ABC Bachelorette Clare Crawley and her eligible bachelors.
According to ABC’s press release about Tuesday’s (October 27) episode of The Bachelorette, Clare has to work hard to “keep her journey to find everlasting love from careening off the rails.”
Apparently, Yosef confronts Clare on “a number of issues” and when she stands up to him, he does not take it well. So, that should be fun. Nothing like watching a man-child have a fit on national TV to get the juices flowing.
Later, Zach J. gets a solo date with Clare, former Bachelorette DeAnna Pappas pays Clare a surprise visit for a chat, and then the group date sees comedian Margaret Cho stop by to host a roast, which goes a little sideways when the guys on the group date make Dale Moss, the perceived frontrunner, the target of their barbs. How will Clare react to that? And is this the week she blows up the show, as Chris Harrison’s flash-forward has been teasing us since the premiere?
Follow along here with our live recap for all the drama and elimination details, but be warned of spoilers. Don’t keep reading if you don’t want to be spoiled.
All times Eastern.
8:05 — When the episode starts, Yosef keeps complaining about the “classless” dodgeball date and citing Clare’s age like it has anything to do with it. First off, dude, it’s all very well and good for you to say you wouldn’t have participated when you weren’t actually put into the position of having to decide. Secondly, Clare doesn’t design the dates. And finally, continuing to comment about her age makes you look like a total a-hole. Also, calling it an “atrocity” is pretty gross. This guy needs to pound sand.
8:15 — But of course, instead of just leaving because he’s a man of principle or whatever garbage he thinks about himself, he confronts Clare and it’s just as ugly as the previews have been teasing. Yosef says he’s missing out on time with his daughter to be there and that it’s disrespectful for Clare to tell the guys they’re there for her. He also steps all over her trying to talk about her mom dying, in a way she’s trying to make a connection with him about being away from loved ones.
Tell him how you feel, @Clare_Crawley 👏👏 #TheBachelorette
But then he goes into his pontificating about the date and how classless the dodgeball game was and how it has nothing to do with finding a husband. Look, he’s not wrong about what this show is, but also… you went on this show and you have the nerve to talk down to Clare and say you’re ashamed to be associated with her?! YOU WENT ON THE BACHELORETTE, YOSEF. Nobody put a gun to your head to be there, dude. Luckily, Clare stands up for herself, telling him not to talk to her like that and to get out of there.
8:20 — I am HOT over here, you guys. How DARE he?! This whole exchange has a (slightly altered) line from A Few Good Men running through my head: “I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very fame that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it!”
8:25 — Dale to the rescue with a big hug and kind words and Clare cries harder now because he is such a good man. She sits down with Chris Harrison to talk about it all and says that Dale is just “so amazing.”
8:38 — Time for the second rose ceremony. Everybody’s pretty irritated that Yosef has once again ruined a cocktail party and a bunch of them didn’t get a chance to spend any one-on-one time with Clare. The roses go to Dale, Zac C., Demar, Brendan, Jordan, Joe, Jay, Eazy, Ben, Ed, Ivan, Blake, Kenny, and Zach J., plus Chasen, Riley, one of the Blakes, and Jason already had roses, so that means the other Blake, Garin, and Tyler are headed home.
SO ready for some girl time with @DeAnnaPappas 🙌 #TheBachelorette
8:50 — There will now be dates for everyone who is left on the show because they’ve all had such a hard time getting quality time with Clare. The first group date is for Chasen, Jay, Eazy, Jason, Blake, Ed, Riley, and Dale. Speaking of Dale, Clare is kind of head over heels for him, so it’s time to get some advice from DeAnna Pappas. Mostly the advice consists of “when you know, you know,” which is actually 100 percent true and it causes Clare to say “this might be the shortest season ever.”
8:55 — It’s finally date time. The guys are so bored that some of them fell asleep waiting for the date. It turns out that Clare decided to scrap the daytime date (that’s… weird) and now it’s just going to be a long cocktail party. Huh. We wonder what really happened there?
