chris // week five

#bedhead

JA: Wow.

Wow.

After four episodes that were nothing short of a miracle cure for insomnia, The Bachelor hits us with an installment that lives up to the promise of what it can be at its greatest. In two short weeks, Kelsey transformed herself from random also-ran to certifiable sociopath, giving the show a much-needed jolt of crazy. But more on that in a moment.

We have to begin with this week's open letter, this time to Megan. Dear Megs: Hope you've been having a blast sequestered away from human civilization all this time. But, um. Santa Fe, New Mexico is not, nor has it ever been, a "beach resort town." And put your passport away, sugartits. You will not be needing it. xoxo

SA: Poor Megan. I felt this was an example of the producer's playing their favorite game, let's make the dumb girl look even dumber. The "I don't know if they wear those Mexican sombreros in New Mexico" line was clearly the answer to a question. I guess we can't feel too bad for her though, this is the same girl who voluntarily and repeatedly banged her head into the wall in Episode 2. And to think, that was the same week she got a one-on-one. Clearly smarts are not at the top of Prince Farming's priorities list.

Our first date with Carly is the most awkward, unhot, interminable tantric sex workshop I've ever seen. And I've seen a LOT of tantric sex workshops. This one happened to be led by a SAG-eligible actor (definitely a local hire) who said things like "take off your masks by removing your clothes" and "as she breathes out, breathe her in." But in the end, it made Chris and Carly "come together" (thank you, date card, for that bit of brilliance), and Carly was happy because Chris made her feel pretty, for once in her life. So I'm thrilled for Carly that she has finally found a man who will fix all her insecurities, but who's going to fix that faux fur vest and beaded Navajo choker she wore to "dinner"?

When bachelor contestants have emotional hang-ups like Carly's, I want to scream at them for coming on this show. If you know that you have an issue accepting love, if you don't feel beautiful, if you feel overlooked by your past partners, why, why WHY would you come on a television show where you are competing with twenty-nine other women for the attention of one man?! I guess it's a masochistic way to face your issues head on, or, maybe to get like a year's worth of therapy over in six weeks? But I dunno, it seems like Carly is asking for it. That said, she did grow on me this week. I didn't feel like she brought these issues up to manipulate Chris into keeping her around. The timing of the reveal seemed quite appropriate. (Nice job, producers! A sex workshop for the intimacy-phobe.)

Also, is it just me, or does Chris's "I'm listening" face kind of resemble a constipation face? Like, he's trying sooooo hard to show interest in the words coming out of these ladies' mouths. Soooo hard. Like maybe he practices his "I'm listening" face in the mirror every morning. Right after his outdoor shower.

Remember last week when Chris said that while Jillian was talking, he was zoning out and thinking about rainbows and unicorns? I'm pretty sure that's what he's doing every time any woman talks to him. Then he's like, "If I kiss her real quick, maybe she won't notice that I have no idea what she just said."

Meanwhile, back at the house, Kelsey suddenly realizes that with only 11 girls left (one of whom, Samantha, is apparently a deaf-mute), she's got to do something to stand out. So she takes a page from the playbook of Julia with an E and trots out her own story of widowhood. But it appears that she can't bother to remember her husband's actual cause of death. "Um, it's called... wait, what's it called? Heart something? Shit... uh... CONGESTIVE HEART FAILURE!! That's it. Yeah. Congestive heart failure. Whew. That was a close one. I'd better rehearse that more before I say it to Chris."

Kelsey. OMG. Kelsey.

So then a bunch of women pile into rafts and oar themselves down a river, and Jade definitely almost dies. I'm actually worried for Jade to be on this show, because she seems to have some condition in which she can't ever be anywhere cold or she'll lose all the feeling in her entire body. That either makes Jade a lizard or a major bullshitter. Either way, it scored her a foot rub from Chris, so... well played.

I actually thought Jade seemed kind of embarrassed when she was on the receiving end of that foot rub. I think I even heard her say, "Okay, I'm fine. You can stop." Also, important to notice that the gals talking shit about it, were both of the manipulative mean girls (Kelsey and Ashley). I think it's safe to say that Jade is no Tierra. And yes, I am worried for her as well and think she should probably stay in LA and not go anywhere near Iowa winters.

Then, as the ladies have changed into their best desert ensembles, complete with huge metal necklaces that have turquoise boulders dangling from them (I'm looking at you, Kim Kardashleyan), we get a surprise visit from everyone's favorite Blast-in-a-Glass, Miss Jordan herself, looking fresh out of rehab. Apparently she drove all the way from Colorado (one state away) to ask Chris for a second chance, because YOLO, am I right? Then Chris is shocked when none of the other women are excited to see Jordan, and Jordan's all "kiss my ass, ladies, and pass the Fireball. I'm back, bitches." But then of course, everyone starts crying and Ashley and Whitney get into a fight because Whitney doesn't want to be "mean" and it all scrambles Chris's brain and he sends Jordan away.

Ashley is really showing her Cindy Lauper #truecolors this week. In fact, Ashley is always showing her #truecolors which appear to be #fuckingcrazy (though not as #psycho as Kelsey's). Whitney is looking like the frontrunner for this season's Renee Oteri, 'voice of reason' award, IE she very reasonably says, "I'm not happy Jordan is back, but that doesn't mean I am going to be mean to her." And #fuckingcrazy Ashley replies, "I don't know why anyone is being nice to her right now." Ashley, how old are you?? But what I was mainly thinking about during this debacle was how pretty Jordan is. Was she just too drunk for me to notice last time? She's beautiful and I loved her dressed down look. IMO she looked better than every other dolled-up girl in that circle and if I were the bachelor, I would have kept her around.

Chris sneaks into Britt's room before dawn to wake her up so they can go hot air ballooning. Carly is NOT happy, presumably because hot air ballooning is much better than her terrible Kama Sutra date. So we learn a lot about Britt this week, guys. First we learn that she doesn't shower ever. Second we learn that she is petrified of heights to the point that her body "shuts down." Until Chris shows up, and then it's all fine. Third we learn that Britt wants one hundred children. That's the number she came up with. One hundred. I doubt she meant that, but I do think that Chris was serious when he said he needed a lot of help on that farm and so he needed to have as many children as possible.

