I love that this show does a very long, "Tonight… on The Bachelor" segment to kick off the episode, when we're just about to watch it. Nothing makes me think that they don't actually have enough material to fill two hours more than this. Clare received the first date card so she pretties herself up and packs her bags -- because any girl who doesn't get a rose at the end of her one-on-one date then has to immediately leave the house. Juan Pablo walks in, and there is so very much hair smoothing and eyelash batting by the other girls, who are seething with jealousy. He takes Clare outside and puts a blindfold on her, while the other girls all trot out to squeal and watch and seethe further.
Clare is left with nothing to do on the ride but notice how delicious JP smells while she wonders where they are going. JP claims he remembers her being funny and clever as soon as she got out of the limo, which means that faking a pregnancy is somehow now a good idea to get a man's attention. They get out of the car and he has her jump on his back, still blindfolded, before depositing her in the middle of a small winter wonderand. There's tons of fake snow, a little sledding hill, and a tiny ice rink. They cuddle and are all giggly and cute while the other girls muse about what they could be doing.
It seems that Free Spirit Lucy just loves being naked, and wants to go on a group date because she claims she's good at getting noticed. Which seems to be pretty much by getting naked. Clare, meanwhile, thinks her date is perfect while JP voiceovers that he can see them having a life with Camila, because nothing says, "I trust this woman to love me and my child," than an hour in some fabricated, out-of-season snow. Clare thinks that this natural romantic situation could help her finally make herself vulnerable again.
Back at the house, Molly trots in with the date card, which goes to Kat, who I can't remember at all. She's a medical sales rep? Sure. The date card promises electricity.
Oh lord, of COURSE there is a spa set up in the snow, with the rose on a pedestal tantalizingly nearby. Clare uses the time together to tell him about her late, beloved father, and what an awesome man he was. She closed herself off after he died, but knows that isn't what he would have wanted. She also knows that her bar is set pretty high because she wants a man as awesome as her dad was. JP cuddles with her a while and then goes and gets the rose, which of course she accepts, and then we get the first kiss of the season as well as the first, "I really could be falling for this guy." Because this date wasn't surreal enough, a singer named Josh Krajcik (from the X-Factor) shows up to serenade them so that they can slow-dance in wet bathing suits in the falling snow, like you do.
The day, it's time for Kat's date. Molly -- the real star of this show -- watches JP arrive from the balcony. He drives Kat to an airport, where they have their own private jet waiting to whisk them away. JP says for already the millionth time how much he loves surprises, and then he goes to another cabin and comes out wearing a tracksuit with some light-up trim and a big heart pin. He gives Kat neon workout gear with the same lighted features, as well as big glow sticks, and then they land in Salt Lake City for the Electric Run. Okay, I loathe running almost as much as I loathe cockroaches, but this actually looks fun -- it's a 5K with everyone in crazy light-up gear and then there's a giant concert afterwards. It's like a way healthier-than-normal rave. The two dance while she talks a lot about how much "electricity" there is between the two of them.
Back at the house, a date card arrives for a group date comprised of Chelsie, Christy, Kelly, Cassandra, Andi, Renee, Lauren S, Alli, Chantel, Nikki, Elise, Victoria, and Lucy. This leaves like three poor girls without a date so they all stew about how this sucks while Kat and JP dance the night away a couple of states over. JP and Kat are called up on stage, dance with the DJ, and then JP presents her with a rose.
The day, it's time for the 13-girl date. Lucy muses about how to get his attention if she can't flash him, and to illustrate, she flashes the camera. Seriously, how annoyed was the editor who had to waste time adding all of the black boxes in every one of her scenes? It turns out that they are all there to do a photo shoot for Models N Mutts, in conjunction with Best Friends Animal Society, to promote dog adoption. Each girl is styled to match her dog and the costumes cover a range from sexy dresses, to bikinis, to a skull cap and brown and white spotted body paint (Kelly), to a giant fire hydrant (Lucy). Elise, meanwhile, doesn't get an outfit so much as two teeny signs with which she can hope to cover her bits and pieces. Andi gets a similar outfit, though hers is only one sign and she's ticked off about having to both do a photo shoot and be naked. She reminds us with disdain that she sends people to jail every day for a living, forgetting that the follow up to that statement is that she then decided to try out to be on a televised dating show.
Elise goes to talk to the creative director, worried about how she's a first-grade teacher and getting naked on national TV might not make her a good role model. (Again, see: television dating show.) (Though I actually like Elise so far, she seems sweet.) He blows her off by telling her the important thing is that this is for a good cause, and then actually runs away before she can respond. She then sees Lucy in her fire hydrant getup and unsurprisingly, Lucy is very happy to help out and trade "outfits." Lucy likes her new non-outfit so much that she goes and walks her dog around the block in it, getting herself significant attention from passing motorists. This is so very old already.
