Ben Higgins Bachelor Recap Episode 4: Las Vegas
Day 2, 4:25 PM, and we begin on episode four of Ben Higgins’s season of the Bachelor.
FRONTRUNNERS: Olivia (still first), Caila, Jojo, Lauren B NO CHANCE: twins
This week on: The contestants and Ben head to Vegas! Snogging! Leg-grabbing! Seeing-falling-in-loving! Snogging-Induced-Crying! A mighty menagerie of manufactured madness!
Caila admits she can’t tell the difference between twins. Knucks to you Caila. Tell me about it.
Olivia has never felt more certain someone is her man, which is frightening on many levels. Or maybe it bodes very well for Ben! If she wins, she’ll be confident no matter HOW many girlfriends he has.
All of the girls are very excited for Vegas, likely in part because they all packed a Vegas dress and have been wondering when they’ll have a chance to use it. The twins are actually from Las Vegas, so one might think they have a home-field advantage. Perhaps, but again, twins. They’re going to lose.
The girls are led into a pretty baller suite for their stay. This place is on par with the room in The Hangover, and I find myself hoping a tiger arrives.
The one-on-one date card arrives, and JoJo is the lucky lady! The script reads “you set my heart on fire”, so I’m assuming they’ll head to a campfire in the Great Grass Sea where they’ll eat the hearts of wild animals. Damnit, that’s Game of Thrones again.
Olivia repeats on camera that Ben is hers and she’s entirely fine with the whole setup JUST enough times to make it clear that she is not at all okay with it and is in fact trapped in a glass case of emotion. The wheels are beginning to come off, we have our new Lace!
The twins are using a treadmill together, which is possibly the least erotic thing I’ve ever seen two attractive blondes do together. They follow this up by saying they “need a one-on-one”, which is difficult, because, y’know, twins means there are two of you.
Ben arrives at the hotel suite to pick up JoJo, and Olivia’s disintegration continues. She feels SO GOOD about what she and Ben have. SO GOOD. SO GOOD YOU GUYS OF COURSE I’M NOT WORRIED THAT HE’S ON A DATE WITH SOMEONE ELSE BECAUSE I FEEL SO GOOD ABOUT IT WHY DO YOU KEEP ASKING ME.
JoJo seems to have chosen a black…uhhhh…well, you know those snowflakes you made as a kid by cutting random bits out of a piece of folded paper? It kind of looks like that. There’s not enough sleevage to make it a shirt, it’s not tight enough to be a tube top, and frankly I’m surprised it’s staying on her shoulders at all. It’s kind of like the shirts that are supposed to be way lower on one side, only on both sides.
Despite the impracticality of her clothes, Ben and JoJo get some helicopter snogging in. Thankfully JoJo changes clothes before dinner, and Ben verbally acknowledges being attracted to her. Classic setup for the backstory bombdrop:
JoJo is afraid that people she dates won’t be able to give her the same in return, because she ended her last relationship five months ago. Ben asks all the right questions, it sounds like there was some infidelity, and Ben asks a killer follow-up (are you ready?). He gives the rose to JoJo, and they proceed to some balcony/Vegas skyline snogging while fireworks go off.
Olivia sees the fireworks and says “I feel like he’s my husband…” Allow me to clarify: He is not. I don’t think. If he is, this is a seriously weird way to spice up your married life.
From that one-on-one, we learned that 1) JoJo is a real contender, 2) Olivia is falling apart and will not remain a serious contender, and 3) twins have zero chance to compete on this show. Oh wait, we already knew that last one.
The group date card arrives, and here’s the roster: Amanda, Jubilee, Amber, Lauren B, Hailey, Emily (OHMYGOD HE PICKED BOTH TWINS AGAIN), Leah, Lauren H, Jennifer, Rachel, and Olivia. Everyone is excited for Olivia, who disappointedly sticks her head under her blanket, because this means Becca gets the one-on-one date. There is much rejoicing.
The group heads to a theater with…a ventriloquist. Thankfully they don’t all have to do ventriloquism, and it’s just a talent show. Phew.
Lauren B. is nervous because she has “zero talent”. Lauren, that’s really, really harsh. Ease up.