We also learned that Chris thinks glitter eye-shadow is naturally part of Britt's face.  The other contestants tell us that Britt sleeps in a full face of make-up specifically for moments like this. When Chris sneaks up on her cot, you can clearly see a FULL FACE OF MAKE-UP INCLUDING GLITTER EYE SHADOW AND MAGENTA LIPSTICK. Then, then in this ITM, Chris tells the camera that Britt looks just as good at four o'clock in the morning as she does when she is all dolled-up for a rose ceremony. I'm sorry, how is her bed look any different than being dolled-up? They seem exactly the same. Does Chris really think some women are born with glitter on their faces?!?

Britt goes back and tells all the other girls about the nap she took with Chris and Kelsey's like "Hell to the no, this shit just reached DEFCON 4. WHERE IS MY CORAL CARDIGAN?" Because, in her words, "there's a chance I could go home without him knowing that I'm a widow," she makes the brazen but not unprecedented move of just dropping by the hotel room for an impromptu one-on-one. But what is unprecedented, Bachelor Nation, is the crazy Amy Dunne shit that followed. So Kelsey got married at 19, to someone named Sanderson Poe, who, judging by that name, was either a Harry Potter character or a detective from a series of 1940s crime novels. She then sticks to most of the rehearsed details from earlier, leading all the way to Sandy's tragic death walking on the most beautiful day in Austin. Kelsey wants you to know that she's really good at stories, especially this one. She loves this story. It's tragic. But it's amazing. And now she's got a new story. Her love story with Chris. Monday nights at 8.

This was a level of #psychotic we have not yet seen on the bachelor. Which is a challenge in and of itself. Congrats to the editors for keeping this B under wraps until we got rid of Ashley S. I guess they wanted us to know we hadn't seen nuthin' yet.

So Sanderson Poe, by all accounts, did actually exist. Here is his obituary from the Tulsa World. Note that much of it is about Kelsey.

But because that's NOT ENOUGH CRAZY FOR HER, Kelsey decides that, because there's not going to be a cocktail party, she has to pull out all the stops and then just collapse in a hallway while some medic named Diane frantically yells for the "yellow bag" to save Kelsey's life. But no need, Diane. Kelsey has already, in the moment, correctly diagnosed her panic attack.

PS I put "Sanderson Poe" into an anagram generator and got the following results, even more proof that Kelsey is a genius:

Seasoned Porn
Senor and Peso
And Open Sores
and my personal favorite, which I actually discovered myself:

NO ONE'S SPARED

Can we please re-open this investigation?

Josh, you never cease to amaze me. I love you like Chris will never love Kelsey.

chris // week four

You're right, Carly... her mouth is definitely NOT a virgin.

SA: This week continued in the grand tradition of Chris making the girls do humiliating things in bikinis. Putting up a tent? For realz? They couldn't put their shorts back on for that task?  There's nothing like squatting in low-rise bikini bottoms when it's been a few weeks since your last wax. Although, that seems to be something none of these women had an issue with, there must be a secret Blakely in the house performing spa treatments. The fact that NOT ONE woman had pants on, even Kelsey, who vocalized her annoyance at almost every aspect of this date, made me think that producers specifically asked the women not to cover up. #gross (I noticed Chris was fully comfortable in a button-down oxford, btw).

JA: Did you notice Chris has put on some weight? We're not seeing any more outdoor showers, and when he takes off his shirt for various lake/pool parties, suddenly the editing speeds up. Yeah, this whole low-budget Blair Witch lake camping trip seems really skeevy for Week Four. Like, during Juan Pablo's season, weren't we already in South Korea by now? And next week we make it all the way to... New Mexico. My favorite part was how the girls all freaked out because they thought "natural" on the date card meant "no makeup."

SA: So...Chris wants everyone to know that this is 'his element'. He wants to make sure the girls are comfortable since real life isn't all "rooftop romance". He seems a tad on his high-horse after he threw such a hissy fit last week at Costco. Kelsey is not feeling this "swamp date" because they have "beautiful lakes in Michigan". Later in the date when the gals are saying how they are the luckiest girls in the world, Kelsey chimes in with a well-timed, sarcastic, "really?" This infuriates the other women, because for the show to work, it's essential contestants feel like they are in a fairy tale (more on that in later). But, in actuality, being on a 'group date' in a 'swamp', where one man takes turns making out with every woman there, does not a lucky lady make. Point, Kelsey. But, ya, K did seem hella fake when she talked to Chris so I'll give that one to the women. To be fair, though Kelsey's laugh was ridiculous, at least she wasn't lying about how much she disliked the date. Her one-on-one vibe was, 'I'm not having fun but I still want you to like me' as opposed to, 'I'm not having fun and I don't give a shit whether you like me or not.' The latter being a little too much to ask from any bachelor contestant.

JA: I would like to remind our readers that when Selma complained about having to run into an icy river in Canada or wherever the hell on Sean's season, that was the week she was sent packing. Rule number 1 of the show: if you wanna be about this Bachelor life, you need to stay enthusiastic about every activity, no matter how humiliating and terrible. (Those kebabs looked seriously undercooked, btw.) But this is what you signed up for, ladies. I think the most interesting development of this episode was that it set up Kelsey to be the season villain, which I never would have anticipated (and is also a testament to how weaksauce this season is... where is Courtney? Where is Tierra?)

SA: But the fake award this episode does not go to Kelsey, nor does it go to Ashley, who wore what appeared to be three layers of fake eyelashes camping. The fake award goes to....bachelor Chris. Here's why. In his ITM, where he described Ashley I. sneaking into his tent, he says (paraphrased) "I'm half asleep, what's happening, I don't know what's going on, blah blah blah". BUT, when Ashley opened the tent flap, you can hear Chris coo "come here" with the syrupy vocal invitation of a man who thinks he's about to get a BJ (or at very least an HJ). So that is why, Chris Soules, you win fakest girl at camp.

(And, Ashley I. if you want to let a bro know that you are 'more than just a 'hook-up girl',  it's probably not a good idea to sneak into his tent in the middle of the night to hook up with him. Even if you did spout some gibberish about being conservative first. Just, FYI.)

