Wait, so someone gets injured tonight? Is it all of them?
Sean is working out, as he does, and confessing that he wants to have sex with pretty much all of the women in the house, which is just how romantic this show is.
Meanwhile, Harrison is talking to the sixteen remaining hostages -- we are still in that stages where I'm not convinced all of the women in the room have actually been here all along because there are still faces I don't recognize.
A date card arrives. Robyn hopes it's addressed to her and says, "Robyn, let's ditch these bitches and fall in love for real." It's probably not going to say that, but I do have my fingers crossed.
It is for Lesley M. "How long will this love last?" You mean on-camera or off-camera? Which one's Lesley? Oh, right, the cute "political consultant" who hates nerds, right? Sean picks her up in a car which as far as I'm concerned is not a helicopter, and they head down to the Guinness Hall of Records in Hollywood, and you can tell Lesley is trying to pretend that it doesn't matter where she goes as long as she's with Sean but actually hates that this isn't a really glamorous date.
Sean reveals that his dad has the record for driving through the contiguous forty-eight states in the shortest amount of time -- ninety-seven hours and seven minutes. Lesley is blown away by this, and it's kinda cool but seriously, he just drove a lot. Lesley is acting like Sean's dad was the first man in space.
So Sean wants them to set their own record, which will be the world's longest on-screen kiss. Harrison is there to explain that the longest on-screen kiss is three minutes and fifteen seconds, and he helpfully explains that to break that, they need to kiss for at least three minutes and sixteen seconds. This is amazing for anyone who doesn't understand how sequential numbers work.
Ugh, let's get this over with. We're really going to have to watch this, right? I mean, if they don't show the whole thing, it's not really on-screen, right? We go into a split-screen kinda like 24 but if 24 were about a couple of idiots pretending to fall in love on camera. Most of the time all segments show different angles of them kissing, but occasionally we get to hear their banal observations like "I was just trying to keep kissing her so that we could get the record," essentially. "Kissing Sean puts me on Cloud 9, and I don't ever want to stop," says Lesley. Sean's hand starts to migrate south, maybe hoping to add world's longest on-screen grope to his title. Harrison is asking dingbats in the crowd what they think of this, but keep in mind these are people who have nothing better to do than stand and cheer on a couple of strangers kissing. "That was a very easy record to break for me," says Sean. Very easy record for anyone to break -- well, providing they have a way to be on television.
So after breaking the record for Most Out Of Proportion Pride Given Uselessness Of Record Broken, they head for drinks and dinner, where Lesley talks about school and does that beyond-annoying thing where she talks about being a nerd in school, because god forbid people don't apologize for studying and good marks, like GROW UP, LESLEY, and then the awkward small talk starts happening, with Lesley saying she gets nervous because he's gorgeous and sincere and all that. And then they start kissing again, but don't worry, it's not a record or anything.
Back at the house, a group-sex date card arrives, for Kacie, Robyn, Leslie H., Kristy, Catherine, Desiree, Taryn, Amanda, Lindsay, Danielle, Jackie and finally Tierra. "Who's going to win my heart?" says the card. We don't actually see it, so I assume that it actually says "Whose going to win my heart?" AshLee, all sour grapes, says she's glad she's not going on the group-sex date, because she has a feeling it involves activity, and she appears to be dead-set against any kind of activity, including the brainwave kind.
Meanwhile, Sean is grabbing the rose and holding it on his crotch and saying, "Did you notice this?" and now he's talking about how he wasn't expecting to have feelings this fast, but he does, so here's your damn rose. "I'm falling in love with this guy, and he's perfect," says Lesley, adding that the evening has been magical, "in a very good way," lest we think he means Sean led some sort of black mass. Sean is impressed that she's so smart and sexy, and of course "smart" in this case means "she told me she was a nerd in high school."
So the group date is on the beach, and there are several geniuses in the house who have determined that "win my heart" means there is going to be some sort of competition, like IT IS ALL A COMPETITION, and everyone starts throwing the football around, and the women start screeching for Sean to take his shirt off, like he has to be told twice.
And then Harrison shows up, wearing brown pants and an untucked shirt on the beach. I also think he hasn't shaved in a couple of days. He explains that they're going to play a game of volleyball: Winning team gets to continue hanging out with Sean, losers go right back to the mansion. Daniella says this is "literally her worst nightmare."
