‘The Bachelor’ Recap, Season 22 Episode 2: Bumper Car Trauma

Thank you all for being here. I’ve called this meeting because we’ve made two unprecedented discoveries during this dig. We’ve uncovered two near-perfect specimens of entirely new species in our work on this ancient burial ground for The Bachelor. One is Upwardium inflecticus, who seems to have been known casually to her friends as “Krystal,” and the other is Bibianus majesticus. They are natural enemies, found locked in combat, and without more details, it remains unclear who will emerge victorious. But that’s why we do what we do here — to try to understand the inner workings of the creatures who walked the Earth when the dinosaur that is Arie Luyendyk did. So brush the dust off these fossils and let’s see what they can illuminate for us today.

The male is wearing animal skins for the date tonight, and riding a motorcycle to indicate virility and no fear of death, and he’s invited Becca K. to accompany him. “See ya, girls,” Arie says to the group of women two to fifteen years younger than himself, as they speed off to the Empty Lobster House where Rachel Zoe lives. That’s the location for today’s date, which is essentially a randomized auctioning off of fancy shiny things. Against the bizarre backdrop of a chocolate fountain that is coated in chocolate but not actually running, Arie presents Becca K. with expensive item after expensive item: ten dresses, a pair of Louboutins, a suitcase full of Neil Lane jewelry. Presumably they’re all for the date tonight, but in reality the producers have just lost the thread of this season, and they’re trying to throw money at the problem. Becca K. has to do a walk-of-shame home carting this season’s budget past all the other women, which is insane, and Arie is a big proud puppy dog throughout, who’s acting like he earned the money himself at his car driving job.

Later that night, he takes his expensive disco ball out to dinner, and hones in on the topic most likely to get him smooches: her father’s death. Literally I think the sentence was, “So your dad died. Tell me about that.” Very romantic. (They do kiss. A lot.) Arie talks about his real estate job, which I continue to believe is a front that he picked up to sound more legitimate for his second round on the show, and the evening is rounded out by a romantic rope that you can pull to make a bomb go off.

Back at the mansion, the male is seriously endangering his romantic prospects by having another one-on-one with the creature that I’m now confident in labeling Upwardium Inflecticus. Again, the name she has for herself is Krystal, but her frozen smile and the way she ends every sentence as a question lets us know that this is an entirely new species we’re dealing with. Her date card says “home is where the heart is,” and — you guessed it — that means we’re headed home to Meet the Luyendyks. Because sure, why not? Why wouldn’t you bring a woman whose last name you don’t know to Scottsdale, Arizona, romance capital of the world, to meet your parents and your brother who is almost certainly Evan Bass?

Pretty much everything you need to know about this date is right there on sign welcoming visitors to Scottsdale: “Most Livable City.” Basically, Scottsdale is the Arie of cities — “Is it my favorite place to live? No. Would it have been in the first fifty cities I rattled off? Absolutely not. But it’s livable. Welcome to Scottsdale, we’re gonna make a whole season out of this.” Clutching an iced coffee that I never saw them pull over to get, so must conclude that the Upwardium manufactured out of thin air, the female sits quietly beside the male in an empty house, looking at photo albums and watching his home videos. It’s such an eerie nightmare date that I wouldn’t have been shocked if the pages of the album were just blank, or filled with stock photos, but the Upwardium would have gushed over it regardless.

Indeed, she doesn’t even seem to notice as the male introduces her to his parents with the least identifiable detail about herself — the color of the gown she wore on the first night. Quickly, Arie — tell me her last name. Tell me her job. Tell me why she throws a question mark at the end of every sentence like a little sex baby. (Please, tell me.) But he doesn’t, because he can’t, because he doesn’t know. And the depth of just how much he doesn’t know about this sexy baby becomes clear during the next portion of their date, when Arie tells Krystal he also wants to get to know her, and the floodgates get unleashed. “You can share as much or as little as you want,” he says frantically, watching the Upwardium’s eyes fill with tears. But it’s too late. She’s already gotten started on a story that starts with, “I really felt like my parents didn’t want me,” and ends with her revealing that her brother lives on the street, and how difficult that is for her.

But don’t worry. This male is adept at comforting females, and he knows just what to do. He places one silencing paw on the side of her face and says sentences like “I hate to see you like this,” which non-Upwardiums can translate as, “Please stop emoting at me, you’re making me uncomfortable.” We’ve also got, “It doesn’t reflect negatively on you; it’s not your fault,” which for him clearly means the exact opposite, and “I love your story,” which means — “Please hear this, I do not love your story.”

He gives her the rose, and takes her to a private concert from a nameless musician in a Sam Smith skinsuit, but he is visibly and uncomfortable shifting in his seat by the end of this date. He’s ready to have the compliant little sex kitten back with her smiles and her sex baby questions, who will happily watch footage of Young Arie eating a stick for forty-five minutes if it means she gets to hold his hand, and wondering which button he has to push to get her.

Back at the mansion, the male’s virility is again in danger, as he has invited fifteen women on his group date. That’s Maquel, Marikh, Tia, Valerie, Annaliese, Fouren G., Kendall, Bekah, Jenny, Sienne, Jenna, Caroline, Brittany, Bibiana, and Chelsea. These fifteen lucky ladies get to participate in a Demolition Derby, which makes some of the women feel great, and some of them feel like this.

