At the bunkhouse, Chris Harrison comes in to catch up with the guys and tell them there will be two individual dates and one group date this week. He's got the first date card with him, so he leaves it behind.
I don't even know who the guy is who reads the card. Are we sure this guy has been here all along? The card apparently says only: "Ed: Love can be dangerous" and the guy reading it flings it at Ed, because maybe if Ed gets a massive paper cut he will bleed too much and be unable to fulfill his duties as a date. Ed tells us in an interview that he's excited to get the date because it means he gets to spend some one-on-one time with Jillian. This is exactly what every bachelor or bachelorette says when they go on a one-on-one date. EVERY TIME.
Jillian's waiting by a helicopter in a field when Ed comes up, and Jillian squeals. Apparently, she tells us, she's attracted to Ed, and this date is all about spending some one-on-one time. You don't say! You know, I could edit this show down to about 15 fucking minutes and you wouldn't lose a damn thing.
Jillian tells us that she hasn't been in a helicopter since the time she went with Jason, like helicopter riding is something people do all the time just for shits and giggles, like OF COURSE you haven't been in a helicopter since the last season of this show. But it's different this time, because it's not Jason -- it's Ed! And he's "bulky" and "hunky" and Melissa can't think of someone she'd rather be in a helicopter with than Ed. Looking strictly at weight allowances, just on the off chance that something happened, wouldn't you rather be with a skinnier guy in a helicopter?
The music goes from "rockin'" to "romantic" and Ed tells that he's never been in a helicopter before, and then apparently wastes his time up there by looking at Jillian. Jillian babbles about the great chemistry they have going on. Ed feels like they're on the "same wavelength."
Then they land on the roof of a building in downtown L.A. Ed's kind of freaked out. Jillian tells us that she loves adrenalin and she's going to push Ed to the limit. I think she means she's going to push his corneas to the limit with the bright blue and green lululemon hoodie she's got on. There's only one way off this building, Ed, and it's those green ziplines attached to the roof. Ed says he's never done anything like this, and doesn't even know if it's legal.
Back at the house, the guys are wasting their time speculating on whether Ed will get a rose or not, instead of spending their time more wisely by playing basketball or pool or, God forbid, reading a book that doesn't have pictures. I'd suggest that even punching each other in the face would be a better use of their time, but Dave is probably somewhere doing just that right now.
Back on the roof, Ed and Jillian are getting strapped in, with Ed admitting to us that he was scared. So at least we know he survived, since he's talking about this in the past tense. Jillian, meanwhile, is talking a lot of nonsense about how this is like love, because you have to take chances with love, or something. The two of them don't even seem to have any control over how fast they go and are instead being lowered slowly down the ziplines. I kind of think that I would be a little freaked out, just hanging there hundreds of feet in the air, dangling over Los Angeles. At the end of the line is a pool, so Jillian and Ed celebrate how awesome they are by jumping in it afterwards, and then they don't even bother to dry Jillian's hair for the interviews afterward in which she talks about how she and Ed are closer together for having risked their lives together or whatever the hell.
They babble at each other in the pool about how easy it is to talk to each other. She says Ed is very sexy. "I just feel so comfortable with him. I just feel like 'little Jillian.' This guy is going to take care of me." I'd argue that it's starting to seem more and more like we've only ever seen "little Jillian" who wants a man to take care of her, but nobody's looking to this show to challenge gender assumptions, are they?
For the romantic dinner, they go back to a rooftop, this time on the top of the Bonaventure Hotel, and Jillian tells us she's glad that she popped his "helicopter cherry," so maybe they could just spend the rest of the dinner in silence? She tells us that she threw "one adventure after another" at Ed, and I have to think that the final adventure is having to make small talk with the borderline-manic Jillian babbling at your face a hundred miles hour, and she asks what he would do after "the craziest day at work" to unwind, and you'll never guess, but he likes to go to a bar with his friends for a few beers, and then the place becomes a karaoke bar and he belts out the Elton John tunes, or something. Then they talk about careers, and Jillian has a passion for her career, except for the part where she keeps talking about having a man take care of her, and Ed has a passion for his career, too, which is great, except she's worried that he is "all about" his career, and she's been down that road before, which is why she's still single. And I'd like to point out that she's been on this show before, too, and that's why she's still single, but she's trying it again, anyway. She says something about having so much love to give, and then at some point they are making out, so I guess the date is going well.
