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" Last night&amp;#039;s episode of The Bachelorette began and ended on startlingly heavy notes. Let&amp;#039;s hope that the rest of the season manages to keep the mood lighter because if there&amp;#039;s one thing America learned last night, it&amp;#039;s that the schmaltzy tropes of a reality show do not do well with real-life events, like the death of contestant Eric Hill. (He died in an paragliding accident not long after shooting the show.) The producers tried to contain those elements to the end, but the resulting scenes were ridiculous, like a funeral staged by middle school students. Also, the entire episode took place around a Connecticut casino called Mohegan Sun.  But let&amp;#039;s start at the top. Andi&amp;#039;s first date is with Dylan, the accountant from Boston who told Farmer Chris last week about two tragic drug-related deaths in his family. Dylan goes into greater depth about the deaths of his sister and brother. Andi cries and gives him a rose that is not a &amp;quot;pity rose&amp;quot; (her words), although, frankly, how she could tell? We don&amp;#039;t see Dylan for the rest of the episode. B-BALL Group date. The gang hustles to a basketball court and Andi looks cute in a black track suit \u2014 she really looks better outside of the jeweled, one-sleeve ball gowns that she has been favoring for the rose ceremonies. (And apparently I&amp;#039;m not alone in thinking that; yet another &amp;quot;She&amp;#039;s so hot&amp;quot; is uttered while the guys enter the scene.) &amp;quot;Who&amp;#039;s got game?&amp;quot; she asks the crowd, and Brian, the basketball coach, beams back at her. Like Bradley with Boyz II Men, he believes he&amp;#039;s in his element. After clowning around on the court, the special guests arrive: WNBA superstars. The slightly bored-looking players get introduced and then Andi joins their team for a little battle-of-the-sexes. The result is pretty satisfying, for the misandrists among us. &amp;quot;We are running around like a bunch of infants and they are barely trying,&amp;quot; says Nick V. &amp;quot;I really hope they have more game off the court,&amp;quot; opined player Lindsay Sparks. Finally, Andi stops the bloodletting and announces that the guys would split into teams and play each other. Cut to some locker room scenes, where Brian is leading the Rosebuds through some plays and Josh M. is delivering a pep talk to the Five of Hearts, whose uniforms are drawn on with magic marker. Not sure how the Rosebuds got hooked up with real jerseys. Anyways, it turns out Brian is in his element: He can actually play and he single-handedly lifts the Rosebuds to victory \u2014 and more time with the Andi. The losers, comically morose, have to go back to the hotel. So then it&amp;#039;s cocktail party time, with Andi wearing a short, black, leather-esque dress. Get it, girl! Unfortunately, what she has to &amp;quot;get&amp;quot; is alone time with Brian, back on the basketball court, so he can further impress his sports knowledge on her. She proclaims this is &amp;quot;hot&amp;quot; but no one is buying it, particularly after he sinks a half-court shot and then doesn&amp;#039;t kiss her. All of this really made me wish that Andi would go hang out with Marquel, also on the winning team, who is adorable. He was great at trash-talking on the court (&amp;quot;We wake up in the morning and breathe excellence&amp;quot;) and has generally seemed incredibly good-natured about the whole weird Bachelorette setup. Sadly, Marquel gets ignored. Again.  L-Bomb One person who has not been enjoying the Bachelorette setup is Eric. When he and Andi get some alone time, neither one looks relaxed. &amp;quot;We don&amp;#039;t thrive in this setting,&amp;quot; she says, and it&amp;#039;s true. Eric isn&amp;#039;t happy because, after their first date, things have &amp;quot;stalled&amp;quot; between them. The conversation is remarkably real, by Bachelorette standards. Eric is the driver of this: Unlike many contestants, he isn&amp;#039;t capable of accepting clich\u00E9. After Andi tells him that he needs to open up more, they talk about his Mormon upbringing, and like a prosecutor, she gets a story out of him. It&amp;#039;s a fraught exchange but they both seem to feel better after the encounter. Of course, then, it&amp;#039;s time to go to makeout city with Nick V. Draped over him, she proclaims in a voice-over that he makes her the &amp;quot;most comfortable&amp;quot; and that that is &amp;quot;powerful.&amp;quot; OK! He is definitely a frontrunner but Brian gets the rose, even sans kiss. Next up is a one-on-one date with Marcus. For some reason, Andi has declared him &amp;quot;hot&amp;quot; on a few occasions, but I&amp;#039;m not really seeing it. I mean, he&amp;#039;s fine. But something screams &amp;quot;wet blanket.&amp;quot; On this date, they go to the top of the Mohegan Sun skyscraper, where it&amp;#039;s time to face our fears, because isn&amp;#039;t love the biggest risk of all? Andi, who said she &amp;quot;requested&amp;quot; this rappel date, did not actually want to climb down the side of a glass building and Marcus tries to comfort her by standing 10 feet away and whisper-shouting encouragements. It is the worst. Finally, they do the mid-air kiss for the cameras and came down. (My notes for this section are a set of sad faces.) After dinner, where Andi posed the question, &amp;quot;Where is the flaw in Marcus?