"Let's dive into bed"

We begin this week with another cliffhanger that is hardly suspenseful considering all of the preview footage we've already seen.  I feel like the editors are really dropping the ball this season with spoilers in every preview of the next episode/rest of season.  For example, Rachel is clearly a frontrunner and perhaps the only person to give Vanessa a run for her money in winning this thing, yet we now know she's the new Bachelorette, so clearly Nick doesn't pick her.

Anyway, Nick comes in to reassure the girls that he thinks one of the six left will probably be his wife and that we're going to Bimini!  The girls cheer and yell "Bimini" more times than the number of viewers who have even heard of Bimini.

Vanessa gets the first one on one date, much to Corinne's chagrin as she's the only one who hasn't gotten a one on one yet, which in her defense, is odd this late in the season.  Vanessa and Nick head off on a yacht, and Vanessa says "I've never been on a boat before" even though we just saw her on one last week.  They go snorkeling by a ship wreck and make-out underwater.  In the evening, they have dinner and Vanessa tells Nick she's falling in love with him.  Nick decides to give her a speech about how he's said I love you on this show before and that he doesn't want to say I love you to more than one person and it really is not the best response to someone declaring their love.

For the group date, Corinne, Raven, and Kristina get to join Nick to swim with sharks.  Corinne really wants the date to go well so she can take Nick home to meet her "nanny slash maid" who is also her "best friend in the entire world," but Nick seems to be paying more attention to Kristina and even helps her rub sunscreen on her inner thigh.  Corinne pouts and complains that she's "literally trying to win over [her] fiancé," which is literally not the case.  Raven is pretty confident that Corinne and Kristina will get eaten by sharks, while she'd just punch them in the face.  Her confidence was not unfounded as she ends up getting the group date rose and the chance to make-out while watching some band Nick had to namedrop.

Real nice camera shot that really sums up this show:
Nick kisses a woman while other women are sad nearby.

Onto Danielle M's one on one date, where they bike around Bimini, play sports with local kids, and Danielle M admits to be "like one hundred and fifty bajillion percent" falling in love with Nick.  They chat about going home to Wisconsin and Nick tells Danielle M that she's "fun to have fun with" and that her "face is pretty great."  Which is apparently not what Nick is looking for in a wife, because he sends her home.  She cries and leaves and the other girls are sad for her.

Corinne wants to make sure Nick doesn't pull that with her and goes to visit Nick.  She says the following statements:
"I'd live in a shack with no diamonds for Nick" (as opposed to all those shacks with diamonds?)
"I am not a runner up" (but you want to marry one, apparently)
"I'm going to blow that room up"
"I definitely know how to turn on the sex charm"
"I know how to make a man feel good and I do way better than anyone else because my heart is gold but my vagine is platinum" (we finally see the context to this quote considering it's been in every season/episode preview montage since night one)
"You must have two hands on at all times.  Never jiggle, lightly massage"  (this she says to Nick behind closed doors)

So if you hadn't picked up on it, Corinne has decided to have sex with Nick.  But since having sex before the fantasy suites (or during, really), hasn't really worked out for him in the past, he turns Corinne down, and she leaves, pretty upset.

During all of the above, all we get to see is shots of this empty
champagne bottle with breathy audio because while Nick and
Corinne were allowed some "alone" time, they were still clearly mic'd 

Next, Rachel gets the last date of the episode, where she and Nick wander around Bimini.  They chat about Nick meeting her parents and she says she's never brought home a white boy before and they reenforce the fact that Nick needs to call her dad "sir."  Considering we know things aren't going to work out (yay #RachelforBachelorette), I'd wager a good amount Rachel's family visit doesn't go very smoothly.

After the date, Rachel goes back to the hotel beaming and makes Corinne even more worried about her place in Nick's heart.  Nick talks to Chris Harrison about knowing already who has to go home.  He shows up at the ladies' hotel, and they all know what's about to happen, but not with whom.  Nick pulls Kristina aside and says all the typical Bachelor things about not wanting to send her home but he feels it in his heart or whatever.  She is obviously quite upset, and the other girls are also pretty upset.  And of course the episode ends here, with a dramatic "coming up" montage of more crying by everyone involved.