Back at the house, a date card is awaiting outside the front door on a silver platter. Reid, Wes, Mike, Michael, Tanner F, Mark, Brad, Robbie, Tanner P, Kiptyn and Juan: "Show me the good, the bad and the ugly," reads the card. Great. So that movie is ruined for me. Dave tells us that he's glad he wasn't selected for the group date, because he doesn't want to hang around a group of 11 guys, especially if one of them is Juan. That's how gay he's not, I guess. It's worth pointing out that Dave is currently hanging out in a house of fifteen guys (since Ed's gone) so he must be miserable right now. There is a whole lot of boring talk about whether it's better to go on a group date and at least get to spend some time with Jillian or... I don't know, I dozed off. Wes says something, probably about how love, you know, it don't come easy.
Over at the rooftop dinner, Ed tells Jillian that he likes her eyes. And she tells him the exact same thing right back. Ed tells us the same thing that EVERY bachelor or bachelorette tells us at this point: that they didn't expect to like Jillian or Jason or whomever so much. Ed straight up asks Jillian if he's going to get a rose tonight, and says he's nervous. She giggles and then picks up the rose, and then unfortunately she starts babbling about how she had an awesome time, and she knew there was something there when she met him. "You are what I thought you are," she says. Hee! Dennis Green! So he gets the rose, of course.
And then back at the bunkhouse, some dudes take Ed's luggage, and the rest of the guys chase after them to see if the luggage is going up to the Bachelorette mansion or on the bus. Up to the mansion! What's-his-name, Brad, the guy who looks kind of like a young Kevin Bacon, notes that everyone who's gone on a one-on-one date has gotten a rose. Like there's been a hundred of them. "I don't think she's got the heart to break up with anyone," he adds.
So then the day, on the gang bang, I mean the "group date," the limousine takes Jillian and her 11 very special men go to a Hollywood Western set, and everybody pretends that this is a real live set for an actual movie that will one day be in theatres, because all movie sets allow limousines crammed full of douchebags to just pull up and have everyone walk all over the set. Like there's a fistfight going on in the main street of this "set" and then the director is all "Cut! Good job, guys." And this is such a big-time movie that the douchebags are now all going to put on Western clothes themselves and act out their deepest Western fantasies. This movie is apparently called Western Love, so look out, Oscars! Jillian says she wants to see the guys out of their comfort zone. "I'm not expecting them all to be brilliant actors," she says. Well, that's good. To be honest, if you were, that'd be kinda mean of you. She does want to see them be good sports.
Brad puts on a poncho. Tanner P has some kind of leopard-spot vest and a crumpled hat. He's either the grizzled old prospector or the town drunk.
So then the guys get their "scripts" for this "movie" that people are totally going to "see," and Mark's excited because he sees that he gets to kiss Jillian, and then finds out that pretty much everybody gets to kiss her. Well, except for Mike and Michael, who apparently are playing gay cowboys. They get upset about that, but do the thing where they act chagrined up to the point where they're not really being homophobic about it, you know? They practice their lines: "We could've had a good life together. Had a place of our own. But you wouldn't do it. And all we've got now is the mountain," reads Mike from his script. Which means they've ripped off Brokeback Mountain's actual script, minus any identifying proper nouns.
Oh, god, this is painful. Brad gets to kiss Jillian first. Well, first today, as far as we know. It's a scene where he rescues Jillian from being kissed unwillingly by some bad guy, and then punches him out and kisses her himself. He tells us it was an amazing kiss. On the badass scale, in fact, he places himself above "badass" and "superbadass," all the way up at "ultra-badass." The other guys, though, do not share Brad's opinion of the kiss. Michael points out that Brad's arms are straight down at his sides while Jillian clutches them. It's true. Tanner P. says it looked like he was kissing his sister. He also says it was the worst kiss he's seen "since 1988," whatever the hell that's supposed to mean.
So then there are more scenes, all of which seem to involve Jillian kissing whoever happens to be in the room. It's kind of like hardcore porn, except less romantic and with worse acting.
Robby seems to do a good job with his scene, picking her up and swinging her around. Jillian herself seems to think it was the most non-acting kiss that happened, which is surprising, because I'm pretty sure she didn't have any saliva left by that point.