JA: Fia, you are speaking so much truth. You are leaving it all on the stage. I actually think Chris cooed "come here" before he even knew who it was. He heard a girl's voice and was like, "maybe I can get some Juan Pablo-Clare Vietnam action here in the woods." So yes, he's a fakey fakey McFakester. But Ashley, booboo, you gotta see what you're doing here, too. Any kind of rogue middle-of-the-night one-on-one sneak attack visit is going to be seen as an invitation to canoodle, at the very least. And your ridiculous hypersexualized Kardashian look is seriously at odds with the good girl image you want to project. Get it together. Your eyelashes turn the corner before you do.

SA: An open letter to Kaitlyn -

Dear Kaitlyn,

Cheers to you, for getting another rose. But, more importantly for being the only girl in bachelor history to tell us you were drunk, before we could guess it. You can hold your liquor, that is rare in these parts. Good on ya having a good time without embarrassing yourself, and for knowing how to play the game. (Bringing up that you always have fun, but that it was time for you and Chris to talk about something serious, clearly you've done your homework). I still see no future between you and Chris, but I don't think you care about that anyway. He thinks you are here for the right reasons, so as far as I can tell, you're audition for bachelorette 2015 is going swimmingly. Right now, you and Britt are my frontrunners for that pony-show. Maybe that's why she was trying to sabatoge you at the rose ceremony. Thoughts?
Love, Fia

JA: Yeah, Kaitlyn is playing this game really well. I agree that she has no real chemistry with Chris (although slightly more chemistry than Chris and Jillian -- WTF was that???) but she did manage to hold her liquor better than 95% of the women who have ever been on this show. But ohmysweetpotatoes, can we talk about Jillian. Yes, Miss Fitness, you easily won the physical challenge (Muck Run, Mud Race? Whatever), but when it came to actually being a person, you stayed in Bro Mode and turned your precious one-on-one time into a game of "Would You Rather" that involved discussing sex with a homeless woman. I can't with you, Jillian. And neither could Chris. Congrats on being the first girl to be denied a rose.

SA: Josh, you tackle the Cinderella situation because I can't.

JA: Oh, Disney. Your movie product placement just gets more and more blatant. Wait. Is Cinderella in theaters March 13? I only know that because it was yelled at me a hundred times (although I was less annoyed when it was Robb Stark yelling it). So Chris's three sisters take a much-needed Chekhov girls' trip to California to give six girls a job interview to see which one gets the fancy movie date. I think one of the sisters was actually checking a sheet of paper to keep track of who she was talking to. And every question was "How do you feel about living in Iowa?" Nothing about compatibility with their brother, whom they know has the personality and depth of a ham left out in the sun too long. Nothing about who the girls are as people. Just. Give us your thoughts on. Iowa. So somehow, despite Carly's tearful confession that guys have not been nice to her, Jade wins the date and it's really cute and Chris is an awful dancer and she should have worn the sparkly dress. That is all.

SA: Megan continues to prove she is a few sandwiches short of a picnic by admitting that she does not know all five of the senses. She then blindfolds Chris and asks him to guess what kind of chocolate covered fruit she is feeding him. This is her attempt at "getting serious" (clearly she has not done her homework). She labels this game, "The guess the senses game", the real version of which, she could have benefit from in elementary school.

JA: Yeah what was that? Just make out already. Also I kind of love Britt for using her one-on-one time to call Chris out on forcing them to do weird things in bikinis. If you're Britt, you have to be thinking, "I got the First Impression Rose and since then, I've only been drinking goat's milk and helping Ashley I. adjust her hair extensions."

Speaking of Ashley I., I have to say that she played this shit perfectly this week. To drop "I'm a virgin" on a guy right before a rose ceremony is kind of genius, because he obviously can't send you home after that or he looks like an asshole. So she lives to fly home in coach another day.

SA: After this week I think we are narrowing in on our top four. My guess is - Jade, Becca, Whitney, and either Kaitlyn or Britt. I know both Kaitlyn and Britt seem like front-runners but neither of them is going to move to Iowa and as we get closer even dum-dum Chris should be able to see that.

I still hate Chris but some of the ladies are starting to grow on me.

JA: Hmm... dark horse pick with Becca. I agree with Whitney for sure. I think Britt makes a great comeback starting next week. I guess, yeah, Jade...? I think based on the logic for eliminating Julia with an E, Kale's Mom's days are numbered. There could also be time for Megan to become a real person. But it appears next week is all about Kelsey and her medical emergency. It's not a season of the Bachelor until an ambulance is called.

CHRIS // week three

Can we chat rill quick? About my dead husband?

JA: I'm all for a crossover, ABC, but this Jimmy Kimmel nonsense was way too much. Every time I thought he was gonna go away, he didn't go away. From his forced "jokes" about having sex with all the girls to that Costco date to being gross in the hot tub with Chris and Kaitlyn, I thought this whole idea fell ridiculously flat. But I don't want to get ahead of myself.

SA: So, ratings are down this season. Big surprise, ABC, you chose fucking Chris Soules. Who I hate. But, more on that later. I would say this Jimmy Kimmel thing was to compensate for those ratings but they filmed it months ago, so I don't know what the incentive was, other than to wink to the audience. Because having Jimmy Kimmel highlights how fake and unnatural this situation is, which viewers know anyway, but like to suspend their disbelief. With JK in the house, that is just not happening. However, I must say that I love Jimmy Kimmel and I hate Chris. So, I was just glad there was another lead on whom to focus.

When Chris announced that the women would have another man in their lives this week, some amazing girl replied with, "Is it an animal? A pig?" Bonus points to that young lady. I couldn't figure out who said it.

Now, this ain't my first time at the Bachelor rodeo, so I get that the early-season dates are super low-budget in order to compensate for all the world travel that happens later on. But I didn't get this Costco trip at all. First of all, who were those random children pushing around Chris and Kaitlyn in that giant inflatable ball? Second of all, why did they buy literally all of the ketchup in stock? If I had ketchup on my Costco grocery list, and then showed up to find that it had all been bought as part of some dumb Jimmy Kimmel joke, I would have been pissed. Third of all, they had to buy furniture? You mean there's nowhere for three people to sit and eat in Chris's Bachelor house? The hell?

