This week's post is brought to you by Michelle's student making the face that I'm making most of the time, either on my actual face or on my heart:
I'm most notably making this face when I realize while watching this show that I am in fact.....still watching this show. Ick.
It's week 2! Meaning we're still opening the wrapper of this Nature Valley granola bar of a season to learn that oh God there's crumbs and mess everywhere. Let's jump in!
"Well, that was awful"
For the first group date, Michelle invites man, man, man and also several other men (I can't be expected to know names yet) to participate in tests of their math, science and spelling skills against the smartest people to appear on this show since Michelle:
A few of Michelle's 5th grade students ask the guys questions, beginning with some basic math problems, including the standard SAT question of "How many times is it acceptable to call Michelle beautiful in a day?" Most of the guys respond with "infinity," but Pizzapreneur Peter decides to ~*sTeP oUt oF tHe bOx*~ with this response:
What the hell does "bell heart" mean. I'm also mad because Dax Shepard's response in the back clearly says "The limit does not exist," but it's blocked by this cheeseball.
He's front and center for a good (read: stupid) reason as we quickly learn that this cheeseball is about to be our new (temporary) villain. We get entirely too many clips of him saying corny things to Michelle in an effort to stand out, mixed in with totally unsurprising interview clips of him saying he has an "alpha presence," which just means that he calls women "females" and thinks that Joe Rogan is the smartest man on the planet.
Will becomes increasingly annoyed with Peter sucking all of the air out of the room, so when the guys are asked to spell "narcissist," he instead just writes "Peter" as his answer, which tbh is just textbook funny okay. This infuriates alpha, totally secure and self-confident Peter:
What he should really be mad about is how his hair is in a race with itself to see what it can do faster — thin or recede.
Later, during the date's cocktail party, Cheeseball maturely confronts Will about this:
Haha jk he mostly yells and points while seeing if he can break the world record for saying "bro" the most times in 3 minutes. Also, this is exactly the outfit you'd predict he'd wear, right. There is a direct correlation between receding, but gelled, hairlines and graphic tees.
After hearing the yelling, Michelle pulls Peter away to talk and asks him why he's acting so angry and aggressive. He tells her that this is "totally out of character" for him, which precisely none of us believe because can't you clearly visualize him yelling at the Subway sandwich artist for "disrespecting" him by accidentally putting cucumbers on his sub.
Cheeseball stupidity aside, Michelle does get some quality time in with some of the other guys because remember that is the point of this show, forming connections with Michelle. During her time with Rick, they fill out this mad lib that Rick created so it's written in all capital letters with a Sharpie because that is the default stationary of a stalker:
This whole things ends with them kissing and I mean, maybe their relationship will evolve, but at this current point they have about as much heat as egg salad.
Also of note is Brandon, who apologizes for not being able to spell "protein" or "entrepreneur" correctly, but who promises to "try his best, no matter what" for Michelle:
This is so corny and Michelle calls him out for it, but the difference between his corny and Peter's corny is that Brandon is hot. A key difference.
Michelle is ultimately fine with him not being a good speller because he's a good kisser and I mean, you can't be both. Brandon gets the group date rose.
But enough with our faux villain, let's get to....
The season's real villain
Jamie gets the season's first one-on-one and we capture our first red flag from him when he responds to his date card not by talking about how excited he is to spend time with Michelle, but by rambling about how she needs to impress him and convince him that she can fit into his "adventurous" life. And omg I had no idea we entered some alternate universe where this is actually Jamie's season of The Bachelor, wow, technology is amazing! These men are exhausting.
Speaking of exhausting, they spend the first part of their date rock climbing.
This is actually a pretty cool and legit date as opposed to other "adventurous" dates the show has planned where the couple does something like rappel down the side of a coffee table.
Later, the evening portion of the date takes place at the table where the producers store all of the show's candles:
Jamie opens up about his family, telling Michelle that his mom struggled with mental health issues when he was growing up and he missed a lot of school because he often stayed home to watch over her and ensure she wouldn't hurt herself. He shares that when he was 24, she took her own life and that has impacted his whole life, but it also pushed him to find something that mattered in life and people and relationships that are worth it. Michelle genuinely listens and feels for him and tells him that she's proud of where he came from and it's amazing what he's been able to navigate through (that's right, no Matt James "thank you for sharing" BS, how refreshing).
She of course gives him a rose and they end the date in traditional Bachelorette fashion by slow dancing to a singer we've never heard of:
Her name is Caroline Jones, but if I told you her name was Jaroline Cones, would you even know the difference.
So things seem to be on the up-and-up with Jamie, but let's not forget that first red flag because we'll come back to it.....
A one-on-one with Joe that's presented as a group date
The second group date is basketball focused and casually includes two WNBA players:
The guys are taken through a series of basketball drills before they're asked to challenge anyone else to a game of 1-on-1. This ultimately leads to everyone having to watch Michelle and Joe reenact that scene from Love & Basketball:
While she clearly pays him the most attention during this date, it's also like, you can't blame her because he's quite literally the only man who knows how to dribble the ball. Which makes sense, since we learn that along with playing college basketball (like Michelle) he was Minnesota's "Mr. Basketball" in 2011, the same year that Michelle was the runner-up for "Ms. Basketball."
