Somehow, there are only six guys left competing for Ashley on The Bachelorette. It’s hard to believe, right? I mean I feel like three days ago, Ashley was in the comedy club crying in the corner because all 25 guys were making fun of her strawberry-sized (and not the big farmer’s market kind) breasts. But last night, it seemed that there really are only six guys remaining. And so with that, we watched as they traveled to Taiwan to meet Ashley, who in the beginning of the episode, stared off into the mountains while shifting her little Jabbawockeez-approved dancer’s legs, told us that home visits are coming up soon and the only way she’ll go home with a guy is if she feels like he’s the whole package. Which seems reasonable, you know – you don’t want to go home with a guy who’s totally great, with a great job and a great face and a great understanding of what kind of pink shirts are okay for him to wear, but just has this weird thing about using guitar picks to eat his food. So Ashley’s coming from a good place, everyone.
“I think there’s something romantic about a train ride. He’s holding my hand, touching my leg…I think we’re off to a really great start.” – Ashley
Okay, never mind. Ashley’s an idiot. Who thinks train rides are romantic? Chances are you’re on a train with your boyfriend because you’re going to one of your families’ houses, and because it’s a holiday, you can’t sit next to your loved one and instead, have to sit next to a guy eating an egg salad who’s too busy playing chess on his Kindle to let you out into the aisle so you can go to the bathroom. Trains BLOW harder than a purple college rape whistle that freshman get from their RAs. The only way they’re romantic is if you and your boyfriend decide to stand for the whole ride (because there are no seats together), and stay in the little dark closets where people can put their wide-ass luggage and grope each other. That’s the only way a train ride can be romantic. Anyway, Ashley chose the first one-on-one date to be with Constantine, and she explained that she was taking him deep into some village (don’t you love how Ashley continues to take credit for the dates that someone else orchestrates for her? I do. It’s amazing how she can sit there, in some recording room, and say, “I’m taking Constantine to a beautiful village.” As if she knew about this “beautiful village” before the resident tour guide at the hotel told her about it! It’s just a funny). But so it turned out that they went to this village, where there’s a lantern ceremony every year and all the people come out into the streets and write their wishes on lanterns and then at night, they set the lanterns free and into the sky and their wishes come true. As they were painting their wishes onto their lantern, Ashley said she was surprised with how seriously Constantine was taking the task because he was all like, “what do we wish for in our lives? We wish for everlasting love, family, prosperity, luck, health blah blah blah” and so Ashley didn’t really have any time to wish for her degree in dentistry without seeming like an independent woman who doesn’t NEED a man. Then they had dinner, and Constantine asked Ashley how comfortable she’d be if when she went home to Atlanta to meet his family, if she’d be uncomfortable if his grandfather were to corner her and ask her all sorts of questions. Ashley said she’d be down with that, and then she asked him if things continued to go well between them, did he think that they could work as a couple? Constantine replied that if he fell in love with her, he thought they would work, because as “long as we have love, we have just as good a chance to make this work as anybody else” or something. And, you know, that’s just pretty funny because as we’re all well aware, nobody who goes on this show finds what they’re looking for. In fact, the people who end up getting married after the season is done are the people that the bachelor or the bachelorette eliminate! Also, it’s just pretty amusing that Constantine believes he has a chance with Ashley, CONSIDERING PART OF THIS EPISODE IS DEDICATED TO HOW EMILY’S RELATIONSHIP WITH BRAD IS OVER. Sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking, letting my logic out of the titanium birdcage that I lock it up in while I’m watching this show.
“What if we get there, and your family is apprehensive about things?” – Ashley
Ashley’s date with Ben, the winemaker, was pretty lame. She took him to a park, where they explored it via mo-ped. Then they stood on a bridge and kissed as the mist from the many waterfalls that surrounded them made them feel like they were in a can of ginger ale. Then they had dinner next to a pool, and Ashley asked Ben what would happen if she went back to his hometown to meet his family and they didn’t care for her too much (clearly she’s never watched the show because in all of its years, there have never been any parents who met the bachelor or the bachelorette and questioned the success of their child’s relationship with them). Ben responded that his family’s opinions matter a lot to him, but he believed that his family would be fine once they saw how they interacted together. The next morning, back in the guys’ suite, JP was pretty pissed off that Ben hadn’t come back from his date with Ashley yet. He was basically just sitting in on the couch with his eyes closed and his arms folded and his running shoes knotted in three knots, and the other guys explained that when JP is angry, he doesn’t say anything. Then all of a sudden, Ben walks in and sits down on the couch and all the guys start the onslaught of questions, like what he did with Ashley and if they stayed in the same room wherever they stayed. Ben revealed that he did not sleep in the same hotel room as Ashley, and with that, JP got off the couch and stormed out.
