Bachelorette Recap, Clare, Ep. 2: Demons & Dodgeball

You know what I’ve missed? I’ve missed the sneak peaks of what’s coming up each episode. They’re always SO riveting! Why is some yelling “It’s pandemonium!!”? Why does someone call Clare crazy?? Why is there that one menacing shot of Dale looking over his shoulder that they show every single week in teasers??

We may never have our answer to Question #3, but at least we found out that producers of our generation are still inspired by the shot of Elle Woods in the pool while applying for Harvard Law School. Who knew that scene would leave such a legacy? Intentional or not, Clare floating on her inner tube drinking a green smoothie really conjures up some suck-it-Warner-and-stick-it-to-these-boys vibes. 

I’m rooting for Clare, I really am–but we can all agree that there’s a difference between Elle Woods demanding respect and being attractive based on her behavior, and Clare demanding respect and needing to be told she’s attractive based on…forcing it out of the guys or else they get yelled at.

Am I being too harsh? I’m tired this week. Aaron has to go into work at 3am because Alaska is 4 hours behind his class that starts at 8am EST, so we’re all in haze here in the Leyko household. I don’t mean to take it out on sweet Clare. She just wants to be loved. Bless her.

I am utterly confused at whether the guys live together in the same “house” or if they all have separate rooms spread across the resort, but all I know is that there’s barely enough room for Chris Harrison to turn sideways and squeeze into the common area where the men gather in various grey and salmon fitted crew necks to receive the first date card:

Riley

Jordan

Yosef

Ivan

Ben

Bennet

Zach C (I’m winging it on the spelling of these Zac(h)s)

Zac J

Dale

“I’m looking for a guy who speaks to my heart.” – Clare

In the strangest “transportation” to a Bachelor date ever, the group daters jog in a single file line through the resort courtyards, following a trail of red heart stickers leading to Clare. It’s no limo with complimentary champagne, but hey, at least they’re not quarantining back home with no Tinder dates available during a worldwide pandemic. We’ll take what we can! Heart stickers! Light jog!

Clare tells the camera that even though it’s a group date, she’s mostly excited because she gets to see Dale again. It seems Clare has forgotten that this is The Bachelorette. It is not a show about monogamy (until the lead has slept with at least 3 suitors). 

Clare leads the men into a dark room that was once a suite in the resort, but has been stripped of beds and is now lined with fake ivy on the walls and a “stone” tower made of what I can only assume is paper mache. Maybe styrofoam. It was hard to tell with the dark mood lighting, complete with what must’ve been black felt over the windows reminiscent of Anne Frank. It was Anne Frank meets Repunzel..? That doesn’t sound right, but trust me, this whole set up wasn’t right either.

Bennett is a real stand out– the one who arrived in a Rolls Royce on night one– because he’s true dad material. His button down tucked into khaki shorts is a real departure from Dale’s highwater chineggings (chino-leggings, the cousin of jeggings) and 1970s polo with a gold chain. But Clare’s heart wants what it wants. Chineggings and all.

This date is about The 5 Love Languages! Guys love this stuff.

First: Words of affirmation. While Clare stands in the makeshift tower (inside the 20×10 Anne Frank room), she’s barely tall enough to surpass eye level with most of the guys as they recite off-the-cuff speeches about their love for her in what I’m guessing is supposed to be a reference to Romeo and Juliet. 

They all say the same thing about being excited to be there, but when Dale says it, Clare gives her widest smile and has to stop herself from voluntarily nosediving off the “balcony” three feet down into his arms.

Clare starts crying as she tells the men that it’s so nice to hear them fawn over her, meanwhile the guys back at the “house” are holding a belly flop competition in the pool. It’s no wonder we learn that these guys are having more fun with the bromance of this season than the romance. More on that to come.

Next up in the love languages: Gifts!

The guys sprint back to their rooms (okay, so now we learn it’s separate rooms, not a single dwelling..?) to grab Clare a gift. The non-date men lounging by the pool watch the PANDAMONIUM (teaser letdown) happening around them, and make the necessary note that Rolls Royce Bennett doesn’t even sweat. He somehow appears to be running in slow motion, calmly and and gracefully, like an antelope. The guys clearly love him in all his hot-dadness and this makes me love him too. 

Ivan gives Clare a chess piece because he loves chess and she’s his queen. Cuuuute.

Riley gives her the baseball fron the last game he ever played (Was this professional? High school? Little league?) and I tense up because Dale’s future wife probably shouldn’t accept something so sentimental.

Another guy gave her his “favorite t-shirt” aka he panicked and it’s the first thing he grabbed in his room.

You’d think she just inherited JK Rowling’s fortune by the way she beamed at the dog perfume Dale gave her. Perfume. But for her dog. That’s some serious Lisa Vanderpump ish. 

Love Language #3: Physical Touch

Clare and each man are blindfolded one by one as they feel eachother up and makeout in front of the non-blindfolded men. All standing in yet another small room because La Quinta resort is running short on large Bachelor date warehouses. 

During Dale’s turn, they crank up the mics so we get an extra dose of heavy breathing. I am as disturbed as the 13 men watching it all go down an arm’s reach in front of them. 

