It’s getting complicated on The Bachelor, when aren’t things supposed to get easier? If you missed Part 1 of the Night 1 of this week’s two Night event (see what I mean? Complicated.) ….well head on over to my USA Today blog and catch up already! Go HERE.

We’re off on our Group Date, which involves hay bales, canoes…and goats. Don’t ask. I know I’m not going to. I am, however, adding the following to our Bachelor Drinking/Hershey Kiss Game: Run!, Dammit!, andHow do I milk a goat?. If we have to watch this “date,” we need fortification, y’all. Because, it’s not just a date…it’s a Relay Race! Yay…cough…where did I put that extra bag of Kisses??

Host Chris pops up to explain how this will work: there’s a canoe race, then bale hay, saw logs, and goat milking. Oh, and naturally, goat’s milk drinking. I know, I can barely contain my excitement at getting to watch them do this. We’ve gone from beach volleyball, to death race roller derby, to…yeah. It scares me how many weeks we have left of this…and where it could possibly go from here. It doesn’t bear imagining, really. What it does do is make me get up and refill my delicious fruity umbrella drink. Fresh ice anyone? Here, have a fresh umbrella, too.

Okay. I think we’re as ready as possible. Without Tierra on either team, I have no one to root against, so I have no horse in this race. Or…goat. As the case may be. Host Chris ups the ante by explaining that the Winning Team goes on to Part 2 of the date, whereas Losing Team? Yeah, they head home. (I shudder to think via what possible method of transportation, given humiliating at least half of the women on any given group date seems to be a prerequisite. Seriously, Show…stop it.) Now, we have some competitive women here…and there are sharp objects. And animals with teeth…and hooves. I sense things could get ugly.

And yeah, right off Sarah has to, once again, figure out which part of this “fun” relay race she’s best suited for given she only has one arm. And again, Show….really???? This time it’s an easy enough assignment, so she’s good to go. Fellow Red Team teammate Selma, who has donned the first sequined outdoor turban/headband thingie I’ve ever seen, well, boy, she’s amped. She’s not letting no loser Blue Team take her Man Time! I like her. So, Red Team? You go!

Ready, set…GO! Teams race to the canoes, they shoot into the water…then, yeah…they meander all over the place as the concept of paddling a canoe in a desired direction is clearly beyond them. Gosh, Sean…if you wanted an outdoorsy wife, there’s four you can cut right now. Simple, right? (What? You’re not really using this as a gauge on who to marry? You’re just making them do this…because you can?) Once again, I’m forced to wonder just how fabulous a catch this guy actually is.

Years (and several fast-forward clicks later–sue me) the Blue Team hits the shore (literally) first and we move to Stage 2: which is running in pairs with hay bales (because we do this all the time on our horse farm. Valuable skill, that. Except, no. We don’t, and it isn’t.) Blue Team is looking good right up until their hay bale disintegrates, which gives the Red Team a chance to catch up, and I totally cheer on Sarah as she kicks some major one-armed hay bale toting boo-tay. HA, Show. HA.

Red Team gets to the Girls With Big Saws section of this race. Everyone keeps all their limbs and we race on to Goat Milking. Des can herself a goat, and, as it turns out, she can down some serious goat milk if it means more time with Sean and sending the Blue Team packing. Which she does. So Selma, Sarah, Des, and Robyn move on to what I hope is an actual date. Whereas Lesley, AshLee, Daniela and Katherine? Yeah, for all your hard work and utter mortification…you get a ride home. Fun!! Except, no, it isn’t.

As for the Date Bunch, there’s no obvious drama diva’s in this group. Des can be direct with what she wants, and Robyn is clearly behind this particular pack in having time with Sean, but I don’t see them going all cutthroat with each other. With only four of them, hopefully each of them will get their along-with-Sean time and we can move on to what is sure to be the highlight of Date Night. Tierra v Jackie in the Two On One. (Does anyone think Jackie really stands a chance in that match up? Wouldn’t it be great if she totally ruled? It would be. Am I holding my breath in bated anticipation? No, I am not. )

But then…Sean seems to realize–again, way late, after the humiliation has taken place–that maybe sending home women he hasn’t spent enough time with, given the huge, gigantic stakes of finding a wife–gosh and golly gee, do you think maybe he should have worked it so everyone played, and everyone stayed? Wow, Sean, what a brilliant OBVIOUS idea!! You’re a freaking genius. (Sorry, but he pulls this crap every week.)

Of course, this doubles the party participants, and drama potential. Naturally, Des is a little pissed off, given she had to drink a jug of goat’s milk in order to win what turns out to be an empty prize, because everybody wins. And… exactly. Yet another reason why someone needs to think these things through and not manufacture bullish*t drama. Like the women don’t generate enough naturally, all on their own. At the very least, Sean owes her (yet another!!!) apology. Jeez, Des…aren’t you beginning to reconsider this guy? At least a little?

Tierra hasn’t found a way to make tonight’s show all about her yet, so she gets pissy about the Blue Team heading back out and how unfair that is. Except….you didn’t want a group date. Well, yeah, but I get a stupid Two-on-One date. Oh, now it’s stupid. Yesterday you were giddy like a schoolgirl. Yeah, well, Sean knows I’ve been patient, but I’l all done with patient. Hunh. Because I saw you being done with patient last week when you stormed the producers than stalked him down to go all schizo on him. Aaaand, what are you doing now? Oh, wow, you’re out to stalk him down, yet again. Hey, I need my one-on-one time, so I’m just going to take it.

Sadly, we all know this will flatter Sean, rather than send him running, screaming for the hills. Oh, Sean.

Back at Angry Group Date Corral…Sean once again didn’t think things entirely through. Okay, more specifically, Sean didn’t think about how any of this affected anyone but him, because he didn’t bring the Blue Team back because he felt badly for them, but because he wanted to spend time with them to help whittle down his choices. What he neglected to consider is that since this was set up as a competition, you’ve got a group of women who busted their asses to win…only to have won exactly nothing, and to have, in essence, lost, as they lose time they’d have had with him. So, yay for mortifying half the group earlier then pissing off the other half. Good night. Good times.

Selma gets so worked up she refers to herself in the third person and loses half her street cred points with me (okay, so the sequin turban bandana thingie lost a chunk of them straight off, because what was that?) and Robyn is all “Don’t even ask me how I’m feelin’ right now, bitch.” Meanwhile, Team Blue is now anything but. Of course, none of them are going to tell Sean where to step off, because he’ll send them home. Yeah, this is going to be…tiresome.

Cue Theme From Jaws music…

Tierra stalks the date night party location, and waits until Sean is doing his Private Camera Guy chat…and sneaks up behind him and covers his eyes all “Peek-a-Boo, guess who!!! Yay!!!” Sean is surprised to see her (and I bet the Red Team would be even more thrilled to find out they’re splitting their time with him by yet another participant. Especially this one.) But he totally lets her drag him away for more alone please-reassure-me-time. Now, Sean has been ultra leery of women who didn’t seem to have their act together and didn’t waste too much time sending them packing. And yet, he keeps this one around. Producer encouraged so they have a Season 17 Villain? Maybe. But, given he’s made some connections with other, far more stable and equally beautiful women already…what’s the point here? He couldn’t want to shoot Kacie into a waiting taxi, whassup with keeping this needy, self-confidence lacking, clingy nut job around? He gave her the date rose last week to essentially calm her down…and yet, here they are, the very next date and she’s already stalking him again. DUDE! Seriously with this…

He realizes he needs to give that whole thing some consideration (and, as I say at least once in every recap YA THINK??) but now he’s got 8 other women instead of 4 to deal with, and half of them are pissed, so…go have fun, Sean! Good times!! You deserve them all. I am wondering, however, if they deserve you.

(Also..did you notice Tierra was wearing a Blue Team shirt? What was up with that? She wasn’t on a team…)

Sean takes Red Team Des aside, and (go, Des!) she does let him have it, nicely enough, about everything he put her through (again!) just so she could spend time with him. Only, before he can respond, Blue Team AshLee comes and takes him away. Wow, ballsy move, latecomer to the party! Yeah, this is why they make fast forward buttons, y’all.

And yet, because I blog…I watch. But I am so mainlining Hershey’s right now, drinking game be damned.

We get fairytale! Soul connection! I can’t unwrap the Hershey’s fast enough. Ooh, and we get our first “I’m crazy about you” from Sean, who is seriously lagging behind the normal stack of those he hands out every week. Despite the fact that I’m pretty sure he’s even crazier about some of the others, let’s make out for awhile, just in case, shall we? Gah.

Two on One Date Card:

Jackie seems like a really nice girl. A shame she has to tango with the viper just to get a date. Jackie, I’m thinkin’ it might not be a bad thing if you go home this time. Find yourself a nice guy who will date only you. Without television cameras around.

Back on Group Date Bingo: Katherine steals Sean away (you can’t hide from the camera’s Katie!) and he just “feels like snuggling with her.” Well, that’s a shocker, isn’t it? Sean is like a big Golden Retriever puppy…the more affection he gets, the more he needs. And he’ll beg it from anybody who’s willing to give his belly a scratch (euphemistically speaking…or not.) He even slobbers a little. Okay, maybe more than a little. Honestly, if we cut out all the time he spends making out, this show would barely top an hour. If you cut out the conversations he has with them? Might be able to squeeze in another commercial. That’s all I’m sayin. Guy who wants a wife. Peel your lips off em for five seconds and talk to them a little more! Or at all!

Katherine is beyond giddy to the point of ew, and Daniela, who has had no time with him ever, goes to find him, spies them outside being all Cute Couple Necking, and feels awkward (which makes you NORMAL!) then goes back in and gets all teary with Des, who tries to reassure her (because Des is also normal and realizes just how whacked out this entire process is.) Still, Daniela? You can join Jackie in going home and finding a nice, decent guy who will date YOU.

Of course, Sean finally deigns to spend time with Daniela and she’s still emotional, so he’ll finally see her only to find her being all basket case, when she’s typically not. We get another “I love being with you, I always have fun with you” which is odd since he’s never had much of either. It’s also, verbatim, what he just told Katherine, who felt sooo special, hearing that… Oh Katherine…wherever you are, watching now, I’m sorry. Yee. But, seriously…what did you expect, right? (And still…ouch.) Honestly, wouldn’t it be great if they were all watching together (sans Tierra) and booing, hissing, and throwing things at the screen. Very cathartic, probably. Then hopefully they all leave the viewing party to go spend the evening with their fabulous new boyfriends who only tell them how crazy they are about them. You know, like healthy people do.

Just me?

Daniela gets the Date Rose, and the other girls who all knew how set aside she’d been are happy for her, except for the part where they had her marked as cannon fodder on their flow charts this week. Well, all of them except Robyn, who is the other set aside girl who got no time that we saw really. Assuming Jackie is heading home, that means one of the girls there tonight is also heading out…and I’m thinking it might be Robyn’s turn. You?

It’s Two-on-One date time:

We see clips of Tierra joking that Jackie doesn’t know she’s on a date with her and her husband, which, if I liked her at all, would have been funny. Instead, she takes unmitigated glee over the fact that, as she sees it, she and Sean are already cemented, and Jackie hasn’t a clue. Dry humor = funny. Knee-slapping guffaws over a perceived humiliation? Wow. No words. Except, please don’t accept this rose and go straight to…well, you know where I’m going with that. Do they have cab rides there?

Jackie, seeing the writing on the wall (okay, no she doesn’t), goes ahead and falls on her sword and goes the Sure To Get Me Sent Home route of telling Sean what’s going on with Tierra back at the hacienda. Now, given he was starting to question that himself, you’d think he’d be thankful for the insight. And maybe he is. Just not enough to keep Jackie and send Tierra packing. I get that he doesn’t feel as strong a connection with Jackie, and given how many connections he’s currently juggling, whew, yeah, let’s not add any more tentacles, shall we? And yet… At least he’s at the point of seriously questioning Tierra’s continued presence and acknowledges that she will come packaged with ready-made drama. (RUN, SEAN!! )

Wouldn’t it have been beyond awesome if he broke the rules yet again by not giving either of them the date rose? He’d have earned back a huge chunk of those “I’m so crazy about you, I love being with you, we always have so much fun” brownie points he keeps losing.

Very interestingly…Tierra takes her time with Sean to tell him about the five year relationship she was in, with someone she’d known for 13 years, who was in and out of rehab and ultimately died four years ago, leaving her fearful of becoming involved, of losing anyone. Sean looked more than a little uncomfortable, pole-axed is a good word, and we didn’t see, on camera anyway, him reassuring her, or really saying much of anything. In what might be the only more sober and sincere Private Camera Time ever with Tierra, she says she might have scared him away, but she needed to open up to him. Personally, I don’t know why it seemed to affect him negatively, it’s a hard story and hard stories usually garner sympathy from him (unless he doubted the veracity of it – I didn’t, but I can’t help but think she probably ties herself to less than stable individuals…) but I think it’s enough to keep her around so he has time to process why it makes him feel the way it does. Again. Which, I even get. Compared to Jackie, anyway. Sucks, right?

Sean’s all convinced that he gets Tierra now, and dismisses Jackie’s warnings. WHY do they always ignore the warnings? Haven’t they watched the show? They are never lying. They are sincerely trying to help. And they are never wrong. Ask Ben.

Tierra immediately loses any serious, insightful street cred she gained by being downright laugh-in-your-face giddy over getting a rose and driving Jackie to the Moderate Sloppy Cry in the limo. Piece. Of. Work. So very unstable.

Drunken Rose Ceremony Lodge!

Des gets herself in a lose-lose proposition. She tries to get some answers, trying to understand his thought processes better, and he immediately just asks if she’s talking about Tierra. Because Des has watched the show, she hems and haws, because she really doesn’t want to be that girl. But it ends up being double jeopardy, because since she wouldn’t just come out and ask, but kept her questions generic regarding his choices, he is left feeling doubts now. This after telling her that she really needed to be totally confident in going through the rest of the process because she knows she’s in good standing with him. So, lose lose all around there, which is a shame.

Also, I can see Sean essentially say, hey, go for it, it’s only for a few more weeks, give it your all, what’s the worst that can happen? Well, Sean, they can have their hearts busted much as you did when you got dumped at the 11th hour last season. It took you some time to get through that…and yet you are willy nilly asking them to just “go with it” like there’s no cost. I get that you have to risk big to get big, and sure, theoretically, it’s a no-brainer to go for it. But when you take into consideration natural human emotions and doubts, of course they’re going to want to know, when there’s still 10 of them, just how invested they should be allowing themselves to become. Des was essentially asking where she fell on the Jackie Scale. Close to jackie? Not Close to Jackie? That’s all. And that’s both far and impossible for him to answer any better than he did.

Seriously, I’d need serious counseling for the mind f*** this plays with your head before being able to date again. of course, that supposes that I’d ever sign myself up for this kind of drill. Which….no. Would you? Sincere question. Could you handle it? I know myself, I couldn’t.

Then we get total manufactured drama with Robyn and Tierra, where Robyn is confronting her but with no real solid game plan other than she wants to play hardball, and Tierra more or less calls her on it, like “What are you asking? What do you want?” Robyn has no answer, of course, except for a bunch of passive aggressive crap. I mean, I get the frustration, watching a two faced beyotch hang all over your man and your man continue to play clueless, and I get not wanting to live with Unstable Conniving Girl.…but what can you really do about it? Nothing. So stop feeding the dragon already. it’s not like she’s going to simply stop breathing fire because it makes you uncomfortable or because you call her on it. Quite the opposite. There is no Win with that kind of personality, other than to stop feeding it. Ignore, walk away, find a new topic. She’ll smother from lack of attention, which is the air she needs to breathe.

Sean strolls through and catches Tierra giving Robyn what for, and is like “wow, are the girls ganging up on her?” (Seriously, Sean??) Or…is it even possible that maybe everything every single girl here has told me as she parted is true and Tierra might possibly behave differently with me? How is that even possible?

HAVE YOU WATCHED THE SHOW, DUDE?? Oh my god. The frustration Robyn feels with Tierra pales in comparison to the frustration I feel in having to watch this play out for the umpteenth million time.

So, to get to the bottom of it…he talks to Tierra. Hey, Sean? So far, you’ve believed everything she’s told you, despite others telling you different. Why didn’t you, oh, I don’t know, grab any random three of the other girls, Robyn included, and take them aside and say “just tell me your side of the story, no harm, no foul.” But…no. Well, what do you expect her to say??? That she’s batshit crazy?

To his credit, he does take Lesley aside and express his frustration that while everyone is mentioning their problems with Tierra, no one will give him specifics. I wish he’d understand the catch 22 that puts them in and why they’re being so vague and just understand that if that many people have problems with the same person, and NO ONE ELSE, that there has to be some basis to it. You’ve got a bunch of women you are truly falling for. Is she really worth taking that risk on and wasting so much time and emotional energy? Do you really feel, if you have these many questions at this stage, that it’s something that you need to continue exploring? Whether you ever know the whole story or not, cut the cord, dude. It’s time.

We’ve been talking about how the The Chosen One feels about watching Sean with the other women. I wonder what Sean is thinking watching Tierra now, and seeing exactly what the girls were talking about, and more. They don’t see her Private Camera Time, when she’s truly evil mean girl.

Rose Ceremony:

We see Sean have some Host Chris Deliberation Time before the Rose Ceremony where he complains again that the girls are saying negative things about Tierra but not offering him proof other than they don’t get along. What proof does he need, exactly? There were 17 women in the house at one point and not a single one has gotten along with her. Not because she’s quiet and standoffish, but actively not getting along. Does it matter why? It’s not like they formed a union or a club. If one person can alienate that many people, regardless of why, is that someone you want to align yourself with? And now he’s all down on the women because they’re wasting time talking about Tierra and not trying to spend their time wisely with him and gee, maybe I don’t want to marry any of them. I get the guy is frustrated, but whoa, way to take out your complete inability to see the Writing On The Wall on the women who you ASKED to talk about Tierra. Can Sean send me home, please?

Sean says it would be terrible to go through this whole thing and go home empty handed. Yet didn’t you just tell Des to go for it, and risk that very thing? Like it was no biggie? Get over yourself, dude.

Roses go to everyone except: Robyn. No surprise, but I’m thinking it’s not just because they never spent time together, but because she was immediately involved with all the Tierra Drama. I don’t know what all was said when he walked her out, but all we got was a very cool, dismissive “best of luck” as he put her in the limo. Yow. Harsh, dude. That said, I’ve been over Robyn for some time now, and she might think she brings no drama, but she does. Ultimately, it wouldn’t have mattered. We never saw anything between them anyway and she’s been dead rose walking for some time now. Daniela? You’re next. And, if he really wants to cut the drama down, Tierra can hop a ride with you. He’s all pissed off and yet he’s still refusing to see the real core of the problem.

So…after some dramatic clips of yet another emergency crew being called to once again deal with Tierra on tomorrow night’s show, for some inexplicable reason, the producers decide to give us a clip package for the rest of the season, and don’t really bother to try and hide who sticks around for some time. It’s…weird. And disheartening, since it seems pretty clear that Tierra is one of them. And no matter how many times she goes running to him, falling apart at the seams, he only puts on shinier white knight armor and finds a bigger steed with which to go in and rescue her. The more she needs, the more drama she creates, the deeper he falls.

What is UP with that with guys? I honestly don’t get it. It’s common. And I don’t get it. They will all claim, to a man, that they hate drama, they just want happy, my best friend and lover…and yet who do they fall for? THAT. Every last time.

Seriously, as frustrated as Sean is with this production assembly line, I am, too. And rather than make me excited about getting past the crap and into something at the very least entertaining to watch (and not in a claws out kind of way) that clip package did the exact opposite. We got claws, and a lot of Tierra, and a lot of AshLee. Who is not my favorite, either.

Yee, Show. Yee.

Contest Time!!

So, let’s wash the collective bad taste from our mouths, shall we? I announced the winner of last week’s contest over in Part 1 of this documentary, which can be found HERE on my USA Today blog page.

I think we need a big ‘ol Giveaway this week to give us something to look forward to, right? Valentine’s Day is coming and given the role Hershey’s Kisses have played in getting us through this season, I thought it only right to celebrate the holiday with some free books, and free chocolate! And because we have a two night show this week, let’s double the pleasure and have two winners next Monday!

To enter to win ANY book from my website bookshelf & a yummy chocolate surprise, send an email to donna@donnakauffman.com with “Books & Chocolate? I’m in!!” in the subject line. Then check out my website bookshelf HERE and in the body of your email, tell me the title you want to win, if you want print or digital, and where to send it (email/format or snail mail address.)

I will pick TWO WINNERS and announce them in next week’s Bachelor Blog! Good luck!

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