Season 21 of The Bachelor is off and running! Each week, Terri — who has seen every episode of The Bachelor and the spinoffs — and Rachel — who is watching for the first time, and who is off this week — will be recapping the latest episode of this epic season. Read the Episode 3 recap here.
1. Corinne takes a nap and compares herself to Michael Jordan and Abraham Lincoln.
The episode begins with the second half of Vanessa’s confrontation with Nick over his bouncy castle jump ‘n hump with Corinne. As Vanessa wisely and maturely separates herself from those kinds of childish shenanigans, Corinne defend hers — oh, wait no, she’s deep into her second (!) nap of the season.
When Taylor and Sarah pry sleeping beauty out of her slumber, she 1) says she’s “Not privileged in any way, shape, or form,” (GIRL, YOU HAVE A NANNY!!!) 2) morphs into Regina George and asks why they’re so obsessed with her, and 3) defends her naps by saying that Abraham Lincoln and Michael Jordan took them, too. Someone needs to get Corinne a gavel, because order has just been restored in the courtroom.
2. The contestants begin their journey around the world to find love in… Wisconsin.
This season has adopted the annoying habit of holding rose ceremonies at the beginning of the episodes, which means that basically right after Corinne wakes up from her nap, a limo carrying Nick slides across the driveway like a worm after a rainstorm, and it’s elimination time. There’s a ton of buildup about whether or not Corinne will get sent home — even Chris Harrison takes Nick aside and points out that she’s rubbed other contestants the wrong way — but we all know she sticks around, because she hasn’t announced that her vageen is made of platinum yet. Smh.
Anyway, after the cuts are made, Corinne takes a bite out of her rose and makes a cringe-worthy toast I watched through my fingers, and Chris tells the remaining contestants that they’re ditching the Bachelor Mansion and jetting off to Nick’s hometown of Waukesha, Wisconsin!!!! And they actually look excited about it!
3. Nick’s parents have to pretend they’re excited he’s trying to find love on TV again.
I really hope Nick has rewarded his sweet, kind parents, who have raised, like, 21 children generously for actively participating in this dog and pony show a third time (they were mercifully left out of Bachelor in Paradise). Anyway, Nick reunites with mom and pop Viall at a local coffee shop, where his mom cries at her son’s utter loss of dignity, and his dad puts his feelings simply: “We don’t want to see you on this show again.”
We’re with you, dad.
4. Danielle L. gets a one-on-one date and is forced to meet Nick’s ex-girlfriend.
The Bachelor loooooves making people go on low-energy dates so that they can say “This is what it’d be like if we met in real life.” Case in point: Danielle L. and Nick hit up a bakery, where they decorate sugar cookies and make out on top of a stand mixer. Upon leaving said bakery, they “run into” Nick’s ex, who JUST SO HAPPENS to be staring out a window directly at them, and what is this? Nick goes in to say hi, and then makes her have a three-way sit-down with Danielle? Thankfully, Nick’s ex is the epitome of a nice Wisconsinite, and their “chat” is pretty benign. Danielle, if you’re listening, run for the hills.
The rest of their date is spent lolling on a hill wistfully reminiscing about their first kisses, eating dinner, and then attending a country concert where they make out in front of hundreds of unwitting music lovers. Danielle obviously gets a rose. Ah, first dates.
5. The group date really, really stinks.
Rachel, Alexis, Vanessa, Jasmine, Jami, Sarah, Kristina, Astrid, Taylor, Josephine, Whitney, Corinne, and Danielle M. ship off to a dairy farm, where Nick greets them whilst feeding a baby cow, as one does. Since they’re in Wisconsin and all, their group date will be filled with barnyard fun like milking cows and shoveling hay. In a move that surprises exactly no one, Corinne acts as shitty as dung they’re forced to scoop, saying that she “doesn’t do chores,” complaining that she needs sushi, and eventually sulking alone on a stump because her fingers hurt. Sarah, who might be this episode’s MVP, sums it up thusly: “I don’t know if it’s the cow shit or the bullshit, but I smell shit.”
