Sonoma, California, home of Ben Flajninkva, who is ecstatic because eighteen beautiful women are coming to vie for his affections. The women are currently in a plane, befouling the limited cabin oxygen with the stench of spray-on tan and chardonnay. He wonders what his father would have said to him in a moment like this. I suspect the word "jackass" may have come up.
All of the women are in that scenario where they're excited just for the chance to have a date with Ben, and not yet ready to commit homicide because Ben spent five minutes more with someone else. It's kind of magical, in its own way! Kacie B. gets the first date card, which she and the other women seem to think is some kind of honor. "I'm the luckiest girl alive right now," she says. Dangerously low expectations may be Ben's greatest ally here.
Then the ominous music starts up, and Courtney tells us Kacie B. is kind of annoying, and Courtney wouldn't care if Kacie B. didn't come home. Ben tells us he picked her because she's a real, genuine woman, instead of his usual type, which are always a pain to deflate and get back in the box.
So for the first date they go driving around Sonoma, apparently. Maybe they'll split a few beers in the 7-Eleven parking lot later! "Showing her my town is a good way to kind of let her in early," he says. Kacie calls it a quaint little town.
There's a piano in some Sonoma hotel, and I'm sure the staff there appreciate him showing her some sub-"Chopsticks" plinking as well as the obnoxious glissandos. Ben runs into some people he knows on the street and then Ben is talking about how southern women are very family-oriented, and now they are in a candy shop.
And then she buys a baton so she can tell him that she used to twirl one, and then she teaches him how to do it. "I don't think a lot of guys would walk down a street and twirl a baton with a woman," he says, congratulating himself for swallowing his pride for the relationship and making himself out to be some kind of prince among men for waving a stick around for the benefit of some woman he wants to nail.
They go for dinner at some place called "The Girl & The Fig" and then they talk about how awesome Sonoma is. She asks him what he learned from his father about what kind of man he wanted to be. Can we see his baton twirling again? Ben talks about what a good dad his father was, and how involved he was in the community. Kacie talks about how easy and natural her chemistry was with Ben, but I guess that happened when the cameras are off.
Back at the house, Courtney is passively-aggressively trying to undermine the other women, grilling Lindzi over why she got the first impression rose, when Courtney and Ben have an undeniable connection. "I think the horse got the first impression rose," Courtney tells us. Erika: "There's something a little off about Courtney." Is it that she seems dead inside?
Meanwhile, the kids have divvied up the roles. Blakeley is a gingerbread man, prompting Samantha to ask: "What do you get when you cross a gingerbread man with a hooker? Blakeley!" Which is funnier than anything I'll ever come up with.
And then we go to the community theatre in Sonoma, which is filling up with Ben's friends and assorted old people and kids. Emily says: "I am way more nervous now that I know that this is going to be in a real theatre with people that are expecting a professional show." I repeat: it's the community theatre in Sonoma, full of Ben's friends and assorted old people and kids. Every play I've ever gone to in a small town has gotten a standing ovation, because a) everyone in the audience knows someone in the play and b) they're applauding themselves for being so special by ATTENDING a play.
Ben, who has been given the role of Shaved Geico Caveman Pretending to Be a Prince, stars in some story about Prince Pinot of Bachelorville, who is lonely and wants a wife, and he has to slay a dragon and kiss an ass and strip down to his underwear because I guess the 12-year-old playwrights wanted to see his abs, and there are flubbed lines galore, and then, in the end, the play gets a standing ovation, which I worry may convince some of these bachelorettes that they can actually act.
Afterwards, the women shake off the common folk of Sonoma to drink champagne with Ben. Jennifer, who everyone agrees was the best actor in the play, wants to get more intimate with him now. As does, you know, everyone. Blakeley says she's going after the rose. Samantha calls her "ridiculously [bleep]." No idea what she said there. Samantha actually gets up at the cocktail party because she can't stand being around Blakeley. "She's such a cougar," she tells us. I don't know what to make of the fact that women younger than I am can be considered cougars..
Back at the house, another date card arrives, this one for Courtney: "Let's spin the bottle. Ben." "He wants to kiss me!" says Courtney, who gets up and takes the card from Kacie and says, "How'd that taste coming out of your mouth?" which is kind of shocking for everybody. "I think we're going to make out," says Courtney, oblivious. Erika says Courtney is purposely trying to get under their skin. I don't know if it's working, because the other women's faces aren't all shiny and waxy-looking.
