Bachelor Epiosde 8 - Blog Posts

The Bachelor - Episode 8 Recap

"Caliente pero no caliente"

Oh my sweet, sweet friends. Do you know how much I treasure each and every one of you? It’s true. We are few, but we are proud hate-to-love, love-to-hate watchers of the Bachelor and this season, my, has it ever leaned more towards the hate side. I enjoyed chiding Sean Lowe for being a little dim, but if Sean was dim, Juan Pablo is one of those cave salamanders who evolved blind because they live in the complete absence of light. But we’ll delve into that later, for now, it is time for the historic, and often ill-fated, Hometown Dates.

Nikki is up first which bodes well for her. They never put a particularly bad/eventful hometown in the beginning. She hails from Kansas City, Missouri and if my friend Candice’s mother is to be believed, it is known as the “Fountain City” and has the most fountains in America! It’s a beautiful fall day, and they are dressed like models in a catalogue.

“Being in Kansas, it’s the Midwest. And I kind of like a little cowboy!” Nikki says of her plans for their day. Sure. You can like a little bit of a cowboy, but as hearty Midwestern stock myself, I don’t think “cowboy” is one of the main descriptors of our men. Sturdy? Sure. Beefy? Absolutely. Cowboy? Ehhh.

  To prove his worth as a vaquellero, she takes Juan Pablo to a famous Kansas City bbq joint. It’s the real deal with plastic trays and sauces in bottles. Juan Pablo has never had bbq before and doesn’t even really recognize a rib. Turns out he LOVES barbeque though and is obsessed with the sauce. Then his final test of cowboy strength is to ride a mechanical bull in full daylight at an empty bar! Nikki just watches him ride around on the mechanical bull for awhile, and then he falls off. And then they ride it together. It’s yucky. Be glad you aren’t seeing it. Oh, and Nikki is in love with Juan Pablo and wants to tell him but can’t. That’s going to play out nicely.

Nikki’s family lives in a palatial estate. The mom, dad, and two brothers are all there. Nikki and her mom run away to have a chat right away. They talk about how there is a physical and a mental (HA) attraction. Her mom is right on board with her saying she loves him, with her saying that she would get engaged to him, with her being so head over heels.

  Now Nikki’s dad talks to Juan Pablo and it’s basically just a job interview to be her husband. He’s a sweet man, and Juan Pablo says all the appropriate platitudes. Nikki and her dad talk and the brother’s don’t even enter the frame of the camera. Nikki is tormented about telling Juan Pablo she loves him. And then he leaves. Byeeee!

Hey, y’all! We’re in Atlanta for Andi’s hometown. Juan Pablo is really excited. How excited? “Andi is just mmm,” he says.

Andi takes Juan Pablo to the firing range to shoot some guns. It is “some southern initiation” for sure, Andi. I like that she’s just doing her own shooting and target practice while Juan Pablo struggles in vain to get a bullseye. He finally gets one and makes good on their agreement that he can’t meet her family until he shoots a bullseye. Onward to her family where things aren’t all peaches and cream!

We’re meeting Mom, Dad, sister Rachel, and a brother-in-law. Her dad looks like a bald cave troll in an orange shirt in the most horrific shade of orange. As they tell the story of their aventuras around the world, Dad has already started grilling just about the number of women left at various points. He is red-faced and furious and sure that these two are just “infatuated” with each and not truly in love. That is a fair point dad. It’s like saying “I believe she believes she’s in love, but she’s not.”

Mom and Juan Pablo talk about not really anything. Then Mom asks Juan Pablo to show her his dance moves so he’s calls out ANDI BECAUSE HE’S SIMPLE AND DIDN’T REALIZE THAT SHE WANTED TO DANCE WITH HIM. Then he gets it and dances with Mom. They have fun.

Her father named Hy, which is the name of southern terror, sits down to grill JP. It’s all making something out of nothing just for TV’s sake. Juan Pablo asks in the end if Hy would accept him and his daughter in his own family. Then we break to commercial, but guess what guys it’s more something out of nothing because Hy says, “I won’t answer you because the person that is good enough for my daughter is going to come to me and say there is no one else in the world for me.” Which is really discerning. It’s a way of saying “let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.” I like it. I know he’s tough, but he’s a good dad. Yay Hy.

When Andi talks with her sister tough, she plants seeds of doubt into an already doubting Andi. She brings to the surface a lot of the concerns and problems she’d been pushing down from the beginning. Andi just doesn’t know. Andi is unsure. She is still unsure when talking to Hy, and could see herself falling in love with him. So while Nikki is definitely in love, Andi is still seeing that she could maybe fall in love with him. She keeps repeating that she is “very, very close to being in love with him” which isn’t really a thing. It’s just the same as saying “I really, really like him! Maybe this could be something good!” Which is NOTHING. HOW MANY TIMES DO WE ALL SAY THAT? We all say it so often.

Now we must move along to Sarasota, Florida to see Renee’s hometown date! She’s so beautiful and is jumping out of her skin excited to see her son Ben for the first time in eight weeks. I love her. I just love Renee. She is too good for Juan Pablo. She is perfect.

They reunite with Ben and Renee is beaming. She and Juan Pablo watch his little league game, and Ben is adorable. What a cute kid. Too bad he gets to have some future emotional baggage meeting a Venezuelan lothario on TV. Juan Pablo says he’s so excited to have a son so he can play baseball, football, basketball with him. AND NEWSFLASH BUDDY: YOU CAN DO ALL THOSE THINGS WITH CAMILA TOO BECAUSE GENDER ROLES DON’T NEED TO BE SO FIMRLY DEFINED, YOU DINGLEBERRY.

