Bachelor Season XX, Week 8: HOMETOWNS

Ah, hometowns.  The time when everyone stops pretending that it's easy to marry someone you've only known for a month and gets real....well at least real-ish.  To the tape!

Hometown #1: Amanda (Orange County, CA)
Pre-family visit activity: Day at the beach.  Amanda shows up wearing tiny jean shorts and what looks to be the bottom half of a sweater.  The physics of what keeps that thing from falling to her waist are taught in a science class higher than anything I took.  Ben's got on a shirt and shorts.  Naturally, Amanda's kids show up wearing dresses and laced up knee high native-American moccasins.  Ben is nervous about what to do with the kids.  "They'll love it if you chase them," Amanda suggests.  Because all kids love being chased by strangers.  The older daughter seems fine playing with this guy, but the younger daughter, Charlie, is having none of it.  At one point, Ben picks her up like Arnold Schwarzenegger picking up a kid on his first day undercover in Kindergarten Cop - just hold her at arms length and talk to her like she's a puppy.  This whole thing is kind of weird.

Family Visit Awkwardness Level: Calling your girlfriend by your mom's name.

It could've been worse - the family kinda treated him with kid gloves, raising the point that "you can't go to the gym with your buddies" whenever you want with kids.  Ben says he never even considered being a step dad until he was dating Amanda, a woman who has kids.  Probably a good plan.  I don't know many men who go around trying to find single moms to date so they can become dads right away.  That's borderline creepy.  Amanda breaks down talking to her mom, saying "I think I've been so focused on the kids because that's what happy families do." No, that's what good parents do.  Also, for someone so focused on her kids, I was a little put off by her taking an upset Charlie to her crib, dropping her in there without a word and walking out to talk to Ben some more.  I'm sure there's some study that says putting your kids in a room by themselves when they're hysterically crying is good for them, but it makes me uncomfortable.

Sibling Factor: Almost none.  I think she had a sister, but she was pretty unremarkable.  Not sure she even talked.

Hometown #2: Lauren (Portland, OR)
Pre-family visit activity: Walking around downtown Portland and eating at food carts.  If I was going to give someone a tour of Portland, it'd probably include that.  I approve.  They end up a the whiskey library, something I've never heard of, but looks pretty cool. Lauren coos "I could sit in a room in total silence with Ben and be totally fulfilled."  I think she forgot to mention that that room needs to be filled with a wall of whiskey bottles from floor to ceiling. Lauren also gets docked for offering up that Portland is the City of Roses but not being able to back up her claim when Ben asks where the roses are.  I thought the Portland Rose Garden was prett y common knowledge.  I guess not.

Family Visit Awkwardness Level: Having your hand graze someone's butt on the bus when it stops abruptly.

Really not too awkward at all.  I was a little uncomfortable with the families insistence on calling her LoLo, as it's not a nickname that's ever been alluded to before on the show, and really, her going to by LoLo would've solved the four Lauren problem we had early on.  In what would be a common theme, the parents want to know what it is about their daughter that Ben likes.  Ben gives non-answers most of the time. I will give him credit for one thing: when Lauren's dad asks how Ben is handling meeting four families, he immediately answers "not well." It was probably the most real, honest answer anyone has ever given on this show.

Sibling Factor: Her sister was off the charts the star of this family. Before Ben and Lauren show up, she whines to her parents "If I brought a guy home after a month, you would have a lot of questions." Even better was the mom saying "well yeah, but that's you.  This is our LoLo," as if Lauren's judgement is above reproach, but her sister could be prone to bringing home a pimp or drug dealer at any moment.  There's a real sense of jealousy I got from her, as she tells Ben "my sister is pretty, smart, motivated, basically amazing....what do you see in her?" Ben starts crying.  Lauren's sister is all too eager to console him with a hug, as if to say "if it doesn't work out.....call me."  Bonus awkwardness in the final scene as the credits roll as her teenage brothers inquire about the fantasy suite.  Ben says "I'll never put your sister in a position that would be demeaning to her." Dude, you can't talk about "positions" when referencing the fantasy suite.  Guess the kinky stuff is out, Lauren.

