Not Haters: GLADIATORS

First things first: let's discuss Clint and JJ. Because I have a theory.

But in order to set the scene, we need to go back to elementary school.

Clint was one of the cool kids. Not to mention probably a fast runner. He definitely came in first when everybody had to run the mile in PE and I bet the ladies thought he was pretty smooth news (SHOUT OUT TO SAWYER MOORE AND DEAN MYERS.)

JJ on the other hand... JJ was most likely what I like to call a Backpack Toucher, in elementary school. Do you remember that kid who would walk down the hall and for WHATEVER REASON would somehow be touching every single backpack as he went by? He was almost kind of leaning against the wall as he dragged his hand down the line? The backpack toucher was the odd duck. Probably also the guy that made your Mom and Dad always say "You just wait till he grows up. I bet he will blossom into a VERY handsome young man and all the girls will want to date him." (Spoiler alert: it NEVER turned out that way for ANY of them)

The backpack touchers were, however, usually pretty smart cookies. You wanted them on your team for the Geography Bee. What they were lacking in charm, they made up with intellect. And they had their little clatch of lunch table friends. So while the Clints of the world had all the attention from the ladies, the JJs of the world had a steady group of meaningful friends. (And just in case you're wondering: neither stereotype has BOTH of those things. It's just a biological impossibility.)

Here's my point: JJ probably never got anything but merciless teasing from the Clints of the world school and Clint probably never got anything but an intellectual inferiority complex from the JJs of the world school. Clint had never had a good friend with whom he could have conversations about how awesome turtles are (is it just me, or were they talking about turtles at one point in the hot tub last week?) and JJ never had the approval of a guy like Clint. So they were not only friends, but they were friends like the other one had never had before, and I think that's why they were so obsessed with each other.

I've no doubt that their romance was a ruse on the part of the producers, but I DO believe that they truly were good friends.

And then in the heat of the moment (when Kaitlyn asked the guys if they had anything to say to Clint before she sent him away in the Honda Element) good ole JJ turned RIGHT back into a Backpack Toucher, and obviously threw his new BFF under the bus. Terrible, horrible, no good, very bad move, but old habits die hard: the socially awkward Backpack Toucher JJ comes out real quick when times get tough.

He very quickly retracted his statement (in the Living Room Peanut Gallery. we first thought that JJ said "I think you should say sorry" to Kaitlyn, which was a shock) and scrambled to make up for it, but Clint wouldn't have it. JJ realized he (quite literally) had just lost the best friend he'd ever had, and was grief-stricken, to put it mildly.

Cocktail party: 


After Kaitlyn had enough fodder from the guys, she pulled Clint aside and called him out for being two-faced. For whatever reason, he then went into a discussion of JJ: “We are best best best best best friends. Very very very very close.”
So glad we got all those qualifiers. I wasn't sure about it all before. 

Kaitlyn got him back on track: “This has nothing to do with JJ.” She continued to tell him that she didn't trust him. Boy had some SMOOTH lines to try and win her over: “I’d love to know what's in the way so I can overcome it. If you don’t want to tell me, it’s fine, but I really wanna know so I can keep working on myself."

Nice one, Clint. 

Blah blah... She sent him home with a very direct "I don't trust you." then JJ COMPLETELY threw him under the bus, Clint went home, JJ cried, slapped himself. we live, we laugh, we learn. No rose ceremony. Rebel Kaitlyn is breaking the rules by keeping ALL the guys this week. One of the poor interns had to scramble to book a couple more plane tickets... 

Ohhhh and even Chris Harrison then breaks the rules when he tells the men that he's not even going to wait until the next morning to tell them to pack their bags for New York.

Quick reminder: Farmer Chris had never been to New York before (or was it Chicago?) on Andi's season. I wonder if any of these men have never ventured to the big city...

Group Date: Rap Battles
Jonathan, Justin, Ben, Ryan, Tanner JJ, Shawn

Sure: the producers probably dreamed of Wiz Khalifa, K'naan, or Busta Rhymes for this rap battle, (Wait, sorry. I don't want to mislead anyone: I have absolutely NO idea who K'naan is, I just know that he did a song with Adam Levine that was a GREAT workout song when I was in college) but alas... The best that the interns could come up with was... Doug E. Fresh.
(It was either that or LL Cool J, but he was filming NCIS: LA)


Mr. Fresh was clearly as loaded as Big Kenny was when he made Jade run down an abandoned street in South Dakota yelling, "FEEL THE FREEDOM, THIS IS DEADWOOD!" but he delivered what was by far and away the best line of the entire episode: “We’re not haters, but gladiators.”


...Russel Crowe was so far ahead of his time.

It was Ben Z vs Tanner, Jonathan vs Ryan, JJ vs Corey, and Justin Vs Shawn. Only two noteworthy quotes: the time that "Florida" was rhymed with "bored 'uh ya," and “I don’t think there’s ever been a rap battle with two guys in khaki pants." The only reason ANY of Kaitlyn's canned rap lines were ok is because they showed her bursting out in laughter after each one. #SelfAware #Kasey #NeverForget

Aaaaand just like that, Nick is in the game. At first I thought he was sitting with Sharleen – MY FAVE, until I realized it was… Kardashley. LRPG member Carolyn observed: “they could’ve had had a better reveal for Nick..." Kaitlyn and Nick met, shook hands, hugged, and made out right off the bat, basically. Apparently this is as dramatic for Kaitlyn as every season of The Bachelor is for Chris Harrison, because she is flipping. out. She and the guys head to a local... boat, and she hashes it out with them. Shawn B raises an interesting question:

Shawn B: Are you looking for more? Or are you confident in what you have here?

Kaitlyn: No, I’m confident. Definitely. I’m confident.

Corey: That didn’t sound very confident…

Corey reminds me of #Kasey. The Santa Anas won't ruin his date, but he definitely isn't sticking around for much longer...

A not-so-confident Kaitlyn disembarks and meets up with Nick, who may or may not have developed hypothermia while waiting on her, using up all his quarters in the tourist telescope. They say maybe five sentences to each other, which brings their grand total to about ten, and he goes in for the kill.

Nick, on kissing Kaitlyn: “That wasn’t… not unfun.”

Double negatives or not, I still don't hate the guy.

Kaitlyn takes the easy way out by insisting that they both need to sleep on it, then gets back on the boat. And this boat is ROCKING. (literally… It’s figuratively rocking, too, but I mean literally I'm getting seasick just watching.)

She gave Justin the group rose because, let's be honest: he was the only one who wasn't openly filled with rage and fury at the thought of Nick joining them. Shawn B looked like he was ready to throw up about it. The longer the discussion and the night went on, the more footage we DIDN'T see of Shawn where he looked like he was capable of NOT throwing up. I'd say he was seasick, but this look continued pretty consistently through every subsequent conversation about Nick.


YAAAAAAS KAITLYN IS GOING TO SEE ASHLEY S....

I do need to take a moment for scolding the producers on the timing set-up, here. We heard Kaitlyn call Nick and tell him she was getting her hair done around 6, so he should meet her... she muttered "see you at three" before getting off the phone, which didn't come back to the LRPG until after we'd spent a good sixty seconds thinking that Ashley had curled and pinned Kaitlyn's hair only to... put it in a messy braid. So obviously she saw Nick THEN Ashley, but it aired in reverse order.

Pomegranates or no, Ashley VERY quickly gets to the point, and we love her for that. When Kaitlyn tells her she had a blazing connection with Nick that was unlike anything she'd ever felt before, Ashley immediately asserted “Well that’s lust.”

#TruthTellers

Quick note: this is by far and away the longest a bachelor or bachelorette has taken to deliberate about a "put-in" contestant. Kacie B lasted what, two episodes on Sean's season? Shawntel lasted about fifteen minutes on Ben's season, and Crazy-Eyed Chris didn't even get through the door to see Andi... Am I missing anyone? Why is this the most dramatic and crazy thing that has EVER happened to Kaitlyn?

