Our favorite says goodbye.
JA: I can’t believe we’re only one week from hometowns! This season has flown by! Ah, Miami. Finally, a place I’ve actually been before, so I don’t have to feel bad about myself this week. Do you think that cousin in Juan Pablo’s house is the gay one?
SA: I was in Miami last weekend and it is STILL SNOWING in NYC. So this date was perfectly timed to give me another case of "winter blues" but enough about me...did you see those cute fish earrings Shar Shar was wearing?
I like that early on, we see Juan Pablo talking about Sharleen with his family. She’s clearly a frontrunner. They’re definitely setting up the drama here so that it can be even more devastating when Sharleen pulls a Brooks and goes home voluntarily.
Any time the producers let you see a bachelor/ette telling CH or their fam that a contestant is "the one" you can assume that person's walking papers are already signed, voluntarily or otherwise.
There’s really nothing I can say about those swimsuits they left for the women in that hotel suite. Oh, wait. Yes, there is. They are awful.
JP giving the date card himself is further proof to our theory that CH is moonlighting in some other endeavor. Also, I loved when JP told Sharleen she had five minutes to get ready, but she still had time to stand on the roof looking pensively at the Miami skyline. If there's one thing these producers can't get enough of, it's a pensive moment with a view.
This Sharleen date is so great now that we know what’s coming. Also, when she says, “We’re missing the cerebral connection,” that is clearly code for “I am way too smart for him.” But poor JP...I actually feel bad for him because he is so so so into her. This date was approximately seventeen hours long. And sixteen of those hours were spent making out on a boat. No extreme outdoor activities, no spelunking in caves. Just laying on a boat and making out all day. Either this was Juan Pablo’s idea or ABC blew their whole budget on all those Asian destinations.
That bathing suit is gonna give her crazy tan lines.
Sharleen is so refreshingly honest and real that I’m going to be really sad to watch her go. But she just had to have all kinds of crazy expectations -- like being married to someone she can have actual conversations with. You stay that picky, Shar-Shar, and you’ll be single for a long time. Did she actually just say she wished she was a little dumber? Wow. She is becoming increasingly unable to not tell him how dumb she thinks he is.
I took that line to mean, "I wish a was a little dumber...like the other girls on this show." But she knew it would be wrong to say.
Also, via my Instagram / Twitter stalking I have gathered that Andi, Sharleen, Nikki and Kelly (dog lover) are all BFF. This makes total sense to me as these are definitely the smartest ones. (Kelly's twitter quips to Jason Biggs lazy eye jokes are particularly entertaining). I sort of gather that Sharleen has always been so career focused / nerdy that she never made that group of core "girl friends" in college and that being on this show is like her latent sorority period. (Which makes sense when you see her start doing the "last day of camp" cry anytime one of the ladies is sent home). Shar Shar, you can get sauced and talk about fun girly stuff anytime you want but that doesn't mean you have to marry a man you can't have a conversation with, and good for you for knowing it!
And she comes home and goes straight to talk to Renee. Seriously, is Renee the host of this season? Can she just be my therapist? Is she on my fancy new WGA health insurance? I need an appointment stat.
I loved how she cooed, RENEE as soon as she got into the suite and then went and curled up next to her. Almost as if on the ride home someone said to her, "don't worry baby, Renee is at the house and she'll make all your troubles disappear."
I was honestly surprised that Juan Pablo decided to take Nikki to meet his whole family, and his daughter, and his ex. I was very excited to see Camila come face to face with one of the crazies competing on national television to become her stepmother. They didn’t spend enough time with the baby mama, though -- would have loved to see a sitdown with her and Nikki. Also, call me a cynic, but I don’t think it was a coincidence that Camila had a solo and was featured prominently in the front row of this “recital.”
Definitely no coincidence. How dumb does the franchise think its audience is - don't they realize how many Sharleens are watching - we're not all Chelsies - give us a little more credit ABC! And yes, I was craving more Carla. I also knew that however much she claimed to be nervous to meet his parents / daughter - the only person Nikki was thinking about that whole time was Carla. I was surprised and relieved when she brought it up. A sit down would have been amazing, but there's no way it could have been more awkward than the silence of the lambs we saw later in the episode between Clare and Nikki - but more on that in a few paragraphs.
It is so abundantly clear from Sharleen’s goodbye speech to the other ladies that the real relationships are the ones between the contestants. Although it was nice to see no one even try to pretend to be sad to see her go. One more rose up for grabs now!!