Renee, Ben, and Juan Pablo come over to Renee’s parents’ Florida casual home to meet the parents and her brother. Everything goes very well with everyone. The family is so warm and accepting because they are Renee’s family, so of course they are a delight. She tells her mom that she is head over heels in love with Juan Pablo and her mom urges her to tell him. Her dad is so mellow and sweet. I just love these people. They are top of the line, good people.

Renee ends the night, but doesn’t end up telling JP she loves him. The competitor in me wants her to “win”, but I feel like this season “winning” is more who doesn’t end up with Juan Pablo. So I want Renee to be free of him and to find the best man in the whole entire world who can be a dad to Ben and a rock for her.

The producer’s know and love how much I know and love their tricks of cutting to random wildlife, and have started off each hometown thusly. We started with cows at Nikki’s, then geese for Andi, then pelicans for Renee, and for Clare? In Sacramento, California? For that darling woman we get a squirrel and a buzzing beehive. Never change, producers. Never change.

Clare is obviously at a 15 to start and we climb higher and higher from there. She does however make a good point that anyone can feel like they’re falling in love on the exotic trips they have been on so far, but it takes something special to feel that way in a simple park. And again, in the interest of being fair, Clare talks a lot about her father, but I get it this time. She’s home, and she misses him. I can’t hate a woman for missing her dad who’s passed away.

  I feel like if Clare had saved all this heavyweight emotional stuff for right now, I would have liked her more. She tells a story about how her dad told her that whenever she misses him to just go to water and throw a rock, and as far as she throws that rock, he’s never farther away from her than that. I’m choked up just retyping that! That is beautiful. But it’s Clare. And she’s pulled the Dead Dad card way too much before now. And she’s too much. And she’s insane. It’s making it hard. At this point though, she and JP deserve each other. They aren’t hateful scum (Courtney and Ben), but they are certainly quite the Tweedledee and Tweedledum.

But there is a reason we have saved Clare’s hometown date for last. A big, big reason. A HUGE reason. It’s her oldest sister guys. She’s a huge ogre, and she is the worst. Drama erupts as Clare, the youngest of six girls, brings home the first man since her dad died. One of her other sister’s Lisa though is very sweet, very calm and very approving of Clare’s love. Her mother Aurelia is just a beautiful, strong matriarch with perfectly coiffed white hair. Aurelia is bomb.

  Sister Madeline is also so kind and asks good questions, but not in a mean way. She affirms Clare and calls her heart “tender”. The rest of them are all so low-key and docile, how did Clare get to be so high strung and crazy? Just youngest sibling syndrome? Surely there must have been something else.

Aw snap. Now it’s time for Shrek (sister Laura) to get her claws into Clare. She tells Clare that “they” are not ready to give a blessing for her hand in marriage. Aurelia, who they keep calling “mama”, is sitting right there and can’t get a word in edgewise. Laura is being a condescending jerk; even Aurelia is like “I just want you to be happy.”

“I’m not going to let you manipulate mama,” Shrek says, and then she stands up and crosses her arms because Clare is “not respecting mama.” Mama is sitting right there. Then Laura stands up and walks to the edge of the garden just to “watch” Clare talk to Mama. Laura is a cranky old maid. Shut up and go home. I’m sticking up for CLARE, Laura! That’s how much of an asshole you’re being!

And now we are at the crux of the reason that Juan Pablo is actually just a stupid man. Aurelia and he chat for a hot second in Español. Aurelia is baller, but when she asks about the weather in Venezuela he says “caliente pero no caliente” which is “hot but not hot”. When asked about your home country that you miss so much, all you can come up with is CALIENTE PERO NO CALIENTE??? Come on, hombre. He just doesn’t even have thoughts. In English or Spanish, there are no thoughts in Juan Pablo’s hollow head. Aurelia knows you need to get out of town, despite giving you her blessing.

Let us sweep right along to the rose ceremony! Chris Harrison walks each woman down the green mile to wait out their nerves. Everyone is feeling nervous and tense because this is probably the highest stakes rose ceremony of them all. It would be hard not to take it personally getting dumped right after a guy meets your family.

Juan Pablo tromps out to give a boring speech giving thanks for everyone’s open hearts and open homes, blah blah blah, let’s get to the blood bath. Nikki is called first. Then Clare. And now we wait it out between Renee and Andi. It’s Andi.

Which means my girl Renee is going home. And she is so sad. And it’s hard to see Renee be so sad because she is a pillar of grace and dignity and kindness and strength. I can’t say enough good things about Renee. Juan Pablo understands the gravity of the situation because he starts crying as soon as he looks at her.

Even as they part ways, she is so gracious, and says she is grateful for the experience of opening herself up to love again. And he cries a lot. And tells her how much he respects her. And even though it’s not much, it’s something. It’s something to be respected. Renee you will flourish and find someone so much better than that old bag. I do even believe she has a good chance of becoming the next Bachelorette. She’s got a lot going for her in that department, but I almost don’t want that for her or her son. We’ll see.

So that is the end of hometowns! You guys, are you so excited that you get to come back TOMORROW for another recap?! I am excited. It means we get to spend more time in the alternate universe that is The Bachelor. They are promising us a very dramatic, very juicy Fantasy Suite episode. So pop over to find me on Twitter @Chasspod, hangout with me here on Tumblr for more recaps and other fun things, and don’t forget you can send me questions/comments with the ask button! I’m trying to start answering those more because I love interacting with you guys about all this hoo-ha. ¡Besos y hasta manaña, amores!