Last week finished up with Corinne threatening to hit Taylor in the head, and I have spent the past week tempted to do the same to myself so that I could just stop watching this season. My restraint has been remarkable, especially since it has taken me so long to get this post up that I almost had to re-read my own blog and relive the last episode as well.
Of course the promised assault did not happen and Taylor and Corinne have taken up where they left off:
“You have no emotional intelligence,” says Taylor.
“No. You’re dumb!” retorts Corinne.
“I think you’ll find you have no emotional intelligence, because I have my Master’s degree from Stanford.”
“No. You’rrrrrrrrrrrrre dumb.
The less drunk girls also appear to be the smartest, because they have retreated inside for a semblance of warmth and girl talk. Alexis makes the observation that they are all women and sometimes not all women get along. But, that being said, it’s not like they’re in high school. Meanwhile…
“You are emotionally unintelligent.”
“Am not. But you’rrrrrrrrrrrre soooooooooo dumb!”
We’re almost six minutes into the episode before I remember that this is actually a rose ceremony, and I only remember because Corinne eventually breaks away from her slagging match with Taylor when Nick makes an appearance.
She takes full advantage of her alone time with Nick and spends it bad mouthing Taylor. Nick responds by telling her that he appreciates her honesty and maturity. No, this is not like high school AT ALL.
For fuck’s sake. Just swap saliva with her already and let’s move on. Aren’t there some roses to give out or something?
And just like that, Chris Harrison appears and takes Nick away for some secret Bachelor business (tell him who he is going to keep) and Corinne is pretty pleased with herself:
“#Queen! #Winning!”
#Vomit. #Sigh. #Whatever.
So the roses are given out.
“Whitney. Will you accept this rose?”
Now hang on a minute. How does this girl keep getting roses? The only time I ever see or hear her is at the rose ceremonies, and then she disappears into the pack. And yet here she is again, and Christen and Brittany aren’t.
Danielle M. Jasmine. Rachel. Jaimi. Josephine. Vanessa. Alexis. Corinne. Taylor. With Kristina and Raven holding roses already, that sends Astrid and Sarah home. Corinne is unimpressed.
And it’s not like Sarah didn’t try. She wore a sleeveless dress with no cardigan on a freezing cold night, maybe hoping that rock hard nipples would send Nick’s eyes, and a rose, her way. She takes her rejection hard. All she wants is to find true love.
What does she have to do? Hmmmm, maybe try being less insipid and needy.
The inclusion of Corinne has dampened the mood and they are a freezing forlorn flock of fems as they surround Nick for the post eviction toast.
“I know what will warm you up!” Nick exclaims. “We’re all going to Norluns!”
Well that worked a treat. They are all jumping and squealing with delight, even though like me, none of them have any idea where Norluns is. I even consulted an atlas and I couldn’t find it. Where the fuck is Norluns?
And then I thought about the clues: jazz, warm, spice.
Surely he’s not talking about NEW ORLEANS? Corinne is right about one thing. Nick does not need a mental health therapist in his group of girls; he needs a speech therapist.
So the next day the girls arrive in Norluns Leezyanna where they get busy harassing buskers and jumping all over the furniture in the penthouse apartments at the Norluns Marriot. Chris arrives with the news about this week’s dates: a one-on-one, a group date and the dreaded two-on-one where two go into the bayou, one gets left there as gator bait and the other comes back to gloat. Please let the two-on-one be first….
But no. It’s not that I dislike Rachel; it’s just that I want to get Corinne’s screen time out of the way. So for their date, Nick takes Rachel to some touristy market where he threatens to buy her lots of things, like tacky masks and gator heads. They slurp down an oyster which Rachel hopes is a metaphor for the rest of their date: slimy and overrated. Then Nick proves his manliness by downing hot chili sauce which creates an amazing reaction:
“I have the most explosive chemistry with Rachel than with any of the other women.”
Someone pass the man a glass of milk.
Then they dance in the second line of a street band, twirling lace umbrellas, right past the Norluns Marriott and in the plain sight of the other girls.
Then they stumble into a club for the obligatory serenade by a country music artist before they head off for dinner in a garage full of Mardi Gras floats. Actually, I think in this episode, all they have been given is a beer, the producers finally realising they can cut costs by not providing something that never gets eaten anyway. Rachel talks about her federal court judge father, who must be over-the-moon about seeing his daughter on reality TV, and tells Nick that Norluns reminds her of funerals. Nick reminds Rachel AGAIN that he once was in love with Andi and Katelyn, and Rachel is such a lady that she doesn’t even seem pissed off about this. And of course, he gives her a rose.
Time for the group date, and all of them get to go except for Rachel, Corinne and Taylor. There’s a part of me hoping that the latter two claw each other to death off-camera, but I don’t think there’s enough luck in the world.
The rest of the girls are being treated to a visit to the most haunted house in Leezyanna. Well if it wasn’t before, it certainly is now.
Raven doesn’t believe in ghosts and stuff like that, and besides, if there are any, she’s going to call on Jesus to get rid of them…
Yes. Let’s just process that a little…
So after a creepy tour led by a creepy guide looking at creepy portraits and an even creepier porcelain doll which once belonged to Mae, the resident spectre, Nick and the girls sit down on the floor and discover a Ouija board. Imagine that! What larks!
Cue power black outs, falling chandeliers and the creepy tour guide roaming around the gardens muttering curses like he’s Jack Nicholson in The Shining. It’s a little bit scary (actually not at all), but the most horrifying thing is yet to come; the girls start mentioning Corinne’s name.
Seriously, has not one of these girls seen Beetlejuice?
Meanwhile, Taylor prepares for an exorcism to rid the penthouse of evil spirits.
Back at the haunted house, I have seen nothing to convince me of the spirit of Mae, but there is plenty to convince me that some of the girls are getting stupider. Like Jasmine, talking to a producer:
“Well I didn’t believe in ghosts, and I thought you guys were just setting us up, but then I put on that dead girl’s hat and I know those spirits are real.”
Or Vanessa, who believes in spirits. The good ones. Me too, and I could go a gin and tonic right now.
But the scariest thing about this date was how long and boring it was, and keeping in that vein, Nick gives the group date rose to Danielle M.
The next day, Nick is looking forward to a steamy date in the bayou. Unfortunately, he invited Taylor and Corinne along, as well as a red neck boatman who hurls himself into the tinny from his hiding spot in the bushes.
What with all the gators, and snails and sour-faced pouting, we could be watching the new A&E show Duckface Dynasty.
After the boat ride, Nick leads them through the scrub past the skeletal remains of ex-girlfriends, deeper and deeper into the bayou for a voodoo ceremony. There do not seem to be any dolls to jab needles into, but no matter because they both have the opportunity to stab each other in the back. The combination of both Taylor and Corinne proves too much for the tarot reader who sends Corinne off to stick her tongue down Nick’s throat, in-between giving him her appraisal of her foe.
The card reading for Taylor tells her that she is sugar and spice and all that’s nice and that Corinne is a toxic, festering sore. Taylor is told to take the high ground and not stoop to those tactics, so when she gets her alone time and Nick accuses her of bullying Corinne, Taylor’s got nothing except her usual line about having her Masters in emotional intelligence and how Corinne is stupid.
“Oh yeah. Corinne said you called her stupid as well.” And just like that the writing is on the wall, or would be if there were walls in the swamp.
Taylor has had enough.
“If Corinne gets that rose, I’m not going to take it.” OK. That’s promising.
So the three of them sit down at a table. Nick gives the rose to Corinne. Taylor leaps up, whips the table cloth off the table, fashions it into a garrotte and throttles Corinne. Then she snaps the table leg off and beats Nick around the head with it…
Except of course she doesn’t. She just sits there in silence as Corinne and Nick motor boat off under the rising full moon and she looks resigned to her fate as bride of Bubba the Boatman.
Corinne and Nick have changed and have headed off for dinner. Back in the bayou, something strange has happened. It’s night, and perhaps rejected by even Bubba, Taylor has made her way back to the voodoo camp where they douse her in snail juice and gator blood (or water – but how boring is that?) and recite weird spells and they turn her into…Chad! Or at very least the female version of nut job Chad from JoJo’s season of The Bachelorette who, having been rejected on the two-on-one date followed the moonlight back to the bachelor pad and ran his fingers down the window like that floating ghost in Salem’s Lot.
And like him, Taylor has found her way back to Norluns, has caught a streetcar named Desire and then followed the slutty scent of Corinne right to the courtyard where she is on her date with Nick…
And that, is to be continued…
The Bachelor screens on 9 Life, Tuesday 8:30 pm
Photo Credits: 9 Now
friday night with kath 