It’s like that old saying goes: Pleasure of love lasts but a moment. Pain of love lasts a lifetime. Oh Bette Davis, right now you are speaking to one lady of The Bachelor in particular tonight. Monday night’s episodse of Sean Lowe‘s Body-Rock of Love, the top three gals — @shL3E, Catherine, and whatsername (OK, fine, Lindsay. Her name is Lindsay. We’ll try to remember it from now on) — were flown to Thailand to romanticize themselves into a feeling of true love. Tropical location! A beautiful man! A spiritual feeling of completion! Dinner dates! These broads were on an express version of Eat, Pray, Love.
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Lindsay’s Date
The dates start out with Lindsay going first. Hers involves shopping and monkeys on a beach. She is crazy in love with this shirtless love-wunderkind, and she wants to make it known. So naturally, she spends 90% of her on-camera time declaring that …to the camera. Because Sean would totally just know that via osmosis, right? Sean talks about life after The Bachelor, and she’s ready to drop her life and live for him in Dallas. She’s mad that the perfect opportunity isn’t just presenting itself for her love declaration. So after about 17 hours of hemming and hawing, she takes a real long, side-stepping walk into telling him … look at these dancers! A spectacle! An oh-so-coincidental diversion! Look at all the ways Lindsay has avoided saying “I love you.” The build-up to this L-word s**t was a bit over the top, eh? So scared, she is!
But lest you think the time is now, the time is still not now. Oh look, a series of forced romantic interactions and conversations. Look at visually pleasing it is to middle America to watch them fall in love on script! Sean opens up, obviously prodding around for Lindsay to open up (yet again), after the overnight date has been accepted. Lindsay can barely giggle her way through saying that there was something she needed to declare: I love you. Finally! Lord! Oddly enough, Sean really enjoyed hearing of her adorations. Totally weird when someone admits to liking the fact that someone else likes them, right?
AshLee’s Date
Sean wakes up the next morning and heads out on a date with AshLee. Feelin’ footloose and orgasm-free thanks to the night before! (JK, I shouldn’t speculate — I don’t know Sean’s stance on sex acts that aren’t strictly p-in-the-v.) Sean likes challenging AshLee’s control freak personality (her? control issues? NO! Not the professional organizer!), but AshLee does not. She’s afraid of being abandoned in the water, and in life! This is all AshLee is to us on this show: a walking fear of rejection and abandonment. She is so in-control of how in-control she is of her abandonment issues, that it is literally all she can talk about.
At this particular hour, in an underwater cave with no lights and very little to aid by way of navigation, she is feeling out of control of her physical life and being. Sean thinks he’s going to kill them both, swimming around under all these rocks in the ocean, and AshLee is “absolutely terrified.” Lucky for her sanity, she experiences yet-another one of her MAJOR life realizations: this is just like, a metaphor. For life! She needs to be challenged and she has to let go! And follow Sean, and FALL IN LOVE! Lo, but what a light shines e’er so bright o’er the end of thy rocky tunnel! Safety is here, and it is in the very biceps of Sean Lowe. It will also bring you to a nifty little beach! Salvation is tropical. Is this Eden for our Christian lovebirds?! A sign from the notorious g.o.d. above that this love was heaven-sent to single-handedly save the life of AshLee.
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As for the overnight dates, AshLee’s not so morally into some of that sessual stuff and the social expectation that come with accepting one. She’s real nervous and unsure about it, but Sean wants to put her at ease: just two girlfriends chattin’ the night away! His intentions are NOBLE! Just like a Ken doll. But she doesn’t want her family and her peoples to get it twisted: nothin’ sexual is going down off-camera, America. SO get ya filthy, in-need-of-the-lord minds out of the gutter! Sean admits he knew from the beginning they would work out and build their relationship together. The term “work out” triggers a reactio in her brain that I can only imagine was like pushing a big red “ENGAGE” button. Because immediately upon those words she begins a bizarre, rapid-fire assault on Sean describing in explicit detail what sort of ring she wants (spoiler alert: it’s very specific and very fancy) to be proposed with, and you can hear Sean’s penis recoil into the deep, back recesses of his body. Game over, AshLee.