And now for Sharleen and JP’s Subtitled Whisper Breakup. When she said “this is excruciatingly difficult” my first thought was that Juan Pablo has no idea what “excruciating” means (me too!). Case in point: his whole speech to the camera about being honest versus being appreciated. I rewound that speech and watched it three times and still didn’t really understand it. He’s getting more and more ESL by the moment. Ah, well. At least Shar-Shar got to see the Lord of the Rings Hobbit village. I think that was her highlight.
My random thoughts on the group date: 1. We start with more desperate babbling from Chelsie. She knows the writing is on the wall from her brush with elimination last week, so she’s resorted to pimping out her mom to entice Juan to come to hometowns.
Props mean desperation, always have, always will - when you are forcing the connection with a journal, letters from parents, baby photos....you are as good as gone.
2. I wondered when Clare’s dad’s DVD was gonna resurface in conversation. Now I know. Did you watch the teaser from next episode - I think Clare is gonna try and get that DVD out of storage and her mom is like NO FUCKING WAY are we showing the last thing you'll ever hear from your dad to a man with three other girlfriends. And Clare throws a hissy fit because she's a dumb bitch. Oops. Sorry. Also, I think Clare might actually have peed on him in the ocean.
3. Did Juan Pablo bring Renee on this group date and then not even talk to her once? She got her nice dress in Vietnam. That means he can ignore her now, right? Also - do you think if Shar had stayed it would have been Renee and Chelsie who'd be gone now?
4. I love that the plane took off so that everyone could see Juan Pablo and Andi half-naked and canoodling in the ocean. Amazing. This show is nothing if not subtle. Cough.
Andi emerged as potentially one of the final two in my eyes this week. Especially since she wore a dress that was so tight I could see her heart beating. Way to go, Andi. Get your man… while the other girls are fighting back at the hotel room. Since Andi and Nikki are both frontrunners I find their closeness a little confusing. Do they really not care they are dating the same man or are they just better at compartmentalizing?
The Clare-Nikki feud was slow in coming, but I’m really glad it’s happening, because we get lines like this from Nikki about Clare’s family: “She didn’t get crazy all on her own… it had to come from somewhere.” Gold. Also I found out via twitter that the "she's like a dog who peed on him first" line is something Kelly said weeks ago that Nikki was borrowing. You're in our hearts if not on our televisions, Kel."
One of the remaining ladies knows how to do a killer fish tail braid - did you see how many ladies were sporting them this week? Did they ask them to all wear solid jewel tones to this cocktail party?
OMG Renee is even hosting JP! Not just the other ladies but the bach himself. I hope they are paying this woman, she's a single mom after all.
My other favorite moment from the cocktail party was when Chelsie “got up to pee” and Clare totally called out the fact that she didn’t have to pee and that the producers told her to leave so Clare and Nikki could be alone. And alone they were. For 54 silent seconds. (I timed it.) Throw Chelsie a bone with this jewelry conversation, Nikki, she's trying SO HARD. Who the fuck cares what jewelry you wear everyday - she just wants everyone to be happy. Also, okay Chelsie may have had to "pee" but where's everyone else? We already know they are forced to sit there when not with JP and Andi and Renee cannot both be with him so...what the hell ABC? Also did I hear one of these ladies say, "I just burped, sorry"?
Chris Harrison didn’t even come out to do his completely unnecessary “this is the final rose of the evening” announcement. He really must not be a fan of Juan Pablo. I’m gonna ask Google what he really had to say about the ocean sex episode with Clare.
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Ooh… "When she showed up he was fully into it like this is awesome and sexy and she was as happy as can be and then he turns around and treats her like all of a sudden she did something wrong and broke the rules. It was not only confusing, but it was borderline rude," the Bachelor host said. "We even told him as much, but he didn't see it that way. Even though he apologized later I don't think he really understood how cheap he made her feel. In my deliberation I said, 'You're not getting this, you really hurt her feelings, you need to fix it and apologize.' But there are cultural differences with him and things do get lost in translation and how it's interpreted. It's his perspective; it's not right or wrong. So it made for interesting conversations and I had to learn to stand back a little bit and respect that." (Thanks to Buddy TV for that soundbite.) He also said in his blog on EW.com that “it appears that [Juan Pablo’s] rules are ever-changing here” in response to the weird “no kissing” thing. I love how he becomes all these girls’ older brother.
Chelsie did a good job of staying chipper and holding it together until the limo door closed. Enjoy that bubbly, homegirl. It’s probably your last good champagne for a while. Where did she get that glass of champagne? I thought the bubbly was reserved for girls who were moving forward. Also I just had a horribly depressing thought of these women changing out of cocktail dresses and into sweats in an airport bathroom.
Next week we’ve got a lot to do -- Hometowns and Fantasy Suites all in one week! And something terrible happens with Andi in the Fantasy Suite. What could it be??? I think it's that JP lets her know his stance on homosexuality.
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