The BatchSlap Bachelor Recap: Week 6

ABC
ABC

So, in case you don’t remember from last week, KELSEY IS CLINICALLY AND QUITE DANGEROUSLY INSANE. If I had to pick between being locked in a 6ft-by-6ft room with a panther who hasn’t been fed for three weeks, and being locked in that same room with Kelsey, I would pick the panther who hasn’t been fed in three weeks. You can reason with them.

Anyway, here we are, in Santa Fe, totally rose ceremony-less, because of that crazy woman I just mentioned. She’s still lying on the floor. Producers run over and tend to her as she wails about panic attacks, and all the other girls sit on couches looking really bored. Now, normally these girls -- even the truly evil ones, the ones who manipulate and lie and steal everyone else’s scrunchies -- have at least ONE friend on the show. Kelsey has none. None of them care. 

Kelsey gets an oxygen mask, tells some joke about brownies that doesn’t even involve Ashley Shrooms, and says that she’d better get a rose for all her floor-lying troubles. Then she makes reference to her cleavage, which doctors agree is what all people who just had a panic attack do. It’s time for the roses.

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The very-delayed rose ceremony

The rose ceremony finally commences, and all the girls are so nervous they're shivering. Oh wait, actually they’re shivering because Santa Fe is in the middle of the desert and it gets down to 25 degrees at night in this particular desert. Britt, Whitney, and Carly have roses. Who else stays??

First up: Jade. That’s an easy one. She seems to be firmly in second place at this point, right behind Britt’s lipstick. Kaitlyn is up next, and it’s worth remembering just how doomed she seemed on Night One after making plowing jokes that didn’t even reference a specific cash crop. Somehow, some way, Megan scores Rose No. 3, and even she seems confused by it -- although she seems confused by lots of stuff. Next: Becca! You have to keep at least one virgin; it’s in Mackenzie’s rules. And then... Ashley! Two virgins!!

We’re down to Mackenzie, Sam With the Shirts, and that scourge Kelsey. And it’s... Kelsey! Kelsey remains. Mackenzie, you should be with your kid anyway; and Sam, you need to go break people’s WiFi and put it on snapbacks, but... really? Well, the name of the show is drama, I guess. Wait, no, it’s The Bachelor. Also, I just looked up Drama, and apparently there has somehow never been a show named that. How is that possible? It could be just like Suddenly Susan, except in a high school theater class and absolutely nothing like Suddenly Susan. Someone greenlight this.


Now the real episode starts

They’re going to Deadwood, South Dakota! Home of the bar where Wild Bill Hickok was shot, a really nice gulch, and 72 NC-17 films' worth of profanity from Al Swearengen. The Deadwood Mountain Grand, a Holiday Inn Resort, will be their home. Chris takes those funny old-timey pictures that you get at the amusement park, Britt stands on the balcony in a bra -- a bra bra, not even a sports bra -- and the date card arrives.


The one-on-one date: Becca

"Let’s give love a shot." Sounds like it’s time to go get those sexy vaccinations, Becca! You lucky gal. Let’s break down what we know about Becca so far: 1) she hates sleeping with men as much as Britt hates Salon Selectives, 2) she is from San Diego, where she has not slept with anyone, 3) one time she thought about sleeping with someone, and did not sleep with that person, 4) that might have also happened another time, and 5) she’s a virgin. Also, she’s gotten cuter and cuter to me as the show has worn on, mainly because she appears to be one of the coolest girls left -- very real, very low key, not Ashley Winehouse-Kardashian-ing around the place talking about how she might be a one-of-72 prize for some lucky, well-behaved Muslim. She and Chris have still not kissed, and she’s GOTTA get that done today, but overall, I dig her style.

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If we’re being honest, this date is boring as all hell. They ride horses, BBQ some kebabs, and she makes Chris laugh, which sounds like he's Frankie Valli after sucking down a gallon of helium. They talk about having lots of kids, even though Becca doesn’t currently do the stuff that makes that happen. At one point they make semi-real conversation -- she says that Chris is good at reciprocation, he agrees because he thought she said "re-irrigation," and they finally make out! She doesn’t seem terribly good at that part, which is understandable, and she gets the rose. Short date, and without a lot of standard Bachelor-date fireworks, but this was a good day for Becca: along with Britt and Jade, and maybe Whitney and Carly, she’s legitimately in the game here. Also she’s a virgin.


The group date

So, the deal is that whichever two girls don’t make the group date are sentenced to the dreaded Two-On-One date, on which nobody will talk to each other, and then one will go home. You don’t want that! Our lucky group daters are... Whitney, Jade, Britt, Kaitlyn, Carly, and Megan. Which means that Ashley W-K and Kelsey will engage in a crazy-off that will result in one of their suitcases being taken from a room by a producer, eliciting a strong reaction from the rest of the girls.

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But that’s later. For now, the girls hit up Old Style Saloon #10, which is where the aforementioned Wild Bill Hickok did his aforementioned dying! Except, according to RoadsideAmerica.com, "Today, the bar called Old Style Saloon #10 is neither the original saloon where Hickok was done in, nor the original location. According to Judge Kuykendall, a performer in the Jack McCall show, the real Death Chair isn't even on display -- just one that resembles it." Which is a bummer, assuming Judge Kuykendall is a reliable source.

The date card reads "Let’s make sweet music together." "Together" means they’ll be writing and performing songs with a cheesy goateed guy named "Rich." and Slash, although he appears to have dyed his hair. Megan is from Nashville (the TV show, I think?), and Carly is from the Rodgers and Hammerstein Portion of your most recent Carnival cruise, so they’re both psyched. Jade is not, because she’s a perfectionist who simply can’t write the perfect song without the proper encouragement. So, she and Slash run around the street yelling things, and now she’s better. She sings a great song with lots of poker metaphors that reveal she’s a problem gambler, and Carly of course sings a great song, and Britt also sings a great song, and Kaitlyn raps, and guess what, this part was stupid.

