Bachelor 2016: Episode 5 Recap

Bachelor 2016 Episode 5: Mexico City

Welcome back to Bachelor 2016! Sorry this recap is late. A close friend had to put his kitty to sleep yesterday and he was really upset about it so I spent the day with him to help get him through the worst of it.

There’s a lot to say about this episode so let’s get started.

First, Olivia is not going anywhere. They left us with a cliffhanger like they did all last season of The Bachelorette which I hated. The format was utterly confusing and now they’ve postponed another rose ceremony to let us sweat it out to see if Ben is going to take Olivia’s group date rose back.

Despite the Bachelor nation poll on After Bachelor stating they think Ben should take back Olivia’s rose, he’s not going to. How do I know this? Two reasons:

1) Ben has not been privy to Olivia’s shenanigans in the house with the other women until this week and, frankly, she hasn’t really done anything horrible to any of them that I’ve seen. She put her foot in her mouth with the Teen Mom comment directed at Amanda but most of the “mean” and cocky things she says, she says in her private interviews with producers which are heavily manipulated. Ben is a sensible guy and he’s not going to turn a woman away he has a connection with because other people are talking smack about her. He has to navigate the situation with his heart and intuition and it would be foolish to send her home based on what could amount to nothing more than jealousy from the other women. Ben doesn’t have access to the footage of what is happening in the house like we do.

And if Olivia were really as horrible as the wingnuts in the house claim she is (they’re all silly and immature as far as I can tell except a couple of the frontrunners), would she have tried to apologize so profusely to Amanda about her Teen Mom joke? Emily can complain about how fake Olivia’s tears were during her apology until the cows come home but they looked real to me.

2) If you remember the preview from night 1, there’s definitely a confrontation between Ben and Olivia about how she’s being perceived by the other women in the house that takes place on a beach in broad daylight. It looked like it could be a one-on-one. That hasn’t happened yet.

So if you were hoping Olivia would be going home before the rose ceremony, you’re going to be disappointed. She will go home before hometowns though. That’s my prediction.

I guess I have to update my final four predictions. On night one, I predicted Lauren B., Amanda, JoJo and one of the following would take the fourth spot: Becca, Olivia, Caila, or Jennifer. I’m removing Olivia and Jennifer from contention. I believe the fourth spot will go to Becca and there’s a possibility Caila could replace Amanda but I’m sticking to my original three for the moment. I’m almost certain JoJo will be the next Bachelorette.

Okay, time for the recap:

Mexico City

According to Ben, we’re halfway through the season now. I hope so. I can’t wait to see how the season turns out.

Emily is glad Haley is gone so she can focus on her non-existent relationship with Ben. She’ll be following in Haley’s footsteps back to Vegas in the very near future. I suspect she’ll make it through this next rose ceremony but probably not beyond that.

Also destined to go home soon: Leah. Who is she? Why is she still here? I suspect she gets cut at the rose ceremony next week. I think Emily, Jennifer, and Olivia will go home shortly after that which will leave us with a top 6 of Lauren H., Becca, Caila, JoJo, Lauren B., and Amanda.

The women get to their suite at the Four Seasons in Mexico City and exclaim over how amazing their suite is and how it’s like nothing they’ve ever seen. Really? It looks pretty much like every suite women have stayed in on destination dates throughout the years on this show.

The one-on-one date card is about to arrive. Olivia is convinced she’s getting it. Her gut is telling her it’s for her. Ben just doesn’t validate the other women the way he validates her. She’s special to him. They communicate through a secret language of touches after all.

But alas, it seems she likely just ate a bad bag of peanuts on the flight to Mexico because Amanda gets the one-on-one.

Olivia: “I’m surprised Amanda’s name was on the date card. Just because she does have children. I don’t think that’s what Ben wants.”

Honey child, you have no idea what Ben wants. You’re too wrapped up in your fantasies about who you think he is to see who he really is. Amanda is not going to be the one Ben chooses but it’s not because she has kids.

Does this mean Olivia is a snob or is she just clueless? I personally think she just doesn’t get it. But Olivia isn’t the only one that questions Amanda’s eligibility for Ben based on the fact that Amanda has kids. About a minute later, we see a conversation between Olivia and Lauren H. where Lauren H. also questions whether Ben is ready to be a dad. If we’d seen Lauren H.’s ITM about her thoughts on the subject, would it have been any better? We don’t know because we weren’t shown it because we’re supposed to hate Olivia, not Lauren H.

Sometimes I feel like this show is all just propaganda to make us like some people and hate others. (Actually, that’s exactly how I feel all the time.)

Amanda and Ben’s One-on-One

Am I the only one who finds it completely annoying and unnecessary that once a season, the Bachelors have to wake up all the women in the middle of the night to get the girl he’s going on a one-on-one that day out of bed? Does going on a hot air balloon really require one to get up before the crack of dawn? If it does, I’m never going on a hot air balloon. Not worth it.

The women all look beautiful to me without makeup. I don’t know why they wear so much.

Lauren H. is super embarrassed because Ben sees her sans makeup with her retainer in. #FirstWorldProblems the struggle is real. I thought she looked adorable.

I found it highly suspicious that Amanda was fully made up with perfectly coiffed clean hair at 4:30am. I’m sure she was told she was going to be woken up and to be ready to go in 5 minutes.

Ben and Amanda go for a ride in a hot air balloon. It goes pretty much like every other hot air balloon date in the history of the show. They kiss, they admire the scenery, they land. Riveting.

Next stop is a woodsy area where a picnic is set up. What happened to the hot tub in the woods? The Bachelor producers set the bar for middle of nowhere dates too high by dragging that hot tub out into the woods. As far as I’m concerned, if there isn’t a hot tub in the woods from now on, I’m fast-forwarding. The girl might as well pack up her bags and go home if there isn’t a hot tub in the woods because The Bachelor obviously doesn’t care enough about her to go the extra mile for her. A girl’s gotta have her standards (points if you know what movie that quote is from).

Back at the harem, a group date card arrives. Whoever isn’t on it gets a one-on-one:

• Jubilee
• Becca
• JoJo
• Caila
• Emily
• Lauren B.
• Jennifer
• Leah
• Olivia

I think the producers are just f*cking with Olivia’s head at this point to get her to say crazy sh*t in her interviews. There’s no reason the woman who got the first impression rose shouldn’t have had a one-on-one by now. I’m sure Bachelor Nation thinks it’s because Ben’s interest is fading but that isn’t it. If you watched After Bachelor, you know that Ben had no idea that something was off about Olivia until the cocktail party this week when a bunch of girls slammed Olivia during their alone time with Ben.

All the nonsense that has come before is because we’re supposed to be buying into this narrative that Olivia is crazy and bitchy and Ben is losing interest in her.

But despite the mind games the producers are playing with Olivia, she still clings to her “saving the best for last” theory. Whatever gets you through the night, gurlfriend.

By process of elimination, it’s determined that Lauren H. is getting the second one-on-one this week. I guess the retainer wasn’t that much of a deterrent.

Back on Ben and Amanda’s date, Amanda is afraid to tell Ben more about her past during the nighttime portion of their date because she’s afraid to scare him away. I sense another sob story coming on.

First, are you sitting down? Because this is going to blow your mind: Amanda is divorced! :O

Oh my God. Ben is going to run away screaming.

Seriously? She either had her kids out of wedlock or she had a bad marriage. If either of those were going to not appeal to Ben who’s an uber Christian, I’m pretty sure it would be the former.

The next shocking revelation that is sure to have Ben running for the hills is that Amanda’s ex-husband was abusive, emotionally unavailable, and a cheating bastard.

Ben is understandably furious that a woman with such a terrible ex-husband was allowed to participate in the show to compete to be his future bride and orders her from the room in disgust.

Yeah, that didn’t happen.

Ben instead consoles her and tells her how admirable she is for getting through such an ordeal.

Ben gives Amanda the rose and Amanda lets us know she’s falling for him.

I’m having deja vu. Isn’t this the same date Ben and JoJo had last week?

Group Date: Como se dice, “The way to a man’s heart.”

For those of you who don’t speak Spanish, como se dice loosely translates to, “How do you say.”

Ben: “We’re going to engross ourselves in Mexican culture.”

I’ve never heard this usage of “engross” before. He’s using it as a reflexive verb which sounds strange to my ears. I think what he meant to say is, “We’re going to immerse ourselves in Mexican Culture,” but he’s cute and nice so I’m giving him a grammar pass.

First, they all go to an ESL class. I’m sure it hurt all their little bubble brains to try to learn a new language (or anything new that wasn’t the name of a popular new lip gloss). But they gave it their best effort. Except Jubilee.

Again, Jubilee tries to cover her nerves by cracking jokes. This was really the beginning of the end for her. She just didn’t have the confidence she needed to endure falling for someone who was falling for other people too. And she’s black so it was only a matter of time before she was handed her walking papers. But I’ll get to that later.

Next the group goes to a restaurant and are divided up into teams of two to collect ingredients for a special dish that they will prepare and will be judged by two Mexican chefs of unknown caliber. Anyone catch who they were?

The only problem is, there are 11 people on the date including Ben. And if you’re good at math, you know 2 doesn’t go into 11 evenly. So Jubilee and Olivia fight it out to get Ben as their partner. There was mention of a coin toss. What do they think this is? The Iowa Caucus?

Jubilee should have offered to arm-wrestle Olivia for Ben. That would have been a slam dunk for Jubilee.

I don’t know if there was a coin toss or not but next thing we know, Olivia has her tentacles around HER husband and Jubilee is whining about how Olivia always gets what Olivia wants.

So here’s my question: It was impossible to have 5 teams of two without 1 person being left out yet Jubilee ends up working with Lauren B. which means SOMEONE had to be working in a team of 3. Where was that team? And if that was the case, why didn’t Jubilee fight harder to share Ben with Olivia? It seemed kind of unfair that Olivia got a mini one-on-one with Ben. Why weren’t all the women fighting for a third spot on Ben’s team?

It seems really fishy to me. It was probably the producers up to their old tricks again but as far as I’m concerned, if you’re into a guy and you have to fight other women to get his attention, you have no right to be butt hurt because you chose not to fight for what you wanted.

Next up: Jubilee’s Departure, Lauren H.’s One-on-One, the Cocktail party, and After Bachelor

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