Wednesday, February 25, 2015

The Bachelor Week 9: If only I could be more like a monkey

Ah, the Fantasy Suites. Or as Chris might say if Chris had a better handle of the English language, The Fantasy Sa-weets. 

So Chris, who will spend the week speaking in euphemisms about "intimacy" and "next-level", finds himself in Bali, walking the streets 


and contemplating the meaning of it all. Feel free to use this screen grab to create a motivational poster. You're welcome. 


"I want nothing more than to have clarity at the end of the week as to who could potentially be my wife," Chris narrates. And nothing provides more clarity than sleeping with three different women on three consecutive days, right? Right. The amazing thing is, as juicy as this horribly irresponsible and morally reprehensible episode should be, it manages to be two of the dullest hours ever to air on broadcast television. 

For instance, we spend a good fifteen minutes watching Christ and Kaitlyn visit an Indonesian temple and  look at things. Just look at things. 


Things like this statue of an angry, mustachioed Danny Devito.


At one point Chris mimics the native women and puts this thing on his head:


Slow clap for cultural sensitivity.


Then Chris and Kaitlyn visit a stand that hands out bananas to attract monkeys, because I guess they've never seen Outbreak?


When ebola hits Iowa, we'll all know who to blame.

There's no footage of them thoroughly scrubbing their hands after the monkey encounter, so I have to assume it didn't happen before they ate their meal. 


Eventually the card from Chris Harrison arrives, inviting the couple to forego their individual rooms and stay together in the Fantasy Suite. They both agree that it's the right thing for their relationship at this point, you know, because they'll get to spend some time alone, and just, you know, talk, and like, you know, see if their relationship will really work, and they're totally just going to talk and not do anything else that a couple might do overnight in a room called The Fantasy Suite. 

They enter the fantasy suite and find that organ harvesters have brutally murdered someone in the bathtub.


Or maybe those are rose petals. Hard to tell. 

Kaitlyn and Chris then get to work "taking their relationship to the next level." Ew.


About six hours later, Chris meets Whitney for a picnic on a boat. It's just fruit and alcohol for breakfast. I don't think they even touch the fruit. 


It looks as though they're headed to an island where the gold doubloons be buried, yar!  


Then their PDA becomes so unbearable that someone makes them walk the plank. 


I suspect it was the captain. He looks pretty ruthless.


Chris keeps his buccaneer shirt on for dinner while Whitney dresses like a very voluptuous green apple. To prevent scurvy, perhaps.  


The two sea-voyagers have a serious talk about the future, and Chris asks how Whitney would really feel about living in Iowa. Whitney says that she has worked really hard for her career, but that she feels incomplete without a husband and children, and that she's ready to abandon her career for a family. "I would be ready to have babies. That would be my career," she says, and as a professional baby-haver myself, I have some words of advice for dear Whitney. Girlfriend, do you realize you'll be living hours away from a Target? Hours. You really want to embark on the adventure of motherhood without any proximity to the mother's sanctuary that is Target? You don't. I promise. You'll also be far far away from a McDonald's drive-thru and $1.00 larget Diet Cokes. Just saying. Is he worth it?

Whitney seems to think he's at least worth forgoing her individual room to spend the night as a couple in The Fantasy Suite. 


At least each woman gets a different fantasy suite. You know, to keep things classy. Speaking of, there are few shots on this program that do not include a container of alcohol of some sort. 


So, yadda yadda yadda, they have a sleepover, and then Chris has to rush out the door for his next date.

With Becca. Who, now maybe you've missed this because they've been really subtle and not at all beating a dead horse with a stick about this, is a virgin. According to the show, this is her one defining characteristic.


It's no surprise then that the producers have planned a date focusing exclusively on adult relations, including this visit to a shaman whose advice for the night is to make love.


I actually have no idea if he's called a shaman. 


So slow clap for MY culturally sensitivity, I guess.


Becca is nervous heading into boomchickabowwow time because she still has not revealed her secret virgin identity to Chris.


Even when then sexvite from Mr. Harrison arrives, she says she wants to "spend that time" with Chris. Look at his face. That's the face of a man who's expecting more than just time. It's also a sweaty face. Bali is hot, apparently. 


She does eventually, nervously, announce her sexual status as though it's anyone's business but her own, 


causing Chris to have a full-blown brain fart. 



"I'm glad that you...I...," he stutters, before he remembers he's on television and then says that he admires her for her commitment to wait until marriage. 

But then he still draws the curtains shut? Never stop hoping, Chris.


The morning after, Becca and the camera crew take a walk on the beach


while Chris mulls over the decision he has to make. Kaitlyn and Whitney are ready to move to Iowa tomorrow. Becca has some reservations (read: is the only one telling the truth).

Chris is torn, and tries for a full minute to muster up some tears. 


Not even poking his eyeball helps. 
Then Chris and Chris sit down for a chat BECAUSE THIS SHOW ISN'T LONG ENOUGH.


Chris tells Chris he can see a future with all the women, loves them all, etc., reciting the same speech every bachelor has recited since the dawn of reality television.

As Chris further considers his forthcoming decision, he is either deep in thought or he smells pizza. Come on, guys, this show could easily be just an hour without all this nonsense. 


He shows up to the rose ceremony looking like this:


while the women look like this:



Before handing out any roses, Chris asks for a minute to speak with Becca. Whitney and Kaitlyn all but high-five each other, assuming that another one is about to bite the dust. 


Turns out that when they were alone in the FS, really actually just talking, Chris asked Becca if she thought maybe she just feels like she's falling in love because they are on TV.


It's a surprisingly honest and sincere question, and Becca does her best to answer in kind, ultimately convincing Chris that she would, eventually, be ready to call herself an Iowan. 

So Becca is not sent home


and the other two women are less than thrilled to see her return to their presence. 



Chris, either tortured by the difficulty of handing out the first rose or still smelling that pizza, calls Whitney's name. 


She is pleased.


Then he calls Becca's name.


Kaitlyn is not pleased. 


at all. 


"That was the most humiliating moment of my whole freaking life," she tells the limo cam. If I were sitting next to her, I would tell her about the time in third grade that I stood up to give a book report and passed gas loud enough for the whole class to hear. Just to make her feel better and realize that on the humiliation scale, making it to the top three on The Bachelor really isn't so bad. 






































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