overnights

The Bachelorette Recap: The CHAD Is Loose

The Bachelorette

Week Three: Part One
Season 12 Episode 3
Editor’s Rating 4 stars
JOJO FLETCHER, ALEX

The Bachelorette

Week Three: Part One
Season 12 Episode 3
Editor’s Rating 4 stars
Photo: Rick Rowell/ABC

Somewhere deep in the Rocky Mountains, the United States government has set up a lab to create the perfect male specimen. A Russian scientist who exchanged secrets for asylum paces in the dimly lit lab and peers into giant test tubes where the specimens float as they develop. Suddenly, his assistant rushes in, her lab coat in tatters.

“Sir! It escaped!” she says panting. The Russian scientist gently rests his forehead against one of the test tubes. He thinks to himself that this is the last moment of peace he will have on this Earth. “We have to do something now!” the assistant pleads.

“There’s nothing to do. Once the Callous Hardwired All-important Device is loose, there’s nothing we can do,” the scientist replies. “Once the CHAD is loose, there’s no hope.”

This week, the CHAD was certainly on the loose. The mansion is in shambles the morning after the rose ceremony. There are plates of half-eaten deli meat everywhere. The CHAD is eating everything he can get his hands on. At one point, I think he pops a handful of Pier One potpourri into his mouth. Daniel and the CHAD are engaging in homoerotic feats of strength beside the pool as their ropy veins bulge.

Host Chris comes in with the agenda for the week. There will be one group date and two one-on-ones. There are roses on all the dates. Chase is getting to “get physical” and do yoga with JoJo. JoJo manages to betray her basic-b nature when she admits that she’s never done yoga before, but she’s always wanted to try it. JoJo, this is America. We’ve officially stolen so much yoga that yoga studios outnumber Jamba Juices now.

JoJo and Chase get ready for some tantrum yoga, which is a real thing that I Googled, taught by a woman named Hemalayaa. She immediately asks how long Chase and JoJo have been intimate. Did she know what show she was agreeing to teach yoga for? It’s not even remotely close to the fantasy suites, Hemalayaa! Apparently, tantrum yoga means lying on the ground while a cameraman basically gives you a pap smear with an HD-camera lens, while you clench your kegel muscles and then vibrate your whole body. The final step of the tantrum yoga class is a “yim yam” where JoJo sits on Chase’s lap with her legs behind his back and they align their third eyes. They end up vigorously making out.

Let’s address something right now. There’s a lot of boning energy on this season, right? Anyone else feel it? Everyone on this season is like a horny 16-year-old boy who just Weird Science’d themselves a woman. I guess ABC liked the sexual tension on Kaitlyn’s season and just said “Fuck it” and pumped the mansion full of Barry White music.

Chase and JoJo feel a connection, and Chase concludes that “yoga isn’t bad.” I hate to break it to you, but it won’t always end with your boner pressing up against some girl’s Fabletics by Kate Hudson workout leggings. JoJo and Chase sit down for a meal they don’t eat and he reveals that his parents are divorced, so he’s looking for the real deal. JoJo concludes that the guy who just had his hand up her sports bra values the sanctity of marriage, and Chase gets the rose.

It’s time for the group date, and what a group date it is. Jordan, Grant, Wells, James F. (who?), Christian, Ali, Daniel, Vinny, Nick (who part two?), Evan, Alex, and the CHAD are all going on the group date, and the CHAD immediately starts to complain because he’s going on this date too early or too late in his and JoJo’s relationship, and he would prefer to go on a one-on-one with her. Yeah, we all would, the CHAD. Jordan attempts to stand up for the sanctity of the Bachelor franchises, but the CHAD snaps back at him that Jordan is nothing but a failed 27-year-old football player. I mean … he’s not exactly wrong in this situation. Like manners-wise, yes, he’s wrong, but facts-wise …

The CHAD starts staring everyone down when he initiates his intimidation sequence, but before he can fully power up, it’s time to leave for the group date!