And then Wes makes some more enemies (someone complains that he's not there for the right reasons) by taking away Jillian to tell her how hard it is to watch her kissing everybody, and he jokes that it's not like she's cheating on him, but she sort of is, and then a clueless Jillian tells us it seems like Wes already thinks she belongs to him, and that it's cute that he's jealous. Jesus Christ! It's like she lives in an Archie comic book!
Then we have the Fractureddorsum Hill scene with Mike and Michael, who desperately needs everybody to know how much he likes fucking women, and of course the other guys are egging them on to kiss. They do their scene, including a paraphrased "I don't know how to quit you" line, and then they hug, and Michael clowns it up, just so we know he doesn't have a boner now or anything, and then in wanders Jillian's character to tell them they make a great couple or something. None of this makes a lick of sense. Then Jillian says something about how she loves being part of one of the worst shows that has ever been on television, and she hopes this show doesn't stop until people's brains liquefy and ooze out their ears.
So now the dates are going to a swanky downtown loft for a "wrap party," because I guess the "movie" has finished "filming." And then there's Reid taking Jillian away, and thank god they keep putting those graphics up on screen so that I can actually remember this guy's name. Jillian asks him about exes. He says he's been in love only "one and a half" times, whatever that "half" is supposed to mean. And he tells us how he was about to go in for the kiss, and then "good ol' Juan" came in and swept her away.
He tells us he hasn't had a chance to talk to her since she stuck up for him after the other guys wanted him out of the house. He tells her that he wasn't surprised to be picked, but what bothered him was someone saying he wasn't there "for the right reasons," and then they talk about how none of that stuff matters. Well, duh. None of any of this matters.
Meanwhile, back at the bunkhouse, Dave is still ranting about his nemesis/forbidden man-crush Juan, saying that he could actually kill him. He says Juan's just saying what Jillian wants to hear, and that she's gotta pick up on that stuff. "If she doesn't, she's like every other girl." The other guys seem somewhat baffled about Dave's level of love/hate for Juan, and one of them suggests that Dave should have called Juan out the night of the vote, but Dave, who can't speak without being bleeped, says Jillian would have been pissed at him if he'd done that. You mean, you didn't say something because you thought Jillian wouldn't want to hear it? After just bitching that Juan only says what Jillian wants to hear?
Dave tells us in an interview that it doesn't make sense that Sasha got a one-on-one date, because he's still waiting for his. Dave looks increasingly unhinged as this show progresses.
Meanwhile, back at the group date, Jillian and the other guys jump in a huge sterilization bath, I mean "hot tub," and then Tanner P. can't stop himself from grabbing Jillian's feet and kissing them, and then Jillian leaves and goes to cuddle with Robby, who is still all a-flutter from his kiss with her. She tells him that of all her scenes, his was the most fun because it was the most natural, and he made her so comfortable, and his was also the best kiss. And then they're kissing some more, and all the guys watching start hooting and hollering. Brad tells us he couldn't believe that they were kissing, because watching them, it was like "ugh." Well, a) no one's forcing you to watch, and b) how old are you, nine?
Then Jillian gets back in the genital soup -- I mean, the "hot tub" -- and announces that Robby gets the rose because he made her feel so comfortable, even though the whole point of the goddamn movie shoot was to get everyone out of their comfort zones. And then Jillian says she has a surprise for everyone, so they go inside. And it's not a cool surprise, instead she forces them to watch all the stupid scenes from the stupid movie they stupid shot that day, and I don't think they even had any popcorn or anything. What kind of crappy surprise is that?
So then Sasha is getting ready for his one-on-one date, which unfortunately involves him telling us that he refers to other people as "sheep" whilst he is a wolf who is always looking for "that mythical unicorn." What? [Don't you know the old fairy tale about the wolf who fools around with the unicorn while the sheep watch? - Zach] Wes tells us that watching Sasha get ready for his date don't come easy.