9:00 — At the cocktail party, Dale asks very politely if he can speak with Clare first for five minutes and… what is anybody going to say to that? No, and look like a jerk? The other guys are understandably rankled as Clare and Dale walk off together, especially after they go to her bungalow and are gone for WAY more than five minutes as they get hot ‘n heavy on her bed. It’s great that they have hit it off like this, but this is super rude to the other guys.
9:05 — AN HOUR?! We find out that they’ve been gone for an HOUR?! It’s no surprise that Eazy wanders off to find them and overhears them making out in her house. Ugh, this is painful. While Yosef was WAY out of line with the way he was speaking to Clare, she is also not behaving in a very good way right now. It’s just like — have some courtesy and respect for the other guys there, especially after we hear her tell a producer to “hurry” the other guys along. Perhaps this is the situation that “blows up” the bachelorette because Clare is clearly over having anything to do with anybody other than Dale.
9:15 — At the end of the cocktail party, Clare gives Dale the rose for “stepping up and being bold” and showing her how much he cares. Ughhhhh, no. Read the room, Clare. Did she have ANY idea how this was going to come across? She’s been on like a dozen of these shows. Meanwhile, the guys give him some flack for monopolizing Clare’s time and he says he’s the guy best-suited for Clare, which does not go over well with the other guys.
9:25 — The next day, Zach J. gets a solo date with Clare at the resort’s spa. He’s never had a pedicure before. Dude, they’ll change your life. But also, enjoy that pedicure because Clare’s head is clearly somewhere else.
9:30 — Back at the pool, the guys have a staged conversation about how maybe Clare and Dale were in contact before filming started. Um, that is 100 percent some production-planted stuff. Also, for what it’s worth, that is a rumor Reality Steve has debunked. He says Clare and Dale did not communicate before filming.
From 0 to 💥 real quick
9:35 — BUT THEN! Back on the date, Clare tells Zach they’re going to get ready for dinner and she leans in to kiss him and then she panics because she thinks he was pulling away, but he wasn’t. But then he gets kind of aggressive with her by grabbing her and that made her very uncomfortable and kind of scared her. There’s a lot to unpack here. First off, it doesn’t look like he pulled away. However, once she moved away from the kiss, it wasn’t OK the way he grabbed her and as she said, that triggered her. That can be very triggering to some people. Don’t think we’re calling Zach some kind of assaulter or something like that, but it was more aggressive than it should have been and clearly, it freaked Clare out. But he probably just panicked and overreacted a bit.
9:40 — Group date time. It’s a roast, complete with Margaret Cho to help them out. Her stand-up is great, just bee tee dubs, and her one really good dig during the roast is telling Bennett she thinks someday there will be a true-crime podcast about him. *snort*
What else would you expect from #TheBachelorette’s roast?!
9:45 — But then during the roast, instead of taking shots at each other, every guy just roasts Dale. And that’s fun for a while, but eventually, it gets kind of uncomfortable. Bennett especially tears into Dale and fails to notice that Clare is not finding it that funny. But Clare rolls pretty well with it. She basically says, “Haters gonna hate. You can’t hate on love.”
But seriously, what was with Bennett saying Dale wants to run for president and doesn’t care about Clare? It feels like he’s super into her. Is he going to turn out to be a total skunk?
9:55 — At the cocktail party, Clare takes several guys aside to talk about their roast jokes. She obviously wants to know what Dale has been saying about her, but the guys try to defer and keep the conversations focused on themselves. Clare tries to pretend like this is because she wants to know if the other guys are jealous of Dale, but really, she wants them to dish with her like they are her girlfriends and spill what he’s been saying about her. She’s basically obsessed with Dale and she’s not hiding it at all and the guys are over it.
10:00 — Clare decides not to give the rose to anybody, saying she did not get what she needed from them. Oh, girl. I am so Team Clare, but you are not acquitting yourself well on this season.
The guys talk about possibly walking out and in the previews for next week, we finally get to see Tayshia Adams. Might there be a bachelorette switcheroo?
The Bachelorette airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.
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