-Group date time again and if Michelle is involved, you knew at some point we were playing basketball. Michelle is a former D1 player at Bradley, and as we found out last night, she was runner up to Miss Minnesota for best player in the state in 2011. Well whaddya’ know, you know who won Mr Basketball in 2011 in Minnesota? That would be Joe Coleman ladies and gentleman. Went on to play at University of Minnesota and St. Mary’s University. So pretty much you knew what producers were doing here. This date was strictly done so that A) Joe and Michelle’s connection through basketball would be established and B) No matter what happened in the game, Joe would no doubt get the MVP and get extra time with Michelle, even if his team lost – which is exactly what happened. In case you haven’t figured out by now how this all works, before this date even started, Joe was getting the group date rose. That’s why he was on this group date – to get the rose.
-We see them practicing against each other before the game, and Joe is basically smokin’ fools. We see him schooling Nayte, Martin, and Spencer in 1-on-1 games. Then Michelle tries to guard him, her defensive stance is a little out over her front feet and if Joe crossed her over, she might trip over her own feet. Then Michelle gets it and Joe, I guess being the gentleman (?) gave her about 5 feet of space behind the 3 pt. line so she could drain one in his eye hole. Might wanna get up in her a little more Joe. Body her up. Force her left or right. Watch the high screen. Fight over the top of it and don’t give her space. Ummmmm, he didn’t listen. The “I’ll stand 5 feet off you and let you rain 3’s on me” defense versus a former state runner up player is probably not the greatest strategy in the world. Call me crazy.
-In the game, it was the Red Team (Chris S., Clayton, Mollique, Joe, and Pardeep) vs the Blue Team (Rodney, Nayte, Chris G., Martin, and Spencer). The Blue Team won but, surprise surprise, Joe still won MVP and got to join the Blue Team in the post date after party while the rest of the Red Team went back to the hotel. Joe is the first person we get to see with Michelle and he tells her about finding out an old coach of his he found out earlier in the day had died. They end up kissing and Michelle gives us the proverbial “I can see him being my teammate” line. Between Jamie’s rock comment and Michelle’s teammate line, I feel like we’re sticking right to the script this season of cheesy, overproduced lines. Par for the course. Good job everyone. That’s a wrap. Take a quick break for lunch and meet back here in 30. Ready, break!
-Of course they were gonna show Michelle’s time with Nayte since, well, you know. He tells her he’s happy he’s there, she’s happy too and they make out. Like, a lot, a lot. He even takes her to a separate part of the hotel to get a make out session in that seems to last forever. Maybe I’m just overly observant, but I gotta tell ya’, I think Michelle likes Nayte. I know, I know. Quite a reach. But she seems into him. I guess we’ll see how that pans out. Anyway, with that much making out, Nayte is pretty confident he’s gonna get the group date rose. However Nayte shows his naivete about this show and it’s inner workings and doesn’t realize he never stood a chance at that group date rose. I think the only person in the history of this show to get the first impression rose then get the rose on their first group date was Olivia Caridi. And Nikki Ferrell was the only person to get back to back group date roses if I remember correctly as well. So Nayte, while the first episode pretty much gave away the season spoiler, they couldn’t then come back and have her give you ANOTHER rose right away. People might’ve never tuned in again until the finale. They needed to leave at least some suspense.
-Rodney had an apple tasting contest as Michelle blindfolded him, laid out a bunch of different types of apples (you know, the ones I just found out about last week), and had Rodney taste and guess them. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that this segment was done with some heavy editing. Like, we’d see Rodney take a bite of a green apple, but he’d guess it was one of the red ones and vice versa. Although after he took the bite, we never actually saw him guess with the apple he just bit still in his hand, so those guesses could’ve easily been edited out of order. Who knows? Maybe he didn’t know which apple was which. But because I’m such a skeptic when it comes to the editing of this show, and seeing how easily that could’ve been done just to make it seem like Rodney didn’t know his apples, it’s not far fetched. Everything about Rodney’s edit is apples. Apples, apples, apples. I’m a nectarine kinda guy. Sorry.
