"White dudes acting crazy"

We start this episode with a montage of Rachel walking her dog, so you know it's going to be a good one.

Group Date #1: Rachel is looking for a trophy husband husband material

How to be a celebrity couple.

Dean, Jack, Jonathan, Blake, Iggy, Kenny, Fred, and Lucas get to join Rachel at a BBQ and then compete in a "Husband Material Challenge."  It should be fairly drama free except we get a "Lucas is garbage" right off the bat from Blake, whose insistence he's going to ruin this for Lucas is clearly going to be his downfall.

To help Rachel heckle the guys during the Husband Material obstacle course, Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis join the show.  They ask the guys if they have health insurance and jobs, and when they all say yes, they give Rachel a high five.  Iggy asks if they're setting the bar too low, to which Mila replies, "Have you watched the Bachelor?"  Because she and Ashton sure have.  According to them, they heard there was a contestant that looked like Ashton, started watching, and were hooked (that contestant was Jared from Kaitlyn's season, by the way).

Anyway, the guys attempt the obstacle course and are terrible at everything causing Mila to literally fall on the ground laughing.  Lucas somehow wins despite basically drowning his fake baby in a sink and shoving Kenny out of the way.  He does the Whaboom thing for Ashton and Mila who react like all of us ("Why?").

During the evening portion of the date, Rachel has some lackluster conversations with the guys, which included a terrible poem by Lucas and Blake using his time with Rachel to complain about Lucas.  It comes out the Blake lived with Lucas's ex girlfriend and they have a weird argument.  Everyone else is a bit uncomfortable around them and don't seem to care about Lucas being annoying as much as Blake does.  "These white dudes are kinda bugging right now," says Kenny, providing us a nice alternative title for the show.

Dean then gets the group date rose and also a lot of lipstick smudged on his face kiss.

First One on One Date (or should I say, two on one date)

The perfect family.

Peter gets to take a private jet to Palm Springs with Rachel, but that's not even the best part.  The best part is that he also gets to spend the day with Rachel's adorable dog Copper who is not letting a cast slow him down.

#CopperForBachelor?

They go to BarkFest, which is basically a party where everyone brings their dogs.  They have a ton of fun and then have a nice dinner together where they actually seem to talk about real things (like how they have matching gap teeth and that therapy has really helped them in relationships).  Peter obviously gets the rose and they end the evening with a fireworks show.

Group Date #2: Swish
Will, Jamey, Diggy, Alex, Adam, Lee, Matt, Eric, Josiah, and DeMario get to play basketball for Rachel.  And because apparently all of Rachel's friends are actually famous people, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is there to help judge the guys.  "Basketball is a good game to connect to romance," Kareem tells Rachel in a not at all producer-fed line.  His appearance is interesting considering he wrote an article pretty harshly critiquing The Bachelor (and then wrote a follow-up for Monday's episode).

After the guys run drills for a while, they are informed they will play a live game in front of fans, which we then see includes AJ, Adam's creepy doll, and a full high school marching band.  Based on previews and a few interactions so far, I know Lee will soon be my least favorite guy once the Blake-Lucas stuff is over, but I appreciated his comments during the game.  He was well aware that he sucks at basketball, but decided to just have fun and laugh and not freak out about it.  Luckily for him, everyone was playing poorly.  Lee describes it: "when it came to shooting, everybody was shooting [he pauses, realizing he was about to say blanks] just random shot bullets everywhere.  Just duds."  After an incredibly low scoring game, Lee, Alex, Adam, Will, and Eric are victorious.  They guys head to the locker room while Rachel chats with adoring fans.

The last fan to leave is a girl name Lexi, who tells Rachel DeMario ghosted her to come on this show and she found him out watching After the Final Rose.  Rachel is floored and goes to get DeMario.  The other guys are bummed because they think he's getting the group date rose.  DeMario's pumped until he sees Lexi.  He tries to be smooth and asks Rachel "who's this?"  Lexi says "Karma's a bitch, isn't it, DeMario," and you know she's been planning that sentence for a long time.  Lexi goes off and it's clear to DeMario he's not going to be able to play it off that he doesn't know her.  He spirals: "She's pyscho", "I met her many, many times ago", "This is personal life stuff", "I mailed those keys to your apartment".

