Episode 3, The Girls

Is it just me, or are women falling head over heels a bit early this year? It's not that I question the process or believe that you can't fall in love after a single formulaic conversation and some light canoodling. I would never doubt Chris Harrison in such a way. Bur if things keep moving at this pace, by episode 4, Sean will be using his action figure physique to dodge a veritable fire storm of L-bombs.

With happy endings looming large on their minds, the women have started to loosen the vise grips they've been relying on to hold back their crazy, and we're all so happy that they have. In descending order of craziness, here are this week's notable performances.

Kacie: I feel more than a little bit bad for Kacie. She was lovable, sweet, and the clear correct choice on Ben's season, and then she got cheated out of her ascendancy to the Bachelorette throne by Emily Maynard's healed heartbreak. As I've stated before, I actually kind of believe that she came back because she was really interested in Sean, but I don't believe he was ever going to let her out of the friend zone. Instead of strolling out of the mansion on her way to the alter or a more firmly rooted place in America's collective heart (or even whatever country's tourism board is desperate enough to partner with ABC this season - I'm guessing Somalia), Kacie left as a bizarrely manipulative crazy lady whose propensity for showing cleavage ranked top on her list of redeeming features. And while it makes me sad that she's leaving with her nice girl image in tatters, I suppose you can't feel too bad for any girl attempting to steal a move from the Courtney Robertson's playbook. It says right on the cover "non-models and non-evil geniuses need not apply."

Tierra: This week, Sean proved he's not stupid. I'm pretty sure he was able to see though both Kacie and Tierra's desperate manipulations with equal degrees of clarity. But Tierra proved this week that Sean's clearly willing to overlook these obvious ploys if he really, really wants to sleep with you. While Tierra won herself some extra time with Sean, this strategy doesn't have legs in the long term. Because, as my husband will gladly tell you, repeatedly taking your clumsy wife to the emergency room gets more than a little old.

AshLee: Now, hear me out here. I know AshLee doesn't yet seem that crazy. After some, probably totally justified cattiness toward Tierra, she and Sean enjoyed a completely lovely date. Old timey costumes we donned! Broken children were healed by proximity to Sean's pecs! Adolescents were forced to amuse themselves while Sean and AshLee selfishly slow-danced! But over the course of the date, AshLee began to expose more than just her upper thighs (seriously - why does no one give the ladies a heads up when their dates might warrant just a little bit of extra coverage), revealing a personal tragedy that Sean found inspiring and moving and that I just found really, really upsetting.

"I lived with a family who abused me," she said. "Isn't that crazy?" No, AshLee. It's crazy when you see Alex Trebec on an airplane. It's crazy when a staunch "family values" conservative is revealed to be a transvestite. Child abuse and the deplorable state of our foster care system aren't "crazy." They're really, really horrible.

AshLee later revealed that Sean was the only man with whom she had ever shared her painful past. And my guess is that this is because she's well on her way to becoming this season's clinger. After confessing that she's already falling for Sean, she's certainly a frontrunner for the role of girl who falls too far too fast and spends most of her screentime for the rest of the season in mascara-laced tears. All that being said, it's also totally possible that the conditions of the show are to blame for AshLee's early revelation. Every year, the contestants are forced to play a kind of chicken with their personal tragedies. They're pushed to use them as leverage to win roses and the right to stick around, but they can't appear to be too damaged. There's a reason people wait to share their lives' hardships with the people they date. It's so they don't have to explain them away. Though people's personalities are absolutely informed by their triumph over adversity, one can't help but feel like adversity can only be compounded by having to explain that "it wasn't that bad."

Amanda: Look, I'm not saying that I want to go grab a beer with Amanda (mostly because, as she's a fit model, I imagine I'd be doing all the beer-drinking while she'd be sitting in silence, judging all the parts of me that jiggle), but I'm still not really buying this "she's here for the wrongs reasons" theme that the other girls keep harping on. Yes, she's said a few rather aggressive things about doing whatever it takes and winning the rose for being awesome at, not just volleyball but life, but she's not exactly incorrect to say that some of the other girls think they have a stronger connection with Sean than they really do. Is she sunshine and rainbows? No, she is not. Would she be my first choice to co-star with in an 80's movie montage where we tried on wacky hats? Certainly not. But is she a soul-sucking, uber-bitch who's only on the show to get her 15 minutes of fame, Sean's heart be damned? Well...okay, probably yes. But no more so that anybody else on this franchise.

Desiree: Desiree may look like a young Katie Holmes (does it make anyone else feel super ancient that I just said young Katie Holmes), but apparently she doesn't think like anyone else. This is a clear-cut example of what I like to refer to as the Chris Bukowski principle (aka The "Grown-Ass Man" Principle): If you have to say it aloud, it probably isn't true.

Sarah: Unfortunately, when it comes to Sarah, I think Sean's in a little bit of a tough spot. I believe that he likes her, and thinks she's beautiful, and fully believes her capable of ziplining or any other activity outlawed by the state of Nevada (such as, apparently, riding a camel on the highway), but I don't think he has the same chemistry with her as he does with some of the other girls. I'm sure it's not because of her disability - maybe it's the incessant, nasal "Oh my gods," or maybe it's because she's not a brunette - but when he eventually sends her home, all that's unlike to matter. To me, when Sean brought out Sarah's dog this week, it was less of a romantic gesture and more of a preemptive apology. How else do you explain that poor Sarah got further with the dog this week than she did with the man himself.