Elyse Watches The Bachelor- Episode Five: The Bowling Ball

I had a great weekend. I went shopping with my best friend. I slept in. I read books. I came home tonight, and had a nice hot shower to relax my muscles. I exfoliated. I moisturized.

And I’m about to undo all that self-care by watching The Bachelor. For those of you just tuning in, walking Dude Wipe and “racecar driver” Arie Luyendyk Jr is this season’s Bachelor. He’s got as much enthusiasm for the show than I do, and that’s saying something. Arie has the soul of a Tylenol PM. I would never compete to marry Arie but I might compete to have him read me a 1990’s local phone book so I can sleep better.

Now, I contend that the women don’t come on this show to get engaged to the Bachelor, but rather to travel the world all expenses paid, drink clear liquors, meet other cool women, and get Instagram famous. No one wants Arie.

Tonight’s episode promises a date on a yacht (what is ABC’s yacht budget?) and more drama from this season’s “villain” Krystal.

On with the show…

The show opens with the women riding bikes through Ft Lauderdale, clearly having a great time… sans Arie. Then he shows up and ruins everything by taking Chelsea on a one-on-one date. They go out on a yacht, which begs the question: if they make it into international waters and Chelsea kills him, who has jurisdiction?

The yacht doesn’t actually go anywhere, as it turns out, so Arie and Chelsea stay in port and jet ski around. The other contestants watch them through a conveniently placed telescope from their hotel suite’s patio.

Oh, hey! Maquel is back! Remember how her grandpa died last episode and ABC shamelessly exploited it? I wish her all the finest travel and chardonnay, goddamnit.

Cut to the dinner where Chelsea and Arie aren’t allowed to eat.

Chelsea has one of those big wine glasses that you’re only supposed to fill a quarter of the way, and the girl has it fucking filled to the brim. There’s half a bottle of wine in that glass. I love her so much.

Chelsea tells Arie that she was married to a successful man who was a little bit older than her. They were together for seven years before they separated, he remarried and started another family. It’s clearly very hard for Chelsea to talk about it.

“I was left with, literally, my belongings in trash bags,” she says tearfully.

Arie, always helpful says, “God, that must be like so tough for you.”

Then Chelsea reflects that she’s still in a good space because she has her son who is healthy and happy.

Arie replies with, “Yeah.”

Does he offer her anything in return for her being vulnerable? A story about how he too has been hurt?

No.

Arie gives Chelsea a rose and they slow dance to a country singer who just happens to wander in.

Then it’s time for the next group date. So where does Arie take the women while in beautiful Ft Lauderdale? He takes them…bowling.

I am betting this date was Arie’s idea. He’s wearing a bowling shirt with his name embroidered on it and I 100% guarantee that Arie owns that shirt. He brought it with him just hoping for a bowling date. The only thing Arie likes more than bowling is eating plain crackers.

He divides the women into teams because this show is all about competition. The winning team gets to go to the after party. The losing team has to go back to the hotel.

Also, if you need another reason to not kiss Arie, I’m like 97% sure he licks a bowling ball.

I’m not making that up.

I almost SCREAMED. I want to pour hand sanitizer DIRECTLY INTO HIS MOUTH.

Oh, God.

I don’t think the women saw that. They’re going to kiss him.

Oh God.

I want to cry.

I found a picture of it but I’m putting it in spoiler brackets because it’s Very Upsetting.

I don’t understand why this is happening. I’m a good person. I don’t deserve this. Maybe I’m hallucinating. Maybe I’m just having a little stroke, is all.

I click over to Twitter where people are losing their damn minds.

Nope.

He licked a bowling ball. I’m so upset right now. Whoever wins this shitty contest is going to spend the rest of their fake engagement following Arie around, stopping him from licking things like he’s a goddamn toddler.

We had a dog once, who was very sweet but profoundly dumb, this gassy little Boston Terrier named Reggie who would lick stuff when he was nervous. Walls. Furniture. He also ate hair off the floor and snotty tissues. But then the vet told us to buy a lavender collar to soothe him and it helped and…has anyone taken Arie to the vet lately? Maybe he needs an aromatherapy collar.

Oh, God.

I think, to preserve my sanity, my brain has gone into some kind of fugue state because suddenly I’m calm and I can move on.

