Is this an ok title for this blog?

I really can’t Belize we’re this close to Hometowns, you guys. We are THIS close to going back to Ulindzi S. Horse’s estate and learning that her parents are horses.

Speaking of Lintfree the Human Horse, she gets the first one-on-one date! Listlee is all “I can’t Belize this!” and all of the other girls are like “you best Belize it! We can’t Belize how bejealous we are!”

I was having a hard time imagining what it must feel like to be completely sequestered from the outside world, living in a new sorority of women competing against you for the affections of this:

    

So I was very happy when Dr. Emily used her PhD in Analogies to explain what it was like watching Ben take Lipknee away for their unbelizably awesome one-on-one date:

“It’s like somebody sliced a delicious piece of cheesecake and put it in front of me, and  then somebody else came and picked it up and went ‘bye bye’, with my cheesecake. That’s why I’m jealous.”

Ohhhhhhhh, THAT’S why you’re jealous? I assumed you were jealous because Lap Z is the frontrunner for Worst Attempt At “Natural” Make-Up and that appears to be an award you are trying to get for yourself, Dr. Emily. But I get it, it’s the cheesecake. That makes sense. Cheesecake is really good.

Ben and Lip Ski get on a helicopter (first helicopter in Belize!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and it’s a really picturesque tour until all of a sudden the helicopter pilot FINALLY figures out why Ben’s face looks so familiar - because he was on America’s Most Wanted, for years - so the pilot stops the helicopter, hovering over the ocean, and orders Ben and Old Lang Syne to GET OUT.

The couple lingers, half-heartedly commenting on how crazy it is that they are about to jump out of a helicopter. Ben even says “Oh this is crazy.” Pause. “I’m going to give you a kiss.” Smooth like butter, Ben! The only explanation for this horrifically lame dialogue is the producers told [Redacted] to act really, really scared and then told Ben to kiss her so that she could have the strength to jump. And it worked! Because they did it! They jumped, falling about the same distance they would if they had accidentally rolled out of bed in the middle of the night, and their bed was just a mattress on the floor.

   

But the fall was definitely made more dramatic by the use of the soundtrack from National Treasure. It was also made more dramatic by Hulahey’s insistence that she could “die in two seconds, just like in a relationship.” It’s a good point, in a relationship with Ben, you really could lose your life at ANY second.

Later, Ben and Poughkeepsie go and sit on a bunch of blankets and have a lot more non-conversation until Ben pulls a wrinkled piece of paper out of his pocket and tells Belizely that they are going to write a message and put it in a bottle and send it out to sea. They wonder what to write, and Ben suggests a “funny illustration”. UGH. I bet Ben’s idea of a “funny illustration” is a stick figure with a huge boner.

Ben and DJ Lizzy Fresh finally decide that they will draw a picture on one side, and “that’s the fun, joking part” and then write a note on the other side, and that’s “the more serious part.” Ben then astutely announces “Because that’s what a relationship is. Fun and serious.” OH REALLY?!

Inspired by his insight, I made this Valentine’s Day card for my boyfriend this year:

     

So they are about to ready to start the SERIOUS NOTE and Ben has the pen to paper, unsure of where or even how to begin, so Lamb’s Knee prompts him with “Once upon a time…” Ah yes, “once upon a time”,  the most serious beginning there ever was! “Once upon a time, Adolf Hitler wanted to kill all of the Jews. And he tried, and it was awful.”

Ben proceeds to write a fairy tale about a girl named Lindzi (ummm who is that?) who fell for a guy named Ben (OHHHHHH the fairy tale is about THEM!) Ben tells us that it’s weird that they are writing this fairy tale together, but they’re really using it as a way to tell them how they feel about each other. That IS a very weird thing for adults to do.

They put the note in a bottle and send it out to sea. I hope it winds up in the hands of Somali pirates. 

Next up, Dr. Emily gets a one-on-one, the environment of which is “easy peezy.” As @kckatsaros pointed out, Dr. Emily missed a PRIME opportunity to describe the date as “easy peezy Belizey.” Sorry, Dr. Emily, you lose. You lose the game of life.

Ben and Dr. Emily just casually stroll around Belize. Dr. Emily stops to admire a huge, pink ring that looks terrible and Ben buys it for her. I bet whatever on-site Line Producer had to OK the release of two pesos, or whatever the currency is in Belize, all so Ben could buy an ugly ring for a girl who is DEFINITELY not going to win the show, was really pissed about the expense. 

