The Bachelorette Recap: Becca Smashes up a Race Car on an Arie-Themed Date

Welcome back to The Bachelorette, where after a very well-televised break-up with Arie, Becca is on her self-guided journey to find love. She has made it through the first round, winnowed her herd of men to a manageable 21, and is ready to start dating several men simultaneously while her parents watch back at home in Minnesota. As the men await the all important date cards bearing the names of the chosen few, Chris Harrison stops by to remind them that he is always the Alpha Dog. He then drops the first date card on the coffee table and scampers off before the men lunge at the card and each other to prove they are here for the right reasons.

Here’s what happened this week on The Bachelorette:

Altar-ed State

For the season’s first group date, Clay, Nick, Chris R., David, Jean-Blanc, Jordan, Connor, and Lincoln are invited to Becca’s “big day.” By the way did you know that Jordan is a model? If you didn’t know, he’ll tell you. Becca takes the men to a mansion where they are dressed in tuxes, toasted with champagne, and forced to listen to Jordan give them unsolicited advice about modeling and life. “Before you put your socks or your pantyhose on, put the confidence on,” he says, with no one daring to laugh lest it overload his motherboard. Then Becca leads them outside, where Bachelorette Rachel shows up with her trophy fiancée and Becca makes the obligatory explanation that they are a “happily engaged couple.” Then Rachel tells the men they will be running through an obstacle course, which is, of course, a metaphor for marriage material, with gags like “Ball and Chain” and “Cold Feet” and racing to the altar. The men take off, and in the heat of competition, Lincoln may have cheated by getting out of an ice bath early. He claims he is driven by voices saying “win, win, win” and who wants to argue with the voices in a man’s head? Lincoln may have won the contest, but earned a reputation as a cheater — and the role of Bachelorette villain.

The After Party

Lincoln cements the new role by snagging Becca for some private time as soon as the party gets started. Then Becca gives him their “wedding photo” and he puts it on the coffee table, which is pretty much where you’re supposed to put pictures. One of the men takes grave offense to the picture and picks a fight with Lincoln over it and then chucks it in the pool. While Jordan giggles like a school girl, Lincoln is not impressed and for good reason: he wanted to show that picture to his mom! Lincoln goes to complain to Becca, Connor tries to justify his behavior and tells Becca that the thing he just did is not him. She goes to think about what he’s done. While the boys were arguing with each other, noted cologne enthusiast Jean-Blanc sneaks in and steals their girl, swiping the group date rose. Back at the house, Lincoln starts crying over the lost picture and the men all back away slowly in the face of so many feelings.

Becca Goes To Therapy

Becca has asked some man named Blake to escort her on a date set up by Chris Harrison. What’s Chris Harrison’s idea of romance? A sledgehammer in a dark warehouse with no one but Lil Jon and the remnants of Becca’s past with Arie. Lil Jon explains that he’ll be playing his hit song, “Turn Down for What” (That was the 2014 Song of the Summer, so this may be the biggest artist The Bachelor franchise has ever snagged!) while she and Blake smash up a race car like the one Arie drove, TV monitors showing Arie’s proposal, and the couch where he dumped her. As Becca engages in some therapeutic smashing, Blake stands there awkwardly while she spends their entire first date talking about her ex-boyfriend. Then they go to dinner and get along well enough that Becca hands him the rose and announces that he could definitely end up her husband and then, to make sure, goes to make out with him against a wall. We’re all on our own journey, you know?

Balls to The Wall

Garrett, Rickey, Christon, Trent, Leo, Wills, Colton and some other guys (what, it’s early in the season) are invited on a date with a card that reads “love comes at you hard and fast.” They are shuttled onto a school bus, dumped into a school gymnasium, and then trained in the fine art of dodgeball by some middle-school-aged coaches who keep screaming, “You think Becca wants TRASH?!” at the grown men. “They’re not human,” intones Leo, who is quickly becoming the show’s chosen narrator. After the men prove their skills, they head to a dodge ball competition where they face off in a thunderdome, lined with a cheering crowd, and Chris Harrison and legendary announcer Fred Willard calling the play-by-play. While the green team won, it was Leo who reigned supreme deftly taking on the entire green team, only falling when two men gang up on him. Later, Becca takes some alone time with Garrett, who got the first date rose and issued the show’s first public apology of the season, makes out with Wills, and then gets a confession from Colton — he dated Tia. As in Tia from Arie’s season. Becca is not impressed. She gives the date rose to Wills and heads home to think about whether she wants to date Tia’s sloppy seconds. Again. They both dated Arie at the same time, so she’ll probably get over it.

The Cocktail Party

Thanks to Colton’s confession and Lincoln’s and Connor’s drama, things have gotten really real for Becca. Then she makes out with a few men, Connor invites her to throw his picture in the pool, and someone writes her a poem for her, and she is back in it. Then Jordan decides to go full Zoolander — stripping to his boxers and strutting through the mansion in his drawers and dress shoes with a button down shirt thrown jauntily over his shoulder. He saunters up to Becca, interrupts her conversation and reminds her that he’s a male model. The man he interrupted, David — better known as the man who was dressed up as a chicken — was offended and decided to call Jordan out for being a disrespectful attention hog. “I wore my underwear, bro, that’s not me trying to get attention,” Jordan said with a dead straight face. After Becca escapes from Jordan’s hypnotic Blue Steel-stare and use of the “word” “genuinity,” she goes to tell Colton that she still needs to think about his time on the show.

The Rose Ceremony

Becca pins roses on the lapels of men named Chris and Jason and John and Mike. She then gets into the drama roses, giving Connor a rose, then Lincoln. She gives David a rose, and then realizes that the producers are going to make her keep Jordan, too, and she pins a rose to the blanket he has wrapped around his naked body. She gives the final rose to Colton. A few men wander off into the sunset, leaving a trail of broke hearts and teardrops behind them.