I kind of disagree about the Costco date. I thought it was a fun idea, the fact that the date card said, "unlimited appetizers" and then they show up at Costco. That's a great, joke! The thing I didn't like was how Chris was such a baby about it. He was stomping around like, 'where's my helicopter! I want a helicopter! and 25 more women's bare legs to rub.' Also, 'enough ketchup to fill a hot tub' was clearly a joke, the fact that Chris and Kaitlyn took is so literally was the real life equivalent of when Valerie bought Seth Rogen the ham on the Comeback.

And then, Jimmy doesn't just join them for a drink. He sits down to dinner, between them, and asks questions that sound like they're coming out of a 12-year-old boy's mouth. (Although his hard-hitting investigative journalism did reveal that Kaitlyn is down with some Fantasy Suite sex. Jury's out on how Farmer Chris feels about that.) Then he gets into the hot tub and says something else gross while eating a chicken wing. Get me out of here.

Kaitlyn is not okay with fantasy suite sex with multiple partners. Kaitlyn is a 'cool girl', and she's clearly more interested in impressing Jimmy Kimmel than she is in Chris. But I don't want to be mean, I would want to impress Jimmy Kimmel more than I would want to sit on Chris's lap too. And  I like Kaitlyn, I can't wait to see her on Bachelor in Paradise this summer, but she and Chris have NO CHEMISTRY and I hate watching them pretend to (I hate a lot about this season). Can I take yet another moment to lament that we are not watching Jef or Arie right now??

THEN (because he's just not ever going away), Jimmy Kimmel subjects about 12 of the girls to a hoedown involving various farm tasks. And it appears that no season of the Bachelor is complete without a race to guzzle goat's milk as quickly as possible. Jillian, who apparently has sewn two headbands together and is calling them shorts, is the odds-on favorite, because she spent the whole night before doing squats, but she's edged out by Carly, who is also a person I do not ever remember seeing.

(glad you brought up that milk thing so I didn't have to!)

Luckily, everyone gets a break from Jimmy with a little rooftop cocktail party post-hoedown, where Kale's Mom straight up asks Chris why he's making out with all of the people on earth. It got a little awkward after she asked that, but I don't blame her. A girl needs to know if she's gotta pick up some Abreva on the way home.

Bonus points to Ashley S for the look on her face when Chris gave Becca the rose. It was a look I shared.

Then we have Whitney, who literally shed tears when the date card arrived with her name on it. She had all night to get ready for her date, so naturally she picks out a sensibly distressed denim vest and a giant necklace from that rack right by the register at Chico's. Sartorial choices aside, I am rooting for Whitney. She seems fun and easygoing and genuine and like she shouldn't be moving to Nowheresville, Iowa.

I like Whitney too. And let's not forget that Whitney didn't get any dates last week, or the week before (including group dates). That means she has been trapped inside Bachelor Mansion for over two weeks! If I had been forced to stay in the same house for that long, and then a little piece of paper in middle school handwriting declared my release, if only for a day, I might start crying too.

The whole wedding crash was a fun little way to cap off their date, but I laugh out loud at any suggestion that it was "spontaneous." All I can picture is a bunch of PA's running around that wedding getting all those hundreds of people to sign releases. I loved seeing the occasional blurred-out face of someone who was like, "NOPE."

So, the moment I was starting to settle back into real life and maybe thinking that Jimmy Kimmel on this show was just a nightmare, he reappears to tell the girls that the evening cocktail party is scrapped in favor of a pool party. So many bikinis, so much white wine being drunk out of straws. But of course, it's not a pool party until Julia With An E tells the gut-wrenching story of her husband's suicide. As we all know here in Bachelor Nation, stories of personal trauma are a great way to quickly generate false intimacy between you and the Bachelor. But as genuinely awful as this story was, I found it kind of gross. I couldn't connect emotionally the way that Julia With An E (and the producers) wanted me to.

This was a horrific story. A lot darker than most traumas that used to come up on this franchise (though they've been raising the bar steadily for awhile now). But man, a pool party is not the place. I felt bad for Juelia, but still can't believe she could pour her heart out like that to a shirtless bro-slut wearing a leather necklace. Talk about any port in a storm. Jesus.

The rest of that pool party stressed me ALL THE WAY OUT. Kim Kardashleyan (I'm still working on that pun) finally cracked under all that stress. In her mind, she'd made a deal with Jillian to let her stay alone with Chris in the hot tub as long as she could have next up. But then, "next up" turned out to be, like, 30 seconds. I don't know, Ashley, maybe it's time to step up your game. I could accomplish (and have accomplished) quite a lot in a hot tub with only 30 seconds. I can see how, under the influence of about a gallon of Pinot Grigio, it could be a bit too much pressure, though. But she pulled it out in the end. Never underestimate Kim. This girl is emerging as the most entertaining woman of the season.

Let me just take a moment here to say why I hate Chris so much and why I find this season so difficult to watch. He's a man who probably hasn't dated that much, so is looking for all the action he can get. I realize it is polarizing to say 'Chris shouldn't be kissing all these women'.  Cynics (and Jimmy Kimmel) will always counter, 'isn't that the point of the show?' And yes, to an extent it is. But, Chris does not seem to have any connection whatsoever with most of the women he is kissing, caressing, and taking into his bedroom like a high school boy. Usually on this show, physical intimacy is a sign of the relationship progressing. Yes, that happens with more than one person (on the bachelor and the bachelorette), but it doesn't usually happen with EVERYONE. Take Amber's elimination tonight: on the group date, Chris was all over her. Yes, she was the aggressor, but this early in the season, the lead pretty much knows who they plan on keeping around, and acts accordingly. Chris had no problem hitting it and quitting it with Amber- giving her false hope, then sending her packing. The intimacy was fully selfish on Chris's part (as it appears to be with most of these women.) That, to me, makes Chris a despicable lead. Much more so than Juan Pablo, who in his defense, was at least good television. Because the other thing about Chris is that, he's boring as fuck. ABC is leaning so hard on all these farm metaphors because we literally know nothing else about Chris. They even had to bring in a late night TV host to make the show more interesting.

Also, on this season, the women who Chris is not making out with / treating as objects, etc...and with whom he's taking things a bit slower (their choice, not his) are the ones who appear to be emerging as front runners (Whitney, Becca). This makes the whole season a gross and regressive lesson in  'the rules' and feels a lot dirtier and meaner to women than the show usually comes across.

