Bachelorette recap or an infomercial for Top Gun 2

 I have a 16 year old staying with me so like many a 'parent' I no longer feel comfortable just watching any ole thing while impressionable eyes can view it also I may have gone to Hawaii and well tropics over Bach it is not that hard a set of math...even the guys from last week could figure that out. 

This might be the latest I have ever gotten to an episode that I bother watching and not have it spoiled. 

Guys are concerned that Michelle might be losing faith Casey (age 36) "it seems like there is a rat in our midst." Jamie wearing a shirt with a stripe of kente cloth continues to pretend that he does not know who had the conversation with Michelle about Joe. 

"I want a man who isn't afraid of the danger zone" thus says the new date card. Oh and hey did you know Top Gun 2 is coming out soon? 

Michelle is going to be doing the date with Jay Ellis and Glen Powell

who Peter pretends to really love (I think any celebrity would have gotten that reaction from him)

. 

The guys get Call sign nicknames and get to run through some drills, like Frosty Tips, Frosty for short for Martin and Dough Boy for Peter the Pizza man. 

The guys have to get in a G-force simulator while telling Michelle what they feel about her, as someone who gets motion sickness, she would not want to hear what I would say about her while spinning. Then there is a jousting challenge with Clayton first going against Nayte, this is not a fair fight and Clayton murks Nayte. Peter vs Will is even more of a crushing blow (I could not resist) and Will embarrasses Peter.

Will aka Little Willy wins the overall date challenge and gets a bomber jacket and a drive in the "vintage car from Top gun Maverick" that he can only reply "wow" to as he pretends that this car he has never seen before is important to him. 

Evening Date: 

Clayton decides to give Michelle a taste of the simulator in his alone time with her.

Lots of chill conversations with Michelle and lots of kisses so you know it has to go off a cliff. Cut to Peter and Will jawing at each other while guys like Martin, Olu and Nayte look on uncomfortably. 

Back to hotel, Rodney gets the next one on one date card while a frosted tip guy tells us he does not think Rodney gets out of the friend zone with Michelle, as a drafter of Rodney, here is hoping he is wrong. 

Back to date, I like that Michelle is unafraid to kiss the men and does not make doing so a big deal. 

Do guys with glasses often lift them up awkwardly for kissing? 

Peter picks up the jacket Will won and the other guys are saying "no Peter" or "why bro?" as Peter takes the jacket and walks off. He walks back to the group and they ask him where the jacket is and Peter tells them he threw it in the pool because he wanted Will "to feel disrespected" like he claims to have been.

Will comes back to the group after his time with Michelle and he finds out the jacket was thrown in the pool and he is understandably upset. Peter tries to act like his throwing the jacket in the pool was not a blatant move that could damage the whole date.

The guys are begging Will to not let Michelle know while the night is ongoing. Martin wins the date rose and gets a dance with Michelle while a string quartet plays "Take my Breath Away" hey did you know Top Gun maverick is coming out soon? We go to commercial with Will fishing his jacket out of the pool.

If I did not know about the bad tweet history with Will I might feel some empathy here. 

One on one Date:

Rodney is shown grooming, then rolling a suitcase to the wall that looks like it is clearly empty. 
Rodney gets a night date; have y'all noticed that a lot of the ethnic dates do not seem to have a day time portion? 

Michelle is blind folded as Rodney feeds her items to guess: French fries, pizza, etc. Michelle while blindfolded tries to spray whip cream on Rodney's face. They have to be handcuffed and search boxes for a key. Continuing the shows trend of forcing nudity onto people, one of them has to strip down naked and streak,

this is gauche, and as Rodney streaks Kaithlyn and Tashia spy on him

and many of the guys come out. 

Sounds like Frosted tips was wrong, Michelle says "today Rodney kept chipping away at the friendship zone and got to the relationship zone" as we see them kissing.

A group date card arrives and Jamie is uber confident "at the end of my journey I know I get the girl." 

Back to the date and Rodney has to row Michelle over to dinner and I am mildly surprised he was competent at it. 

Rodney's 'sob story' - single mom, dad left at 6, struggles while mom raised 2 sons. 

Michelle gets asked by Rodney why her last relationship ended and she brings up something that many people of color will understand, her partner of a different color could not show the empathy that Michelle needed when a white woman called her the N-word in a store. 

Playing off Rodney's inability to tell apples apart Michelle "apple-lutely" wants Rodney to have the date rose and Rodney apple-lutely" accepts the rose. 

Group Date: 

Jamie thinks the guys will feel pressure being on the date with him. 