Hometown #3: Caila (Hudson, OH)
Pre-family visit activity: A walk around her high school/college? I'm not sure what that was.  This is followed by a trip to her dad's toy factory to makea playhouse.  I thought this was fun and cool, but I seriously wonder what happens to that custom toy house if he picks someone else.  It'd be so ABC to film it being dropped off at Caila's house as she returns home after being dumped.

Family Visit Awkwardness Level: Asking the woman next to you on a cross-country flight when she's due when she's not pregnant.

Caila's dad makes a big deal about how awesome it is to marry a Philippino, which just seems stereotypical.  Nobody says "I hope you're ready to marry a Mexican, their families are awesome!" or "When you marry a white person, just know that they'll all act like they're super close, but really they just talk shit behind each other's backs, yet still demand everyone bend over backwards to make it to Easter dinner despite not going to church together since 1994." Caila has the emotional maturity of a twelve year old.  She continually calls her mom "mommy" and gushes about how Ben is "the one." Where her dad told her to calm down and be pragmatic about this, her mom is like "girl you get downstairs, jump into his arms, wrap your legs around his waist and show him how much you love him!" Those Philippino women......

Sibling Factor: Nil.  There's a brother, he says nothing.

Hometown #4: JoJo (Dallas, TX)
Pre-family visit activity: Talking about her ex-boyfriend.  Chad conveniently has been stalking her house and waiting for her to return to give her flowers.  Either that, or he's been buying a fresh bouquet of roses every day and placing them on her doorstep every day she's been gone.  Given that the dude is trying to get back together whith her over the phone, I'd guess the first.  He makes the very unconvincing argument of "baby, now that you're not around, I totally get how awesome it was to have you doing my laundry and making my food." She doesn't buy it, but she's clearly rattled.  Ben is also put off....as apparently this has happened to him before.  I can relate.  One time in college, I met a girl through a mutual friend and we hit it off pretty well.  She invited me to visit her over spring break at her college in California.  I headed off on the ten hour drive, calling her before I left.  She was stoked.  I was stoked.  Somewhere outside of Redding, I called again and left a message.  By the time I arrived, something was clearly off.  The next day she let me know that her ex had called while driving down and wanted another chance. She was considering it, and therefore offered to pay for my oil change and sent me on my way.  Not the best spring break I ever had.

Family Visit Awkwardness Level:

I just don't think it could've been more awkward.  Her mom's face has been pumped so full of botox she looks like the cheshire cat.  Her dad just looks like he gave up about thirty years ago and has just let his wife and his kids spend his money with impunity since.  Mom seemed to have no clue how the show worked, and was like "you love him, he loves you, what's the problem?" When JoJo says "well, there's three other girls" she was genuinely shocked.  And then there were her brothers.

Sibling factor: Holy mother of God.  There's being protective of your sister, and then there's these guys.  Their concern seemed less out of protection, and more out of some form of jealously that JoJo would rather sleep with Ben than them.  The way they ran to hug her when she came through the door was weird, and it just got worse from there.  JoJo's brothers and Catherine's (Sean's season) sisters would probably get along great.  Ben was in the impossible situation of not being able to express how he really feels about JoJo while being told that they question his sincerity of feelings for their sister.  Also, where the hell was JoJo while this was going on?  Literally the entire family is there bagging on Ben, while she's doing what?  Playing Xbox?  Powdering her nose?  I don't get it.  I'd have told her her journey was over just for that.

Rose Ceremony

Dress Rankings

JoJo - snazzy red number.  She looked good.
Lauren - Simple black dress.  I also liked this.
Caila - Her emotional age might be 12, but that floral print looked like something on a 65 year old couch.
Amanda - Britney Spears called from 1999.  She wants her dress back.

There was no build up at all, no drama.  Amanda's the odd girl out.  She handles it like a champ, not crying, not getting angry, just saying that she wished he hadn't made her drive out here to be sent home.  She lives in LA right?  How far did she really have to go?  In any event, she left in such a way that Ben has to be wondering if he made the right decision.  Did he make this based on the kids? Will he regret that later?  Who knows.  All we know is that he tells more than one girl he loves her next week.  One time in college, my roommate invited two girls he liked to the same party at our house.  They found out.  I didn't go well.  I'm sure Ben's strategy will go much better.

