Bachelor Ben: To Be Continued

Oh hi. What are you doing here?

Right. The TV show. Gotcha. Sorry this is a bit late. I wasn't near a computer last night. But I was watching and jotted down some notes.

This was another one of those annoying TBC episodes. The three most hated words in television: To. Be. Continued.

Really? Do we need this? Does anyone think Ben is going to rescind the rose to Olivia? Not a chance. They didn't show her in the upcoming highlights but I think we heard her. And someone next week says, "How could he be falling for this act she's putting on?" Who else could they be referring to?

I gotta say as annoying as old Ugly Toes Stank Breath Olivia has been, I think last night she was at her least annoying. Sure, you could use the Teen Mom quote against her, but I got the real sense she just misspoke. It's a show she obviously watches and maybe Amanda's descriptions of the comings and goings of single motherhood aligned with some situations on that other reality show. You could tell as soon as she said it she realized what she said.

So I'll cut her some slack on that one. I won't cut her slack for constantly attaching herself to Ben's side. That being said, if I were Bachelor (and don't you all think I should be?!), I would institute some rules and interrupting and such. On the group date, for instance. They were grouped into pairs. Since there were 9 women, that meant Ben would have to be a partner. If I were him, I'd either grab someone I hadn't had much time with or I'd pull names from a hat to pair everyone up. Whatever. Don't just go with the first loudmouth who pops up. Maybe I'd go with the person who said nothing. I dunno, but come up with something.

Love how the show started with a creepy cameraman with night-vision lurking in the women's bedrooms while they slept. It was 4:19 am and Ben was there to collect Amanda. We saw all sorts of bed heads and puffy eyes and retainers. But Amanda woke up sparkly, perky and fresh. Probably because the mother-of-two is used to being woken up at all hours of the morning.

She and Ben went hot air ballooning. Has that been a date in past seasons? I'm thinking it was. They were in Mexico City and were flying off to... wherever the wind took them, I guess. In this case it was ancient pyramids. (Are there any other kind?) Seeing flames and wicker so close together freaks me out. There's no way I'd go up in one of those.

Amanda, like many of the "blondes" on the show, are getting less and less blonde as the series progresses.

She talked about her bad first marriage and how she found text messages on her husband's old phone with many girlfriends. She felt like a failure. Ben couldn't understand how someone "out there" would "wrap [her] up and love on [her]." Love on her? Eww!

I love how Emily is still called "Twin" on her graphic.

Jubilee sealed her fate on the group date by being a sour puss. I still don't get how people (men and women) come on this show and not get how they're going to be but one of many girlfriends or boyfriends of the star. There was an ESL (Español as a Second Language) component to the date, with Ben declaring his love in Spanish for each of the girls. Jubes was having none of it. It was all too insincere for her.

Then the pairs competition alluded to earlier. They were to go out to the market with their newfound language skills and gather ingredients for a dish, and then cook it up. I'm wondering who'll be the first to get Montezuma's Revenge. I guess that comes with drinking the water. And they stuck to Tequila so they were safe.

Jubes and her partner (I forget who) won the cook-off but it didn't help her any. She was in full pout mode, and that's never appetizing.

JoJo's taco wasn't as delicious as she thought. The editors had a field day with JoJo and her taco. "I'm really excited for the chefs to taste my taco," she said. And "I know my taco is delicious." Duly noted.

At night, Ben would take one of them off for some alone time, hand in hand. But after roaming the streets for ages with Lauren H., kissing all the way, Jubes was in no mood to be fake holding hands when Ben called on her. This rubbed Ben the wrong way and he sent her on her way. "I'm like the most unloveable person in the world right now," Jubes said, stealing a line from sad-sack Ben last season.

I'm just relieved Ben and Lauren H. made it back safely without getting kidnapped or shot.

As Ben struggled to find the words to tell the others about Jubes getting the old heave-ho, JoJo interrupted him and asked to take him aside. I was thinking maybe she wanted him to taste her taco. No, they just kissed. But the rose went to Ugly Toes Stank Breath because Ben felt they reconnected on the date.

The last one-on-one went to the kindy-garten teacher Lauren H. She's a down-home girl with a sense of humour and a loving goofiness. They went to a fashion show. She actually thought that was the extent of their date. Oh dear sweet naive Lauren H. This show doesn't just send people on dates to watch something. Of course she'd be part of the experience, despite her only experience walking is when she takes her charges out to recess. She felt rather "unsecure." In her defense, "insecure" probably isn't a word used much in her kindergarten class.

But she and Ben both looked like they belonged on the runway, proving just how easy being a runway model is, providing you're not hideous and know how to put one foot in front of the other.

She also revealed that her 4-year relationship came to a close after her boyfriend cheated on her with three different girls. If there's anything to dissuade a guy from cheating on his wife or girlfriend, maybe this show is helping. Cheat and risk your ex getting on national TV and exposing your jerky behaviour to the world.

Lauren H. obviously got the rose, too.

At the cocktail party, several women felt the need to rat out Olivia to Ben, giving him pause. Usually I'm all for this kind of behaviour because the villain is more villainous. In this case, Olivia is a bit much but doesn't seem to be so horrible, all things considered. But when Chris Harrison enters to ding his glass, signalling the end of the cocktail party and start of the rose ceremony, Ben asks to first speak to Olivia.

And that's where they left us. I'm pretty confident the Big O will be with us again next week. You? What do you think?

Oh, by the way, I'd Tweet more from my @BachelorBlogger account if I had more followers. Just sayin'.

Like the show, this blog is To Be Continued, too.