Annaliese has what’s been termed “Bumper Car Trauma” by one of the most unkind of the other girls, and staged for the screen in a bizarre dramatization, but what seems to actually be a very well-founded fear of repeatedly and endlessly enduring various car accidents. (Can you call them car accidents if they’re on purpose? Car purposes, I guess.) In any case, we’re having them, we’re having a lot of them, and it’s hurting my neck even to watch these women whaling on each other, so I feel you, Annaliese, I really do.

People are hitting each other hard as hell, and as jarring as it is to watch, some favorites are emerging. Annaliese is going after anyone who made fun of her for crying. Bibiana is my good beasty who never backs down from a fight. Brittany is a fucking queen and I never want her to stop. (Editor’s note: she did in fact stop, when she had to skip the second half of the date for a medical issue, which she presumably got in one of the 382938 car accidents that she initiated with her fellow contestants.) Seinne and Tia came out of nowhere to be the final two, and Seinne won a big drink of milk out of her winner’s bowl.

The second half was fairly unremarkable, even with nearly three basketball teams’ worth of women. Chelsea pulled him first, to tell him she has a three-year old son. (He reassures her that he’s fuckboied with many a single mom before her, not to worry.) Seinne went to Yale and is officially out of his league, so they had to smooch about it. Ageless Bekah and Arie share such a passionate kiss that I’m gonna need to know how old she is just so I know if I’m allowed to be in possession of this footage. And Bibiana’s one-on-one time got pushed back so many times that she ended the night supremely pissed, storming out and telling the cameras not to follow her.

Normally I’d be anti someone bringing this much drama to the table, but I think I love Bibiana, and I might want her to be president. The group date rose goes to Seinne, with a fakeout for Chelsea that you know Arie’s going to pay dearly for at home.

Which means that going into the Cocktail Party, Becca K., the Upwardium, and Seinne are safe, and a decent number of the women didn’t even get a date. But if you think that’s gonna stop the former from stomping all over the latter, then you don’t know Upwardium. She will attain higher, more inflectious heights during this next portion than you ever thought possible.

Basically, if you are someone who didn’t get much time with Arie this week, Upwardium is looking to interrupt you. If you sit on her little patio to talk, she is gonna open the door and ask to interrupt. She’s gonna do it to Fouren B., who didn’t even get a date this week, and she’s gonna do it to Bibiana, which was not her first, but certainly her last mistake. Because Bibiana don’t play. She wants alone time with Arie so she can figure out if she’s a match with this guy, because, as she points out, she knows literally nothing about him. Krystal wants alone time so she can stand in front of Arie with her plastered-on smile and whisper that she didn’t tell anyone that he took her to his house.

So when Upwardium tries to pull her second interruption of the night, Bibiana responds to her cooing, “Hi guys. Do you mind if I slip in for another minute?,” with a firm, “I actually do.” The pair gets another minute, then Bibiana goes back into the house to seethe, and Arie gets to stew in the certain knowledge that he has given a rose to a cuckoo bird. But while there have been people like Krystal on previous seasons, I’ve never seen anyone like Bibiana. When the former tries to come sit next to the latter, Bibianus majesticus is having none of it. “This bitch is trying hard to piss people off,” she told the camera, and she says something similar to Krystal’s face.

I wish I could just transcribe the speech verbatim and read it to myself as affirmations in front of the mirror each morning, but here are some choice quotes:

• “You need to check yourself first, before you try to check on other people.”
• “There’s a lot of angry people here, and I’m just the voice.”
• “If I go home tonight, good luck Krystal. I would sleep with one eye open.”

This woman is my queen, and I want nothing more than to watch her metaphorically drag Krystal up and down the hallways of the Bachelor Mansion all night.

I also simply must interrupt this program to inform you that during their cocktail party makeout, Bekah said into Arie’s mouth, “I’m simple, I’m no drama, I’m easy to please.” Spoken like a true 21-year-old. Reveal your age and be gone, Ageless Pixie — it’s a red flag that you’re the woman that Arie has the best chemistry with, and we should all be talking about it.

At the Rose Ceremony, roses go to Maquel, Jacqueline, Bekah, Jenna, Chelsea, Fouren S., Tia, Annaliese, Fouren B., Kendall, Brittany, Ashley, Marikh, Caroline, and after a long, foreboding pause…Bibiana. And you can tell the other ladies love her, because they’re reaching out to her during the waiting, and all smiles once her name gets called. That means that going home is Fouren G., Valerie, and Jenny, who honestly cannot believe.

She’s pissed, and she shows that by exercising the only power that remains to a female in this environment: withholding the hug and making him follow you into the hallway to get it. Which he must, of course. Without a hug from departing women, the male looks cold and selflish. And since we’ve decided that this is a journey of love and not womanizing, we can’t have that. Jenny does ultimately allow herself to be hugged, but she delivers a parting shot on the way out. “I’m not sad about you,” she tells the male, “I’m sad about leaving my friends.” He nods and forces her to hug him even though she’s repeatedly said she doesn’t want to, and marches into the reality of her first-ever breakup.

Thus concludes our time with these ancient creatures this week. Their relationships are just beginning to become clear to us, and I look forward to many more magical moments as we piece together how these ancient beasts walked the Earth.

Alexis Rhiannon (@mindtheclam) is a freelance writer and comedian who grew up in Portland, Oregon, and is now located in New York City. Her interests include reality television, bar trivia, pop culture conspiracies, and someday cleaning her apartment. She can be seen monthly at the improvised show Live Dubbed Sitcoms at Videology in Williamsburg.

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