In the end, no real shockers at the Rose Ceremony, as three more women I couldn't distinguish from carefully coiffed honeydew melons are sent packing. As is Jimmy Kimmel, whom I hope to never again see on this show.

I miss Kacie B. I miss everyone, from every other season. #neverforget

CHRIS // week two

riding a tractor in a bikini: the daily fate that will befall whatever poor woman wins this season

JA: So first off, hello, dear readers. My apologies for not being able to be the Costello to Fia's Abbott last week. No excuses. But I'm back now, and ready to snark. (Thank you to my partner in crime, Fia, for picking up my slack last week, on her birthday, of all days.)

We open Week Two with a direct pickup from Week One, and it's apparently daylight (did the cocktail party last THAT long?), and it's apparently fine for Kimberly to walk back in and ask for a second chance at a rose. Desperate, party of 1? Your table is ready at the WORST BRUNCH EVER. Then again, maybe she decided that he got her confused with Drunk Tara and that she should have gotten that rose. Drunk Tara's rose was clearly sponsored by Jameson. Still, it's never a good sign when your first interaction with Chris is begging him to give you a second chance after you've already been eliminated. That's not how stories of Bachelor Ever After begin.

Sidenote: can we have a moment for Farmer Chris's gratuitous outdoor shower, where he apparently has no soap? Or loofah?

SA: Hi Josh! Welcome to my least favorite season I've ever watched. I think it's because I seriously do not like Chris. If you'll remember last week, my icy heart was maybe starting to thaw as I thought I saw a lonely lil farmer drinking beers solo in his one-light town. Well, that ship has sailed. In this episode, I wised up and realized that a man like Chris, someone who probably hasn't dated that much in his life, and is isn't looking forward to dating too much more in his future, is going to use a season of The Bachelor like a three month stay at the MTV Spring Break house. And that is not a bachelor with whom I would like to be friends. Juan Pablo may have been a self-interested jerk, Ben Flajnick may have been a stingy snob, and Sean Lowe was most certainly an uber-Christian tomato, but those men all knew that about themselves going in. Whatever weird issues Chris has with himself and women we will most likely discover along with him this season, and that makes bachelor mansion 2015, a dangerous place to be living.

Our first group date of the season has Chris and six of the girls on a strange "hoedown" date in downtown LA that involves tractors (clearly the show is saving money for all those international plane tickets later in the season). Will these dates all be farm-themed? Is the next group date going to be a race to inseminate as many cattle as possible in under two minutes? These girls were the best combination of bikinis, Uggs, and terrible wedges I've ever seen walking downtown. Anyway, Kim Kardashian Ashley I. wins the tractor race and gets some one-on-one time, and I'm bored.

I agree with Kelly. And again, you're smile is not fooling me Prince Farming. I am on to you.

Back at the house, Jillian and Megan sneak into Chris's house through the backdoor (while Jillian's own backdoor is hanging out of her underwear... zing!) and Megan wears Chris's helmet and does her best impression of someone without all their chromosomes. #mimosasforbreakfast Also, our first big trauma reveal is to all the girls, and it's Julia (with an E), whose baby daddy killed himself. This is a really heavy story for breakfast. Is it just me, or is the Bachelor shoving more and more death in our faces as the seasons go on?

OMG. I thought that was drunk Jordan banging her head into the wall. It's Megan? That's cool. Maybe I like Megan. She's never watched the show, she doesn't know what a date card is and she thinks banging your head into the wall is an appropriate way to spend an afternoon whilst being held hostage in a mansion and supplied with all the wine coolers you can drink. This, however, cannot beat drunk Jordan, who slept through the date card arriving. Maybe they actually did find these girls at the MTV spring break house.

Speaking of reveals, Mackensie (I prefer to refer to M as Kale's Mom, FYI) decided to reveal her son to Chris while they were out on an unofficial one-on-one. The kid reveal is always tricky, because it gives the Bachelor/ette an excuse to send you home RIGHT AWAY if they're not feeling you. "Yeah, I just keep thinking about Kale/Spike/Rocco back home missing his mom, and I know you miss him too, so I don't wanna keep you away from him any longer. The car's pulling up now."

BTW, Kale's mom is only 21 years old. Chris is 33.

And then there's Megan, who gets bubbly and a private jet and a helicopter and a Grand Canyon picnic. Jackpot. Some other poor girl is gonna have to jump off a building or rappel down a sheer cliff face. Luck of the draw, I guess. Then, Megan decides to tell Chris the story of her dad's death just as a plane flies very loudly overhead. Hey, Megs, why don't you tell Chris the story of how you broke into his house and banged your head against the wall for half an hour?

I don't even know what to say about that weird zombie paintball group date. I'm gonna leave that to you, Fia. Also I'm getting tired of Ashley S. being crazy for no reason.

Have you ever been at a party and some girl you sorta know, maybe a friend of a friend, corners you and starts breathing hotly into your face, sloshing white wine onto your shoes and talking about how similar the two of you are to each other. If you can manage to sneak away from the conversation, you see them do this same dance with another unsuspecting acquaintance and from an outsider's perspective you can see that what initially looked like stranger danger is actually just the result of drinking on pills. That's what's up with Ashley S. The girl graduated from Auburn, so she can't be as crazy as the producers and contestants are trying to make us believe she is, all on her own. There is some chemical crazy going on with this one. I don't mean she's not a loon, but it's not all her fault.

My favorite moment of the evening happened at the cocktail party, when it got real with Mackensie, Megan, and Kim K Ashley, who admitted that she was a virgin, and then Mac said what many women think is true, but isn't that true: "Guys love to take your virginity."

Kale's mom seems a little too into, "what guys love". Did Kale's dad tell her that guys also love not wearing condoms? I bet he did.

I'm gonna wade into some choppy waters here. I don't date women, so take this with a grain of gay salt, but I do know men. And I feel like the idea of honorably and excitedly deflowering an unspoiled girl is sometimes a thing that girls tell themselves a guy is into. I don't know many men walking around going, "...and it'd be great if she were a virgin." Ideally, many guys want a girl not to be too "experienced," but they don't want the pressure of storming the castle first. When a guy hears he's your first, he's probably thinking one of two things, no matter how pig-headed and idiotic these things might be:

1. This is going to hurt for her and generally not be good for me.

2. What if, after this is over, she stalks my life and thinks I'm her boyfriend?

Fia, feel free to disagree with me on any of those points, but my main idea is that a guy doesn't greet the news of a girl's virginity with automatic glee. Farmer Chris, though... probably.

