Episode 5: It’s Time for Tayshia!

Credit: ABC

Previously, on The Bachelorette: Clare was there, and all the guys were there for Clare. Then Clare wasn’t there, because Dale proposed and Clare said yes and they left La Quinta and The Bachelorette bubble. Chris Harrison told the remaining guys that a new Bachelorette was on the way, but they don’t know who it is. They all decided to stay anyway. 

Wise move, because the new Bachelorette is Tayshia! We know her from Colton’s season of the Bachelor, and from Bachelor in Paradise. She’s super pretty, and has the type of cheery, bubbly personality that people want in a Bachelorette.

To meet the guys, Tayshia walks herself into the room where they’re all sitting, and introduces herself. She says they all deserve to have a “bomb-ass summer,” and it’s hard to know if anyone recognizes her from her past seasons. She says that if you had told her a week ago that she would be there as the Bachelorette, she wouldn’t have believed it, and maybe now is when I go full Bachelorette Truther, because isn’t minimum quarantine for two weeks? Why was Tayshia there for only one week? Is this about to become a superspreader event? What are the rules here, exactly? Was Tayshia already there because Clare really was forced out by producers? 

Conspiracy theories aside, the guys seem really into Tayshia, so far. Especially Riley, Eazy, and Brendan, who for some inexplicable reason has decided to wear a turtleneck, under his suit, in the desert, in the middle of the summer, and I would just immediately question his overall judgment because that feels like a very self-defeating choice. 

As Brendan and his turtleneck make their elevator pitch to Tayshia, Chris Harrison comes skulking in to “steal” Tayshia away. He tells her “everything is about to change,” but it’s really not everything, it’s just four more guys arriving in a limo, because it’s still The Bachelorette and we need to show her reaction to seeing at least some guys stepping out of a limo to meet her. 

The new guys’ arrival makes the original guys sad. One guy complains that “it can’t just be smooth sailing for one second,” and no, sir, it cannot. It’s 2020. Nothing is smooth about any of this. 

I am also wondering where did they get these guys? Were they already quarantining during Clare’s season? Were they backup guys in case one of the original contestants got sick? Are they The Bachelorette equivalent of alternate jurors? Do these questions actually make me a Bachelorette Truther?

The four new guys come out of the limo and greet Tayshia in the typical way. The first one, Spencer, signals his role as possible villain almost immediately when he walks in and says: “So, which one of you guys scared away Clare?” Wow. Spencer either can’t read a room, or just has zero fucks to give. Or, he’s just a jerk, because as we see later, he generally seems to think women being scared is funny and/or entertaining. 

One of the other guys, Noah, has a very untrustworthy mustache. I don’t even want it on my TV, that’s how bad it is. 

Tayshia comes back into the house, and Spencer is the first to steal her away. Brendan is mad that Spencer, and the other new guys, essentially “cut in line,” and there’s this whole sense of entitlement that these guys have with Tayshia that I didn’t notice as much with Clare. In his chat with Tayshia, avid surfer Spencer jokes that he’ll teach Tayshia how to surf, but he might let her flail around a little bit for “entertainment value” and between this and the “joke” about scaring Clare away, I already hate Spencer. Tayshia doesn’t hate him, though, and ends up kissing Spencer that night. 

After Tayshia spends some time doing various activities with various men – slow dancing to no music (Ben), making a wish while tossing coins into a fountain (Zac C.), playing cornhole (Chasen), and listening to how he has 10 siblings, including a twin (Noah the Mustache) – she eventually gives the First Impression Rose to Spencer. 

And just as it feels like the anxiety over a Rose Ceremony reaches its peak, Tayshia comes in and tells them she’s cancelled the Rose Ceremony, because she wants to “continue all of our journeys.” The guys breathe a sigh of relief so collectively huge it re-started the wind turbines just outside Palm Springs. They all toast to love. 

After a commercial break, Chris Harrison tells us that we simply cannot continue watching Tayshia’s journey until we check in with Clare and Dale, so here is Clare’s nominal “After the Final Rose” episode. Chris assures us that he’s really going to drill down and try to find out whether Clare and Dale had contact before her season started. 

Spoiler: They didn’t (or so they say). 

Clare comes out first, she and Chris hug and say it’s been “forever” since they saw each other, and once again I am extremely confused about the timing of this show, because they must have re-quarantined if they were all going to be inside together, including hugs, so either The Bachelorette is being extremely reckless, or they’ve all just been quarantined at La Quinta this whole time. 

Clare and Dale seem very happy together. Chris asks both of them if they had contact before the show, in any way, and Clare says “100% no,” and swears on her father’s grave. She’s done that before, and since I take swears like that seriously, I choose to believe her. All they did was follow each other on social media. Dale even joked that after he proposed, he had to ask Clare for her phone number. 

Chris tells Clare and Dale he wishes them the best, and honestly, so do I. I really do hope it works out for them. Now, can we get back to Tayshia, please?

We see Tayshia in her room, journaling, and it looks like she’s literally writing on the first page of an otherwise blank journal. We’ve seen a lot of Bachelorette journaling on this season, and it’s been a little jarring for me. Of all the things I’ve seen on The Bachelor/ette, this might be the most staged and inauthentic. 

The guys are all together, sitting around, recapping for all of us that there were 16 guys there, now there are 20, and we also see that Noah’s mustache is about 28% creepier than it was last night. 

