The Bachelor Recap Ep. 6: Two Girls One Date

First, I know. I KNOOOOW. This recap is officially two days late. But if I can humblebrag for a second, I Tuesday’ed so hard that I thought it was Wednesday. It was my sons 2nd birthday and my hubs had his 12 hour clinical, so I had to do all the wife-ing, mothering, and working on my own. I slayed away at work, picked up the boys, cooked dinner, wrapped presents, hid said presents for the birthday hunt, cleaned the house, and prepped for my actual Wednesday. WE REALLY CAN HAVE IT ALL, LADIES!

Let’s indulge in some much deserved Bach Recap.

The girls arrive in Paris and find out they are staying on a huge houseboat.  I can’t tell if I love or hate the decor. It looks like an 80s coke dream but like a classy coke dream.  Meanwhile, Arie is forced to talk to Chris. Or is it the other way around. Arie says that he could see himself with many of the women, which is no surprise. Chris also informs the girls that this is the Two Girls One Date episode where two girls enter the proverbial cage match, but only one girl stays.

1:1 DATE:
Lauren B gets the 1 on 1 date with Arie. The B stands for Boring. I have no idea what she has to offer. She’s a pretty blonde. She’s probably nice. IDK. That’s all I got. They get picked up by a little speedboat, which one girl thinks is a gondola. They walk through the city as Arie points at stuff and Lauren nods obediently. It’s boring AF. This quiet interaction isn’t the kind of assured silence two partners endure when they just feel so comfortable with each other that they don’t need to talk. This is the kind of interaction you get when you are leaving work and you have to walk all the way to the parking garage with a coworker that you don’t know very well, but there’s no one else around to talk to, so you engage in completely meaningless chit-chat. This sums up their entire day date.

They go to dinner inside of a roll of red velvet and they both look bored to tears. Neither of them wants to be there. None of us want to watch this. Arie tries to peel back the layers and asks why she’s so bitchy standoffish. She reveals that she friend-zones all of the guys she dates. FUN! Arie is trying way too hard to make her feel comfortable so he digs deep and throws a Hail Mary. What happens next is completely unrequited self-disclosure. He reveals his last girlfriend was pregnant with his baby but she lost it and shortly after, left him while he was out of town. WHOA. Her response? “I was engaged once but it didn’t work out!” Yup. Tit for Tat confessions right there. Somehow, he feels like this information made him understand her more because he gives her the rose. I’m not surprised. Skinny blondes have a 90% survival rate in the Bachelor world.

GROUP DATE
The group date commences and they get to go to Moulin Rouge. This is one of my favorite movies and I expect the interior to be full of men in tuxedos and dancers flying from the ceiling. It’s less magical than that. It looks like a French version of The Thunder from Down Under in Vegas.

The girls are told they will learn a dance and the lucky recipient of the rose will get to perform that night with Arie. After awkwardly learning the dance moves, they get in costumes where the front says Vegas Showgirls and the backside says Jessie Spano Showgirls. The girls come out one by one strutting their stuff while Arie makes incomprehensible noises and says phrases like “wow” “oh boy” “gee whiz”. It’s def what he sounds like at a strip club as well.

Cocktail hour begins and he pulls the girls side by side. Bekah kills it, as per usual. I don’t even have the time or energy to address the fact that Bekha was a missing person as of just 3 weeks ago. Arie then talks to Sienne, who can speak French and COMPLETELY misses the opportunity to say Voulez vous coucher avec moi ce soir. Girl, do you even want this??

It’s time to give out the rose.  He awards it to Bekah and quickly whisks her off to get ready. Additionally, the other women have to take their seats to watch this performance! What torture. Not just because they have to watch the two of them on stage together but because this performance is truly painful to watch. There is no dancing. Arie is lip syncing and doing a poor job of it at best. I will say that Bekah does look good as a blonde. Maybe she can wear it the next time she goes missing!

2 on 1
Time to announce the 2 on 1 date and the unlucky winners are Krystal and Kendall. Corky Taxidermist vs Life Coach turned Stage 5 Clinger. We are all rooting for Kendall. I don’t care how many dead animal carcases she has stuffed. She’s the normal option.
Their date is in the French Countryside and it’s so gorgeous, it almost has me planning a vacation to France. (I understand that this is 100% the objective of this episode, so good job French Travel Council! Ad money well spent!)