The contesticles go with JoJo to the Sex Talks. I want everyone at home to picture the group of women who would put together a storytelling/stand-up hybrid show of their sexual experiences. You’re picturing the exact right thing. The contesticles will have to go onstage and reveal their most intimate sexual stories for a group of people who bought the wrong Groupon. JoJo inists that it’s important to be able to talk about sex in a relationship. This is 100 percent not what Salt-N-Pepa were rapping about. The CHAD is FURIOUS. This is his worst nightmare. Well, it would be if the nightmare matrix had been installed before the CHAD escaped from that lab.

Chad doesn’t want to share a story about his sexual past because he doesn’t care about JoJo’s. Sex is something you keep to yourself, and JoJo hasn’t earned the right to hear about his sex life.

It’s really easy to hate the CHAD, but, unfortunately, he keeps saying sentences that make complete sense when you repeat them. “A man doesn’t want to tell an embarrassing sex story in front of the girl he’s started seeing.” Yeah. Who would? But when the CHAD does it? Ugh. You want to punch him in the face.

The rest of the contesticles are thrilled to get up there and attempt stand-up. Evan, however, decides to take this opportunity to tell an allegorical tale (because you know how wet chicks get for allegories) about Chad. He insinuates that Chad’s awful behavior is because of steroid use, and man, oh man, does it crush. What Evan doesn’t realize is that, in the long run, these types of petty moves aren’t what win you the whole thing. No one likes a Petty Wap, Evan. On the way back to his seat, Evan tries to squeeze past the CHAD, and the CHAD grabs Evan’s shirt to get him out the way. The CHAD also refuses to tell a story and brings JoJo onstage with him and tries to kiss her, and she smoothly rejects him. This is not a good group date for the CHAD. He punches a metal door and has to have one of his arm appendages replaced by the manufacturer.

At the party after the group date, everyone is wearing black leather jackets. JoJo drapes her bare legs all over Jordan and smooches him. Evan continues his pettiness and tells JoJo, after Chad has interrupted every single guy’s one-on-one moment with her, that if Chad stays, he goes. JoJo confronts Evan about it when she offers him the group date, and he’s not gonna turn that down, right? That would just be ridiculous. JoJo tells him that the CHAD will be there a little while longer. Evan has no backbone or convictions and accepts the rose.

Jojo asks the CHAD about his behavior, and the CHAD say he never starts any trouble, but all of the guys seem to have a problem with him. Again, he’s not wrong. If everyone just ignored him, the CHAD would be a lot less of a threat. He’d still be annoying and smelling the place up with his salami farts, but he wouldn’t be shoving his finger in anyone’s face.

James Tee gets the one-on-one date with JoJo, and they go swing-dancing complete with period costumes. They’re taught how to swing dance by an old woman and her friends. I think their date is a Nicholas Sparks book? They end their date sitting in a sound stage dressed as a park in an old convertible sipping spiked hot chocolate out of thermoses. JoJo is taking this date to see if she can really connect with someone like James Tee, who might be more of a friend. He’s her bad-boy course correction. James Tee pulls out his guitar and plays a song for JoJo that makes her cry. This is the second time he’s made her cry, right? I really think we should get points for that in the Fantasy Bachelorette draft! James Tee gets a rose.

Meanwhile, back at the mansion, extra security roams the house in a very subtle way. The CHAD is sitting there eating a raw sweet potato with Daniel as Daniel attempts to recalibrate his personality drive. Host Chris arrives with some bad news: There will be no cocktail party this week. JoJo would prefer to have a pool party. She’s getting pregnant in that pool. Evan takes the opportunity to tell Host Chris that the CHAD is a monster, and please do something about it. There’s nothing worse than a tattletale. Host Chris agrees to do something about it, which basically entails asking the CHAD to apologize to the other contesticles.

This should be good. See you all tomorrow!

The Bachelorette Recap: The CHAD Is Loose