‘The Bachelor’ episode 3 recap: Vanessa goes to space, Corinne eats whipped cream, The Backstreet Boys show up

Welcome to Week 3 of The Bachelor. We are recapping the show because The Bachelor is sports. Here is last week’s recap.

Hello Sports Bachelor Nation! I have some other good news (or terrible news, depending on your point of view): Tomorrow at noon I will be presenting Episode 2 of our Vox Media Facebook Live Bachelor recap show, First Impressions, with Liz Plank of Vox and Rebecca Jennings of Racked. You can watch our first episode here (it was dope, but I am not a reliable source on the matter, given that I was in it).

As such, I am once again in NYC, as opposed to Washington D.C., where I live. I found one of my best friends, Kendra, wandering the streets of Manhattan, so I was like “Hey, wanna come watch The Bachelor with me in this hotel room?” And she was like, “Um, no, you didn’t find me wandering the streets of Manhattan, you called me and told me to come here.”

So she’s going to be providing some color commentary. We are currently trying to turn the TV on, but we are accidentally stuck on the Adult On Demand section. Kendra just almost accidentally ordered Mom and Dad Bang the Babysitter, which is a part of the “Erection Year 2016 Package.”

LET’S GO!

COCKTAIL PARTY NUMERO UNO OUT OF UNO MILLION, PROBABLY

Tonight on Beard Hunk The Bachelor, Nick kicks it off with a cocktail party before the Rose Ceremony (TRADEMARK), because the producers made us wait until this episode to find out who got the ax last week.

Nick’s tie tonight looks like my grandmother’s wallpaper. And you know what his personality reminds me of so far? Toast that you burned and then tried to save by scraping off the burnt part.

As we’ve come to except, Corinne is a loose cannon. She takes her clothes off, puts on a trench coat — which means she brought a trench coat to the show, unless the producers are more maniacal than I can even imagine — and grabs a can of Reddi Whip. She takes Nick outside and tells him to open his mouth. Nick “Handsome Software Salesman” Viall does. Corinne shoots whipped cream at his face and makes out with him.

Kendra and I both go, “EWWWW!” at the same time. Then Corinne makes Nick lick whipped cream off her boobs and I go, “WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN?!”

The other women are peering out of the window like whipped cream private investigators. They’re all like, “What is she doing with a can of whipped cream and a trench coat?” And I’m like, what do you think they’re doing — whippets? Getting high on aerosol fumes? And then I’m like, wait, actually, that would explain so much.

Corinne has a freakout when Nick starts talking to another woman so she goes upstairs, sobs, gets into bed, and starts snoring into her mic.

ROSE CEREMONY

Of course Corinne doesn’t show up to the rose ceremony. She doesn’t have to: She got the immunity rose last episode because Nick wants to have sex with her so badly. Nick’s like, “This could cost her!” and I’m like, “Dude, we know you’re just thinking about her boobs and whippets, you’re not fooling anyone.”

I have to admit that, judging from the cast bios, I thought Hailey was going to make it far. She doesn’t. Nick sends her home like a kid who put one too many whoopee cushions under the teacher’s chair in elementary school.

“Nick is a trash buddy,” says Kendra, as she drops a million M&Ms on the floor. I’m too busy tweeting really important tweets to respond.

THE BEST DAY IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD

Before we go back to the show, there’s an ad for Reddi Whip. If that whole trench coat, whipped cream thing was product placement, I bow down to ABC.

Chris Harrison, bless his heart, is not wearing chambray this week, but he is wearing plaid.

AND THEN THE BACKSTREET BOYS SHOW UP!

This isn’t fair. This is like catnip for millennial women. I can’t stop giggling. I just keep saying, “I’m so jealous, I’m so jealous, I’m so jealous,” over and over. I'd let someone break up with me five times in a row for this.

The date is even better than the a capella number the Backstreet Boys sing to the Bachelor Girls in the mansion, because the date is this: The women and Nick get to dance back up for the Backstreet Boys in concert!

Given that Jasmine G. is a dancer for the Warriors, I am fairly certain she’s going to murder this date the way her team is currently murdering Cleveland. Corinne is already trying to make this about her. She’s embarrassed about the whipped cream and sucks at dancing.

“I’m about to embarrass myself in front of 500 people,” she says. This is an inaccurate statement: It’ll actually be 500 million people AND HER DAD, because this will be on national television.

The women get on stage wearing crop tops and chokers. (Are chokers cool? I can’t keep up.) Danielle is good at dancing. I try to do the dance on the hotel bed but I fall off and slam into the window, so I have even greater respect for these women than I did before.

