Episode 6: I Like This Episode a Smedium Amount

Courtesy: ABC

Sigh. 

 Well, I can’t say that this is a particularly great episode of The Bachelorette, or even a particularly interesting one, but it is a return to form. We’ve got outdated gender stereotypes, misleading teases, and excessive use of the phrase “grown-ass man.” 

I also learned that the word “smedium” is both a shirt size and an insult. Fun.

Since last week ended with Tayshia’s and Brendan’s one-on-one fireworks date, we start tonight with the last group date before Tayshia’s first official Rose Ceremony. It’s the return of the “husband material” date, which is just the first of many outdated gender roles we will see in this episode. I can’t be too mad, though, because Ashley I. and Jared are there to host the date, and I genuinely and unironically like them. 

The date is a series of tests. One losing contestant will be deemed a “man-child,” and will have to carry around a doll baby for the rest of the night. The winner will be crowned a “grown-ass man,” because that’s what Tayshia’s looking for, and I wish someone had warned me that I was about to hear the phrase “grown-ass man” like eleventy-three times. 

Tayshia wants someone who is smart, so the first test is all about math and spelling. Bennett – a Harvard graduate, you’ll recall – is overconfident, and gets all the answers wrong. He can’t participate in the second task, a tug-of-war test of physical strength, because of an old football injury. But he somehow pulls it out in the third task, making breakfast in bed for Tayshia, by somehow managing to make beignets (like, did he just have that recipe in his pocket?), feeding them to Tayshia, and making a barely-clever “beignet/Bennett” pun, all while wearing just a bathrobe. Tayshia says Bennett is bougie, but so is she, so she’s ok with it, and Bennett wins the challenge. Bennett is, apparently, enough of a “grown-ass man” to mouth-kiss Tayshia in front of the whole group. 

Ed loses, and gets labeled the “man-child.” He has to carry around a baby doll the rest of the night, and he tries to spin this into a good thing, like it somehow means that Tayshia thinks he can take a joke, or will be a good provider, or something. Whatever gets you through the night, guy. 

Chasen, who thought he was bringing his “A game” to the date when he ripped off his shirt and served himself up as the main course, is mad that Bennett won, because he doesn’t “play games” such as wearing a bathrobe, like Bennett does, and it’s worth noting that Chasen is saying this while wearing literally nothing but an apron over his bare torso. 

The group date shenanigans start out typically enough, with Chasen telling Bennett that a “real man” would have done the tug-of-war, and that his kiss with Tayshia was “cringey.” He tells Bennett that he doesn’t think Tayshia would appreciate that Bennett is still in his robe, and I really want to remind Chasen that Tayshia is also a grown-ass woman who can decide what she does and doesn’t like. 

Tayshia arrives, and Chasen undercuts Bennett by being the first to steal her away, which isn’t fair because Bennett totally called first dibs on Tayshia before she even got there, which is definitely something grown-ass men do. As they walk away, Bennett grumbles that “grown-ass men have manners.” The rest of the guys get in on the drag-Chasen game, with Ed – still cradling the baby doll – going particularly hard, calling Chasen fake and generally not there for the right reasons. 

Tayshia then talks to Ben, and she asks him why he’s still single and I once again beg the universe to just erase this stupid, stupid question from existence, because there is never anything inherently wrong with being “still single” at any age. Ben says something about being two years out of a relationship he thought would last forever, and that he didn’t even try dating until he had the opportunity to come on The Bachelorette and meet Clare, and that’s exactly what he said except for the last part about Clare. Ben tells Tayshia he’d love to kiss her, which is the closest thing I’ve seen to a request for consent since Tayshia started, and although I don’t usually like watching real people kiss on TV, this was actually a pretty good kiss. There’s some real chemistry between these two. 

