‘The Bachelorette’ Episode 3: We’ve got drama on and off the field

We’ve long maintained that The Bachelor/ette is sports, and I just love it when they validate us by PLAYING ACTUAL SPORTS.

In case you missed anything from last week’s episode of The Bachelorette, you can check out the recap here.

Let’s get to it!

After re-hashing the previous episode’s Rose Ceremony and getting pensive glances from Colton and baseless confidence from Jordan, we’re ready to roll.

Wills, Jason, Jordan, David, Jean Blanc, and Colton all heard their names called for one of the two group dates, where they were whisked away to a spa to “relax.”

The guys were joined by Tia, Kendall, Bekah M., Seinne, and Caroline from last season, because just like real life, you always bring all your girlfriends that you met exclusively while dating the same man to meet a handful of your new boyfriends.

Adding to the drama, of course, is the fact that friend Tia and potential beau Colton “dated” before he broke it off (after what he said was a weekend) because he was going on the show.

This is not a thing, in my opinion. You’ve already competed with her once for a guy, Tia and Colton kissed, and he ended it to come on the show. This is the perfect “how much shit am I in?” face, though.

Things got off to a rocky start for one of our suitors when SHE FORGOT JASON’S NAME. Understandable, to be honest. There’s still an unwieldy number of similarly-looking men standing around, so it was only a matter of time.

I’m sorry, but this looks like both the absolute worst date and worst spa day. As a date, you’ve invited all of your close girlfriends to get massaged and touched by your prospects. As a spa day, you have a bunch of untrained men in their early 20s trying to make you feel relaxed. I hate to be the one to share this with you, but not all massages are made equal.

They basically spend the entire time painting each other’s nails, handing out massages, and using those things that look like broken whisks to scratch each other’s heads.

Our now well-dressed group gathered in yet another nondescript loft-type bar filled with leather sofas and overstuffed chairs as they kicked off the round robin portion of the date. I respect the hell out of Jean Blanc’s “hey, everyone, let’s continue being super cool gentlemen” statement literally seconds before interrupting Becca’s welcome to whisk her away for some quiet time.

Becca says she likes Jason — you know, the one whose name she forgot — and that he’s so cute and makes her nervous. I had prepared a bunch of snarky jokes about how he looks more like her accountant than her date, but he actually handles her forgetting his name pretty well.

NOW LET’S TALK ABOUT JORDAN’S TINDER MATCHES.

Jordan shares with the group that he got an email from Tinder saying “congrats on 4,000 matches in 2017,” which leads me to some initial questions:

I did the math. Four thousand matches is just shy of 11 matches per day. Jordan is adamant that he’s “like, totally not even on it every day, bro,” so let’s just go for a weekly number of 77 matches a week.

SEVENTY SEVEN.

Thank god for David the Chicken, Jordan’s natural enemy in the house, for asking the questions I need to know. Jordan says his match rate is close 100 percent, because of course he does.

David then spends some alone time with Becca where he spills the beans on Jordan’s excessive Tinder success. What I really like about Becca (that wasn’t really conveyed through her interactions with Arie, the blandest man in the world) is she has a very low bullshit rate.

There is literally a guy on this date that dated one of her friends and we’re here listening to two grown (kind of) men talk about Tinder nonsense while Jordan is throwing modeling glares across the room as everyone else makes futile attempts to cover up their laughter.

Colton earns the rose as a symbolic gesture from Becca to illustrate a new start, so him and his leather jacket collection will stick around another week. Jordan doesn’t take the loss well as he thinks David the Chicken sabotaged his chances and says, “people who go against me usually end up hurt.”

BRB, calling the cops.

Chris earns the coveted solo date this week, and they head to Capitol Records where they find Richard Marx casually playing the piano.

The confidence and ease with which Chris just names Richard Marx as the one playing in the voiceover pretty much guarantees that he has absolutely no idea who Richard Marx is and a producer fed it to him. They get the homework of writing a love song... which sounds just terrible. Chris, who is dressed like a New Kid on the Block during a reunion tour, shares a sad story about his estrangement with his father.

Despite not wanting to open up, he puts together enough song lyrics to lead to this reaction from Richard Marx:

Over dinner the duo killed time talking about sad stuff until Becca gave him the rose and they were forced to awkwardly dance in front of Richard Marx playing the piano.

The solo concerts are the second-most awkward moments on The Bachelor/ette, second only to when they make the couples dance on a raised platform surrounded by hundreds of strangers with cell phones who inexplicably want to record the dancing.

Right Here Waiting for You is a banger though. She should have left with Richard Marx, to be honest.

While Becca and Chris are slow-dance-making-out for Richard Marx (who deserves better), we head back to the house to find David the Chicken being taken out of the Forever Love Mansion on a stretcher and in a neck brace.

Lincoln’s added voiceover doesn’t provide any background on what happened, but he explains that there was a lot of blood and hopes that David the Chicken will survive.

As he says “there was a lot of blood,” ABC gives us this:

That’s a fair amount of blood. However, is that the instruction manual for the next brace? How are they packaged? Why is it on the floor in a pool of David’s blood? Did the paramedics need that? Should I be worried about these paramedics?

Chris Harrison arrives at Becca’s hotel to let her know that David is now in intensive care (!!!) because of the injuries sustained to his face when he...

FELL OUT OF BED.

Becca calls him and he shares that he’s just used to sleeping in a king size bed. Ok, humble brag. Also, WHAT? Can you imagine falling out of a bunk bed onto your face? Couldn’t be me.

WE’RE PLAYING FOOTBALL, Y’ALL. This group date features Clay — a professional football player — and Christon, Lincoln, Garrett, SPORTS ANALYST MIKE, Leo, John, Connor, Ryan, and Blake as fodder for Clay’s skills.

They run through a variety of drills overseen by Malissa Miles and Dina Karwoski of the Legends Football League. These drills are basically just the guys not named Clay looking silly as Clay dominates them. Then, the guys are separated into two teams: Clay, SPORTS ANALYST MIKE, Venmo John, Blake, and Lincoln vs. and Leo, Garrett, Christon, Connor, and Ryan to play a full on tackle football game.

What could go wrong?

The guys compete in front of a raucous crowd of extras in the first ever Becca Bowl, where Chris Harrison and Keyshawn Johnson are on hand as our trusty commentators.

It takes one play for Clay to find SPORTS ANALYST MIKE for the best touchdown in reality show history. He doesn’t just analyze the sport, friends. Check this out:

Honestly, this game was better than 50 percent of the NFL matchups last season. Garrett’s squad took a 21-7 lead late in the game but an interception-turned-pitch for a touchdown by Clay/SPORTS ANALYST MIKE made it a one-score game. Clay took things upon himself and refused to pass the ball to his dead-weight teammates on the final play, breaking several tackles (and potentially his wrist) on the way to the end zone for the game-tying score.

David is still in the hospital recovering from his fall, so we’re down a guy for the festivities. Clay reveals that his wrist injury requires surgery, and he is debating leaving the show to take care of himself, physically.

I’ve watched a lot of these shows and Clay legitimately seems to be one of the most honest, genuine people. Not too get sappy over a dumb reality show, but Clay’s battle with being healthy for his job vs the potential at love is one of the more real things this show has tackled (lol sorry I had to). He truly seems too good for all of this.

He takes care of his family with that NFL paycheck, so he has to take care of himself so he can provide for them, but he dreads the regret that could come with leaving love behind. Normally, I’d be rolling my eyes at this, but he is so sweet and real so instead I’m just crying. Don’t mind me.

We don’t even get a rose ceremony, because what’s the point my heart is broken.