"A Beautiful Disaster Story"

"Chad somehow stuck around," laments one dude as the cameras pan around at empty glasses, plates of meat, and trash that I wonder if the guys have to clean up.  If you thought last week's episode featured a ridiculous amount of The Chad, then hold on tight, because the next two are going full on Chad.

Let's get the first one-on-one date out of the way: Chase.  Chase and JoJo go to the weirdest couples yoga class and do things like "angergasms" and "yubyums."  It's incredibly awkward, but they end up making out, so good for Chase.  In the evening portion, Chase tells JoJo about how his parents are divorced and he never wants that for himself.  "I don't want to rush into things because I only want to get married once so I came on this show where I might get engaged after spending approximately 48 hours with a girl who's dating some other dudes the whole time," says Chase (I'm paraphrasing).  JoJo gives him the rose and they attend a private concert of some band I've never heard of.

And it's Chad time!  Back at the mansion, when Chad isn't working out, he's eating meat and figuring out how much protein he's intaking.  Evan says Chad's enormous muscles make him look like a cartoon character.  I'm thinking a bearded Gaston.  The group data card arrives and it's Jordan, Grant, Wells, James F., Christian, Ali, Daniel, Vinny, Nick, Evan, Alex, and *dramatic pause* Chad.  Chad straight up says he doesn't want to go on a date with so many other guys, and the rest of the guys completely jump down his throat.  Chad's calling everyone names and says he'll just chill here and get alone time with JoJo later and Jordan says hey, it's a group date so there's probably a competition so "whatever team Chad's on should hope it's bench press and not a spelling bee."  The other guys love that but Chad tells Jordan he's just a failed pigskin thrower and Alex decides to tell Chad he's not afraid of him so Chad tells him he needs more tattoos to be a badass.  Needless to say, tempers are running a bit hot going into this date.

The date itself is pretty uncomfortable for the guys: they have to tell a room full of people a personal story about sex.  Chad is angrily sulking because he doesn't think his sex life is any of JoJo's business yet.  Evan, the erectile dysfunction expert, is all about this date.  Daniel gets asked his favorite bodily fluid and he responds "poo," and why is he still here?  Anyway, we see a montage of the stories, and I guess it's pretty entertaining, though we don't really get to hear the full stories.  Then Evan comes up and does a "PSA" about the effects of steroids that is so clearly a dis on Chad.  When returning to his seat, there's a "weird altercation" and Chad ends up ripping Evan's shirt.  Chad is the grand finale and asks for a volunteer, JoJo, to come on stage.  He says something dumb about how his sex life is in the past and this show is about the future and tries to kiss JoJo.  She turns her head and the guys are thrilled.  Alex gives a standing ovation.

They head back stage where Alex is giving out chest bumps and everyone is Team Evan.  Chad punches a door so hard he's bleeding.  He then begins his new favorite pastime of threatening people, starting with Evan.

"If I can't lift weights, I'm going to murder someone."

Evening time and all the bros AND JoJo are wearing leather jackets.  JoJo talks to some guys, but the real show is Chad hovering around making everyone nervous.  Evan asks Chad why he's there and says he owes him an apology.  Chad tells Evan to stop being a bully and stay the fuck away from him.  Chad finally gets to talk to JoJo, who is concerned.  He goes into a speech about how the other guys think he's a bully, so they're bullying him for being a bully?  It's unclear, but we don't get much clarification since Evan swoops in to steal JoJo.  Chad mumbles angrily away.  Evan gives JoJo an ultimatum: "I'm not going to stay here if [Chad] stays here."

Time for the group date rose, and JoJo gives it to Evan.  JoJo tells the guys this is always such a hard decision and Chad looks on in disbelief.  "Is this real?  Is this a real scenario right now?"  No and Yes, Chad.  JoJo probably was urged to choose Evan to create more Chad drama, so it's probably not all that real since does anyone see Evan winning this thing?  But, yes, Chad, this is a real scenario on this show.  Also, the guys have requested security guards in the house.