On portion 2 of the Slash-and-Rich Date, Jade and Chris have a really sweet talk about how her song about that time her Kings got rivered down by a sonbitch who caught runners to make trip threes helped bring out her feelings, and she says she can see being with him, and can see being in Iowa! She can do that! Way to tell him! Make out now!!

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Then he inflames all the other ladies by dragging Britt to the Rich and Slash concert, and giving her a little wagon tongue in front of the whole crowd. Britt gets the rose, comes back in, waves it around, tells everyone what happened, and chaos reigns. Kaitlyn feels humiliated, Jade doesn’t want her sympathy, Whitney says she’s here for the right reasons, which might be the first time that phrase has been used all season somehow, and everyone cries a thousand tears.


The dreaded two-on-one date

"Two girls, one rose. One stays, one goes. Let’s have good times in the Badlands." And so it begins. Kelsey loves the Badlands! She loves them. She says "Badlands" 400 times. She also knows who the presidents on Mt. Rushmore are, BY NAME. Ashley just can’t even, which is a saying now.

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It’s almost like they’re effing with me on this date. It’s all too good. After the Rushmore chopper flyby, they drop our unhappy trio off in the middle of Kelsey’s beloved Badlands. There’s the Badlands -- which, as you know, are a type of dry terrain where softer sedimentary rocks and clay-rich soils have been extensively eroded by wind and water -- and there’s a very ornate bed with the big posts and the draped fabric and the whole deal, and it seems like any second Khaleesi is going to get ravaged by Drogo on their wedding night.  

Chris takes Ashley to a mound of sediment, they make out, and then the beans, they are spilled. Ashley tells Chris that Kelsey is unstable and also quite insane, and actually plays it fairly cool. She says that Kelsey’s the only one who hasn’t gelled with the other girls, and that she’s kinda fake. Chris does not want fake! He wants the woman he marries to be great in group situations, because in Iowa there are often groups of two, sometimes even three people, all within like 15 hectares of each other. Gotta be able to handle that. So maybe Kelsey’s not right! Overall, well played, and not overplayed, which is what usually happens in these situations, and then it gets turned around and all of a sudden you’re the bitch.

Chris then takes Kelsey atop an even higher mound of sediment, and comes right at her: is she not getting along with everyone? Ashley told me you’re being fake! What’s the deal??? Kelsey obviously does everything she can to spin this right back at her. Ashley is someone she respects and is friends with! She’s not lost in this world of competitiveness! She would hate for him to let go of their potential because of some girl-talk! This is all very well-played. She knew exactly what moves to make when she finally got confronted, and how to twist it to make the other ones seem like the psychopaths. It’s honestly really scary that girls are this good at this stuff.

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Chris goes away somewhere, and the best part of maybe any Bachelor season happens. The two girls sit on the Khaleesi bridal mattress, in the middle of a Tatooine-like wasteland, and don’t look at each other for a really long time. But then Kelsey stares at Ashley. Then Ashley stares back at Kelsey. Then Kelsey averts her gaze and tells Ashley she knows everything! Ashley tells Kelsey that she’s not from Pleasantville, which is the third separate pop culture reference in this paragraph, and reminds her that they both have their Masters, which means she’s smart too even if she doesn’t use big words, punctuating that point with the use of the normal-sized word "friggin'."

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Ashley tears off to find Chris, and drags him off behind a secluded sediment pile. Why did you tell her what she said, Chris? WHYYY??? How can he possibly listen to her, she wants to know. She cares so much more than Kelsey does!! Well, Chris says, that’s great, but I’m cutting you anyway. He says he can tell she doesn’t want the Iowa lifestyle. Well do you think BRITT wants the lifestyle, she asks?!?! Oh man, I love this. She’s really going down swinging. As many fake-ass hoes as possible are gonna taste this grenade.

And just like that [Kevin Spacey blows on his hand], she’s gone. Chris goes over to Kelsey, and informs her that he just sent Ashley home. She says, "It’s a loss," and lays a big ol’ hug on him. Chris looks scared. I’ve got a great feeling about this. "I thought a lot about our conversation, and IIIIIII... IIIIIIIII... just don’t know. If. It’s there. Between. Us. And. I just feel like right now in this situation. And the circumstances. The best thing I can do is be honest with you." Go, Farmer, go!!! Chris is turning into semi-real person right before our very eyes!! Kelsey is gone too!!

When Ashley got cut, they cut back to the hotel and showed her suitcase disappear. All the girls looked shell-shocked, and Carly looked 300-years-old. None of them spoke. Now they show the producer open the door again and come for Kelsey’s bag, and a party breaks out like it's New Year’s Eve on the 4th of July and everyone just won the Super Bowl Series. They are so goddamn happy. Carly now looks like she’s 21 and doesn’t have to go back to being locked on a cruise ship with everyone's grandparents, and haphazardly splashes Champagne into glasses for the crew. It’s honestly maybe my favorite scene in Bachelor history. Kelsey is no more. The joy is real.


Next week

ABC tries to end my social life once more, because we’ve got back-to-back days of episodes! They’re going to Iowa, where everyone cries, and Britt starts to short-circuit when she sees that Iowa is not a magical place where Cody turns pretty jacked farmers into amazingly jacked farmers, but an actual land of farms and nothing. Then after that, it’s hometowns!! Where Jade is going to maybe tell Chris she was... um... IN PLAYBOY?? I definitely didn’t Google that to be sure.