YOU CAN'T HATE ON LOVE

I mean TRULY where do we begin.

I can't even end that with a question mark because I am so dazed after that episode. Do we go minute by minute of that crazy two hours? Or do I start with my biggest problems with Clare?

I understand that it's hard to go on national TV and have every minute of your life severely scrutinized. The trolls are awful. The trolls that came for Kaitlyn Bristowe and Rachel Lindsay were AWFUL. And they were unwarranted. They came after those women for made up concepts about their life that didn't exist. BUT IF WE ARE COMING FOR CLARE, IT'S BECAUSE SHE HAS SHOWN HERSELF TO BE AN EMOTIONALLY UNSTABLE LIABILITY. 

I think my biggest beef is the name that she is giving to single women over thirty. Just like Riley didn't want Yosef speaking for the group, I DON'T WANT CLARE SPEAKING FOR THE GROUP. In an unusual turn of events, I have boiled my thesis down to a succinct sentence for you people (and will obviously continue to extrapolate further below) 

CLARE IS SUPPOSED TO BE A MATURE WOMAN, BUT THE DALE BLINDERS THAT SHE PUT ON SO READILY AND IMMEDIATELY INDICATE THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE. 

More on that later. Let's start with Yosef, who (not so) graciously kicked off our two hours of insanity.

First of all, Yosef is a dirty fighter. If anything, I learned from that exchange that I'd never want to argue with Yosef, because his accusations and conflict resolution are BRIMMING with red flags. For what it's worth, he probably knew that he had no chance with Clare, so he clearly decided to go SCORCHED EARTH and leave nothing in his wake. And to be fair, Clare STARTED OFF WELL! She did! She didn't do her weird adrenaline breathing thing for a while, and just let him speak his piece. 

He said he missed his daughter. 

She said she missed her mom. 

He did not care. 

I'm honestly too exhausted by the whole episode to go back and watch to see THE MOMENT that it started going downhill, but there's always a single moment. In the last presidential debate, POTUS was pretty mellow until Biden brought up Giuliani. As soon as he did, it was game over. Clare got set off at some point, and the whole thing flew off the rails VERY QUICKLY. 

Now for someone who claims to have been to a lot of therapy and "done the work," it stands to reason that she could have just calmly let him see himself out. I would have said something like "Wow I'm so sorry to hear that; I'm a little surprised that you chose this angle, because you did, in fact, choose to come on a TV show voluntarily, but thank you for your feedback and I'm glad you will get to see your daughter again soon. Goodnight." 

....That is not how Clare reacted. 

Sure, she could have been hamming it up for the camera, but I couldn't help but feel that her "I DiDnT sEtTLe FoR mEn LiKe ThAt..." had been rehearsed in front of the mirror ONE TOO MANY TIMES. 

If you had "Dale comforts Clare post-meltdown" on your Bingo card, congrats! The producers sent Dale over to console her and after ONE HUG, she literally forgot every problem she's ever had in her life. Dale didn't even try to find out what happened, he just started dishing up empty platitudes to get her to quit crying, AND IT WORKED. She gushed about how she's been waiting for someone to come and save her, and tell her she isn't alone. And I am very concerned at how she is almost forty and his spent all this time waiting for someone to RESCUE her. Aren't you supposed to get AWAY from that as you get older? Like, sure, I was dying to be rescued (from literally everything) at age 15. But the older I get, the more I realize that I'm the most reliable person to rescue me. And that's not some weird life coach BS, it's just a reality - if you can't console yourself after an aggressive encounter with a wounded human, and the only way to solve it is a DaleHug, you've got trouble in River City. 

She proceeds to CONTINUE gushing about Dale. "He's just... I can't even put words to it." 

....I've never trusted people who can't put words to things, honestly. 

But also let me be clear - I'd probably pick Dale too! I've always fancied winding up with a former athlete- it's a built-in personal trainer!!

She gives out some roses and honestly I still don't even recognize half the guys, but she has a good crop of dudes! Too bad for those DaleBlinders. 

