When episodes of “The Bachelorette” begin with a rose ceremony, everything just feels off. We don’t get any time at the beginning of the episode, while the contestants wake up and prepare for the new week, to remember who is who and what exactly is going on. With this week’s episode, we have to jump right into the drama again and vaguely remember what went on a whole seven days ago.
David comes back from the hospital looking more like he got into a fight trying to defend Becca’s honor than like he fell off the top bunk like a 13-year-old at summer camp. Everyone’s favorite cheeky mannequin Jordan is ready with a slew of nonsensical insults. He calls David’s face a “time warp” and “Picasso painting.” Of course, in typical Jordan fashion, he messes up the insult by trying to reference a Pablo Picasso painting only to describe Salvador Dalí’s “The Persistence of Memory.” But it’s OK if he’s not an art aficionado; he’s a professional male model — has he mentioned that yet?
Becca sees that David’s gone through enough after his harrowing run-in with the floor and gives him a rose early. But don’t worry: She also gifts Jordan with a pair of shiny gold briefs that Jordan takes as a sign of her commitment to their relationship and not at all as a producer-driven gimmick.
At the rose ceremony, Nick gives no fucks and wears a half-zipped tracksuit but is still given a rose. Ryan, the adorkable banjo player, and Mike, who moonlights as the human form of the Beast from “Beauty and The Beast,” are eliminated. The remaining guys must then pretend to be thrilled when Becca announces that they are all going to Park City, Utah, and not literally anywhere else for the week.
In Park City, Becca and Garrett, who is currently under internet scrutiny for liking multiple controversial Instagram posts, walk around the town for their one-on-one date. They goof around in an alpaca shop and take health shots before going to a bobsled track and meeting bobsledding Olympians Val Fleming and Shauna Rohbock.
The two women tell the couple that they were teammates at the 2006 Olympics and then fell in love and are now married — meaning that the 2006 USA Women’s Bobsled Olympic Team has produced the same number of successful marriages as all 22 seasons of “The Bachelor.” But of course, they are here to help Becca and Garrett beat those odds. The four jump in a bobsleigh and speed through the track to the tune of “The Nutcracker Suite,” which is odd to listen to in the middle of June, but whatever. It’s romance!
After, the couple pops champagne in the snow, and it is clear Becca is smitten. She admits to Garrett that he reminds her of her late dad (in a romantic, not weird way) because, like most white people, they both love the outdoors. Garrett subtly slips in the fact that he was married before into the conversation. Even after some probing, Becca is still smitten, and the two go off to dance at the front of a Granger Smith concert while pretending to know who Granger Smith is.
Meanwhile, back at the hotel, Lincoln admits that he is a flat-earther — add that onto the list along with alleged floor shitter and convicted sexual assaulter. Last week, Reality Steve first broke the news of Lincoln’s recent conviction of indecent assault and battery for an incident that happened in 2016. Warner Bros., the franchise’s production company, has denied any prior knowledge of Lincoln’s past charges, but that raises an even bigger concern regarding the quality of the show’s background checks on contestants.
ABC did not directly comment, but Lincoln appeared to have little screen time in this week’s episode. It is uncertain whether he will appear in the “Men Tell All” special at the end of the season to address and apologize for his actions, or whether ABC will not invite him in hopes of distancing the franchise from him.
For the group date, Jordan, Chris, Blake, Nick, John, Lincoln, Leo, David, Connor, Christon, Jason, Colton and Jean Blanc all meet Becca for a lumberjack-themed date aptly titled “Becca’s Big Lumberjack Bash.” Apparently, professional lumberjack competitions are actual events that Becca grew up on, and now she has a thing for lumberjacks. The beefier guys (and, surprisingly, Jordan) all do well splitting logs, while some fail to even make wood chips. Lincoln misses the log entirely.
The guys are then split into two teams, and everyone puts on plaid, the official pattern of lumberjacks. They then participate in a multievent competition consisting of sawing logs, rolling logs, flipping logs, throwing axes into logs and climbing logs. All provide way too many opportunities to make sexual jokes about guys and wood. John becomes the first Asian male to get actual screen time (probably since he made it past the first night) after he wins the competition for his team and gets the coveted Golden Axe award.
At the after-party, Jordan takes off his pants. Of course, he’s wearing the golden briefs Becca gave him. Becca can’t even kiss him out of the sheer ridiculousness of the situation. Colton and Chris take Jordan aside and warn him that he’s painting a target on his back with his antics, as if they’re taking him seriously as a competitor.
The night takes a turn for the awkward when colognisseur Jean Blanc gives Becca a personalized fragrance called “Miss Becca Blanc” and later admits that he’s falling for her. The two sit in silence for an uncomfortably long amount of time. She says what no guy wants to hear after admitting feelings and calls the whole thing “intense” and “a lot to take in.” She understandably doesn’t know whether she can see a future with the man she’s only talked to a few times and decides to send him home.
As Becca walks him out, things go from awkward to straight-up uncomfortable when Jean Blanc tries to save face and tells her that he didn’t actually mean what he said and that he just said what he thought she wanted to hear. And then, just when you think the situation cannot get worse, he tries to ask for the perfume back.
Becca cannot deal with what just went down and decides not to give out the group date rose. But we’ll never get to know whether she gave the perfume back or added it to the list of items to smash in a warehouse while Lil Jon DJs.
With the bad taste of the night before still lingering, an uncertain Becca heads to her one-on-one date with Wills. The two go snowmobiling for a while, because apparently the only activities you can do in Park City involve snow or cutting wood. After, they sit and cuddle in the snow around a fire pit.
Given that you need to give up some piece of personal information on the date, Wills talks about his previous relationship. He and the girl dated for three years and were ready to do the damn thing themselves when he caught her with another guy. Becca completely empathizes with being blindsided in a relationship, something millions of “Bachelor” viewers can attest to, and gives him the rose.
Although Wills helped Becca get over the colognisseur commotion, she decides to cancel the cocktail party and head straight to the rose ceremony. The final rose is between Christon, Nick and Jordan, and it of course goes to Jordan, since the producers are going to hold onto him for as long as they can.