The game starts. Would it have killed them to play Kenny Loggins' "Playing With the Boys"? I mean, I realize they don't want to invoke the repressed homoerotic tension of Top Gun, but ... I don't know how to finish that sentence.
Anyway, from the way they play, you'd think the winners were actually going to be executed. They are terrible -- like first-ten-minutes-of-every-underdog-sports-movie terrible.
Then one team wins, but I don't even know who's on which team. "I hate that the losing team has to go home," says Sean. Again, Sean: You are not going to get to keep making out with everyone indefinitely. There are some tears and apologies on the losing side, but it's just for being shitty at volleyball, and not for perpetuating this awful show for years beyond when it should have been spiked into the sand and left there forever.
The losers -- in every sense -- arrive back at the house, still crying and whining about nothing that anyone will remember two days from now.
Meanwhile, the winners are getting cocky over winning LESS-CROWDED SEAN TIME. Lindsay sits down with him. "Oh my gosh I am just like so amazed by you," says Lindsay, who I hate to point out is, as a substitute teacher, occasionally responsible for shaping the minds of America's youth.
And then there's Desiree? I think? Sean says he likes her confidence and never gets tired of hanging out with her, or, it seems, having his hand on her ass. Desiree tells us she's a lot of fun and thinks differently from most people, and not just on the surface. All of her statements fall into the category of either "If you have to tell someone you're a particular way, then you are not actually that way" or "That makes zero sense" or "You are a mental case."
There's another date card at the house: It's for AshLee and Selma, says Tierra. But it's not actually for Selma, just AshLee, and Tierra was making a ... joke? ... by pretending it was also for someone else? Sarah babbles for hours about how "not cool" that was.
Back on the date, Amanda is explaining to Sean that she's everything he's looking for in a woman, and if they were to get married, "I will bring such a light, airy, fun atmosphere," she tells him. Desiree talks a whole lot of shit about how different Amanda is with Sean than she is with everyone else.
Kacie takes note of the growing tension between Desiree and Amanda, and decides she's going to warn Sean about the drama, because there's nothing better than the contestant who thinks she's not interested in the drama but tattles about drama between others? You can see Sean's eyes go dead when he realizes where this is going. "Why are you saying something to me?" he asks. "Why are you involving yourself in this?" And then this: "I want you to act like Kacie, not this crazy person that I'm seeing," says Sean. It's like a car crash, with Kacie full aware of how terrible a decision this was, but unable to pull out of it. I mean, when you are told to your face that you are acting like a "crazy person" by the Bachelor, that's not a successful date.
And then Sean goes and gives the rose to Lindsay, and Kacie says she's scared of what's going to happen to her now. Wait, are they executing eliminated contestants now?
Oh, right, AshLee is the one who makes a living by helping people put things in boxes and hang them up. "Nothing will or can go wrong today," she tells us. That means she's going home, right.
But before Sean arrives, Tierra falls down the stairs, and lies there comatose. Sean arrives and is concerned about what's happened. "As a guy who's had several concussions, my first thought is we need to get her to a hospital," says Sean.
Once the paramedics arrive and get her in a neck brace, that's when Tierra starts talking about how she wants to be left alone, and by this point the eye-rolling is going on in full force. "Maybe Sean is her magic potion," says Catherine. AshLee -- making sure to tell us she's a smart woman -- says Tierra's the boy who cried wolf. She says that Tierra didn't want to go to the hospital because she knows that when she gets there, the medical staff will know there's nothing wrong with her.
And you know what? Once Tierra started insisting she was OK, Sean really should have left her alone and gone ahead with the date with AshLee, who is currently the lesser of two evils. "She thinks it's cute to play the victim," says AshLee. I know this show gets edited harshly, but I do agree that Tierra is worse than Hitler, as we're being led to believe.
Anyway, eventually the date starts. Sean says he's looking for a woman with a caring and compassionate heart, but he also wants to see the kid in her too. So the way to prove how caring and compassionate and kidlike they are is to prevent anyone else from enjoying Six Flags today.
But then we find out there is a charity component: They're sharing the day with a couple of chronically ill girls who have gotten to know each other online -- but don't know they're going to meet each other in person for the first time. Brianna gets out of a limousine and meets Sean and AshLee, and then Emily arrives in another limousine, and the girls are thrilled and excited to see each other, and Sean explains both girls have mitochondrial disease which causes them a lot of pain, but today's a day for them to just be kids.
