Olivia spend $40K on clothes? I'm trying to figure out how that's even possible. It's like the Powerball meme that was going around last week: if Olivia split her clothes up amongst the entire country, every woman in America could have a v-neck white t-shirt and one shoe.
Lauren B. gets the first date. Caila says he looks "very handsome in powder blue," as if she'd say he looked like a bum in periwinkle or some other generic t-shirt. Lauren gets her date, and we're treated to this season's first "ABC has a sense of humor" date - take the flight attendant to an airport! Of course, she's never seen a biplane before, which makes zero sense to me. It seems like 85% of the airports I have been to have a biplane affixed to the ceiling. Has she never read a Peanuts comic strip? (don't answer that.)
Anyways, they do a flyby on the Bachelor mansion, as all the girls halfheartedly pretend to be offended for the cameras, though I think their annoyance probably comes more from production assistants interrupting their sunbathing time and momentarily having to pull their lips away from the straws on their fruity drinks to make them look at the plane in the sky. Up in the plane, Lauren and Ben kiss with all the passion of a mother bird feeding her chicks. The rapid fire pecking is further hindered by the microphones on their headsets preventing full lip to lip contact. I see nothing romantic about this date at all - it's loud, the wind is blowing, you're wearing ridiculous helmets and you can't move. Unless there's some hand action going on in that cockpit, I'm not seeing either of them really enjoying this all that much. Though I guess there's a view.
The plane lands, and Ben gives Lauren a piggy back into a field that looks like the sort of place you'd dump a body if you never wanted it to be found. There's nothing out here...at all. Except of course, the hot tub Ben and Caila shared with Kevin Hart last week. Because you can't take a girl on a date without seeing her in a swimsuit. Ben is making this pretty easy on himself: "Oh look, let's share a cockpit with no room for you to get away from me......what? there's an empty field with a hot tub in it? What are we going to do with this?" This is how a nice guy acts dirty without having to seem like a perv....give her no choice other than to make out with you.
Meanwhile, Caila's crying back at the house thinking about how her "one on one" date involved two celebrities and a hot tub in a dirty ass store in a run-down neighborhood. Wait till she hears that Lauren got a hot tub in a meadow with nobody around for seventeen miles!
As Lauren and Ben transition to dinner, Ben asks how some guy hasn't "snatched her up" yet. Translation: you're super hot and don't seem insane, so what am I missing? Lauren claims she's very picky, and that's because of her dad. Her dad is the most amazing person alive, so good luck comparing to him! I'm still not cool with girls saying that they want a guy just like their dad (or guys saying they want a woman just like their mom). It's like saying you want your steak to be just like your salmon. They're both amazing, but in different ways, and there's nothing wrong with letting steak be steak and salmon be salmon.
In a weird role reversal, Ben gives Lauren his tale of woe. Typically it's the contestants playing the pity card on the Bachelor. Makes me think he's working hard on getting her to like him. She could be around for a while. Dinner adjourns, and they head to the barn to listen to some country singer I've never heard of, and the look on Lauren's face lets me know she's about as familiar with country music as she is with vintage airplanes. She gets the rose.
GROUP DATE!
Time to play soccer at the Los Angeles Coliseum! Am I the only one wondering why they're not using the Rose Bowl? That's an infinitely more iconic soccer stadium. Wikipedia let me know that, aside from a handful of Gold Cup matches, LA Coliseum has only really hosted one other soccer tournament: Something called the Marlboro Cup which is about as prestigious as the title sponsor implies. On the other hand, the Rose Bowl played host to probably the most important women's soccer game of all time and also the 1994 Men's World Cup final. I'll bet I'm probably one of three people watching the bachelor who cares about this.
No matter, because here come Alex Morgan and Kelley O'Hara, my two favorite U.S. women's soccer players! Sometimes The Bachelor just gets me. I also love that they get to wear shirts identifying them as World Champions....do you think they ever wear those shirts around? Surprise, surprise, the girls suck at soccer.
Back at the house, Jubilee is complaining about how much more complicated she is than all the other girls...to one of the other girls. Jubilee thinks that Caila and Lauren B. are pretty similar, and that they're Ben's type. Aside from the skin tone, I'm not sure their personalities are anything alike. Caila is loud and outgoing and giggly - Lauren B. is much more "let's go antiquing and drink fancy wine." But I guess when you're stuck in a house all week with nothing to do but drink and think about how you're not on a date, your mind tends to draw conclusions that aren't there.
Time for the girls to play some soccer! Winners get an after party, losers take the reject bus home, where they get to silently glare at all the other girls on their team for not being better at a sport they've never played before. Whatever helps you sleep at night. Ben gives the girls a pep talk that involves the line "we're playing for not only tonight, but this moment." Also, who picked out these uniforms, Sepp Blatter?
Shushanna cramped up, and the stripes team wins. Shushanna ends up crying on the bathroom floor, cursing her leg muscles for not being there for the right reasons and preventing her for having more time with Ben. Alex Morgan and Kelley O'Hara silently run away, horrified that girls actually act like that in the real world. And here they thought they were inspiring women to be more independent and confident.
Olivia takes advantage of the extra time at the afterparty to steal Ben away immediately and then wonder why the other girls seem threatened by her. Ben responds by saying he wouldn't have given her the first impression rose if he didn't think she could handle it. Ben, you didn't elect her ambassador to Iraq. You gave her a rose that basically means "I hope to see you in a hot tub later on this week." While Olivia is off telling Ben how much she's missed him in the past three days, the girls are busy talking about how she has fake boobs, bad breath, and ugly toes. The fake boobs thing seems like a pretty standard girl insult. "At least I didn't pay for my body!" says the girl who spends $800 a month at the salon and an additional $200 for a personal trainer. The bad breath thing seems dubious, since Olivia's mouth opens so wide I have a hard time believing it's not well ventilated. And the toes? How do you criticize someone's toes? Toes are basically your body's external appendix - they're there, but evolution is pretty much trying its damnedest to make them obsolete. Jami decides that she's not interested in being catty about Olivia's appearance, but has no qualms being catty and ratting out the other girls to Olivia. She tells Olivia that the girls were picking apart her appearance, and Olivia instantly says "this is about my cankles, isn't it?" Jami tells her it's her toes, and Olivia has a look of utter disgust. "They were critiquing my....TOES?" It does seem petty, doesn't it? But then....."I mean, I know my toes are ugly - I HATE my toes!" What? How disgusting are these toes? Is she some sort of super attractive, tall hobbit? I need to see these things!
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| Olivia's feet |
NOPE. She hates caviar so much she spits it out. Ben asks if she is "adventurous with food" and she says "I'm adventurous, but not with food. My go to food is hot dogs." I can't tell if this is a sexual innuendo or not. Jubilee seems like the kind of girl that will say all sorts of ridiculous stuff just to keep a guy's interest. They start getting along a little better, and this of course leaves to a hot tub. Ben gives her a wolf whistle because he's classy like that, and then they discuss Jubilee calling him a "white boy" and how Jubilee thinks he courtesy laughs at everything the girls say, but he genuinely finds her funny. Uhhh.....I'm not sure what to think of this. Ben keeps saying that Jubilee "stretches me" and "challenges me." I'm trying really, really hard not to think that this is a "I've never dated a minority thing, and this gives me a chance to experience that before settling down" thing for Ben, but that's sure what it seems like. Sort of a "I'd never date a girl like Jubilee in real life, but here I can do it WHILE ALSO DATING SEVENTEEN BLONDES!" I think she makes it through this week, but she's probably gone next week.
Dinner time, and Ben is treating this meal like he's Barbara Walters and Jubilee is one of the twenty most interesting people of 2015. "Why can't you go back to Haiti?" Jubilee says she can't go back because her whole family died. HOW? WHY? Was this an earthquake situation? Ben then tries to build her up by talking about how proud he is of her overcoming the mass extinction of her family allowed her to become a bachelor contestant. She seems like a nice girl, but also a hell of a lot of work. I feel like at least twice a week you'd have some sort of exhausting conversation about the state of your relationship with her. Nonetheless, you can't send a girl packing after she tells you she literally has no family. She gets a rose.
Back at the mansion, the girls are convinced that Ben sees a future with Jubilee, which they don't understand because they don't like her. It's not even a thought in their mind that it could just be a pity rose. Ben comes in for the cocktail party and tells the girls that he's "a little down" because some family friends died in a plane crash. A little down? Olivia then steals him and tries to get out in front of the "I have bad cankles" storyline before one of the other girls drops the bomb. Cankles - the struggle is real. Olivia is crying because her calves are poorly defined. WIFE HER NOW BEN!
"What are you thinking Jubes?" Jubilee says "I'm thinking about how to make him feel better." Seems like a perfectly logical response, but somehow this leads to another conversation about how she's not friendly with the other girls. It probably doesn't help that she's walking around holding a rose that all the other girls covet and dropping it on the table and saying "what's up ladies?" like it's a straight flush at the final table of the World Series of Poker. She then gives Ben a massage to help him relax. The other girls see this fully clothed back rub and act like she just dropped her pants and said "come and get it, big boy." Girls are so weird.
Amber, girl who has rose, has issues with Jubilee having a rose. In fairness, Jubilee grabbing a blanket and going to take a nap is not really how this show goes. Amber then basically commands her to come be judged by a group of ladies, and Jubilee is having none of it, probably because she doesn't want to use her military training to end these judgey mean girls lives. So she storms off to a bathroom to pout. This of course catches the attention of Flo-Ben-ce Nightingale, who needs to make sure everyone feels good. Amber clearly hasn't picked up on Ben's need to make sure everyone feels loved and welcomed. She comes over to explain to Ben why the girls don't like Jubilee IN FRONT OF JUBILEE. She then talks about Jubes like she isn't even there, and then Ben responds by telling Amber "what I like about Jubilee" like Jubes isn't even there either. Ben should've shut Amber down immediately. He's rapidly losing control of this situation, and it looks like the girls forgot he's dealing the with the death of friends thirty minutes after he told them. Ben needs to remind these women who is running this show. It might not be how it works in the real world, but on this show what he says goes and the other girls better fall in line.
Ben clearly hasn't picked up on this either, as he allows Lace to call him over for yet another "this is about me and my needs" conversation. I guess it's better that he didn't shut her down, because Lace just had the most honest conversation ever had on this show. In a nutshell, she says "I'm a mess and I never should've come on this show." Good for her. In thirty seconds, she just flipped the way everyone will remember her....and probably set herself up brilliantly for a shot at redemption on Bachelor in Paradise this summer. Way to go, Lace.
Also, the girls showed Ben SIGNIFICANTLY MORE sympathy after hearing Lace left than they did after he told them people he knew died in a plane crash the day before. #Priorities
In the end, he sends Jami and Shoshanna packing, after making Olivia sweat it out for her absurd cankles conversation. Good for him, but he's got his work cut out for him. Olivia clearly didn't see it that way, as she interpreted the way he squeezed her waist as a declaration of his undying love for her.
I saw something online about how Ben was the 78th best quarterback in the state of Indiana as a high school student-athlete. The way he's handling these girls, it's not hard for me to see him having trouble leading any group of people to do any thing.
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