Next we get a quick break from The Chad Story for a date with James Taylor.  JoJo and James Taylor are done up to look like they're in the '50s and learn how to swing dance from an old lady.  It's adorable, and when they leave, they are swept up in a swing dance flash mob.  James Taylor is an awful dancer, but tries so hard.  Later that evening he tells JoJo how he was kind of a dork growing up, sings her a song he wrote, and he gets the rose and a kiss.

And now we have my favorite conversation of the night: Daniel trying to unfriend Chad.
Daniel decides to start with, "Let's pretend you're Hitler."
"Let's not pretend I'm Hitler" - a fair response from Chad.
Daniel tries to think of someone else to compare him with and comes up with Mussolini, Trump, and Bush, so I'm sure Chad is going to take into consideration what Daniel is trying to say.

It's almost time for the cocktail party, but here comes Chris Harrison, so just kidding!  He is here to inform the men that there will be a pool party instead of the cocktail party.  Evan chases Chris Harrison outside to express his Chad concerns.  Chris Harrison has a little chat with Chad and suggests maybe he should do something about his impact on the house.

Chad walks back into the house while the rest of the men look nervous.

Fade to Black.

TO BE CONTINUED (aka the worst ending this show can have, and I have a feeling this is just the beginning).

"Inside, I'm crying right now" -Chris Harrison

It's time to recap Men Tell All, the show where dudes who "lost" a reality dating show bitch about it for a couple hours and the audience at home get to see the who's who of who's that while Chris Harrison earns his paycheck.

Oh, but first we spend 10 minutes on Bachelor in Paradise which will pretty much be Chris's season of girls and recent Kaitlyn rejects plus Claire (because she just can't get enough ocean sex).  There promises to be lots of ugly crying and Ashley S. making friends with the birds.

To start things off, we recap Kaitlyn's season thus far and everyone's embarrassed.  Tanner immediately jumps on Ian being an asshole with a nice little soliloquy of how everyone else will be bros4lyfe but not introverted-reads-books-Ian, so Ian takes off his jacket and strolls onto the floor as if he's giving a TedTalk.

We get these lovely faces from Chris Harrison.

He apologizes to everyone and their mom and everyone at least puts on a show of forgiving him so we can jump on the next person to attack!  Who's up next?  Oh right, Clint.  JJ defends their "intellectual curiosity" about each other and chooses some words poorly ("friendship," "hot tub," -air quotes added by JJ- deep, and meat come to mind) and then Kupah jumps in to change topics to Nick and how Kaitlyn should have spared them all the "agony of [...] helicopter rides" or whatever and can I just point out that you had already left the show in pretty bad form when Nick showed up PLUS you voted for Britt?

Unnecessary picture of Kupah, except does he even know how a tie works?

Back to Clint and JJ.  Chris Harrison pulls JJ into the hot seat to talk about his "journey" with Kaitlyn only to recap the Clint and JJ situation again and chat about that.  And through all of this, Corey with an 'E'," whoever that is, chimes in a LOT.  And I mean A LOT.  And he has some preeeetty strong opinions for someone who no one remembers and went home in the 4th Rose Ceremony after having practically no one-on-one time with Kaitlyn.

Let's move onto the people we care about:

• Ben Z. comes up to the hot seat to admit he still hasn't cried.
• Jared is embarrassed about his LoveMan intro which made me like him better until I remembered the Bachelor in Paradise preview.  At least he shaved his patchy beard- something even Chris Harrison called him out on.
• Ben H. fist bumps with Chris and how is he not going to be the next Bachelor?  Also, how is Ben H. that mature and articulate?  I know approximately zero 26 year old guys who could pull off any of Ben H.'s speeches.

  

  I mean, look at that face!

