Bachelor Ben Recap: Episode 2

Well we certainly gained a wealth of information during this episode, am I right? We learned that Our Host Chris Harrison looks smoking hot in trendy glasses. We learned that the education system has failed some of our front-runner bachelorettes in the geography department. We learned that even though I was unaware of an original Ride Along movie, the sequel comes out this weekend. And we learned that Ben has phenomenal taste in music, but a horrific arsenal of adjectives to describe women’s reproductive pheromones. Let’s begin!

SIMPLE DISCLAIMER
The following information you are about to read is of personal opinion. However, if you or someone you liked on Instagram happen to personally know, sort of know, is friends with the Plexus peddler who is obsessed with Chip and Joanna Gaines like me and looks exactly like one of the contestants on the show…none of this is personal and I’m sure they are all lovely people.

The mimosas have been poured, last night’s false eyelashes are dangling from tired lids and Twin has deemed Ben as the “greatest bachelor on the planet in history.” Bless her baby heart and her twin’s for assuming that 50-percent of people watching in that moment thought that was her. The doorbell rings and one of the tall blondes rushes out to retrieve the first date card of the season.

GROUP DATE ONE
“Let’s Learn How To Love”
Jackie
LB
Lauren H.
Becca
Amber
Mandi
JoJo
Jubilee
Jennifer
Lace

All the girls put on their distressed denim shorts (read: denim panties), casual white tank tops (knotted under the boobs) for a day at Bachelor High School. Harrison is plays the role of teacher. Forget about the dorky challenges. I would have set the school on fire and sent myself straight to the principal’s office for a conference with Our Host. Clearly there wasn’t time to find kindling, because the girls have quickly divided up into five groups of two.

The first challenge? The science fair. The girls have to “make Ben’s volcano explode” without giggling at the blatant sexual innuendo. They also have to use the right amount of potions (love, trust, appreciation, gag me) which is hard for Lace. According to her partner Jubilee, she can’t read. Snap. Also, YOU’RE OUT!

Next is the lunch room challenge. The remaining four teams have to bob for apples in a fish tank. Their partner has to bite said apple out of their mouth and drop it in the lunch tray. Twist alert: NO HANDS! Everyone but Jackie (the one that looks sort of looks like ‘80s supermodel Paulina Porizkova) slams her head into the surface of the frigid apple-infused fish water and tackles their Honey Crisp with ease. Jackie claims she was distracted by Ben watching. I was convinced she wrote “apple bobbing” as her biggest fear on the official Bachelor questionnaire sheet and undoubtedly expected her to later disclose a tragic incident from childhood that rendered her horror-struck at the site of apples, therefore hindering her from reckless bobbing. That was not the case. Team Paulina and Lauren H. are OUT!

Three teams head to the library for the geography portion of our competition. The challenge is simple: Find the state of Indiana in your stack of states (there were about eight of them) and place Indiana on the map. LB sifts through her pile, finds the state and slaps it on the map. Amber follows close behind.

And then there was JoJo and Becca. Heaven help them. I think they cheated to see which state the others picked up. Unfortunately, after puzzling out where Chicago was (bless them), they turned Indiana 45-degrees and plopped it somewhere in the general vicinity of Pennsylvania. I understand the the “I” states can be confusing (not really) just like the group of square states in the middle (come on) but as Ben said, “It’s not like I’m asking them to put Indonesia on a global map.”

It would be rude of me to not include this link to help anyone who may find themselves in Becca and JoJo’s situation. Take a break from Facebook today and try it out!

Finally Harrison leads the last two teams to gym class. All they have to do is make a free throw. Fifteen minutes later, Amber and Mandi beat out LB and Jennifer (the one who looks like Olivia Munn) for the win. But wait! There can only be one homecoming queen! Amber and Mandi must duke it out on the track. Whichever one hops over a dozen hurdles, crashes through a cheerleader sign (nice work ABC Intern) into the waiting arms of our handsome bachelor wins! Mandi removes her darling high heel shoes to run barefoot and absolutely spanks Amber. Ben puts his letter jacket around his best gal, invites her to sit on the back of his dad’s Mustang and charms her as they circle the track while the other girls stand in a line and watch. Ah memories.

At the rooftop cocktail party, Becca decides that the best way to redeem herself from the Indiana debacle is to show Ben how she can expertly shoot hoops in a tiny electric blue mini-dress that just so happens to match his underwear. He is clearly impressed by her athletic skills and secretly vows that his brain is big enough for their children to have a fighting chance. Let’s do this! She admits that she was scared last time — scared that she would be spending her life with The Farmer. But now she’s ready to go all in. Ben agrees.

Jennifer takes a different tactic. She uses her tongue to show Ben how she feels. When she returns to the general cocktail area, her lipstick smeared, Lace becomes aggravated and searches for a knife to cut someone. Her need to convince Ben that she’s not crazy trumps her need to inflict harm on her fellow contestants. She commandeers Queen Mandi’s time. Her goal? To convince Ben that she’s not crazy.

