A Dude’s Breakdown Of Week 9 Of “The Bachelor”

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Alright folks. During last week’s Hometown Date episode, we watched Arie look each of our remaining contestant’s fathers in the eye and ask for their hand in marriage, and this week, all those fathers get to watch Arie bang their daughters in front of a national television audience. It’s quite the turnaround for these families. While there are at least three fathers in America who couldn’t bear to watch this episode, Tia’s father has never been more proud of his daughter for failing at something.

After a week back in the US, Arie & Co fly to Peru for their conjugal visits Fantasy Suite Dates. This episode was actually kind of hard to follow, mostly because they cram all three dates into the first hour of the episode just to let the second half drag on like a three-hour flight delay in the Las Vegas airport when you’re hungover and have the Scaries. Regardless, let’s break it down:

Fantasy Suite Date with Kendall

This week’s episode begins as a limo drops Kendall off in the middle of the Peruvian desert. If this wasn’t The Bachelor, she should be super concerned about the high likelihood this situation ends in her murder. Even on The Bachelor, she should be concerned that this situation ends in her murder. If I’ve learned anything from the unhealthy amount of television I’ve consumed over my lifetime, it’s that deserts are hotbeds of murder.

Instead of finding a murderer, Kendall finds Arie standing in the middle of this expanse of sandy nothingness. Arie kisses her, and as he does so, he ever so gently puts her in a sleeper hold. It’s subtle but awkward, and I’m pretty sure he’s testing the waters to see if she’s into getting choked during sex. As their kiss ends, Kendall gets up on her tiptoes and whispers in Arie’s ear, “If you’re going to do it, don’t be a pussy about it. I don’t even use a safe word.”

They go for a dune buggy ride, and while initially this seems kind of lame, turns out the dunes they’re on are both massive and super steep. My butthole clenches up just watching them careen all over the place, dozens of kilometers away from any sort of established medical center. The eventually lodge the dune buggy at the very top of one of the dunes, front wheels teetering precariously off the edge, just like Kendall is probably teetering precariously at the edge of elimination unless she really brings her A-game in the bedroom department.

Their next date activity is sand boarding, which is like snowboarding, except hot, sweaty, and sandy. They are both terrible at it, which isn’t surprising given that this isn’t a normal activity that people do. They both bite it hard, and likely end up with a significant percentage of the sand dune stuck in an area that could make their Fantasy Suite activities much less enjoyable.

During the dinner portion of the date, Kendall tells the camera that she’s scared because she knows she isn’t as far along in her relationship as the remaining two women. She opens up and tells Arie that she’s had issues in previous relationships being somewhat of a novelty, given her eccentricities. I think that in this situation, “novelty” is probably a euphemism for “fetish.” She continues, telling him that she’s falling for him, and he responds in kind. They make out gently, and as they break apart, and single strand of saliva spans the growing gap between their lips. It’s like Lady and the Tramp except backwards, and not heartwarming.

Eventually, Arie offers Kendall the key to the Fantasy Suite. She pretends to put up a modicum of resistance, so as not to bring her family additional shame, but eventually accepts without hesitation. They walk upstairs, drink some champagne, and commence bumping uglies.

Kendall wakes up the next morning, missing both her eyelashes and her dignity. Arie pretends that chivalry is still a thing and attempts to cook her breakfast.

“How do you like your eggs?” Arie shouts from the kitchen.

“Fertilized,” Kendall responds under her breath.

“What was that?” Arie asks.

“I mean,” Kendall backtracks. “Sunny side up!”

Fantasy Suite Date with Lauren

Remember how in the last two recaps I’ve mentioned that I hate Lauren? I’ve had a slight change of heart. I realized that in reality, I really fucking hate Lauren. She is as exciting to me as a pile of napkins that I stole from Chipotle. Whenever I see them, I’m just like, “Oh look, it’s those napkins I got at Chipotle,” which makes my mind wander to more interesting things, like Chipotle or literally anything else in the world. If I never saw those napkins again, I honestly wouldn’t even notice nor give two flying fucks that they were gone. That’s how I feel about Lauren. Plus, who actually needs napkins anyway? That’s why God invented paper towels, regular towels, backs of hands, and old T-shirts, right? (If you hadn’t gathered it by this point, I’m very single.)

