"I don't think I can picture a better place to die."

Hometowns!  The week where the four remaining girls make their familys (who did not sign up for this) be on tv and meet their boyfriend who has three other girlfriends.

I really have nothing snarky to say about Amanda here.

Amanda's up first, where she gets to see her kids for the first time since this "journey" began, and they all play on the beach with Ben.  Other than Kinsley and Charlie's totally inappropriate beach footwear, it's actually pretty adorable and Ben is super sweet with them all.  They then drive to Amanda's house with Charlie crying in the back seat.  Ben looks a little deer-in-headlights as he goes in to meet the family.  They all have concerns about Ben being ready to be an instadad, but all the conversations go pretty smoothly.

WHISKEY

From the OC, we go up to Portland (the City of Roses, we learn) to meet up with Lauren B.  They eat greasy food at food trucks and then go to a whiskey library where they had a conversation or something but all I could focus on was the fact that they weren't drinking any whiskey.  And then when they finally showed them with glasses, they got up to leave and left mostly full glasses behind.  I mean, come on guys!  All the fancy whiskey in the world that ABC was paying for, and you had two sips?  Anyway, Let's move on and meet Lauren B.'s family.

Lauren B.'s, or "LoLo's," sister Molly is the star of this hometown visit.  She tells Ben she "doesn't want to grill him or be the mean sister" then lists all the reasons Lauren is amazing and asks Ben, "but why do you like her?"  Ben tears up at this and Molly is sold.  A man is crying!  It must be true love!  Lauren gushes about Ben to her dad who responds, "nobody's perfect," and tries to bring a little realism into her life.  Nice try, dad, but LoLo went on tv to fall in love, and realism has no place on reality shows.

Nothing says love like coloring.

From Oregon, we head to Ohio, where Caila's parents live.  Caila's dad owns a toy factory, so Ben and Caila build a house together.  A plastic, toy house, but still.  And because that wasn't totally over-the-top, Ben carries Caila out of the factory at the end of the day while factory workers clap.

Next we meet Caila's mom, dad, and brother for some delicious looking Filipino food.  Caila's dad has a speech about how if you marry Caila, you marry into a Filipino culture as well, because that's what he did too, and segues into "marriage is important and a vow blah blah blah."  Caila has a chat with her dad and whispers "Daddy, I know this is it," and he responded, but all I got from the rest of their exchange is that her dad was wearing orange pants.

In which JoJo's mom becomes my spirit animal.

Last, but not least, we head to Dallas where JoJo arrives home to a dozen red roses.  She obviously thinks their from Ben and excitedly opens the letter which reveals they're actually from her ex, Chad.  JoJo, you should have realized they weren't from Ben- he can't just dole out roses uninhibitedly!  There are still some rules!  Also, "Chad?" Really? We're supposed to pretend he's real?  Anyway, she calls Chad to say WTF and Ben shows up to an emotionally distraught JoJo.  He's pretty uncomfortable at first, but is soothed when he hears JoJo called Chad to say it was over.

No fun Texas hometown activity, they go straight to JoJo's family mansion and into Ben's personal hell.  JoJo's parents are pretty ok with Ben and welcoming.  JoJo's mom encourages JoJo with "You're not going to get hurt.  You're beautiful!" as if that's how it works.  JoJo's brothers, on the other hand, are waaaaaay too attached to JoJo and make their best effort to lose the show for JoJo.  Ben (JoJo's brother Ben) tells Ben (the Bachelor Ben) that he's brainwashing the girls and needs to back off.  To be fair, Brother Ben was also on a reality show to "find love," and maybe he was a manipulative douchebag on the show and believes all men who are in that situation probably act the same way.  JoJo mysteriously gone, her whole family hangs with Ben in the kitchen while her brothers continue to berate him.  Mom takes a swig straight from the champagne bottle and Dad tries to defuse the situation.   All in all, not a great homecoming.

Rose ceremony time.  Lauren B., Caila, and JoJo get roses, and Ben has to explain to Amanda why he made her leave her kids again just to get heartbroken.  Ben is actually pretty broken up about this, and cries in the courtyard for a depressing end to this episode.

You and me both, Ben,

So thank goodness for the credits!  We get to see Lauren B.'s little brothers try to grill Ben by asking about the fantasy suite.  Ben takes a few gulps of wine and tries to say something about sex by trying to not say anything about sex.  It's sufficiently awkward.

Lost this week:
Amanda, who despite her questionable fashion choice for this episode, really does seem like a good mom.

"I'm still #TeamBen"

Week 7 brings us to Ben's hometown of Warsaw, IN.  It is decidedly more happening than Arlington, IA, where Chris took the girls last year.  Ben starts off by meeting his parents in a diner and telling them about his last six ladies.  They look pretty unconvinced about the whole process.

The final six.

The girls are totally naturally walking in a classic autumn scene and oh look!  Piles of leaves!  Let's have a leaf fight!  This was totally not staged.  Also totally not staged was their surprise when Ben picked them up on a boat while they were conveniently standing on a dock.  Ben takes them to their home for the week and then asks Lauren B. to join him on a date after making joke about his parents having sex.

Lauren B. gets a tour of Ben's old haunts: his high school, his church, the movie theater (now hotel) where he had his first kiss.  And lucky us, we get to hear that story.  "I want to kiss you but I don't know how," Ben said at age 13 to land his first kiss, and again at age 26 to land one with Lauren B. Next they go to the Baker Youth Club where Ben used to work.  Ben is really good with kids and Lauren B. ate it all up.  They jump rope, play ball, girls giggle, and Ronnie the Half Court King sinks a shot, forcing Ben to kiss Lauren B. in front of 100 kids.  Then, surprise! Ben invites the Indiana Pacers to hang with the kids.  Ben consoles a crying kid and it's adorable.

Here kids, watch these people you just met kiss.

Ben and Lauren B.'s evening portion consists of resolving the non-existent issues that Leah brought up last week.  Then they go to Ben's favorite dive bar and take shots with a group of people who may or may not be Ben's friends.

JoJo gets the next one-on-one and the other girls pout.  Because they've clearly exhausted anything interesting in Indiana, Ben and JoJo go to Wrigley Field in Chicago and wear Mr. and Mrs. Higgens jerseys, roll around in the grass, and "eat" dinner on a tiny table in the field.  JoJo shares her fears with Ben, Ben says some articulate and comforting things and suddenly JoJo isn't scared anymore.

I would actually love this date.  Except at the Giant's ballpark,
and the jersey would have my name.

The last group date of the season has Becca, Amanda, and Caila playing in boats and with kites.  They all talk to Ben: Amanda wants to squeeze her kids, Caila thinks she's moss, and Becca is concerned about Ben being at the same place in their relationship as she is.  Ben gives Amanda a rose and whisks her off.  Becca and Caila look like they could kill someone.

They shouldn't feel too bad, because Ben takes Amanda to McDonald's in the worst product-placement date ever.  Ben exclaims he's always wanted to go behind the counter, so Ben and Amanda work the drive-thru before feeding each other greasy fries. At least Ben takes Amanda to a Carnival afterwards which looked like actual fun.

Attempting to romanticize minimum wage.

Last but not least, Emily gets a one-on-one.  Ben takes her home to meet his parents.  She babbles uncontrollably to Mother Higgens who looks slightly horrified at the prospect of her son marrying a wannabe NFL cheerleader.  She informs Father Higgens that she likes movies and hates vegetables.  They are all quite nice to her and Ben's parents are very diplomatic in talking about her.

Ben takes Emily back across the lake and breaks up with her while the other girls peer out the window and watch.  They console crying Emily who then gives a surprising sane exit interview after that word vomit of a date with Ben's parents.

Is Lauren B. trying to console her or put her out of her misery?

Dramatic music brings us into the rose ceremony and Ben doesn't know what to do.  Good ol' Chris Harrison, psychologist, to the rescue.  He asks Ben who maybe doesn't seem like good wife material and Ben makes up his mind.  Ben does exactly what Becca asked him not to do the day before: blindside her by not giving her a rose.

Chris Harrison, earning his paycheck.

Girls sent home, but not to hometowns:
Emily, who loves ducks because she never sees them in Vegas,
and Becca, who will have to forgo sex a little longer.

"I want to talk smart things."

We start this episode pre-Mexico City rose ceremony when Ben pulls Olivia away to chat.
"Why do all the girls hate you?" he asks.
"I'm too smart and don't like painting my nails" Olivia responds.
Ben is skeptical, but he doesn't rescind the group date rose, and instead, Jennifer, a brunette, goes home.

Ben tells the remaining ladies they're headed to the Bahamas!  Upon arriving and squealing about their new hotel rooms, Chris Harrison makes an appearance with the first date card (a one-on-one for Caila) and to inform them there will also be a dreaded two-on-one this week.

Caila's one-on-one basically became a background montage to the beginning of the end of Leah.  Remember Leah?  Me neither because she was the "who's that?" of every rose ceremony so far.  But not today.  Today Leah is sad because she's the only one who hasn't gotten real alone time with Ben and now Caila gets a SECOND one-on-one.  Leah cries and and we see Ben and Caila kiss some fish and jump off a yacht holding hands.

Leah's sobfest over for now, we get to see Ben and Caila's evening chat.  Ben's concerned because Caila smiles too much and basically asks her to cry for him.  Caila has a confusing monologue about how she feels like she loves him but feels confused and feels afraid of hurting him and feels understood and feels like she understands him and the audiences feels like she's speaking a different language because no one knows what happened.  Ben says he's confused but also thinks "it's almost attractive that Caila can be confused" so she gets the rose.

"This is like a bar in Dallas.  There's pigs everywhere" -JoJo

On to the group date!  Ben takes them on a boat and they do shots and drink and then surprise!  There are pigs in the ocean!  Ben pulls out a bucket of hot dogs because feeding pigs meat while swimming in their filth seems like a stellar date idea (I know, I know, pigs are really clean, but I'm pretty sure they don't pointedly get out of the water and away from the beach to poop).  Ben thinks every one is having a blast while the girls do a lot of screaming and running.  The pigs seem to have eaten all the hot dogs and get bored with the ladies, so Ben starts making his rounds to chat with the girls, but everyone's acting super awkward because they are all dating the same guy and all see his obvious connection with Lauren B.  Leah confronts Ben about not picking her for the one-on-one after complaining to all the other girls about it first.  Ben, in nice Ben fashion, seems to soothe her fears.  For now.

Back at the mansion, Emily calls her twin to bitch about Olivia, again, while Olivia bitches about how young Emily is (they are the same age).

In the evening portion of the group date, Ben tries to smooth over the awkwardness of the day, and Leah tries to throw Lauren B. under the bus.  Ben asks Lauren B. why someone would say she acts differently with the girls and Lauren B. gets really upset as well as us viewers because she's seemed so sweet all along.  The other girls ask what's wrong when it's apparent Lauren B. is upset, and Leah straight up lies about bringing Lauren B. up with Ben.  Amanda gets the group date rose for no other reason than we all forgot she was there.

Later, after the date, Leah sneaks off to see Ben.  "I'm not here to sabotage someone," Leah says before trying to sabotage Lauren B. by telling  Ben that Lauren B. is malicious and catty.  Ben doesn't take the bait and sends Leah packing.  And that's the end of probably the shortest lived villain in Bachelor history.

Deep intellects have no place on this show, Olivia.
And by "deep intellects," I mean "love languages." 

And now t's time for what we've all been waiting for: Olivia and Emily's two-on-one!  "Two women, one rose.  One stays, one goes." is what Chris Harrison's imaginative card reads.  Ben picks them up on, wait for it, a boat!  They go to an island where Olivia tells Ben deep intellectual stuff is her jam and that she's in love with him.  Emily babbles about how excited she is for their journey to start and everyone thinks she's going home even though everyone also wants Olivia gone SO BAD.

Ben then takes the rose and asks Olivia to walk with him.  Ben gives a speech about how he can't reciprocate the "I love you" feelings Olivia expressed and walks back to Emily with the rose.  They boat off, and Olivia is deserted on an island in what looks to be the start of a hurricane.  Everyone everywhere cheers and it's almost more satisfying than Farmer Chris leaving Kardashley and Kelsey in the Badlands last year.  Almost.

Time for the cocktail party.  Wait, Ben cancels the cocktail party and heads straight for the rose ceremony!  Gasp!  Drama!  Except not really, because in every season ever, once things get serious, the Bachelor/Bachelorette always cancels at least one cocktail party.  Anyway, everyone gets a rose except Lauren H., who is beautiful and wonderful and a teacher, and girl, you are going to do fine back in the real world.

Girls we said goodbye to in the last couple of weeks (since the to be continued threw everything off):
Jubilee, aka #JubileeforBachelorette! Let's get diverse with the leads already and also, Jubilee is literally a hero;
Jennifer, who it's unclear if Ben and her had even met yet,
Leah, who tried to get rid of Lauren B and it backfired enormously,
Olivia, who really only had herself to blame because she was living in "Olivia world" where Ben and her were already married;
and Lauren H., so now no one needs a last initial anymore.