Rudy Francisco given a spoken word poem as the group walks in causes Chris G to become giddy, he says Rudy is the reason he got into spoken word., Chris G has his hands over his mouth and is in shock. 

Of course the guys have to write a poem and perform it before the other guys. I will say this, the poems were not half bad and dare I say they were good when you factor in the time constraints. 
Jamie claims to have lost his book so he will freestyle and he tells a story about a girl who is lost on a path...

Michelle's poem gets a standing ovation from the men. 

Night Portion: 

Michelle and Brandon have an aggressive kiss. Lots of voice over with Jamie telling us that he is a lock for the rose. 

Brandon gets the group date rose, his second and this causes Jamie to pull a producer to the side "we need to talk" and he rants that he thinks Michelle "is in spring break mode" and that the shows "nation wide search" failed in finding quality men to compete with him.

 

Cocktail Party: 

Rick decides to assure Michelle that all the guys are here for her and she goes "I guess I was surprised that it was Jamie that brought that conversation to me", Rick is stunned that Jamie was the one "who threw other guys under the bus." 

Some of the guys decide to confront Jamie about his actions. Jamie stutters his way through trying to explain to the guys that he told Michelle that "the speculation created a character in the room." Nayte calls Jamie out for worrying about "the viewers" and how "episodes" will look, Jamie is running his scenarios like he is a producer.

"Low key, High Key actually, very snakey bro." Michelle walks in and notices there is tension amongst the guys so she asked what's up and Jamie tries to get ahead of the potential problem to him and tries to lead Michelle down a path as he tries to change the story narrative of what he told Michelle vs what he told the guys. Jamie tries to pretend that he wanted to protect Michelle and that is why he created the story.

Michelle asks to speak to Jamie outside and tells him that she thinks "the trust is completely broken" so she tells Jamie he has to leave that night but poor Michelle has to walk up and down those ridiculous staircases once again in heels

Having to do that in sneakers would annoy me so I cannot imagine the desire to just cut people from the show after having to do it in heels. 

Michelle tells the remaining guys that she is "looking for my soulmate" and the Jamie drama has made her want to cut the rest of the cocktail party short.  

Rose Ceremony: 

Roses to Joe, Rick, Leroy, Nayte, Casey, Chris G., Chris S., Clayton, Olu (that ends the streak where I thought she started doing in alphabetically to make it easier), Romeo, and the final rose goes to Will and his soaking Jacket - Peter looks livid then redeems himself a bit on the way out "Michelle I wish you nothing but success and happiness." 

Bachelorette or, are these kids real?

 

Our fantasy league starts tonight. Initially I uncharitably wondered if the reasons the ladies of our group were keeping mum about restarting the league was because the guys dominated so much last season, then they surprised me with our last minute push to get the league back up and running. 

Dear Reader - circle of trust moment - I did not put in my usual effort to constructing my team - sure I still put in a good faith effort because of course I want to win, but I was not as diligent as last season. 

My team is Brandon J, Rodney, Peter and Daniel and if you think I put their name here so that I can remember some of them...You "Dan" right I did. 

Tayshia is giving Michelle a pep talk for her group date. 

The Group date card is read and I confess I do not recognize half of these guys - "It is my time it is Big Will time" uhmm sure bro. 

Group Date: 

This show is not lighting Olu well in his confessionals. Michelle tells the group she brought three of her friends and it turns out the three friends are 5th graders (allegedly) -  I know peeps ooh and coo for kids I do not. 

The guys will have to show off their knowledge, the first test is math "2,021*18"  turns out one of the guys is a Harvard Math major BECAUSE IF YOU GO TO HARVARD YOU HAVE TO LET EVERYONE KNOW.

Peter keeps trying to get Michelle's attention during the Chemistry challenge which he fails, after failing the math portion also.

Peter does not come off well during musical chairs or during a spelling challenge.

During the spelling challenge instead of spelling "narcissist" Will spells "Peter" and this leaves Peter heated! 

Note Peter cannot spell narcissist. 

Evening portion: 

Michelle is in a risqué top for side camera shots. Brandon gets the first solo moment and Michelle makes fun of his spelling and is clearly hinting that he should kiss her by commenting that he is staring at her "deep into my soul", she puts her hand on his cheek clearly to guide and hint and initially he is actively talking his way out of the kiss but he lands the plane after a few bumpy attempts. 

While Michelle is having her one on one moments with some of the other guys Peter tells Will that he wants to talk to him outside. There is a lot of hand gesturing and yelling timed with "you don't have to be the loudest person in the room" Michelle is saying this to Olu as you can hear Peter and Will arguing. 