-However, the biggest drama of the night was the fact that Jamie started questioning whether or not Michelle and Joe knew each other pre-show. Not only that, he tells this random story that he heard from a friend in Minnesota who told him he saw Michelle out in bars pre-filming with a “Light skinned baller” that she was already “boo’d up with.” So Jamie confronts Michelle about this, but made it seem like the whole house was questioning it when we saw it was only Jamie. Mollique even called Jamie out on it saying he isn’t concerning himself with it. Jamie tells Michelle and she’s blown away. Denies it’s true and needs to excuse herself. Here’s the thing: how many guys pre-season were dating/hooking up with someone? Based on the emails I’ve received since the day the cast was announced – plenty. As is the case every season. So even if Michelle WAS hanging out/hooking up with a dude in the 4 months before she knew was Bachelorette and was leaving for filming, despite claiming to the contrary, how is that any different than these dudes?
-A tweet making the rounds today about who this guy could be is this one:
This the “light skin baller” in question? ?#Bachelorette #BacheloretteABC pic.twitter.com/EXF6KMH3JE
— Layla Oskooi (@Loskooi) October 27, 2021
I remember before Michelle’s season started filming, she threw out the first pitch at I believe a St. Paul Saints game, or maybe some other minor league team, and people that were there were saying she was “with a guy, but seemed like her friend.” Well this was that guy. So before everyone overreacts and loses their shit about this, his name is Jordan Alberino and from everything I’ve been told, he’s been her friend for a while. I’ve never brought him up because I was told he wasn’t anything more than just a friend of hers. He puts her on his IG page in a few pictures and doesn’t look like like anything more than that:
-Honestly, this seemed like a mountain made out of a molehill. Every episode of every season HAS to have some sort of drama on a group date after party or cocktail party. It’s never NOT happened. This seemed like someone got in Jamie’s ear, told him to confront Michelle about it, and we saw the end result. I’d be pissed if I were her too for the reasons above. Even if it was true, she’s allowed to date/hook up with anyone she wanted to pre-show since we know a lot of her guys were. And the fact it wasn’t true, yet she was accused of it, of course she’d be pissed. As long as she wasn’t in a committed, exclusive, monogamous relationship as the Bachelorette, none of that should matter. But of course they needed their drama for the night, and there it was. Michelle returns after taking a moment to gather herself, tells the guys she heard they were questioning any pre-show relationship with Joe and rumors of her dating a “light skinned baller.” Asked them to speak up if they had any questions, and no one said a word. This reminded me of the Hannah Brown cocktail party with Luke P/Luke S. Didn’t Luke P blame the whole group for something when it was HIM the one that was questioning it, or did I remember that wrong? Anyway, the guys say nothing and Michelle leaves and cancels the cocktail party.
-Rose ceremony time. Brandon, Jamie, and Joe are safe with roses. Michelle: “Tonight didn’t end how I’d hoped…going to continue to keep walls down and stay vulnerable…even though I want to put them back up…accepting a rose means you’re accepting to trust me…and by the way, I can beat Joe in a game of H-O-R-S-E any day.”
Nayte, Rodney, Martin, Rick, Leroy, Spencer, Casey, Chris G., Mollique, Olu, Chris S., Will, Romeo, LT, and Clayton get roses.
Kaitlyn: “Michelle, gentleman, it’s the final rose tonight. When you’re ready.” Ahhhh yes, we’re back on track. No whispering, no re-arranging the words – it’s like the spirit of Chris Harrison never left the show.
Peter get the last rose of the night and celebrates with his stromboli.
If you’re keeping score at home, Pardeep, Daniel, PJ, and Alec were the guys sent home. Again, 4 guys that barely got any airtime, so I’m sure you won’t be missing them. Onto another week in Palm Springs. Actually, two more episodes in Palm Springs before filming moves to Minnesota.
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