All right guys, this wasn’t as bad as last week’s so there’s that. Clayton gives me strong Pilot Pete vibes. He drifts to the women who cause the drama (Cassidy and Shanae). But let’s start from the beginning.

The women enter the house and are shown just fangirling over everything. Which confused me. Did the producers send the women back to their hotel rooms after the cocktail party and then have them come back to act this out? Otherwise, they were already there, which is usually what happens, and producers made the women reenact their entrance. Either way, weird way to start, but okay.

Our new host, not Clayton (honestly, he looks just like him), enters and bestows the first date card. And then it’s off to the races. No hug jump yet at this point. I’m sure it’s coming. The lucky women head to a mansion backyard and are bombarded with children. Really driving home the point that kids like Clayton and he wants kids. And did you know, kids like him?

In walks Hilliary Duff, who is clearly here because of her new show on Hulu, and not because she actually wants to help Clayton find love. But still nice to see her. The women freak out, as they should, and it turns out the date is planning a birthday party for one of the kids we saw earlier. Most of the women enjoy this, but not Cassidy. Every time she looks at a kid, she frowns. Instead of helping, Cassidy heads off to spend time climbing Clayton like a tree by the pool, not once, but twice. The other women don’t appreciate this at all, but Clayton is all for it. I feel like Clayton listens to one part of his body more than anything else. Cassidy literally says she avoids kids as much as she can, to the birthday girl. Like Cassidy, leave the girl alone. Cassidy even managed to steal the cake that she didn’t decorate and dropped it in front of the kids. I feel for the birthday girl, getting ruined by some random woman who only wants to suck face with Clayton. Moment of silence for that cake.

After all that, we still had the afterparty where Cassidy kept getting on my nerves, and Clayton didn’t seem to have much connection with anyone else. That could be the editing since we hardly saw him interact with women for longer than 30 seconds it seemed. He, unsurprisingly, gave Cassidy the rose and she freakishly kissed his shoulder. Cringe.

Onto the one on one, which was given to Susie, who I remember nothing about except she looks like the love child of Debbie Ryan and Hannah Brown. She and Clayton took a helicopter ride. I would love to do that. I was really expecting bungee jumping or something more insane, so I expect the crazier dates to come later on. During their “dinner” (they never eat the damn food), Susie talked about her father getting very sick but making it through to meet his grandson. Dinner time is always the time to talk about the sad stories, maybe that’s why they don’t eat. This was the first time I didn’t see the rose on the dinner table but was in the room where they were serenaded. Not sure what the point was there.

The second group date consisted of a game of never have I ever, where we learned that Clayton has sent nudes and that’s info I really didn’t need, and then an obstacle course that was just an excuse for the women to get dirty and push each other around. Shanae, who Cassidy seemed to take under her wing, tried to get time with Clayton but was beat out by Elizabeth, both by sitting next to him, and Elizabeth grabbed him first to chat at the afterparty. Clearly, Elizabeth is terrible, in Shanae’s eyes. How dare she do what she wanted to do. Shanae decided to cry about it and then insinuate that Elizabeth was two faced out of nowhere. She told Clayton that Elizabeth ignored her during a conversation Elizabeth was having was someone else. That’s it. Someone explain to me how that makes you two faced because I’m at a loss. Clayton, of course, talks to Elizabeth, who has no idea what is going on, and she tells him that Shanae pushed her during the obstacle course but didn’t want to bring it up. Elizabeth takes Shanae aside and tries to understand what happened, like all of the viewers, but no progress is made, besides Elizabeth explaining she has issues with processing a lot of sensory information (as revealed later on, she has ADHD, and Shanae is the one who shares this with the group. Not cool). Sara, who won the obstacle course, got the rose.

Time for the cocktail party, and guys, someone needs to get Clayton a stylist. His pants were so short. Quote from my mom, “What’s with his short pants? What a doofus.” He also wore a sweatshirt and blazer on one of the dates. Is his personality just a lack of fashion sense? That’s all the personality I’ve seen so far. We see several of the women get some time with Clayton, and none of them really stand out, though the scrapbook was a cute idea.

Shanae and Elizabeth got into another fight, with Shanae claiming she was using her ADHD to explain her actions. Or something. Seriously could not follow her logic at this point. The rest of the women all get to hear about this drama and agree that Shanae should not have shared Elizabeth’s ADHD with the group since it should be her choice. And I whole heartedly agree. Someone’s mental state or anything about their mental wellness/diseases, whatever they have should not be shared without their permission. Shanae really stepped over the line, and even her “bestie” Cassidy told her to cut her loses. We don’t get much respite from this because then we learn that Cassidy has a friend with benefits back home who she was talking to the day before filming. Sierra, who Cassidy literally told, and the producers made sure to show this video (while we don’t get one showing the Shanae and Elizabeth conversation that Shanae was so upset about). Sierra tells Clayton and tells Cassidy that she told him about her buddy. Cassidy didn’t care, claiming she has a rose and what can he do?

Cut to Clayton asking Jesse (not-Clayton host) if anyone has taken back a rose before.

And that’s a wrap for this episode, and we won’t find out what happens for two weeks. This episode wasn’t as much as a mess as last week’s, but we got plenty of drama. And isn’t that what we all watch for?

Until next time,

Em