Bachelor Season XX, Week 7 - Ba da ba ba ba, I'm Hating it

Crazy to think we're already down to six ladies.  The Ridiculous Six head to Ben's hometown of Warsaw, Indiana for the week. Ben tours his hometown in a vintage pickup truck that obviously doesn't belong to him.  I'll bet he drives a Prius.  I love how they try to hammer home to all of us that Ben lives on a farm, despite the fact that his parents have this enormous house on a lake with a boat dock.

Lauren gets the first one-on-one, and Ben drives her around to see Warsaw.  Fun facts about Warsaw - The Plumlee Brothers are from Warsaw, as well as Tom Metzger - A white supremacist who was grand wizard of the KKK in the 1970's. He takes her to see the movie theater where he shared his first kiss.  Ben then goes into great detail about this first kiss, and then re-enacts the whole scene with Lauren, who is forced to play the role of the 12 year old girl who laughed at Ben when he asked her all those years ago. Seemed a bit weird and creepy to me. After that, they drive past his church, which is massive. A couple quick searches on the internet let me know that roughly 25% of the population of the town goes to this church.  That is just nutty to me.....lots of groupthink in this community.  The date continues on to the youth center, where Ben used to work.  They spend time playing with kids, but curiously not together.  Ben plays with the boys, Lauren plays with the girls.  Ben consoles a crying kid named Eric, and Lauren exclaims "I've never seen anyone interact with a kid the way Ben did." As a flight attendant, you'd think she would've consoled a kid a time or two.  Teachers, doctors, coaches....she's never seen anyone say "you look like you need to have some fun?" I'm all for giving Ben credit - he's active in his community, works with kids...these are good things - but let's not act like he's the first person to do these things.  The director of the center calls everyone together and challenges Ben to a bet that Ronnie, a special needs kid, can hit a shot from mid-court.  If he makes it, Ben has to kiss Lauren.  Why we're doing this in front of elementary school kids is beyond me. There's no discussion of what happens if Ronnie misses.  Turns out Ronnie is known as "half-court Ronnie" and is some sort of basketball shooting savant, because he drains the shot and shows absolutely no emotion as he nails it.  Everyone around him goes nuts, but Ronnie is cool as a cucumber, as if to say "you really thought I'd miss?" I like Ronnie.  He's the real MVP of this skit.  Ben and Lauren then sneak off to kiss in semi-discreet areas of the rec center, I assume to not suck face right in front of the kids.  However, since the cameras still need to see them, they aren't exactly out of sight. This whole thing is kinda weird.  I'm happy when this date is over.

Up next, Ben takes JoJo to Chicago.  Because the date card can never be entirely straight forward, it says "let's find love in the Windy City." I was actually surprised when none of the girls asked where the Windy City was.  Sadly, I spoke too soon, as one of the girls remarks "the Windy City?  I suppose it is windy here" as we come back from commercial.  They head to Wrigley Field, where Ben explains that his dad and him love the Cubs.  JoJo has never played baseball before, and it shows.  She awkwardly pitches underhand to Ben, who stops her to say "this has always been a dream of mine, let me soak it in."  My dreams usually involve hitting a fastball off of Kerry Wood or Greg Madddux, not a real estate agent from Dallas named JoJo in a "Mrs. Lasselle" jersey, but whatever.  They then make out in the outfield, which is kind of cool, but also weird because the jumbotron is showing every tongue-wrestling moment in 1080p HD on a 100 ft screen directly behind them. I actually kind of hope that ABC just added that in post-production, because I can't imagine that's very much fun for Ben or JoJo.  JoJo then asks Ben what the large board with scores on it is.  "That's a scoreboard" Ben says.  "Oh come the f*ck on!" yells Andy at his television.

The three-on-one date is weird, as Ben sits on a truck on a farm and watches the girls fly kites.  Nothing of any consequence happens, until he gives Amanda the rose and says "so....Amanda and I are going to continue this date, so ya gots to go" to Becca and Caila.  It was a little brusk and cold hearted, and I get the sense neither of them really has a chance to win.

