S16E5: Can you believe we're already on Week 5 of The Bachelor? Maybe it's because I'm a first-time viewer of the show, but these weeks are just flying by -- and the closer we get to the finale, the more drama seems to unfold, especially with regard to the devious girl in the bunch: Courtney. It's like 6th grade cheerleading all over again. The cocky demeanor, the juvenile antics, the "winning" references -- she's just a major bully and I can't believe Ben hasn't realized that yet. But Courtney-related issues aside, this episode still held quite a few surprising twists, including who was sent home. Let's just hope these girls are ready to play some hard ball.
"If I don't get a rose tonight I would be extremely bummed." - Nicki
As promised, Ben took all 11 remaining girls to the Caribbean paradise of Vieques, Puerto Rico, which looked absolutely amazing. But once everyone was all settled in, it was time to get on to the first date card. The first one-on-one went to Nicki and Ben thought it would be fun to take her on a nice walk through Old San Juan...that is until the torrential downpour got in the way. So they had to resort to Plan B and go shopping for some dry, authentic looking Puerto Rican clothes, which made Ben admire Nicki's ability to just go with the flow. Once the rain stopped, they even stumbled upon a wedding (what are the odds), and stayed to watch part of the ceremony. Afterward, Ben took Nicki for a romantic dinner and asked her to open up about her former marriage and what exactly went wrong -- you know, the standard talk you usually have for a first official date. But Nicki was more than willing to have Ben get to know her better, so she explained how she and her husband just became two different people and simply grew apart. And Ben must have appreciated her openness and honesty because by the end of the night she got a rose.
"These diamonds are way better than the sparkly kind." - Lindsi
For the group date, Ben took nine of the girls to the Roberto Clemente Baseball Stadium to play some ball, but in a surprise twist, Chris Harrison arrived and announced that the girls would be splitting up into two different teams to play a game against each other. The winning team would get to go to a romantic beach party with Ben, while the other team would just go home. And since there's an odd number in the group, one girl would have to play for both sides and therefore automatically get to go to the beach party no matter what. Ben picked Lindzi to be that girl, so the pressure was really on for everyone else. In fact, it got so competitive that they had to go into extra innings since they kept tying it up. But in the end the Red Team (aka Courtney's team) won, leaving the Blue Team (aka Blakeley's team) to go cry excessively about it.
When the girls got to the beach party, Courtney revealed to the camera that -- shock of all shocks -- she doesn't like being on group dates since it takes away precious quality time with Ben. She also doesn't find any of these girls to be much competition for her other than Kacie B (who by the way, received the group date rose of the night). But Courtney had bigger plans up her sleeve. She took Ben away from the group and suggested they go skinny dipping together at some point while they're in Puerto Rico -- an idea that Ben tried (and failed) not to sound too excited about, but we all know he was definitely interested. He is a guy after all.
"I don't know if he's ever skinny dipped with a model before. It could be fun." - Courtney
The next day, Ben took Elyse out on the second one-on-one date on a private yacht. It was clear right away that they didn't have the same kind of chemistry that Ben has with some of the other girls - and it didn't help that she came off as kind of desperate, saying that she quit her job and missed out on her best friend's wedding just to be here. Doesn't really say much for her priorities. I mean, I get it -- she really, REALLY wants to find love, but it just seems a little extreme and it makes me wonder if she's just there to be on TV. Plus, it didn't seem to go over well with Ben either since he didn't offer her a rose at the end of the night.
