On Tuesday, November 10, we got our first, full episode featuring Tayshia Adams as the lead on The Bachelorette. The California cutie stepped up to the plate to take over the season after Bachelorette Clare Crawley decided she had already found the one just a few weeks into the process. After she and contestant Dale Moss ditched the dating show, her other contestants got a second chance at love — but it seemed like even Take Two was almost over before it started.

While Tayshia was generous with her roses (her first impression rose went to newcomer Spencer Robertson, her first group date rose went to the affable Eazy Nwachukwu, and she declined to send any guys packing on night one), there was one guy in particular who appeared to catch her eye. As soon as she sat down with Brendan Morais, they seemed to hit it off.

A mostly forgettable figure for the first four weeks, he popped the second he started talking to the new Bachelorette. “I mean, jeez, I’m the weirdo in the turtleneck,” he said, laughing at himself and showing off more personality than he had over the past eight hours of the season. “You’re like, ‘Who is this guy?’” But if Tayshia was asking herself that question, it was hardly because she thought he was a dork. In fact, she seemed to love the strength of his sartorial choices. “A guy that can rock a turtleneck can rock anything, to be honest with you,” she gushed later in the episode.

Unfortunately their initial conversation was cut short — but it was memorable enough that he managed to snag the first one-on-one date. And what a date it was. When the lead decided to invite Brendan to get to know her a little better over a horseback ride and pool party, she made some Clare-level declarations. “Honestly, round me up, cowboy, because I am ready to go home with this man,” she said in a confessional as the episode showed them making out in the water. “I’m telling you right now, Brendan is everything.”

Did anybody else’s alarm bells start to go off the second they heard that? Was Chris Harrison listening in somewhere and absolutely freaking out? Did the producers start urgently whispering into their walkie-talkies, planning some sabotage so they didn’t have to bring in a third Bachelorette? I clearly wasn’t alone in my alarm, because Twitter and reddit blew up with memes about the moment. One Twitter post quoting Tayshia and sharing Michael Scott’s “I’ll kill you” moment in lieu of Chris’s reaction even racked up a stunning 15,000 likes.

So what happened here? Is there something about quarantine that really helped the stars fall that deep, that fast? It didn’t help that Tayshia declared that Brendan was patient and kind, which immediately cued my head to recite that “love is patient, love is kind” Bible verse that everyone features in their wedding vows. But I wanted to go back and take a closer look at what went down between the Bachelorette and Brendan. Let’s get to the bottom of things.

Off To A Strong Start

After they finally got out of the pool, the two of them met back up to have dinner — and it was clear that Tayshia wasn’t the only one catching Clare-level feelings. “Today was one of the best days I’ve had in a long, long time,” Brendan shared in a confessional, not even realizing that the best part of his date was yet to come. “I’m absolutely starting to have feelings for Tayshia and think this could be the beginning of something amazing.”

However, he was nervous to tell her something personal: that he’d been married before and was since-divorced. The thing is, Tayshia was in exactly the same boat. While the guys hadn’t gotten a chance to research the new Bachelorette and watch her season of The Bachelor, she opened up on the show to Colton Underwood about how she’d gotten married (and then divorced) young. It seemed — just like with Clare and Dale bonding about losing a parent and the impulsive examples their parents’ marriages set for them — that they were somehow on exactly the same page.

“Getting divorced is a really big deal,” Tayshia said in a confessional. “I thought I was dying when I was going through it, so it was really therapeutic to hear him saying all the words that my heart has, like, felt the past two years. I felt like I wasn’t alone, like — I don’t know. We just kind of bonded on a different level.”

They also agreed about having kids. “Being a father is, like, all I’ve ever really wanted in life,” Brendan confessed. In a previous conversation with one of the other men, Tayshia revealed that she’s also eager to have kids. So eager, in fact, that she’d like to pop out five of them. She assured him that yeah, she definitely wants to have kids. In fact, she probably wants to have more kids than he’d think. Brendan seemed ready to take on that challenge. “How many kids are we talking?” he asked. “What do I have to prepare for?” When she revealed just what she was thinking, he wasn’t intimidated. “That doesn’t scare me,” he assured her.

Dropping The F-Bomb (Forever)

In his own confessional, he was just as glowing about Tayshia as she had been about him. “I’m on cloud nine right now,” he said. “This is certainly the best date of my entire life, the best day of my entire life. … I didn’t even understand that I could feel this way, but after this one-on-one date, I really can, like, start to see that this could be the first day of the rest of my life.”

Before this season started, I would’ve brushed this all off as normal Bachelor National babble. People make grand declarations of love on this show all the time. Remember when Luke Parker, a.k.a. Luke P., told Hannah Brown that he was falling in love with her just about five minutes into the competition? But after seeing just how real those first feelings can be, we’re more inclined to believe these stars really mean it. After all, it only took Clare about 10 days to go from declaring Dale her future husband to actually getting to call him her fiancée.

“Kissing Brendan feels like I’m kissing my person,” Tayshia said — and that speaks for itself at this point. “Like, I feel really connected to him. I don’t know, I feel like I could marry him, which is so bizarre. I don’t even think I’ve felt this way ever. Today was just really magical. I don’t even know how to describe it any other way. You can’t describe it any other way except for ‘magical.’ I finally feel like I’m the Bachelorette and this is what I’m here for. I know I’m gonna find the person that I’m truly supposed to be with.”

Where Do We Go Next?

The promo for next week’s episode proved that Tayshia and Brendan aren’t ready to run away together quite yet (or, at least, Chris Harrison has put his foot down when it comes to blowing up the Bachelorette process), but they seem like they just might’ve gotten engaged in that moment if Neil Lane had shown up and handed the Massachusetts-based man a ring. While there are a few other men who seem to have caught Tayshia’s eye (Spencer most of all), we have no doubts that she really did fall — and fall hard — for Brendan.

(And if you read Reality Steve’s spoilers for the season, she might just regret not doing that. We won’t get into the nitty-gritty details just yet, but suffice it to say that things are going to get heartbreaking as time goes on. I have a feeling we’re going to be rewatching this ideal date more than a few times in the weeks to come.)

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Images: ABC