I agree with everything you said. I've never met a guy who wasn't a huge creep, who was into virgins. In fact, I think a lot of men think it's a whole lot of unnecessary baggage (especially a 26 year-old virgin). Chris seems like a secret creep though, so he probably loves it. You know who else loves it? ABC.

And at first, I didn't believe Ashley was a virgin, but then she started kissing Chris and I could see that she makes out just like a virgin. It's ravenous and it's intense and it's magical, because it's all she's ever done.

This is where I do need to disagree with you dear J. While I do not think Ashley is a liar, and I believe her that a penis has never fully penetrated her vagina (sorry), thus making her a hetero-normative "virgin", I would bet dollars to donuts that she's had a penis in her mouth (sorry again). I'm sure she's given a hand job, that someone has gone down on her and that she's partook of many other sexual acts. But sure, let's go with it, she's a virgin. Also, Chris Harrison told us last week with glee that this season includes a virgin in the fantasy suite so get used to Ashley, she's gonna be here for awhile.

Speaking of making out, Chris is making out with everyone. Like, he's the opposite of Juan Pablo. All this house needs is one person with a cold sore and it's all over. So that made it all the more tragic when Chris refused to kiss Drunk Jordan. You know that's the kiss of death (pun intended).

Aside from Jillian mishearing the name of Julia (with an E) and eating it on the carpet, nothing really eventful happened at this rose ceremony. Kimberly went home (predictable), and Drunk Tara was sent on her teary way.

I liked drunk Tara. I like all the drunk girls.

P.S. Those of you with a hankerin' for more inside scoop on the Host with the Most, Chris Harrison, should check out Taffy Brodesser-Akner's awesome profile in this month's GQ.

CHRIS // week one

"I feel so powerful" - Ashley S.

Okay, I shit the bed on Andi's season. I fell off the face of the earth. I stopped updating. It was totally my fault, Josh was recapping his heart out and I was just not meeting him at the plate. So, I apologize. We vow to be better. That means, we will always try to post, but depending on schedules, sometimes it will be just me, sometimes just Josh and hopefully often both of us.

Side note: both Josh and I are now professional recappers! We tried  and tried to get the sweet bachelor gig, but apparently that is such a desirable task that newspapers have writers on staff to do it. Nevertheless, you can read Josh's opinion of The Good Wife and my musings on Nashville at the New York Observer.

We both also write for TV. And we both have premieres this week. So, please, if you like our bachelor commentary tune into EMPIRE and MAN SEEKING WOMAN, our respective employers. We love them and hope you will too.

Now, onto Prince Farming. That is ABC's moniker for Chris. I hate it. I am also, not the biggest Chris fan in general. Last season, I was Nick all the way (until that unfortunate ATFR debacle). I recognize Nick may not have been a good bachelor, but was pulling for at least a Jef or Arie season, both of which would make for great television. No such luck. Prince Farming it is. God help us.

This show was three hours long. Had I not been watching with friends, I might not have made it. Can someone please tell ABC that a red carpet is supposed to start prior to an event and not at the time of said event, unnecessarily delaying everyone's bedtime? THREE FUCKING HOURS. My god. They are mad with power. And they are right to be, I don't even like this bachelor and I watched every goddamn second.

So we open on Chris and a bunch of old guys in a VFW hall talking about how, living in a town of 400 people, it would take Chris a lifetime to meet 25 women. Holy shit. They're right, my icy heart starts to faintly crack as I think Chris might be the only bachelor in history of this franchise who really did come on this show for the 'right reasons'. So it begins. I'm hooked.

There's never really much to say about the first episode of a season. A bunch of women show us who among them is crazy to begin with, and who will be driven crazy by the sadistic process that is living under the thumb of ABC and master manipulators, Chris Harrison and Egan Gale, for the next three months. In the former category (of the ones who made it through), we have the crazy-eyed pomegranate picker (Ashley S.), Kale's mom (Mackensie), and a super athlete (Jillian). In the later resides the beautiful widow (Kelsey) and the baby-voiced fertility nurse (Whitney). My favs for viewing pleasure are the drunken cowgirl (Tara) and the dirty joke specialist / dance instructor (Kaitlyn).

Hug Donater Britt got the first impression rose and an unprecedented first night kiss. Chris seems so comfortable with Britt and so uncomfortable with this process, I would wager if production asked him to stop the show and make a go of it with Britt, he'd say yes on the spot. Britt seems sweet enough, but giving out hugs to strangers on Hollywood Blvd. plants her firmly in the 'already crazy' camp.

These women have a tendency to grow on me as the weeks progress, and at this point it appears to be anyone's game. As far as real, smart women go, there don't appear to be any Sharleens or Andis here this season, but who knows, maybe Tara will surprise us.

I look forward to continuing the journey with you all.

xoFia

ANDI week 8: "i've got gumption, so do you"

Marcus decides to show it all off on hometowns since he's def not making it to the fantasy suite

JA: Tonight’s drinking game word: “open”

This was quite an emotional roller coaster tonight. Eric’s untimely death brought a heaviness to this episode that we rarely see on the Bachelor/ette. But first we have Nick’s hometown visit. I have to say, this was the home visit I was looking forward to most. We start right off with some eating. And boozing. With a beer named for them. And “polka” dancing. And ten siblings. I don’t really have much to say about Nick’s family other than Nick’s littlest sister being cute. But that girl had to be what, 7 years old? And Nick is 33? Whoa, Nick’s parents. That’s. A lot of fertility.

SA: And Nick is not mormon, is that correct? Man, that's a lot of kids. Did you notice how quickly Andi named the siblings in order when they tested her at the end? Nicely played, she must have been going over it in her head the whole visit. So, you all know Nick is my favorite and I just can't see after this episode how anyone could think he was faking this, or there for the wrong reason. I also think that all of our hearts might be headed for heartbreak because as we know from past seasons -- when they let you see give aways like a contestants saying things like, "I think I'm her favorite" or "I feel like she's the half of me that's been missing" it's usually not leading to a fairy tale ending. I hope that's not the case here but I know these producers and how they love to play with our emotions.