After a game or two of chicken in the pool on the group date, Jennifer takes Ben aside for some one-on-one time and awkward conversation, and then they kiss, and I'm not sure it wasn't because Ben just wanted to get out of the painful small talk. "I could easily be on my way to falling in love with Ben," Jennifer tells us.
Then Blakeley makes her move, taking Ben aside for a makeout session in the hot tub that was as much for the benefit of Jennifer (who is watching) as it was for Ben. "Being a Scorpio, we're... " Oh, and she believes in her kissing skills, one hundred per cent. "It's time for some grown-up time with Ben," says the woman who was just talking about her astrological sign. Blakeley appears to be getting turned on just by talking about kissing Ben mainly to stick it to another woman.
Then: Blakeley gets the rose, and we're running headlong, to hear the other women tell it, into Slutmageddon. Samantha calls her horsey (not to her horsey face), and Blakeley seems a little put out that the rest of the woman are a little tired of hanging around her while she was blabbering first about "I'm going to get that rose!" and now "I got that rose!" "All these bitches: I just got the rose, dude!" she tells us.
The day, Ben brings his little dog Scotch on his date with Courtney, and it has to be one of the most boring sequences I can ever recall on this show. They wander among the redwoods and have a picnic by the lake and Courtney watches Ben put a blanket around Scotch when Scotch gets cold. The only thing I noticed is that all plant life withered to dust wherever Courtney left a footprint, which I thought was kind of interesting.
Then it's time for a stroll through the vineyards to a candlelit dinner under a tree. Here is an example of the sparkling conversation that is part of why both of these dingbats say this is the best date they've ever been on: "I knew once, after I talked to you, it was like, 'Oh, yeah, I like him.'" And now Ben is talking about all the fun and partying he did when he was working in Internet advertising, and if I'm expected to stay awake all night to recap this nonsense, something's going to have to pick up. I mean, I'm not asking for ninjas, but ... actually, ninjas would be nice.
He's dumbfounded that a woman as self-centered as Courtney is still single. Well, he didn't use the word "self-centered." "Found underwear in the bed, you name it," Courtney tells him. "I've got some trust issues, I'm not going to lie," she adds. Then there is talk of "Aha" moments and then she leans in for a kiss, and they kiss, and then she gets a rose because Ben is ridiculously easy to please, I think. And now they are making out again. "Courtney does make me think big picture. She does," Ben tells us. "All the other girls should watch out, because I got the rose!" she tells us, somehow forgetting that she's not even the first woman this episode to get a rose. Now she is rubbing the rose all over her neck, and thankfully we're out to commercial right away. You know, the word "vapid" is used all too often when discussing The Bachelor, but in this case...
Anyway, on to the cocktail party, where Blakeley the designated sexpot outrages the other women by -- despite already having a rose -- snatching Ben away from Samantha (who is referring to Blakeley as "Jugs," by the way). And then when she does it a second time? I've seen news footage of people overthrowing dictatorships who were less angry than the other Bachelorettes. Brittney, who is kind of dating a guy while he dates seventeen other women, wonders if Blakeley even has any morals. "It's like a war out there," says Courtney, taking a calming sip of red wine.
After a typically baffling conversation with Jenna (who is, if not completely sober, at least less drunk than before) is mercifully interrupted, she goes off to cry under a bedspread. Then Blakeley, who is maybe a little more concerned about what the other women think of her than she's willing to admit, also goes off to cry, or at least pretend to be sad in a corner of the luggage room until Ben comes in to encourage her not be such a goddamned baby.
Thankfully, we're into the Rose Ceremony now, where Kacie B., Courtney and Blakeley are already safe. After Harrison's usual unnecessary speech, Ben rambles on about how he didn't know if coming on this show would work (at which point I'd like to remind him that he's been on this show once already, so he should be aware of how well it doesn't work.
Getting roses: Jennifer. Emily. Elyse. Jaclyn. Erika. Rachel. Lindzi ("That's me!" she squeals). Nicki. Casey S. Samantha. Monica. Jamie. And the last rose goes to Brittney, which eliminates Jenna and ... oh, I don't know, Shawn? Jenna, who takes it about as well as you might expect, hogs all the screen time with her instantaneous mental breakdown.
"These girls distracted him. These girls are good. I don't know!" she says. She can't believe this is happening, she's mortified, she thinks she deserves love and she's always been trying to find it.
p>In stark contrast to Jenna's utter destruction is Ben's genial good humor as he tells the remaining women to pack their bags for San Francisco. You have to figure that the Sonoma Chamber of Commerce is more than happy with that decision.Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. As much as he hates to admit it, he probably would have, if he were in Ben's position, given a rose to Blakeley too. Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel@gmail.com.