Taking wedding photos kind of makes this whole experience so much more real.” – Ashley
The next date was the group date, and Lucas, Ames and JP were the lucky ones chosen to go on it. Once they met up with Ashley at a bridal store, she explained that weddings are really big in Taiwan and she thought it would be funny if they took wedding portraits together, and to the viewers at home, she revealed that the wedding portraits would make her experience with the guys so much more real. But here’s the thing: everyone at home knows she’s not going to end up with any of these guys. Sure, she might get engaged to one of them, but they won’t stay engaged. They’ll ultimately break up, and then Ashley will have no choice but to go back to pursuing her dental degree and practicing extractions on that crocodile toy that has all the extractible teeth. So this experience really isn’t “real.” There’s nothing “real” about this entire show, and it’s particularly humorous that Ashley thinks taking wedding portraits when she’s not even engaged to any of them is “real.” Anyway, so all the guys go get changed into their outfits. Lucas is wearing the traditional floor-length onesie, Ames has a blue and rhinestone encrusted tux, and JP got the regular and always dashing black tuxedo. When it was time for the photo shoots, JP got really pissed off because he had to watch Ashley get kissed by Ames and Lucas, and then when it was time for his turn, the photographer and Ashley had a really hard time getting him to smile. During the shoot, Ashley blurted out that her pictures with JP were probably going to be the worst of the entire shoot, and then when JP sat down on the couch after the whole thing was over, he said posing with Ashley felt terrible. Then they all went back to the hotel to have dinner in some private room, and when Ashley pulled JP aside, he admitted that he had a really hard time watching her go out with three other guys this week. And so because she felt bad JP spent the whole week feeling miserable, she gave him the only rose of the week.
“I’ve never felt anything like it in my life.” – Ryan
All of a sudden, Ryan has become a loser. The guy that was charming Ashley in the beginning of the show has surprisingly become the guy whose touch makes her wince. He’s also become one of those guys who does that weird thing of getting so excited that he forgets how to use adjectives to convey his excitement, and so he has no choice but to cup her hand and squeeze it as a means of conveying his feelings. In other words, Ashley chose to go on the third one-on-one date with Ryan, and she took him to a temple that looked like a flea market where hundreds of people were walking around and chanting. Then they sat on the stairs and watched as some people did tai chi way below them, and Ashley in an aside said she didn’t feel that strong of a connection with Ryan as she did to the other guys and she said that at this point in time, she felt uncomfortable meeting Ryan’s family. Then it got weird. Ashley took Ryan to a picnic in the park, and him, being a solar something executive, asked her what she thought of the environment and how dedicated she was to preserving it. Ashley said she wasn’t one of those people who recycled, like a loser, but then admitted that she was appreciative of people like Ryan, who dedicate themselves towards making sure that the quality of the environment is good. And since Ashley admitted that she didn’t know a lot about living green, she asked Ryan to teach her something, and he then proceeded to talk to her about water heaters and how wasteful it is to heat your water when you’re away and not at home. At the end of his spiel, Ashley told Ryan that she didn’t feel any passion for him. A look of genuine shock passed over Ryan’s face, and then he kind of begged her to meet his family. And then it was really sad because as he walked away, he started to cry. At the rose ceremony, Ashley told the remaining FIVE guys that she saw her husband among the group and then she chose the guys whose families she wanted to meet. She ended up keeping Constantine, Ben, JP (because he got the rose on the group date), and Ames, meaning she eliminated Lucas, probably because he’d been married once before and didn’t want to take the risk that his family would reject her upon meeting her. Then she took a camera guy and had a meltdown about how much pressure she was under.
