By Daniel
Tonight on The Bachelor: Ben Flahjjnqnésajn sleeps with three busted-up white girls, then picks which two were the best! I love the overnight dates -- it's a sign you're getting close to the end of a long journey. It's like when the flight attendant makes the announcement to return your chairs to the upright position because the plane is about to begin its descent. Although in this case the women are instructed to assume a horizontal position.
Ben packs up in his hotel room, talking about some inane shit about how he has one more "key card" in his journey, which is Switzerland, and how he can see a life with all three of these women, but he doesn't mean it in a Big Love way. As far as we know, he's still planning to ask only one to marry him.
First up, Nicki: there's always something "enticing" about Nicki. She's a dark horse, and she deserves a Nobel prize for not curling up into a fetal position when it rained on their date in Puerto Rico. Jesus, this show lasts only ten weeks -- you don't GET A CLIP SHOW. The Bachelor thinks we all have the attention span of gerbils.
Lindzi is a little bit country and a little bit city, and Ben wants to have sex with a horse, or something. He says Lindzi is funny and open, and plus he'll get to pull his in-laws around in a carriage.
Also, there is Courtney.
We see some amazing shots of Switzerland that immediately send it to the top of my dream vacation list. You know, after they hose it down after The Bachelor leaves. Ben is wandering around eating cheese and chocolate and being neutral and talking about he thinks this week will give him the clarity he needs to make his decision.
We're in Interlaken, which literally means "intercourse" in Swiss or whatever. Nicki's up first, and she's talking about how glad she is that she told Ben she loves him. She really should wait a week or so before deciding whether it was a good idea right?
And I guess we're expected to be "stoked" (as Lindzi puts it) for another helicopter ride? Isn't the helicopter basically the subway of The Bachelor. They fly around for a while over the Alps, mainly so Ben can say stupid shit like their relationship is "going to new heights."
They land on a mountain meadow, and then start blathering about meeting Nicki's family, and how "big words were said," and now Nicki is telling us AGAIN how happy she is that she told Ben she loved him. Nicki yammers on about how well Ben fit with his family, and Ben says her father reminded him of his father, and she says "like" every three words and then she wants to "yell" off the mountain, only there sadly isn't enough snow for an avalanche.
By Daniel
Ben talks about how he always smiles when he's with Nicki, and he's found the spark, the "wow" with her today, and he hopes that she sleeps with him tonight, because it means they'll continue their love story.
So the helicopter drops them off again on a particularly tiny summit, and the camera spins around them as Nicki compares the mountain to their relationship, torturing the metaphor like Jack Bauer tortures a terrorist when there's just thirty seconds left on the bomb.
All that said, I don't mind Nicki, even though she seems to think that just because a cabin is made of wood it is "literally a log cabin," which is unfortunate. Anyway, that's where they're having dinner and Ben is saying sweet things like how he was wondering about her "integrating into his life" and it is a mystery why Nicki doesn't just rip his clothes off right there. In the biggest shocker of any season, she's TOTALLY WILLING to drop her life to go live with Ben. And also she wants to know how many kids he wants, like she's going to Costco and is going to pick some up for him. He says "the more the merrier" and she says she's always had her heart set on two, but then blathers on a lot about something I don't know what but I think she's trying to reassure Ben that whatever he wants she'll go with.
And then out comes the pimp card. You know how it works: Chris the Mack Daddy lets them know that if they forego their own rooms they can stay in the fancy suite, and Nicki takes two seconds before saying yes, and then they kiss and Nicki is all "let's do this" and they head off to their personal chalet with tons of candles all over the place, like nice fire hazard, and then Ben is popping champagne and Nicki is popping out of her blouse.
And now she is expressing the requisite amount of gratitude that Ben deserves for saying her dad reminded him of his dad. "I took that to heart to the infinite level," she says, whatever that's supposed to mean.
Ben kisses her, and he tells us that he's looking for someone who's independent and passionate, and also for someone who'll bathe with him and make out with him in a hot tub. I guess from Nicki's point of view, it's better to be first than to be last, right? They make out in the hot tub while she tells Ben that she's in love with him. Isn't it romantic how he never says it back to her? It's what fairytales are made of!
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By Daniel
Ben, having left cab fare on the nightstand for Nicki, is now meeting up with Lindzi. She's excited to see what happens today. Ben tells her he's got an "adrenalin" date lined up, and Lindzi is concerned that he means they'll be jumping out of a helicopter again. Ben tells us that he's learned that Interlaken is the "extreme sports capital of Europe," and I imagine he learned it from the Interlaken chamber of commerce.
