Taste of Tayshia, Clare Crawls Into Dale’s Arms

Well, it finally happened as Clare Crawley official “broke ‘The Bachelorette'” and wrapped up her journey to find love on the ABC reality show. She did it with 17 guys remaining in the show and a lot of story left to go.

So what happens next? As teased and speculated for weeks before the show even launched, former “Bachelor” contestant Tayshia Adams emerged from that black limo to step in to Clare’s shoes.

But just like Clare’s journey toward love was cut short, so, too, is Tayshia dealing with a shortened time-frame, as she’s looking to pick up where Clare left off and just round out the rest of her season.

On top of that, she’s picking up Clare’s leftovers when it comes to the guys remaining in the house. Is that fair to her? Is it fair to them, after at least some of them had started catching feels for Clare.

For many others, they caught all her questions and comments about Dale. And after last week’s disastrous group date where she interrogated them about roasting Dale earlier in the day and then proceeded to give none of them the group date rose, it seemed certain he was all that was on her mind.

Chris Harrison and the producers watched it all unfold, they saw the growing unrest among the 16 suitors who weren’t named Dale Moss and they knew they had a huge problem. The men were about to mutiny, and we’re not sure Clare would have even noticed if she walked into the room and they were all gone.

And so, we got that infamous conversation where Chris told her she’d just blown up “The Bachelorette” and Clare cried. But it wasn’t nearly as aggressive as many were anticipating.

The point of the show was for Chris and the producers to help Clare find live, and they could have probably called it a wrap after Night 1. So in a lot of ways, the show succeeded, as she had clearly falling hard and fast for Dale.

Is that fair to the other guys? Absolutely not. Is the way she disrespected them during that group date acceptable? Again, absolutely not. But if she has found her “person,” is it fair to have her continue on this journey, even if she agreed to it.

Well, even if it were, it probably wouldn’t make for very good television. And certainly all of this drama was making for exciting and unpredictable twists and turns as these poor guys continued to get zero time with Clare and had to watch Dale monopolize the whole show.

But as much as Chris Harrison and team were clearly in Clare’s corner on this one, they’ve also had absolutely no problem stringing these guys along and leaving them dangling on the edge of said string wondering what the hell was going on.

It all came to a head after that disastrous group date where no one got a rose. The next day had lined up a cocktail party and a rose ceremony. But when Chris surprised the guys earlier in that day, all he told them was that both of those things were canceled.

He then told them he’d talk to them again the next day and then called Dale out for a private conversation. What the guys didn’t know was that everything was canceled so Clare could get a private on-on-one overnight date with Dale to see if he felt as hard for her as she felt for him.

That’s great and all, for Dale and Clare. For the guys back at the “mansion,” though, it was absolute confusion. Already, they felt they’d been jerked around by Clare and this process, and now they were left to just stew in their uncertainty and emotion.

It’s no wonder we’re already worried about what happens next week. These guys have been marinating in some pretty hard emotional feelings for several days now, and then they were just expected to pack all that away and move on (though they were given an out option if they wanted it).

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

As the guys floundered and guys like Blake and Chasen kept not believing that the things that were happening would ever happen in a million years, the courtship of Dale and Clare was moving at breakneck speed.

Never before have we had engagement talk with 16 guys still left in the competition, but that’s where we were at. We cut between the guys talking at the pool, trying to figure out what was going on, to Chris talking with Dale and Clare about what comes next.

Finally, Clare showed up to break the news to all 16 guys at once that it was over. She’d made her choice and that choice was Dale. It did get a little emotional as Kenny (who should narrate every episode!) basically demanded an apology on behalf of every guy there.

“Can you tell me what I’m apologizing for, though. Because I’m sitting here, like– I’m not going to apologize for love,” she said.

“You don’t have to apologize for falling in love. That’s not what we’re asking. I just feel like a lot of time has been wasted,” Kenny replied.

“The conversation we had, I could feel like your head wasn’t there,” he continued. “Like, I’m talking to you, but it’s like I don’t think you really cared. I can tell when somebody’s, like, not into it. I said that to the group, so you should apologize for faking it when you were in love with Dale after the first night, because that’s kind of what it looks like.”

Honestly, the producers were working very hard to make this look like it might not happen, but based on everything leading up to it, and even Dale’s terrible attempts at acting with his face, there was no doubt that their story would end the way it did.

With every guy but one eliminated, all that was left was the proposal. Clare was ready for it, but was Dale? Her nerves were jumping through her dress as this was the point in her relationships (or sooner) where they always ran away. She opened up and they opened the door to leave.

Dale didn’t do that. As she’s so fond of saying is so important to her, he showed up. And he came through.

“The best is yet to come,” he told her after they poured their feelings out. “I’m not going anywhere. I want to make you happy each and every day.”

He then proposed, she accepted and the story was over, right?

Oh yeah, there’s still 16 guys hanging around the resort. How long has this journey been at this point? Like five minutes?

Understandably, and because they still had a full show to somehow put together, Chris told the guys that if they were down to continue their journey to find love, they had until that night to figure it out.

Now, the show doesn’t go into the logistics of this. If they knew Clare was starting to flake out on them, we get bringing in a new Bachelorette. But it doesn’t seem like there was a two-week window in show time for her to have quarantined long enough to enter the bubble.

So did they start sweating this journey early? Or did some clever editing, and lying, cover up a longer hiatus between the end of Clare’s journey and the arrival of Tayshia Adams as the new Bachelorette “tonight”?

Chris gave the guys the day to decide if they were able to move on with a new Bachelorette, or if they felt any feelings they might have begun developing for Clare might get in the way of them fully committing to that next step.

Despite everything — including Jason really opening up and being vulnerable with Clare — everyone opted to stay. We’re not sure if that’s a good thing.

Because this is the “Bachelor” franchise we’re talking about, we didn’t get to see Tayshia’s first meeting with the guys. So all we have to go on is the teaser for next week’s episode.

In it, we can immediately see that some guys are hung up on Clare, talking about her to Tayshia the way Clare was talking about Dale during their one-on-one time. That’s certainly not fair to Tayshia.

We also see that maybe some of the guys just aren’t into her as The Bachelorette, for whatever reason. That happens, too. But there are only 16 guys left, so if a bunch of them bail right away, Tayshia’s really getting a short-changed experience.

In that same teaser, though, Chris talks about things changing again. Could this be a shuffling of the guys again? Perhaps some of the ejected guys returning, or even entirely new ones. Maybe some of the ones originally cast for Clare’s season who got booted before its delayed start.

There are a lot of possibilities, but it definitely looks like Tayshia is going to be facing some unique challenges in her own journey toward love.

From emotionally-wrought contestants to a smaller pool of choices to a shortened time frame to the possibility of new guys sliding in, her journey is poised to be just as unorthodox as Clare’s.

Whatever’s going to happen, “The Bachelorette” returns to its normal Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC time slot next week.

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