The Bachelorette Season 20, Episode 2: How the villains are going to save the franchise

The Bachelorette Season 20 is already in full swing, and the men are settling in after making it past night one. All previews indicate that Charity’s season will be filled with drama, chaos, and sexiness. The perfect recipe for a fantastic season.

In just two episodes, Charity has proven that she is willing to play ball and let the producers manipulate the show a bit for ratings—even if it might infringe on her quest for love.

Her roses were given to suitors that insinuated they enjoyed being kicked in the balls to walking red flags sporting their grandmother’s earrings. While you may have questioned her decision-making, you were likely still motivated to tune into this week’s episode to watch the chaos unfold.

Be sure to let us know your thoughts on The Bachelorette Season 20, Episode 2, in the comments!

Who is going to save The Bachelorette Season 20?

After Zach Shallcross sucked the life out of this show during his season of The Bachelor, the Gods of reality television flew down and gifted us with Brayden.

In the first episode of The Bachelorette Season 20, Charity dismissed any advice given to her by her brother Nehemiah—after he creepily spied on the suitors from behind a bar and listened to them talk about kissing his sister all night—and wound up giving her first impression rose to Brayden, despite the intel of his cocky nature and bragging about their makeout session.

Unlike Zach’s season of The Bachelor, villains seem to be back. Zach’s ability to sniff out toxic suitors on the show for the wrong reasons enabled him to find the woman of his dreams but also threatened the very reason why we love this show—the drama!

How is The Bachelorette going to be saved?

But have no fear because the producers are back in the driver’s seat and showing their teeth. Sure, disguising Charity’s brother as the bartender was a bold decision, but it was nothing like what they did in episode 2. On her second group date, Charity hosted a matchmaker-like contest in front of a large crowd in downtown Los Angeles. Out of the six suitors invited, she would handpick the winner and award them the longest kiss in the show’s history (a whopping 4 minutes and 25 seconds). And here’s the kicker: it would be done on a stage where the losing contestants would have to stand around and watch.

Three of the five losers would be sent home as if that entire experience wasn’t embarrassing enough.

After the losing contestants had to sit through Charity’s record-breaking tongue swap, they returned home to tell the rest of the guy’s what they had to endure. While it infused some jealousy amongst the majority of the house, it was enough to emotionally rile up Brayden, who called Charity’s actions “classless” and even threatened to leave the house.

Indeed, he would have been sent home after publicly bashing the woman whose love he is vying for, igniting a feud amongst other suitors, and openly lying to her about the whole thing. Wrong. The producers somehow convinced Charity to keep this spark plug around for another week (and if the previews are accurate, she even takes him on a ‘prove me’ one-on-one next week).

Why are reality television villains a good thing?

It’s no secret that villains get to stay on the show longer simply because they are suitable for television. We just had the producers and the show host commit one of the most humiliating acts I have seen on reality television in quite some time. Yet, the man portrayed as the “villain” was the only person to step up and say he had a problem with any of it.

After hearing that the men involved in the group date stood around and allowed this to happen, Brayden voiced his opinion to the rest of the house and said they should have stood up for themselves after being disrespected.

One suitor, in particular, took issue with Brayden’s opinion and decided that he needed to let Charity know what was being said about her. Adrian—who I’ve likened to Randall Weems from Recess after his excess of tattletale in this episode—had already told Charity that he felt too many men in the house were treating this show like Spring Break.

Which reminded me of a specific sketch in particular.

If you thought this drama would be too much for our leading lady, think again. She ended up keeping both men.

The beauty of television, baby!

Are you enjoying the drama so far in this season of The Bachelorette? Let us know in the on comments below!