Utah!! One of the most underrated states in terms of natural beauty. My favorite family trip as a kid was to Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah. Absolutely an awesome place.
However, it wasn't nearly as awesome as the resort the women stayed at this week....wow! Of course Kacie B. thinks it's the "perfect place to fall in love." She says that now, but next week when they're in Saskatchewan, THAT will be the perfect place. Just once I want someone to say "not gonna lie, this place is not nearly as cool as I thought it'd be," or "I hate the food here" or something. Kacie continues by crying and looking out on the scenery because he's dating someone else. Did she get the first one-on-one? I think she did. Never fails that the the first solo dater gets butt hurt because she shared the first "connection" with the bachelor. Frank got all sketchy on Ali, Ashley was a goddamn mess on Brad's second season....Kacie B. looks like she's joining the club. She even goes all tragic hero when Ben picks up Rachel, saying "at least I got to see his face, and he knows I'm still here." Yeesh.
By the way, my fantasy team this week is Jamie, Monica, and RACHEL! One on One points right out the gate on this one! I also picked Elyse to go home.
Ben calls his date with Rachel "more down to Earth." YOU TOOK A HELICOPTER TO A SECLUDED LAKE!!!! Ben wastes no time whipering "it's so quiet" before moving in for a kiss on a canoe named Jupiter. Who names a canoe? Is this a thing? And the bugs have to be taking away from the ambience, right? That's a lot of bugs buzzing around! They dock the Jupiter for some good champagne and horrible conversation. This is not looking good for my fantasy team. I'd send her home. Ben, despite having to resort to pointing out a beaver dam that he obviously couldn't care less about to keep the conversation going, says "they have a connection." I've determined that the term "we have a connection" means "she gives me a boner" to Ben. This guy is awful.
Fast forward a few hours and it's time for a creepy walk through the dark woods. Ben monologues about getting Rachel to open up, and how he's not giving up on her. How badly does this guy want a little over the jeans rub and a tug? He's not looking for a wife...at least not yet.
Group date card comes out......Jamie's on it, more points for me. Monica's not....that's a wasted pick this week for me. Emily clears her throat before saying Courtney's name...way to poke the bear Emily. Good luck with Hurricane Courtney.
Rachel is killing this conversation. Rather than talk about herself, she says "I'll talk about myself, but you need to ask me." Basically says "you carry this conversation." Ben, despite this being the most boring and uninteresting conversation ever, is convinced that this is going somewhere. He then gives her a rose, but says nothing about her personality at all but compliments her physical appearance and says he "likes kissing her." He's going to keep her around so he can see her in a bikini. I have Ben's horniness to thank for those fantasy points.
Ben on a horse. If I was on this date, I would've opted for this entrance, but whatever. The girls love it, especially Lindzi, who is a horse fetish. Nikki again, has no words for the situation. She clearly only reads illustrated books. Kacie continues her epic struggle for Ben's attention. Courtney continues her dominance in the facial expression category....the girl is a champ. To her credit, she seems to have a pretty good pulse on the competition. She's picking her spots and every move she makes has double impact...to lure Ben in and to make the other women so mad they overreact and flip out.
In perhaps the strangest move ever, all the girls leave Ben in the water with Courtney to fish while they drink on the banks. Nice plan ladies. Even more dumbfounding, they seem pissed at Courtney for staying out there with him. Lindzi at least gets back in the water, but opts for a move I perfected in middle school - just kind of hang out on the periphery and hope the object of your affection notices you. It never works. You end up looking like a creepy peeper/stalker. Predictably, Courtney catches a fish (probably because she was FISHING instead of drinking) and all the girls chalk it up to bad luck rather than continuing to fish. Courtney is an evil genius.
Cocktail reception time! There's a Waldorf Astoria in Park City...who knew? Side note - I had to book a room at the Waldorf Astoria in NYC for one of our employees last month, that place is not cheap. ABC doesn't skimp on this. Amazingly, the girls seem more interested in not hurting each others feelings than actually getting Ben's attention. They try to make a pact to not interrupt each others alone time. Nikki, our girl of few words, smartly says "f that" and goes to interrupt Casey S. She plays the sympathetic role, mentioning her boss just died before she came and she's out to live life to the fullest. She hits the jackpot, because Ben experienced a death just prior to filming as well. Good time, gets a kiss, and then Samantha interrupts. Nikki, not realizing the irony of this, gets pissed. Samantha looks pretty drunk and may be trying to play the ditzy blonde role. She kinda shoots herself in the foot by trying to play coy while at the same time calling Ben out for not giving her one on one time. Ben, to his credit, doesn't play her game and flat out tells her she's on group dates because she hasn't proven she deserves more than that to this point. At this point Samantha is dead girl walking. She tries to recover, but she's toast. In a very telling statement, she says what hurts the most is that "Ben wasn't into her." Not that her heart got broken, not that she never got a chance to show him who she was, but that he didn't find her interesting/pretty enough. Silly narcissist. Ben's not playing around. He sent three girls home last night (four if you count the one that evicted herself) and he's boucing people mid-group date this week.
