Prior Lake's Becca Kufrin smashes her past on week two of 'Bachelorette'

Prior Lake American

SPOILERS: There are spoilers in this article for the current season of “The Bachelorette,” starring Prior Lake High School graduate Becca Kufrin. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

Welcome back to the “The Bachelor,” starring race car driver and realtor Arie Luyen — wait, no.

It’s “The Bachelorette,” starring none other than 2008 Prior Lake High School graduate Becca Kufrin as the titular lead.

Understandably confusing, as the cast, crew and contestants can’t stop mentioning former Bachelor Arie Luyendyk Jr., who proposed to Kufrin on the finale of the most recent season of “The Bachelor” and then broke off the engagement on camera to propose to runner-up Lauren Burnham.

“It’s tough to put myself out there again,” Kufrin said. “I need to just chill out, ride the wave and go with it.”

But that’s beside the point. During the premiere of the season on May 28, viewers got to meet the 28 men vying for the heart of and engagement to Kufrin. A few of those men were then eliminated during the rose ceremony later in the evening and doomed to be consigned to internet oblivion for eternity — except grocery store owner Joe from Chicago, who was also eliminated the first night but has since received quite a bit of internet love.

For those uninitiated to Bachelor Nation, the lead of the show goes on dates (with the option of group, one-on-one or two-on-one dates) and then hosts a rose ceremony to send contestants home if the lead is not interested in pursuing those relationships further. Those with roses get to stay and go on more dates. This continues until the end of the season where there are just two contestants left and the lead gets engaged to one of them.

The remaining men on “The Bachelorette” were exploring the mansion in California that they stay in for two months of filming, when show host Chris Harrison interrupted to drop off a date card, which names who is going on the date and also contains a cryptic little message as to the date itself.

“(Becca) is serious about this,” Harrison said. “She’s not going to mess around. She’s going to have a good time, but as soon as she doesn’t sense the connection, she’s going to cut the cord and send the guy home.”

The date card ended up being for Clay, Nick, Chris, David, Jean Blanc, Jordan, Connor and Lincoln to go to Saddlerock Ranch in Malibu and try on tuxedos and drink champagne.

But that’s not all — Kufrin then led the group to an obstacle course with challenges named after marriage and wedding puns such as “Ball and Chain,” Cold Feet,” “Cake Tasting” and more.

The men had to race with a 25-pound ball attached to their ankles, jump in a barrel full of freezing water and stay there until the timer was done, run up inflatable stairs covered in oil and soap, army crawl through mud and deposit a bouquet of flowers in a vase, search through a wedding cake without using their hands and find a toy ring and crawl down a wedding aisle to an awaiting Kufrin.

“It might be who’s smarter, rather than who is more physical,” contestant Chris said, but that ended up not being true as Lincoln (who Kufrin called a “block of muscle” earlier) won the challenge, though the other contestants speculated that he had left the barrel of water too soon.

The pair kissed and took a picture at the end of the aisle, which inexplicably becomes important.

During the cocktail party later on, Lincoln pulled Kufrin aside for some one-on-one time. At this point, Kufrin gave him a framed copy of the picture taken earlier. They kissed again.

“That’s a picture of me and my future wife,” Lincoln said. “Yes, I know, we look great together.”

Lincoln returned to the larger group and proceeded to put the framed picture on the table in front of all the men. The next 10 or so minutes of footage include other men putting the frame picture-side down on the table or handing it back to Lincoln and Lincoln returning the picture to where it was.

This continues until Connor decided he can no longer take the sight of this egregious, offensive picture of two people standing next to each other and he threw the picture into the pool.

Lincoln told Kufrin, who recognized that handling a minor inconvenience with an unnecessary amount of physical retribution is a big ol’ red flag. On top of that, Connor never buttoned the top five buttons of his shirt and wore gold chains which are little ol’ red flags.

“Here’s the thing — I’m looking for a man that can still stay respectful and handle himself well,” Kufrin said. “It’s really early on for this, I’m not going to lie.”

At the end of the date, contestant Jean Blanc received the group date rose, meaning he made enough of an impression on Kufrin to stay.

The next day was a one-on-one date with contestant Blake, entirely planned by Harrison, which ended up being a room full of references to Luyendyk that Kufrin and Blake got to smash with sledgehammers.

Inexplicably, the rapper Lil Jon also appeared and DJed the date.

“The best part of the whole date was watching how happy she was and how excited she was and how good she felt,” Blake said.

During dinner, Blake revealed that he did fall in love in two months with another woman and then found texts from her friends on her phone asking if she had broken up with him yet.

“I found out through that relationship what I need, what I want and that I’m capable of loving that much,” Blake said.

Kufrin gave Blake the date rose and the two kissed in the alley behind the restaurant.

“I’m definitely getting some strong feelings for Blake,” Kufrin said. “I can’t wipe this grin off my face.”

But then it was off to the next group date with Garrett, Rickey, John, Ryan, Alex, Chris, Trent, Leo, Wills and Colton. The group took a school bus to a gymnasium to work out and have three children yell at them.

“They’re not human,” contestant Leo said, as one of the children told him he’s trash for not catching the ball and asked him if Kufrin wanted trash.

They then split into two teams for a dodgeball match. The team with Kufrin came up with a genius plan to hide behind her because what man would hit her with a dodgeball when they were trying to impress her.

As it turns out, contestant Christon was that man.

The men then went to a larger dodgeball tournament, commentated by Harrison and actor Fred Willard.

Willard chipped in with a story about dodgeball, a nudist colony and volleyball. Thanks for the input, Willard.

Though it doesn’t matter, the green team won and the group went to the cocktail party. Colton decided the party was a good time to tell Kufrin he had spent a “good” weekend with Tia, who was also a contestant on the most recent season of “The Bachelor.”

Tia was also rumored to be a front-runner for being “The Bachelorette,” until Luyendyk broke up with Kufrin.

“If Colton and Tia had never had a past, I would be so excited for Colton, but that’s not the case,” Kufrin said. “Of course I’m going to hope he’s here for me and that he didn’t come into this hoping for Tia.”

Kufrin was just trying to have a good time and get to know all the men, but they kept coming up with new drama to throw at her about texting and picture frames and previous flames.

Typical men.

“I take this so seriously and I really want to find a lasting partner at the end of this,” Kufrin said.

Wills received the group date rose.

During the rose ceremony, three men were sent home, while Chris with the texting drama from last episode, Jason, John, Clay the football player, Mike, Connor who threw the picture frame, Leo with the luxurious hair, David who wore the chicken suit, Garrett who received the first impression rose, Nick, Ryan, Christon who hit Kufrin with the dodgeball, Jordan who is a male model, Lincoln who had his picture broken and Colton who dated Tia all moved on to the next week.

According to the preview for the next episode, Tia and a few other “Bachelor” friends appeared for the next group date so it doesn’t look like Kufrin will get a break from the drama during the next episode, either.