The next morning, we see her doodling "Dale + Clare" into her journal. And my takeaway is: her journal sucks. That thing came from the dollar bin at Target, and if you aren't investing in a nice-ass journal, I trust you as little as I trust people who can't put words to things. STRIKE TWO, CLARE. 

I have NO idea why DeAnna showed up. It's not like she was even nearby - she lives in Dallas! I will take a moment to dig through the archives to give you a glimpse of Ancient Grace, back in the day: I booked a study room at the library in my free period during junior year to watch Brad Womack's finale where he dumped both DeAnna and Jenni. Honestly that might have been the last TRULY SHOCKING episode we saw. Anyway, DeAnna is happily married with kids now, but apparently has grown NO WISER in the 13 years since she was on the show. Also I'm pretty sure she's wearing a choker that is no less than 13 years old, as well. She tells Clare that when you know, you know! And they sniff Dale's pants together AND NO ONE FINDS THIS WEIRD. I don't fancy myself an EXPERT on men's clothing, but I have to say that if you're gonna gift someone with a piece of your clothing, your pants are kind of at the bottom of the list. Maybe above "socks," but IS THIS REAL LIFE?! ARE WE WATCHING HER DO THIS?! No camera guy just gave up and threw his camera at the audacity of these two grown women?! 

Group Date:

Clare spends the entire day sniffing Dale's pants, so there isn't even a group date. She waltzes in and tells the men as much. So they gather for cocktails and Dale gives a pretty weird speech before making everyone do a WEIRD group hug, and then whisking Clare away to makeout. 

Obviously I've thought about it a lot, and I've concluded that perhaps THE MOST disturbing moment of this whole episode is when Clare looked at Dale and goes "Why are you so perfect?!" I don't know how to consolidate my thoughts on this other than to break them down into a list:

1) A 39-year-old woman calling a man "perfect" raises some SERIOUS red flags. (Unless he is Jesus Christ, then have at it, sis)

2) This is what I'm talking about with her immaturity - you mean to tell me that a woman who has been on this earth longer than ANY OTHER LEAD IN HISTORY is calling a man perfect?! This man? Whom she BARELY KNOWS?! 

3) That's the other thing - WE HARDLY KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT DALE. She has just, QUITE ALARMINGLY, made up her mind that he is perfect. Which is FRIGHT-EN-ING. 

4) I've done a fair amount of research - apparently these two truly didn't talk pre-show. But the difference is that she knew who her cast was. So unlike other leads, she had time to stalk their social media profiles. And CLEARLY she just decided that Dale was the future Mr. Clare Crawley, and that was that. 

We find out post bedroom-romp that Dale is genuinely the worst politician ever. Eazy (very mildly) pressed him to admit that he was being a tool. And Dale refused. But his refusal was... so pathetic. 

Meanwhile my man Jason is suffering not only the First Date Curse, but he's probably still nursing a vulnerability hangover and he is getting FEISTY about Dale's hogged one-on-one time. (For those of you that have just joined us: the First Date Curse is when you get the first one-on-one and basically get imprinted on the lead circa Jacob and Renesmee, but then have to wait WEEKS before you get any more time with them. And the time in between is just spent spiraling, as you watch them with other contestants aka what Jason is doing now.)

Dale gets the rose. Color me surprised.


One on One: Zach J. 

You'd think based on his Bunny Bread Utah look + his not-so-young age that Zach could give Dale a run for his money on the date today! And BOY would that be wrong. All Clare had to do here was jUsT ShOw Up and she might have found true love with Zach, but instead, she spent the entire time literally asking the camera where Dale was. 

They went to go get massages and let's get one thing straight: there's no such actual thing as "ticklish," there's just "tense." You feel ticklish because your muscles are tense. This says a lot about our boy Zach. Also on a side note, I was decently considering risking covid the other day to go to the Chinese foot massage place. Y'all ever been there? It's $35 for the most insane massage of your life. I go see a 6'4" dude named Li (no really that's his name at the Wilshire Foot spa) who digs his elbow into my shoulder for an hour and I walk out of there a new woman. But my boy Zach can't take the heat. Interesting. 

And then, once again, things got weird. 