It is alarmingly sweet for this show, and I sure as hell am not going to be the one to make fun of teenage girls with mitochondrial disease. I'm just going to point out that the spirit the two of them show makes the bullshit that everyone else complains about on this show seem even more petty.
And then, as though these poor girls don't have enough challenges already, Sean introduces a concert by the Eli Young Band, whatever that is. I'm not sure why they would do that to these girls after giving them such a nice day, but I'm sure child welfare officers were on the scene within minutes to rescue them.
AshLee is glad to finally ditch the girls, so she can tell Sean about everything she's been through in her life -- she was abused (not sexually, she says) in a foster home. "Life is hard. Life brings you trials and tough times, and it's your family that holds you together," she says. And then she tells a (dammit) genuinely touching story about being adopted by the family that loved her ever since. She considers herself lucky, and the hug, and Sean's eyes water, and for the first time in my life I will give this show the benefit of the doubt and assume they're genuine, because -- uh -- I might have gotten a little misty-eyed too. Dammit, show, don't make me feel emotions!
And then she gets the rose, because it's not like you're going to deny the rose to AshLee after that. And then -- OH GOD NO NOT THE ELI YOUNG BAND, I TAKE EVERYTHING BACK, BACHELOR, YOU ARE EVIL AND THIS WORLD WILL NEVER HEAL AS LONG YOU CONTINUE TO EXIST
Cocktail party time! It's all becoming more serious! It's all becoming more real! Some people are building connections and some aren't! Some people haven't even fallen down stairs!
Sean decides to give Sarah some particular attention because she didn't get a date this week, and he takes her outside where a limousine pulls up and she freaks, thinking he's sending her home, but in reality this show has used a whole limousine to bring her damn dog Leo to see her. "I have never felt so special or felt so cared for in my entire life," says Sarah, who got less attention from Sean than pretty much everyone else in the house.
Sean now hangs out with Tierra, who is some kind of goddamn hero for making a full and total recovery from breaking her body on the stairs this morning. Lacking self-awareness even for someone on this show, Tierra complains that all her time with Sean has been interrupted, so she wants to punch some walls.
So she interrupts Sean with Desiree? I think? Amanda? Lesley M. decides to end that nonsense and interrupts Tierra, and once again I am completely baffled as to whether the Bachelor is allowed to say, "Just a minute, lady" or not. And then Jackie (there's a Jackie?) says "all of the sudden" and my confusion turns into snickers.
Kacie decides to throw water on a grease fire and apologize for the other night, because her "delivery" wasn't what she thought it should be, and she was having a hard time. "I could tell," says Sean, who acknowledges that they took a couple steps backward, but before they explore that further, they're interrupted by AshLee and one of the other women.
Harrison comes in before a full-scale riot breaks out to take Sean away in preparation for the rose ceremony, Kacie still freaking out about whether she's suffering a fate worse than death ... or being sent home.
Lesley M., Lindsay and AshLee all have roses already. Sean comes out. "Each passing day..." he starts, and that's enough out of Sean. He picks up a rose to start handing them out, but the pause is long enough that you realize something's going to happen, and then he asks to speak to Kacie a moment, and pulls her outside -- setting the remaining women chattering, especially since he brings a rose with him -- where he talks about getting to know her in New York and respecting her too much to make her stand through another rose ceremony if he doesn't see things progressing beyond friendship. Ah, the ol' "I respect you too much to keep seeing you" breakup!
Sean comes back and explains things to the rest of the women -- who did an admirable job containing their glee at the herd being thinned. In the van, Kacie tells us that last time she left here with no regrets. Wait, didn't she wind up coming back and collapsing in tears in a hotel hallway? Or was that someone else?
Anyway, the rose ceremony: Tierra. Leslie H., Catherine. Daniella (despite losing at volleyball, literally her worst nightmare). Robyn. Selma. Sarah. Jackie. Amanda. Last rose goes to "Des," and call me old-fashioned, but I think anything that uses the word "ceremony" should involve a person's full name.
Being sent home are Taryn -- "I didn't open up myself, and I'll have to figure that out," she says, and then there are tears -- Kristy -- "I hope that my chance for love will come someday," and then there are tears.
Sean tells the other women he's very happy, probably because he got rid of the crazy broad plus a couple others, so he's looking forward to another phenomenal week. He's an optimistic son of a bitch, I'll give him that.
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. Rule of thumb: If the Bachelor tells you are acting like a crazy person, you might as well just start packing your bags. Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel@gmail.com.