Elyse Watches The Bachelorette – Episode 3: It’s About the World, Bro

Last week on Elyse Watches The Bachelorette…

Rachel hosted a group date where a bunch of the guys played basketball with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. After the date a woman, Lexie, approached Rachel and told her that DeMario was her boyfriend.

DeMario did a lot of “Um… Ah…” and Rachel told him to “get the fuck out.”

Later DeMario shows back up at the McMansion because he feels he’s the victim of “character assassination” and wants to talk to Rachel. Security stops him. We get a To Be Continued…

I’ll be honest, I couldn’t care less about the DeMario storyline, but I do care that it’s Monday and I get an adult beverage.

Tonight I’m trying a Bermuda Triangle, which is equal parts rum, cranberry juice and orange juice. It was very …brown and not very good. Should have stuck to Coke Zero as my Kraken delivery method.

Anyway, on with the show!

The dudes are all a-titter because they found out DeMario is back. It’s worth noting that by this point in the evening, they are probably several cocktails in. They all wander down the driveway and listen to DeMario apologize to Rachel.

DeMario acknowledges that he “didn’t keep it real,” but he says he isn’t ready to let Rachel go.

DUDE YOU STILL HAVE A GIRLFRIEND.

Or had. I guess. I doubt Lexie is talking to him.

DeMario actually asks to be invited back on the show. “I am begging this from the bottom of my entire heart, will you please give me another chance?” Then he adds, “My Uber ride up here, I explained to my driver that I was going for the woman of my dreams and he said, ‘You know what? Don’t take no for an answer.'”

Oh, good, your Uber driver thinks you should get another chance.

And that you shouldn’t respect the boundaries Rachel has set.

He sounds delightful.

Because she is amazing, Rachel says, “I’m glad that you’ve realized you should move forward, but I need you to know that forward isn’t that way to the mansion.” She points to the McMansion. Then she points to the street, “Forward is outside of it.”

Hope your Uber is still waiting for you, DeMario.

Then for reasons that are a complete fucking mystery, Jonathan, who listed his job as tickle monster, BTW, shows up wearing a pair of giant inflatable hands…IDEK anymore you guys. Apparently Jonathan is actually a doctor. He just thought tickle monster would be more appealing, I guess?

Then Whaboom tells Rachel that Blake stood over his bed the previous night, seductively eating a banana.

Blake defends himself by pointing out that he doesn’t eat bananas because he doesn’t eat carbs.

I Googled whether or not bananas are carbs (answer: not really).

I also looked in my glass to make sure this was just rum and not like LSD or something.

I swear to God all of this is actually happening.

Poor Rachel. I wouldn’t blame her if she just stood up, walked out, and went to go see a showing of Wonder Woman alone. In a theater that sold booze.

Then Chris Harrison appears from his secret passageway behind an old portrait to tell Rachel that its rose-time.

As she passes out roses, Whaboom is riddled with anxiety that he hasn’t been picked yet.

“Let the big dog eat!” he shouts in a cutaway.

After last week I decided that I really want a psychological thriller where Rachel kills Whaboom and then spends the rest of the season gaslighting the dudes into thinking one of them is the murderer. I’d watch the shit outta that.

Chris Harrison appears to tell us we’re down to the final rose.

THANKS CHRIS!

Both Whaboom and Blake are left. They stare at each other. Old-timey Western music plays in the background.

Diggy gets the final rose.

Both Whaboom and Blake go home. THANK CHRIST.

Whaboom wanders the garden, wondering what the hell he’s gonna do now. How is he going to realize his Hollywood dream of getting famous for screaming “Whaaaabooooom!” and annoying the shit outta everyone. He’s also super drunk right now. Like swollen eyed, slurring his speech drunk.

Blake is pissed. He feels Whaboom dragged him into his nonsense, ruining Blake’s chances with Rachel.

Blake stops by Whaboom on the way out says, “I just wanna say fuck you, bro. You’re a piece of shit. You’re here for the wrong reasons. I got drug into your shit.”

He adds, “You’re a wannabe comedian. You’re a washed-up joke.”

For the record, Blake, you actually have to have had some success to be washed up.

Whaboom shouts after him, “The thing is brother, it’s not about winning! It’s about the world! And you have no idea what the world means!”

Honestly, for a second I thought we were going to get tense music and then they’d suddenly, passionately kiss. There is so much tension between these two.

“You were always the world to me, Blake!”

Sadly, it didn’t happen.

The next group date happens on The Ellen DeGeneres show. Didn’t realize Ellen was an ABC property.

Rachel discusses the dudes with Ellen.

“This guy tickled me coming out of the limo,” Rachel says of Jonathan (the Tickle Monster).

“I don’t like that,” Ellen says. “I don’t like that. Why is he still here?”

LISTEN TO ELLEN, RACHEL.

Ellen has the dudes take off their shirts and dance for the women in the audience. Alex is grinding on someone’s grandma. Grandma doesn’t look thrilled.