Here’s the thing, I could go over every detail about this date, but if you have seen ANY 2 on 1 dates, you’ll know that they are all the same. They pit two girls against each other that are usually totally opposite. One is usually the villain, the other is typically under the radar. One or sometimes both of them spend their time bashing the other contender. Decisions are made. Hearts are broken. This date is no different, except that Arie prolongs this decision much longer than he needs to. He appears with the rose and it looks like he’s going to make his decision, but then says “I’m just not ready. Let’s continue this over dinner.” What. A. Tease.

So in one corner, we have a beautiful, young, interesting, and articulate women who happens to surround herself with dead animals as her day job. In the other, we have a beautiful bod with a rocking body but some serious mental health issues and a healthy dose of running toward drama while proclaiming to not want the drama. As I write this, I really have no clue what direction this will take, and it doesn’t seem like Arie does either because, during this dinner, I’m pretty sure he’s just thinking about if it would be acceptable to just ask them to have a threesome. When in Paris!

Krystal tries to dominate the conversation to persuade him at the last minute with her low and raspy voice and as many mmmm sounds as she can muster. (She definitely does voice over for softcore porn movies, you guys.) It’s decision time. Oh, snap! Oh Shit! It’s Kendall! He chose Kendall over Krystal! She did it! SHE DID IT, GUYS!! I’m prepping for an epic Goodbye between the two of them but he’s cold as ice! He doesn’t even get up to give her a hug. He literally just said, “so, we’re gonna go…” Dayum, Arie!

Here’s my theory: Arie was NEVER into Krystal but she brought the D game HARD (D= Drama, pervs). She was good source material for the past 2 episodes and at the end of the day, this is about making money, not making love. So, the producers probably coaxed him into keeping her until he just couldn’t even with this anymore. He may as well have run out of that room with Kendall.

1:1 DATE
Jacqueline goes off on her date with Arie. She says she feels like she was given a pony for Christmas, but is then told that if she doesn’t know how to ride the pony by the end of the night, it’s going to be shot. This analogy is perfect and now, I love her. She is now my number one pick.

They drive away in a fancy car, but suddenly, Aries car breaks down. Please. PLEASE. This car did NOT break down with a camera crew perfectly positioned on an empty street, waiting for him to “check out what’s going on under the hood”. Stop it. Stop trying to make him look masculine.

Arie takes her to a “high-end fashion store” because he is officially running out of original date ideas. Either that or he is actually a super controlling person and we should all be concerned.

They walk down the street once she finds a dress that meets Arie’s approval. Jacqueline is just smitten as a mitten but she plays with her hair too much. It’s a major tell. Like, just try to play it cool. She gives up any power she has once she tells him that she’s worried that he’s actually not that into her since, oh I don’t know, he’s paid ZERO attention to her all season long.  Arie says that he just thinks that she might be too smart for him. UH, DOY! She IS too smart for him, but don’t try to use her intelligence to get out of this relationship. She tells him she’ll need to get her Ph.D. to advance her career, which is 6 years. Aries like “yeaaahhh, but I’m gonna need a wife in like 3 weeks, soooo”. They should really call it quits right here and now but for some reason, he gives her the rose. That hair toss must be working for her after all!

It’s time for the rose ceremony and two women will be getting sent home. At the beginning of the date, I would have said Jacqueline and Kendall, so I must be losing my touch! The roses are given out and Chelsea and Jenna must say their goodbyes. The girls are SHOOK that Chelsea is leaving. Chelsea is also blindsided and you know what? WE were blindsided as well. I feel like we didn’t get a chance to really see her full crazy.

Typically this is when the episode will end but for some reason, we get this weird behind the scenes footage of Lauren B talking to the producers. She doesn’t know she is being filmed and she’s complaining about how hard it is watching Arie with the other girls. Why are we seeing this? Here’s my theory: Lauren B is going to be a final 2 contestant. If nothing else, she’s getting a fantasy suite. The producers were obviously combing through footage to try to make their relationship seem worthy of final 2 status, but they are as dumbfounded as we are that this tepid relationship might go the distance. This conversation shows her opening up in a way that she hasn’t before and might not in times when she knows she is being filmed. We are supposed to ingest this and think “wow, she really cares about him!’” I need to take some of these manipulative tactics into my everyday life because DAYUM it’s effective!  

Ok, time to get back to all of my mothertly/wifely/bosslady duties because I am every woman. It’s all in me.