Kaitlyn shows up and we start her segment with a PSA on cyber bullying, which gets lots of amazed/appalled reactions so I'm glad Chris Harrison decided to bring it up.  This kind of online harassment is unfortunately far too common for any female in the public eye or on the internet who give off any remotely feminist vibes (if you don't believe me, just read the comments section of videos of female stars.  Actually don't, because it will make you hate everyone).

What the hell is wrong with these people, anyway?  Did someone hurt them? Do they wake up in the morning and think, hey, today seems like a great day to spew hatred on the internet to people I don't even know?  Like if you hate Kaitlyn so much, why are you watching a show centered around her?  And the backlash pretty much all centered on her being a "slut" or a "whore."  She had sex with a few guys she was dating, AND OMG THE WORLD IS GOING TO END.  OR maybe it's just her life and her decision and who cares.  Seriously.  Sure, you may think she's shallow or made some bad decisions, but they are her decisions that she made for herself and not for you (or you, Corey, so please shut up).

Do you have to audition to be in the MTA audience?
Like send in videos of yourself overreacting to everything?

The guys give Kaitlyn a standing ovation of support and then they ask her some questions.  She shuts down the judging of the Nick Situation with a "you try dating this many people and not make a mistake and have it televised" which is kind of a good point and also, this would be a boring show if no one made mistakes.  Ian apologizes again and drunk, horned up Ryan from the first night apologizes and Kaitlyn makes a gay joke about JJ and Clint and are we still on that?  Corey probably said 18 thousand things.

Then we get bloopers which is predominantly Kaitlyn being scared shitless of various birds plus a bonus clip of Amy Shumer hating on JJ.  Then Joe comes at her with a bird mask and everyone is like "you have bird tattoos!!!" Kaitlyn says that she can't see them which doesn't explain anything.

I'll just leave this right here.

Notable folks we didn't really hear from: Chris/Cupcake, Creepy Tony, and Joe, most likely because Corey would not shut the hell up.  Also, no one brought up Kupah's exit, though if were were to talk about one alcohol-induced exit, Ryan's was the better choice.  Also, no Britt/Brody update, though that's probably because they broke up ages ago and ABC realized that people just don't care.

"Why Kaitlyn is falling in love with Nick, I don't understand."

This week we're still in Ireland, but we do get one of those elusive rose ceremonies (and in the 9 o'clock hour too!  We're getting closer to having closure!).  All dates are now apparently in green grassy areas near old buildings.  Let's review:

Ben H. gets a one-on-one.  They play hide and seek, Kaitlyn tells Ben he's husband material, Ben tells Kaitlyn she's hot, and Kaitlyn asks Ben if he's a virgin.  Normal date stuff.

Joe, Nick, and Shawn get a group date.  Joe tells Kaitlyn he's falling in love with her and Kaitlyn breaks up with him.  He is reasonably upset and leaves in a huff and Kaitlyn is sad because she just wanted a hug.  Kaitlyn gives no one a rose but invites Shawn to the night portion of the date to tell him she slept with Nick.  Shawn decides to "man up and deal with it," which unfortunately does not mean he's going to stop being a whiny little bitch or stop hating on Nick "the other guy" nonstop.

ROSE CEREMONY TIME!  Super dramatic since there is no cocktail party (have to switch up something).  Shawn needs Kaitlyn to sooth his feelings before he can accept a rose and then Jared ends up rose-less and goes home and hopefully shaves that beard (if you can even call it that).

Nick gets the first fantasy suite date and Kaitlyn takes him to a pub so they can drink and talk to the locals about relationships.  Then- surprise!- they forgo their individual rooms for the fantasy suite.  Which is in a sketchy jail cell (as a joke of course, but Nick's all, sure, I'll do you wherever).

And then we see something we've never seen on the Bachelor/ette before: the morning after!  Nick is shirtless and Kaitlyn eats bacon.  Nick leaves only to have Shawn come to his room and basically start a fight.  The conclusion of which we have to wait until next week to see, of course.

Oh and Britt and Brady get the credits and NO ONE CARES.  Give us our bloopers back!

