Corinne, who gave Nick a “hug token” when they first met, doubles down with a money bag—printed with a dollar sign, the kind that you’d expect to see old-timey bank robbers loading onto their getaway horse—full of tokens when they sit down together. “Hug tokens?” he asks. “You can pick,” she replies. Is this…a bribe? Classic Corinne. She snags the first kiss of the season, which no one (including her “uncomfortable” smooching partner) seems particularly thrilled about.

Our hero, as it turns out, does not excel at time management. As the night goes on—and as the booze continues to flow—the women who haven’t had the chance to speak to him grow increasingly upset. Jasmine G. claims the honor of the season’s first cry.

But Alexis is unperturbed. She lures Nick poolside, where she is, naturally, wading in her costume and producing convincing dolphin noises. After debating him as to whether her costume is in fact a dolphin or a shark (look, it’s definitely a shark), Alexis tells the camera, “I want to be the first dolphin to get a fucking rose tonight.” It would be difficult to overestimate the amount of money I would pay for a T-shirt emblazoned with that sentence.

And finally, Liz and Nick get to have their talk. To her surprise, he remembers her. (Or at least a producer was finally kind enough to clue him into what the hell is going on.) And not only that, but he has a genuinely incisive question: If she was into him, then why hasn’t he heard from her at all over the last nine months? You know, that whole big chunk of time when he wasn’t the Bachelor yet? After all, they have mutual friends. Liz is visibly thrown, explaining that a) “I truly believe that if we were supposed to cross paths again, we would,” which is clearly a lie and b) Bachelor in Paradise made her realize he was “way different than what [she] thought,” which, if it isn’t a lie, is a fascinating testament to the ability of a reality narrative to transcend even a viewer’s personal experience with another human being. (Probably a lie, though!)

It’s then that a delightful little piece of TV history is made: Rachel becomes the first black contestant ever to receive a first-impression rose. “It just seemed so obvious to me that you were the person I absolutely wanted to give it to,” Nick said, giving Rachel (who, at 31, is an encouragingly age-appropriate match for Nick’s 36!) the second kiss of the season. I know it’s early, but I’m prepared to call it: America, behold your next Bachelorette.

At the rose ceremony, the 21 remaining blooms are distributed among the 29 remaining women with little surprises. Lauren “My Last Name Sounds Like ‘Hussy’” Hussey, stethoscope-wielding Briana, trust-falling Ida Marie, and beard-massaging Susannah are among the eight contestants sent home.

The inevitably dramatic final rose goes to Liz, but more importantly, I am so pleased to tell you that dolphin-shark (and frontrunner for a marine biology-themed spinoff on Freeform) Alexis also survives night one, a development that draws a collective giggle from her competitors.

"I don’t get the laugh, guys,” she quips. And just like that, a reality star is born.