For the first part of their date, Arie greets Lauren and together they board a plane that flies them over the Nazca Lines, which from my understanding are basically giant pictures of animals etched in the ground in Peru. Some of them are over a thousand feet long, so I would imagine this is a pretty cool experience. As they peer out the window, Arie and Lauren talk about these amazing geoglyphs, and their conversation goes a little something like this:

Arie: “Wow, look, it’s a monkey!”
Lauren:
Arie: “Hey – you can see a dog out the other window!”
Lauren:
Arie: “Is that a spider or a crab?”
Lauren:
Arie: “There is a colonial woman on the wing! There is something they’re not telling us. She was out there churning butter. She was churning butter!”
Lauren:

For the sake of everyone involved, I pray for this to end in a fiery crash. Now that would actually make for the most dramatic season yet, Chris Harrison. Unfortunately for the show’s ratings, the plane makes a safe landing and Arie and Lauren sit in the square of some Peruvian town neither of them can pronounce nor spell and continue their riveting conversation. For the first time since the beginning of the segment, Lauren breaks her silence.

“So, I just think it’s funny that you’re dating other women right now. It’s, like, hard for me to understand why you’re doing that if you love me,” Lauren tells him. “Like, why am I not enough for you?”

“I mean babe,” Arie starts. “This is The Bachelor. That’s how it works. You literally had to apply to be on this show. You signed a contract to compete for a husband. This shouldn’t come as some surprise to you!”

“First off all, you’re assuming that I read my contract, which I did not, because I don’t know how to read.” For once, I’m on the same page as Lauren. On second thought, we’re on two adjacent pages. Hers has pictures, and mine has words.

She continues. “Maybe I’ll just quit. That would show you.” Would it show him, Lauren? This girl makes the Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz look like Albert fucking Einstein.

After that empty threat, Arie spends the entirety of dinner expressing himself doing damage control so he still gets laid reassuring Lauren of his feelings. “I love you!” he tells her. Her eyes light up. This is one of the six phrases she’s learned to recognize. “I. Love. You. Too,” she says, executing the response phrase perfectly. Before Arie even finishes offering her the key to the Fantasy Suite, Lauren has already forgone her individual room and begins to drag Arie towards their den of sin.

As they walk towards the Fantasy Suite, the most uncomfortable sequence in Bachelor history transpires. Instead of playing normal baby-making music, “How Do I Live” begins to play, and it isn’t subtle either. That shit is on full blast. It’s not even the Lee Ann Rimes version either – while it sounds like some knockoff karaoke version of the song, in reality it’s Kendall’s rendition that she’s been practicing on her ukulele. The producers just bootlegged it for this moment. It’s too much you guys. This has got to be an attempt to lull us into some false sense of security about Arie and Lauren, so keep on your guard for bullshit to come flying our way like Arie’s balls are about to be flying at Lauren’s face.

The lights fade and we go to commercial. The cameras return to their suite the next morning, and my first thought is that Lauren looks less terrifying without makeup than I expected. Her hair looks exactly the same as it did the previous night, which probably isn’t a huge accomplishment after a night of lights off, under the covers, missionary position only love making. After saying, “I love you” to each other twelve times, my prayers are finally answered and this terrible date ends.

Fantasy Suite Date with Becca

As a reward for having to bang Arie last, Becca gets the romantic “ride on a catamaran” date. They do basic catamaran shit, like pretending they’re Jack and Rose from Titanic and then drinking champagne. Why is it always champagne? Don’t get me wrong, I like me some bubbly, but dear God, switch it up once in a while.

As they sit on the boat, Becca asks Arie if he has any questions or hesitations about their relationship.

“Nope,” he answers.

“Well that was easy,” Becca responds, and they continue sucking face.

For the evening portion of the date, they go to a tent in the middle of the desert, which some intern had to set up in the sweltering heat for less than minimum wage and an empty promise about being promoted to production assistant next season. As they sit down, Becca again presses Arie about their relationship.

“Is there anything more that you want to know about me? Or questions about my family, or where I see our future going? Side note, I love you. Can you pass the guac?”

As Arie passes her the guac, he answers, “Nope. I think I know all the things. Here’s the guac.”

Becca takes the guac and looks into his eye, waiting for a response to the bomb she slipped into their conversation. Arie pauses, processing what is happening.

“Wait,” he says, slowly catching on. “You said you love me.”

Becca nods silently, doing her best Lauren impression, because she knows that’s exactly how to catch this man.

“I love you too!” Arie tells her, before devouring her face in a weird kiss.

She smiles. “My heart is so full!” she says.

Arie hands her the key to the Fantasy Suite. “You know, if you want, your heart doesn’t have to be the only thing that’s full tonight,” he says with a wink.

“Nice try, Needledick!” Krystal yells from her elliptical at home.

Since Becca couldn’t hear Krystal’s warning, she accepts the invitation. Her and Arie walk hand in hand through the sand to a different tent about a hundred yards away. The first thing I notice about this setup is that there is no bathroom in the tent. Between getting Kendall and Lauren’s dirty thirds and this little omission, I’d wager that in addition to a rose, Becca will be getting the UTI from hell this week.