On the date with Amanda, Ben says that the point of bringing them all to Warsaw was to envision what normal life would be like, and one of the normal things he likes to do is to go to McDonalds.  I call huge bullshit.  For one, there are billions of "normal" things that you can do on a date in your hometown that don't involve a fast food restaurant that literally nobody over the age of 16 is going to take a date to.  Second, there's this:

This is some of the worst product placement ever. Ben's "normal" visit to McDonalds involves the world's friendliest cashier complimenting the beauty of his date and chatting him up about everything  If this was a normal trip to McDonalds, everyone would be pissed off that it was taking this douche so long to order.  He then says that he's "always wanted" to get behind the counter of a McDonalds.  NOBODY DREAMS ABOUT WORKING AT MCDONALDS! This is like the shittiest item from the shittiest bucket list of all time. So long as you aren't a felon (and probably even then), you can probably get a job at a McDonald's tomorrow.  The two of them then serve people in the drive thru, completing this normal time at McDonalds.  My normal trips to McDonalds involve me sitting at a table by myself, staring at my Double Quarter Pounder, crying in shame and whispering "I wish I knew how to quit you."

Emily gets the final date of the week, and she gets to go to Ben's house and meet his parents.  She takes this as a good sign.  It's not.  Emily tries way too hard to oversell herself, rambling and saying things you never say to parents the first time you meet them.  Things like "If I could just sit on my couch and watch movies all day every day, I would."  While I have no doubt this is true (and I would love to do that as well), you say something like "I love to read" or "I love volunteering" or anything that doesn't immediately make them picture you as a lazy waste of space.  Mama Higgins actually breaks down into tears when talking to Ben saying "I heard her talk a lot about her dreams and aspirations, but I didn't hear anything about your aspirations!" What kind of nonsense is this?  The woman is supposed to put her own dreams on the back burner for your Benny?  Way to set women back fifty years, Mama Higgins.  Because Ben is incapable of disappointing his parents, he dumps Emily immediately, saying "I don't see you ever being my wife." Again, there's no good way to dump someone, but this probably isn't the best way.  Essentially, he says that she's not mature enough for him, and then Emily proceeds to have one of the most mature exits in Bachelor history.  She's obviously upset, but she holds it together. Good for you, Emily.  You came in as a total joke, but left with a decent shot to be the Bachelorette...of course your sister might have to come too, and then it's just ridiculous.

Rose ceremony takes place on the steps of what looks to be a spooky abandoned courthouse...giving it the look of a horror movie set, and not the location of a ceremony to extend a rose to a woman that may be your wife.  Amanda, Caila, Lauren, and JoJo get the golden tickets to hometowns, leaving Becca out in the cold, and one season of the show closer to being the real life 40 year old virgin.  She's only got like 8 more seasons of this to go.  I love how Becca is seen as a failure, despite the fact that she's beaten out roughly 45 of the 50 women she's been up against on this show over two seasons.  Only on the Bachelor could you be in the 90th percentile of desirability amongst some of the most attractive women in the country, and view yourself as a failure.  My guess is she goes on Bachelor in Paradise this summer, says 'to hell with my morals,' hooks up with Chris Bukowski and then ends up marrying Jared from Kaitlyn's season.

Bachelor Season XX, Week 6: The One Where Everyone Acts Like an Idiot

What the hell was that?  That was one of the more frustrating episodes I've ever watched.  It was as if everyone did the exact opposite of what you would expect them to do.  Let's recap:

We start with the conclusion of last week's rose ceremony, where Ben pulled Olivia aside.  Instead of asking her why other girls are saying she's rude and mean to them, he essentially asks her why she's not getting along with his ten other girlfriends.  Olivia gives the standard "I'm not here to make friends, I'm an introvert  (an introverted TV newsperson - right), blah blah blah.  Ben eventually has heard enough and has made his point that she's on thin ice.  As I said last week, he's made his point, now he can send her home without a rose at the next rose ceremony. More on this later.  The girls see Ben come back with Olivia still holding a rose and they're not happy about it. "This means someone that deserves to be here is going home," one of them whines to the camera.  This line of thinking holds no merit, as the only reason anyone deserves to be there is if Ben still wants to have sex with them. Ben made the decision that he'd rather have sex with Olivia than Jennifer, and as a result sent her home.  The girls always seem to forget that being nice won't carry the day in most situations.  The same reason they probably dated a meathead quarterback in high school over the nice kid with bad acne in the drama class that volunteered at a soup kitchen and helped them with their math homework.

The group travels to the Bahamas and Chris Harrison makes an appearance to let the ladies know there will be a one-on-one, group, and a two-on-one date.  Caila is the "lucky" winner of the one-on-one.  Leah is pissed.  She's the only person remaining to not get a one-on-one, and is clearly upset that Ben chose to go on a second one-on-one with Caila before giving her a shot.  As if to grind the knife further, Ben sits on the couch right between Caila and Leah before talking about how excited he is to go on his date.  Again, more on this later.

Caila and Ben go out to partake in one of Ben's "favorite activities:" deep sea fishing.  How deep sea fishing became the favorite activities of this dummy from Indiana is beyond me.  That's like a Hawaiian saying their favorite activity is building a snowman. Just imagine this, but with Lilo instead of Anna:

The date itself is pretty unremarkable, other than Ben grilling Caila for some juicy backstory on her life that she's unwilling to give up.  She then says some weirdly vague bullcrap about feeling "like I'm in love with you" but being unable to fully love someone because she's afraid of hurting him.  Ben says "you're hurting me right now" and Caila apologizes.  Ben then says that her confusion and non-answers are sexy because they prove she's not happy all the time.  I give up on this dude.  "By all means, Caila, stop smiling and being fun to be around.  It turns me on so much when you talk in circles and confuse the crap out of me."

Caila also makes reference to Leah being upset that Ben picked her for a second one on one, but refuses to name her when Ben grills her for information.  Ben sucks.  More on that later.

The real fun of this episode starts with the group date, which involves taking a boat to a small island inhabited by swimming pigs.  Ben thought it'd be fun to get everyone in a bikini and feed pigs chicken sausages.  A few things I really like; women in bikini's, tiny uninhabited islands, chicken sausage, and pigs.  What I do not like is all of these things together.  This group date was the equivalent of puppymonkeybaby.

It is not sexy in any way when a girl is running for her life holding a processed meat tube over her head as a ravenous pack of pigs bears down on her.  Poor JoJo at one point was nearly dragged under by an unstoppable porcine wave.  Of course, Ben immediately says "this date is great.  Everyone's having a great time with the pigs.  Some girls are feeding them, others are trying to pick them up! Some girls are having the pigs chase them around!" No Ben, those girls are running for their damn lives.  Those pigs are trying to eat their little piggies.  The only direction Ben gave the ladies was to cross their arms over their chests to get the pigs to stop.  In reality, all that gesture accomplishes is keeping their bikini tops on as the pigs rake their grubby hooves all over them in search of more hot dogs.  What a nightmare.

Ben continues to show he has his finger on the pulse of the ladies by pulling JoJo aside and saying "isn't this great?" JoJo can't even lie to him and tell him she's having a good time.  She's like "you get that this is weird for everyone, right?" Ben does not get it.  Instead of sympathising with JoJo, he instead basically chides her for not supporting HIM.  "You get it, though JoJo.  Out of everyone here, you know how hard this is for me."  For you?  Poor Benny, having to figure out how to juggle dating nine women so desperate for his attention they're willing to be eaten alive by pigs to prove how much they love him.  What an idiot.  No girl is going to give him that validation....

.....except Becca.  When he pulls Becca aside, she says "yeah it's tough, because it's pretty obvious you have a real strong connection with Lauren B.  But I'm OK with that, because I like you so much."

I'm pretty sure that Becca just said that she was totally cool with him being madly in love with someone else because she likes him enough to let him do that.  Suddenly her virginity makes so much more sense.  Her boyfriends don't have sex with her because they're too tired from BANGING THE OTHER GIRLS SHE'S OK WITH THEM BANGING! What a disaster.

Ok, back to Leah.  She's desperate to stay around, because, much like Becca, she's so into this guy who is so into other guys that she needs to find a way to be with him.  Leah hatches a plan to sabotage one of the other girls relationships with Ben.  Incredibly, she decides to go after Lauren B. It's become clear that all the girls understand that Ben feels differently about Lauren B. than all the other girls.  You don't bring down the biggest wildebeest on a hunt, Leah. You peel off the slowest, ugliest animal in the herd and you kill it.

