In the “journey” that is a season of The Bachelor, Nick Viall’s love boat has foundered on the rocks of disinterest and started taking on the waters of despair.
Seriously, could that episode have been more of a downer?
Raven proved suspiciously prescient when she said early in the show, “Saint Thomas is the perfect place to fall in love and it’s the perfect place to send people home.”
How true that turned out to be when Nick took nine women to the U.S. Virgin Island — having already dispatched four in New Orleans — and ditched three more well ahead of the next rose ceremony.
And if that wasn’t enough to shake the confidence of the six women who remain he visited their hotel suite and told them tearfully, “I don’t know if I can keep doing this,” leaving more tears in his wake.
Way to overshare, dude.
But cheer up, next week Corinne is going to try to turn Nick’s frown upside down by sharing her platinum “vagine” and you know we’ve all been waiting for that episode.
In the meantime, here’s what happened on Monday.
Buh Bye Taylor: You’ll recall there was a two-on-one date in the Bayou last week where Taylor got the heave ho, except she wasn’t leaving without one more chance to tell Nick that Corinne was a lying liar. And she did that after interrupting Nick and Corinne (and the producers and camera people) at their intimate dinner and dragging Nick outside. And Nick thanked Taylor for caring about him, then got rid of her and went back to sucking face with Corinne. “What I’m learning today is how cats have nine lives and bitches have two,” said Corinne, which makes zero sense but what the hell, we’ll take it.
The Rose Ceremony: There was no cocktail party since Nick didn’t want to waste anyone’s time by, you know, speaking to women he’d already decided to get rid of. It was so long to Jaimi, Josephine and Alexis. Whitney, who said more words expressing her fear of going home than we’ve heard from her all season, squeaked by with the last rose of the night.
Hello Saint Thomas: It was sun, surf and sand for the two Danielles, Corinne, Rachel, Kristina, Raven, Vanessa, Jasmine and Whitney, at first anyway. Nick got the party started by whisking Kristina off in a seaplane for a one-on-one date. He was looking to get to know Kristina, a dental hygienist who hails from Lexington, Ky., by way of Russia, and so she shared a harrowing tale of being abandoned by her alcoholic mother as a 5- or 6-year-old, spending seven or eight years in an orphanage, then being wrenched away from her de facto family at 12 for a U.S. adoption since it was either that or get booted out of the orphanage at 16 for a likely life of prostitution. Even Nick was crying over the story, as well he should. Kristina got the date rose, natch.
Group Date From Hell: Nick thought it would be fun to take Rachel, Raven, Vanessa, Corinne, Danielle Maltby and Jasmine off to a beach to “just hang out.” Our first clue it was all going to go to crap came when Raven said, “Nothing can go wrong when you’re an island like this.” That’s what they call foreshadowing, folks.
Sure enough, a friendly volleyball game ended in multiple tears. Corinne, who was drunk, left the game and Danielle got mad that Nick was checking up on her. Vanessa and Rachel didn’t want to play volleyball anymore. In fact, Rachel claimed she was ready to go home for good. Jasmine, who was already wound up about going on perpetual group dates, started getting aggressive with Nick, which annoyed Raven.
“If Jasmine was a vegetable she’d be a turnip because she’s turned all the way up,” observed Raven snarkily.
Vanessa, Jasmine and Danielle all ended up off by themselves crying and Nick declared the day a disaster.
Nick tried to salvage the date at the cocktail party. First, he talked Rachel out of leaving; next, he cuddled with Vanessa and Corinne (not at the same time, of course); then he left Raven with a smile on her face.
Jasmine, meanwhile, was complaining pretty much non-stop to the other women about how she’d had no reassurance from Nick and he was a dumbass and she wanted to choke him. So when she finally got some alone time with Nick it went just as well as you would expect, which is to say not well at all.
Jasmine complained that she was being overlooked and she was the “realest person” there and she really liked Nick and she didn’t come to Saint Thomas for a vacation.
“It makes me upset and I want to f—ing choke you so bad,” she said, putting a hand around his neck to demonstrate.
And then she turned on a dime from tears to attempted foreplay.
“I’ll get on top of you and straddle you and be like” — reaching for his neck again — “never had a chokie before? No girl’s ever done that to you? I’ll be the first. Want me to do it right now?”
“No, I’m not into that,” said Nick as Jasmine, laughing, reached for his neck again.
And with that, she choked whatever slim hope she had of lasting another week out of existence. Nick walked her to the SUV of Shame and she was off, still complaining.
Raven got the date rose.
Two-on-One Date: Let’s face it, the chances of either Whitney or Danielle Lombard ending up with Nick were about as great as the chances of me becoming Donald Trump’s press secretary. But on a two-on-one, the person who previously had a one-on-one date holds the upper hand over someone who’s only had group dates, particularly someone who’s had as little screen time as Whitney.
Therefore it seems the only person surprised that Whitney was about to be stranded on a beach was Whitney. No matter how much Nick liked stroking her bare leg — and he seemed to like it a lot — she wasn’t a keeper.
But then again, neither was Danielle.
You could sense it coming when Nick asked her to relive their first date and all she could talk about was the dancing. When she told Nick she was falling in love with him and batted her big lashes at him and he stopped looking her in the eye you knew her goose was cooked. Sure enough, Nick told her he wanted to give her the date rose, “but I feel like in my heart I can’t.”
“I’m sorry and I hope I’m not screwing this all up, sorry,” he said, as a tear slid down his cheek.
Poor Danielle was blaming herself for not being perfect as the SUV of Shame drove away, but Nick was pretty clear that it was him.
“Maybe it’s me that can’t reciprocate the kind of love that she’s so willing and able to give,” he said. “I can’t help but wonder after tonight if the reality is that as much as I want this to work for me that it’s not.”
On that cheery note, Nick surprised the remaining women in their hotel suite where they were still adjusting to the fact that both Whitney and Danielle got sent home.
“After today ended I just kind of felt like I had a new low,” Nick said, crying even harder. “I really want this to work, but I want it to be real and I want it to be right. Right now I just feel terrified that’s not gonna happen. So I don’t know if I can keep doing this. I’ve gotta get going,” he said, exiting as quickly as he arrived and leaving six confused, upset women in his wake.
Next week, expect a lot more tears. And Corinne restores our faith in her ability to turn every situation to her own advantage when she visits Nick in his hotel suite intent on sharing her “top notch” sex abilities.
You can watch Monday at 8 p.m. on OMNI.
You can email me at dyeo@thestar.ca , tweet me @realityeo or visit my Facebook page.
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