Write your Congressman! Apply a cold compress! Refill your Xanax script!
Newsweek reports that the East Coast (where I am, as well as the Governor of Massachusetts, Kathie Lee and Hoda, and Broadway legend Howard McGillin, unless he’s still in the Hamptons) will experience a “disruption” in tonight’s episode, due to President Trump announcing his Supreme Court nominee at 9:00 PM. This perilous sinkhole in the road of Becca’s journey to love could last as long as 20 minutes, even more if he picked a judge with a longish name. The good news is that Bachelor Nation could react by singlehandedly destroying his re-election prospects.
Anyway, no need to have a cow (or iguana, since Becca and the gang will open up and be vulnerable in the Bahamas). ABC will accommodate the time lost to history-making news by picking up the show where it left off, and running it til 10:20 PM. My apologies to all commenters for having to stay up that much longer, and for having to worry about women’s reproductive rights being set back 50 years.
In this fractured episode, Reality Steve claims, Wills and Leo must collect their swim trunks and skedaddle. Leo, we hardly knew ye. Colton, Jason, Blake, and Garrett, whose names have been those of soap opera characters with evil twins, will remain to escort Becca on visits to their respective hometowns next week.
By the way, Colton is (was?) a virgin. That casting session must have been awkward.
Becca is enthusiastic about the Bahamas, while the guys are, as usual, nervous about their progress. If they weren’t, it would be like Perry Mason worrying he won’t win a case. She sees the light at the end of the tunnel and also the silver lining, so she’s covered for mixed metaphors. She tells Chris Harrison she wants no drama this week, which is about as likely as President Trump choosing a gay judge who voted for Bernie Sanders. She also predicts she will end up affianced after all this is over.
The guys fuss over wanting Becca for themselves. She arrives at their suite to dispense hugs and explain that they will have four dates, three of them one-on-ones, and no Rose Ceremony. Colton gets the first date. The others look disgruntled. No one expected it would be Colton the Untouched getting first dibs this week, and the men recommend he fess up ASAP. Garrett wonders if she wants to take on Colton’s damning innocence and purity. Fine, but will any of them admit to being a manwhore?
Becca finds Colton to be a bronzed god, albeit one with no experience in the sack. They get on a boat and do the requisite “I’m the king of the world” yell in the bow. Unfortunately, their craft does not hit an iceberg. Colton acknowledges that he wants to tell Becca about his uninitiated penis. He opens by saying he hasn’t got the world’s most experience dating–even less than Sarah Huckabee Sanders has as a spokesperson–when they are interrupted by a man in another boat who suggests they need some conch. Only if they’re an aphrodisiac.
They make disgusted faces as they chew on some squiggly conch body part, which doesn’t bode well for their first sexual encounter. Colton still hasn’t spilled the beans, or for that matter, any sperm into a person.
That evening, they head to dinner and The Weighty Conversation That is Actually Toothless. Becca thinks he’s all set up to get the rose, with no monkey wrenches poised to be thrown. She babbles about how much fun it was to be watched by a crew as they made out today. He tells her he has something to tell her that it’s hard to talk about. The story goes that he put his professional life, which was apparently the priesthood, ahead of his personal life.
“I am a virgin,” he announces. “Are you?” Becca replies, as if he’d said he was a Gemini. She thanks him for telling her, and claims she doesn’t want to put him out of his comfort zone. The S&M sessions in her basement dungeon will have to wait.
Becca excuses herself. Colton is scared. He would be devastated if this revelation is too much for Becca to handle.He should be more devastated if Becca is that much of a tool. He wishes the show took place in an Amish village. She ruminates out on the terrace as as Colton broods inside.
Back at the suite, the guys ramble on some more about Virgingate. “Sex is huge, and you can’t put a ring on a finger if you don’t know about compatibility,” Blake asserts. Likely you can’t put a ring anywhere else, either.
