE MAD! He then says the picture his broken, and along with it his heart. It is 2018, right? Becca can upload the .jpeg to Walgreens and get him another one in 60 minutes or less. This is not like the time my brother tore up my Dominique Wilkins poster that I ordered out of a catalog.
#NeverForget
Lincoln then comes to his senses and asks Becca for another picture. When she asks why, he leaves out all the parts about him parading the picture in front of the guys and how he was talking to it like she was there, and says "I have no idea why Connor would smash the picture." This guy really is a child. Get him out of here.

Anyways, Jean Blanc gets the rose for basically being the only person not to be weird. To repeat, the colognoisseur was the least weird dude on the group date.

The next day, Lincoln is still crying about this damn picture. Let's get on with this one on one date. Blake gets the honor, and Becca says she has no idea what's going on, as Chris Harrison planned the date. The date involves Harrison handing them sledgehammers and coveralls, like they're mafia hitmen or something. They get to break all of Becca's memories of Arie, and Lil' Jon is there to narrate! I don't think there's anything I want more in life than for Lil' Jon to follow me around and narrate my day.

Blake won the lottery here....a fun date activity that he didn't plan is making him seem way more interesting and fun to Becca than he really is. He then goes on to say that he fell in love with a girl after two months, and then he found out she was breaking up with him by sneaking a peek at some texts on her phone from her friends. Just know that Blake will look at your phone when you're not next to it, Becca. Take that thing to the shower with you! Blake gets a rose and some smooches. Becca says that if every day involves Lil' Jon and a sledgehammer, Blake is DEFINITELY husband material.

Becca's dates so far have involved an obstacle course, smashing shit with a hammer, and dodgeball. I think it's pretty clear she likes athletes. A bunch of kid actors start yelling at the guys and flinging dodgeballs at them at a high rate of speed.

They then end with a dodgeball competition in a trampoline arena announced by Harrison and the reanimated corpse of Fred Willard. It's sort of sad to see Willard this old...he doesn't really have his fastball anymore. It's like when baseball teams have old-timers day, and a mid fifties Orel Hershiser is throwing 60 MPH pitches to a 50 lbs overweight Sandy Alomar. Nobody wants to see that, and yet we actually kind of do.

Long haired Leo wins this date in my opinion, single-handedly giving the pink team a chance to win. He really brought it home when he deadpanned "dodgeball success doesn't come from biceps or your legs, it comes from the heart, and I was the only guy on the pink team with any heart." It's funny because it's true.

Becca then has a talk with Wills, who gets emotional because someone he knows (I wasn't paying that close attention) had their 50th wedding anniversary. Becca likes it though, because she says "I'm glad I'm getting to know you better," which is code for "I now know you well enough to let you make out with me."

DRAMA ALERT! Colton hooked up with Tia from last season! He has a very well rehearsed statement ready for Becca that involves the line "the timing wasn't right for me to grow a spark into a flame." Smooth. He then claims that he thinks him and Becca could have the time to light a bonfire or some crap.....on a television show....where you'll have to propose within two months.

Clay then does some touchdown celebration with Becca where he gets to kiss his QB. The guy has zero emotion. He's about as vanilla as it gets.

Not vanilla, however, is Jordan. He's walking around in his undies and he's going to catch Becca's attention. The chicken guy gets interrupted, and then gets really bitchy. He feels disrespected. He's not going to let this go. He actually says something about how "There's a time and place to draw attention to yourself, and this wasn't it." THE GUY DRESSED AS A CHICKEN FOR AN ENTIRE NIGHT! David then tries to say that there is right and wrong and there's not gray area (as if this is actually how the world works) and Jordan responds by totally butchering the word ingenuity, while also using it incorrectly.

Back to Colton - Becca is again saying how bummed she is to find out Colton made out with Tia, but for about the 10th time makes sure to tell him how attracted she is to him. Every time she says it, you can tell he knows he's a little closer to being forgiven.

Colton ends up getting the final rose of the night (SHOCKER) and sent packing are three guys I've already forgotten. A dude named Alex who looks a little like a dorky Tom Brady breaks down in tears because he was hoping to find love.

Coming next week - we see why Colton just HAD to get the Tia thing off his chest, Jordan says his face IS professionality, and someone ends up on a stretcher. We're all led to believe that there was a fight, but most likely a dude slipped on the edge of the pool. DRAMA!