Krystal pulls her team together beforehand for a prayer circle, “And I want to ask for Wayne and Chucky to be our angels and to guide us through a very strong win to the end.”

“Who are Wayne and Chucky?” Jacqueline asks.

“My dogs!” Krystal says like its obvious.

Look, I generally refrain from poking fun at the women on this show because ABC is being exploitative enough without my shitty comments, but I’m legitimately confused about what’s going on with Krystal.

I get her strategy. The villain on this show is basically guaranteed a ride to almost the end because everyone wants to see her kicked off, so the producers keep her on to get ratings. So she gets the sweet spot–optimium free travel and booze without the risk of having to get fake-engaged to Arie at the end.

That said, Krystal ranks right up there among “contestants I’m actually legimately concerned about” with Tierra from Sean Lowe’s season. To put it in perspective, Tierra once crouched IN THE DARK, rocking back and forth muttering to herself, in the pool/ hot tub room of a hotel so she could watch Sean make out with another woman.

Even though Krystal’s team (thanks to Wayne and Chucky) win the bowling competition, Arie is in Ultimate Boring mode and declares that everyone gets to go to the after party because everyone tried super hard.

Then a Black Panther commercial comes on and it will honestly be the best thing about this two hours of TV that I will see. The second best thing was the Ambien commercial. That’s what I’m working with here.

Then we’re back and Krystal is having a melt down. She calls Arie a liar for changing his mind on the rules of the bowling tournament. Back at the hotel she changes into robe and informs everyone that she’s boycotting the after party.

Kendall is confused. “If you’re so upset about not getting time with him, why are you not taking the time with him now? It seems a little contradictory.”

BECAUSE SHE JUST WANTS TO PUT ON YOGA PANTS AND WATCH SOME INVESTIGATION DISCOVERY, KENDALL, OK?

Krystal says, “The thing I look for in a partner, I want someone to include me in decisions.” Then she adds. “All my stuff is packed.”

Everyone makes their way to a Drinking Couch (thanks Sarah!) and Arie asks where she is. The other women tell him that Krystal accused him of being a liar.

Poor Arie. “I’m just trying to have fun and bowl,” he says. He decides he needs to “check on” Krystal. As he walks away Bekah M seems delighted, thinking that Krystal is going to be sent home and that she’s finally gotten her comeuppance.

It’s now that I realize Krystal is indeed a master strategist. She’s going to sail outta this thing just before the Fantasy Suites. She didn’t get one-on-one time with Arie so she had a tantrum about not getting one-one-one time with Arie thereby guaranteeing one-one-one time with Arie.

This woman needs to be on Game of Thrones.

Arie sits Krystal down and explains, “It’s just bowling.”

“It’s more than that,” Krystal insists.  “I just feel open and deep and raw and vulnerable with you, and I feel like I don’t know anything about you, and I wanna have you like let me in.”

“You know more than anyone here,” Arie says.

“I know but I like need more,” Krystal says.

“I know that you need to know more about me,” Arie tells her. “If you were downstairs we’d have some more time to talk about it, but instead you’re up here. This is exactly what couples can’t do, is run away from their problems. This is what I’m trying to get at. Small things in this environment can turn into really big things outside of it. And when this stuff happens it causes a lot of disruption in our relationship and it also makes me pull back.”

This is the most animated I’ve seen Arie. I’m thinking that he picked up some kind of parasite from licking that bowling ball and nows it’s slowly taking over his brain. It’s some kind of Lovecraftian Elder Creature that thought it was taking over a human host it could use to destroy our world, and instead it got Arie.

Arie storms off and tells Krystal he’ll see her in a few days.

Then Arie goes back downstairs and makes out with some of the women and I’m gagging because HE LICKED A BOWLING BALL. STOP. Aren’t the producers obligated to stop this if they believe the women are in danger?

OMG.

OMG.

Then we get a commercial and in an epic fail, ABC spoils their own show. They’ve been hyping up the whole “will he get rid of Krystal?!!” thing except they show Krystal in the preview for next week.

After all of this, Lauren B (I’ve completely lost count of the Laurens now) gets the group date rose.

So a moment of honesty here. I’ve made it through a season and half of this, and it’s at this point that I almost break. I almost message Sarah and say, “I can’t do this anymore. I’m not strong enough. I’m sorry.”