Kendra unfortunately gets footage of my attempt.

Danielle “wins” and gets to slow dance with Nick while the Backstreet Boys sing a capella again. I’m crying. So is Corinne. Please arrange for the Backstreet Boys to sing a capella at my funeral when I die from the head wound I suffered from falling off the bed.

During the night portion of the date, Danielle and Nick make out a lot. He almost puts his hand up her dress, but he doesn’t. Corrine, who is 24 years old, starts feeling better and tells everyone she has a nanny named Raquel who slices cucumbers for her and, I’m guessing here, probably brushes her teeth for her, too.

Jasmine is like “WTF!?” and Corinne is like, “It makes her happy, and I’m not going to stop a woman’s happiness.”

ONE-ON-ONE DATE WITH VANESSA IN SPACE

Back at the house, the doorbell rings. Kendra thinks it’s N’SYNC showing up to be like WHAT UP LADIES, WHO NEEDS THE BACKSTREET BOYS WHEN YOU’VE GOT US?! But it isn’t. It’s a date card. It’s for Vanessa.

Vanessa is too good for this show. She’s also one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen.

Vanessa shows up in a black Escalade to the date, which is taking place at an airport. I would love (before I die of this head wound) to pull up to a date in a black Escalade. That would require two things, though: 1) going on dates, and 2) having access to a black Escalade, both of which I’m not, like, super sure will happen in the near future.

But you know who nails both arriving to this date and going on it? Vanessa. This woman goes to space with Nick in one of the planes that simulates zero gravity, where it shoots up into the sky and then comes down really fast so you float around.

Things are great — they make out in space, and Nick is like, “No one’s made out in space before,” and Kendra and I are both like, “There is no way that’s true.”

Vanessa pukes, obviously. Having been in a trick plane before when I experienced six times the Earth’s gravitational pull (not to brag or anything), I can tell you that this is a normal reaction. I did not puke, because, unlike Vanessa, I am strong and not weak, but I did feel sick for two weeks afterwards.

Nick kind of rises to the occasion for the first time all season. He holds Vanessa’s hair and even makes out with her after she pukes, which is gross, but she’s chewing gum now, so it’s less gross. He displays some semblance of a personality and I think he really likes her. As he should. She is a goddess.

They go on a night date to the tallest building in Los Angeles and all I can think is that this date would be a nightmare for someone scared of heights. Vanessa tells a story about her dead grandfather. Nick cries because he likes Vanessa. I actually kind of believe him? But I will say that if a guy cried on our first date because he liked me so much, I would probably throw up. Vanessa already threw up, though, so I guess she got it out of her system.

SPORTS DATE!

The final group date this week is a sports date. Because, as I’ve been saying since I first learned how to talk in the early 1990s, The Bachelor is sports. The contestants go to a track wearing cute workout wear, and I’m struck by how grungy my workout wear is. These women are wearing bras that look like something out of a bondage scene from the new 50 Shades of Grey movie and my old Nike sports bra from high school suddenly seems wildly inadequate. Good ol’ Brittany, however, makes me feel way better, because she’s wearing a Bill Belichick-style sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off.

Nick is running around the track, lookin’ all track-y. Apparently he ran track in high school and college and I’m like — no offense, track people — of course you did.

The famous track athletes Allyson Felix, Carl Lewis, and Michelle Carter show up and make the women do drills. Astrid’s robot bra is not supportive enough, so she’s like, “Welp, maybe my boobs will get me some alone time with Nick!” They do, inadvertently, when she picks up a larger-than-life engagement ring that Rachel drops and steps on. This is both a metaphor and the ticket to drinking champagne and making out in a hot tub one-on-one with Nick in their chic, sweaty workout clothes.

SPORTS DATE AT NIGHT

They go to this place called Big Daddy's Antiques, which is a cool, hip antique store that I have weirdly somehow been to before? It’s the kind of place where every cowhide chair costs more than a semester of college. I don’t recommend it unless you are the owner of a multi-million dollar business like Corinne.

Astrid is wearing a striped jumpsuit that is so ugly I’m about to call the cops. She looks great, but in the words of Kevin McCallister: “Buzz, your jumpsuit — woof.”

Alexis and Nick are making out on a huge tarp with an image of Nick’s shirtless torso on it (I understand nothing). Dominique is losing it. She feels like she hasn’t had enough time with Nick and that he just isn’t into her.

I honestly feel bad; these women go into a weird bubble when they’re on this show where they lose touch with reality and this actually becomes the most important thing in their lives. Because it’s the only thing in their lives. I joke about The Right Reasons and how no one is really there to find love, but at a certain point, I think they start to believe that they are?