Then she shoot commences, and JP only appears to be in half of the photos. Elise the fire hydrant crouches down while Nikki walks a dog to her, while Cassandra gets to put on a bandage dress and do a Lady and the Tramp-inspired shoot that results in her kissing JP over a shared strand of pasta. That seems fair. The shoots are peppered with JP talking about how sexy and gorgeous all of the girls are who actually got to wear glamorous getups, though he also gives Kelly props for her spotted body makeup. Andi sits in a corner and frets until JP walks up and says he's going to be naked in the picture too, and reminds her that this is about the dogs, not them, and flirts a bit. Of course she comes around and finds him all the more charming for it. Lucy is also in the same photo, and while Andi looks like a deer in the headlights, she's a pretty gorgeous deer. And in the final picture, Lucy STILL gets a black box over her bits because she can't seem to cover up, ever.
The group then gets all dolled up and head to a rooftop pool so the girls can fight each other for one-on-one time and the chance to win a rose. The first one to get an private moment is Cassandra, and she uses the time fairly wisely to tell JP that she has a 2-year-old son named Trey. It's kind of adorable that his reaction is pure excitement, though as the Bachelor dad I would hope it would be that and not that he's not suddenly horrified. He then takes the other mother, Renee, up to the roof and the two of them tell stories about their kids. She has said repeatedly during the day that she wants to get a kiss, and she brings up the idea in a cute flirty manner, but JP's reaction is to try to look smooth while recoiling at an angle that could dislocate his neck, if he's not careful.
The girls all discuss how nerve-racking the situation is, and Nikki points out that while they all had a glass of wine to relax, Victoria chose to have several. Nikki tries to give her a glass of water and warns her to maybe slow down, but Victoria slurs back that she hasn't even had a single glass of champagne and this is what she's like when she's sober. She's at that unfortunate point of drunkenness where she still thinks she's pulling it over on everyone else while not realizing that she's combinedallofherwordsintooneslurringmasterpiece.
JP really likes Nikki, and that she takes care of kids, and I like that she admits that the day was "long" and doesn't just act like hanging out with a bunch of lunatic women in an unusual situation and then jockeying for alone time with a single man is a normal, easy occasion. She then talks to him about how much she loves and misses her job, getting in a subtle dig about how everyone else misses their dog or friends, but she misses the adorable sick children in her care. Very smooth.
Not smooth: Victoria, who gets in the hot tub and begins drunkenly rambling about JP and all the things she wants to do to him. In an interview, she keeps referencing giving him the Heimlich maneuver during their shoot, and she's very proud of the fact that she had to straddle him to do so. She's pretty convinced that straddling = instant rose. The other girls kind of can't help loving watching her make an ass of herself as he tries to crash Nikki's one-on-one time. Weirdly she walks over and then wanders back away, and Nikki tries to be delicate as she admits to JP that Victoria has had all of the drinks in the world. Victoria then runs to the bathroom, locks herself in a stall, and begins to sob, while Renee proves herself to be a rather wonderful person by going in and crawling under the door to try to comfort her. This meltdown is apparently because Victoria had no one-on-one time, but soon deteriorates to the point where she screams that she wants to go home and then stalks out, past the bewildered crew, and tries to get in the elevator in bare feet, wearing nothing but a bikini and cover-up. One guy at least tries to get her to put on shoes and points out that he needs to set up some transportation, but she just argues with him for a while and then locks herself in the bathroom again.
The other girls are kind of freaked out at this car crash happening before their eyes, but some of them seem to be more than a little gleeful that the competition could be getting one girl smaller. Lucy finally goes and interrupts another one-on-one to alert JP to the situation, which… I guess? But by the time you're this drunk and crazy, isn't it kind of an issue for the show staff? But these girls all still seem to think that JP has come up with everything so far out of his own sexy, spontaneous, fun-loving Latin brain, so I guess he'd be the one to intervene. By the way, then Victoria wins, y'all, getting her one-on-one time. But it actually doesn't work out as expected since she refuses to come out of the stall or even speak to JP, and she eventually does a tragic slide down the wall to sit in the corner and sob. (All of this being captured from under the door, so we can only see her from the knees down.)
JP calls the girls together and says that he feels sorry for Victoria and knows that it's a weird situation and hopes they all had a good time anyway. He then gives the rose to the girl he calls the best sport from the day and that is… Kelly? I mean, that was some crazy body paint, but the girl got to wear a bodysuit underneath it. JP then asks the girls to make sure Victoria gets home safe, and he leaves. The girls of course find him all the more attractive for how gentlemanly and sweet he was about Victoria and surely can see themselves marrying him now.