Rachel grills both of them, and Lexi shows her texts from DeMario.  DeMario is trying so desperately and ineffectively to salvage his public image, but Rachel is having none of it.  "I'm really gonna need you to get the f*ck out" she says.  DeMario leaves in a van, Chris Harrison shows up to play psychiatrist, but Rachel blows him off and marches into the women's restroom.  She goes to inform the rest of the guys who are pretty shocked.  The evening is pretty uneventful; there's another poem, Alex sings at her poorly in Russian, Josiah gets the group date rose.

The Cocktail Party: Return of DeMario
Rachel lectures the guys about pure intentions and then they do normal cocktail party stuff like give her a massage, play with barbies, and have thumb wars.  Meanwhile, DeMario shows up and security is keeping him out.  He tells Chris Harrison that "someone from my past came up and assassinated my character."  Chris Harrison steals Rachel away, who is curious.  Fred and Lee eavesdrop on Chris and Rachel and immediately go round up the rest of the dudes to go outside after DeMario.  It's very Beauty and the Beast Mob Song-esque.  Then we get the first To Be Continued of the season.

Another picture of Copper for good measure.

P.S. These guys may be the smartest set of contestants this show has seen, but they somehow don't have a grasp on normal phrases (despite one of them using "duplicitous" naturally in a sentence).  A collection from this episode:

"The only leg I have to stand on are my two legs." - Lucas
"You can either sink with the fishes, or swim to shore." - DeMario
Rachel's "legging-tights [...] fit her body like a coca cola bottle." - Josiah

"This is a nightmare scenario" says guy in a self-inflicted scenario

Introductions

So it begins...

We start with the star, Rachel, of course.  We get to recap Nick breaking up with her on The Bachelor after she finally admits she loved him, evidence for Rachel that the show "works."  We then get to see her adorable dog with a broken leg, Copper, for not enough time.  What they want to make clear is that Rachel is serious and looking for a husband on this show, "like, this finger is ready," she exclaims, holding up her left hand.

We then get introduced to eight of Rachel's suitors.  What we learned:

Kenny is a pro-wrestler with an adorable 10 year old daughter.

Jack's mom died when he was in high school, so more on that story later at an advantageous time for him to stay one more week on the show.

Alex wants you to know that he's not only super ripped, but also a huge nerd!

Mohit loves Bollywood dancing with his large family.

Lucas (aka Whaboom guy) is literally the worst.

Blake E. said "I don't want to come across as the guy who talks about his penis..." and TOO LATE, creep.

Diggy has more shoes than pages in Moby-Dick.

Josiah's life could be a lifetime movie: tragic event in his youth, turned to crime, got arrested, turned his life around and now works in the legal system that arrested him and gave him a second chance.

Now it's time for Rachel to get ready for the big day: by driving up to the Bachelor Mansion in a Tesla to get advice from some other girls on Nick's season (Jasmine, Alexis, Corinne, Raven, Kristina, Astrid, and Whitney).  They have some generic advice and we move on.

The Limo Entrances

I mean, I love penguins, so I'd pick him.

We start off with Peter, who brings up Nick, since he is also from Wisconsin and wants to give Rachel a good experience with Wisconsin boys.  Rachel says "he's cute! we're off to a good start!"   And it's a good thing it's a good start, because it's a terrible end (last guy out of the limos is my least favorite contestant possibly of all time).  Josiah's up next with some lawyer puns, ending with "see you later, litigator," which actually made me smile.  Bryan talks to her in Spanish and she is instantly into him and I don't know why.  Then we have some generic entrances with Kenny, Rob, and Iggy, followed by Bryce who picks her up while we hear a voice over of how some of the men sweep her off her feet.  Will does a Steve Urkel impression, gets back in the limo, and comes out for a normal introduction.  Diggy makes a pun on his own name, hoping he's there to "teach [her] how to Diggy."  Kyle brings some Jamaican treat, which he pulls out after saying he wants to show Rachel his buns.  Blake K. tells Rachel his grandparents only dated for two months before getting married and have been together for 60 years, so he believes this could work.  Brady brings some ice out so he can literally break the ice.  At this point I'm not sure if Rachel legitimately loves corny jokes or if she's just really good at just going with everything with a smile.  This is why I couldn't be Bachelorette: I have no poker face.  Well, this and a thousand other reasons.  Next we have the four guys who already had a fake limo entrance at After the Final Rose, all of whom brought up those entrances: Dean, Eric, DeMario, and Blake E., the last of whom showed up this time with a marching band. 

We get a breather and Chris Harrison comes out to check in with Rachel, but not for long because we still have 15 more dudes to meet.

Fred brings his yearbook to show Rachel she's in it.  Rachel totally remembers him (she was his camp counselor) and exclaims "he was a very bad kid!"  Jonathan tickles her, but then his "occupation" is tickle-monster, so I'm not sure what I expected.   Lee comes out crooning with a guitar and hands her an enormous flower.  Alex dances up with a vacuum, a la Rachel in her intro video for Nick's season.  Milton takes a selfie with her.  Then Adam and Adam Jr. show up.  Adam Jr., or AJ, is a puppet that looks like Adam and it understandably creeps Rachel out.  Matt shows up in a penguin suit and tells Rachel how penguins mate for life, and seems pretty normal, despite the penguin suit.  Grant rolls up in a fire truck with sirens and everything (he's an EMT).  Anthony, Jamey, and Jack have unmemorable entrances.  Mohit holds her hands below his and says this will be the only time he has the upper hand in their relationship.  Jebediah says "when Jacob met Rachel, he wept," and I'm glad Rachel got the Bible reference because I sure didn't.  Michael tells Rachel "the blacker the brownie, the sweeter the dude," and I don't really know what that means but it sounds dirty.  Lastly, we get Lucas, who announces himself with a megaphone from the limo, his intro including the fact that one of his testicles is larger than the other.  He also calls himself Rachel's future husband.  He comes out wearing a shirt with his name on it and I have no idea how Rachel did not just send him home on the spot.  We still don't really know what "Whaboom" is other than him convulsing and yelling it over and over again.

Inside, the guys are joking about who the crazy one of the season is.  Lucas walks in and does his weird Whaaaaaabooom thing and they're all, yup, he's the one.  Token crazy guy.

No. Just, no.

Cocktail Party

The cocktail party commences- Josiah steals her away first.  Other guys are like "I didn't expect that!" and come on, you've all seen this show before.  The guys try to make an impression on Rachel.  The Adam puppet even gets his own contestant interviews, inexplicably in French.  As the night wears on, guys are getting drunker and more and more nervous about not getting time with her.  One guy can't believe the penguin guy has talked to her, but not the guy in the $2000 suit, come on!  Bryan not only manages to get time with Rachel, but aggressively kisses her, for a long time, and with lots of tongue.  It was uncomfortable to watch, but clearly Rachel is into him, because he gets the first impression rose and another kiss.  This second kiss is seen by a very drunk Mohit who points and goes "NOOOOOOOO!!!"

Meanwhile, Lucas is annoying everyone, but none more than Blake E, who tries to confront him about just coming on the show for attention.  To which he says, "I think that everyone has a little Whaboom in them," and Blake E responds, "I have no Whaboom in me."  Scintillating.

Anyway, it's rose ceremony time and all the guys are whining about how "devastating" it would be to be sent home and how they "can't live without" a rose.  Geez, and they say women can be dramatic.  The last rose of course goes to Lucas, and if that wasn't a producer pick, I don't know what Rachel was thinking.

Seven guys are sent home, and exit the mansion in clear daylight.  Milton cries because he doesn't get to show off all the outfits he brought.  Blake K. has the classiest exit of all time, saying that there are a lot of great guys there for Rachel, she and him aren't right for each other, but the right girl is out there for him!  Turns out, him leaving was his own choice because his grandfather was hospitalized and he flew to Hawaii to be with him, which just makes him going home that much worse- such a stand-up (and hot) guy, but instead we have to watch Whaboom for another week.