I'm not quite sure how to begin commentary on this, so I think the best thing to do is break down what we actually witnessed on screen with our own eyes: 

- Clare went in for a kiss. 

- Zach didn't pull away, but he didn't really move toward her, either. 

- If I'd been watching it on mute, I probably would have determined that Clare decided against the kiss, mid-lean. 

- She pulled away. 

Here's where things got dicey. Zach tried to pull her in. You know what would have been far more effective at pulling her in than your hands around her throat? YOUR WORDS, ZACHERY. He tried to pull her in not once but TWICE, in a way that was WAY TOO UNCOMFORTABLE for the viewers. But Miss I've-Done-The-Work didn't discuss ANY of this with him. In all fairness, his HANDS ON HER CHEST could have temporarily driven words away from her. But she didn't discuss her feelings in the moment with him, we just saw her clutch her dogs and then send Chris Harrison to bid him farewell. And let me be clear: if a guy makes you uncomfortable or feel physically threatened, send him home! But I was surprised for how therapized Clare claims to be, that she didn't even discuss anything with him? Or make her feelings known? Is this a bad take? 

Group Date: Roast

As someone who has hosted my very own roast, I am here to tell you on authority that I would have NO INTEREST in having a roast with men I'd just met. But honestly that's a moot point because the ENTIRE night just became "everyone harp on Dale, lol." Usually the time leading up to a performance on one of these dates is a great chance for the lead to get to know the contestants. (Remember when Becca got to know Wills when they were at Wayne Newton's house? And no one was mentioning the egregious plastic surgery he'd had on his face?) Would have been a great time for Clare to find out that the dudes had a LOT to say about Dale. (And to be fair, maybe this transpired and we just didn't get to see it cause it had to be cut for time since there was SO MUCH CRAZY to get to, in this episode.) But we just went straight to the show, sponsored by Black Tux. Or whomever. 

My main takeaways are that for a piece of cardboard, Bennett actually didn't do too badly and also... YOU CAN'T HATE ON LOVE. 

NARRATOR: You can, in fact, hate on love. 

I'm now VERY curious to know what Dale is like in the house. What do the guys mean when they say he "talks in circles"? It'd be great to hear him talk at all, honestly, because we have truly heard VERY LITTLE from him! 

Also I don't know if Cary Fetman is doing this season, but it's like the stylist thinks that ANYTHING WITH SPARKLES is appropriate for Clare. Even if it's sparkles on a Pee Yellow dress. 

After the date, she sat down with each of the dudes and talked about... Dale. This is perhaps the first time EVER that a lead has been intentionally seeking info about another contestant. Ever notice how it's always the guys pulling the gal aside to talk about ONE DUDE, and the woman is like "Ok but can we PLEASE not have this be the ____ show?" (and vice versa?) EXCEPT CLARE WANTS IT TO BE THE DALE SHOW. 

Bennett seems relatively unfazed by this, which I guess is just what happens when you're super rich and have been to Harvard. 

I MEAN LOOK AT HER CRAZY EYES AS SHE'S SEEKING INFORMATION FROM THESE DUDES RIGHT NOW! 

AND THEN SHE CALLED DALE HER FIANCÉ!!! ARE THEY JUST GONNA PLAY THAT AUDIO AND HAVE NO ONE TALK ABOUT IT AND THINK WE WON'T NOTICE?? I CAN'T EVEN TURN OFF CAPS LOCK BECAUSE I CAN'T EVEN STOP YELLING ABOUT THIS. 

Oh wow, a Tayshia appearance will get me to turn off my caps lock. I disenjoy her SO much. (No, "disenjoy" isn't a word, but I'm trying really hard to make it one.) She is so calculated and inauthentic and I'm not a fan. I mean Clare is CRAZY but at least she is authentically insane. I hope she tries to steal Dale from Clare and we get a Battle Royale. 

Miles to go before we sleep. See y'all next week. (PS I've already done the research for you - the show airs on Thursday next week, not Tuesday. Because on Tuesday we will all be.... [fill in appropriate emoji])

If you're a bird, I'm a bird...