So they hike through the woods, and any notion that the Bachelor plans his own dates is dispelled when Ben is surprised and a little nervous when he finds out that they're going rappelling down some cliff faces. Lindzi seems to have forgotten that Ben's love has cured her fear of heights, blah blah metaphor for love blah blah, right? Where Lindzi is nervously laughing, Ben is actually quite quiet and looks genuinely frightened. But nobody's too scared for marriage metaphors! Lindzi tells us you have to be there for each other, just like rappelling down a cliff! Congratulations on that comparison, Lindzi: you came up with something that would apply to LITERALLY EVERYTHING done by two people at a time. You have to be there for each other, just like when you're folding bedheets! You have to be there for each other, just like when you're playing "Chopsticks" on the piano! You have the be there for each other, just like when you're playing cribbage!
They rappel down, kiss in the middle, don't die. And now they are in a hot tub, hugging each other and saying "like" and "I know, right?" but those are just words that fill in the spaces when their tongues aren't in each other's mouths.
Their dinner is in a much more formal location. I believe it's the hotel where Ben is staying. No helicopter ride for Lindzi! As usual, people don't have anything more to talk about other than just rehashing the events of the day, throwing some dimestore relationship psychology into the mix. Lindzi is saying something about being vulnerable, and Ben loved watching her open up. He's wearing a bowtie, which is something my wife keeps trying to push on me. Let's just say that the Ben Flahkniskl endorsement isn't a strong argument in its favor.
Ben appears surprised when Lindzi says she hopes there's a proposal for her at the end of this. What the hell does he think she's here for? He tells us that he's really starting to love this woman. Not "in love," not "I can see myself falling in love," but that he's really starting to love him.
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By Daniel
Pimp card arrives, Lindzi says yes, and then "Great key!" and Ben says, "Right?" and then they get to the suite and Lindzi says, "This is amazing," and Ben says "Right?" and holy god I can't wait to never hear Ben Flahssknnig say, "Right?" twenty times an episode again.
When my rage subsides, they are lying on a couch making out and I don't think Lindzi has pants on and Ben is talking again how he loves her. I'm really starting to think Lindzi's the one who's left standing at the end.
Ben showers, I presume. It's the day or whenever, and rather than start off with Courtney, we start off with Ben, who is explaining that he's concerned about how things are between Courtney and the other women, and he's got to make sure she's not a gorgon or something. For her part, Courtney says she misses Ben but she's also concerned because there are two other women there, which isn't something we heard the other women say. She is coming off a lot nicer and more clear-headed than in the early episodes.
So they're off on a very Swiss date, Ben explains, which apparently means riding around on a train, walking around a Swiss town, eating Swiss cheese, and hiding Nazi gold, so that's sweet.
Courtney tells us she feels bad about the way she treated the other women, and she hopes Ben realizes that. And now they are having a picnic and drinking wine and playing a game called "Hey, Cow!" which consists of yelling at cows in the hopes that the cows turn their heads.
And now they are talking about Courtney's thorny relationship with the other women, and they both seem to regret it not because other people were hurt, but because it made their own time on the show more difficult. Ben doesn't want to talk about it right now because he's having a good time. Courtney cries in an interview as she explains how much she regrets it because of how much it hurt him and she doesn't know if they recover. "Now that I may lose the man I love and have a selfish reason, I regret being rotten to other people!"
So they sit down in some sort of wine room as Courtney continues to say things like, "I'm just really hoping that the damage I caused the other girls doesn't make me lose him." They start talking about Courtney vs. The World again, with Courtney blaming her general wenchness on how she fell for him early on, or some such. Ben's main concern is that he has lots of women in his life, and he doesn't want Courtney to cut them. She admits to having been "TOTALLY immature" at times, and she's sorry that "maybe" she said some things but remember it was just because she had her guard up! She feels like he has a good sense of who she is, and she cares about him, and she wants normality. If she could do it over, she'd change some things. Ben is very pleased that Courtney apologized TO HIM for her actions, and he feels like they're good and moving forward.
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By Daniel
The pimp card arrives, and Courtney is completely relieved that Ben still wants to bone her after she apologized to him for things she did to OTHER PEOPLE. They head for their room, which has a bearskin rug and a fireplace and a complimentary bowl of penicillin treatment. Outside is a hot tub that is very tiny, but that's all the better for them to rub their bodies together. While they make out, Courtney -- who is the third woman to spend the night with Ben in just a few days -- says you can't have a much better fairytale than this. I often read my daughter fairytales as bedtime stories, and I don't recall a key plot point ever being the princess groveling in front of the prince for all the mean things to all of the other twenty-four women he's trying to get with.
And now there is a "sneak peak!" of Bachelorette, Emily, who stands around her amazing house where she lives with her adorable daughter, feeling sorry for herself because no one is currently sleeping with her. Given how pretty Emily is, this is either contractual because she's doing The Bachelorette or she's got real problems.