Ivan tells Tayshia that he, too, is a “grown-ass man,” and he wants to give back to the world, possibly by starting a charity. Tayshia thinks he’s one of the more mature guys there, and then he does the very mature act of blindfolding her, pretending to feed her strawberries, and then kissing her instead, while she’s still blindfolded and expecting to be fed a strawberry. Consent? Implied, apparently. 

The tension between the guys on the group date amps up, and Ed seems to strike a real nerve when he tells Chasen he’s a “bad actor” who is obviously faking it. Chasen tells Ed that he can’t take him “serious” because he’s holding a baby doll, he has chicken legs, and he lost the competition. Ed has some real DGAF energy in response, which is great. 

This is also the first time – but certainly not the last – that we see Chasen refer to himself as Wolverine (after referring to himself first as Superman). 

Trying to move things forward, Bennett offers a toast to being a gentleman and a “grown-ass man” and you know what? None of these guys are qualified to be a “grown-ass man” because they all use the word “cheers” as a verb: 

Chasen, to Ed: I can’t cheers you man.

Ed, to Chasen: Jeez Chase, no cheers man? Come on. No cheers?

Chasen: You crossed it, buddy.

Ed, still holding the baby doll, totally rats out Chasen to Tayshia, who then asks Chasen about it directly, who in turn reassures Tayshia that even though he had feelings for Clare, there was a “pivot” and now his feelings for her are totally, totally real. He’s “vibing” with her, and he hopes she feels the same way. 

However, Chasen is definitely not vibing with the rest of the guys, especially Ed, who he confronts in a fairly aggressive, intimidating way without actually getting physical. Ed, still with the DGAF energy, says to Chasen: “Take your smedium shirt and sit down.”

Chasen responds: “My smedium shirt? It’s actually a large, okay?”

The confrontation isn’t over, and there is a lot of “grown-ass man” being tossed around, and commands to “be a man,” and it’s just so generically and unoriginally toxic. I really want to remove the phrase “be a man” from existence. The patriarchy hurts everybody, even Bachelorette contestants hanging out at La Quinta. 

Group rose: Tayshia tells Ben that she appreciates the way he listens to her. She tells Ivan that she sees how smart he is, and she appreciated the “romantic” gesture with the blindfold and strawberries. Ivan gets the rose. 

Ben is very, very disappointed that he didn’t get the rose. He offers perhaps the saddest rhyme I’ve ever heard: 

“Hi, hello, I’m Ben, I didn’t get a rose again.” 

My husband asks if this is The Bachelorette: Virgin Suicides Edition. That’s how sad Ben’s rhyme was. 

Cocktail Party and Rose Ceremony

Chasen, who just said in an interview that the previous night he almost brought out his inner Wolverine, and added, weirdly, “I gotta be honest, you don’t want to see Wolverine,” starts the night by addressing guys directly. He doesn’t like that his character’s been portrayed in a false light. He’s insulted. He doesn’t want drama. He asks Ed directly if he has anything to say.

Ed is basically all “I said what I said.” 

Bennett, sensing a fight, sneaks over to take the baby doll away. To protect it.

Chasen says he can be attracted to two women at once. Then he says that Tayshia is a “smoke show,” and the guys laugh at him, which he deserves, because that’s a fairly ridiculous thing to say in front of a group of guys you don’t know very well about a woman you also don’t know very well.

And then Bennett, ever the feminist, asks what woman would want to be called a smoke show. 

Over the course of the cocktail party, we see: 

·      Tayshia and Ben talk and kiss. 

·      Tayshia and Joe eating out of a bowl with chopsticks. He asks about her family. She says she’s Mexican and African American, and he says he’s of the “Korean persuasion” which, cute. I like Joe.

·      Spencer brings Tayshia popsicles and I just can’t with that on this show. No. 

·      Bennett brings Tayshia to a mini Eiffel Tower and tells her he wants to take her on a real European vacation. 

·      Demar reads Tayshia a rhyming letter saying “what love means to me.” She kisses him. It was fine.