After Milwaukee, Andi travels a little bit to the southwest to confront the reality of being a farmer’s wife in Middle-of-Nowhere, Iowa. What kind of activities does Chris have planned? Oh. Just some plow driving.

Who is Andi kidding? She is such a city girl. “My family has a lake house in Alabama” means “we go glamping once a year.” Andi referencing her lake house in Alabama when confronted with the possibility of moving to Iowa was the LOL moment of this episode. Also, who are we kidding with this. Andi Dorfman is not a farmer's wife, no matter how much gumption she has.

When Chris said, “There’s an opportunity...to be a homemaker,” I winced a bit. Believe me; I’m not out to knock homemakers. Life’s all about everyone being able to make the choices they wanna make. But I wonder just how cool Andi (and her family) would be with her leaving the entire legal profession to milk cows. Andi is only 26 years old, so you know she’s still got a ton of law school loans. And yes, Chris’s mom seems quite happy and just fine with the choices she made. But her saying “I was born in town” is different from Andi, who would be actively giving something up to live on the farm.

Also, Chris clearly has no idea what he is asking of her, because after he saw her angry resting face in regards to the homemaker comment he then asked why she couldn't be a DA on his farm in Iowa. Um, Chris, do you see any gangs in the prairie? Because I don't.

What is Ghosts in the Graveyard? Is it weird that I’ve never played this game? Isn’t this called Hide-and-Seek? And how hard is it to find someone when they have a cameraman standing next to them with a giant light on his camera? My thoughts exactly.

I will say that I did like Chris's family a lot. They were engaging, funny and real. The cool family card trumps the middle of nowhere card when you know you're not gonna marry the dude anyway and that's how Chris managed to sneak into next week.

Ugh, Josh. When Josh said, “I’m excited to fall in love. I wanna get married at the end,” I thought he said “I wanna get married again.” And I almost had a heart attack thinking he’d just revealed some ex-wife.

I can’t put my finger on it. Something is not right with Josh. Something is really not right. As he was talking to Andi about his brother’s football hopes, I totally noticed the difference you pointed out before, Fia, between Andi’s “serious listening” face as opposed to her “you’re my future husband” face. There’s a discernible difference between those faces, especially in her mouth.

What is this Aaron business even about? Is the family using the show to promote Aaron in some weird way? Josh’s parents were like, “Oh, no, Andi, sweetheart. This family is a unit. And this unit will be watching Aaron’s football games. All of them. So how about you just not make any plans on aSunday...ever?” That really is all anyone in this family can seem to talk about. Did you hear the edge in Andi’s voice when she called Josh’s little sister the most mature one in the whole family?

The Josh hometown was incredibly weird, like the weirdest of the bunch. It made me think about Josh totally differently than I have all season and actually made me feel a little bad for him. I also did some research and though Josh was drafted by the Milwaukee Brewers, he only played for their minor league team and then for their farm team. So while Josh was 'owned' by the MLB, he never actually played in it. After which it became apparent that his little brother was the better athlete and thusly should be the sole object of the family's attentions. Last week I would have said it was a bold face lie that he gave up sports for family and that was a way around saying he gave up sports because he just wasn't quite good enough. But seeing him with his family and the way they all fawn over his brother, I believe that what he said was true. When he wasn't going to make it himself, supporting his brother was the next best thing and frankly what was expected of him from his family. So I guess he was telling the truth, just spinning it slightly.

The other thing I noticed here is that Josh is a man who does what he's told. When Andi was talking to his mother and sister it was clear that they, like Andi, have strong personalities. Josh's sister even said that Andi and Josh would fight over how to spend their weekends I thought 1) okay, Andi loves to fight, that's all she and Josh have done all season and 2) these are fights she might be able to win if Josh is easily persuaded by the women in his life and she is promoted to the role of 'wife'.

The third thing that made me think we shouldn't be writing Josh off so quickly is how Andi talked about these problems. She said she was worried the family wasn't excited enough for Josh that he might be about to get engaged. And she said that if they do get married, their family will have to be the number one priority. She is both thinking of Josh's feelings and referring to the two of them as a unit. That is something I haven't heard her do with anyone else.

And then we have Marcus. The thing that has me worried from Jump Street is when Andi talks about “catching up” to Marcus’s feelings. That’s never good. Especially when she’s never said that about, um, Nick. Ever.

Nope, Marcus is dunzo. 

Watching Marcus reenact the striptease, despite his toned body, is kinda sad. Of course this gets Andi hot, but as we all know, hot ain’t love.

She's saying the same thing she said about him on night one - that he's hot. She literally doesn't have anything else to say.

Marcus’s family is nice. His mom is sweet. I just don’t think this is enough to keep him here. Before this week I would have said that Josh won’t make it to Fantasy Suites. After this week, though, you can almost hear the “but” in Andi’s voice when she says things like, “I would be lucky to be married to Marcus, and he would give me the world.”

I absolutely hate this segment with Eric’s death announcement. I hate everything about it. I understand why it’s necessary in this episode to show why the Rose Ceremony was so emotional. But I really really hate it. Watching the cameramen put their cameras down and join in the mourning was almost too much. Bachelor Nation is real, y’all. I just wish we could have seen Chris Harrison’s house under better circumstances.

This was so sad and horrible. I really hope that the camera being put down so we could watch everyone mourn naturally was not planned. But of course, it would have to have been. Sad. sad. sad.

As soon as Josh and Chris got the first two roses, Marcus had to know he was toast. I can’t see Andi in Iowa. This is Nick’s to lose.

Andi told Nick's sister Bella they have the best mental connection. We can all see that. These are the two who should be together. But I am worried Josh is a dark horse here on an emotional level. One thing's for sure - Chris is toast.

ANDI week 7: who, who, who will come to hometowns?

JA: Last week before Hometowns. It’s gonna get real. You know what’s also real? All these scarves. Big week for man-scarves in Belgium.

So this is clearly being set up as the week when Nick’s relationship with the other guys reaches its lowest point. He’s not helping matters by saying things like, “I can’t afford this late in the game to slow things down.” Are you playing World Cup soccer, Nick?