In the light, man, that mansion is looking a little rough -- there are stains coming down from the windows that I sure hope aren't just an aesthetic choice, since they say, "This house really needs some TLC after getting caught in the rain but they are churning out seasons of this show so fast we don't have time to fix it and we'll just hope it makes it look weathered and rustic and hopefully there's nothing growing in there that will eventually cause respiratory problems for all of these beautiful young things." The girls are all talking about Victoria, who was mercifully taken to a hotel by the show staff. JP then goes to visit her and man, she seems awfully bright and sunny when I thought surely she must have an incapacitating hangover. She apologizes in a way that says she's not sorry at all and seems to find the whole episode actually amusing. Her explanation is just that she overreacted a wee bit, and she's someone who just happens to feel all of her emotions really intensely. I'm beginning to wonder how she passed the psych evaluation in the first place. JP is way nicer than he needs to be, assuring her that he knows how difficult a situation this is. She finally admits that she could have been a little bit more adult, and apologizes again, but still seems to mean it not at all and in fact seems to have no concept of just how bad a situation it was. She seems almost surprised when JP points out that he's 32 with a daughter and can't be going out with some insane drunk who "can't handle herself," (his words). With that, he goes ahead and dumps her now.
The rest of the girls are all kind of freaked out after the whole Victoria Incident, and Cassandra especially wishes she could know what he's thinking. Again, ladies -- YOU ARE ON A DATING SHOW. ONE IN WHICH HE'S CONTRACTUALLY OBLIGATED TO BE OPAQUE ABOUT HIS FEELINGS. Lordy. JP himself then shows up and is very sweet as he explains that he sent Victoria home, and then calls up Amy for some one-on-one time. Since she is a reporter, she decides -- after fretting for two days about not getting quality time with him -- to mock interview him. She basically asks him what he thinks about her, which is swell and all except that, you know, he doesn't know much about her since she hasn't actually told him anything about herself other than that she has an intense need to be the center of attention. They do actually seem to talk later, and she's excited, but it's notable that she says that she likes what she heard and doesn't seem worried that she didn't get to tell him anything about herself. Which, hey, obviously to be the Bachelor you like attention too, but he's at least been giving pretty good lip service to the idea of actually getting to know the woman he might supposedly one day marry.
He then pulls Sharleen aside, and she's looking forward to the time because she thinks she might have been rude when she accepted the first impression rose. She apologizes for being ungracious, and he seems genuinely surprised to hear that she was surprised and a little bit intimidated. We don't see much of their conversation, but it seems to go okay. Cassandra is having a hard time seeing him with all of these other women, so she goes off to look at pictures of her (completely adorable) son and have a good cry. She then has a heart-to-heart with Renee, who seems to be the den mother for troubled bachelorettes, and cries about how hard it is to date someone who is dating 17 other women at the same time. Renee can of course relate, being a single mom herself, but convinces her to go inside and they go to a bathroom to try and talk privately. JP, ever the gentleman, goes to check on them and Renee leaves so that he and Cassandra can talk. The camera is filming through a crack in the door as he promises her that if he doesn't feel something, he'll tell her right away since he respects that her son is waiting for her at home. He then teaches her how to do an exploding fist bump, and all is well. He also loves that she's clearly a loving mom, but admits that it's hard having this many good girls around. Yes, and also, for the millionth time, what you signed up for.
Chris shows up for the rose ceremony, and Clare, Kat and Kelly try not to gloat too hard while the other girls try not to barf. JP then comes out, and Cassandra is happy to get the first rose. He then gives roses to Nikki, Andi, Elise, Sharleen (who lightly mocks her ungracious last acceptance), Renee, Danielle (who? This girl has had zero screen time so far), Lucy (ugh), Allison (who we've known as Alli), Chelsie, and Lauren S. Just in case the girls and the viewing audience have gone blind, and there have not been enough lingering shots of the lone rose left, Chris walks out to announce that this is the final rose, and then steps back to the side. Oh, this show. Christy gets the final rose, which leaves Amy L. and Chantel as the unfortunate ones going home. They say their goodbyes and work up tears for their exit interviews -- shocked, thought they'd be around a while, thought they had a connection, he was my life's dream, I'm going to die sad and alone, etc.
Lauren S is a writer who lives and works in Atlanta and hopes you'll accept her rose. She wants everyone to know: "The views expressed in my recaps and anything else I might write on TWoP are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer."