ABC27 WHTM Panama City: The Glamorous City of Awkwardness and Humidity

Monday afternoon, before the episode of The Bachelor aired, I took an informal poll of my co-workers who also watch the show.  Both Eric Finkenbinder and Flora Posteraro think Emily is going to get kicked off.  To quote Eric, "No one likes a tattletale."

I have to admit, I agreed with them.

Going into this Monday's The Bachelor, Emily did not seem to have much of a chance.  Ben was still blinded by Courtney's…charms and he hasn't yet seen her for the psycho she is.  And Emily was known as the tattletale of the group, telling Ben things he didn't want to hear.  Let's see, shall we?

So, we start this week in the glamorous city of Panama City, Panama.  Ben greets the ladies and asks if any of them knew Panama City was so metropolitan. 

No, Ben, none of us knew that.

Thankfully, Panama City's travel industry and Trump Ocean Club were willing to show us.

The first date is a one-on-one date with Kacie B.  This date annoyed me because of the silly way in which it was presented to us. It was obvious the date was boring and the producers wanted it over with as quickly as possible.

They were taken, by helicopter, natch, to a deserted island.  They each had to bring 3 items.  Kacie B. brought a green plush monkey, a corkscrew/knife Macgyver tool, and a bag of candy.  Ben brought a machete, a fish net, and matches.

"I think today would be a good example of if we work well in the future." 

Only if you're on a deserted island with candy and a machete, Ben, as well as cameramen, audio operators, producers and assistants.

The next five minutes of the show (that is no exaggeration, I checked the time on my DVR, that's all the time they were given to show this date) showed these two lovebirds fighting through the trials and tribulations of life on a deserted island.  Ben hacked down some coconuts with his machete and destroyed coconut after coconut trying to get to the "juice" inside.  They tossed the net out a few times while they whined through their voiceovers about how hard this was.

Then, like a miracle that happens only in movies and reality TV shows, they capture a fish in their net. 

Suddenly, all was right with the world!  The coconuts seemed to fall from the sky!  They were able to properly cut the coconut and drink its delicious "juice"!  Their fish was cooked beautifully!   World Peace was declared!  Unemployment dropped to 3%! They had the time of their lives!

That evening, Ben and Kacie B. sat down to a hot and humid dinner.  Kacie opened up to him about her past and he seemed quite uncomfortable, but I don't think that had anything to do with her story.  I know it's romantic to eat outside in such a glamorous city, but the man was sweating like mad and his hair just looked nasty.

Sometimes, it's possible to be romantic in an air conditioned restaurant.

Long story short, Kacie returned to the Trump Ocean Club with a rose.

The next day, Ben went on a group date with Emily, Nicki, Lindzie, Casey S., Courtney, and Jamie.  He picked them up in a boat made out of a hollowed out tree to explore the Panama rainforest.

Last week's episode theme was "openness", this week it's "going with the flow".  Ben wanted to test the women and see how they handle life in the rainforest.

 They just happened upon some children playing soccer and followed them to their village (If you Google Embera Village, you'll see this is a common tourist attraction).

The women and Ben are separated and taken off to change into traditional garb.  The women were given beaded tops to wear and everyone left their bikini tops on underneath except…wait for it…Courtney!

Okay, so she claims she wants to be like the natives, but when she starts shaking her ta-tas in front of the terrified young boys, it's just pathetic.  And when she starts losing her clothes while playing soccer, well, that's just a whole new level of attention-whoring.

Ben comes out in a loincloth and all the girls gush over how hot he is. Personally, I don't find him all that attractive and a loincloth is NOT a good look on him.  Sorry, but he just can't carry it off.   And he knows it.  This had to be the most awkward week of Ben's life.  Every date seemed to be sprinkled with awkwardness.

They returned to their hotel for drinks and games of one-up-manship.  The highlight of the evening was when Jamie finally got alone time with Ben and while she was gushing and babbling and making little sense,  Courtney stood behind her, stripped down to her bikini and started splashing around in the pool.

Maybe she isn't psycho, maybe she's an evil genius.

Even Ben admitted he couldn't focus on Jamie. 

It was at this moment that I realized Jamie was going home.  This was her chance to get Ben's attention back on her.  She needed to grab him and kiss him like her life depended on it.  She needed to distract him from the distraction of Courtney.  But she didn't.  She dropped the ball and sealed her fate.

The next day was the 2-on-1 date with Desperate Blakeley and Nervous Rachel.  After a salsa dance lesson where Rachel summed up Blakeley in one word: tacky, they sat down for an awkward dinner.

Blakeley got her desperately needed 1-on-1 time where she showed Ben the book she had been working on, or as I call it, her stalker manual.  She mentioned last week that she wrote down one thing she liked about Ben every night.  Tonight, she showed him the scrapbook of their travels and what their life together would be like in San Francisco. 

Ben's mouth said "This is great!" while his eyes said "Whoa, take a step back desperate stalker!"

In the end, Rachel got the rose.

Let me explain that I work evenings at abc27; I direct the 11pm newscast, so I'm working on the news while The Bachelor is on.  I am also the only woman working in the production department on this shift and many years ago, my male co-workers and I came to an agreement.  The Bachelor can only be on in the control room with the sound off, so I wait until I get home to watch it on my DVR.

This evening, my co-worker, we'll call him Steed (you'll hear more from him when Dancing with the Stars comes back on, he's a big fan), was watching the 2-on-1 date with the volume down and this was his take on the outcome:

"What an idiot, you never pick the nose piercing."

After watching it with the sound, I have to disagree with Steed.  This was definitely the right choice for Ben.

Back at the Trump Ocean Club, the ladies are all sitting around pretending to like each other when Chris Harrison enters.

Dun dun dun!

"Chris Harrison only shows up when something strange is going on."  A very astute observation, Emily.

Last week, when they showed clips of this week's show, I thought Casey S. had gotten some bad news and had to return home because a loved one was in the hospital or something like that.  Then I saw the promos during the week and I thought some deep, dark secret from her past was being dug up.

Nope.  She was still in love with her ex-boyfriend.

That's it.

That's what all the sobbing and drama was about.

She was in love with some guy named Michael but he didn't want to get married so she wanted to fall out of love with him and find someone else to marry so she went on The Bachelor.

Doesn't that pretty much describe every woman on this show?

At least, I think that's what it was about.  The only coherent sentence Casey could spit out was, "Maybe I should be in therapy or something."

Overall, the whole situation was stupid and overblown and ended with Casey going home, sobbing in the backseat of a minivan (they couldn't even get her a limo?) and Ben staring thoughtfully out over the ocean.

Then best part of the whole thing?  When Chris Harrison asked her about "ya'lls relationship".  I know he's from Texas, but you never hear the southern come out in him. 

And here we are at the cocktail party and the most awkward moment in a week of awkward moments.

You know what I'm talking about.

You're cringing just thinking about it.

Yup.

Jamie's lesson in kissing.

Jamie: "First we have our mouths are going to be closed. Okay?  Then we're just going to, like, feel each other out.  And then, once we feel each other out, we're going to open our mouths."

Ben: "That's normally how kissing goes. You're not the first woman I kissed."

I wanted to close my eyes and cover my ears and wait for it to be over, it was all so awkward and weird and embarrassing.  I was so embarrassed for her and I never feel any kind of sympathy for the women who go on shows like this.

If I had any doubt as to whether or not Jamie was going home, that whole fiasco put that doubt to rest. 

In the end, Jamie did go home, leaving the six ladies: Kacie B., Lindzie, Rachel, Nicki, Courtney, Emily, with roses and champagne and ready to go to the exotic country of Belize.

********

Some post show observations:

1. It looks like Eric, Flora, and I were all wrong in our guess as to who was going home.  We'll try again next week.
2. After her conversation with Ben, her apology to Courtney, and the rap she performed while the credits rolled, Emily came across more charming than she has all season.  I wouldn't be surprised if she lasted quite a bit longer.
3. Emily was right, we only see Chris when something weird is going on.  He used to do more in the show and I miss that, he's the voice of reason.  Remember when they used to have one-on-one time with Chris and the Bachelor to talk about what the Bachelor wanted before picking the girls?  But then, he has the best job, he travels all over the world and gets paid more than any of us ever will to announce "Ben, ladies, the final rose of the evening" then go back to his luxury hotel and watch pay-per-view.  That's what I assume he does.  If ABC was paying, I'd buy pay-per-view movies and drink expensive wine.
4. Do you think Courtney will finally get her comeuppance next week?  I don't.  I think she'll do her weird lip thing and tell Ben about how jealous the other women are and he'll give her the rose.

Correction:

 I have to make a correction from last week's Reality Rewind.  I referred to the next Bachelorette as "Emily Maynard, the sweet, southern single mother whose race car driving husband was killed in plane crash".

Well, Flora kindly pointed out that Emily was engaged to NASCAR driver Ricky Hendrick when he died, they weren't married.  Sorry for any confusion.