In which no one has salt with their tequila shots

(At least they had limes.)

This week, Ben and his 11 girlfriends headed to Mexico City.
*cue dramatic Mexican-ish music*

Olivia starts off strong, talking about how Ben validates her, and how they have a "love language" and how she should get the one-on-one date.  She doesn't get one though.  Amanda, the single mom, gets the first date in Mexico, leading Olivia on a mom-bashing rant about how she knows what Ben wants, and it's not moms.

If you didn't think waking the girls up isn't the creepiest
gimmick on The Bachelor, just look at Ben's face.

On to the date!  To start the date, Ben decides to wake all of the girls up at 4:30 am.  All the girls freak out about how they look in the morning and how unfair it is that Amanda looks flawless right out of bed.  Olivia is afraid Ben will smell her "dragon breath" and Lauren H. is shy about her retainer (to which Ben says, "I sleep with a retainer too, don't worry").  Ben of course thinks "they all looked beautiful today, without hair, without make-up," since we all know girls don't have hair when they sleep.  After unnecessarily waking everyone up from their beauty sleep, Ben takes Amanda on a hot air balloon ride to a picnic.   Ben is suddenly an expert on the various pyramids they fly over and for once the girl doesn't squeal about being afraid of heights.  Later, at dinner, Amanda opens up about her jerk of an ex-husband, earning her a rose.

The group date sends Ben and the girls to Spanish Class.  The teacher has Ben tell them individually, but in front of the rest of the girls, that he loves them and wants to kiss them in Spanish.  This makes Jubilee really uncomfortable and when it's her turn, she tells Ben he already said that to other girls.  Olivia takes a different approach because even though she just watched Ben profess his love and devotion to eight other women, when he said it to her, there was "electriciTAY."

Next, they head to a market/restaurant and pair off to buy ingredients and cook fancy Mexican food.  Because, as we all know, "if you know how to cook, you're ready to get married."  Olivia, yet again, swoops in on Ben and forces him to be her partner and also to eat crickets.

Emily is everyone's internal monologue this episode in regard to Olivia

Tensions are still high going into the evening portion.  Jubilee is not handling this date-a-guy-who-has-ten-other-girlfriends thing well.  Jubilee tells Ben how difficult things are and how it's hard being overshadowed.  Ben is hurt because Jubilee wouldn't hold his hand.  Long story shot, Ben sends Jubilee home.  He goes back and, to everyone's chagrin, Olivia gets the group date rose.  Olivia graciously lets them know they don't have to congratulate her.

Group date number two takes Ben and Lauren H. to a poncho shop where they get to talk to the designer who just happens to want to invite them to a fashion show that happens to be this evening as his guests!  And surprise!  Not only do they get to go behind the scenes, Ben and Lauren H. get to be models!  Lauren H. is pretty intimidated, and I don't blame her.  Ben gives her a pep talk, they crush it, and then take tequila shots out of plastic cups.  Dinner time conversation reveals that Amanda's not the only one with a cheating ex.  Ben just loves these stories and gives Lauren H. a rose.  Then they get a private concert!  Sort of.  It's a harpist on the street, but they are his only spectators and make-out while he performs, so same difference.

The cocktail party brings DRAMA and we're set up for the most DRAMATIC episode EVER next week!  The girls are asking Amanda about her daughters and if her shitty ex gets to see them and Olivia thinks it's a good time to share her bad taste in TV by stating "I feel like it's an episode of teen mom."  The girls all take offense at this and Emily decides she has to do something and tells Ben how mean Olivia is and cries.  She then calls her twin and cries to her about how Olivia's the worst, which she kind of is.  Surprisingly, unlike in every season before, Ben doesn't get rid of the snitch (yet), but says "if someone's causing Emily pain, she's not the woman for me."  Ben is concerned, and the rest of the girls corroborate Emily's "Olivia's a bitch" story.

It's rose ceremony time, but first, Ben wants to talk to Olivia.  The girls looked surprised but hope he breaks the rules and takes away her rose.  Then we get our first, and hopefully our last, "To Be Continued..." of the season.

The Mouth is back

I don't even know.

What even are you, Olivia?