Lace: “Lace still feels that Ben is not paying attention to Lace. It concerns Lace that Lace didn’t get the first-impression rose. This date rose WILL go to Lace. Lace needs to tell him that Lace is a good girl once you get to know Lace. Most importantly, Lace needs to tell Ben that Lace isn’t crazy. Our chemistry is amazing, so this shouldn’t be a problem. We practically eye banged the other night. Can someone get Lace another drink?”

Life hack: Take the boiling bunny out of the pot before you try to convince someone that you’re not crazy.

Lace does nothing more than apologize for calling him out for his lack of eye-contact at the rose ceremony before Jubilee whisks Ben away. She tells him that she was an orphan in Haiti until she was six. He finds this intriguing, yet he never asks her why her nails are shaped into weapons. Interesting. He goes in for a quick kiss and it falls flat. She goes in for the redo and it lasts a little longer. When Jubilee returns to the party, Lace complains to Jubilee for stealing her time away from Ben. Then she shouts her war cry, “THESE B@!*$ CAN SUCK IT” before stealing Ben away from LB. What Lace wants, Lace gets.

Just as JoJo is about to go into the bad place because she hasn’t had alone time with Ben, our dashing bachelor fetches her for a one-on-one. He takes her to a helicopter pad, compliments her energetic attitude, promises to teach her U.S. Geography and then makes out with her forcing himself not to graze the oh-so-present side boob. He follows up with a forehead kiss which everyone knows is a total sign of endearment. If that wasn’t enough, he gives her the date rose too. You go Glenn JoJo!

FIRST ONE-ON-ONE DATE
Caila
“Join me for a day of surprises.”

Caila and Ben are nervously excited that Our Host Chris Harrison is planning their date. What they didn’t expect was for him to hand over the reins to comedian Kevin Hart and former rapper Ice Cube. I have to say that one of my favorite parts of the entire episode was when Kev and Ice walked through the door and the Kindergarten teacher freaked out with glee.

As with Amy Schumer and Jimmy Kimmel in the past, Hart and Cube’s purpose for being on the show is threefold.

1.  They needed to pimp out Ride Along 2.
2. They provide comic relief and a barrage of short man jokes.
3. They make it hard to know if they are kidding or not.

The gist of the date is that Kevin and Ice are “riding along” in the back seat during Ben and Caila’s date. It’s like the Duggers who have chaperones on dates, except there is kissing and partial nudity. Kevin encourages Ben to go cheap to see how Caila reacts. He buys flowers from a roadside vendor. He purchases some hooch from a liquor store. They try out a hot tub (that isn’t on) in a store as the owner and Kevin (who is naked in the hot tub) stare at them. The bad news is that it was uneventful and not so funny. The good news is that Jillian’s black modesty box made an appearance! It’s like an old friend coming back to visit!

Kevin and Ice Cube eventually leave to do some more promotional work for their movie. Ben asks Caila what she’s looking for in a man.

Caila: “Someone who compliments me. I’m a dreamer. I need to feel like I’m in a relationship.”

From the mouths of 23-year-old babes. Adorable.

She does dig a little deeper when she turns the conversation back toward Ben asking him why he feels unlovable. You could tell he was not expecting that question, but he appreciated her asking it. Caila shared the story about the dude she met on the plane and how it didn’t work out because she “kept waiting for her heart to catch up with the epic story.” She follows that insightful line with, “It’s not about how you meet. It’s about the time together getting to know one another.” Ben nearly knocks over a glass of wine to hand her the rose.

Thankfully the night is still young! Ben holds the door open to an empty theater where AMOS FREAKING LEE is standing on the stage with just his guitar singing “Sweet Pea.”

I. Would. Have. Died.

Amos Lee is my jam! I stood up and shouted at the TV screen. Ben fan boys, and through a huge grin tells Caila that Amos is one of his favorite artists. I scream at the TV, “HE’S MY FAVORITE ARTIST TOO BEN! WE ARE MADE FOR EACH OTHER.” (You can translate that as Ben and I are MFEO or Amos and I are MFEO. I’d be happy with either.)

Amos strums the opening chords of “Learned A Lot” and Ben melts. This is his favorite song. He has no idea if he should embrace the girl he’s with or be in the moment of the song. So he does both. He mouths the words along with Amos when he’s not kissing Caila. I agree with her: There’s no way this dude is unlovable.

SECOND GROUP DATE
“Are We a Perfect Match?”
Twin
Sush
Sam
Olivia
Twin
Amanda

The girls head over to a lab and are greeted by Ben who is wearing Google glasses. He introduces them to Dr. Love and his team. They are going to prove that science can help Ben find a mate. You can tell that they are professionals because of their white lab coats, computers and clean work spaces.

Dr. Love shows each girl a picture of Ben and Sean Lowe. The Google glasses help him decipher if the women are more attracted to our fair-haired bachelor from days of yore or the current bachelor schlepping them along in his journey to find love.

Then Dr. Love makes them run on a treadmill in white cotton boy shorts and a sports bra for a few minutes to get their juices flowing. Next up? The smell test! This is when we hear Sush speaks English for the first time. She may not be a Russian rhythmic gymnast who escaped from her Los Angeles-based training center by hiding from her rigid coaches in a hotel conducting bachelorette auditions after all!

