This week’s episode of The Bachelorette takes Jojo and her bros to the Argentinean countryside, where things get weird with a horse, we learn of Jordan Rodgers’ possible foot fetish, and some serious family drama with ARodgers.
Preceding The Bachelorette tonight was my local news, which played only shark-themed stories, then proclaimed that “every week is Shark Week on Cape Cod.” I don’t even live on Cape Cod, so not really sure what that’s about. But soon enough we are reunited with the slowly rotting corpse of a television show that we all so dearly missed last week. Since there was an elimination-less rose ceremony in the previous episode, the remaining boys (Alex, James Taylor, and four guys with the same hair cut), are all pretty salty. Chris Harrison enters and informs the boys that this week there will be a group date and three one-on-ones. He adds that the one-on-one dates will not have roses, so the boys can all “relax and have a good time.” The first date card is given to Alex, who is the only boy who hasn’t had a one-on-one date yet.
The date begins before they’ve even traveled to the countryside. Alex and Jojo roadtrip to a gaucho ranch in a swanky SUV, while the rest of the boys take a pretty dope looking bus to their new lodging. The car ride is decidedly awkward for Alex and Jojo, as Alex attempts to sit practically on top of Jojo the entire ride while she eyes the window as a possible escape route. On the bus, the other boys freestyle a rap about how they’re having way more fun than Alex because he’s short.
Once Jojo and Alex get to the ranch, they’re introduced to two Argentinean ranchers, or gauchos, who tell Alex and Jojo that they’re going to get the ultimate gaucho experience. Alex changes into what is possibly the most ridiculous outfit the producers could find in his size, and they ride some horses. I have to admit, I was pretty convinced this episode would be as boring as last week’s, but it really started to pick up as I polished off my bowl of Captain Crunch. Upon returning to the ranch, Alex and Jojo watch one of the gauchos tame his horse in true horse-whisperer style. He straight up hypnotizes this horse to lay on the ground, then invites Alex and Jojo to spoon with it (“spoon” is the actual word used by a real live gaucho). They lay down with it, then start straight up making out on top of this horse who looks like he’d rather be at the glue factory. Alex whispers something to Jojo and the captions read, “I’ll be your goocho.” GOOCHO.
Meanwhile, the other boys stop at a roadside BBQ stand, and Jordan confesses that he is an incredibly picky eater. Remember this. It will be important later. The next date card is given out, and it’s a one-on-one for Jordan. The rest of the boys are Whiney McBitterpants about it.
At their dinner, Alex tells Jojo that he’s falling in love with her. Jojo looks almost as uncomfortable as the horse from earlier, and at that point, shuts Alex down and unceremoniously sends him home. Despite Chris Harrison saying they can relax about it since there are no roses. Doesn’t matter. Bye Alex.
The next day, Jojo and Jordan start off their one-on-one date with a private jet, which takes them to a winery. It seems pretty clear that Jojo reserved the good one-on-one dates for people she actually likes, since a private jet and a vineyard is leagues better than watching people wrangle horses (and no doubt many of us will be tempted to click here to see how to hire a private jet ourselves). They walk through the vineyard and arrive at two buckets of grapes, and they remove their shoes to stomp grapes. This is really the point where you should lower your volume because holy shit, those squishing noises are repulsive.
Remember how Jordan said he was the pickiest eater ever? Well, apparently his definition of picky is different than most, since he proceeds to drink Jojo’s pre-wine foot juice, then go back for seconds. Here, it cuts to the rest of the boys talking shit on Jordan for seeking fame, and Luke says something about how if he had front row Super Bowl tickets, Jojo would probably date him too. Luke, Aaron Rodgers plays for the Packers. They’re not getting any Super Bowl tickets. The next date card is dropped, which puts Robby, Chase, and James Taylor on the group date, and leaves Luke with the last one-on-one.
Jojo probes Jordan about the impending hometown date, and asks who she’ll meet if she goes to his hometown, and Jordan tells his family is made up of his parents, his older brother Luke, Luke’s bulldog Carl Weathers, and Luke’s wife, but that his “middle brother” isn’t really part of the family. This “middle brother,” Jojo points out, is Green Bay Packers Quarterback Aaron Rodgers. Jordan spills that he and Aaron have never really gotten along, and that he spent most of his life being compared to his brother. He adds that Aaron chose football over his family, and has been estranged from the rest of the family for some time. This was, somewhat surprisingly, confirmed by Aaron Rodgers’ girlfriend Olivia Munn in an article posted later. For the mountainous pile of shit that Jordan has gotten on this show, he has also probably been the most honest about his family situation (looking at you, Robby, but we’ll get to that later). Jordan tells Jojo he loves her, and there’s some serious Sims 3-style romance music.
For the group date, it appears that any plans Jojo/the producers had were stifled by heavy rain, so Robby, Chase, James, and Jojo essentially order room service and have a “slumber party” in the middle of the day. They play some Bachelor-themed games, James tries to fit as many french fries in his mouth as possible, and Robby runs down the hotel hallway in just his underwear on a dare. The boys get pretty schwasted and they all cuddle in a bed and watch the Brazilian version of The Bachelor. They briefly talk about hometown dates but I’m pretty convinced Chase’s family is just a sack of potatoes and Robby’s family is probably a single bottle of hair gel. Robby gets the group date rose, and he and Jojo take a brief walk where he mentions that his last relationship ended four months previously, which also likely means he applied to be on The Bachelorette while still in that relationship. Yep, seems legit, Robby. James and Cardboard Box Chase both seem betrayed that Jojo did not attach roses to them.
On the final one-on-one date, Jojo takes Luke to a ranch where they ride horses and do skeet shooting. This is the equivalent of putting Jordan on a football date. Nothing super memorable happens, except that there is no dinner portion of the date. Luke informs the rest of the boys that there will be no cocktail party, and instead they’ll go straight to the rose ceremony, which spells trouble for James and Chase.
At the rose ceremony, James Taylor is sent home, and we are left with a show where all of the contestants look exactly the same. Next week is where the real drama starts to pick up, since we’ll have the hometown dates followed by the honeymoon suite dates followed by the finale, so hopefully the action will start to unfold and/or we’ll get something juicy from the hometown dates.
Images via screengrab.