Because I can’t stop thinking about Arie licking that bowling ball.

It’s burned into my mind.

I keep thinking about it. And I have that feeling in the back of my throat where I might just start crying at any second. Like I’m holding on, but there’s that burning lump there that I’m swallowing around, and at the smallest trigger I’m going sob “B-B-BOWLING BALL.”

So I pause the show. I get up. I drink a cold glass of water. I hug Dewey for awhile. I do some stretches.

Okay. I can do this. I am serene. I will not think of It.

The next day (please Jesus tell me Arie brushed his teeth) Arie takes Tia on a date to the Everglades. They pass some alligators and I have to wonder who would have the most bacterial flora in their teeth: Arie or the alligator?

They stop at a house built in the middle of the Everglades. It’s a cool house and the owner is obviously super proud to show it off. He serves them catfish, frog legs and deep fried corn on the cob.

Then we get the dinner where they aren’t allowed to eat and Arie kind of starts opening up. Except everything he says in baffling.

“I don’t know if there’s a higher power leading me,” Arie tells Tia (his emphasis not mine). “I feel like I make my own destiny. And I think the reason that I struggle with it is that I am in a sport and I have lost a lot of friends. So like, there’s a lot of questions there around like, why?”

“…Yeah,” Tia says, brushing her hair out of her face.

Okay whatever bacteria he got off the bowling ball, it’s in the phase where it’s eating his brain now for sure.

Tia tells Arie she’s falling in love with him and he gives her a rose.

Then we’re on to the cocktail party that precedes The Dreaded Rose Ceremony. Some of the women, most notably Bekah M, point out that Krystal sulked in her room all day.

Krystal replies, “I was not hiding in my room. I was investing in myself.”

OMG. I love that. I was not reading, unshowered, in the same clothes and makeup from yesterday with a bag of Milano cookies on my chest. I WAS INVESTING IN MYSELF.

Krystal tells “the girls” that she wants to talk to them. She says she doesn’t want to be attacked in a group setting, but she’s happy to discuss what happened the previous day privately. While the camera watches. That kind of privately.

Kendall takes her up on this offer and basically says, So what the hell?

Krystal says, “I was very upset. And there was a slew of emotions I was reliving. Like some extreme pain bodies that were triggered with Arie when he took back his word.”

What’s an extreme pain body? Other than, like, my body on a semi-regular basis? I just Googled it and Krystal either has influenza or fibromyalgia.

Almost all of the women take one-on-one time with Krystal which actually suggests that they are invested in what’s going on with her.

So then it gets weirder.

I KNOW.

Krystal gets some one-on-one time with Arie and tries to explain her behavior after the bowling date.

Krystal says, “While I was there I was having a flood of kind of my emotions from my childhood. I grew up in a bowling alley. Like my mom worked in a bowling alley all my childhood and so…kinda reliving those memories, and my relationship on trust. Men that my mom, like, dated would come into our lives, would give her these promises and not follow through. And it left my mom really broken and unable to be there for us. So that’s why, like, having trust and so many…and were like…and I …” She looks away for a good five seconds. “It holds a lot of merit for me.”

I was not expecting “I grew up in a bowling alley” to be part of Krystal’s defense.

It’s weird because in these tense moments with Krystal, Arie changes almost completely. He stops being a partially anesthetized drone body and some personality shows up. Arie looks like he wants to nope out of this conversation SO BADLY. He’s really obviously not buying what she’s selling, he’s irritated, and I get the impression that he’s not at all happy with the fact that he’s being asked to play along with the drama.

“I think I made it clear during that little talk, I said I’m not taking time away from you, I’m adding time to the night,” Arie tells her. “And you didn’t know if I had anything planned for you. I feel like that wasn’t the correct response, you know. If you think this is hard, after this is twice as hard. This is a very small part of our lives, leading to the rest of our lives.”

“This is, like, our first fight!” Krystal says cheerfully.

“It could be our last fight,” Arie replies.

Then it’s time for The Dreaded Rose Ceremony. We haven’t seen Chris Harrison once this episode until now, and I can only assume he’s been doing the rose god’s dark bidding.

Thanks to ABC’s great editing, we know Krystal makes it through. Marikh, Ashley and Maquel all go home.

So tonight was super upsetting. I’m going to dream about I’m sure.

Are you still watching?