Jennifer, the best kisser according to Ben, gets a one-on-one. Monica and Elyse get the dreaded dateless week. Kacie B. gets the alone time she craves, and Ben does the classic "I wanted to show you affection in front of the other girls, but I didn't want them to be mad at you" move. In reality, he doesn't want them to be mad at him. Ladies, take it from me....if he's not showing you affection in public, he's not committed no matter what he says. Courtney gets her alone time, and instead of using it to focus on the good stuff, she goes "damn you Ben, you leave me alone with these bitches and you need to just propose to me now despite the fact that there's six episodes left." Ben, not wanting to piss her off before getting his nooky nooky, gives her the rose to appease her. Bad move Ben, she's going to use this tactic on you again in future weeks and you'll have set a precedent. Kacie B, is pissed that her moment got overshadowed by Courtney's moment. She'll be even more pissed when she sees this episode and finds out that their moment was just Courtney complaining that Ben was showing the other girls attention. Again, the evil genius is winning.
We're going to go a little outside the box here and equate The Bachelor to Professional Wrestling. The Evil Genius never wins! Hulk Hogan would always get his ass kicked all over the ring for about 20 minutes before rallying at the very end by channeling some higher power. The bad guy would just keep firing punches at Hulk's head even though it was clear that the only thing this was accomplishing was tiring out the bad guy and making it easier for the Hulkster to complete the comeback by dropping his leg on their chest, getting the 3 count, and hoisting the belt over his head. Don't be surprised if Courtney continues to look like the front runner until the very end, when Ben picks some sweetheart like Kacie B. or Lindzi or Jennifer. That's my prediction at least.
Jennifer gets the fear = love date. Poor girl. Jennifer thinks the "No Trespassing" sign is a "bad sign." I'd argue that it's a good sign because it accurately and concisely conveys its point, but whatever. Jennifer goes on to say that she "knows nothing about craters" as if there's a whole lot to know about empty holes. Ben says they're getting into the crater in a way most people wouldn't. Seeing how craters usually are just big holes, I'd again argue that everyone goes in the same way....through the top of the hole. Relationships are like giant craters to Ben - you just throw yourself at the bottom and hope you don't die. Jennifer basically says that the crater is the perfect place to fall in love - go figure. So if you're scoring at home, add Park City and a crater to the list of places you can fall in love. Jennifer and Ben continue their date by riding inside a giant pair of BluBlocker sunglasses on a chairlift. Seriously, what was that?
Back at the house, the girls are wondering what to do about Courtney. Monica, who has completely shed her "closet lesbian" persona from the first night, says perhaps the most sane thing of the entire season. "Why waste your time talking about another girl? True colors will show, and I'm not worried about it at all." My preseason favorite got off to a rocky start, but she's sticking around despite not having any meaningful time at all with Ben.
Back on the one on one day, Jennifer gets the rose and then gets a concert? Unlike Lindzi's Matt Nathanson experience, Jennifer has to share her concert with a couple thousand people. Also unlike Matt Nathanson, I've heard of Clay Walker. Jennifer says "Clay Walker is a superstar." I say Clay Walker WAS a superstar. Jennifer looks genuinely estatic. She's got a good chance to be this season's Hulk Hogan.
Rose ceremony time! Courtney says "I'm waiting for a bomb to go off." This is The Bachelor's version of foreshadowing. I'm going out on a limb and saying a bomb will go off. Ben asks Monica to chat, and we immediately cut to the other girls talking about Courtney. Monica STILL hasn't got any meaningful on screen time with Ben.....and yet she's still here. Same goes for Jamie, Casey S. and Elyse. One of them has to go home tonight, right?
Emily tries to confront Ben about Courtney, and it goes horribly wrong from her perspective. Ben basically tells her "Don't tell me what I should be doing." and warns her that she could be going home if she pushes this. SHOULD'VE LISTENED TO MONICA. Casey S, shockingly, is friends with Courtney and defends her to Emily. Who knew? In typical girl fashion, Casey immediately runs to Courtney to rat out Emily. Despite Casey's insistence that Courtney is a "nice person," Courtney proceeds to say that Emily is "an idiot" and can't believe she's "that dumb." Real nice person. That scene where Casey and Courtney are talking was super creepy. It came off looking like Courtney was using Casey for information and Casey hadn't quite figured it out yet.
All of a sudden the girls start talking about who has learned more about themselves in the past two weeks than in the past two years. A few girls raise their hands. Courtney didn't, and apparently that makes her a bad person. Emily is all over her. Courtney says she felt like she was in a sorority. I tend to agree. Emily tries to go toe to toe with Courtney, but ends up looking stupid. Monica goes Mother Hen on Emily and gives her advice. I take back what I said about Monica shedding her closet lesbian tendencies. It was almost like she was grooming Emily for a future encounter. She even referred to herself as "Mama Bear." Please keep this girl around Ben, I want to see where this leads!
Elyse got a rose...didn't see that coming. It's down to Monica or Emily....I think Mon's going home. Too bad. Mama Bear gets the boot. It's a bummer, because she really never seemed to even get a chance. I didn't expect her to melt down in the limo, but melt down she does. She completely overreacts, claiming that, because she didn't win a reality show, love doesn't exist. Man the range of emotions on this show are amazing. She went from "I'm not concerned" to "don't let 'em get to you kiddo" to "I'm going to be a spinster living with cats' in about 30 minutes of airtime!
Not the best episode, but, unlike Once Upon a Time, I'll be back next week for some more!
No comments:
Post a Comment