Spoiler alert! This post contains details from Monday’s episode of BSC.
Joey Graziadei dropped by 10 women after one night in BSC Palace, it’s time to get to work.
But first, a tennis break. After a long and tiring night of filming, tennis pro takes host Jesse Palmer to the court for some lessons while the women move into the mansion. “That’s why you’re the Bachelor. You’re a good communicator!” Jesse tells him.
Joey says that after the first night he became “more hopeful than ever” that his wife would be among the remaining women. If he can survive the first week.
There’s already a little drama brewing at the mansion between Taylor and Jess, which is bound to spill over into dates. The first group date goes to Rachel, Taylor, Lexi, Kelsey T, Evalyn, Erika, Maria, Lauren and Jess.
The date card says, “Here come the brides,” and invites the ladies to go into the next room and choose a wedding dress before meeting Joey. It’s a scramble as they rush into the other room to find racks of dresses to try on. After putting in some effort to get the perfect dress, the women take a limo ride to meet Joey at their wedding. Yes, they are asked to pretend that all nine women have just married Joey, and now they will just spend a few hours doing wedding stuff like eating cake, mingling with the guests, and dancing. At the end of the day, Joey will choose someone to have a special first dance with.
It’s definitely an interesting option for a group date, because there’s not much to do In fact you do. It’s also not clear who the other people are attending this reception, which makes things even more awkward, as they have to mingle with complete strangers.
First, they play wedding musical chairs to decide who will sit next to Joey at the bride and groom’s table. Lauren and Maria end up getting those coveted seats, but hats off to Evalyn, who dashes across the well-decorated table to try and secure one. Jaws dropped. Including my own.
Rachel eventually got the first dance, and the pair enjoyed an intimate moment on the dance floor while Michael Bolton sang “When a Man Loves a Woman.”
At the after party, the women do everything they can to steal some of Joey’s attention. Maria changes from a white corset dress to a bra and two-piece skirt mid-conversation in hopes of seducing him. Meanwhile, Jess needs to talk to Joey about the fact that she feels insecure after Taylor made some snarky comments about her during the wedding. It’s smart that she didn’t actually mention Taylor. It never ends well for a woman who calls someone else’s name to the forefront.
Lauren also pulls Joey aside to tell him that she was in a mood, as the wedding-themed date brought up some sadness, as her father died not long ago. Pretending to be married reminded her how much she wanted her father to be there for the real thing.
To Joey’s credit, he handles every difficult conversation calmly. The group date gives Jess a rose.
Daisy gets to have a one-on-one date this week, which isn’t surprising at all since their connection seemed so instant on the first night. She meets him at the helipad, and they take a trip to Beach Life Ranch in Redondo Beach for a music festival. It’s a fairly casual date, but Daisy is worried that she’ll have to tell Joey about her cochlear implant before she’s ready, because it’s so loud she might not be able to hear it. Lucky for her, Joey is incredibly attentive. He doesn’t intrude when she’s a little vague about her job (she runs a hearing loss non-profit) and is reassuring when she seems anxious.
At dinner, she finally opened up to him. Not only did she lose her hearing as a teenager, she spent several years feeling very ill before being diagnosed with Lyme disease. Joey seems surprised by all the information, but as always, he’s taking it very seriously and just wants to make sure she’s healthy now. Daisy gets a rose.
The second group date is also a bit of a head-scratcher. Kelsey A., Allison, Madina, Katelyn, Edwina, Chrissa, Marlena, Outum, Starr, and Jenn are divided into teams and participate in a “paint battle” to protect Joey’s heart. Literally a luxurious heart. Each team has one and the other tries to steal it before their team is hacked. Joey gets a little help from Bachelor Nation alumni Demi Burnett and Jubilee Sharpe.
All the women play alongside each other, but Edwina is really doing her best to be the best player she can be. It’s no surprise when Demi and Jubilee reveal that Joey will only be choosing one person from the winning team to have dinner with, and he’s choosing Edwina.
At said dinner, they had a really honest conversation about Edwina’s upbringing as the eldest daughter in an African family and the pressure she feels to succeed in everything she does because of that. She gets a rose.
In case you lost track, Leah and Sydney are the only two women who couldn’t go on a date this week.
Of course, drama dominates the cocktail party. Earlier in the day, Medina, 31, expressed her insecurities as the oldest woman in the house. Maria, 29, is confused by her own insecurities and tells some of the other women that she doesn’t think it’s a problem having women older than Joy out there, and she thinks the city should accept that.
Sydney tells Madina that she heard Maria make a “condescending” comment about her age, which boils down to a tense conversation between all three that doesn’t really lead anywhere. Maria explains that she wasn’t trying to be rude, she just wanted to empower Medina to embrace her age and not feel like it was at her expense.
Mariah also calls it “the dumbest fight in Bachelor Nation history” and… it’s definitely up there. Medina wants to talk to Joey about her insecurities and presumably does, even though her conversation with him is not shown on the air. We only see her saying things “went good” when the other women asked her how things went when she talked to Joey.
None of them were hot enough to bring it up to Joey, which is really for the best, because it certainly wouldn’t have ended well.
Before the rose ceremony, Lauren feels insecure about not talking to Joey to make up for her bad mood during the group date. She decided to leave on her own. This surprises Joey and really upsets Allison, who didn’t expect to lose Lauren so early in the process.
At the rose ceremony, Joey sent Taylor, Erika, and Marlena home.
The women who received roses were Rachel, Lexi, Kelsey A, Kelsey T, Jen, Evalyn, Autumn, Madena, Leah, Katelyn, Chrissa, Starr, Allison, Sydney and Mariah. They will stay another week with Edwina, Jess and Daisy.
BSC It airs Monday nights at 8pm ET/PT on ABC.