Dr. Love blindfolds Ben and makes him sniff around the neck and reproductive organs of the bachelorettes.

Go ahead and read that sentence again.

He explains that their glands are giving off pheromones and Ben’s heightened sense of smell can definitely help them determine who Ben is compatible with on an olfactory level. I guess he’s looking for that new-wife smell. Ben sniffs Twin and reports “fruity.” Amanda is beachy, while Olivia is sweet. A big old whiff from Sam results in the description of “sour.”

I. Would. Have. Died.

Even Dr. Love knew this was a horrendous moment. He tried to assuage the awkwardness by offering up something like, “Oh yeah! Sweet-and-sour chicken!” but the damage had been done. Sam looked mortified. And Olivia did everything, aside from shutting her wide open mouth, to make Sam feel small. Poor girl. She will forever be known as the one whose nether regions were compared to a fermented dairy product on national television.

Sadly, the date was not over. Dr. Love made Ben and the girls wear Google glasses while they writhed against each other, but didn’t kiss. He was looking for something in the thermal yadda yadda screen, but the best part was, THE GIRLS GOT TO WATCH THE THERMAL PEEP SHOW TOO! Olivia tries to break the rules and kiss Ben, but he’s too much of a gentleman to oblige. He knows the others are watching.

To no one’s surprise, Olivia had the best smell and Sam had the worse. To everyone’s surprise, Ben wore a hoodie under a sports jacket at the cocktail party. He takes Olivia to his hotel room where they “try that experiment again.” They make out and Olivia admits that she totally knew she was going to win. She feels it. It’s like heat in her stomach area. Or maybe it was the chicken she had for dinner. We can’t know for sure.

Amanda (the mother of two) is onto Olivia. She knows that she is manipulative. Twin wonders if Ben only likes outgoing personalities. He’s too nice to say, “I thought you were the outgoing one?” Sam turns beet red when Ben retracts his “sour” label and replaces it with “passion fruit.” And Sush tells Ben in broken English that she came to America with one pair of pants, two pairs of shoes and two bottles of Vodka. #priorities

Amanda finally gets alone time with Ben and tells him that she has two toddler daughters. Ben handles the news beautifully. He immediately thanks her for disclosing such important information. After all, if this works out, they are a family.

Ben. The King of Validation. As an approval addict and words of affirmation person, I would welcome his words like a soothing balm to my soul. Bonus: He seems genuine. Extra bonus: Hearts will be BROKEN this season!

Olivia gets the date rose and everyone is annoyed. Especially me when she says, “I don’t know what rose ceremonies are!” Her mouth opens so wide that I’m convinced she’s going to prove she can easily put her fist inside. That, or it’s about to unhinge and she’s going to swallow us all whole.

ROSE CEREMONY
Everyone rolls their eyes when Olivia snatches Ben away to make out. When she returns, she announces, “I’m done know. Everyone have at it.” As if she’s never been on the show before, Amber cries about how it’s not fair that girls who already have roses are stealing time away from the ones who don’t. WHY?!?!

Lace asks Olivia if she has a minute to talk to Lace. “TAKE OUT YOUR EARRINGS GIRL,” I shouted to my TV. In her mind, Lace confronts Olivia for stealing time with her man. In reality, Olivia encourages Lace to go after what she wants. Lace interprets this message as, “Tell him a sad story about your childhood when your brothers did not acknowledge you on the bus.”

Poor Ben doesn’t know what to do with this information. As luck would have it, the Flight Attendant saves the day. She grabs Ben and they head outside to the driveway. Ben presents her with a picture of them together from the first time they spoke. WHAT THE WHAT?! He knows that she didn’t get a date this week, but he hopes that the picture makes her feel special. Boom.

Then he gives the Kindergarten teacher a first-place ribbon for having the highest volcano explosion and makes tiny rose covered barrettes for Amanda’s two daughters. This is what dating with intention looks like. That’s good upbringing right there, folks.

Harrison enters the sunken living room with this trusty champagne flute and butter knife. It’s time to hand out the roses.

JoJo — First date rose
Caila — One-on-one rose
Olivia — Second date rose
Amanda the Mom
Jubilee
Flight Attendant
Football Leah
Becca
I Haven’t a Clue Rachel
Lace
LB

LB stops Ben after he gifts her with a rose. She basically tells him that this show is not for her and peaces out the back door. She was one of my top four. After 20 seasons, I still have no idea what I’m doing.

The remaining roses and one pity rose goes to:
Jennifer
Twin
Jami
Kindergarten Teacher
Sush
Twin
Amber

Sour Sam, Mandi and supermodel Paulina are done. Ben walks Sam out, clearly upset that her pheromones are not compatible with his. She cries about having to be strong and wanting love. Don’t worry Sam. You passed the bar. You’ll be fine. You may not find love, but you will find a nice job with a respectable firm in Florida. Good luck kid!

What did you think about the episode? Can you believe LB left? Is Lace the bigger villain? Or Olivia? Sound off in the comments section!

Thank you to Jessica and Murphy at Star 104 in Erie, PA for hosting me on their morning show at the crack of dawn! I had a blast and look forward to talking next week about the Bachelor Ben recap!