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DANIELLE RUDY DAVIS

Just an overcommitted girl trying to keep up with it all. Mom of three, co-owner of Lemonade PR, sports lover and F1 enthusiast always counting down to the Kentucky Derby. 

Secondary Embarrassment: When Pigs Swim * The Bachelor Season 20 Episode 6 Recap

Feb 9, 2016

Oh man, it got real last night. No more Mr. Nice Ben. It was cut throat in the Bahamas last night. Look away for too long and you might miss a girl getting sent home. It was some good stuff.

So yeah, the Olivia show is officially over (cue the singing of ‘Ding Dong the Witch is Dead’ in your head; also cue my immediate apology for getting that song stuck in your head the rest of the day), Leah went off the rails and we finally (FINALLY) bid adieu to Lauren H. Let’s get right to it.

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To get things started, can we all agree that last week’s “To Be Continued…” cliffhanger was totally unnecessary. We get back to the rose ceremony to see Ben take Olivia aside for another heart to heart to discuss why, literally, every other girl hates her. Olivia hikes up her dress and climbs on her high horse to let Ben know that it’s all because she’s so beautiful and intimidating and awesome and smart and intellectual and confident and annoying enough for us all to want to reach through the screen and smack her upside the head. How Ben didn’t roll his eyes and make the “gag me” face, I’ll never know.

He clearly buys some of her bulls**t and let’s her keep her hard earned rose. Olivia returns to the girls with that smug “Grinch Who Stole Christmas” grin on her face as the rest of the girls scratch their heads in wonder over how she’s managed to work her way out of this pickle. She’s ready for another week of ruining everything and reading books, apparently (who knew that’s what she was doing in her down time). At the rose ceremony, it’s time to say good-bye to that pretty brunette girl who has had barely three total minutes of screen time. Jennifer, we hardly knew ye. And for that, you should be thankful. You’ll return to your normal life much better for having lived in anonymity this season.

The rest of the girls forget Jennifer was even there when Ben announces the next stop on their love journey is somewhere with sun, sand and the Zika virus – The Bahamas! Everyone shrieks in glee whether from the idea of traveling to the beach or for the heavy poof champagne they all get handed, either way – Cheers!

Upon arrival, the girls grab their favorite crop tops and cut-off jeans to explore their new place but not before Chris Harrison stops in to give them the low-down on this week’s dates. Yup, if CH is making time out of his busy golf-spa-drinks-repeat schedule you know it’s got to be Two-on-One Date Week. SCORE! Now comes the suspense of waiting to see who will get the date card of doom. My money, at this point, was obviously on Olivia. She was just made for this type of aggressive show-down.

The first (and only) one-on-one date goes to Caila who immediately runs off to add even more volume to her hair. Alright, I gotta go off a little on Caila. At the beginning of the season, she seemed great. Cute, bubbly, somewhat normal but all that changed when she stepped out for her date looking like a cast member from the Malibu Sands Beach Club episodes of ‘Saved by the Bell.’ What in the f was up with that belly shirt (it’s not a crop top – that thing was a straight out of Delia’s belly shirt) and acid wash cut-offs? I am guessing no one is writing in to Possessionista this morning trying to track down that pairing.

All of this is inconsequential to Ben since she immediately peels off those layers to showcase her rocking bod. In all seriousness though, it is hard to see her body behind all of that hair. Can someone get homegirl a ponytail holder? They go “fishing” which is mostly just an excuse for Ben to hold on to her waist for a good hour. They spend the day touching, kissing and reeling in a pretty sizable fish.

Things take a turn at dinner though. Ben wants Caila to “open up and be vulnerable” which is one of those Bachelor requisites I’ll never understand. Either way, he needs to find out if there is more to her than big hair and an even bigger smile. Caila is not so sure though. She tells Ben that she’s falling in love with him but doesn’t want to tell him anything about herself. Ben’s confused, I’m confused, I’m guessing you were confused. It was like five full minutes of love jargon where they just kept saying Hallmark card phrases that meant NOTHING. I felt like I was watching that episode of ’30 Rock’ where Jack goes to Six Sigma training and it’s all a bunch of business jargon mumbo jumbo, except this time it was with REAL PEOPLE and their actual lives. Consider me confused.

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Ben isn’t really sure what it all means but knows that he wants to open mouth kiss Caila a little longer. He also really needs to keep at least one brown-haired girl around until hometowns. That’s seriously the only kind of diversity we’re working with at this point. One petite brown haired girl.

She gets the rose and a big smooch before heading back to the hotel to rub it in everyone’s faces.

