So that was rough, huh?
This has been quite a journey, and after
watching over 20 hours of footage of Juan Pablo’s quest for love, I have no
clue what the hell just happened. All I know is that if I were Nikki, I
would have knifed myself in the green room after last night.
The red flags were there all along, and JP’s
family only confirmed all of our suspicions. In an unprecedented couple
of family visits, Juan’s parents, brothers, sisters, cousins and whoever else
he brought to St. Lucia did everything they could except literally yell “RUN,
BITCH, RUN” to Clare and Nikki. His mother basically called him an
asshole, explaining that he’s rude and mostly just watches TV all weekend
instead of playing with his daughter, his dad called him a selfish know-it-all
and Rodolfo (who is either a brother, a cousin or a friend), while attempting
to play the Chris Harrison role for the day, all but said that Juan Pablo would
flee at the first sign of trouble. Apparently the most sought after
characteristic in a mate for Juan Pablo was “how much are you willing to fight
to stay in a relationship with him when he tries to break up with you?”
Luckily, budding rocket scientists Clare and Nikki took these words under
consideration and somehow twisted them in their heads to be positive
attributes, and claimed that the visits only reinforced how great they feel
about old JP.
By the way, is it just me, or was that a
really weird moment between Clare and JP’s dad? Did he invite her into
his marriage?
Anyways, after the home visits were done,
Juan Pablo let us know exactly where he stood, in that he felt good about both
girls, and would like to keep them both around, which is precisely where any guy
should be two days before potentially proposing to a woman.
Still, there was time for one last date with
the ladies, each of which went incredibly well and helped Juan Pablo open up
at the most critical time were complete trainwrecks. Clare was
treated to a helicopter ride over St. Lucia, and as the ride ended and there
were no cameras around, Juan Pablo leaned over and whispered in her ear in his
most sensual tone, “I don’t really know you, and you don’t really know me, but
I love f*cking you.” Please note that this transcription may not be 100%
accurate, but I’ve stretched my powers of deduction to their capacity and I’m
pretty sure that’s what went down. Clare was pretty upset, though
seemingly only after the daylight portion of their date ended. Come
nightfall, she was ready to stand up for herself! I mean, she wouldn’t
even give him besitos when he walked in! Clare is pissed because she
thinks he means that he only wants her for her body, so he responds with a very
believable “I don’t even need the physical side!” Very believable.
Just when it looks like Clare is about to impress us all and walk out, Juan
Pablo says, “This is very hard,” and Clare says, “Stop, that’s all I needed to
hear.” He turns on a song on his phone (what, ABC can’t spring for a
docking station here? We have to listen to some shitty iPhone speaker?) by
everyone’s favorite singer-songwriter Josh Kracjik, and the live studio
audience lets out a collective sigh. Seriously, they did. We could
hear it.
Nikki’s date wasn’t a whole lot better.
She was convinced that this would be the date where Juan Pablo pours his heart
out and tells her he loves her instead of just making small talk interspersed
with make-outs. Nikki likes to go on and on in her interviews talking
about how she doesn’t know how Juan feels and she wants him to tell her, which
is most likely because he still has no idea how he feels about her.
Again, this is like one day before a possible proposal. Might want to
figure that out. As they lay on the beach, Nikki asks him what life will
be like after they get off the island, and Juan’s all, “Oh I’ll probably just
watch TV in bed alone all day,” which is a cool thing to say. I get the
feeling that Nikki is not going to really enjoy life off the island.
Near the end of the night, Nikki gives Juan Pablo a card expressing all of her
emotions and telling him how much he loves her, to which JP responds with a
“thank you” and a peck on the forehead. I hated how this whole experience
made me feel like I was the one awkwardly dating someone. She goes on and
on about how she knows she’s in love with him, can’t find the right time to
tell him, and then she has the brilliant idea – I know, I’ll write it in a
card! When Juan left and Nikki sat on the couch crying, the camera was on her
for such an uncomfortably long time that I was sure for a second there that he
was going to surprise us all and burst back in, but I guess Chris Harrison just
needed a few extra seconds to get in place.
Then, it was finally time for JP to give away
the final rose and – hey, wait a minute. Where the hell is Neil
Lane? Was he the only person smart enough to refuse to share a screen
with Juan Pablo, or did he just end up on the cutting room floor. And
where was that final Juan-on-Juan with Chris Harrison about his difficult
choice? We need answers!