But wait, the other guys need a few minutes of camera time, so the group is split into two teams for a game and the winning team will get to spend time with Michelle during the evening portion of the date.
In a shocking turn of events, Joe's team doesn't win, meaning he and his team are heading home right? Wrong. Or well, right, in that Joe's team is sent home, but Joe gets to stay for the cocktail party because he's voted "MVP." Really heavy use of air bunnies because how can someone be the most valuable player of a losing team?? If you were actually the most valuable, wouldn't you have helped them....win??? Just seems like this is like being voted tastiest lunch meat among all expired lunch meats. It's exactly like that, don't think about it, okay.
So anyway, this one-on-one with Joe, I mean group date, continues with a cocktail party where, omg can you believe it, Michelle spends the most time with Joe.
Again, I don't blame her because my watch also only ever reads IT'S JOE TIME.
He tells her that he recently learned his old basketball coach passed away and it hit him hard, but playing basketball during the group date really helped him. And she tells him that she feels a connection with him because they both have this understanding of Minnesota and basketball and aren't those really the only two things people need to know about for love.
Joe obviously gets the group date rose.
Quick interjection before the drama
So as a reminder, Rodney showed up on night one dressed as an apple and when Michelle asked what kind of apple he was, he said he was a granny smith apple even though he was wearing a red apple costume. He could've said so many things — gala, red delicious, fuji, honestly just RED APPLE, but instead went with one of the only non-red apples. This is the most I've ever said apple in one paragraph and for that, I'm mad.
Anyway, during the pre-Rose Ceremony cocktail party, Michelle wants to test Rodney's apple identifying skills, so she surprises him with this:
I'm dying at the inclusion of pizza. This actually reminds me of when my Geology 101 professor in college flashed a slide onscreen asking "Is this a mineral? Or is it a bagel?" and literally had us distinguish between photos of minerals and bagels. You will not be shocked to learn I got a 110% in that class.
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Back to Rodney. He proves he will never be an apple CSI investigator as he thinks every apple is a granny smith apple. Except for the pizza. He identifies that as lasagna.
Honestly, this is the most entertaining part of the whole episode. And now let's get to....
The annoying part
Remember when I said we'd come back to Jamie's red flags, well Google Maps says we've arrived at Red Flag Central, so we're back.
After listening to too much Billie Eilish, Jamie decides he's ready to be the bad guy and starts stirring up rumors about how Michelle and Joe knew each other before arriving. He "suddenly" remembers that before leaving for the show, some "friends" happened to see Michelle at a restaurant in Minneapolis with her "light skinned basketball player boyfriend." He decides he needs to confront Michelle about this rumor that he literally just started.
After acting all tough with one of the other guys and saying that he cares a lot about this rumor (that he started), Jamie sits down with Michelle and immediately says he "personally" doesn't care about what happened in her past. And y'all, the gaslighting fumes, they are thick. He tells her that there's "other people here" who might be questioning her past with Joe and there's a rumor "spreading" that she had a "light skinned boyfriend" back in Minnesota. The way Jamie is presenting this dramatic tale as if he is not the author is truly wild. She asks him if the "questioning" is getting to a point that's disrespectful and he says "it's getting there," which actually is true, except, HE IS THE ONE DOING THE DISRESPECTFUL QUESTIONING??
This conversation then makes Michelle start doubting herself, so she addresses all of these Dum Dum suckers at once:
She gets to the point in telling them that her and Joe exchanged a couple DMs before he ghosted her (lol memories) and night one of the show was her first time meeting ALL of them. She then gets to this rumor about her supposed "boyfriend," saying that because she's a Black woman and was seen at dinner with a tall Black man, it's immediately assumed that he's her boyfriend, when like, she doesn't think the same would be true if she was out to dinner with a white guy. She then says she's open to answering any of their questions, but none of them ask anything because this is literally the first time almost all of them are hearing about this rumor that all of them were allegedly concerned about (I'm tired).
With the silence awkwardly lingering, she leaves, saying she needs some time to think. The guys then spin out into Clue mode trying to figure out who murdered the truth with the candlestick in the library. And anyway here's Jamie's stupid face trying to avoid all eye contact:
While the guys are going around asking "Who said this to Michelle and ruined the evening??" Jamie's dumbass is on the sidelines like "Omg yeah, who said that to Michelle, that's wild, whoever did that" AND Y'ALL ALL RED FLAGS HAVE BEEN RAISED.
As a result of Jamie's episode of Gossip Girl, Michelle cancels the rest of the evening and gets right to the Rose Ceremony, which like....
How late are these Rose Ceremonies happening
Based on how haggard all of the men look, I'd guess approx 2.5 days has passed between when Jamie stirred up drama and the actual Rose Ceremony. Pardeep was literally sleeping, poor guy.
Unfortunately, our sleeping beauties Pardeep and PJ (on the far right) are sent home along with Alec and Daniel (do those names mean anything to you).
So we're down to 19 guys which is 1 Jamie too many. Hoping that Aaron shows up from Katie's season to reveal the truth about everything (jk please no one new show up). Wait which speaking of, with Katie and Blake ending their engagement, do y'all think he'll show up next week because Michelle is exactly his type (Bachelorette).
Guess we'll have to see! Til then, find me lurking outside your window and also on Twitter (@cocoakristis) and Instagram (@kristimac9).
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