SA: So as you all know  by now I have a crush on Nick and refused to believe his intentions could be anything less then honorable. So far this season, with the exception of being standoffish on group dates, he's seemed real and like his connection with Andi was the strongest. This is the week that I began to feel that perhaps there's a chance Andi and I are both being duped, nice editing ABC. More on that later tho - first we have to get thru this boring date with Marcus, ugh.

Marcus did about as well as he could have on his one-on-one with Andi. First of all, he ate all his food. Andi even said to him, “I’m glad you’re a good eater.” We know this girl likes to chow down. The week before Hometowns is inherently risky because you have to decide what kind of family story you wanna shove down Andi’s throat. There are two ways to go about this. You can either talk about how amazing and wonderful your parents are and how they are still best friends after all these years and have been together forever and have “exactly the kind of relationship that I want.” That’s always heartwarming, I guess. Or you can go the way Marcus went, which is to throw all your abandonment issues and parental abuse at the wall and hope it sticks. It looks like it paid off, though. I suppose a former gang prosecutor can handle an intense childhood story.

Ah yes, the alternative to the war worn, "I want what my parents have" is to play the "I never had the happy family and so I want it even more". This worked for Catherine and Marcus is hoping it will work for him as well. I have to hand it to him for acing the timing of these reveals but I couldn't help notice that Andi was wearing her, 'I'm listening to a serious story' face, which is not the same as her 'I'm looking at my future husband' face. That's reserved for 2 dudes on this journey and neither one of them is Marcus. I am also still  amazed at how young Marcus is, he needs to go back home, take advantage of his fifteen minutes and bed some ladies. He can come back to Bachelor Nation in a few years when he's closer to 30 and resume his wife hunt then. Also I am stumped as to who from this crowd could possibly be our next bachelor. My vote was for Marquel but he's out now that it's been announced he's going to be on bachelor in paradise and I think Chris the farmer shoots himself on the foot during home towns.

Back at the hotel, Nick pulled his first honeybadger move of the evening -- going down to the lobby and very VERY easily getting Andi’s room number from the front desk lady. Clearly the producers had to be in on this, or else they’re just really trusting at hotels in Belgium. Remember when Nick asked for his room key and then walked away without a key?? Come on, front desk lady. Get it together.

While I believe Nick sneaking out was genuine, the trip to the front desk to ask for Andi's room number was clearly a producer's idea. You can see Nick laughing at the absurdity of it while he's going through with it. Also, sorry, they might tell him what room number his "wife" is in but there's now way he's leaving with a key without a call up. That shit was ridiculous.

Fia, can you remember any point in recent Bachelor/ette history when someone broke the rules and snuck off for one-on-one time and it didn’t totally amazingly pay off? I feel like it always works. Oh, right. Unless you’re Clare. #vietnam #oceanspray

It's because no one has the confidence to sneak out except the favorites of the lead, that's why it always works - with the exception of poor Clare, who was then slut shamed by JP for the rest of the season.

I might be in the minority on this, but Josh is sooooooo boring. If Josh were a soda, he’d be a can of Tab that was left sitting open for a week. The conversations they have now are the exact same ones they had in Week One. My disbelief gets very much suspended when I’m watching this show, and I’m STILL calling bullshit when he tells Andi he’s falling in love with her. That felt like a desperate move just to stay in the game. Also, them dancing to a nondescript song by a nondescript band while 300 townspeople awkwardly stared was bizarre.

I've been suspicious of Josh this whole season. Everything he says sounds like a line. Watching these week - brining this up to my friend Tess, she countered that he's not manipulative he's just not very smart. And the reason that everything sounds like a line is because he's a simple man. I realized this could be true and my mind was blown.

Why is Dylan still here? Has Andi even spoken to him since they went on that weird train ride next to the Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut?

Hey, when you can only send home two at a time you're gonna be carrying some dead wood.

This was an… interesting group date. I love how Andi takes the guys to a place where kissing isn’t allowed, and then proceeds to kiss Chris a lot during their Patrick Swayze-Demi Moore mini-date. I guess there are no rules in the pottery room…? I don’t know monastery etiquette.

Whenever we get down to the week before hometowns it is always blazingly obvious whose going home, to the viewers and the contestants. In fact the three front runners are so clear that the three bringing up the rear usually point this out themselves themselves saying things like, "it's between us losers now". I never understand why they don't just give up completely at this point - if there can only be one winner and you know for a fact three dudes are ahead of you - what's the point of taking this chick home? Looking at you on this one, Farmer Chris.

As for these other guys who are all focusing more on Nick than on Andi, I need them to have watched past seasons of this show before they came to LA. There is always that one person who is playing a psychological game to make the other contestants focus more on him than on the Bachelorette. It’s a time-honored tradition. I guess it’s also a time-honored tradition to have people keep falling for it. Get over it, guys. Nick was never a part of your bromance. He’s in it to win it. He may also be a little bit of a sociopath. Even when he “cries,” he has this weird soulless look in his eyes.

This is the point in the episode where I began to wonder if I'd been deceived by my favorite. ABC had been hiding from us that Nick "studied Des's season" and has also questioned who might be the next Bachelor. Kryptonite in Bachelor Nation.

Meanwhile, Nick gets the Group Date rose while the other three guys have to sardine themselves into the backseat of the transpo van. Bonus points to whoever made them all squeeze into the same row -- they look pathetic.

I learned from Courtney's tell all (yes I read it, don't judge, it's summer) that whenever you get into a car / limo / van on this show you are required to put on your seatbelt, which contributes to these three looking like they are on a boy scouts trip. Can we just drive them all to the airport now?

This was the least climactic Rose Ceremony ever. I don’t even know why Andi brought Dylan to Belgium. Or Venice. Or France. And I love Brian, but he didn’t do nearly enough to earn a Hometown visit. This is the week where you’ve gotta go a little rogue if you don’t get official Andi facetime. All I can think about is that time Arie basically kidnapped Emily Maynard (who, by the way, just got married to a random) and tonsil-hockeyed her against a brick wall in Prague.

That was pimp. Also in Courtney's tell all I learned that Ari was the best sex she's ever had. #notsurprised

My favorite thing about the promo for next week is that Andi suddenly wakes up to the realization that Chris is gonna want her barefoot and pregnant on the family farm in Iowa. I. Love. Hometowns.