While Caila is enjoying heavy petting with Ben, back at the house Leah is beginning her meltdown. She’s seriously pissed/heartbroken that she didn’t get the one-on-one and correctly, assumes this means that Ben isn’t interested in getting to know her. My thoughts on the whole thing are this: If you’re Leah, you’ve got to know that he’s just not that in to you BUT he thinks you’re pretty/funny/normal enough to keep around. What I would be doing is drinking all the margaritas, enjoying as much of the free vacation as possible and remaining in the shadows as long as I could keep the free vacation rolling. If you’re not going to get the guy, you might as well get all the free drinks. And if you’re lucky enough – they’ll invite you to do it all over again on Bachelor in Paradise.

Leah decides this is going to be her week to go full-on trainwreck though, crying early and often, thus guaranteeing her spot on Bachelor in Paradise. First she cried about not getting the one-on-one then she cries about going on the group date.

The group date is just a bevy of babes with beachy waves and bad ass beach bodies wearing teeny bikinis on a boat with cocktails. Lots and lots of cocktails. You go Ben.

The boat is taking them all to their own island where Ben has arranged for something VERY special. Much to the girls dismay, this means those perfectly crafted curls are shot. Much to everyone at homes great pleasure, this date also involves SWIMMING PIGS. Yes, you read that right, swimming pigs. So basically, we’ve got six pretty wasted girls flailing around in the water, feeding hot dogs to giant swimming pigs. I can’t make this shit up.

This date was awesome. Those pigs were massive chasing the girls around and stealing every last hot dog in sight. At one point, I was a little nervous Jojo (or was it Amanda – – sometimes it’s hard to tell them apart). I thought she might get pushed in the water and attacked by the pigs. Never to be seen again. Don’t act like you haven’t read those really disgusting/disturbing Deadspin articles about people falling in pig pens.

But once the pigs settle down and the alcohol sets in, the big black cloud of jealousy rolls in. The girls – with their running mascara and matted down curls – are all super jealous of Lauren B. (who wouldn’t be?) and her obvious connection with Ben. Not sure how they haven’t noticed this before but this day at the beach turns sour quick. Everyone is giving Ben the third degree in that passive aggressive drunk girl at the bar style. It’s pretty brutal. I get kind of uncomfortable myself so I use this weird time as an excuse to hit up the kitchen for an ice cream sandwich. #SorryImNotSorry

When I return to the couch, the girls have attempted to get themselves back in order for the kissing in corners portion of the date. Leah decides this needs to be her time to shine and by shine, I mean ruin everything for herself. Instead of taking a page out of Jennifer’s book and fading into the background, Leah decides she needs to get Ben’s attention. But homegirl makes the biggest mistake in the Bachelor book, she decides to go bash one of the other girls. And not one of the nobodies that Ben has literally zero feelings for, I’m looking at you Lauren H. No, she goes for the Big Cahuna, his lady love Lauren B. Big big mistake. Throwing Ben’s top chick under the bus isn’t going to get you anywhere. Olivia is a different story, you can tell he thinks she’s a little crazy but Lauren B. is all hearts and unicorns to Ben.

Leah says she’s not going to name names but it’s like she tells him there’s a six-foot talking yellow bird in the room but refuses to say it’s Big Bird. As if on cue, Lauren B. walks in to “steal Ben.” Is there a producer out there wearing an ear piece next to Lauren just waiting for the “send her in…. now!” cue? There must be right?

Ben can’t keep a secret so he tells Lauren B. that bitches are talking shit but don’t worry you’re still my girl. Since all of them are half drunk and extremely emotional this sparks a flurry of tears from America’s Favorite Flight Attendant. She heads back to the girl gang to tell them what happened and the “it wasn’t me” face on Leah was almost too good to be true. She might as well have just told Lauren it was her. Nothing has ever been so obvious. I really wanted Lauren B. to call her on it but of course, she’s too sweet for that. So she does what all girls do, saves her shit talking for back in the hotel.

Oh and yeah, in case you were wondering, Amanda gets the rose. She’s a cutie but why does she talk like a chipmunk?

This night isn’t over yet though. While the rest of the girls get into their PJs and plan out how they’re going to fit 12 people in a hotel room for four, Leah is getting ready to give it one more try. She throws on her best pair of cut-offs, re-pencils in her eyebrows (so much eye brow maintenance this season) and heads off to Ben’s room. In my heart, I’m hoping she goes over there and shows him that she’s a chill girl that he could really make a connection with instead she goes over there and has verbal diarrhea on Lauren B. OMG Leah, stop talking about her so much.

Didn’t you just want to reach through the screen and cover her mouth? It was all I could do to not bury my head in the couch like an ostrich but it was too good to look away from. You can just see it all playing out on Ben’s face and her being so totally clueless about this horrible mistake she’s making. The worst part about the whole thing was when Ben looked at her and said “Do you really feel like there’s something between us?” and she murmurs out a sad “yeah.” Oh that was BLEAK. Ben’s all like, you gotsta go and proceeds to walk her out before the whole thing even sinks in. Jeez Leah, that was ROUGH. Most girls like to go sneak off to the Bachelor’s room for a quick hook-up and heavy make-out sesh (maybe even some boob exposure away from the cameras) but you just went all single white female on Lauren. My girl Claire (from Juan Pablo’s season, you remember her right?) may have been a little cray cray and ready to get down but at least she knew better than to throw the top chick under the bus.