And then there were three.

"Feelings and Drama"

Well that was some episode, huh?  Not to beat a dead horse, but I still hate not having a rose ceremony at the end and instead having some weird Britt's mom time.  And can we talk about how not only did we not get the Dublin rose ceremony, we didn't even get to see all the dates yet!  What we did get is a lot of icky Nick time and the weirdest date in the Bachelor franchise history.

But before we go to Ireland, Ian had his last stand at the Alamo.  Did you guys know he went to Princeton?  And that he's intelligent and deep and went to Princeton?

Ian and Kelsey should get together.
They're both so much higher than poop jokes and movie quotes.

Hate to break it to you Ian, but after that exit of insulting the Bachelorette and talking about how amazing you are, you are not destined to be the next Bachelor.  You are destined to go home and be single.  I did like how after Ian stormed out without saying anything to the guys, someone says "Hopefully it ended on good terms.  Yeah, right.  To the rest of the men's chagrin, Nick comforts Kaitlyn and can hardly contain his smile when saying how disappointing Ian's actions were.

Joshua and '90s boy band hair guy went home and everyone cheered because they finally get to leave the country and actually go somewhere cool! spend more time with Kaitlyn on their journey for love. Though I must admit, the Alamo was a pretty cool spot for a rose ceremony.

Onto Dublin, Kaitlyn takes Nick on the first one-on-one date, which the other guys were just soooo thrilled about.  The girl with the bird tattoos once again encounters her worst nightmare: birds.  Then she and Nick kiss a bunch of places and dance poorly.

This poor guy on the right just thought it was a lovely day for a Guinness,
but boy was he ever wrong.

Dinner in a church and a private concert follows, and then whiskey-fueled Kaitlyn makes some poor decisions.  So she brings Nick back to her place and has sex with him and some poor cameramen had to sit and film their door.  That wasn't really a poor decision in itself (except ew, it's Nick); sex is a big part of a relationship for some people and there's nothing wrong with sleeping with a guy on a first date or waiting until marriage or anything in between.  It's up to her, and being a "kissing bandit" and sleeping with a guy she's super attracted to doesn't make her a slut or a bad person.  It's really not surprising Kaitlyn slept with someone either- everyone on this show is supplied a constant stream of alcohol and sent on romantic adventures and they're only human.  But this show does have (or tries to have) rules and if you believe in the finding-your-husband-by-dating-25-guys-on-TV process, maybe trust the process and wait to sleep with three guys in the Fantasy Suites?  Also maybe wait out of respect for the other guys you're dating who are trusting in this process and would have maybe also slept with you sooner too if this was the real world.  But it's not the real world and Kaitlyn went for it and now we all get to gossip about it on the internet.

(Side note, how funny would it be to watch this show with one of the guys?)

The morning after, Kaitlyn talks to herself (well, probably a producer, but I like thinking she was mumbling to herself on that balcony alone.  She's concerned Nick will tell the guys, and boy does he want to.  It's awkward and everyone still hates him and I think Shawn might explode.

Kaitlyn, you know Nick's history!
You should have heeded Ashley S.'s advice and contained your lust!

So Kaitlyn freaks out but still has to go on a group date.  The group date is an Irish funeral for Kaitlyn and it's kind of the worst.  The guys are really good sports about it even though, as Chris Harrison points out, she's the "worst dead person ever."  Shawn won in my book for his "I'd kill myself too if I had to spend a day with Nick" eulogy, to which the other guys cheered and probably made Kaitlyn feel bad.  Then they go hang out at a Guinness store house and everyone's moody after Jared gets the rose.  Chris the dentist tries to say something optimistic and gets shut down because no, Cupcake, this totally sucks.  Then Shawn freaks out and talks to someone about how Kaitlyn said he was the one and apparently they hung out in her room once too?  He's having big issues (and he doesn't even know about Nick and Kaitlyn's sexy times yet!) and goes to confront Kaitlyn in her suite and THAT'S THE END OF THE EPISODE.