S15:E4 I woke up with a black eye. I don’t know what it could be from. Maybe it’s stress. I think I deserve a one-on-one date with Brad. I’m going have him kiss it and make it better. – Michelle
Last night’s The Bachelor began with the cameras having a sit down with the girl in the competition who’s more insane than the girl with the fangs who left the show because she was so taken with how much one of the other contestants loved Brad. Sporting a visible black eye, Michelle said she didn’t know how she acquired the injury, but simply that she assumed she gave it to herself while she was sleeping because of all the stress that has been surrounding the experience. ISN’T THAT CRAZIER THAN A SOBER CHEERLEADER WHO HAS NO TROUBLE FILLING OUT HER UNIFORM?! I’m quite sure it is, but I’m quite surer that her explanation for the injury was consistent with the insanity that occupied her mind while Brad was on the one-on-one date with Chantal. According to Michelle, if Brad kept Chantal after the date, she was sure that Brad would eliminate her because she wasn’t enough like Chantal. So yes, women are crazy! All the time! Women are so crazy they beat themselves up for not being similar enough to other women!
It’s a huge thing to ask me to get in the ocean. I don’t just do that. – Chantal O
Brad chose Chantal O. for the first one-on-one date of the episode and he whisked her off to some island in a helicopter that left the rest of the women at the house with nothing to do but go back to chronicling their eating disorders in their neon pink Composition notebooks. Once Chantal and Brad arrived at their destination, Brad ushered Chantal onto a boat and explained they were going to be “walking along the ocean floor.” However, this proved to be a bit of a problem because Chantal is nothing like the cat that willingly puts his head under the kitchen faucet. In fact, Chantal HATES water. She doesn’t drink it, sip it, bathe in it and especially doesn’t buy it in bulk at Costco. So you can understand the internal struggle poor Chantal suffered from while attempting to be the fun girl who’s down for anything! But in the name of love, Chantal put on her spaceman headgear and submitted to being enveloped by the murky and unfamiliar, but only after she made sure that producers got audio of her saying how much her actions of submersion are a testimonial to how much she loves Brad. After they got out of the water, they lay down on a mattress and talked about Chantal’s four and a half year-long marriage to a guy she’d been dating for 10 years. I was shocked that her relationship didn’t work out, but Brad didn’t seem to be able to do the math that would have told him something super crazy must have happened if a couple that had been together for 14 years had to part ways. Chantal didn’t give any reasons as to why they separated, but she did say that now she knew what she wanted and that she definitely wanted to get married again and have kids. At the end of the date, Chantal apologized for smacking Brad across the face on behalf of all the women in America when she first met him, and then it started to rain…which one of them said was good luck but I’m pretty sure it’s not because whenever it rained at sleep away camp, we never ever had pizza and soda for dinner.
I’m nervous because I know how reputable Dr. Drew is. – Stacey
For the group date, Brad took the women to the recording studio where Dr. Drew and some guy named Mike do a radio show called Loveline. Brad’s goal was to give the girls the chance to be completely honest with him about what they wanted out of this whole experience, and what they were looking for in a partner…which must mean he’s getting tired of having those conversations while trying to ignore the fire hazard that is a mattress surrounded by candles. Brad was also looking forward to Dr. Drew aiding him in figuring out which girls, if any, were particularly well-matched for him because he was still having a tough time figuring it out himself. Mike just basically sat there like a lawn flamingo and did nothing while Dr. Drew asked questions nobody was supposed to want to answer, like “who’s cheated on their boyfriend before?” However Stacey, who hadn’t had any one-on-one time with Brad yet, was desperate for some recognition and admitted to cheating on her boyfriend in college. Everyone was shocked she revealed that information, but they were all particularly relieved because Brad still believes that despite his actions three years ago, he doesn’t deserve to be with a woman who has a history of cheating.
Oh shit. I’m going to kill you. Where are you taking me? – Michelle
So Michelle was finally chosen to go on a one-on-one date with Brad. He took her to his house and gave her a mimosa and just as she was becoming obsessed with the fact she was the only woman who’d ever seen Brad’s house and that it must signify his apology to her for waiting so long to spend some quality time with her, a helicopter landed in the backyard and Michelle yelled at Brad for bringing her to his house only to take her somewhere else. Once they both got in the helicopter, they were taken to a tall building in what I assume was Los Angeles, and Michelle started to freak the fuck out. She talked about throwing up and clutched her forehead with sheer regret of ever leaving the house, and Brad thought he should just tell her that they were going to spend their date repelling down the side of the building and down to where they were going to have dinner. Take THAT, commercials for “Real Match.com dates!” Michelle continued to freak out until some cameraman convinced her to just get all suited up and just lean over the side of the building and pretend that she was going to do this with Brad. And through a whole mess of coaxing, Brad convinced her to sit down in her harness and just do it. She did but also concocted some great analysis of either being ready to let go and fall in love or not, which she used to show us she was courageous and definitely not lying about being afraid of heights. They made it to the bottom safely, and the immense amount of praise Brad gave Michelle afterwards would make a pre-school teacher vomit. Then they got in the hotel pool, where Michelle made Brad promise he would never repel down another building with anyone else in his entire life. He pinky-swore he wouldn’t, and then Michelle stuck a tube down his throat so he could never take one breath on his own, and if he wanted to breathe, Michelle would have to put her mouth over the end of the tube and blow into his lungs for him. Brad was so charmed with his new lifestyle that he gave Michelle a rose that would keep her in the competition for another week.
It felt like a punch in the stomach. – Chantal O
During the cocktail party, Brad spent some time with the women who he didn’t have dates with this week. He took a few of them out onto the patio, commended the most basic thing about each of them because they don’t know them very well, and the like. But then, he pulled Emily aside (who stole America’s heart last week when she revealed to Brad that her fiancé died in a plane crash and then a week later realized she was pregnant) and set up an outdoor picnic with wine for her. Emily was quite dumbfounded with the gesture, and was pleased to hear that Brad missed her the whole week. While they were busy loving it up outside, Chantal was having a breakdown inside the house. She recognized that she had already received a rose and was safe from elimination, but she had a hard time figuring out if it was worth sticking around if she wasn’t going to be the one chosen in the end. She told the other girls she felt cheap and stupid for coming out of their one-on-one date feeling so secure and so adored. Finally, Chantal couldn’t take it anymore and interrupted a conversation Brad was having with Ashley, where she said she wanted Brad to make her feel comfortable enough to fall in love with him and all kinds of crazy things that nobody should ever even whisper into the ear of a dog. Brad reassured her that he was thankful for her independence and for the fact that she’s not needy. Then he kissed her and Chantal went off to do whatever it is that girls do when they’ve been lied to but don’t know it yet.
In the end, Brad eliminated all the women we still don’t know anything about, in addition to, I’m pretty sure, Stacey. It’s hard to relay to you which other women he sent away from the mansion, but I can say that the following women are still around: Michelle, Chantal, the funeral director named Shawntel, Emily, Ashley the dentist, Jackie, the Ashley that’s a lot like Tenley from the last Bachelor, Ali who we don’t know at all yet, Lisa who we don’t know at all yet, and Marissa WHO WE DON’T KNOW AT ALL YET either. The rest of the women were sent back to wherever, but it’s probably not as great a place as Las Vegas, which is where the women are going next week. They’ll race NASCAR (cars? Does that need a qualifying noun or no?) and perform in Cirque du Soleil. Emily of course has a breakdown because her fiancé was a racer, and you know that poor girl will be shocked at how she didn’t read in her contract well enough to realize that producers had the right to exploit her tragedy.