Olivia claims to not get embarrassed by anything, but they say pride goeth before the fall. She also has a surprise talent, and despite my usual cynicism I am curious.
The twist on this date is that the ladies will actually be demonstrating their talents live, as the opening act for this ventriloquist who I refuse to learn the name of. I actually feel pretty bad for them – they’re in the shit now, and I don’t see Hercules Mulligan around to shovel it.
As the ladies prepare for their set, Ben comes on stage and delivers a surprisingly comfortable greeting to the audience. We start with the twins, who again cannot possibly win this show. They do a pretty nice Irish jig, though, so knucks to them.
Jubilee busts out a cello, and…shit, she’s actually talented.
Lauren B juggles, one girl hula hoops, Caila dances the Luau, and Lauren H wears a chicken suit. Funny, but can it compete with the mostly naked others? Finally, Olivia is announced!
She pops out of a prop birthday cake wearing little (strong start) and breaks out some leg kicks, some shimmies, and a lot of smiling. Cruelly, the music continues longer than necessary; Olivia looks like her attempt at Megan Draper’s zu-be-zu dance stopped seeming like a good idea as soon as she emerged from the cake. Her competitors think it was a disaster, but I thought she did fine given the circumstances. They’re biased.
Apparently she didn’t love it either, though, because Olivia is now breaking down. They cut to part of her costume lying on the ground like the victim at the end of a crime drama intro, and eventually we learn that Olivia feels that her performance didn’t go well and that she doesn’t have any talent. Again, super harsh, where’s the self-esteem? Oh right, I’m watching The Bachelor.
Ben leads Caila off for some personal time, and she once again comes across startlingly normal. She wisely leads with snogging, which breaks the ice, gets the blood flowing, and helps ease into conversation. She is also wearing amoeba-shaped earrings, but I wouldn’t notice those if I was on TV talking to her, so that’s barely a foul.
Olivia is wearing what appears to be the robe from the dressing room at the theater. There is no evidence of clothing underneath, but I know she had options there. Ah well, confusion is hardly new to me on this show.
Ben breaks out the ventriloquist’s puppet, which Lauren H nicknames Little Ben in a just-subtle-enough penis reference to still be funny. If you weren’t the Bachelor on The Bachelor, you couldn’t pull off snogging with a puppet on your hand.
Olivia is continuing to fall apart and takes the opportunity to talk to Ben. She jokes about needing to drink heavily, which, Hello Olivia, you’re on The Bachelor. Don’t stop drinking heavily! The booze is free and it’s the only way to survive this insanity that somehow comes across as romantic!
Olivia launches into a self-immolating appraisal of her performance, and summarizes it nicely by saying she was embarrassed. Before anything else happens, one of the twins (not sure which one), steals Ben and Olivia’s solo road trip to breakdown city rolls on.
Lauren B copies Caila’s move and goes straight for snogging. She’s “falling” for Ben, but let’s be honest, all of these ladies were falling before they set foot on Bach Mansion property.
Emily the Twin is talking to Ben when Olivia walks back to find him. She seems to have pursued her plan of drinking heavily, because her arms are flailing like Professor Chang teaching Spanish. . Ben takes her weird apology very graciously and grants her some snog time, calming her nerves.
Ben decides to give the rose to Lauren B! Smiles and eye-daggers all around.
Reflecting on the group date, Lauren H and Caila improved their stations the most. Lauren B won the rose but I don’t really understand why, which means Ben is probably just really into her. Olivia was rescued from a near-collapse, but is still so close to the precipice that she can’t have a lot of time left. She’ll make it through this episode, but after that…
Back at the Bach Mansion, a man arrives with a large box for Becca, and she opens it to find a wedding dress! Obviously she won’t be getting married because it would defeat the purpose of this show, but nice move by the producers. Jubilee sneaks in a virginity jab saying “she’s the perfect person to wear white”. Weird thing to make fun of someone for. Just another glimpse into the not-at-all stable Jubilee.
Ben starts the date by getting on a knee and asking Becca to marry…other people with him. They’ll be officiating a series of Vegas weddings, but the setup feels kind of cruel. I think many people, especially contestants on this show, dream of a proposal for much of their lives. This makes me a sad panda.
Ben flashes some genuine charm in the first ceremony, while Becca sounds nervous and muffled through her barely open lips. This dynamic persists through a few more ceremonies. Becca has nothing but positive things to say, but god damn would I be bored if my feet were in her high heeled shoes.
Ben and Becca head over to the Neon Museum, and it actually looks pretty sweet. One improvement: convert it to a BYOB putt-putt course like Peter Pan Mini-Golf. Ben really needs to slow down on the cardigans, though, or he might fall backward in time to when they were fashionable.
Ben asks Becca to “please feel” which is asking for basic humanity. This leads to the virginity conversation, and I’m not sure I want to be watching this on television. Big points to Ben for dropping “jump their bones” into the conversation, and after happily resolving nothing, snogging ensues.
To cap off the weird, wedding-themed date, Ben delivers his cute but not-too-sentimental vows to Becca, who responds with a nervous tight-lipped set of her own. It feels cheesy and forced, but then again so does everything else in the Bachverse. Becca gets the rose, snogs some more as the camera zooms in way too close, and we head into the next segment.
Chris Harrison appears to announce that Ben wants to take the twins on a date in their hometown. I’m guessing this ends with both contestants going home.
For some reason the twins dress very similarly for their date. If I were Ben, I would be worried about mixing them up. Except I’d be sending both girls home, so it wouldn’t really matter.
Surprise! The limo actually takes them all to the twins’ home. Their family does have a very cute trio of dachsunds, so knucks to them.
Hailey has s of her and her ex-boyfriend in her room, which certainly represents a fumble by the mom. Or maybe she doesn’t want her twins dating the same guy and it was intentional. That actually seems a lot more likely.
Emily introduces Ben to her room and there are no ex-boyfriend photos present, giving her an early advantage. She conducts minor, probably-subliminal sabotage on Hailey’s chances, and Ben proceeds upstairs to speak with their mom.
Mrs. Twin says Emily is more outgoing, and relationships with Hailey often develop more slowly. When everyone gets back together, Ben breaks the news that Hailey will be staying home. I assume Ben hugs the right twin, there are many tears, and victorious Emily hops back in the limo to return to the wild, sneaking in some cuddles on the way. Of course she’s still crying in her confessional, so my theory of why twins can’t win is playing out perfectly.
As cocktail hour begins, sparkles abound. I think over 75% of the contestants are in sparkly dresses, and Ben shows up in a daring but successful purple on purple shirt-tie combination. Vegas is the right place to break something like that out, and he wears it well.
Jennifer jumps in off the bat to take Ben away for some solo time, and she’s nervous. Shocker. Olivia rises shortly after and moves in on the pair. It hasn’t been very long because Ben just finishes asking a pretty light warm-up question before Olivia drags him away.
Olivia starts the solo time with a plate of cheesecake, which I support but don’t quite understand Where did she get the cheesecake? Is the cheesecake available to everyone? If so, why isn’t anyone else eating cheesecake? It doesn’t get better the longer you leave it out, people! One bite is eaten, Olivia apologizes, and Ben tells her again to stop apologizing. She talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks some more, and they end on a hug. Hugs < snogs. JoJo isolates Olivia and plants a bomb in her head by saying she’d never say what Olivia said. Olivia swiftly lies and says it was reciprocated, which leads to a five-star, ten-point, 100% bitchface from JoJo. I actually shuddered seeing that.
Jubilee vents to the camera while they play a snog-reel, and finally decides she’s going to get up and get the answers she wants. Ben itemizes her good attributes, and explains that being complicated is a good thing. Given connotations of the word “simple”, this would seem to be obvious.
The herald of the apocalypse arrives in the form of Chris Harrison, and we move on to the rose ceremony.
Victorious this week: Amanda, Lauren H, Jubilee, Emily the twin, Caila (nice dress, by the way), Jennifer, Leah (I forgot she was here), and Olivia! She survives for one more week, but her days are numbered with the crazy train in her brain reaching the end of its tracks.
A girl in a red dress and Amber (who pulls a classic Vegas and removes her heels partway off set) head out. There’s an awkward Bachelor group hug and an unnecessarily sad shot of Amber crying.
