ABC

Rachel has an island date with Nick (“This place is well-known for having no tourists,” he says, hilariously) and it’s fine. Whatever. Most importantly: Rachel is your new Bachelorette! I have no idea why they chose to announce this so early. She clearly isn’t going home this week, and it’s a pretty major spoiler since she seemed like she had a real chance to win. A leading theory is that ABC wanted to get out ahead of spoilers. Maybe. Maybe they were just really fucking pleased with themselves for finally casting a person of color as the lead (“Juan Pablo was Latino!” cries a producer in the distance. I don’t care!) and couldn’t wait to share the news. I’m choosing to go with the theory that they wanted lots of time to handpick great guys for Rachel to date, and to encourage guys who might not normally apply. Fun fact: The Bachelorette begins filming only a couple of days after The Bachelor finishes airing and the Bachelorette is typically announced, meaning that the guys who apply to be on the show have no real way of knowing who their Bachelorette will be ahead of time, which can make for weird situations (see: last season’s Caila/Jojo switcheroo, or the Britt/Kaitlyn debacle.) This is also why, until Jojo’s season, no runner-up had ever been the Bachelorette - it’s too quick of a turnaround and there’s no time to film intro packages or get people to root for her. Anyway, this is all a long-winded way of saying that A. I know too much about this damn franchise and B. It wouldn’t surprise me if Rachel draws a higher-calibre group of men than, oh, I don’t know, the absolute trolls that Jojo had on her season. Rachel is 31, meaning she’s less likely to draw a bunch of 25-year-old Instagram models, and she’s intelligent, educated, and gainfully employed. She passed the bar on the first try! What I hope this means is that guys who might not apply to date, say, a 24-year-old “dog enthusiast” who sells hair gummies on Instagram might actually apply to date someone like Rachel. Regardless of their reasons for announcing this casting long before it seems necessary, having the first black Bachelorette is a huge deal. I’ve seen a lot of internet comments to the tune of “Oh, great! Now black women have an equal opportunity to be on a shitty dating show!” Whatever, buzzkills. Visibility is important. It is absolutely insane that it’s taken them this long to have a POC as the lead. I don’t even really feel it’s my place to talk about why it’s important, so here are some think pieces for you to peruse. I don’t even remember what Rachel does in the actual episode. It doesn’t matter anyway, I guess.