Even with weekly roses and on a week ending with Valentine’s Day, “The Bachelor” is still one of the least romantic shows on TV.
No matter what exotic location the producers have acquired through promotional considerations, the dates seem to fall flat because Juan Pablo himself seems such a stiff. The guy has little or nothing to say, there is more content in the commercials than his conversations and some of the women, including the Canadian opera singer who hangs on, Sharleen, still wonder whether they should be there at all.
Still, there is two hours to fill and even as other women slam their heads against the ice in the Olympics, they may be better off than these women who flew off to New Zealand — not exactly close to Southeast Asia where they were last week.
They are in a place called Lake Taupo that has a nice resort and all — the kind of lush scenery we’ve seen in “The Lord of the Rings” movies, and they go to the Hobbit houses for the group date as a matter of fact.
First things first, though, and Juan Pablo finally grants a one-on-one date to Andi, the only one of the eight who hadn’t had one. They take a boat out to a river, get out and start walking down a smaller and smaller crevasse with the water getting colder and colder.
If anyone else were taking someone on a first date there, you’d worry that it would end in murder. Eventually they reach a place where there’s a warm waterfall on them and they start to kiss. It’s the most romantic thing that’s ever happened to Andi, she claims, but then again she’s an assistant district attorney in Atlanta so maybe work doesn’t let her get out much. Andi gets a rose right there, possibly for being a good sport.
The hot water comes from the thermals that causes geysers, earthquakes and too many strained metaphors on the episode: their love is bubbling under the surface, about to burst, etc.
Unfortunately for Andi the geyser blows while they’re having dinner and instead of being the unsubtle visual to cap their night, it gets them both all wet. She puts the dinner-preventing disaster diplomatically: “This is so un-ideal.”
Eventually, she figures that even though the geyser “completely ruined dinner” it was still fun to be with Pablo. The girl is easy to please.
Everybody else gets to go on a group date except Cate, who was at the center of a controversy last week when she knocked at Pablo’s door at 4 a.m. not for a booty call, apparently, but to ask him to join her in ocean swimming.
When Juan Pablo told her later he thought what they did was wrong, she got all upset. She even says now that she considered leaving. But mostly she wants to straighten it all out with him and their one-on-one will allow them to do that.
First it’s the group date, and what’s more romantic than getting into a big plastic ball and being knocked down a hill? Juan Pablo accompanies the women down the track, and makes out with half of them.
It’s Cassandra’s 22nd birthday and she hopes something good will happen to her; only lately has she been talking about her son. Up to now, Renee seems to have cornered the market for single moms in the group. Now those two have bonded.
Cassandra has been growing as a contender on the show; she’s a striking former NBA dancer whose motherhood makes her a better than usual match for the single dad Juan Pablo.
It turns out that Juan Pablo does indeed have something planned that night for Cassandra and it turns out to be her immediate ouster.
it’s kind of a shock, but in Juan Pablo’s logic, he thinks it’s unfair to keep her there for another two days, away from her son, just to be dismissed at the rose ceremony anyway. So after having walked off together, Pablo comes back alone, shocking to the rest of those on the one-on-one, who never see Cassandra again.
Juan Pablo consoles them one by one. Nikki is the first to spill “I feel like I’m totally falling for you.” Sharleen is a little surprised that he immediately starts making out once they are together, saying “you cut right to the chase don’t you?”
It’s the first of three common phrases Juan Pablo professes not to know in the episode, which is probably why he’s not a very good conversationalist.
Sharleen tries to ask how he’s doing, and then asks him how he thinks she’s doing (because he doesn’t think to ask). So she says, “This process is a little inorganic to me,” which may or may not be a word. “I’m questioning where we are.”
He says she should instead “live this, enjoy this, and make the best of this, without question.” She seems to accept this answer, especially when they start to kiss again.
Also, Sharleen gets the rose, and as she did the first time, she’s not sure she deserved it.
Before her one-on-one, Clare admits, “I’m still having a hard time with what happened in Vietnam.” Not the war; that whole middle-of-the-night ocean swim thing there.
She claims hurt feelings, knowing she didn’t mean to disrespect anyone and is looking for an apology. At first, she reports, “Juan Pablo did make an effort to make things better.” But, she adds, “this is about how i feel too and what i want and I still have more to say about it.”
Ultimately, she declares: “I need answers!”
But before she can call for an unofficial inquiry by a Congressional subcommittee, he comes closer to apology and begins to kiss. This always works
Clare tells him she thought she might bolt; he doesn’t know what this means.
But he does know, when she slips on his sweatpants and T-shirt, that he’s a little turned on. She gets the third rose of the night.
That means at the ceremony,three are safe — Clare, Sharleen and Andi — and with Cassandra already gone, one has to go from the remaining four: Kat, Chelsie, Renee and Nikki.
Everybody seems to agree that Renee and Nikki have special relationships with Juan Pablo and are safe, so it comes down to the two blondes, Chelsie vs. Kat, both of whom prove perfectly willing to throw the other under a bus.
In their private discussions, Chelsie admits feeling frazzled.
“What’s that?” he says.
Kat is revealed as the only one who hadn’t kissed him, and tells him a tale as to why she may have been reticent: Her dad was distant and a drunk.
The story doesn’t work. Juan Pablo sends Kat home. He may not have known what drunk meant.
Next week, the international travel budget is apparently dried up — they’ll go to Miami. And Ottawa’s own Sharleen will “give it another week.”
“I’m pretty confused right now, and happy to be here,” she says. “At same time I feel like it’s wrong somehow. I guess it feels guilty in a way.”
Really? Dating 25 women at once and eliminating them week by week is wrong?
Sharleen’s problem is that she’s somewhat sane in the insane world of reality TV.
“Honestly, I can see other girls here suiting him better,” she says.
And yet Sharleen wouldn’t be the first participant on “The Bachelor” who stood out as a potential life partner simply because she held back with doubts. Men want what they can’t have. And when in a field of women who are throwing themselves at you, one is a little standoffish, that’s sexy.
“I know we have something,” Sharleen says in the trailer for next week. “Yet there’s a little voice that says it’s not right.”
Someone is miffed that “the people who stand out are people who doubt — that doesn’t make sense to me.”
And in the diminished field of a six, Nikki starts to clash with Clare in a big way.
Someone tell Juan Pablo what clash means.