Ed and Bennett are joking about how Chasen couldn’t come up with anything better than “smoke show.” They’re laughing because he thought of a noun not an adjective and I would just like to remind everyone that Bennett failed the math and spelling part of the group date and Ed spelled “limousine” as “limosuine” and we should never forget that. 

Ed, still holding the stupid baby doll, tells on Chasen to Mommy Tayshia, saying he screamed at him the previous night, which isn’t entirely true, and got physically threatening, which is pretty much true, and Tayshia doesn’t seem happy at all. She says getting physical is a red flag she doesn’t want to deal with.

Tayshia, again, goes directly to Chasen, who offers excuses but no real explanation. Tayshia says it’s petty, and he agrees. Chasen, then, goes to talk to Ed, and it seems like he’s going to apologize, but Ed’s still got that DGAF energy and doesn’t seem to care either way. Zac and Kenny intervene, with Zac saying he “could care less” (ugh, it’s “couldn’t care less,” saying you “could care less” means you actually care!) and they just want to bury it and move on from the drama. 

Zac and Tayshia also have an awkward conversation and an awkward kiss, but Tayshia thinks it’s cool that he’s a little bit older (he’s 36) and more mature. 

Rose Ceremony: Tayshia keeps both Ed and Chasen in what is so obviously a producer pick. We say goodbye to Straitjacket Jay, who I hope stops using mental illness as a punchline, and two other guys whose names I literally don’t remember because they were part of the group that arrived on Tayshia’s first night. 

After getting a rose, Chasen says: “Tayshia saw me for who I really am, and this rose resembles that right here.” Oy. 

Group Date

The group date card teases that Tayshia is looking for her “perfect match,” and it doesn’t take long for the guys to figure out it has something to do with wrestling. They catch up with Tayshia in a makeshift gym, where she’s just won a clearly-staged “wrestling” match. Chasen says she’s “muy caliente” tonight, and, again, a “smoke show,” and, like, just shut up, Chasen. 

The date is a wrestling competition, and the guys will be trained by WWE Hall of Famer Amy Dumas and current undefeated UFC fighter Tatiana Suarez. They want to know which guy is there for the right reasons, and who will fight for Tayshia’s love. Joe, who I think is kind of the best, says he’s intimidated. He jokingly brags about playing volleyball in high school, and his pre-match “smack talk” against Spencer is literally yelling at him that he’s a nice guy. Later, Joe says he’s a lover, not a fighter, and can we please just make Joe the next Bachelor? 

The main event is a series of wrestling matches in front of a “live audience,” but all that means is that the rest of the contestants are joining a date that technically isn’t theirs. As the drama builds to Ed and Chasen fighting each other, we see Eazy vs. Joe (Eazy wins, um, easily), and then Brendan vs. Jordan (Jordan wins, although Brendan’s fist-bump with Tayshia on his way out to the ring was *adorable*).

Tayshia worries that some of the guys might actually hurt themselves, and she thought it was just going to be a casual wrestling date, whatever that is, but I’m glad she’s at least aware that this might not be the safest activity? I guess? 

Oh, and Wells Adams – former Bachelorette contestant, current Bachelor in Paradise bartender, and future husband to actress Sarah Hyland – is there, MC-ing the fight with Chris Harrison. Did all the stars in Bachelor Nation quarantine for these appearances? I mean, I guess there’s not a whole lot of other stuff going on. 

Chasen is totally geared up for a bloody fight with Ed, but Ed – in a moment of clarity that he probably isn’t going to go very far with Tayshia and doesn’t want to risk serious injury by fighting an alarmingly intense Chasen – bows out at the last minute. He tells Chris Harrison that he has “chronically dislocated” shoulders, like he can’t even throw a football. Chris looks skeptical. 

Chris asks the rest of the guys if any of them want to fight instead, and Noah grabs his sad, sad mustache and literally jumps over the fence to fight Chasen. He doesn’t win. 

