Happy Wednesday, Bachelorette fans! We won’t bury the lede here: Our DMV representative Jason is still on the show. We can’t confidently say the same for Clare, though…
But! I’m getting ahead of myself. The night kicks off with show villain Yosef taking Clare aside during a cocktail party to chastise her for making the men drop trou during a previous strip dodgeball date (yes, that happened). My mind begins to wander, as I’m watching an actual grown man start an argument about strip dodgeball on national television, but not before I realize Clare is staring at Yosef with the same concerned expression my therapist uses when she looks at me. Let’s put a pin in that for later.
“You’re not setting a good example for my daughter,” says Yosef. “I’m ashamed to be associated with you.” That’s the final straw for Clare. Yosef? More like No-Sef. She sends him packing immediately, then begins to sob on-camera, her tears mingling with the rhinestones on her bedazzled dress.
Of course, who comes to save the day but Dale, Clare’s favorite! He soothes her, stroking her head like a dog during a thunderstorm, and she calls off the rest of the cocktail party. We’re going straight to the rose ceremony.
Thankfully, Jason, Our King of the Potomac, remains in the running. (Side note: Good lord, his khakis are tight!!!) Bennett and his scarf remain in the running, too, thankfully, and Clare sends home a bunch of guys I can’t recognize, one of whom looks suspiciously like Wolverine.
The next day, and all is quiet on the La Quinta Resort & Club front. Chris Harrison soberly stands in front of the men, still reeling from the drama of last night: “This process will expose you.” Tell that to the dudes from strip dodgeball, Christopher! He hands out a group date card, and our pal Jason is on it. This will be difficult, as there is also another man on the date with a very similar sounding name: Chasen.
Jason, in all his Golden Retreiver-like enthusiasm, is thrilled. “This is going to be fun, guys!” The group gets ready for the date, and then sits around and waits. And waits. And waits.
Meanwhile, Clare is back in her room quite literally sniffing Dale’s pants. So intoxicating are the fumes that she decides to scrap the original day-date and just host a cocktail party that night. The guys are slightly pissed, and understandably so, but are even more pissed when Dale steals her away the nanosecond the cocktail party begins.
They retreat to Clare’s room, where they proceed to make out for an hour like two teenagers parked behind a Wendy’s. Now the guys are officially pissed, and rightfully so! When Dale returns, Jason calls him out for taking up all their time. “The fact that he thinks he’s better than all of us? F— you,” Jason says to the camera in the confessional room, before flipping off the screen. “I don’t get like this. I’m not an emotional person. I don’t get mad like this.”
Anyone who can turn happy-go-lucky Jason into angry, bird-throwing Jason is a big no in my book. I was on the fence before, but now I am firmly a paying member of Team Anti-Dale.
After the commercial break, we get an all-too-brief glimpse of Jason in the pool wearing a lime green Speedo before it’s time for another group date. For this one, comedian Margaret Cho stops by and tells the guys they’ll be doing a stand-up roast of one another. Naturally, this turns into a “Let’s Shit on Dale Fest,” and yowza, those burns are third-degree! Jason, sitting in the audience, is loving it, his molars on full display as he doubles over laughing. Clare, however, is not loving it, and looks like she could use a big hit of Eau de Dale Pants.
After the roast, at the cocktail party, all Clare wants to talk about with the guys is Dale. Why? Why were they so mean to her boo? None of the men want to chat about Dale, duh—this is their moment to have one-on-one time and connect with Clare, after all. But she’s not having it, and even refers to Dale as her “fiancé,” which is a bold statement to make about a dude you met like, four days ago.
She’s fixated, to say the least, and following in the footsteps of early 20th-century miners and Amazon warehouse workers, the men are striking. If Clare won’t give them a chance, what’s the point?
The guys are angry, feeling belittled and taken for granted. Clare is emotional, feeling attacked and confused. This all boils to one crescendo, which, of course Chris Harrison’s voiceover informs us will be continued during the next episode. And the previews are tongue-numbingly spicy: the men walking off the set, Clare talking about leaving the show, and former Bachelor and Bachelor in Paradise contestant Tayshia Adams popping out of the pool in a bikini like “The Birth of Venus.”
Is Clare going to leave the show? Will Tayshia replace her as the Bachelorette? Will the men go full Lord of the Flies? “You’re going to see a different side of me,” says Jason in the previews. “I’m going to freak out.” Same, Jason. Same.
Mimi Montgomery joined Washingtonian in 2018. She’s written for The Washington Post, Garden & Gun, Outside Magazine, Washington City Paper, DCist, and PoPVille. Originally from North Carolina, she now lives in Del Ray.
