The Bachelorette airs on ABC this evening with an all-new Tuesday, October 26, 2021, episode, and we have your weekly The Bachelorette recap below. In tonight’s season 18 episode 2 as per the ABC synopsis, “It’s the conclusion of Katie Thurston’s turbulent journey on “Michelle steps into the next phase of her journey with the 23 remaining men for a whirlwind week of firsts. On the season’s first group date, the guys get schooled by a trio of talented fifth graders.
When a pop quiz turns into a test of temperament, Michelle makes it clear she’s not here for class clowns. Afterward, one lucky man gets the first one-on-one and takes his relationship with Michelle to new heights where they enjoy a surprise musical performance by Caroline Jones.”
We will be liveblogging tonight’s episode of The Bachelorette and you just know there are going to be tons of drama, catfights, and tears. So come back tonight at 8 PM for our live two-hour The Bachelorette recap of tonight’s episode. While you wait for the recap, hit the comments and let us know how excited you are for this season of The Bachelorette?
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Tonight’s episode begins with the day after the first rose ceremony. Michelle thinks he made the decision to keep the ones that she did. Rodney’s heart is still racing, Rick says Michelle is special, one of a kind The men crack open a bottle of champagne and toast Michelle. The first date card is for Brandon, Romeo, Rick, TJ, Will and Casey, Olumide, Daniel, LT, Peter, “today’s lesson is love.” Michelle meets with the men and tells them that they are going to have a tough day with three of her friends. They go into a room and it looks like it is a classroom. W young boy tells the men to sit down, class is in session. The fifth graders ask various questions that the men have to answer, then it is on to science and musical chairs. Peter is getting on some of the men’s nerves, he just wants to be in the spotlight. There are no losers, they all get participation certificates.
That night the group has a get-together on the beach, Michelle tells them that she had fun and she appreciates them going with the flow. The stakes are high, this is the first group date. Brandon is the first to pull her to the side, they laugh over his spelling earlier in the day. She tells him that he is staring deep into her soul. He says he wants to remember her face and have a dream about her. She asks him if he Googled getting girls 101. They laugh and he kisses her, she says he is not a good speller, but sparks were flying with her.
Back at the hotel, another date card arrives and this one is for Jamie, “I am looking for someone to be my rock.” Jamie says he has a wild life, he travels to third-world counties at a moment’s notice and it’s not for everyone. Chris S. thinks he is ungrateful for his one on one date.
Rick is sitting with Michelle and there is so much chemistry between the two. She tells him that he smiles with his eyes and she likes it.
Casey is another one that doesn’t like Peter. Michelle walks up and asks him to talk, she says she heard a ton of yelling earlier on and she thought he was aggressive. Peter was actually telling off Will who wrote down on a card during the game they played with the fifth graders that Peter was a narcissist.
Michelle returns to the men and tells them she had a wonderful evening and she only has one rose, she gives it to Brandon and he thinks she saw his authenticity.
The next day, going into the one-on-one date makes it or break it for Jamie. Michelle picks him up in a hot pink spandex outfit and a jeep. They have a wonderful date together and wind it down with dinner, and he tells her that the lesson learned this day was that every day can be an adventure. She says her parents still hang out together and they are married 33 years. She knows how rare it is, and is glad she had such a good example. He says he was different, his mom was 18 when she had him, she never got married to his dad. He was a kid a shined in all his classes, his mom had a lot of issues with mental health, and things started spiraling down. In the end, they moved into his grandmother’s house. In his early teens, he found his mom trying to slit her wrists and that changed everything. His mother could not stay home alone, he had to miss so many days at school to care for her because he had to stay with her and he didn’t have enough to graduate. When he was twenty-four his mother committed suicide and that imploded his whole life, it took a while to find anything that mattered. He actively decided that life is worth it, people are worth it, relationships are worth it. She is in tears and tells him that she is proud of what he went through and how he came out. She is beyond impressed. He says if he is going to love the man that he is, he has to love where he came from. She says she is normally not a crier. She picks up the rose and tells him that she loved every second of her day with him, she gives him the rose and they seal it with a kiss. Michelle says this has been one of the best first dates that she has ever been on. They proceed into another area and listen to Caroline Jones singing a personal concert for them. They dance alone and enjoy the music.