Well, Neil Lane or no, the show must go on,
so after carefully doing her hair and make-up, Clare was placed on a speedboat
through the water, excited to finally hear those special words from her future
husband. Those words? “I wish the earth sucked me today.” Is
“earth” Spanish for “Clare”? We watched Clare’s face fall as she slowly
realized the implication of that jumble of words and her smile quickly
disappeared. She rejected JP’s hug, and straight up tore into him.
Now, I get that she’s pissed that he didn’t pick her, but has she never seen
this show before? Did she not see when Ashley the idiot allowed Ben Flajnik
to propose to her before dumping him? Does she not get that this
last scene is the climax of the entire season, and he’s probably not going to
spare you the humiliation by letting you go the night before? So it was
dumb, but it at least gave us this
moment.
After Clare ran into Chris Harrison’s strong,
comforting arms for support, it was Nikki’s turn. I think it became
fairly clear at some point during this season that JP just kind of showed up
for the opportunity to hook up with a bunch of desperate women and then
eventually choose the one he thought would make him look best, so Nikki pretty
much locked this one up by not arguing with or challenging Juan at any
point. The foundation of a lasting relationship. The whole
conversation was so romantic, and Juan Pablo was finally able to profess his
love for the woman he had been developing a relationship with for 3 months, and
even though he has to think about his young daughter, and wasn’t quite ready
for a proposal, he knows that he cares about her. Hold on, that’s not
what happened? He told her he had a ring in his pocket but wasn’t going
to use it? And he didn’t tell her he loved her, but just that he likes
her a lot? And then another, “I like YOU *wink* a lot”? And then he
told her not to get cranky? Oh, okay then. Also, pretty great
juxtaposition between him telling Nikki how much he loved her honesty, and then
her clear disappointment and anger after not being proposed to that she just
suppressed down in a dark deep place, together with the memories of the uncle
that touched her.
We move right along to After the Final Rose,
where Chris Harrison is really going to break it down and help us figure out
where everyone stands. After Clare refuses to have a face-to-face
conversation with Juan Pablo (probably a good idea), Juan Pablo hits the stage
to only a small smattering of applause from the audience. He tries to get
the audience on his side by talking about how it’s been a hard few weeks because
of the situation in Venezuela and, who does he think he is? Jared
Leto? Sorry JP, you’re not getting us back that easily. He quickly
realizes that he’s created a pretty hostile environment for himself, between
the audience, Chris Harrison, Sean, Catherine and the rest of the Bachelor
cast-offs that showed up for a little camera time. At one point,
Juan Pablo swiped at Chris for interrupting him when he started to go off on a
tangent about internet commenters, and that’s when he lost us all. There
is only one rule in the Bachelor universe, and it is that you DO NOT snap at
Chris Harrison.
So yeah, we all hate Juan Pablo, but then
Nikki comes out and she’s all happy and whatever, but then we quickly find out
that Juan Pablo still has not told her that he loves her. Please
note that, at this point, it has been four months since the show ended, meaning
that she told him that she loved him over four months ago and he has just left
it hanging out there. That is awkward. Chris Harrison is really
working to drive that point home, and Nikki is trying to rationalize it to
herself and to all of us at the same time, explaining that he doesn’t say it,
but he shows it, and that she doesn’t feel the need to force the issue.
Nikki, honey? You might want to reconsider that stance. You look
like an idiot out there. Chris Harrison was literally begging for Juan
Pablo to just indicate the possibility of love, and he got consistently
stonewalled.
Juan Pablo came back out for the joint
interview, and it was an incredibly mortifying fifteen minutes of basically
everyone in the room being like, what the fuck is wrong with you?
Apparently Juan Pablo does not understand that when you go on a wildly popular
TV show on national television to find love, people are interested in the
outcome and you can’t suddenly just retreat into private life. Just ask
Sean, who was forced to lose his virginity on camera while Chris Harrison
pointed a loaded gun at his head! Also, how about that time that Chris
called out Juan Pablo for insinuating to the producers that he would propose on
the after-show and Juan just played dumb (his strong suit)? Man, it must
suck to be Nikki right now. The guy she is supposedly in love with just
spent two hours denying that he even cares about her. I guess there’s no
winners in this game, which I can say with great confidence, now that I have
devoted an additional 20 hours of my life to writing these recaps.
Time is a flat circle, and before you know
it, it will be time for Andi to prosecute her way into our gang of
hearts. Until then, besitos to you all.