A date card arrives for Jamie and he puffs up his chest about it telling us that he lives a wild life that might not be for everyone. 

Back to the date and Rick sets up a mini story of blank words for Michelle to fill in and the last line "shared a beautiful..." leads to a "kiss." 

Michelle pulls Peter aside and lets him know she is concerned about the blow up, he claims this is out of character for him. Uh huh.

Brandon J gets the date rose - lock it in son, the team needs hitters because Peter is absolutely going to burn bright and flame out early and I did not even want Daniel. 

One on One Date: 

Going into it Jamie tells us he is feeling pressure and he hopes Michelle is "feeling that same pressure...cause I have no intentions of staying here if she is not feeling that pressure." Michelle is in some super bright workout gear, if they got lost in the desert she could be spotted from the air...and then as if to justify the gear, they go rock climbing in Joshua Tree. As someone who has dislocated both shoulders I was watching this date and my shoulders were just sympathy aching. 

Jamie was so much more supportive during the rock climb than I would have predicted based on his discussions with the other guys and in ITMs. His support to Michelle earns him a kiss. 

Jamie's 'sob story' is an actual legit one not like a forced trauma that so many people seem to construct for this show, his mom was suffering mental illness and he and his younger sister were worried about her during their teenage years, and then at age 24 he lost his mom to suicide. Jamie's story makes Michelle sob.

This early in the season after a good daytime date and that sad a trauma story the rose is a lock. Michelle describes it as one of the best first dates she has ever been on. 

Caroline Jones performs for the couple and the show knows better than to pretend to have these 2 black people try to fake that they know who she is. Jamie mouths "wow" as the couple walks in to the private show, as he clearly tries to fake enthusiasm for who the artist is vs just the joy of a private show. 

Group date 2: 

Basketball is the group activity but just before the date Joe gets a call from his mom (her appearance also explains Joe's complexion) who tells him that his former basketball coach has died, this causes Joe to break down crying [the devil works hard but Bachelor producers work harder]. 

The guys meet up with Michelle and Dearica Hamby and Diamond DeShields whose chyrons just say "Professional Basketball players" it is callous of me but A. Say that they are WNBA players on their chyron, give them that respect and B. Even after Michelle introduced them half the guys still looked confused as to who they were.

There are some one on ones with the guys and Michelle tells us that in 2011 Joe was Minnesota's Mr. Basketball, "basically saying that you are the number one player in the state" as Joe demolishes the guys. Michelle showing the humor we were robbed off on Matt's season "in 2011 I was Miss Minnesota basketball...[pause and a wink]...but I was runner up." 

Joe and Michelle have a one on one battle before the classic Bach franchise moment happens; a team competition where the winners get time with Michelle and the losers go home.

The blue team is demolishing the red team that has Joe on it; during a time out with the Blue team up 25-8 rubs Joe's shoulders saying "you got this Mr. Basketball." Now I do not trust Bach scoring when the numbers are hard to track but the blue team wins by 1.

The MVP of the day is Joe "with this award you are gonna get invited to the after party" they blue team guys are pissed and Joe's red teammates are not happy either. 

Joe gets extended time with Michelle on the group date, they play some more basketball and Joe tells her about his coach passing and they share some kisses leading to a great image of discarded shoes and a kiss making a ball drop. 

The guys on the date are noticing that there was a lot of time passing between Joe and Michelle. Nayte is confident even while the other guys are stressing. Back at the house when the losing team walks in there is confusion about a team losing and the MVP coming from the team that took the L. Nayte tells us that "there is no way I am not getting that rose" which is the Bach kiss of death, so of course Joe gets the rose. 

Cocktail Party: 

We start with guys commenting on Joe. Michelle has to walk the 'Stairs of Stress' in a dress that is vavoom. 

Rodney whom you might remember dressed as an apple day one, gets blind folded and is required to take a taste test; he is super confident in the flavors of apples he is tasting he is SUPER WRONG in the flavors of apples he is claiming, he also confuses pizza with Lasagna but at least he recognizes a kiss from Michelle "that is by far the best kiss" so he earned his points back there. Do we think he was just playing along for the camera? Can someone be that bad at taste testing?