Becca returns to open up a new line of questioning. For Pete’s sake, virgins got married all the time just decades ago. Both my grandmothers were untouched, although admittedly it was eight years between my father’s birth and his older brother’s. Yet Becca admires Colton’s commitment to sincerity and his vulnerability. She wants to meet the family that formed him and his social ineptitude.
The next date card arrives at the suite. It goes to Garrett. He is pleased, stoked, and super-excited, but he is alone in that response. Then Colton returns with his rose, which further upsets the guys. Why can’t any of them claim to be virgins? It’s not like there’s a membership badge.
Becca looks forward to her date with Garrett. He always makes her laugh, although hopefully he won’t in bed. They are picked up by a seaplane (vendor: TiA) to tour the islands from the sky, and give the producers a chance to try out their new Seaplane Wing Cam. The other men observe them flying from their terrace, and are majorly POed. “The relationship is taking off,” Garrett remarks unironically.
The couple arrives at a private beach. Becca feels like they are the only people on earth, which would make it easy to pick a husband. Garrett agrees that it’s a blast talking endlessly about their castmates and all their mishigoss. Why discuss religion, family or careers when you have former relationships to analyze.
“I think we can be perfect together,” Garrett tells Becca. New Jersey immediately files a copyright infringement lawsuit. The sun sets over the Bahamas as the guys at the hotel are still babbling about their connections with Becca. The next date card arrives. Blake gets the gig. Incidentally, why does Jason wear a giant cross all the time? Shouldn’t he be a virgin?
Becca wants to slobber all over Garrett, but realizes that’s not a foundation on which to build a life together. Instead, she quizzes him about past relationships. Bob Eubanks never asked these stupid questions. They cover the “I was been engaged and it didn’t work out” ground yet again, although Garrett’s probably didn’t involve a $15,000 ring. You’d think they’d find something else they have in common, like a love of gardening or a foot fetish. Garrett admits he’s falling in love with Becca. He gets the rose.
Time for the president’s consequential announcement, as The Steph calls it. This will be a defining moment in US history, when a dumbbell makes a choice that could ruin lives for decades. I shall not cover this announcement, as it doesn’t relate to the Bachelorette unless a cast member appeals a suit against ABC all the way to the Supreme Court, and anyway, my fingers are tired. I bet Colton is having sex right now instead of watching the news.
Back to the Bahamas. Blake celebrates his date with Becca. He’s had to watch everyone else go out with her and return with a rose, except those who didn’t. Becca meets him on the beach and throws her legs around his waist. She has a surprise for him: A party on the beach with a lot of people more ethnic than Becca and Blake. Even the dog isn’t white.
More making-out commences. Becca is falling for every guy who’s read the AFTRA rules. Blake reveals he wondered desperately how she felt about him, especially in comparison to the other guys and Ryan Reynolds. He was deeply affected by this fear, which he realizes shows how much he really cares about her. Apparently, he had no idea on his own. Don’t let him pick a paint color for your bedroom.
Becca now understands how it was for Arie, because she too has the hots for several guys and can’t choose one without humiliating everyone else. Finally, Arie is vindicated. He’s still a jerk, though. The rest of the guys also fret and worry as if they’ve never seen a previous season. Then the group date card arrives. “This isn’t even close to over,” Leo says, quoting a disaster movie from the 70’s.
Blake and Becca coo at each other over dinner. She wants to learn more about him, though, such as how his parents’ divorce affected him. We can guess how it affected their attorneys. Blake admits he has trouble opening up partly because his mom had an affair with a man who happened to be his basketball coach. I think this was the plot of one of Judy Blume’s adult novels. The problem was compounded when nobody in his family addressed the elephant in the room, even though he was wearing sneakers and a whistle around his neck. Blake doesn’t want that to happen in this relationship. He’ll be fully capable of telling Becca if he’s cheating on her with someone she trusts.
