Bachelor Recap: Week 5 is when Ben Dips His Skinny
Chris Harrison: "Welcome to Puerto Rico Ladies! Ben's got some amazing dates planned for you but first, I just want to be clear, this chain leads to absolutely nothing underground and most definitely does not end on a neck and two wrists, are we clear? "
The nine remaining contestants: "Hmm I wonder if that's a clue about our next date!"
DATE 1: Nikki
Nikki is a dental hygienist who's been married before and has all the trimmings of an Anne Hathaway face. For her first one-on-one date with Ben, she must first prove herself in a helicopter as is standard procedure.
Next she must act like getting caught in the rain is fun.
Now they're all wet and they've still got 15 hours of a date left. What to do...
Ben seizes the opportunity to go shopping for some traditional Puerto Rican outfits but all he can find is an off-duty male nurse with an extra uniform on hand.
Once the sun comes back out the couple stops outside a church to observe an impromptu wedding. Ben realizes he's having a panic attack and pretty soon they're in their third outfit of the day, kicking back some much-needed Pinot. Ben discloses in a voice-over that he's not so psyched about the idea of marriage, but he's pretty comfortable with a make-out session followed by a rose hand-off. Nikki happy.
DATE 2: A league of their own
You'd think by now, the women would pick up on a little thing called "date card humor." The group date hint says something about diamonds being a girl's best friend, so when they all arrive at a baseball diamond there are lot of disappointed "oh"'s expelled.
Turns out the girls have to play each other for the chance to win a smaller group date with Ben.
When it looks like the blue team is losing, the war paint starts to mix with tears for a Les Miz street urchin effect.
At the end of the night, Kacie B. gets a rose. Ben loves how open she is and how open he feels with her. This is about when the word "open" starts to eat other synonyms in Ben's brain so there's less competition.
DATE 3: Elise
Elise, a personal trainer, hasn't had any alone time with Ben yet, so when she finds out this is her big chance, she is elated. The fact that they're spending the day a yacht sweetens the deal.
As Elise opens up to Ben (which is good, he likes open things) she almost forgets about the emergency evacuation device tapping her on the shoulder.
"Hey Ben, it's me, tugboat. Want me to call you and say there's a work emergency?"
Everything's going great and by dinner, Elise feels she's got the rose in the bag.
Ben even toasts to his own marionette bow-tie. And then, Elise says those five words Ben can't handle: "I'm sick of being single." From what I can gather, Ben's got some classic boy-to-man baggage. He admits to Kacie B. he's only been in love with people who dumped him. And he almost convulses at the site of a stranger's wedding. It seems like to win Ben's heart, you really have to act like you're not interested in anything more than a helicopter ride and a bunch of sex. Elise's openness got her a one way ticket home on that smug little f---ing tugboat.
It's about this time, 55 minutes into the show, that it occurs to David Grey he hasn't sang about Italy at all. So that happens, and Ben walks home assuming he's not getting any action on this fine full moon-eyed evening.
Ben: "Huh? Wha? Hoozy in the hizzy?"
Courtney: "Wanna drink in your room then look at my bra, then walk to the ocean, then take off our underwear, then go in the water, then make babies?"
Ben isn't sure if this is a good idea, but little Ben is like "Relax! Here's some dopamine I stole from brain. Better? Now just shut up and let me handle this."
ROSE PREGAME
The next day Ben feels guilty about cheating on 8 women. Courtney doesn't feel an ounce of regret. When one of the women asks if she's confident about tonight's rose ceremony, Courtney says 'yuPPPP', hyper-accentuating the 'P', which obviously means she skinny-dipped with Ben.
After a few more Q&A sessions with the girls about skinny-dipping in the abstract ("raise your hand if you've ever skinny-dipped in Puerto Rico yesterday with a guy we all know"), the girls catch on and not everyone is pleased.
When the epidemiologist (I'd rather try to spell her profession than go look up her name, I know it's pathetic) goes to talk to Ben about Courtney for a second time, the show crosses over into an episode of 'The Sopranos'. "I thought I told you not to talk about Courtney," is essentially what Big Head Ben and his inner-monsters say. Actually, watch what he says and tell me there isn't an implied threat of a dead fish.
THE ROSE CEREMONY
Ben makes his standard pre-rose speech bring the count on the word "open" to twenty two, and promising hangovers to anyone with the bright idea to play the everytime-Ben-says-open drinking game. As Ben prattles on, the cameraman gets bored and starts scanning the room at the women waiting for a rose.
There sure are a lot left. I mean what week are we on already?
Even though it feels like we've been with this crew for some time now, we're still in that early phase of Bachelor courtship where the rose ceremonies take forever and there's an endless line-up of hopefuls we didn't even know were on the show.
Surprisingly, the girl who gets the boot is Jennifer, the good kisser. Her post-dump interview is actually really sad. She liked Ben a lot and not in a weird crazy way, and he seemed to like her back.
But something changed in him, and that something was skinny dipping with a model. I miss the old Ben, the one who was humbled by rejection and the one who looked exactly like Constantine and owned it, the one who had kissing anxiety and didn't threaten women who made him second guess his model sex.
In the preview for next week, Ben appears even more changed.
Related:
Bachelor recap Week 1
Bachelor recap Week 2
Bachelor recap Week 3
Bachelor recap Week 4