Catherine’s Date
Catherine receives the highest honor, which is the luxury of going last. The last impression before the rose ceremony — not a bad thing to have, you know? They’re on a boat drinking white wine and every 47 year old mother named Susan stares up at the TV and holds her glass of Pinot Grigio in the air, cheers-ing the happy couple and daydreaming of a time when that could’ve been them. Catherine and Sean spend much of this time opening up about their feelings and s**t. They both clearly love each other, and Sean admits to thinking about her constantly. But can she, too, leave her life in Seattle and come to Dallas to be with him? Drop her career, her friends, her entire life (because who needs compromises, amirite?!) for a man? And what about all those things her sisters said? Well, Catherine explains that her friends know her better than her sisters when it comes to love and relationships. Sean is a smiling doofus for Catherine. You guys, there’s no way she’s not winning this thing: dude is glowing around her. He even tells her he could see himself marrying her. And that she (sorry, Lindsay) is his best friend. Oh damn — thems is fightin’ words on this show!
Talk quickly turns to the Fantasy Suite. Catherine explains that she didn’t think she would say yes to going on one, because she wants to be seen as a lady and not some girl who gives out the goods off-camera. Sean assures her that his intentions involve, again, staying up all night holding hands and talking about hopes and dreams. No games of good touch, bad touch here, folks. He loves that she’s so chaste! Jesus, the hoops these people are jumping through to not be seen as sexual beings. We get it! Most of America are a bunch of conservative baby jerks who don’t seem to understand that intimacy is a part of all relationships (and usually happens much earlier in the real world, BE REAL). They’re also super prudish and love to shame, shame, shame others. Who cares? Why are people so scandalized by the overnight dates? Oh, right, because sex is for after marriage, duh. Silly blogger!
But I get it, this is a family show, so it’s not surprising that they don’t show that stuff (nor would I expect them to, really), but the way that they attempt to express that so as to not offend the ears, is pretty hilarious.
Rose Ceremony
Sean wakes up, sans shirt but rife with confidence in his decision on who he needs to send home. And he is dreading telling her the truth. Because it’s oh-so-clearly going to be AshLee and she is oh-so-clearly going to lose her ever-loving s**t.
But Sean is in love! He admits it to our buddy Chris Harrison just prior to watching the private video messages the girls made for him. When AshLee’s video begins, you can see on Sean’s face the guilt he feels about sending her home. Especially because homegirl is LOSING IT right now declaring her love and devotion to Sean. It is a love that renders her a complete blubbering mess — all the more reason for Sean to start crying, his heart heavy with the grief of guilt. Oh, what a lost soul is he: stranded between a rock and a love place (which is also made of rock). So many rocks in love (just ask AshLee, or Brett Michaels)! She found love in a hopeless place, you guys.
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There’s a brief reminder that this elimination is really painful FOR SEAN, ESPECIALLY though — duh, insensitivos — because he was sent home by Emily Maynard at this point during his stint on The Bachelorette. And he’s afraid he’s going to blindside someone as much as he was blindsided. (Spoiler Alert: he is!) It’s funny because Catherine looked completely convinced she was going home, and AshLee seemed quite focused on trying to control Sean’s decision with her mind. After what felt like approximately 72 hours of dramatic elevator Muzak, Sean finally says it: and AshLee looks beyond pissed. Daggers. Literal, bloody, Game of Thrones-style daggers comin’ out of this girls eyeballs right now. And without so much as a look in the other girls’ direction, she walks away, demanding that Sean stay away from her (which of course he doesn’t). This AshLee is stone-cold and iced over. She is guard up and out, arms-length and pissed as hell. She is pretty destroyed. “It’s the ultimate reject,” she sobs in the limo, turned away from camera (presumably to cry in the most amount of peace she’s going to get). It prooooooooobably didn’t help that Sean told her he thought it would be her from the get-go right before she got tossed into the limo. Love hurts.
As for next week? It’s time for the women to tell all. Tierrable returns! Lord, I am so pleased. What did you think of Sean’s decision to send AshLee home? Let us know in the comments.
Follow Alicia on Twitter @alicialutes.
[Photo Credit: Wenn]
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