To Nick or not to Nick? THE AGONYYYY

I have so very little to say about Jared's date at the Met... Although I have to admit that if it were my first time at the Met, I'd be as un-present as Kaitlyn is. Except my focus would be occupied with Cycladic Harp Players, not "How many feelings will I hurt if I let one dude join a bunch of dudes?" I didn't hate Jared's poem. And I guess the Met doesn't allow concerts of any kind because I was SURE we were going to catch sight of Josh Ratchet, but alas I had to settle for a helicopter ride... (Although aren't we talking about some MEGA breaches of air space, here? Since when can you 'copter that close to Lady Liberty?) 


Group Date: Soaring, tumbling, free-wheeling...
...through and endless diamond sky... 

Just a quick sidenote about the fact that Kaitlyn said she was a "huge" fan of the movie Aladdin: remember that guy Levi that I work with? The one whom I'm always shoving out of the way, in order to present myself as the favorite? There are two photos that I send him on a weekly basis. I used an app in my phone to create them one day because they so specifically capture my tone so much of the time.

This is the first:

I made this second one a while back when I needed him to do me a favor: 

I was SO sure that he wouldn't be able to name that movie that I followed the picture (and my request) with "If you can name the movie that the creepy old man is in, I will have no choice but to marry you."

His response "It's Jafar. Aladdin was my jam back in the day..." 

(I haven't broken the news to Big Daddy, yet)

ANYWAY. Ian, Cupcake, Joe, Joshua, and Ben go to compete for Kaitlyn's heart Broadway.

Let me be clear: there is NOTHING better than Joe on Broadway. Carolyn and I rewound the part where he jumped out of the trap door no less than sixteen times, because of that huge grin on his face- it never got old. 

Assistant Director: “Only one of you will be in the show with Kaitlyn. The rest of you will be going home. I know, it’s harsh. It’s Broadway."

Joe: "We don’t have theatres in Kentucky, are you serious?”
*cue the clip of him jumping out of the trap door... again.

IF JOE ISN'T ON BACHELOR IN PARADISE, I WILL BOYCOTT.
(I won't.) 

Blah blah, Cupcake wins, they give him eyeliner on his lower lids and it looks weird. As they are led through the bowels of Broadway, we learn that one of the dudes in costume backstage signed a release, ready to make his TV debut but the two crew guys clearly did NOT, and their faces are blurred..

Cupcake: Aladdin is a story about a street rat that pursues a princess. I can relate to that. I always puruse the princess.”

Carolyn: Are you... a street rat?

Cupcake somehow thinks that on New Year's Eve, the ball drops from the "center of the universe," which MUST be Times Square... And sure, it's cool that they got to go up there. I'm sure the intern whose Dad owns that building got a lot more points for this find than the intern that secured Doug E. Fresh, but obviously no one bothered to mention to Cupcake that this was not, in fact, the center of the universe... 

Another Cliff Hanger Episode... 
seriously what is UP with that?!
Kaitlyn told the guys that Nick would be moving in. Once more, Shawn looked like he was going to toss his cookies at ANY moment. I loved the welder-love-virgin's speech, followed by a numerical correction from Ian.

Also other things that I am loving: the thought that the producers have to travel with the wicker folding partition and the CB2 candles and fake flora that are in the background of all of these interviews… Do they argue about who checks it as their luggage, or do they make the interns schlep it around? How many seasons can a wicker partition make it through?

And speaking of interns, there is NO way that this music was actually playing in that elevator ride for Nick. You KNOW one of the interns was tasked with finding the worst possible elevator music and he furiously scoured jinglepunks until he came up with what we heard as the soundtrack to that Doorman's Life.

And finally: am I wrong in my strategy to take the doorman as a hostage and make HIM enter the hotel room first, to take any darts or arrows?  No? I'm alone in that one?

WELL I GUESS WE'LL SEE WHOSE PLAN WAS BETTER NEXT WEEK, WON'T WE??