Jillian shows up, and all the other guys have to horn in by hugging her, and then they drive off and she tells us that they're going to the Petersen Automotive Museum. "I love cars," she says, in fact she loves anything with a motor, and she says Sasha's eyes lit up when he saw what they were doing. They have the museum to themselves. I prefer to think that everyone else at the museum said, "Oh, shit! It's the Bachelorette! Let's clear out before she starts nattering at us about love!" and left. So they take pictures of each other getting ass prints on the hoods of classic cars, and then Sasha gets to pick out a Ferrari and go for a spin. "Sasha drove like a maniac, and I loved it," she says. This would be "little Jillian," again, right? The small-town girl who loves nothing more than a guy driving a car really fast, right?
So they have dinner back at the museum, and Sasha tells her about an accident he had when he was 18, driving back from a party and his truck lost control, and he flew out the window, and the truck crushed his pelvis, and he should have been paralyzed but wasn't, and blah blah blah, and I don't know why they're spending all this money for these dates with Jillian when I'm starting to feel like they could just go have a bush party with a fifth of lemon gin. Give her your football jacket, and she's yours! Jillian is practically near tears as she tells us that she can't imagine going through something as traumatic as Sasha did. By which she means his accident, not going on this show.
Sometimes I like to think of this show as 24, in the sense that when we go to commercial and she's babbling about finding the person that she can marry, and then we come back from commercial and pick up right where we left off, I like to think that she nattered away during an entire commercial break about the kind of bullshit that people talk about on this show. Sasha talks about his relationships, and he hasn't had his heart broken. And Jillian babbles about how if you haven't been hurt you should be more willing to put your heart out there, and Sasha says something a "mythical unicorn" again, like WHAT IS THIS GUY'S OBSESSION WITH UNICORNS, and now he's got Jillian talking about looking for unicorns, and I spend the few moments praying that one of the cars in that museum is actually Christine and turns them into bloody skid marks.
Back at the house, Wes has his guitar out and is explaining that he wrote this song "for a girl," and then he plays his "love, it don't come easy" again, and at this point can I just ask WHAT HAVE WE DONE TO DESERVE THIS, and Tanner F. amusingly tells us that he's getting sick of hearing the same songs over and over again, and then it looks like Michael is playing the guitar. Is he singing about how doing the electric worm, it don't come easy? Tanner P. brings up the whole "not here for the right reasons" thing, and wonders if the people playing the guitars are here for Jillian or here to "win over America." You know, I wouldn't worry about anyone on this show "winning over America." Tanner P. mocks the guitar-playing and says he wouldn't do something like that, because that's not him. Well, maybe you should try not being yourself, since you are a fetishistic freakazoid! "I got other skills," he says. Translation: I can't play the guitar, so I don't think others should.
Meanwhile, the dinner is still not over yet. My god, this show is like one of the labours of Hercules! She goes to get the rose, and explains to us that there's nothing about Sasha that she doesn't like, but she thinks he's got a lot to go through before he'll be ready for what she's looking for, and she's worried that she'd always have to be perfect for him. "I wish I could be that unicorn that he's looking for, but I'm not," she tells us. So anyway, she stammers out that she's concerned that he hasn't been through the hurt. "I feel like I'm just so afraid that I can't meet your expectations," she says, and he appreciates the honesty and whatnot.
Jillian tearfully tells us that she doesn't like to hurt people, which is why it's so fucking fantastic of her to agree to be on a show where she is going to have to tell 29 guys out of 30 that they are not what she's looking for. She also, hilariously, feels bad about hurting him after his accident, like, "First he almost died, and now this!" Something tells me he'll manage, Jillian. Maybe the biggest insult, however, is that he gets sent away on a bus? What the hell?
Back at the house, the guys cheer when they see Sasha's luggage being loaded into a car. Wes then says something about making the most of opportunities, or some damn thing, which means that when everyone else was asleep, Wes sneaks out with his guitar and starts playing his damn "love don't come easy" song again, and once again we never get past the first line, and then Jillian invites him up to finish the song inside. "I can't believe you did that! I don't even know what to say! You made me cry!" she burbles, like how about saying, "Can I get some damn sleep?"
Then he says he's going to play the damn song AGAIN, like I'm starting to think this guy doesn't actually know any more songs. She stares adoringly at him as he drawls out his painful song.
So it's time for another 45 minute cocktail party. David tells us that Sasha's rejection sent "trembles" through the house, so this party is important because he hasn't spent one second alone with her. Jillian shows up at the party, and I think she might deserve a medal just for showing up, the way she's going on about how tough it was to let Sasha go. She orders the men to have a fun night and make sure that they're still getting to know each other, or something.
