‘The Golden Bachelorette’ Episode 2 Recap: A Parade of Quirks

Last night’s episode of The Golden Bachelorette is what I like to call a “quirk episode.” It comes early on in each season of every dating show: We’ve met these venerable contestants and now get the distinct pleasure of learning why a casting director plucked them from obscurity to entertain us every Wednesday evening at 8 p.m. EST.

Once again, production has chosen to host contestants of knee and hip replacement age in bunk beds. The episode kicks off with them discussing how often they get up to pee in the middle of the night; their sleep apnea; and, for Pascal, his proclivity to sleep in the nude. (Pascal, despite his Parisian charm, seems to be clothing challenged in general. He offers to pay Gregg $100 to do his laundry for him, as he does not know how. Le’horreur!)

More quirks presented themselves on the first group date which was…prom! While the men had fun breaking free from their uniform of suburban dad polos and dressing up in suit jackets made from highly flammable material from the 1980’s, we learned that Gary is Tina Turner’s godson, and that Bob has a gay daughter; he described Thanksgiving at his house as “Dr. Bob and 27 lesbians.” (Hello, ABC! Get this reality show in production!) Jonathan opened up to Joan about never going to prom because his date bailed on him in high school—a Catholic school where he was the only person of color. Joan names him Prom King in an act of radical healing for that reason, and perhaps because he chose to not wear a shirt under his pink tuxedo jacket. 

My man Chock got to go on a solo date with Joan to Disneyland where the two of them swapped controversial opinions such as “Florida being a fun state.” We’re getting a clearer sense of Joan’s type: a tall, apolitical man who looks like he can discuss mortgage rates for an extended period of time. Chock and Joan dined, as Joan often does, by candlelight, with a side of recapping the horrific grief of losing your spouse. Joan has really perfected her empathy face and I commend her for that. 

The second group date was a talent show—a parade of quirks, if you will. Gregg, along with being good at laundry, does some standup. Charles K. punches through a wooden board. Jack plays with sock puppets, although his true talent and joy we learn throughout this ep is doing cannonballs in the pool. (For fans of I Think You Should Leave, there’s at least one contestant within our ranks who said, “I think Jack is only here for the cannonballs.”) And Dan overcomes his slight tremor to perform a ribbon dance and win the entire show. 

But the ultimate uh, “quirk” did not happen on screen—nor was it really a personality quirk at all. This week it was revealed that Gil, the 60-year-old educator from Mission Viejo, California, had a temporary restraining order filed against him this summer by a former partner. According to People, the woman wrote in the filing that “despite telling him to not contact me, come to my house — he made repeated unwanted contact with me, family members and friends.” Production, according to a source, has “further edited his already limited screen time and minimized him in promotional assets moving forward.” Not to be too flippant, but hopefully that won’t be hard; I couldn’t even remember who Gil was when I first saw the news. (If you’re wondering how this keeps happening, a production source told People that “this filing occurred in the brief period between completion of our thorough background investigation and exhaustive vetting process, and the beginning of production.” Convenient…)

Despite that bit of news dropping this week, Gil did receive a rose—this episode was obviously filmed and edited before this knowledge was made public. Christopher, Michael, Bob, and Jack were all sent home, and we wish them all the best. But specifically, we hope Jack gets to live out the remainder of his days near a swimming pool so he can cannonball to his heart’s content.