So she heads off to L.A. where she hangs out with Ashley and this other former contestant whose name I can't remember. I could try to find out, I suppose, but I'm quite OK with not remembering who this person is. They try on clothes and put on makeup and audit some UCLA philosophy classes and take a limousine (past throngs of people being paid to pretend they're paparazzi desperate for pictures of them) to go see Titanic in 3D, which is one of tonight's advertisers, which is why we see half the movie too and listen to the three of them say stupid things about love.
And now is the time where Ben gazes out into the Swiss mountains and talks about how all his fears are laid to rest now. This means that we're getting the now-obligatory visit from a spurned contestant. It's Kacie, doing her best to act nervous as she knocks on Ben's door. He appears genuinely surprised to see her, but we know he has the brain of a goldfish with the attendant poor object permanence. He probably doesn't know if she's been gone for a week or three years.
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By Daniel
Anyway, she's there to talk a little more about why things didn't work out for them. I guess The Bachelor takes place in a parallel universe where people don't have phones and email. He says he didn't see them together, or something, but also he cared about her so much that dumping her was him protecting her, or something gallant. She alludes to her parents' position on sinful cohabitation and implies that she would have been up for it regardless. "It's nice to have answers, but it doesn't make it any better," she says. What the hell were you expecting?
Then there's this: if he chooses Courtney, he'll get his heart broken. "Any reasons why? I'd love to hear them." She says Courtney seems in this to win it. As opposed to Kacie, who is thrilled to have lost, I guess? Oh, and Courtney has expressed the apparently heretical position that if it doesn't work out with Ben, there are other people out there. Obviously the women here need to feel that if Ben rejects them, they should get on an ice floe and float out to sea, never to be heard from again. That hurts her, given how she cares about him. Ben doesn't have much of a response, but he walks her out of his room, and they hug, and Ben looks uncomfortable, says he doesn't know what to say, and they don't even really say goodbye.
Then Kacie LIES DOWN ON THE FLOOR OF THE HOTEL HALLWAY. Kacie, in the span of ten minutes, has gone from my favorite to maybe worse-than-Courtney status for me. Finally she gets up and walks out of the hotel and I hope someday (like TOMORROW) looks back on this and laughs. You know, like the rest of us.
So now Ben's confused. He feels like he'd made his decision, and then Kacie knocked on his door. He wonders whether he's being played, after Courtney brought up "the fact that Courtney's not a nice person." Ha ha, "the fact" she's not a nice person? Awesome.
Chris Harrison comes in for some man-bonding, and Ben calls him "buddy" which is like sunshine to a flower, and Ben says he's "confused and cloudy" and he didn't have any regrets beforeKacie showed up. Uh, if the regret is that you shouldn't have taken Courtney this long, DUMP HER TONIGHT, genius.
< p>Chris Harrison asks if he wants Kacie in the Rose Ceremony tonight. Oh, that is not a good idea, dude. Fortunately, Ben says something vague about how too much has happened.- 1
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By Daniel
Then they rehash the date nights, which were all awesome, naturally. Chris Harrison leaves so Ben can "decompress a little bit" and calls Ben "man" and Ben stands looking at the pictures of the three women he spent the night with this week, just like in a fairytale, or at least the fairytale edition of Penthouse Letters.
After the commercial break, he's still looking at pictures while Chris walks each woman individually into the ceremony. Nicki is wearing a toga, which is awesome. Harrison tells them that this is essentially the last rose ceremony, and here's hoping the step is Ben down on one knee, proposing. Ben comes in, and talks about how his heart is beating out of his chest again, and how they are all incredible women, which is what makes this so difficult.
After a couple more hours of this blather, Ben's first rose goes to Lindzi. She seemed like a lock. Then, utter chaos, as I've lost track of how many roses are left, and Chris Harrison is nowhere to be found. Ben picks up the last rose, waits an eternity, and then says the dumbest thing possible: "Courtney." Nicki hangs her head.
Harrison comes in and tells her to get her shit and leave. She hugs the other women, and Ben walks her out, and tells her that it's got nothing to do with her; he's just starting to have doubts. Doubts that have nothing to do with her? And hasn't every damn thing he's said about/to Courtney tonight been about the doubt he has?
Ben packs her off in the limo so she can cry her eyes out, and Ben can feel sorry for himself. Nicki says she was in love with him, and she's never been in love with someone who didn't love her back. Really? Lucky Nicki! She says she hopes he's making the right choice, but I think once you've decided to go on The Bachelor, there's no such thing as a good decision. While Nicki bawls, Ben toasts the two remaining women and tells them their auditions will continue.
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. He's genuinely worried that from now on, whenever he looks at his Swiss army knife, he's going to think of The Bachelor. Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel@gmail.com.
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