Reid is getting that whole weird thing that happens on this show where the contestant feels like they'll be safe if they just get that kiss. He sits down alone with her, and asks why he didn't get the rose last night, and she says about a million words about how awesome he is and he would probably have gotten a rose if she'd had two to give out, and then they make out.
Inside, David is intensely going on about how he's in the "top three" of least amount of time spent with Jillian, and tells us that he has to get a rose tonight. Yeah, everybody has to get a rose tonight, or they're gone, numbnuts.
Jillian comes in while Dave is frothing at the mouth and invites him to come talk, and then they walk off, and he weirdly whistles "Here Comes the Bride" as they go.
Outside, he tells her, as non-arrogantly as he possibly can, about how he's used to being the top dog and now he's not getting the attention that he wants, or something. He tells her that he wants to get to know her better, but there are other guys in the house who she's not a good fit for. Speak of the devil, here comes Juan strolling up. "Davey. Do you mind?" says Juan. Picture Dave doing his best to keep the steam from shooting out of his ears. He goes back inside to tell the other guys how amazing their conversation was until Juan stepped in. Wes seems to find it amusing.
"I have zero respect for Juan," Dave tells us. This comes as a surprise to everyone! "He seems really shady. He's lied. He's here for the wrong reasons." Jillian would seem to disagree, because outside Juan is teaching her Spanish and telling her how pretty she is, and she is telling him explicitly that she knows he's here for her.
Inside, Dave is toasting a round of shots to "real men" who know how to drink shots. And Tanner P. is outside running down Wes to some other guys, saying he thinks some guys are here to further their careers. I'd like to know what Tanner P.'s boss thinks if he sees Tanner say, "I'm not here to do shit. I'm here to suck on some toes and meet some Jillian." Thankfully he explains that he plans to get to know Jillian before he gets to meet the feet. I think he's drunk.
I think he's also drunk in his one-on-one time with her, as he sloppily talks to her and puts her feet in his lap (and does a beyond-creepy toe-sucking routine in a talking-head with us). Weirdly, Jillian tells us she can't relate to Tanner's toe thing, but the more she talks to him, the more comfortable she gets with him.
Meanwhile, Juan is telling other guys how good his conversation with Jillian was, and David is yelling at another group of guys about how he doesn't think Juan's making it through this round (and then angrily going off on Ed for interrupting him at one point). "Dave's a little unstable right now," says Ed. "Right now"? He thinks things are going to get ugly. We watch Dave angrily fix himself a drink in the kitchen, and angrily cursing at everyone for watching him, or something. One of the other bachelors, Reid or Robby or Walter or Gregory or whoever the hell says he looks ready to kill someone. So stay tuned!
After the commercial break, Brad corrals David to see if he's OK, and David and his beady little eyes say that he's not, because while he might not be the person for Jillian, he knows that Juan is here for the wrong reasons, and to watch that go down is "unacceptable." Brad advises him to just focus on the goal. Brad better watch out, or he's going on Dave's shit list .
Brad tells us that things are really intense, because they all want a rose. "Especially me!" Then he goes to Jillian and tattles about how things are getting really intense because people are developing feelings.
Well, if "intense, blinding all-consuming rage" is what Brad is talking about, Dave is certainly doing that, monopolizing yet another conversation. He orders another bachelor to tell him whether he thinks Juan is the one for Jillian. Uh, wouldn't the proper answer to that be, "Of course not. I'm the one for Jillian"? What is Dave's point? He refuses to listen to anyone who advances the opinion that Jillian can figure shit out on her own, and calls the other bachelor a "coward" for not being willing to tell Jillian what's going on. I think Dave ought to be really careful about wanting Jillian to know what people are actually like.
Juan starts to come out, and Dave orders him back inside since they're talking about him. Juan -- kinda wussily, I have to say -- turns around and goes back. Dave's all, "See, that's what I'm talking about," and says he's man enough to say what he's thinking. Juan says Dave seemed kinda high-strung, and he's not here for the drama. Maybe not, but jeez -- don't just turn tail. I mean, you're essentially on a television set. What's the worst that can happen? You take a punch, and Dave's gone. Besides, Dave's too concerned with yelling at other bachelors who might not check the "strongly agree" box on his "Juan: Worse than Hitler?" survey to actually do anything.