Anyways, Leah's plan almost works to perfection, as Lauren B. interrupts her just as she's telling Ben what a manipulative witch she is.  Ben immediately tells Lauren that he really likes her, but this one negative comment he got from a rival girl  has him all flustered.  Somehow, Lauren B. doesn't put it together that Leah might've been the culprit.  She goes back to all the other girls and sobs to them about how someone told Ben she was mean.  Leah walks in and says "someone said you were mean? Well it wasn't me!" Jesus, way to go Leah.  She played that about as cool as Jim Carrey after he farted in the elevator:

As if to double down on her idiocy, Leah then goes to see Ben again later that night.  She tells the cameras that she's going to give Ben one last chance to get to know her, and then proceeds to spend all her time bad-mouthing Lauren again.  Not surprisingly, Ben says "yeahhhh I think we're done here" and sends her home.  Another one of my favorites melts down.  Lauren B, you're all I have left.

The two-on-one date between Haley and Olivia could've been much more awkward and memorable, but the terrible weather they had cut this bit short.  Nobody was really interested in hanging out on that island longer than they had to.  Ben goes totally cold-blooded and picks up the rose before escorting Olivia down the beach to tell her "you see this rose? This rose is not for you." and leaving her alone on the beach as he prances back down to Haley to roll around on a blanket with her, before boarding a boat with her and leaving Olivia alone with her thoughts.  I did get a kick out of Olivia pleading her case by trying to distinguish herself from the other dumb girls by saying "intellectual things are my jam" and then telling Ben "she's come to a lot of important realizations lately." Ben questioned her on this, and not having anything really to say, she just blurted out "I love you." What a mess.

The episode ended with a rose ceremony and the lesser of the two remaining Lauren's being sent home.  The previews for the rest of the season look intriguing as Ben is evidently going to pull a reverse Brad Womack and propose to two women as opposed to none.  Or probably not.  Damn you, ABC and your misleading edits.

Bachelor Season XX, Week 5: You Probably Don't Know what Mexico City is Known For

A bit delayed this week (my wife took the computer last night while she put our daughter to bed, then fell asleep herself), but here's a quick an dirty rundown of the night:

Ben followed in the footsteps of so many Bachelors before him and woke the girls up at an insanely early time - if I were the girls, I'd be nervous at how easily the hotels they stay at give up room keys - and of course they all freak out at being seen in such a disheveled state.  Lauren H. in particular had a rough time being seen in her retainer.  With the retainer in and her hair a mess, she kind of looked and sounded like one of my all time favorite movie characters:

Single Mom gets the date, and of course she wakes up looking a little like Ariana Grande in the Bang Bang video.  I'm wondering if she went to bed like that, or got up at 2 am to get ready and then pretended to be asleep again when the cameras come.  Assuming it's the latter.  They went hot air ballooning over an ancient city called Teotihuacan.  They then ate dinner and she talked about how she married too young and got pregnant twice and some other stuff, but to be honest, I was super bored and her voice annoyed me, so I mostly watched Ted Cruz try to kiss his daughter on a loop for the entirety of this date.  Seriously, I can't get enough of this clip:

On to the group date!  They made Mexican food or whatever, but really all you need to know is Jojo said this:

Nobody talks like this in real life.  NOBODY.

At the afterparty, Jubilee talks a good game about getting to Ben first and making her presence felt, but she puts forth hardly any effort as Olivia once again crowbars her way into Ben's personal bubble.   As Olivia says that making food with Ben (that the chefs thought was terrible by the way) made for the "best day ever," Jubilee commands one of the other girls to go break them up so that she can talk to Ben.  Why another girl would do this for her, I have no idea.  Anyways, nobody accommodates Jubilee, and she's getting madder and madder as Ben grabs girl after girl to talk to first.  Except Lauren B.  He doesn't so much talk to her as plant his DNA all over her mouth with his tongue in every corner of the city.  Because nothing says romance like aggressive kissing in a Mexican alley.  He is clearly smitten with Lauren B. in  a way he's not with the other girls.