Cut to Jamie telling guys he is suspicious of Michelle and Joe he then adds that a friend from Minnesota told him that they saw Michelle at a bar and she was "boo'd up...with a light skinned baller" which would mean as Jamie tells us Michelle is "not here for the right reasons." Jamie then says he has to go talk to Michelle about it and he tells Michelle that everyone else is talking about it and that while he doesn't personally care about it others do "I think its gotten to a point where it is taking on a life of its own." He then tells Michelle the bar story about the "tall light skinned baller" is this a new level of gaslighting? Do we call this pilot-lighting where you get the oven lit in advance to just mess with the person's head in advance so we no longer tell them that what they think is wrong, we put the wrong things into their head and make them repeat it to a group? 

Wait did I just coin a phrase? 

Michelle takes time to herself and goes on a balcony to clear her head, Tayshia comes to talk to her and Michelle tells her the situation. Now look while I think we get too much of Tayshia and Kaitlyn in some respects these are the moments when I think they will work much better than a male host, I do not want to see Jesse Palmer talking to a Bachelorette here, I will be suspicious of anything he says to her (I am already suspicious of Tay and Kay too). 

Michelle goes to talk to the guys and addresses the rumors and squashes them and points out the racial problem that all black people in predominantly white cities face, anytime you are seen with someone of your race in a public setting the assumption is that you are dating. 

Rodney talks to the other guys after Michelle leaves and asks if he has missed conversations, Peter adds on. Many of the guys are curious as to who spoke to Michelle about the rumor and they really want to find out who did it but Jamie is NOT going to snitch on himself. He pretends with many of the guys that he is also curious about who told Michelle about the rumors and the house questioning her integrity, he even clinks glasses with Nayte when Nayte is saying he would not waste his time with Michelle talking about other guys and rumours. 

Michelle is emotional and Tay and Kay tell us that she is cancelling the rest of the cocktail party. 

Rose Ceremony: 

Roses go to Nayte, Rodney, Martin, Rick, Leroy, Spencer, Casey, Chris G., Mollique, Olu, Chris S., Will, Romeo, LT, Clayton, and now I have 2 guys on the chopping block with one rose left...but Peter comes through because the show needs some drama. Told you I did not bloody want Daniel (such is the vagrancies of drafting) he is out week 2 without scoring me a single point...but before you dance on my grave, just a reminder that last season I also had the last pick and lost one of my 4 at this stage too, keep the faith Team Cali J. 

Bloopers: 

The announcer who I will give it to him was pretty funny with his commentary gives the guys some mocking intros. 

Bacheloretter Recap, please take notes...but not too many if you want to stay.

 

We finally get a 2nd black bachelorette - Full Season. I will admit to being more intrigued by this season than most seasons. Welcome Michelle! 

Got my first and last episode of the season crew with me (I probably over-fed them) so that we can have commentary and jokes.

The show starts with the trope of having kids question the lead about how many boyfriends she is going to have.

Michelle ("M") gets the glow up that all the leads get. 

The show wants to make sure you remember she is not all that black just half and half so she is palatable with your morning coffee. 

Some forced basketball references. 

And the fake pretense that Michelle is doing her own makeup while she uses a makeup brush with nothing on it. 

Clayton is getting the sweet son edit. Feels like someone to draft high in our fantasy league....if you compete against me this is not something you should consider. 

At the start of this I said out loud "the problem with having Kaitlyn and Tayshia is that we get too much of them" and then we get whole segments of them searching the guys' rooms and interrupting the guys 

Ryan's apparently a moron because he lets the ladies search his room while having a script of how to get screen time etc...and so of course they find his script. Thing is when you zoom in on his papers they are really really not that bad, in fact some of them seem to be stuff that would have been provided to the men by producers or things requested from the men by the producers like potential date ideas. I think this man was set up, but he made himself a willing and easy victim. Also he is not new to Bachelor Nation - so this is extra silly. 

Limo entrances: 

Nayte - turns out he has a great African name but "my friends call me Nayte" then drops a terrible pun

"It is better Nayte than never" everything on his suit is short. 

Romeo - a mathematician speaks French asks M to be his Juliet and assures her it will not end in tragedy. 

Jack - Former military member - does he have no job now? 

Clayton - Medical supplies rep - comes with a prop a yard stick so that Michelle can discipline him if necessary. Michelle gets one free swing. 

Jamie - Biotech Ceo - From San Diego. He looks like he might be high. 

Chris G - is a motivational speaker and we all groan on my couch as he spouts trite nonsense.  

Mollique - an administrator

Alec - Engineer. 

Will - Academic interventionist. 

Pardeep - Neuro scientist 

Olu - Analyst. 

