Last night on “The Bachelor,” Nick said goodbye to three ladies: Dolphin/Shark Girl, the bisexual who matches her lipstick to her nail color, and the one with the My First Extensions — basically everyone with a sense of humor. No wonder the rest of the episode was just one big cry fest!
The crew left the swamps of New Orleans for the dark, windy beaches of St. Thomas, where apparently the sun never shines, foreshadowing the way these next dates were destined to go. On the first one-on-one date of the week, we learned of Kristina’s tragic childhood in Russia where she spent years in an orphanage after being abandoned by her mother at age 5 or 6 for the crime of eating lipstick because of their food insecurity — a story which made all the subsequent tears the other contestants shed over Nick seem just a tad pathetic.
So why exactly did the following group date of beach volleyball end up in one big puddle? Many claimed they didn’t like the competitive nature of the outing and, by extension, the whole process itself. But perhaps there was something more subtle, more subconscious going on. Could it be the women are finally realizing at some level that they’re willingly subjecting themselves to the humiliation of publicly fighting over a guy whom they don’t even really like? The producers always give the protagonist an antiseptic white wash, but Nick seems particularly bland this season: a mumbler in Jams short-shorts whose conversational crutch is the awkward-silence-filling kiss and whose go-to move is the ass-grab 1.2 seconds after said kiss. Plus, he seems to really dig Corrine, the Trump of Bachelor contestants, which has to be seen as a real character flaw. They all literally dropped the ball, ran off to their own quiet corners of the beach, and had a good cry over this collective, romantic, existential crisis.
And they’re not the only ones! Nick, too, seems to be sensing the utter futility of the Bachelor formula for finding long-term love. This is his third go around (fourth, if you count Bachelor in Paradise) and it’s not looking like a charm. He sent home both women on the two-on-one date last night, including the Kardashian-esque décolletage junkie Danielle, whom you could tell Nick really wanted to try to keep around until the fantasy suite (read: sanctioned fucking) portion of the show. But alas, not even that prospect could get him through another minute of staring into those Stepford Wives eyes or listening to another pat, listless answer to one of his probing questions. You could almost hear his inner Hamlet-y monologue: What’s the point of being the Bachelor if you don’t even enjoy spending time with the sexiest contestant? That is the question.
Combine this bad case of blue balls with his real fear from the group date that these women all might end up bailing — like every other woman he’s fallen for on this show has — and Nick felt the need to make a pre-emptive strike: show up at the women’s hotel suite in crocodile tears to suggest he might eventually have to dump them all first!
Even though the waterworks left us longing for the days of ridiculous, lighthearted Platinum Vagine one-liners, all this Bachelor nihilism is actually a refreshing change from the usual starry-eyed self-delusion of 20-somethings who convince themselves they’re ready to make a life-long commitment with a near stranger. Maybe this will be the season when the contestants finally blow up this farce! A girl can dream.
