Elyse Watches The Bachelorette–S16 E2: Balls

I have no concept of time anymore, so even though I feel like I just watched  two days ago, it’s time for a new episode.

We open with Clare saying, “Dale just made everyone else disappear.” Dale is the guy she said would be her husband despite having spent less than 5 whole minutes with him.

Then we have the first group date. This should be interesting since they can’t leave the resort. Ten guys follow a trail of hearts to the salon which has been transformed to look like a fairytale garden. Clare stands in a tower window. She says the guys are going to learn about love languages.

The guys take turns standing under the window and tell Clare their “love affirmations.” It’s mostly the same BS about journeys and stuff that we hear throughout the season. Meanwhile Chris Harrison stands off to the side to make it extra awkward.

Dale is on the group date and is super uncomfortable in his affirmation. He sort of stumbles through it.

Next the guys have to give Clare a gift. They run back to their bungalows to grab the items, then put them in a box or gift bag.

Among the gifts are a favorite tee-shirt, a chess piece, an empty box (for real), and Dale’s gift which is perfume for her dogs. I don’t even understand that one. I think it’s just some body spray he grabbed real quick, and I’m not sure why her dogs even need perfume?

Then we move onto the love language of touch. Clare is blindfolded and basically just hugs each of the guys.

At the after party Clare tells the camera, once again, how she wants to spend more time with Dale. I think we’re up to fifteen total minutes of them spending time together. It’s getting weird. Even for this show.

Everyone sits on some outdoor couches. There’s a super uncomfortable silence while they sip drinks and Clare finally asks if anyone wants to spend one-on-one time with her. Bennett, minus his scarf and martini, goes to talk to her. He starts telling her about his life in New York.

Clare interrupts him. “Why didn’t those guys get up? Why didn’t they do or say anything? If you guys want to bro out or do your thing, you’re in the wrong place. Like I’ve waited way too long.”

She gets up and walks back to the group of guys leaving Bennett behind, confused.

“I’m a little bit taken aback, I’m sitting here, I make a toast, and then there was the longest awkward silence. And I’m just sitting here embarrassed and I had to almost… Does anyone want to spend time with me? If you guys want to spend time together you can do that, and I can go home and go to bed,” she says.

Can I go to bed?

The guys awkwardly apologize. Yosef says he’s speaking for the group when he apologizes. Riley freaks out and says he speaks for himself.

“There is no us,” Riley says. “There is no me and you.”

There is no Dana. There is only Zuul.

Clare pulls Dale aside. “I wanted a good amount of time with you tonight,” she tells him. “Like this is scary. Relationships are scary. And if I’m being honest right now, you scare me.”

I…okay.

“In like…what…why do I scare you?” Dale asks, deeply confused.

Clare tells him that he scares her because she has feelings for him already. Then they make out.

We’re like forty minutes into this episode and it’s unfolding like a messed up fever dream.

The guys spend time with Clare. One of the Zacks, I don’t know or care which one, asks her how she got to this place and she talks about how she originally signed up for The Bachelor to escape an abusive relationship.

Clare gives the date rose to Riley.

After commercial we get the first one-on-one date, which goes to Jason. Clare asks Jason to write a letter to his younger self and says she’s going to do the same.

Jason says, “Shit. We’re going to be talking about emotions.”

Clare and Jason hang out by a campfire. They start off the date with a primal scream (for real) then they write down things that people have told them that hurt them, things that they want to let go of. They are writing on clay tablets like it’s fucking cuneiform or something. This is…intense. They read off the words, things like manipulative, hard to love and needy.

Jason looks like he wants to jump into the campfire.

I want to jump into the campfire.

Then they throw the words against some rocks and break them. Then they read their letters to their younger selves. Clare talks a lot about healing. Jason talks about not wanting to be vulnerable.

Jason tells her he has dark, heavy stuff in his past. He says he has demons in a “Pandora box” which I think he thinks is a decorative box made by the Pandora jewelry company.

Clare says that trusting her with his demons “doesn’t push me away, it pulls me closer” which seems super healthy.

Jason tells Clare his parents had an unhealthy marriage. If those are his demons, I’m disappointed. Based on the build up I was kind of going for something more exciting, like he belonged to a high end car theft ring in order to pay for his grandma’s cancer medicine or something. Or maybe that he was possessed by actual demons and those demons are now trapped in a Pandora bracelet that he has to always wear.

Clare finishes off this nightmare of a date by burning the dress she wore on the finale of her season of The Bachelor.

(Ed. note: I am merely editing this and yet I am deeply uncomfortable with so many aspects of this date. Good grief.)

Then we get the second group date. The guys go back to the salon which has now been transformed into a dodge ball stadium?…pit?…whatever you call the place where you play dodgeball.

The guys break up into two teams and play strip dodgeball. Yes, you read that right.

It’s actually extremely boring.

The blue team winds up playing in just their jock straps and then loses. Some of the guys strip completely. Others walk back to their bungalows in their jock straps.

The red team wins the opportunity to talk to Clare at the after party.

Blake has a melt down while holding his own testicles and rocking back and forth. He’s pissed because he hasn’t had any alone time with Clare and feels like he’s behind. So Blake gets dressed and crashes the after party.

He tells Clare he really wanted to show her he has balls.

She’s seen ‘em, pal.

The guys who won the date confront Blake. They accuse him of being a sore loser.

Clare tells Blake she appreciates him coming, but she doesn’t want to disrespect the other guys. He bends down for a kiss and Clare pulls away.

“I haven’t been rejected that way in a long time,” Blake says.

Then we get what might be the most excruciating conversation ever. Clare asks Brandon what made him want to come on the show, and he said it was the fact that she was the Bachelorette. Then he follows it up by saying he doesn’t know anything about her and asks if she’s a Sacramento native.

“Wait, so you said you knew I was the Bachelorette and you wanted to sign up, but you don’t know anything about me?” Clare asks.

He mumbles something about not knowing her personally.

“Is there anything that made you want to come on for me?” she asks.

He stares into the middle distance, sweating profusely.

Then he starts muttering about how pretty she is.

“I don’t think you have to know me on a personal level…” Clare says. She points out that the other guys have complimented her on things other than how she looks.

More silence.

“I’m here to find love…” Brandon mutters.

“I feel like there’s a chipmunk in his brain, desperately pulling switches to see what works,” my husband says.

“And I know there are um moments between us,” Brandon continues, “I know where you feel it too…”

“I actually don’t feel it too,” Clare says.

Clare sends Brandon home and tells the guys she’s looking for something other than a superficial relationship, which makes total sense since she’s ON A REALITY TV DATING SHOW FFS.

So then we cut back to the bungalows where Yosef tells the other guys he thinks that the strip dodgeball date was “classless” and that he wouldn’t want his daughter turning on the TV and seeing him naked. To emphasize this point he lets them film him putting on a shirt for the Dreaded Rose Ceremony.

Blake talks about his balls again.

Clare pulls Blake aside and says it was amazing that he interrupted her date and doesn’t want him to worry. She gives him a rose. The other guys are not happy.

Once again Clare pulls Dale aside. They talk more about quarantine and her mom. Dale says that the pandemic made everything harder and that people aren’t made to go through things alone.

Then they make out.

And that’s where the episode ends. Are you watching?