Back already? This season's really racing towards the finish line. We're off to St. Lucia. Juan Pablo says "oh St. Lucia, you are so pretty." Um....Juan Pablo, you know you aren't dating the island right? You're not impressing it with your sultry accent and pouty smile.
Claire is up first, and she tells us that she couldn't have imagined a year ago that she would be in St. Lucia with the man of her dreams falling in love. She can't think of a more romantic place to get engaged. I think we've already hit our cliche quota for the whole episode. Claire's super excited about the day, but she says she's on the fence about spending the night in the fantasy suite. To that I say bullish*t. She goes on to explain that she's still thinking about how the late night romp in the ocean in Vietnam, and that she's not sure that they'll set the best example for Camilla. I get that, but this seems like one of those instances where she'll put up just a modicum of resistance before letting Juan Pablo reassure her that there won't be any cameras and Camilla won't be able to see them do things that would make Tiger Woods blush. She goes on to say that tonight just may be the perfect time to tell him she loves him...you know, right before she turns down an offer to spend the night. Riiiiiiiight.
Juan Pablo says that "tonight is a good night to figure out how I feel about Claire, and it's a chance to get to know each other better - a LOT better." Claire, on the other hand wants to talk about Camilla. "He wants to find a suitable stepmom for his daughter, and I want to let him know that it's important to me." Nope, Juan Pablo wants to talk about how preeeeeety your dress is, and how much preeeeetier it will be on the floor at the foot of the bed. The card comes out, and Juan Pablo defers to Claire, who dredges up the Vietnam conversation again. I'm sure she's saying something worthwhile, but I'm too distracted by her dangly earrings, which are swinging back and forth like a grandfather clock hopped up on cocaine. I feel like those earrings are going to have her earlobes touching her shoulders by the end of the night - they look like they weigh a ton. Predictably, Claire expresses her hesitations, and then immediately accepts the offer to spend the night. Also predictably, Juan Pablo makes a comment about her preeeeety dress. Juan Pablo really, really, REALLY wants to hear Claire tell her he loves her. He's been hounding all the girls for a week or two to give up the goods. Claire obliges, giving her best duck face as she says "I'm loving falling in love with you." That leads to some making out, and Claire saying that Juan Pablo "melted her." I know someone else who melted..... I don't think it's necessarily a good thing. More hot tub making out...and we're left to wonder what happened in the fantasy suite. (They totally did it.)
Time for Andi's fantasy date. She's taken to a local seafood fiesta, where they play the drums with some local musicians. Juan Pablo says that "if I want someone to just go with the flow, Andi's the girl." Because so many times Juan Pablo's had a girl turn down his idea for a date because she didn't feel up to it. After drum time, Juan Pablo starts feeding some local children in one of the weirdest scenarios I've ever seen. A few weeks ago we were stuck at the San Francisco Airport for half a day, and there was this dad there that was just out there high fiving random kids and having conversations with them like they were old friends, and it was super uncomfortable. I love kids, but there's got to be a feeling out period. You don't just go buy a kid a lemonade because you're sitting at the same table as them. Maybe that's just me.
After some pick-up soccer, Juan Pablo squires his lady away in a dune buggy to a waterfall. They recap their time with Andi's family, where Juan Pablo recaps his conversation with her dad in one of the worst American accents ever. It sounded nothing like her dad....pretty comical. Then they strip off their clothes and frolic around under the waterfall. Well, Juan Pablo keeps kissing Andi's neck. She just kinda sits there and lets him nibble. Later on at dinner, Juan Pablo tells Andi that he's been thinking about her saying "I want badly to fall in love" and how he doesn't want this to feel forced. Basically he's looking for her to say that she loves him. She just says that she does want to love him, but she's not going to force it for his daughter's sake. He's satisfied, she seems happy, but then she needles him about what else he is concerned about. Here we go. She keeps asking him what he thinks about and he says he thinks about a lot of things....among them if she's going to be a good mother. His answer - "I don't know." Yikes, not a good sign for Andi. He didn't exactly give her a ringing endorsement there. Fantasy Suite Card comes out, and Andi says "if this is a relationship you're serious about" and Juan Pablo says "absolutely, we can answer a lot of your questions." The mood going into her fantasy suite is much different than it was with Claire. This seems less.....fun. It seems more like a closed door business negotiation than "OHMIGOD THE CAMERAS ARE FINALLY GONE LET"S DO THIS." Nonetheless, Andi is on "Cloud 9. But not for long......
Juan Pablo wakes up, and is pretty happy about how the night went. They talked for hours and hours and laughed....everything is great! But...where is Andi? Oh she's on a spirit walk. She couldn't wait to get out of there. The night was a disaster, and she really hopes he didn't think that was a good date. Well I think we can rule out a made for TV wedding between these two. Andi JUST NOW started to realize that Juan Pablo always changed the subject when she brought up feelings or serious questions. Andi's not dumb....she's been looking for a way out for a long time, but needed to wait until the cameras were off. She's been totally fine with everything we've seen from Juan Pablo all season. She needed some time away from the camera so nobody could refute her version of what happened. She's a lawyer, she didn't want a smoking gun where we could see her laughing and snuggling all night while Juan Pablo talked about himself. She just found her get out of jail free card.