Finally, he comes a-calling for Ms. Jubilee, who is bound and determined to make him pay for disrespecting her all night. She starts by refusing to hold his hand in front of the other girls.  She claims that this is because she "doesn't want to offend anyone." At first this logic made no sense to me, but remember how the girls basically thought that the back rub he gave her after Lace went home was tantamount to Pam Anderson and Tommy Lee on a boat, I kind of get where she's coming from.  She then chides Ben for making her have to wait and watch him date other girls and OH MY GOD do we have to do this every season? There's always one girl who fails to grasp the realities of the show she's on and demands to be treated like she would be if she weren't on television. They love the fancy clothes and extravagant dates in exotic locations, but are completely unwilling to accept the pesky little detail of the twenty other women and cameras everywhere that make the other stuff possible. It always cracks me up when the girls play the "you need to prove to me that you like me more than the other girls" card on this show.  I know that probably works for them back in the real world.  Back home, there's not twelve girls that look incredible in bikinis hanging on his every word either.  Why would Ben waste his time and energy with the one girl basically begging for him to prove his affection when the other ten girls just light up when he walks into the room and looks in their general direction?  Don't make it hard on yourself, Jubes.  She then says "I look at the Laurens (blonde) and the Olivias (blonde) and the Beccas (blonde) and realize that I'm not that kind of girl.  I think this is a subtle reminder to Ben that she's not white and reminding him that some people might see him as racist for dismissing her, but it's too late though: she asks if he sees a future together, and he says "based on the other relationships, I'd have to say no." Then, amazingly, he asks her if she would agree that it's time for her to go home.  Because yes, she'd much rather go home than continue traveling the world on ABC's dime, Ben.  What a dummy.

He then returns to the group and makes an overdramatic speech that involves the term "Jubilee was someone who from the very beginning intrigued me greatly." Like I said, I think he realized this might be the only chance a dorky white guy from Indiana would ever get to date a black girl and then break up with her for no apparent reason without repercussion.  Jubilee just made the whole process easier for him by getting all clingy.  I kept waiting for the shot of Jubilee talking in the car to her mom, but then I remember that everyone she know is dead, except for her commanding officer and whomever it was that taught her to play the cello.  She'll be alright. Oh, and somehow Olivia gets the rose, despite Lauren B. getting most of his time (and his tongue). This will be important later.  Also, the girls are PISSED at his decision.  Also important.

Lauren H. gets the second one-on-one date, which involved Mexican fashion week.  Ben tells us that a lot of people don't know that Mexico City is known for its fashion, which seems like a huge contradiction to me.  How can something be "known" if most people don't know it.  Most people don't know that I'm known for being the best Bachelor blogger on the internet either.  Lauren H. is nice, they seem to get along well, but the rest of the date is boring. She gets a rose.

Prior to the rose ceremony, the girls are all talking and Amanda is talking about her baby daddy and all the fun stuff that comes with sharing custody, and Olivia says "this sounds like an episode of Teen Mom that I watched." Now, Olivia is like 23 years old and probably doesn't have any friends who even have kids yet, so I'm willing to give her a little grief and then move on.  The girls, however, are not as understanding.  Granted, Olivia's a much bigger annoyance in their lives than mine, so their anger is more of a "lifetime achievement award" towards Olivia than anything else.

Remaining Twin (I think it's Emily) is really upset about all this and calls Dumped Twin (Haley).  Remaining Twin has been the most likable she's been all season this episode, but as soon as she gets on the phone with her twin, it's like she morphs into this ditzy valley girl instantly and starts talking in a whiny voice and everything is SO DRAMATIC.  I just watched an Episode of How I Met Your Mother where they talk about the phenomenon of "revertigo" - where you change and evolve over time, but when you see someone from your past, you instantly become who you were the last time you were with them.  Like Lily in this scene with her high school friend Michelle.  Anyways Remaining Twin decides to tell Ben how terrible Olivia is, and once she becomes the Jackie Robinson of tattling, the other girls line up for their turn in the big leagues.  One after another, they all tell Ben what a monster Olivia is to them.

Now Ben's in a situation. He's already given Olivia a rose, but she's also clearly someone that everyone else hates. He postpones the rose ceremony to talk to Olivia, and that's where this episode ends.  Will he take back the rose?  I don't think so. Ben's been very conscious of other people's feelings throughout this season, and I don't think he'll want to be the first bachelor to rip a rose away from someone.  More than likely, he'll just tell Olivia "look, the other girls hate you, and now I have to pay more attention to that.  Watch yourself." and then sit back and watch the fireworks next week as Olivia self destructs and either sends herself home or he can be entirely justified in dismissing her. If you start messing with the sanctity of the rose, I'm not sure what the point of the show is anymore.

And I'll just end this now, because clearly I'm tired. I just tried to defend the structure and morality of The Bachelor television series.

TO BE CONTINUED.......