I mean, look at this guy!  Lives in SF and a war vet too!

31 Flavors

Contestant bios are up, and I read them so you don't have to!  Although I have to say they are more varied and interesting than usual, probably because they are older and smarter than usual since Rachel is older and smarter than most of the Bachelor family.  The men all seem to like Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Denzel Washington and/or Elon Musk.  Most of them don't seem to realize that skydiving isn't that outrageous.  Most of them have real careers, and they are between the ages of 26 and 35.  Nine of them come from California, seven from Florida, four each from Texas and Chicago, then one each from Wisconsin, Connecticut, Tennessee, Las Vegas, Georgia, New York City, and Michigan.  No Canadians this season!

So without further ado, here is a tidbit about each of Rachel's suitors:

Adam's most embarrassing moment was telling his mom he was going on The Bachelorette.  Though I think it will change to when his mom reads his cast bio and finds out his idea of the most romantic gift he's received was a threesome on his birthday.
Alex has eaten a live salamander.
Anthony describes his favorite book "like a dream I don't want to wake up from."  I like Anthony.
Blake E. was engaged to "a crazy girl" for 48 hours and also hates cat people.
Blake K. wants to be The Rock, not because of all the cool stuff he does, but because he can pull off a fanny pack.
Brady like to tackle snowmen.
Bryan listed seven qualities when asked what his three best attributes were.
Bryce once caught a girl's hair on fire during sex.  Good thing he's a firefighter, amiright?
Dean has a tattoo on his inner lip.
DeMario claims that "when [he's] married with children [he] will own a pet lion and name him 'Denzel, the lion.'"
Diggy is apparently really into day drinking, so should feel right at home on this show.
Eric would like to live in a time "before money was involved," and I'm not sure that he knows that time is before the Stone Age.
Fred had a crush on his camp counselor when he was young, which is a boring fact until you learn that this camp counselor was Rachel.
Grant say's his favorite magazine is "Playboy? ;)"
Iggy says his three best and worst attributes are "Passionate, loyal, and witty" and I'm sensing this guy likes answering the "what are your biggest weaknesses" question in job interviews.
Jack Stone's favorite flower is a tulip because it's "basically, roses without thorns" and he's either never seen a tulip or never seen a rose.
Jamey does not have female friends, which seems like a red flag.
Jedidiah talked about how much he liked his trip to South Africa, in part because it "has very real problems like HIV and violence," and that's right, he a privileged white dude.
Jonathan has an ex-wife, and by the sound of it, waited until marriage to have "uneventful" sex.
Josiah says his worst date ever was being catfished, since the women turned out to be pregnant, and dude, that's not catfishing.
Kenny has a daughter and wants to live in Ancient Egypt.  Those two things are unrelated.
Kyle doesn't know what gluten is, but often orders gluten-free if it's on the menu.
Lee thinks he could somehow learn to make booze if he were stranded on a desert island with just "a hook, the right girl, and a fire source."
Lucas' ideal mate looks like one of these fictional white ladies who don't look anything like Rachel: Belle, Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, or Jessica Rabbit.
Matt's worst date memory was a Tinder date since he realized online dating wasn't for him.  I feel like going on TV for a date will be much worse.
Michael played pro basketball in Bulgaria.
Milton thinks being romantic shows you're week, so it's really good he's going on a show where everyone's required to make fools of themselves for "love".
Mohit is going to dress up as gluten for halloween.
Peter likes Modern Family because it's hilarious and carefree, which makes me wonder if he's really seen it, because I get so much secondhand embarrassment from that show- hilarious, but not at all carefree.
Rob wants to be Superman, one reason being that he's "also a US alien, like me!" which I'm not sure is a witty way to say he's an immigrant or if he's trying to tell us he's not really human?
Will's worst date is "every tinder date ever," and again, going on a TV show to date a girl with 30 other boyfriends is much worse.

So that's who we get to meet Monday night!