Arie’s One-on-One with The Ex

For the entirety of this season, we’ve been teased with clips of one of the contestant’s exes showing up on the set. All hints have pointed to Lauren’s ex fiancé, however, as Becca makes the walk of shame back to her non-Fantasy Suite suite, we see this mystery gentleman walking around a hotel, trying to staff off camera while repeatedly exclaiming “I don’t want to be on your show. I just want my girl!”

Eventually we catch a glimpse of this dude. He’s wearing a fresh to death suit and he is absolutely sweating balls. We walks up to a hotel door and knocks three times. I wait with bated breath to see who answers the door.

It’s Arie.

Fuck. What a let down.

“Hey man,” mystery man announces. “I’m Ross.”

“Hi Ross,” Arie responds. “I didn’t order room service…”

“I’m Becca’s ex.” Ross states.

“I didn’t order that either…”

Ross invites himself in and sits down with Arie.

“So I just learned that Becca was on this show, and I didn’t realize it ended in a proposal. We dated for seven years, so by common law, we’re like married, so I think that means I should propose to her, not you.”

Arie takes a moment to digest this. “Bro, we’re pretty far down this path. We just said that we love each other, and I was inside her like four hours ago. Also didn’t you guys break up like a year ago?”

Ross grunts, clearly displeased. He is a pretty big dude, and there isn’t a doubt in my mind that he could rip Arie limb from geriatric limb. That would also be way more interesting than whatever idiocy is surely about to transpire.

“Yeah, I mean we broke up a year ago, but I think about her every day, mostly when I’m railing other girls. I just pretend they’re Becca,” Ross explains.

“That isn’t remotely normal or healthy,” Arie responds.

“I came here on a plane. I flew from America to Peru. I want Becca back. I deserve Becca back now!” Ross furiously spews, his eyes gleaming with entitlement. “I’m gonna win my girl back.”

With that, he storms out and heads to find Becca.

Becca’s One-on-One with Becca’s Ex

No less than eight minutes of this episode are spent with a camera trailing behind Ross, focusing intently on his back sweat, as he makes the slow ascent to Becca’s room. He knocks and the door slowly opens. As soon as Becca sees him standing there, her face freezes in an expression that can only be described as “teenage boy watching his own mother discover his porn stash.”

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Becca exclaims. “How did you even know how to find me?”

“The short answer is that I followed my heart,” Ross says suavely. “The long answer is I made a bunch of phone calls to ABC and they decided this would be an amazing twist to the season so they flew me down here to fuck shit up.”

“I knew you were going to do something like this, Ross,” Becca says. “This is so you.”

Ross seems like the type of dude who leaves a girl on read for weeks at a time but has no issue dropping everything to fly to a different continent to throw a Hail Mary to win her back. Ross is the worst type of dude, and for that reason, I would absolutely love to see him on The Bachelorette.

“I just thought there was some love left in our hearts…” Ross trails off.

“I love Arie. I don’t love you. Also, all of a sudden I have to piss like a racehorse and things are starting to burn a bit downstairs, so like, can you go?”

As he slowly walks away, Ross accepts defeat as well as a fistful of cash from a producer.

Rose Ceremony

Kendall, Becca, and Lauren all file in to some random public square. As Arie walks up to them, he greets them with a smile. “You look beautiful,” he says to no one in particular, although each of them responds, “Thank you!” as if the other women don’t exist.

Before passing out any roses, Arie again asks Kendall if he can speak to her alone. He flat out tells her that he doesn’t think their relationship can catch up with what he has with Becca and Lauren

“Oh I totally agree,” Kendall responds. She gives Arie a hug, gets in the limo, and goes on with her life.

As Arie returns to Becca and Lauren, he picks up a rose.

“Lauren.”

As she goes to collect her rose, she’s excited since this means she gets to stay. She doesn’t understand that there are two women and two roses, which means that both the women are staying. Arie lets it slide, but I don’t. I can’t let it go. Damn you Elsa, I can’t let it go.

“Becca.”

Becca accepts the last rose, along with a glimmer of hope that Ross didn’t fuck everything up for her. Look at the bright side Becs – if this doesn’t work out for you, you can always go back to Ross…again.

Next week brings us the two-night (fuck me sideways) finale of this bullshit, so we finally see who receives the final rose and a Neil Lane ring. We’re almost there, folks. See you then..

Checkout our exclusive podcast with Austin’s own Brittany T. from this season’s Bachelor

Image via ABC / YouTube

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Crick Watson MD

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