Literally. That headline isn’t much of an exaggeration: On the third episode of The Bachelorette, a mere three weeks after having met, Good-Looking Mother Fucker Bentley told Ashley that he was leaving the show, and Ashley responded as if he had informed her that he would be cutting her arms off at the elbows with an ax. I’ll get to Bentley’s betrayal — if you want to call it that — in a bit; in the mean time, there were more than enough self-pitying tears to cover from this week’s episode of Attractive White People Do Some Weird-Ass Things.

Things were kicked off with a friendly, if utterly boring, date with Ben C. Ashley and Ben went a dance studio — the second dance related date in as many weeks, which confirms that Ashley’s favorite activities are dancing and completely misjudging people’s personal character and integrity — and then Ashley “surprised” him by participating in a flash mob. It was the kind of date that no one ever wants to take part in. And then, to cap off the date, Ashley and Ben — and the entire flash mob — danced to a performance by Far East Movement, an electro-hop group whose members are all of American-Asian decent (Korean, Chinese and Filipino) and whose first big hit, I’m not shitting you, was a song for the soundtrack to The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift:

My favorite film from the “Fast and Furious” franchise was “The Fast and the Furious: Fast-Ass Cars and Ethnic Stereotypes.”

Ben seems like a nice enough guy, but I think the prevailing thought at this point is that Ashley’s interests clearly lie with Good-Looking Mother Fucker Bentley, Cell-Phone Salesman William, and Nice-Guy from New York J.P. Having never viewed the show until this season, I’m a little bit out of sync with the format, and wish that there was at least one guy on the program who wasn’t so similar to everyone else. Even if it’s the just the producers adding a guy that they know will never make the final cut just to entice the audience, I’d like to see someone totally unhinged and crazy, or a complete nerd.

But for now, Ashley is stuck with her bland group of suitors — a fact made painfully obvious in the group date that was to follow her solo date with Ben. Ashley took the group to a comedy club, and asked them to “roast” her, because nothing screams “comedy” like a group of stilted white guys and an emotionally fragile dental assistant. The men took shot after shot on two main topics: Ashley’s flat chest, and the fact that she is not Emily Maynard, the other possible candidate for this season of The Bachelorette. I have no clue whether Emily would have made a better bachelorette, but the criticism of Ashley’s looks seems pretty unwarranted. If there’s one positive thing I can say about her, it is that she is very attractive … and that she can grow sea shells OUT OF HER SKIN. In any case, Ashley did not take the jokes very well, and by the time that William made the fourth Ashley-versus-Emily laugher, she ran out of the room crying. Ryan ran out to comfort her, and ultimately that was enough to earn him the rose from the group date. It seemed like no one really deserved praise for how they handled this date, but Ryan was probably the least rude, and besides, everyone knows that romance is never easy:

Afterward, FINALLY, the moment Americans have been waited for with baited breath occurred: Jeff, The Bachelorette‘s version of The Phantom of the Opera, finally removed the mask he had been wearing since arriving at the bachelorette house, and you’re never going to believe this, but Jeff is white, with a little bit of stubble, and dark brown hair. I assumed that once he removed the mask covering 1/4th of his face we would discover that he was 4’7, African American, and had a glass eye.

Who in the hell is this!??

Now onto the real drama: After Ashley had just enough time to compose herself from the group date meltdown, Good-Looking Mother Fucker Bentley informed the camera for at least the tenth time that he wasn’t interested in Ashley, that he would only sleep with her in a one-night stand scenario, and that he wanted to leave. This after reassuring her the night before that he was on the show for the right reasons. Bentley was driven to Ashley’s house, and explained (lied) that he needed to leave to be with his daughter — the whole time giving a smug smile to the camera. As you might expect someone to react when they learn that a person they have known for less than three weeks is leaving, Ashley responded by completely freaking out. She spent the day in bed crying, canceled the cocktail party before the rose ceremony, and asked J.P. — with whom she was scheduled to have a private date that night — to come over for a quiet night at home, so that she would have the time she needed to recover from the devastation of not being able to date a manipulative man-child.

I thought that Ashley’s date with J.P. was one of the more interesting moments in the episode, because under any other circumstance, it seemed like the type of night that could end in a sleepover. How exactly does this show handle sex? Are the contestants even allowed to have sex with one another? I know that VH1 most likely encouraged Bret Michaels to sleep with anyone who had a venereal disease on Rock of Love, but this is network television, and they usually treat sex like an afterschool special:

At the rose ceremony, Masked-Avenger Jeff and Chris D. were sent home, in addition to the previously departed Bentley. Rumor has it that Bentley returns later in the season — presumably to punch Ashley in the back of the head and push a small child off of a bike — so stay tuned to the show, and stay up with the recaps here. Enjoy week four!