6. Jami questions Nick’s ability to handle… teats.
Since The Bachelor’s powers that be couldn’t resist, another part of the date consists of making Nick milk a cow, and he’s predictably terrible at it. Jami is not impressed. “Watching Nick handle those teats…he wasn’t good at it,” she says. “It was discouraging, like come on, Nick, haven’t you handled some teats?” Maybe that explains his two rejected proposals. ZING.
7. Corinne take the heat, and firmly plants herself in the kitchen.
I don’t even know what to do with Corinne at this point. During the post-farm cocktail party, she STARTS to get the vibe that people don’t like her, says she’s mature, and gropes her boobs as proof. But that’s not enough; no, she gathers ‘round all the women and confronts them for judging her. Sarah solidifies her MVP status by asking Corinne if she, a 24-year-old nap and bouncy castle enthusiast with a nanny, is ready to marry a 36-year-old man. Corinne obviously does not handle this well.
Kristina later takes her aside and asks Corinne if she’s ready to handle Nick if she can’t handle criticism from the women, which Corinne reads as an attack. Corinne then makes a truly bizarre analogy comparing herself to corn, and tries to redeem herself to Nick. Anyway, if you heard a weird gust of wind around 9 pm last night, it was a collective sigh of relief as Nick gave the group date rose to Kristina.
8. Vanessa makes every viewer cry again.
Literally every time Nick and Vanessa start talking, I cry like Nick did during their date last week. During the post-farm cocktail party, she causes a national run on Kleenex by giving him a book her coworkers and special education students made for him. Vanessa, you’re too good for this!
9. Raven meets Nick’s parents and sister, and actually keeps her cool.
Raven gets the second one-on-one date of the episode, and it’s off to Nick’s sister Bella’s soccer practice they go! Poor, pre-teen Bella’s been trotted out on TV more times than I can count, thanks to her preternaturally wise insights. Raven meets Bella and runs around with the team, and then, in a somewhat shocking turn, meets Nick’s parents. Until last season, when twins Haley and Emily met Ben’s parents in Indiana around this point in the game, contestants never met the bachelor’s parents until it got down to the final two. But Raven gets an early meeting, and she handles it well — she even feels comfortable enough to ask them if they had to spank Nick a lot as a child. I don’t know, she made it seem cute and charming.
Anyway, after a few requisite orange slices, Raven and Nick tag along on the soccer team’s outing to a roller rink. Bella and Raven have a refreshingly nice rinkside coversation, and then Raven and Nick achieve the impossible by skating and making out without falling down.
10. And she may have been the inspiration for a Carrie Underwood song.
During Raven and Nick’s post-skating dinner in what appears to be an abandoned airplane hangar from the future, she opens up about her last relationship, which ended when she caught her boyfriend having sex with another woman. I’m just going to list some highlights from her story without further embellishment, because you can’t make this shit up:
- She kicked her boyfriend’s bedroom door down “spider monkey fast” because it was locked.
- “I know what her vagina looks like. He was actually on top of her, thrusting her.”
- She took the other woman’s stiletto off the floor and started hitting her boyfriend in the head with it.
By the way, Nick loves all of this, and gives her the rose. They end their date by careening around on roller blades that appear out of nowhere.
11. Corinne and Taylor being part one of their showdown.
The cocktail party is marked by a confrontation between these two, which was hatched by Corinne and Josephine as they devoured a tray of pigs in blankets. Basically, Corinne decides to confront Taylor because she’s “degrading,” but she doesn’t realize until it’s too late that getting into an argument with a mental health counselor is a terrible idea, because Taylor retaliates by reading Corinne like a psychology textbook, accurately telling her that she has a low amount of emotional intelligence. Corinne, of course, interprets this as being called stupid, and their entire conversation breaks down from there. Corinne literally can’t even. The show is definitely setting up these two as the the signature rivalry of the season, but it doesn’t take a professional like Taylor to see who will reign supreme.
12. Alexis the dolphin queen reveals her biggest fears and they’re so relatable.
WHY DOES THIS SHOW KEEP RELEGATING ALEXIS TO THE POST-CREDITS BLOOPER REEL??? This week, we find out that Alexis’ two biggest fears are Nicolas Cage the actor, and aliens. We need more Alexis in this show, and we need her now.