Inside, Kiptyn's talking to Jillian one-on-one. Oddly, the conversation doesn't center around the topic of "Seriously? Your name is Kiptyn?" It's more about how he said he was a heartbreaker and hadn't really had his heart broken, which I strongly suspect was just a setup so that he could say later he's never met the right one, but now he has.
And then there's Juan going back outside, with Dave still railing against Juan with all the fire and brimstone of an evangelical sermon, and apparently some of the guys are wondering why David isn't the one telling Jillian all the rotten things about Juan that he seems to expect the rest of them to, and he says something about not wanting her to think he's a jerk, which kinda amounts, again, to "saying what she wants to hear," doesn't it? And then Juan comes back outside, and ignores Dave again telling him to go back inside. Juan: "I'm cool with everybody here. Not everybody has to like everyone." Dave: "If I had one bullet in a gun and I had you and Osama bin Laden in my sights, I'D KILL YOU." (Essentially.) Pathetically, the only crime David can come up with is Juan faking drinking a shot, which Juan doesn't confirm or deny, but only says "So the majority of this has to do with drinking?" I don't blame him for sounding confused. It would have been awesome if Juan had said, "I faked the drink because I'm an alcoholic, you asshole." But it's not like you need an excuse not to have a drink if you don't want one. And please, if you think Dave would be behaving any differently if Juan had simply declined the shot, raise your hand. Yeah, I thought so.
Dave won't stop interrupting Juan, who tries to say that he's there for the same reason that all of the rest of them are there, which is to find someone to spend the rest of his life with. "You're 35. Stop being a cheese-ass," Dave tells him, and then stomps off again. In an interview, David once again threatens Juan's life. Good god.
And then Robby -- I think? -- quietly tells Juan that he agrees a hundred percent with what Dave said, but they'll "talk about it later," whatever that's supposed to mean, and they clink glasses, and everyone goes inside, where Jillian talks about how she's starting to feel the pressure of the rose ceremony now, and the guys start talking about whether they think they're going home. Dave tells us, in another one of the interviews where his eyes are half-lidded and very red, that he wishes Jillian could see what happened tonight so she can see what kind of guy he is. That he actually thinks he comes off as sympathetic could be an indication of how drunk he must be.
So Jillian sits down for some chit chat with Chris Harrison that's much too boring to get into, except for maybe the acknowledgement that Juan is the most different from the other guys, but may also be the most calculated. Oh, and this is some terrible news: she's only sending two bachelors home tonight! I was hoping she was sending home twelve or thirteen.
Still, the rose ceremony. It's like Christmas Eve for me, in that we're almost at the good part (the end). Chris Harrison comes in to talk about how ridiculous it was that LeBron James wouldn't shake hands after losing on Saturday night.
Eventually, Jillian comes out to talk about how, despite how hard this is, she is the "luckiest girl" in the world, but she still has to let two people go who she has "genuinely cared about," which I don't imagine is actually true. (That last part).
So, the roses: Jake. Oh yeah, Jake! Reid. Mark. Oh yeah, it was Mark that Dave called a coward. Then there's Jesse. I keep forgetting who these guys are. Tanner P. Wes. (Dave shakes his head.) Juan. (Dave bows his head, and then shakes it.) Michael. Kiptyn. Mike. Final rose goes to: David. I suppose it's coincidence that David gets the last one, right? There's a shot of Juan looking unimpressed, but since he DOESN'T have a rose in his lapel (which he has in a shot a couple of seconds later) it was taken before Juan even got his own rose, so nice try, show.
Gone are: Tanner F. (blah blah blah "wrong reasons"), who hopes Jillian doesn't make the same mistake Jason made and pick the wrong person. Clearly he ran afoul of the old reality show adage about not being able to carry too many Tanners for too many episodes. Brad is also gone, and he talks about loving someone more than they love you, which doesn't appear to have any kind of basis in any reality whatsoever. He says his character in the movie was the drifter, and he thinks he's going to keep being the drifter. "I don't think anyone can relate to me," he says, actually hanging his head. Try to feel a little more sorry for yourself, Brad.
Discuss this episode in our forums, then see why vlogger Sean Crespo thinks Jillian is in terrible danger in No Prior Knowledge!