I'm sure we'll get back to this later, but it's time for Nikki's da....OH MY GOD WHAT IS SHE WEARING? She looks like she's getting ready to star in a Native American themed Pornographic Film. Pocohontas.....more like Poke-a-Hot-Ass, Amirite? Juan Pablo says she smiled when she saw her family, and she smiled when she got here today, so he knows she's excited. Thank you, Captain Obvious. They kiss as Nikki tries to reassure herself that Juan Pablo's kisses are his way of saying he loves her. They then run out into the ocean - well Juan Pablo runs into the ocean. Nikki sort of wades out into a wave before getting shoved back to shore like a piece of drift wood. THE WAVE IS LIKE A RELATIONSHIP, NIKKI! Hesitation will take you back to the beginning. You need to dive into it fearlessly if you want to reach the calm, peaceful waters. Anyone who's watched this show knows that! Her fantasy suite deliberation lacks any hesitation however. While Claire and Andi expressed reservations before accepting, Nikki was practically grabbing the key and heading for the room before the whole card has been read. Despite her eagerness, she needs to sit pensively on the couch and bite her lip for a while before finally outright saying "I love you." That's a win for Nikki right there. Claire kind of hedged by saying "I'm loving falling in love with you" and Andi...well apparently Andi hates his guts, so I'll say Nikki's the front runner here.
Time for some deliberation with Chris Harrison. Juan Pabs is conflicted. Juan Pablo says he "feels good." Chris says "what does that mean?" Juan Pablo replies, "it means I feel good about the girls." Glad we got that cleared up. Further muddling things, Juan Pablo says he "has no idea" what he's going to do. Probably not a good sign that he doesn't have a front runner at this point. He can see himself with any one of the three. "Ay yay yay" he says for the hundredth time this episode, so you know how serious he is about this. Time for the girls to leave him a personal message. Nikki's is pretty standard, she's glad she got to tell him she loves him, she's honored that she got to meet his family, and she's excited about where this is going. Claire goes into her whole "this is a fairy tale" thing. Andi is smiling as she goes into her video....clearly she's enjoying this. This is her end game. This is her moment where she takes control of the situation and leaves on her terms and lets the whole country know that she won't be "one of many" to any man. I only wonder how long she's been planning this. Again, there's no tears. There's no "I trusted him and he betrayed me." This is a power play, plain and simple. I don't think she can sit there and talk about Juan Pablo being dishonest when it's pretty clear to me that she's been playing along the whole time.
Andi is going to follow Sharleen's lead, only she's not going to handle it with half the grace that Sharleen did. She leads right off with "I realized I wasn't in love with you." Juan Pablo, says "that's OK...if it's not meant to be, it's not meant to be." Andi is not happy that Juan Pablo is taking this so well. She's pissed that he's not begging her to stay. This is not how she saw this going. I'm on Juan Pablo's side here. But she missed weddings to fly around the world with him! Everything that Pabs is saying makes sense...right up until he says "you only have to think about one guy....I've got other people to think about." That might not have been the best thing to say. "But you never listened to me!" she whined. She's mad that he brought up he had an overnight date with Claire. I'd counter that it can go two ways...to pretend that nothing is going on with the other girls is a little disingenuous and can backfire as well. She wants Juan Pablo to "feel something." Well, he feels angry. He's had enough of being attacked. They have some discussion that involves Renee and him saying "default." I didn't really understand what they were talking about. Andi then goes on about how he doesn't know her religion, her political views, how she wants to raise her children. Juan Pablo says "if I don't know those things, it's because you didn't tell me." Juan Pablo then hilariously asks her "fine then, what's my religion?" Andi fires back "Catholic" to which Juan Pablo has no response. He really walked into that one. According to Wikipedia, 92% of Venezuela is Catholic, so she didn't even need to know to get that one right. Oops. Andi again waits for him to try to talk her out of this or something, but he says "I appreciate your honesty 100%, thanks for coming." Well there you go.
Honestly, I think she was going home this week anyways, so this really didn't change the game at all anyways. Andi says "nobody wants to be with someone who is that honest and puts you down." I'm not sure I ever saw him put her down. I'm sure she took some stuff as disrespectful and hurtful, but I didn't get that. Andi tries to self-diagnose the situation in the van, and she does a pretty good job when she says "are my standards so high that I'll never find what I'm looking for?" My guess is...yep.
Back from commercial, and Juan Pablo does kind of get one final jab in at Andi by saying "she wanted to go home, but I have other women here, so it's OK." The way he said it made it clear he knew that would drive her up a wall that he used that phrase. Andi, who apparently is taking the van all the way around the island, is still whining about how rude and awful Juan Pablo was to her, and that she hopes for everyone's sake he treats Nikki and Claire differently.
Chris drops the bomb on Nikki and Claire that they are the two final contestants, and Nikki wants answers. She needs to know why. My question for her is "why do you care?" Clearly you didn't want her to be here instead of you, so what does it matter. You'd think that a smile would come across her face after the initial shock wore off, but no. "It's bittersweet because I'm sad for Andi." Really? Claire has a more rational reaction: "Nikki and I are completely different women, so it's interesting that we're the two left." Agreed, but it fits with my belief that there's not one type of woman or one specific woman that people are "meant to be with." It's ok to love two different types of women. When I think about the women I dated before I met Rachel, it's almost comical how different they are from her. And you know what? I honestly liked them all, in part because of the things that differentiated them from other women. Peanut butter and chocolate is amazing, but then again it goes well with jelly too. Remember that, y'all.
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