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?

"The most perfect bachelor on the planet of history"

Let's get dating!

Group date number one takes us to Bachelor High, which sounds like a trashy YA series featuring Ben, the attractive high school quarterback with a dark secret...

Anyways, the girls (Jackie, LB, Lauren H., Becca, Amber, Mandi, JoJo, Jubilee, Jennifer, and Lace) team up to compete in vaguely high school inspired competitions to win the honor of being homecoming queen.  We also learn that Ben's best moments in life were his "first kiss and high school athletics."

First up: Science "class" where the girls make Ben's volcano explode.  But they don't actually learn any science because all the flasks are labeled with things like "trust" and "communication."  Jubilee and Lace are out because they couldn't find communication and also Lace hated school and wasn't very good at it and Jubilee called her Lacey the whole time because is Lace even a name?

Principal Harrison, here, to help you learn stuff good

Then we have "Lunch" aka bobbing for apples.  We learn that "Jackie's not great with her mouth, unfortunately."

Three teams are left for geography where all they have to do is place Indiana on a blank map of the United States.  They all pick the right shape, but Becca and JoJo somehow placed it on its side and therefore lose this challenge.

I mean, come on.

Lastly, we have gym, where the two remaining teams have to make a free throw.  Mandi and Amber win and have a hurdle race to see who gets to ride around the track in a car with Ben.  Mandi somehow leaves Amber in the dust and we see everyone frown as she gets a tiara.

Then there's the evening portion, and thank goodness, because there was weirdly no drama in the high school portion of the date.  Becca steals Ben first and shows off her hoop skills while Ben blames his shirt for missing easy shots.

Jennifer gets the first kiss after a very short conversation.  Jubilee gets the second kiss after revealing she was an orphan in Haiti.  JoJo gets the third kiss on a heli pad.  And this whole time Lace is freaking out and making all the girls dislike her while insisting she's not crazy.  "Fuck these bitches," Lace says while stealing Ben for a second conversation and reinforcing everyone's dislike.

Meanwhile, back at the mansion, we are introduced to Olivia's mouth, and dear god, please keep that thing shut, girl!

this is horrifying

 just terrifying.

JoJo gets the group date rose and now we're onto the first one-on-one date, which is a shameless plug for Ride Along 2, some new Ice Cube and Kevin Hart movie.  And I guess it's also some time for Ben to get to know Caila.  When asked the most romantic thing they've ever done for a women, Ice Cube says, "I married one" and Kevin Hart says, "I cooked fried chicken one time in a crock pot,"  so you know they're going to take Ben and Caila on a good date.

Ben, Caila, Kevin Hart, and Ice Cube take a ride and Ben starts out with the hard-hitting question to Caila: "What's your favorite color?"  Kevin Hart and Ice Cube proceed to buy liquor and condoms for Ben and then take him and Caila to the first hot tubbing of the season... in a sketchy hot tub store.  And if that wasn't weird enough, Kevin Hart skinny dips in the hot tub with them until Ice Cube very scriptedly convinces him to leave the love birds alone.

Kaitlyn's Irish "funeral" is still the weirdest date ever, though.

Back at the mansion, Amanda misses her kids and skypes them on a phone with a blurred out logo because without the apple, no one can tell that's an iPhone.

Caila's date ends with our first private concert: Amos Lee.  She exclaims that there's "no way a snowball's chance in you-know-where that Ben is unlovable."  Either Caila's really that clean-mouthed, or she didn't get the memo like Lace did that they'll just bleep out your curses.  Though I'm pretty sure you can say "hell" on TV.

Group date number two takes Shushanna, Amanda, Samantha, Olivia, and the twins to a totally legit science laboratory to see if Ben has literal chemistry with any of them.  Clearly the twin trope was getting boring, because the twins decided to further the dumb blonde stereotype in this episode with gems like "don't put the blonde on this date" and "I'm not very smart."  And as if Olivia and her mouth needed the ego boost, she "won" the love tests, while poor Samantha was told she smelled sour and scored the lowest.

Olivia and Amanda get kisses in the evening portion.  Amanda tells Ben about her two daughters and Ben apparently thinks Amanda "makes so much more sense now."  Much to everyone's chagrin, Olivia gets the group date rose and gloats about not knowing what a rose ceremony is as if she doesn't still have to stand around for hours with the other girls watching exactly what a rose ceremony is.

At the cocktail party, Ben makes rose barrettes for Amanda's kids, Ben gives Lauren B. a picture of them from night one, Olivia ruffles some feathers by stealing Ben when she already had a rose, and Lace reprises her role as "girl you wish you hadn't started a conversation with at a party."  Because no lesson was learned from night one, Lace drinks to much and tells Ben yet again that she's not crazy and then launches into a speech about how she was an ugly kid and "tell[s Ben] one of the pictures" where she looked dorky.  Ben looks like a trapped animal when Lauren B. mercifully saves him and Lace storms off to whine about how she hasn't had anytime with Ben right after having time with Ben.

Then the rose ceremony.  The girls who went home were:
LB, who was offered a rose but *gasp* did not accept and left on her own
Samantha, who just didn't have a good enough odor for Ben
Jackie, who, well, wasn't great with her mouth
Mandi, which just goes to show that being Homecoming Queen is only great when you're actually in high school.

Fingers crossed we get tears next week!

Make it stop!