If The Bachelorette were truly a show about finding love, Clare would be declared the fastest winner in Bachelor franchise history and we could quickly move on to Tayshia’s. But you know as well as I do, most of us don’t watch the show to witness a happy couple go skipping off into the sunset together on week one. We want to watch love going sideways; because while not everyone can relate to dating 30 people all at same time, we can definetely relate to the drama and heartache that often accompanies falling in love. So imagine the producer’s headache, when Clare is in clear breach of contract and intent on blowing up her own season in order to create her very own spin-off The Clare and Dale Show. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

We start off this episode witnessing Yosef’s soliloquy about self-respect and doing right by his daughter. Normally I love a good man-trum, however, his argument would hold a lot more weight if he didn’t leave his daughter home during a global pandemic, only to slide into Random’s DMs, as he was quarantining to be a contestant on a reality dating show. Aside from that, I could get on board with a lot of what he had to say—did strip dodgeball really need to be a thing? Mostly, I would venture to guess, producers wouldn’t let the season end without at least one “villain”.

As he exits, second palm tree to the left, he delivers the line, “You're completely classless, Clare … remember, you're almost 40”. Yup, there is her age again. A tragically single woman who is almost 40, are there worse things in the world? Uh yeah, lately there has been A LOT worse. To which Clare responds, “Guess what? I’m the oldest Bachelorette that’s standing here, that’s 39, that’s single because I didn’t settle for men like that.”

Yes, Clare, Yes!

Clare’s strong suit is creating soundbites packed with some zing! that appear to promote women’s empowerment, as we saw with Juan Pablo. Unfortunately, in the very next breath she’s weeping into Dale’s arms, asking for a man to “protect” her. Lucky for us between episodes, it was discovered Dale was a model for “Party City”. The devil works hard, Bachelor Nation sleuth stalkers work harder.

From this moment forward, Clare’s treatment of the remaining guys that are not Dale, is completely inexcusable. She cancels the day date without notice so she can discuss female intuition with a former Bachelorette contestant who claims “you know, when you know”—(except for when, in DeAnna’s case, you get engaged on national television and it’s not that guy, it actually turns out to be a different guy). So maybe that logic’s a little flawed. It can be hard to keep a clear head, when this is happening…

During the group date, Dale requests a group hug and then swoops in to be the first to snag Clare. After some surface level conversation and what parents of high school students everywhere would agree was definitely not “spooning”, the couple gets reminded there are other dudes on this date.

Dale walks out with the group date rose and continues to give unsolicited speeches.

Zach J., and his “high-strung” one-on-one perpetuates the overall theme of what the heck are we all still doing here? Poor guy, all he wanted was a safe space to bro-out and lift during quarantine, and now he’s been professionally tickled and then dumped by Chris Harrison.

The next group date involves comedian Margarat Cho and a roast, which turns into a roast of Dale, who wasn’t actually on the date. Afterwards Clare only wants to discuss Dale with the other men and then proceeds to get mad when the guys didn’t enjoy this particular brand of foreplay. She even refers to Dale as her “fiancé”. Wait, did I sleep through a proposal?!

This episode left us with lots of questions.
Questions like,

Do Clare and Dale hope their 1-hour of time together will be enough to live happily ever after?

Will the couple be forced to pawn Neil Lane’s engagement ring to pay off what will likely amount to substantial legal fees for being in breach of contract?

Was this just a filler-episode while Tayshia was quarantining at the bottom of the La Quinta pool for two week?