Spoilers ahead for the second episode of Clare Crawley's season of The Bachelorette on ABC.
Only two episodes of Clare Crawley's season of The Bachelorette have aired so far, but the drama is so intense that it feels like Clare has spent much more time with her batch of men than she has. The guys were split up for some group dates in the second episode, and it's the game of dodgeball that has me wondering if The Bachelorette has already gone too far. Why? Because it was strip dodgeball, with real dodgeballs!
Ten men were split up into two teams of red and blue, and it was all set to be a traditional game of dodgeball before Clare (who has a weird regret from her season) announced that she was upping the ante and turning it into a strip game. More than one of the guys were visibly unhappy abut the situation, and the losing team wound up in nothing but jockstraps at most.
The losers had to go back to hang out with all the other guys without getting their clothes back, and rule-breaker Blake Moynes was upset enough that he went rogue and pulled Clare away from the winners for a chat. Later, Yosef Aborady said that the strip dodgeball game was "classless" and he never would have done it.
Admittedly, Yosef is seemingly being set up as the villain of Clare's brief time as leading lady of The Bachelorette, so viewers are probably expected to side with Clare over him. Still, I can't blame him or any of the other guys for being uncomfortable with the strip dodgeball, because I can't help but imagine a scenario of The Bachelor and Bachelorette being switched and ten women were asked to play strip dodgeball.
I can't picture Bachelor Nation actually asking or expecting the women to do it, so it strikes me as a step too far to ask the guys to do it. Sure, the ladies of Peter Weber's season of The Bachelor had to wear nightgowns -- some skimpier than others -- for some extreme pillow fighting, but the five guys who lost the game of dodgeball had to be blurred from the waist down for extended periods of the episode.
And as somebody whose gym teachers didn't allow those real rubber balls for games of dodgeball in school because of how hard they are, I have to believe that a rough game of dodgeball with barely any clothes on was painful! The guys weren't just gently tossing the hard rubber balls at each other, and I'm guessing that some of them were black and blue by the next morning.
With strip dodgeball happening in the same episode that saw Clare focusing her efforts on Dale Moss (and the other guys definitely noticing), Clare getting upset with the guys for not immediately trying to pull her aside to woo her, and everything happening at a furious pace, I'm just not as big of a fan of Clare as Bachelorette leading lady as I wish I was.
None of this is to say that I won't be 100% Team Claire when one of her guys (who seems to be Yosef at this point) makes a crude crack about her age before the switcheroo sees Tayshia Adams take over the search for love, but the strip dodgeball just rubbed me the wrong way. I'd hate to see The Bachelor put the women in that position, so I can't love to see The Bachelorette do it to the men, especially when it had to hurt.
Did The Bachelorette go too far with the game of strip dodgeball? Vote in the poll below and let us know! New episodes of The Bachelorette air Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC. For some more viewing options now and in the coming weeks, check out our 2020 fall TV premiere schedule!
This poll is no longer available.