&amp;quot; and a million viewers shouted at the television, the two go to a dreaded private concert. At least at this one there are other people around, although Andi and Marcus still have to dance on a raised stage. The most notable thing is Marcus whispering something about &amp;quot;falling in love.&amp;quot; It seems a little early to be deploying nuclear option but that L-bomb will probably keep him on the show for a few more episodes. Good-Bye, Eric  It&amp;#039;s cocktail party time. Andi, crawling into another jewel-encrusted strapless number, can barely make it through her welcome-to-my-party speech before she&amp;#039;s interrupted by a guy asking for alone time. In this case it is Tasos and it is needed: The wedding planner has been on the show nominally for weeks, but never gets screen time. Sadly, he is just getting started when Brian, speaking as though through a bag of marbles, asks to jump in. He kisses her. Then, finally, Marquel! He looks so cute in geek glasses and a tiny bowtie. He teaches Andi some fighting moves and she drop-kicks him into friend zone with &amp;quot;Marquel makes me laugh so much&amp;quot; comments. Ugh, Andi, why. Then, Eric. He is upset. After the last talk, where he was prompted to open up, he has come to a new conclusion: It&amp;#039;s Andi who needs to change. &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;re not being the Andi with me that you were on the walk from the boathouse to the beach,&amp;quot; he says, referencing their first date, &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;re not being the real you.&amp;quot; Andi is clearly taken aback as Eric continues, telling her that she has a &amp;quot;poker face&amp;quot; around the other men. &amp;quot;I respect your openness,&amp;quot; she says, before laying into him, her voice cracking. &amp;quot;You have no idea how exhausted I am, no idea. For you to tell me that I have a poker face, that is so offensive!&amp;quot; At this point, it becomes clear that this exchange is not going to end well. Eric isn&amp;#039;t backing down and Andi is justifiably angry too. We have gone way, way off-script from the &amp;quot;Wow, isn&amp;#039;t this helicopter/mountain/beach/picnic beautiful&amp;quot; patter of a normal date. &amp;quot;You are continuously calling me fake,&amp;quot; Andi says, &amp;quot;What am I supposed to do with that?&amp;quot; Eric begins to answer \u2014 &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;re so upset with me&amp;quot; \u2014 but somehow can&amp;#039;t muster anything to say, exactly. &amp;quot;This is not going to work,&amp;quot; she says, &amp;quot;I can&amp;#039;t fight for someone who doesn&amp;#039;t believe in me.&amp;quot; Their good-byes are remarkable frosty: &amp;quot;Thank you for your time.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Same.&amp;quot; The Sit-Down Eric&amp;#039;s exit from the show \u2014 a cab from Mohegan Sun\u2014 marked his end on The Bachelorette. He died not long after. The question of how the show would deal with the unsettling vision of a dead man competing for love on a reality show has been hovering over the season. After a brief talk by Chris Harrison in the opening episode, where he acknowledged Eric&amp;#039;s death and announced that the season was dedicated to him, the editing has been fairly normal. Eric&amp;#039;s time has been given what seems to be its fair weight; the lighthearted moments were kept in, as, clearly, were the heavier ones. But now, the show broke format again to stage a sit-down with Andi and Chris Harrison. Airing the rose ceremony, Harrison explained, didn&amp;#039;t feel right. But talking with Andi about Eric&amp;#039;s death, right after seeing their fight, didn&amp;#039;t feel great either. Andi, perhaps overly prepped by producers, dispensed canned answers, the kind of answers that Eric would probably have hated. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s sad; it&amp;#039;s tragic,&amp;quot; she said, noting that, at first, &amp;quot;he had everything that I thought I was looking for.&amp;quot; She could barely even acknowledge the unfortunate nature of their last conversation, twice noting that he wouldn&amp;#039;t be attending the &amp;quot;Men Tell All&amp;quot; to clear the air. I think the producers had a tough call here, and they handled the situation with some dignity. But a disastrous lack of self-awareness is what this franchise is all about. The Bachelorette may claim to be all about love and connection, but the show is hopelessly adrift when confronted with a real event. In what universe would someone&amp;#039;s death be reduced to a no-show at &amp;quot;Men Tell All&amp;quot;? We just found out.  RELATED: Bachelorette Contestant Eric Hill Killed in Paragliding Accident  Photo credit: ABC "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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