Chris S - Commodities broker shows up in a short set suit with a backpack and hops out of a school bus, he clearly should have been on "F-Boy Island" 

Garrett - Tech CEO - claims he broke his foot, so he has a cane, this does not broker feelings that he will be here long-term, no way will the producers want a guy that cannot compete in physical activities.

Casey - Advertising exec - 

Brandon K - From Austin brings beads while saying he wants to see her...heart but clearly was trying to make a "show me your boobs: joke, he also said "this is what we do in Louisiana as the chyron shows Austin. 

LT - Yoga guru comes out in a suit jacket and underwear (tuxedo briefs). 

Rick - Medical sales - From Los Angeles has himself wheeled up under a table with his head popping up to frighten Michelle. 

Ryan - Environmental consultant - rolls up in an "ice cream truck" - but pretty sure that is an 'ices' truck

Michelle said "you did your homework" this is the guy with the notes so there is some strong foreshadowing here. 

Rodney - Sales Rep - comes up in an apple costume to "be the apple" of Michelle's eye, he claims to be a granny smith apple - The moron is wearing RED!

Peter - Pizzapreneur - yells in Italian

and tosses pizza dough into the air and onto the ground...wasteful bastard. 

Daniel - Firefighter - Austin - and repeatedly tells us that he is a firefighter and while telling us his intro was unique and the best because he rolled up on a toy firetruck...

An actual firetruck rolls up and out jumps PJ - Firefighter - Houston.

The ladies who I have over-stuffed ask "why am I getting Carlton vibes?" One of the guys in the house tells Daniel that PJ is good looking and poor Daniel stares in shock. 

Brandon J - Traveling nurse recruiter - rolls up in a bed and gets Michelle to get in bed with him.

The next batch are fast and furious JoMarri has a tear away suit. 

One fellow does a flip

Jo - From Minnesota - Michelle slid into his DMs back in the day but then Jo ghosted her. 

Jamie pulls Michelle first to speak to her while Rick is still stuck in the table. 

Peter tells Michelle that is Italian so he made her cannolis which they share. 

Jo tells M that he had a lot going on while she was DMing him, he owned a property in George Floyd square so he had a tonne going on while the protests were happening so that is why he did not respond to her, Michelle does not fall for it and asks "how do I know that you will not shut down again?" 

Some of the guys are mocking Rick for being stuck in the table,

and it really feels producer driven that he is stuck here since he says "I hope so" when talking about getting out of the table. Finally he gets to talk to M and leave the table. 

Rodney gets called out for wearing red and calling himself a granny smith. 

Ryan takes M for some treats from the ice cream truck...he is sweating profusely. 

M is talking to another guy when Tayshia and Kaitlyn come to tell her about "ice cream Ryan" and his script and his research into teachers, the stuff does not sound that bad based on what they were saying - you are coming on a show, you should research and you should know how not to be a villain. Cut to Ryan being told by another guy that he seems super confident

as Michelle comes up to separate him from the guys to question his honesty. Michelle asks to see the notes.

Ryan claims that his friend's wife wrote the notes for him and they absolutely seem like the type of notes

a friend writes to help you out, the stupidity is that he brought so many AND he snitched on himself.

Michelle needs time to study the notes that Ryan has, and they are voluminous so Ryan has to wait outside of the room while she reviews his notes. 

Michelle says there are too many red flags for this early in the season - so she has to walk him out - she walks him all the way out of the hotel DESPITE THE FACT THEY ARE AT HIS HOTEL ROOM.

Can we quickly contrast how well Michelle did this versus all the 'dramatic' steps Katie did on her season when booting peeps? 

Many of the guys are shocked

Michelle tells the other guys she let Ryan go, and so now they are all warned.

 That whole thing was so dumb, if Kaitlyn and Tayshia cared about protecting M and her journey they would have told her about the notes immediately rather than waiting until Ryan got so far, almost feels like Ryan told the producers he could only be there for a week because he didn't have notes for week 2, so they used up his storyline as fast as they could. 

One of the visiting ladies says about a gentleman "He is dumb looking and is totally my type." 

Nayte gets the first impression rose and the first kiss. A fewer number of kisses than I can remember on any past premiere. 

Poor Michelle is constantly going up and down stairs. 

Rose Ceremony: 

IN AN ATRIUM? 

Roses to Jamie, Leroy, Martin, Spencer,

Rick, Clayton, Peter, PJ, Mollique, Romeo, Daniel, Brandon J, Will, Chris S., Rodney, Alec, Pardeep, Christoper G., Casey, Olu, LT and the last rose is down to (while we get a lot of conversation about Joe) Michelle walks away to take sometime but comes back and picks Joe.