Think about it: If the only thing you can fixate on is how you want this one guy to like you, that can mess with your head. In the real world, you can have several guys to focus on, or you can have your job, or you can have your friends, or you can have the box of Swedish Fish from Duane Reade that you can’t stop eating as a way to take your mind off that one guy.

These women don’t have that. They don’t even have their phones. I don’t even think they can read the news (which, come to think of it, might actually have kept you saner in 2016). They just live in a house like they’re in some weird cult, which becomes even clearer when Rachel (the stunning lawyer who will definitely be the next Bachelorette, as I’ve said before, and is too good for all of this shit) says to Nick, “Honestly, I’m just happy I got out of the house.”

Kendra and I look at each other in horror and then start singing The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt theme song, because that show is about a bunch of women trapped in a mole-hole by one dude.

I would definitely develop a crush on a producer if I were on The Bachelor (hello, UnREAL). Nick sends Dominique home because “that is what” his “heart” is “telling him” to do.

Rachel gets the first impression rose.

POOL PARTY FOR PARTY PEOPLE WHO LIKE POOLS AND DRINKING

They’re all having coffee the morning after the sports date and Rachel is wearing a fleece with penguins on it. Everyone looks hungover.

Chris “Loafers” Harrison shows up and he’s like, “Hello, do you see how white my teeth are?”

Just kidding, he says, very seriously — like your dad when he’s telling you that you can’t go get ice cream — “Nick has decided there will be no cocktail party tonight.”

The women look like they just watched their childhood dog get run over by a car, brought back to life, slapped in the muzzle with a bunch of porcupine quills, and then run over again, but by a bigger car.

Then, Chris “Crest White Strips” Harrison pulls a your-dad-when-he’s-just-messing-with-you-and-you-can-get-ice-cream-after-all when he goes, “Nick’s decided there will be a POOL PARTY!”

The women freak like their dog was brought back to life again, but as a more handsome version of their original dog.

“All I do is sit here and think about him,” says Jasmine G. at the party, further reinforcing my cult theory. We watch Astrid rub sunscreen on her boobs. The women’s butts are blurred out, so I’m left to believe they are all wearing thongs, which is a bold move, Cotton. Danielle M., whom I think is a frontrunner, is sad because she didn’t get to hang with Nick “Burnt Toast” Viall this week.

Corinne A producer has arranged for a bouncy house to be set up in the mansion’s driveway. Corinne pulls Nick into it.

“I love how fun and playful Corinne is,” Nick says. “If I end up with someone, I hope she’s fun and playful. Fun is a great foundation of any relationship.”

If you read “fun” as and “playful” in that quote as “sex,” Nick’s statement makes a whole lot of sense.

Then Corinne crawls into bed again and starts snoring.

All the women start throwing Corinne under the bus. Raven is like, “I think you are making a huge mistake with one girl. Corinne is 24 and has a nanny.”

Nick is like, “Has a what?”

And Raven is like, “A nanny.”

And Nick is like, “OK.”

Vanessa is PISSED. She is absolutely perfect when she comes at Nick about Corinne — she doesn’t slut shame Corinne, she’s just like, listen, Nick, get your shit together:

“I’m not judging Corinne,” she says, and I’m paraphrasing here, “I’m judging your actions. Do you want a wife, or do you want someone to fuck around with? Because at that point I’d rather you just not give me a rose.”

Vanessa is a good reminder that, as a woman, when you put men in their place, they either listen or they aren’t worth your time. Vanessa would be great at handling trolls on Twitter, I bet. Oh, say, like, a bunch of passionate NFL fans calling her terrible names. She’d be like NOPE, SEE YA! And mute them all to hell.

(Thanks to my colleague Mark Hinog for this beautiful GIF, because that moment really did deserve a dunk celebration.)

PREVIEW FOR NEXT WEEK:

Corinne is gonna be T-R-O-U-B-L-E next week because apparently she threatens to punch Taylor in the face. This preview could just be overproduced (who am I kidding? Of course it is.) but I think this coming episode is gonna be lit.

In the outtakes tonight, sweet Josephine singing Nick a jingle about how she wants one-on-one time. It’s a bad jingle, but her voice is good.

Kendra goes, “Do they normally do something so mean at the end?”

I say yes. And then I look over and see that she’s been taking serial killer-type notes on the hotel notepad this entire time. Here they are:

Until next week. I’m Charlotte Wilder, SBN, signing off.

(Don’t forget to tune in at noon tomorrow for First Impressions on SB Nation’s Facebook page!)