The next day, Joe gets a call from his mom that his old basketball coach passed away, he was like a teacher in life, a teacher in basketball. Today the date card says “all is fair in love and basketball” and Michelle thinks it is the perfect date for her, basketball is a huge part of her. Today is another group date and she is kind of curious to see how the men are going to do, you can learn a lot on the basketball court. Two professional basketball players join them, Dearica Hamby and Diamond DeShields. Time to get warmed up and go. Next, they do one on one. Michelle doesn’t know if the other men know about Joe, in 2011 he was named Mr. Minnesota Basketball and that is a huge deal, he was pretty much the best player in the state. Joe goes one on one with Michelle, he looks in his element and like he is at home. She thinks that basketball is a huge level of comfort for her in Joe. Now it is time to do a five on five, the winners will spend time with Michelle at an after-party. Joe is on the red team and they are doing terrible, Michelle tries to give them some inspiration, Joe goes and scores. The newscaster says that Pardeep couldn’t hit water if he fell out of a boat. The red team catches up, it’s a close one and both teams are giving it all they have. The blue team won and they will spend time with Michelle. Spencer, Martin, Nayte, Rodney, and Chris G make up the blue team.
An MVP of the day is announced, it is Joe and he gets to also spend that extra time with Michelle.
Time for the cocktail party, the blue team couldn’t be happier, and Joe as well. She decides to first spend time with Joe and he tells her about his coach’s passing and he is grateful to have been on the court today, it made him be stronger. He tells her all about how important he was in her life and it’s hard to digest.
Michelle love her talk with Joe, they both feel a connection. She says she has never had chemistry with anyone, it was off the charts. The two go and play more basketball, she does it in a gorgeous long red gown and Joe can see himself falling for her.
The red team returns to the room, Chris S. says Joe got an MVP from the game and he got to spend more time with Michelle as well. The men all talk about how they are worried about Michelle making connections and Brandon is not worried, he has a connection with Michelle and that is all that he is thinking about.
Michelle returns to sit with the men and she thanks them, saying she is grateful and lucky to be with them. She picks up the group date rose and says tonight this person pushed themselves to open up, she gives the rose to Joe.
Tonight is the second cocktail party. Brandon got the first rose, Brandon got the one-on-one rose and Joe got the rose during the group date. Michelle has a gorgeous pink shimmering gown on and she enters the room to join the men. She says she is all smiles and she is realizing the feelings that she is already having. She has a lot of wonderful guys there and she wants to give them all time tonight. She sits with Rodney and does a taste test with him and he can’t recognize which apples are which. She kisses him while he is blindfolded and he says that was by far the best kiss.
The men are standing around Jamie think that Michelle knows Joe already and he is bothered by it. Mollique doesn’t care and wishes Jamie wouldn’t make assumptions. Jamie tells Martin that before coming on the show a friend of his told him that Michelle was with Joe. Jamie says he wasn’t thinking of it, but everyone is talking about Joe. Jamie has to say something to Michelle, it is important for him for her to be honest and if she is lying, he couldn’t call her his partner.
Jamie sits down with Michelle and tells her that there has been a whole lot of talk today about her knowing Joe before. Personally he doesn’t care, whatever happened before doesn’t have anything to do with him, but everyone else is bothered by it and they are questioning that. She asks if they are questioning her like she is disrespectful, he says yes. He tells her about his friend that ran into a bar, and his friends told him that she was dating a light-skinned guy. She says she needs a minute to figure out how she is going to address that.
Michelle is blindsided by the information that Jamie gave her. She is struggling with she doesn’t know who is there for her and who is not. Jamie thinks she took it well, little does he know that she didn’t. Right now she is wondering if she made the right decision to be there.
Michelle approaches the men, she tells them that the first night when they all walked in was the first night that she met Joe. They did message each other two years ago and after two messages, he ghosted her and that was that. Also, she addressed the rumor about the light-skinned basketball player she was supposed to be with, she says she wasn’t dating anyone. She says she is not joking, and she is shocked that the room is quiet. She excuses herself. A lot of the men are lost, they didn’t know some of the men were thinking she knew Joe personally. They think someone blew this out of proportion, said it was the whole house that thought this. Jamie is the one, but he is not going to say it. Clearly it’s not the house, it is one insecure guy. Rick thinks the person was trying to stir the pot.
Michelle is very emotional, she feels like her character was in question. She has decided to cancel the cocktail party, she will see them at the rose ceremony.
Time for the roses to be given out, the final rose is given to Peter. Pardeep heads home with three other men that were not on Michelle’s radar. The question in all the men’s minds is who spoke to Michelle.
THE END