The Bachelor, Episode 6: How Do You Solve a Problem Like a Courntey?

Sorry for the delay folks. I think I must’ve had some bad fish in Panama, because …whoa …I got very ill and I was delayed in getting this recap out. Thanks for your patience. Some of this was written on Monday night while watching The Bachelor in a pre-flu state, and some was writting while suffering from the flu, and then I tried to clean it up and disinfect it as best I could.

Remember how The Bachelor used to be? They would just hang out in California for the whole show and then, maybe, when it was down to the final three, they’d go on some awesome fantasy vacation. It was so simple. Now, they’re traveling all over the world every week and it’s just one big party, and nobody’s trying to find love. They’re just traveling the world while I watch. It might as well be The Amazing Race. Not like I’m going to stop watching, but …still.

All the blogs and the Facebooks and Twitters (and reader G.M.) are annoyed with Ben – actually, they’re pissed. So not only is he boring, now we think he’s totally phony. All his “poor me, I miss my Dad” sob story might just be an act. He might be just as shallow as any other reality star, it turns out. Some are speculating the happiest day of his life was the day Ashley dumped him, and maybe he was 99% confident she wasn’t going to pick him, so for that reason he went down on his knee and proposed . . . to play up the sympathy. He’s been called “Cave Ben” more and more as the season goes. “Sensitive” and “humble” have been replaced with “vacant” and “arrogant.”

But maybe in the ultimate switcheroo, Ben’s actually going to find love, this time. Hey . . . we all hated Ashley, but she and that bald-guy, I hear, just got married.

And we’re inching ever closer to knowing who we’ll be voting for in November’s election because, as you rememeber, I’m voting based on who Ben picks. I’m using The Bachelor as my own personal primary.

Let’s get to Monday’s episode.

Kacie B. got the first one-on-one date and apparently doesn’t understand how to benefit from a one-on-one date. Most chicks would be flirty, confident, and playful in hopes Ben would fall more in love with them and forget any of the other girls even existed. Instead, Kacie B. stammered through most of the date and then dumped on him that she had an eating disorder while in high-school. She said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to dump on you.” Ben assured her it was “OK” and called it “gutsy”, and even went on to say he likes her even more, now . . . but does he really? When you learn a girl had an eating disorder, even the coldest blooded of us wouldn’t want to follow up something like that with dumping the girl as soon as the story ended. Well played, Kacie …maybe she could sense he wasn’t going to give her a rose, so she pulled out the Eating-Disorder Card.

I give credit for ABC not playing something by The Carpenters as this scene unfolded. I’m not expecting you to give me credit for that horribly insensitive joke that I sorta tip-toed into hoping you wouldn’t notice how awkward it is.

When you see Kacie B. on a date, and watch Emily interact with Ben, maybe it’s not such a surprise Courtney is doing so well.

Emily, Lindzi, Casey S., Courtney, and Jamie the group date, which meant the VIP Cocktail Waitress and The Smokey Voiced Rachel would be on the 2-on-1 date where one of them would be going home.

The group-date was high-lighted by Courtney going totally tribal, and again I’m conflicted. I think she’s phony, but maybe she really is the only person even remotely fun in the group. She’s the only one who’s aggressively after Ben. Everyone else thinks this is about taking a number and hoping ABC edits the story line in the right way and forces Ben to pick them. Courtney is actively engaged in the process.

Courtney is the story, and like every other Bachelor related blog out there, I’m about to spend 3 paragraphs breaking down the Courtney phenomenon.

Part of me thinks she’s simply an opportunist, playing the role of a villain and playing nice around Ben, and it’s not about Ben at all. She’s here hoping her time on The Bachelor leads to something else, and she has he sites set on something bigger than simply being “the next Bachelorette” (which in the immediate future, will be Emily Maynard). As a model, this could open up more modeling jobs, or even land her a co-host spot on one of cables many model-themed reality competitions. That’s one theory.

My second theory is that she’s just sort of affected by a life of being beautiful, and as a model, is too accustomed to being treated like meat – like she’s trading in flesh and all of the fake and fleeting attention has numbed her to real life. This awkward, angry way she stumbles through life is all she knows, anymore. She can’t be like poor eating-disorder-Kacie . . . hell, 80% of Courtney’s current model friends all probably had or are currently struggling with that very thing. She’s lost her innocence and lost it long ago.

Or maybe she’s just good at being on reality TV. Courtney is awfully proud of her skinny dipping. Almost too proud. Like, she did it, and that’s kinda hot, but she can’t stop talking about it so it seems it’s less about the fact she did it, but more why she did it. Ya know how sometimes you do a good deed, and you do it completely out of the goodness of your heart, and you don’t care who knows or even if anyone notices it? That’s a true good deed. Maybe you drag the trash cans back up to your neighbor’s house because they’re in their 80s. Or maybe you see an expired meter, so you plunk a quarter into it because the meter maid is only three cars away. Or you catch a baseball at a game and give it to some 4 year old sitting near you because, truly, what are you going to do with a random foul ball caught in the middle of the 5^th inning of some random baseball game in July off the bat of a players name you’ll forget in a month? But then there are other good deeds you do only in hopes of being recognized and getting something out of it. This is why Courtney went skinny dipping . . . to be noticed and so that Ben would feel obligated to her for something.

Next came the dreaded 2-on-1 date where one stays, one goes. Ben brought Rachel and Blakeley, and they danced, they ate, and they drank, and Blakely made a little photo scrapbook. But in the end, Blakely the VIP Cocktail Waitress was sent home, and Bad-Teeth Rachel got the rose. I could’ve told you before the date that Ben wasn’t going to keep 34-year-old Blakeley. It was cruel that she was still around in the first place. He knew, and I know he knew. I don’t think for a second he ever intended to keep Blakeley, but only that he liked her enough to not make her face the humiliation of being sent home in a final rose ceremony. I guess she was able to keep some dignity.

Casey S. was pulled away from the pre-pre-Rose Ceremony girl-talk circle. Chris Harrison had teased us the entire evening that something heartbreaking was going to happen. I truly thought someone’s mom or dad was hospitalized, or worse. Turns out, Casey S. was revealed to have a boyfriend back home who she may or not still be living with him, and also might still be in love with her boyfriend back home. Busted! Oh …so busted. This was just some world-traveling joyride for her, then? Unlike everyone else who’s only here to find true, unfailing, eternal love? I’m being sarcastic. And now I’m not being sarcastic. It got way worse. Casey S. had to confront Ben with it, and Ben was pissed. He sent some girls home (like Blakely) that he at least had some connection with because he wanted more time to figure out the riddle that was Casey S.  How could he know her “secret” wasn’t an eating disorder, or a wooden leg, but instead was a live-in boyfriend back home who thinks she’s going to L.A. for a casting call. Worse still, as my wife and I agreed, she has the worst cry. How does such a pretty face contort into something so ugly. And how crappy she got driven away in a minivan …ouch. A aqua blue minivan at that.

Next week, we’re one step closer to hometown dates and visits and it looks like two more women join the We-Hate-Courtney Club. And if that’s how it plays out, it’s yet another brilliant move by Courtney . . . Ben likes her. She’s fun. She’s pretty. And three girls hate her so much, they’re gonna tell Ben why he should be wary of her. To me, if I was Ben, it would do nothing but make her more intriguing to me.

Amazingly, we lost two Republicans and one Democrat, and we’re even up with 3 candidates on each side.

Democrats

Casey S.

Rachel (Smokey-Voice, Messed-Up-Teeth, Might-be-a-Man, New York)

Jamie (Nurse, from New York)

Nicki

Elyse

Emily (Feuding with Courtney, Breath-Spray-Girl, The-Rapper)

Republicans

Courtney (Model, California, Shwarzenegger Republican)

Lindzi (Horse-Girl, First-Impression-Rose, Seattle)

Blakely (VIP Cocktail Waitress)

Kacie B. (Receptionist, Tennessee)

Jennifer (Red Head, Accountant)

Don Kowalewski is the world’s foremost authority on The Bachelor, American Idol, dating, relationships, marriage, coffee, blogging, social media, and much, much more. Check back every week to discuss The Bachelor. ‘Like’ spunkybean on Facebook. Follow @donkowalewski and @spunkybean on Twitter. For daily blog reading about whatever’s on Don’s mind, check out his personal blog, Kaleidoscopic Raygun.

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