Television
Jan 10, 2012

BACHELOR BEN LOOKS SHEEPISH

Bachelor Ben decided to take the ladies to his home town of Sonoma on the second episode of the season which featured two one-on-one dates and one group date of 12 women (plus a whole lot of kids and animal noises, I’ll explain) Unfortunately, that means we had to go too and while I love drinking wine as much as the next chick, I’m not so sure sleepy hollow made for the most interesting 120 minutes of TV (that’s right every episode is two hours).

The first one-one-one date went to Kacie B. from Tennesee. Did anyone else find it odd that Ben kept referring to her by her last initial even on the date… I mean there’s not that many Kacie’s on the show. Anyway, the date started with a stroll through Ben’s home town- the city hall, the local store, his dentist’s office (okay I made that last one up). Kacie B. feined interest though and surprised Ben by buying a baton at the store. (We sell those at my local store too just in case the marching band is in a jam!) She then revealed that she used to twirl a baton growing up and we took a trip…or should I say a parade down memory lane. That’s right folks, an actual parade of two marched down the Sonoma streets on the way to dinner and let me tell you, it looked as lame as it sounds. At dinner, Kacie remarked how ‘peaceful’ Sonoma was and I have to hand it to the editors who cut out the footage of police cars racing by which later aired in the credit out-takes. You can’t buy comedy like that! All jokes aside, it seemed like a low-key, yet romantic first date and Kacie B.’s girl next-door personality definitely won me and Ben over, but more importantly me! The night capped off for them with a private screening at a movie theater…Girl with the Dragon Tattoo? Not quite. Home movies featuring each of their families including Ben’s deceased father which made for a touching moment between the new couple when Ben cried. Good thing, or this could have been really awkward.

The second one-on-ne date, that’s right I’m skipping right over the group date to talk sh&$t about this gem, was with model Courtney. I hate to say, ‘I told you so,’ but I did. The claws were out right away. When the date card arrived, none other than Kacie B. announced the invitation and Courtney quickly retorted, ‘How did that taste coming out of your mouth’. This caddy-ness was not lost by the other girls in the house. I mean what type of bleeeepppp says something like that to the girl he just went out with prior. But alas, the date featured Ben’s howling dog Scotch (what the name Merlot was taken?) and a romp through the woods with a festive picnic followed by dinner set-up among the tractor trailer and trees. I was actually surprised that Courtney seemed to be a dog lover and was comfortable sitting in the dirt. Again, not trying to stereotype but the girl prepped for her date by saying getting the invite was ‘Winning’. In fact, she quoted Charlie Sheen quite a few times so I was not surprised when she lamented to Ben that she has a hard time finding a good guy in L.A. and once found underwear in her bed. (Did she mean panties that weren’t hers or was she surprised she’d had any on?) No matter. Ben was enamored with her calling her the ‘complete package’ of wit, smarts, and beauty and wondering if she was ‘too good to be true’. She is. Give it time.

The group date. Priceless. Ben told the ladies he had compiled the best playwrights in town and that they would be putting on a play. The woman then arrived to find a random assortment of elementary school kids as their producers, Kodak moment. Sorry, but these commercial tag lines are really fitting in all too easily.  Lets just hope these kids weren’t missing school for this. The auditions consisted of the women wearing costumes-including a princess, a hippie, a a gingerbread man (left over from X-mas I assume), and a weasel, to name a few. What, no honey badger? The woman had to literally jump through hoops to impress the kids and nab the best parts…though it seemed that all parts included a kiss with Prince Pinot played by wine-maker Ben. I have to admit that the play turned out cute, if you have absolutely no sense of good theater. Prince Pinot gets turned into a sheep and does a dance in what looked like a cave-man loin cloth with cotton balls. A few ladies did make a positive impression on me though for being willing to just go with the exercise and have fun with the kids! Unfortunately, somehow Ben felt one of them was Blakely who to me looked ridiculous auditioning in her too tight onesy and high heels…and I’m a chesty girl myself, but leave something to the imagination woman! Something tells me her advances in the pool later that night are really what earned her the group date rose.

This did not go unnoticed by the other woman who felt Blakely was overly aggressive and sexual throughout the day (always appropriate for children) and were later fuming when she stole Ben away for additional one-on-one time pre-rose ceremony even though she was already safe. The comments went a flying- unleashed with particular fever by Samantha (the pageant girl) who called Blakely a ‘horse-faced hooker’- and Blakely ended up curled up in a ball crying in the luggage closet.  Or perhaps she was just picking out a new roll-on for her flight home? Hopefully imminent. Ben, found her here later when he went on his hunt for crying chicks in the house which also turned up Jenna (the blogger who lost it last week) and was again sobbing under the covers in one of the bedrooms. Apparently, she was depressed about telling Ben, ‘she was not like a girl’ earlier in an attempt to redeem herself…whatever that means.

Ben starts to notice a shift in the air and attitude of the woman pre-rose ceremony and it’s clearly not just jitters. Woman are crying, Chris Harrison looks scared, and the crew is filling the Rolls Royces with extra champagne, just in case. It’s off to SanFran next week and I can only imagine what we will find on that city’s winding road. Let’s see if Ben’s boasts about being really ‘open’ this season hold true. He was looking a bit, dare I say, sheepish at the end of episode two.

Almost forget, Jenna (the relationship blogger) was eliminated and needs to start job-hunting asap and Shawn, who barely had a presence, were both booted off come rose time.