Guess what’s coming to South Carolina and likely your Facebook page in a minute

Remember that mysterious event that was going to close Calhoun Street in Old Town Bluffton last October?

Well, it’s happening again.

And this time I can tell you everything that I think I know.

The 785th season (or the 13th) of “The Bachelorette” will film in Bluffton and on Hilton Head Island next week. And mega-fans of the show will have a couple of opportunities to get in on the action.

Full disclosure, though: No one who is official and who knows things is allowed to talk about this, so my details might be a little off when all is said and done. And two of the people who definitely know things totally pretended not to know ANYTHING when I asked them to tell me some good gossip on Monday at The Corner Perk. (You know who you are!) Instead, I got offered a tour of a haunted house. (Which I’m going to do, but first I have to find a surrogate who will go in for me and then afterward tell me the non-ghost parts only.)

By the way, back in October, it was “The Bachelor” that was supposed to come here — the one with Nick — but it had to relocate to Wisconsin because of Hurricane Matthew, which ... how is Wisconsin only second to us? Shouldn’t next in line to us be Hawaii ... or heaven?

Filming in the Lowcountry will be for episode No. 4 of the Rachel season, according to the blogger Reality Steve. Filming will take place at Colleton River Plantation in Bluffton, at a spelling bee (?) at Shelter Cove on Hilton Head Island, and in Old Town Bluffton on Calhoun Street, where a country musician will perform a concert until after 10 p.m., which means, uh oh, the noise ordinance. (The town is allowed to OK exceptions to this, I’m told, so don’t worry, Chris Harrison won’t be fined.)

Here are some other things I can tell you right now:

▪  At 2 p.m. Tuesday, you can go to Lawton and Lawrence streets and register to be one of the 1,000 extras that they’ll need for Tuesday night. (I’m not exaggerating here ... an actual thousand.) I’ll let you know the details of the other opportunities.

▪  I hear Rachel is a lawyer, which might explain the spelling bee. Smart girls need to know immediately that, two years down the line, after he’s been introduced to her parents and friends, that homeboy isn’t going to write “Your the best” on her Facebook wall for everyone to see. (In other words, she’ll likely be looking for the grown-up version of the kids who received “Certificates of Acheivement” from the school district this past week.)

▪  The country musician is possibly Russell Dickerson. (Yeah, I don’t know, either)

▪  This isn’t the first time the show has come to Beaufort County. Back in 2005, they filmed a fantasy date on Daufuskie Island (described as “outside Savannah, Ga.”).

▪  I’ve never watched “The Bachelor,” etc., so you’re all going to have to help me out here. Send me an email at lfarrell@islandpacket.com to let me know the things to look out for or to find out for you. Also, tell me what you’re hearing (no more haunted house tour offers, though). And if you’re a superfan, tell me all about that. I want to hear about the watch parties you have, any “Bachelorette” night rituals, how long you’ve been watching, all of that.

I have lots of catching up to do before May 22, when what we will now call “the Bluffton season” airs. (Wait ... what if they call us “Hilton Head” the whole time? We’re all going to have to wear T-shirts to force the issue.)

This story was originally published March 25, 2017 at 8:22 AM with the headline "Guess what’s coming to South Carolina and likely your Facebook page in a minute."