Group Date: It’s a pool date! The guys on the date and Tayshia are frolicking in the pool when Chris comes in and tells them they’re going to play “Splashball,” which I have never heard of but it sure sounds like a real sport. The winning team will get to spend the rest of the date with Tayshia, along with a barbecue and a full bar. The Splashball uniforms are basically Speedos so I’m wondering if we’re going to have a Strip Dodgeball v2.0 on our hands, and if so, who will melt down as spectacularly as Yosef did. 

The Splashball game is weird. Blake M. is alarmingly intense, and Spencer gets aggressive with Riley, who accidentally (enough) knocks him in the teeth, drawing blood. Spencer’s team eventually wins, and I’m still not sure what Splashball is, but if it’s this, it looks like basically pool basketball and it’s pretty boring. Tayshia also eliminates the stakes – again – by telling the guys that all of them, even the losing team, will be back for the “after-party” following the barbecue.  

We don’t actually see any of the barbecue, so I don’t know if I believe it really happened, but at the evening party, the intensity has gone up several notches. Eazy is already very into Tayshia, and tells her he felt like he just met his wife, which feels like an attempt at a fake-out Clare/Dale edit. It doesn’t seem like Tayshia agrees, but she likes Eazy enough. She also seems to like Zac C., and lets him know by kissing him. 

Back at the Group Date of Increasingly Hostile Toxic Masculinity and Intensity, Spencer says the group date went well. He says they “got the W” with the Splashball game, but whoever gets the group date rose, that’s the “ultimate W,” and I’m starting to think Spencer isn’t here for the right reasons. It seems like some of the other guys doubt him too, because this exchange happens:

Riley: Spence, I think I owe you for my cracked ribs.

Spencer: I think we’re even dude. If you need any more, let me know. 

[Me: Ugh, shut UP, Spencer!]

Kenny, to Spencer: I’m going to speak freely. To put it in layman’s terms, you kind of come off like a dick. We’re not all going to be friends, but we all do have to live together.

Spencer: I had no idea … 

Zac C.: That’s a lie, you’re stirring it up a little. 

Spencer then gives a standard “I’m not here to make friends” speech, and says he’s going to be true to himself, and why he’s there: “Tayshia is the primary objective.” (“Primary objective”? Ew.) Riley tells Spencer that where he’s from, they call guys like him “lunch meat,” and that “if you wanna fuck with me, we can go.” Spencer’s response to this is an extremely smug “noted,” and I just want this guy gone now. 

Group Date Rose: Tayshia does a bunch of fake-outs here, telling Spencer, Zac C., and Eazy that she enjoyed her convos with them, and she gives Eazy the rose! I can’t be mad. I like Eazy, but then he says everything is falling into place and it could be the greatest love story ever, and I want to tell him to pump the brakes just a little, because I’m not sure Tayshia feels the same way about him at this point. 

The next day, Tayshia gets her first one-on-one date with Brendan, the turtleneck wearer. She shows up on a horse, wearing a cowboy hat, which the guys just love, and she’s leading another horse behind her. Their date is … a horseback tour of La Quinta resort? With Chris Harrison popping up in various places to offer them things like margaritas, ice cream, and coconuts, all set to a backdrop of “quirky” musical cues? Man, the producers must be so bored, being stuck in one place, but I at least appreciate their resourcefulness. 

Tayshia and Brendan stop their ride at a private pool, where they kiss and make out a little bit. In an interview, Tayshia says “round me up cowboy” because she’s ready to “go home” with Brendan. She says he is “everything,” but she wants to know why he’s still single, and I hate that question because it sounds so judgmental, like something is obviously wrong with you, when there isn’t, you’re just single, sheesh. 

But Brendan actually does have a reason for being single: he’s divorced. He’s nervous to tell Tayshia this, but guess what? Tayshia’s also divorced! They already have so much in common! Brendan married his high school sweetheart, but they divorced when she realized she didn’t want kids. Tayshia married a guy she met in college, and they divorced after he cheated on her. Tayshia’s happy to tell Brendan that she wants kids – more than he might expect, actually. She asks Brendan if he will accept the Date Rose, and he says yes. 

In an interview, Tayshia says that “kissing Brendan feels like I’m kissing my person.” She feels really connected to him, like she could marry him. It feels again like maybe the show is trying to give this a Clare/Dale edit, but I’m guessing it’s a fake-out, because they’ve already teased a Final Rose Ceremony and Tayshia crying, a lot.  

The show ends with Tayshia and Brendan making out under a fireworks show just for them.

Oh, and this happened: Jason left. He thinks he’s in love with Clare, which doesn’t surprise me since their date was one of the most emotionally manipulative things I’ve ever seen, so no wonder he feels very attached to her, but I’m not sure it’s love so much as codependence. Tayshia wishes he would have stayed, and him leaving is one of her biggest fears because she doesn’t want to be anyone’s second choice, but Jason insists that his heart isn’t in it. 

Bye Jason! See you on Bachelor in Paradise (probably)! I think you’re probably a little bit of a toxic boyfriend, but I also think you may have a great redemption arc!

Next! Week! On! The! Bachelorette!: The guys fight, literally, on what looks like an MMA-type date. One guy refers to Tayshia as a “smoke show” and some other guys get mad because they think that’s sexist, I guess? It also sounds like at least one guy threatens physical violence on another guy, so, this should be fun. 

Tag scene: Bennett and Ed talking about Noah’s Extremely Creepy Mustache, giving it the exact amount of respect it deserves, which is none.