Blake reveals he’s in love with Becca. She’s thrilled that he says it with such confidence, so she wants to meet his family. Whether that includes the basketball coach, we don’t know. The rose is awarded. Becca tells the camera that she’s in love with him, too, but she’s not allowed to say so, according to her contract. So she lets Blake maul her in a corridor. I don’t think Brett Kavanaugh would side with her on this case.
Leo, who got an A in math, realizes that two men are going home after the group date, leaving just one to get the last hometown visit. Becca meets him, Wills, and Jason for their date. They play beach volleyball as Becca considers all their positive qualities, which appear to include only nice bods and an ability to read the script. How will she ever choose? I say draw straws.
She goes off alone with Wills first. He really wants Becca to meet his parents, who have been married for almost 50 years. Wait a minute. He can’t be much over 30. Did his parents wait longer than my grandma to have a second baby?
She talks next with Jason, aka Chris Noth Lite. He thinks their chemistry is powerful, and he must have her in his life. However, there are issues with vulnerability and opening up that may be intractable. Meanwhile, Leo claims that while the other guys can offer her an easy life with money, he can offer her happiness. That didn’t work out well for Johnny and Katie Nolan.
Leo hasn’t had a lot of relationships, at least not with women who didn’t inflate. Becca appreciates his honesty, but reminds him they haven’t had as much time together as she’s had with the others. A visit to his hometown would be unproductive, she feels, and probably the producers couldn’t get a deal on flights to his state.
Ixnay to Eolay. The other two take it in from afar, then rush to take advantage of the situation by consoling Becca in the 21st moment of regret at saying goodbye to a man. Then they leave Leo behind on the lonely beach, and head home on a boat together. This is always such a peculiar scenario, but on the other hand, what would be the appropriate way to handle rejecting one guy while you’re on a date for three?
That evening, Becca notes that she sent Leo away because she feels more hope for a future with either Jason or Wills. Potato, potahto. Choosing between the two will be difficult, so she wears a dress that’s tighter than an orthopedic sock.
Becca reminds Jason that she will be meeting his entire family–probably not second cousins, great-aunts, or Mom’s “friend,” whom they all call Uncle Marty–but he must explain why should she want to. He blathers crap about how connected they are and the incredible chemistry between them. Becca is concerned that Jason hasn’t been as vocal about his feelings as the others. Despite using terms like “freakin’,” he cannot reassure her. He remains worried.
Becca makes out ardently with Wills, who has some things to tell her. He’s been hurt in the past, so it’s hard for him to open up. Becca praises him for being able to do that despite his fears. I guess we missed that part. Wills says Becca makes him believe in love again, as well as in some other things that Barack Obama put on his campaign literature.
This, of course, means that he gets the axe, while Jason’s uncertainty is designed to broadcast failure in an attempt to throw us off. At least make both of them look iffy, show, so there’s a modicum of tension. I’ve seen tic-tac-toe games that were more suspenseful.
Dinner time. Becca is even more undecided, if that’s possible. Her spreadsheets have been no use in determining whether she should choose a) the man who isn’t sure about his feelings for her or b) the man who is. How about the one with the stronger diversification of his investments?
She gives Jason the rose. Wills is crestfallen. Becca walks him out as we see the shadows of crews rush out of the lights. Or maybe it’s the Ghost of Bachelors Past come to warn her about her terrible ways. “We are not one hundred percent on the same page,” Becca tells a defeated Wills. Maybe they shouldn’t be reading Archie comics.
Wills departs a self-proclaimed wreck. Maybe he’ll find his person on Bachelor in Paradise. Meanwhile, Becca and Jason paw at each other eagerly.
Suddenly, Wills asks the car to pull over, then gets out to sigh and sniff in front of am ivy-covered lattice. Is this a foreshadowing of some bust-up during a hometown visit? Precaps show Tia asking Becca to “talk for a second.” Maybe she dated Jason, Blake, and Colton, too? We’ll find out next week, and maybe also why Blake’s mom’s hair looks like that. G’night.