As established by the fact that I do these recaps, I have a high tolerance for second-hand embarrassment. But this was so incredibly bad that I couldn’t look at the screen. I just chugged my liquor and waited for it to be over. I’ve had pap smears that were less awkward than this. Actually all my pap smears have been less awkward than this (my OB is great, y’all).

Thankfully, it’s over quickly.

During the cocktail hour, Fred asks Rachel if he can kiss her. Rachel has seemed pretty lukewarm on Fred in general, partially because he was one of the kids she watched when she was a camp counselor, years ago, and apparently he was a real shit. She tell Fred that she doesn’t think she can reciprocate his feelings and sends him home. The group date rose goes to Alex.

Don’t let him near your Gramma, Rachel.

Later they cut away to the mansion, where the dudes are definitely not masturbating. Eric says that he’s never been in a real relationship before. Oh, good, having your first real relationship on TV, in front of millions of people, is totally the way to go. He also says he has no chemistry with Rachel. So why are you still there, dude?

Then, for their one-on-one date,  Rachel and Anthony ride horses down Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. I am not making this up.

I like to think that the horses were having a really nice date themselves.

They ride the horses into the stores where, unsurprisingly, the horses poop. Also, why do they have to blur the poo out? Can you not show horse poop on TV?

I’m picturing The Bachelorette producers sitting down to dream up dates for the show. The night rolls on. After thirteen seasons they’re running short on ideas. Tequila is procured. The ideas get wilder.

“What if…what if…hear me out on this,” says a guy who looks like Roger Sterling, “they ride horses on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills.”

Another producer is vomiting into a trash can.

“It’s gold!” says a third, then promptly passes out.

Man, I’d be so much better at these planning dates:

“What if we lock all the guys in a room filled with snakes, and whoever makes it longest without screaming wins?”

“Elyse.”

“Okay, okay, what if they all go to the bookstore and Rachel gets a coffee and, like, three hours of silence and then we draw a name out of a hat for the rose?”

Eh, maybe not.

Anyway, Rachel gives Anthony a rose because he was so brave for riding a horse for the first time. Rachel. RACHEL. He was riding a horse, not storming the beaches of Normandy.

Later, boozed up, the dudes sit around the McMansion and speculate about whether or not Rachel is approaching the show “authentically.” There seems to be some general anxiety that they’re being emotionally used.

Wait, wait. The men are concerned that the woman with all the power in this relationship might hurt them emotionally…? Subversion of gender roles anyone?

The next day, Rachel shows up with her girlfriends, including Corinne, Jasmine, Alexis and Raven from last season of The Bachelor. Hey, weren’t these women supposed to be competitors and not friends? Hmm….

“My girls know me better than these guys do,” Rachel says. “I’ve already found one wolf in sheep’s clothing. Maybe my girls will find another one.”

Raven, who was established on last season of The Bachelor is gloriously terrifying, asks the dudes straight up, who isn’t there for the right reasons. I think she’s going to cut a dude down, Amazon style.

Sisterhood!

They go to a club where it turns out the dudes will be…mud wrestling.

How much tequila did those producers drink?

It’s worth noting that Kenny is a professional wrestler (aka Kenny the Pretty Boy Pitbull) and has a clear advantage.

The scene could have been embarrassing but it was mostly weirdly fascinating. Like, these dudes are gonna be finding mud in their nooks and crannies for weeks. It’s like when you go the beach and you get tossed by a wave and then the next day find random sand in your panties. Not that that’s ever happened to me.

I don’t know what the “mud” was either, but it had a weird cat food consistently.

Kenny nearly kills a dude which was a little horrifying.

Rachel and the other girls are wearing ponchos and seem shitfaced.

Surprisingly, Kenny loses to Bryce. It’s not clear if Kenny is exhausted or just so ashamed of the whole thing that he’s given up the will to live.

Maybe he swallowed some “mud” and just really needs a bathroom.

During the cocktail hour, Rachel tell Eric that some of the other guys told Raven that he didn’t have the best motives for being there… IDK. They passed a note in homeroom or something. I got up and checked the freezer for Girl Scout cookies.

“Lee has a lot of snake in his DNA,” Eric says.

THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID.

Jesus, I’m drunk.

The group date rose goes to Eric. Who said he has no chemistry with Rachel.

Then we move on to the cocktail party that precedes The Dreaded Rose Ceremony. Two of the dudes tell Rachel about Eric’s hang-ups, specifically how he got into a fight with another dude and screamed loud enough to shake doors.

Rachel talks to Eric privately. She elects not to take the rose back, but tells him her “antennas are up.”

So then Eric confronts the other guys and…

Hold on.

WTF.

There is WAY less drama on The Bachelor. Maybe they haven’t been masturbating enough?!

“IT IS ABOUT ME!” Eric screams at one point. “MY NAME IS IN YOUR MOUTH!”

Then we get a To Be Continued…

I need to hydrate because tomorrow morning is gonna be like:

What did you think of this episode? Should Eric go home? Are you here for the right reasons?