juan-pablo-nikki-bachelorForty years may be long enough to forget a big war, so there was no mention of the divisive conflict when “The Bachelor” randomly set this week’s episode in Vietnam.

At least they didn’t have a romantic dinner near the site of a crashed B-52, which is pretty much what “The Amazing Race” did a couple of seasons ago.

Nor was there napalm when Juan Pablo brought his 11 reaming candidates to Danang, though there was triangular straw hats, bicycles and rice pads. There was also a cave called Hell, a hellhole if you will. But that came later.

And after that: Tears at the rose ceremony — from somebody who got a rose, and questions of proprietary that the editing (and certainly Juan Pablo) won’t quite answer.

But the episode started with the first of two one-on-one dates, this one with Renee. She’s the wholesome one who let Juan Pablo know she was a single mom almost before the limousine door closed.

The fact she has a son has somehow prevented the two from kissing, less the son think mom a hussy. This is sort of driving Renee nuts, but because she seems one of the more solid choices remaining, we stick with her. (What does the son think about mom going out with a guy who kisses everybody else but his mom?).

Renee likes the guy and admits he makes her palms hurt (this is not fully explained).

On the day-long date, he pedals her squires her around a pedi-cab, orders her a custom dress, buys gifts for the kids and fails to kiss her. She does get the rose, though. Late in the episode, after much contemplation, Juan Pablo interrupts Renee mid sentence and plants one. She’s so happy she twirls.

The other one-on-one is with Nikki the pediatric nurse who said she had a bad week last week but vows to do better this week. Her first problem is deathly fear of heights, so naturally their activity is rappelling down a 200 foot hole to a cave. She complains of being “frozen and fear” and surveys her options: “I either live or I die or I poop my pants.”

Hey, at least she’s got two arms. They made the one armed girl go rappelling with Sean Lowe last year.

Once Jean Paul kissed the shivering Nikki, though, everything was all right. Whenever Juan Paul kisses someone, everything is always all right.

At dinner (in a romantic cave, not the one named Hell), Juan Pablo allows Nikki to talk about her nursing job. “I think I’m super compassionate,” she says. “I think I have a huge heart.”

Mostly, she’s glad she can talk about her work. Nikki says the last guy she dated refused to hear about it. She’s definitely got to meet some different guys, and maybe some outside of caves.

The group date for everyone else is unpleasant, mostly because Juan Pablo immediately pairs up with the disliked Clare in a boat, he also picks her first for individual time. We also learn in the credits she was the first to jump on a yak. Which may be a metaphor for something.

One of the others says it’s like they were invited on a group date so they could watch a one-on-one date.

It’s Juan Pablo’s own fault: He broke the one bit of advice Sean gave him by kissing Clare in full view of others. More outrageously, he invited her to his room during his individual time with Clare on the group date, where they go swimming in his personal pool. How long exactly are they gone? This seems to stretch it a little bit.

He stays true to his singular feelings though by giving Clare the one rose available from the group date.

But Clare still isn’t satisfied. She knocks on his door at 4 a.m. and asks him if he wants to go swimming with her in the ocean. Not sure if this is a euphemism for something, but they go down to the shore in swimsuits. It’s not the skinny dipping scene other bachelors have had.

Still, the way they talk about it, the producers make it seem like a little more than hugging happened in the ocean.

“We got a little wild,” Juan Pablo says.

“We just went for it and I don’t regret it,” Clare says. (So many quotes this episode that could be used T-shirts — slutty T-shirts). She also says she feels like a baby giraffe, whatever that means.

But the next day, not only is Juan Pablo overtired for his one-on-one with Nikki, he has a pang of guilt.

“Maybe i went too far with her,” he says. “I don’t want to make mistakes. I don’t want to regret anything.”

Mostly, he doesn’t want his daughter to think he’s some kind of a cad. I’m thinking it’s too late for that. But the bigger issue is: Kids won’t be interested in watching two hours of this schlock anyway.

When he tells Clare they were wrong for doing whatever they did in the ocean (“Maybe it wasn’t right,” he says), she starts to cry.

“That conversation just blindsided me,” Clare says in an interview later.”It was mutual. He was as on board as I was.”

And still we don’t if they swam or, as they say in Vietnam, jumped on a yak.

Anyway she gets all weird and weepy even though she has a rose. To those who notice she explains: “Bad allergies, girl.”

And that would have been a real problem: Clare is allergic to roses!

There are still three people to eliminate, and the district attorney Andi complains so much during the episode that she hasn’t had a one-on-one we’re pretty sure she’ll be one of them. But she’s not.

Instead, it’s three people who were barely seen with Juan Pablo on the group date: the goofy dog lover Kelly, raven-haired Kelli from Chicago and the curly haired one Danielle, who is so hypnotized she says “I knew there wasn’t a strong connection” and  “The hardest thing was to see him crying.”

Those weren’t tears. Those were bad allergies, girl.

Next week they go to New Zealand where it’s all fantastic and there is another free hotel that puts them up for promotional considerations and no previous war with the U.S. to worry about.

Also: Clare is still mad about that thing, Charleen says he doesn’t understand her, and Andi finally gets a one-on-one. And sues the bastard!