Chasen wins the night, but Tayshia invites Noah to join them for the rest of the group date, because he “jumped a fence” for her, which is definitely not what happened when Tayshia was on Colton’s season of The Bachelor, and the guys are mad about this. Noah crashing the date is reminiscent of Dale’s presence at the roast date, and it also doesn’t help that Noah is giving off a very “fuck your feelings” vibe. 

Tayshia must like Noah’s energy, though, because in their one-on-one time, Noah and Tayshia kiss. I truly wish I could unsee it. It was like the opposite of Tayshia and Ben kissing – there was no heat, they don’t have any chemistry, and Noah’s lips just looked way too glossed up. While they’re kissing, Tayshia asks Noah to shave his mustache, and in doing so she becomes a real American hero, because that mustache is truly an abomination. 

Tayshia says Noah surprises her, because even if he looks absolutely ridiculous, “he owns it,” and I feel like at this point Tayshia has to know that someone “owning” their “ridiculousness” on this show is a sure sign that they are not there for the right reasons. They’re there to be ridiculous and maybe get an offer to do Bachelor in Paradise. 

Ben, meanwhile, has a slow-burn plan to be the last to speak with Tayshia. He plans on bringing her a fresh drink, and they can relax, and catch up, and we already know that this isn’t going to work out the way he thinks it will. 

Brendan and Tayshia, in a real, authentic moment, talk about how hard it is to date after a divorce. Tayshia said she was so broken at the time that when someone did give her attention, it meant more to her than it probably would have if it was now. She was looking to fill a certain void. Brendan says he knows it’s early and he really enjoys spending time with her and Tayshia thinks he’s rambling too much, so she cuts him off with a kiss, which is generally something I don’t like, because it’s basically telling someone you’re not interested in what they are actually saying, but it kind of works for me this time. Brendan clearly doesn’t mind. 

Noah comes back to interrupt Tayshia and Jordan so that she can shave off his mustache, which Noah had previously called his “super power.” He asks if she prefers stubble or “baby face” and I throw up in my mouth just a little. And then she starts shaving his mustache and I have a flashback to the time I tried trimming my husband’s beard and ended up slicing his lip, like literally drawing blood, and I’m never bringing anything sharp near anyone’s face again, so this whole scene kind of freaked me out. But Tayshia is able to shave Noah’s mustache off without a problem, and she likes him a lot more without the mustache, and I guess I agree that he looks much better without it. I do not agree with their decision to start kissing. 

Back at the group of guys, Ben isn’t happy to hear that Noah interrupted Jordan, because he’s been patiently biding his time. He’s trying to stay calm. It’s painful to watch, because we all know what’s coming next, right? 

Tayshia comes back and starts to wrap up the night. Ben asks if he can talk to her, and she not only declines, but tells him that the night is over, and she’s disappointed he didn’t come find her earlier. Ouch ouch ouch. This was so painful to watch. 

Tayshia points out to the rest of the guys that Noah no longer has a mustache, and doesn’t he look great, and the guys’ stone-still faces in response is a whole mood. Tayshia gives Noah the group date rose and everyone is mad. He wasn’t even supposed to be there! Ed’s getting ready to call him out tomorrow. 

“Man to man,” he says. Of course.

Sigh. 

Favorite ironic edit: Ed, who backed out of fighting Chasen due to chronic shoulder injuries, doing weighted shoulder shrugs on the lawn. 

Favorite scene: The tag scene, where Brendan takes Tayshia out to relive their horse date, but he’s on a budget, so it’s just small rocking horses. It’s awkward and funny, and Brendan is kind of adorable and charming, and they both just look like they’re having a great time. 

Favorite scene, runner-up: Ashley I. sneezing and Jared desperately telling her to cover her nose (the “it’s covid, ffs!” is strongly implied), and she tries but doesn’t really get there but the first thing she says when she comes back up is “Sorry I was tested!” Such a sign of the times.