Did I miss Acts of Service? Isn’t that a love language? Alas, we end with Quality Time in the form of a standard Part 2 cocktail “party” where each guy gets a few minutes alone with Clare.

After they sit on patio furniture for Clare’s opening toast, she waits for someone to pull her aside. Someone. Anyone. Bueller??

It’s like these guys are too old to have watched this show before or something.

Bennett finally gets the hint that someone’s supposed to ask her to go “chat”, so he steps up to the plate like dads do. But she is so shaken by the lack of interest these guys showed in pulling her away that she ditches the one guy who actually did so that she can go back and yell at the rest of them.

The guys apologize profusely for not stabbing one another at the chance to spend five minutes with her on a bench, but she doesn’t seem satisfied until Dale gives the final apology and whisks her away. 

Clare, listen, this is the price you pay for having contestants in their 30s who have outgrown the peacocking of their 20s. You should be proud that they’re so chill.

Well, Riley does lose his mind for no reason because Yosef tried to “speak for the group” to tell Clare that “we’re all here for you,” which seemed innocent enough. But Riley wasn’t having it. I SPEAK FOR MYSELF! Um okay.

I guess it didn’t help that Yosef began his statement with “You’re crazy for thinking we’re not all here for you”…a major trigger for Clare. Crazy is not a word you use around a 39-year-old single woman under ANY circumstance. Or me when I’m hungry.

Group Date Rose goes to Riley because they slow-danced in silence but pretended they were listening to Boys II Men and editors took care of the rest. Yosef tells the camera that Clare’s reaction to no one grabbing her during the start of the evening was hot-headed and immature. Yosef, bro, keep the honesty to yourself.

The one-on-one date goes to Jason, the fun guy from Long Island! I am pleased! Unfortunately the date reeks of Bachelor in Paradise and I was waiting for a masked yoga instructor to guide them through an awkward meditation at any moment. Alas, all we got was Clare leading Jason in “emotional recovery” exercises around a bonfire. Jason kept talking about demons living inside him and I was wondering if these are like, murder demons? Or just “I still like to eat too much because I used to be 350 pounds” demons?

Either way, I wanted to eat my feelings to hide from how awkward I felt about the whole date. At the end, she pulls out her finale dress from Juan Pablo’s season and throws it in the fire. She probably could’ve sold it for like $2000 for charity but this was more dramatic. LET IT BURN.

The second group date is a game of 5 on 5 dodgeball. STRIP dodgeball!

Clare repeatedly says she wants a man with some balls. 

I immediately regret watching this on Hulu at 9:00am because I need some wine.

Then I catch a glimpse of this one guy Kenny’s title card, and he’s a BOY BAND MANAGER?? WHAT??? I need deets.

The winning team gets the second half of the date with Clare, and the losing team has to walk home butt naked. The tournament comes complete with a referee who I can only assume is one of the producers, and he yells “off with your shorts!” when the blue team loses their 3rd match in a row. 

While Clare and the red guys bathe in a celebratory champagne spray, the naked…and I mean fully naked as the day they were born…blue team sulks back to the “house.” The non-date guys are shocked, naturally, to see their naked roommates saunter through the door. These dudes don’t even bother putting down a towel before sitting down on the couch to tell the story as to why they’ve all lost their clothes and their dignity. Bennett is like a proud dad. “Well, you gave it your all!” HAHA why do I love him so much??

The winning team group date night isn’t worth my time. Truly. She sends Brandon home on a whim because he tells her he signed up for the show because he thought she was beautiful. After organizing a day of strip dodgeball, she decided that relationships shouldn’t be about physical attraction, and she was so offended that he didn’t lead with a compliment about her personality that she gave him the boot. Clare, like, what are you actually doing? Then she gives the group date rose to Chasen because he’s the closest in height to Dale.

Yosef turns out to be just as annoying as Riley said he was, so I guess Riley wasn’t overreacting earlier when Yosef “spoke for the group.” Because at the house, Yosef can’t stop complaining about how classless Clare is for forcing the guys to do strip dodgeball, even though he wasn’t even on that date. 

Rose Ceremony Cocktail Party: 

Blake Moynes gets an automatic pre-ceremony rose because he’d interrupted the group date the night before after being on the losing blue team. He’d redressed and shown up to have one-on-one time with Clare. It was literally not worth me typing about it, but Clare seemed to enjoy the attention, so good job Blake Moynes!

Clare blindfolds Dale and tells him she wants to continue doing more of the Physical Touch love language, and I was *this* close to cracking open some pinot at 10am on a Wednesday morning just to get through it.

COMING UP NEXT WEEK: Yosef tells Clare that she’s old and classless. She growls. The guys start to realize that Dale and Clare had been in contact before showing up on the show. YEAH YOU THINK?

Most importantly, we get an outtake of NFL player Eazy with Rolls Royce Bennett, forming the bromance we all need but don’t deserve. Bennett gives Eazy a tour of his abode while donning a white robe, detailing the coziness of his fire places and high end shoe collection. They end the tour with matching face masks in the hot tub and this is when I realize that our world could be so much more unified if only we were forced to hang out with people very different from us at a La Quinta resort for six weeks with no outside contact. The Bachelor can save the world, you guys!!

See you next week. How many episodes do you think there are before Clare throws in the towel??