Leah is forced to do the ultimate walk of shame back to the room where she throws all her macrame cover-ups and cut-offs in her suitcase before rolling out in a ball of tears to a whole SUV of happy producers. The didn’t even realize they’d need an escape SUV tonight but boy, oh boy were they excited about this development. We’re already at two girls home this episode and we haven’t even gotten to the two-on-one yet!

I realize this post is getting a little long but it’s just one of those weeks where all the secondary embarrassment got smushed into one crazy episode.

For the two-on-one it’s a Battle Royale between Olivia and the Twin. Olivia, who has now co-opted the worst tag line in the history of mankind – “Come at my bro,” (did a piece of your soul die when she said that because mine did) thinks there’s no chance in hell that she’s going home. Twin, on the other hand, is kind of nervous (as she should be). Side note: Can we all talk about how much prettier Emily, that’s her name right?, is without all that eyeliner? So so so much prettier.

One thing I loved is how the producers decided to proceed with this excursion to the middle of nowhere in the middle of a tropical storm. That boat ride looked neither fun nor safe. They’re lucky no one got violently seasick or that a piece of expensive camera equipment didn’t go over the rails. Also, someone get those girls a ponytail holder. We get it, you spent a lot of time on your hair but you look like a freaking idiot trying to make fetch happen in the middle of typhoon lagoon.

They hit up a deserted island where they will do absolutely nothing other than drink heavily while trying to avoid being totally consumed with awkwardness. Oh that and trying to find somewhere to sit that isn’t covered with sand or algae. Ben spends time with Olivia first and immediately regrets ever giving her a rose. Listening to her talk about her love of intellectual pursuits makes me want to vom. Almost as much as that mommy one-piece she’s sporting. Woof. All she does is talk about herself while Ben looks around nervously, contemplating his survival chances if he jumps head first into the rocky waters below. Deep Intellectual Things may be Olivia’s “jam” but listening to Olivia is clearly not Ben’s. When Olivia told Ben she was falling in love with him, I’m pretty sure I saw Ben dry heave. Was I the only one? Meanwhile, Twin is back on the beach in a heated battle with the wind. Spoiler alert: the wind won.

Next up is Emily. Bless her little heart, she means well but he can’t pick her right? I mean, today yes but at the end, there’s no way. She’s perfectly cast for Bachelor in Paradise and I look forward to figuring out if she’s Hayley or Emily then. That being said, I’d rather spend a million years with her than one more minute with Olivia. Ben clearly agrees and should be telling her to get her fringe bathing suit out of a twist because there’s no way she’s going home. 
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Now comes the coldest moment of the whole show. This was a serious BURN on Ben’s part. It’s rose giving time and Ben grabs that long-stemmed beauty and asks Olivia if she wants to take a walk. As she says yes, the corners of her mouth roll into that Grinch smirk and I curse at the TV. Drew tells me to chill the f out and guarantees that Ben is sending her home. I openly doubt him but am forced to admit he was right when it all goes down. Normally when a contestants tells the Bachelor/ette they are in love with him/her this early – it’s crazy cringe-worthy. This was that times a thousand. Olivia looked like an eager golden retriever waiting for its treat RIGHT up to the moment when the treat was snatched away. I can’t believe Ben carried around that rose only to say ‘No Soup for You!’ and send her butt home. Olivia was all, I’m in love with you and Ben was all, Thanks but no thanks. Yikes.

In pure Bachelor fashion, this date was held somewhere extra remote for dramatic effect. There’s nothing like that helicopter shot of the dumped gal/guy left behind in the desert/icy tundra/deserted island while the other two ride off into the sunset together. Usually I feel bad for the person left behind but Olivia had that shit coming. That’s what you get for acting like a total jerk to everyone. Guess Olivia wasn’t quite as smart as she thought she was.

Back at the hotel, the valet comes for Olivia’s bags and the girls immediately throw on Kool and the Gang’s Celebrate while popping bottles left and right. Even Lauren H., who has got to know she is on her last legs, celebrates knowing that she lasted longer than Olivia.

So if you’re counting at home, three girls have already gone home.

All these early departures make for a lame rose ceremony and as hard as the producers try to add suspense to the Lauren B. thing – we all know she’s getting a rose. C’mon, duh.

Lauren H. gets the boot and we’re down to six girls. Not sure where we’re going next but I’m hoping there’s some large swimming animals there too.

Okay, so sorry that recap was way too long. I may go back to the five favorites next week. We’ll see. What do you all think? Do you like the full recaps or should I go back to the abbreviated ones?

 

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