Ben and Dr. Emily then casually bump into a lobster catcher who is totally okay with bringing two strangers with him to go lobster hunting. They go out to the middle of the ocean and just start yanking lobsters out of the sand, and the lobsters pretty viciously fight for their lives in a way I didn’t know lobsters could do, and  the whole thing made me really feel bad for these lobsters, whose lives were being taken all so Ben could have a fun time with a girl who is DEFINITELY not going to win the show. On behalf of all humans, I apologize to all lobsters, for this:

     

     

     

At dinner, Ben asked Dr. Emily if she’s ready to introduce him to her parents, and Dr. Emily takes a long pause (first mistake) and then says “You know, with all that Courtney drama - ” (every mistake) SHUT UP DR. EMILY! After everything that has happened, you should literally never even utter the name Courtney ever again in front of Ben, even if you are just casually talking about how you think Courtney Cox should have been nominated for an Emmy for Friends. I bet the SECOND she mentioned Courtney’s name, the lobster, the line producer, and everyone who has ever been even remotely inconvenienced by Ben’s courtship of this idiot collectively rolled their eyes so hard that the Earth now spins in the opposite direction. 

Back at the Hotel Prison, Courtney is rambling on and on about how much she NEEDS a one-on-one date and how if she doesn’t get one, she’ll think that it reflects really poorly on her relationship with Ben. And then she gets one, and her reaction is a monotone, droll “oh snap.” And then a cackle in the other girls’ faces. Courtney, you deserve whatever the opposite of a Nobel Peace Prize is.

KCB tells us how much she hates Courtney, which is a lot, and she says that Courtney is the “shittiest piece of person [she’s] ever met.” I don’t know if Courtney the Model is really the shittiest scraping from the giant tree of Person, which we are all plucked from at birth and returned to in death, but she’s definitely in the running.

Courtney goes off on her date in a really cute outfit that I WILL go to Nordstrom Rack and try to emulate, and the other girls dish to Dr. Emily about how right she was about hating Courtney. Nikki drops this piece of brilliance:

“There was a lot that went down last night, I mean enough to where it is proof that any thought you had about Courtney possibly not being here for the right reasons…. was proven.”

 WOW NIKKI, ARE YOU OKAY? That made no sense.

     

Out on the date, Courtney and Ben stumble across a Mayan temple and Courtney asks where the human sacrifices were done, and Ben said “they ARE done, right here.” And then Courtney looked down into a pit and saw the dead bodies of Jenna, Erika, Monica, Silent Girl Who Got No Air Time and Was Mass Eliminated in the First Rose Ceremony, and KCS and Michael, interlocking hands, together in death. Courtney threw her head back and laughed evilly, and Ben knew he had found his bride.

Ben and Courtney have a picnic in the middle of the stairs of the Mayan temple and Courtney tells Ben that she isn’t sure if she wants to bring him to meet her family because their spark has fizzled. SHE’S A GENIUS. Ben just stares at her, so sad of losing her, and basically proposes. He will do anything to keep her.

They climb to the top of the pyramid, spouting some nonsense about how every step up is a step towards a better relationship and blah blah whatever, they get to the top and it’s a 360 degree view of jungle. We see them from a sweeping helicopter shot with big, triumphant, epic music and it LITERALLY feels like the ending shot of Journey 2: The Mysterious Island. I haven’t seen that movie, but I can imagine it ends similarly. SURELY they are going to cut to a commercial because no moment will top the ridiculous, cloying production value of that shot. 

BUT NO! They cut back to Courtney and Ben on the pyramid and Ben says with a long sigh:

“Oh…. my………………………………………. Dad. That’s what I say sometimes.”

What can I say guys? That’s just what he says sometimes. His Dad is God. The God of Hell. 

Courtney is feeling pretty good about their date, so  good that she tells us “Pack your bags, girls. Show’s over.” And then starts fake shooting the rest of the girls for about three minutes. But when she finally does the “kill shot” she calms down for a second and gets serious by saying “I don’t want to get cocky though.”

    

Later, at dinner, Ben and Courtney… well, I guess the closest verb to describe what they were doing is “talk”, but it’s not really talking. It’s more like if two robots had to analyze their conversation from earlier. They just keep saying “Today was fun. We talked about things. We climbed a pyramid. I liked what you said earlier. What you said earlier made me feel good.”

The conversation gets interesting (relatively interesting) when Ben asks Courtney about the other girls, and Courtney just unloads. She calls the other girls vanilla, boring, self-involved, and catty, all because  they don’t ask her questions about herself. When Ben tries to figure out if maybe Courtney has trouble relating to people, Courtney explains that as a model, her job is to please people by means of oral sex, or adapting to new places, or whatever, so NO, she definitely does NOT have trouble making friends, and YES she has friends at home. Guy friends. Who want to sleep with her. So they put up with her bullshit. See? She’s a people person.

The next day, Ben sneaks into the Hotel Prison early and wakes up KCB, Rachel, and Nikki, who apparently if you wake her up too abruptly, behaves like a Gremlin after midnight. There really seems no to be no point to Ben’s surprise wake-up except to show us that the girls all share beds with each other. That must be annoying when Courtney and Ben are having sex!

The girls all get ready really fast.

    

And then go out to meet Ben, whose wig is flapping in the Belize.

    

Ben takes the girls out on a yacht and tells them that they, wait for it, will be going, waaaaaait for iiiiiiiiit, swimming with sharks! KCB and Nikki have the most insane reaction of all time, as if they have been waiting their entire lives to go swimming with sharks. Seriously, WHAT is going on here?

   

That is not the proper reaction to “we’re going swimming with sharks.” That reaction is more along the lines of:

    

    

    

Those all make more sense.

Anyway, the gang shows up to Shark Alley. Watch out Ben and the ladies! We all know what happens when people show up to Shark Alley!

   

                (I’ve never seen West Side Story. Does this joke make sense?)

Anyway, KCB and Nikki jump right in, but Rachel is very upset about having to swim with sharks. I mean, how else could you explain her reaction to hearing the activity for the day?

     

And look, I am very scared of sharks. But Shark Alley appears to be about three feet deep, and the sharks there looked like Nurse Sharks. I think even I would be like “okay, well the worst thing a Nurse Shark can do is sloppily gum my ankles. Fine. I’ll go in!” But Rachel is terrified. She asks Ben to promise her she won’t die, to which Ben responds “I can’t promise anything.” HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. “I can’t promise you won’t die here, that Nurse Shark looks preeeeeeeeeeetty sleepy.”

While Ben is talking Rachel onto the ledge, Nikki and KCB are swimming giddily and behaving like nine-year-olds. Nikki is very proud to announce that she has counted eight sharks in the water! Ben responds “Eight sharks?!” in a tone of voice usually reserved for when a toddler counts to ten for the first time without assistance.

    

             Which, I guess, to be fair, is basically what happened.

Rachel finally gets in the water, and THANK GOD NO ONE DIES. This date is 100% less fatal than Dr. Emily’s.

    

Later, everyone is lounging poolside and Ben decides to give the rose to KCB. As KCB has explained roughly 10,000 times this episode, this rose means that Ben REALLY wants to meet her family. I have a feeling he will regret that decision when he finds out that KCB’s family sleeps in one big bed together and they all work in the same candy store. It’ll be too much joy for the sociopath.

Courtney is not concerned that KCB got the rose because “KCB is like a little girl in a little boy’s body.” Wow Courtney. There just are no words.

The next night, the girls go to some weird hut and await the cocktail party. Dr. Emily wants to speak in somber, respectful tones about how serious this rose ceremony is, which, SHUT UP DR. EMILY. Courtney says she’s feeling good in Belize, drinking a pina colada, and she wants to “get the party started” with all the boring, vanilla, cardboard piles of shit she is forced to interact with.

Courtney then explains that no one should take this seriously because Ben isn’t the only guy in the world and either it works out with him or it doesn’t. Surprisingly insightful, Courtney! Surely Dr. Emily, a PhD Candidate, would understand at least this basic bit of logic.

     

NOPE!

Dr. Emily is SO disgusted by Courtney’s assertion that Ben isn’t the only guy in the world that she telephones it to KCB.

     

Who then telephones it to Nikki, who then telephones it to Lickslie, who then blurts out “Len’s not a Pony, right? Girls!” and everyone laughed, except for Dr. Emily, who is a joyless piece of Person.

Chris Harrison shows up to tell everyone that Ben has canceled the cocktail party because he has already made up his mind about what to do, and doesn’t want to spend any more time listening to Rachel clumsily rasp her way through a sentence.

So the girls go straight to the rose ceremony, where Ben immediately puts it on pause to pull Courtney aside and ask her some follow-up questions, which is basically the purpose of the cocktail party he insisted he didn’t need. Ben, that’s really rude. Chris stayed up all night making baked brie and he went all over Belize to find those certain kinds of crackers that KCB likes, and you CANCEL the cocktail party, only to then basically have your own little cocktail party with Courtney. Brad never would have done that. Go to hell, Ben.

Ben asks Courtney why she’s here, and Courtney tells him she’s here for him, and Ben’s like “great!” So they go back to the rose ceremony. Ben gives roses to Lopsidedly and Nikki, leaving one rose for Courtney, Dr. Emily, or Rachel. There is a forty minute long pause, and finally Ben says “Courtney.” Dr. Emily is very upset.

    

Goodbye blondes! I guess we were warned - he LUH-HOOVES the brunettes. (Nim’sIslandZ doesn’t count as a blonde because her hair is so dirty all the time that it doesn’t register as any color, it just looks like if someone made a wig based on Peanuts cartoons centered on Pigpen.)

You should have seen this coming, Rachel and Dr. Emily! Ben clearly thinks Courtney is the Belize knees!

We saw some promos for next week, and I just have to say this: it looks like all of the hometowns go pretty terribly. Also, and I want to say this as nicely as possible, Courtney’s sister kind of looks like if, in Shrek, Courtney was Person Fiona and her sister was Ogre Fiona.

   

I KNOW THAT SOUNDS MEAN, but it’s not so bad when you consider that Ogre Fiona is the one who gets married and lives happily ever after, and Person Fiona is the one who winds up revealing on After the Final Rose that she has gotten back together with Adrian Grenier, who - if you can Belize it - might be even LESS of a catch than this: