Ben & Jordan Watch Bachelor Pad: Episode 4

The bonds of brotherhood between Ben Morse and Jordan Geary were forged during their time as students at Connecticut College, where they spent four years losing at intramural sports (except softball in 2004!), forming their own fraternity because the school wouldn’t let them, making student films one professor called “unfortunate” and regularly beating their friend Dan Hartnett in Goldeneye.

Today, they live 20 minutes apart in New Jersey with their respective lovely wives, sharing passions for miniature golf, diner cuisine and the music of Motley Crue. They also both watched and blogged about Games of Thrones this past season to the thrill of perhaps a dozen.

For years Jordan has been trying to sell Ben, who has never watched an episode of The Bachelor or The Bachelorette, to watch Bachelor Pad. Despite their youthful enjoyment of reality romance classics like Temptation Island and Paradise Hotel, Ben was skeptical, but decided to go for it.

Bear wit to their wit, wisdom and frequent allusions to Mark L. Wahlberg as they try and bring some much needed dignity to these people’s search for love/money/fame/a place to crash for a few weeks.

Bachelor Pad Episode 4: “The One Jordan Didn’t Give a Title”

Jordan: We start this episode with Ed celebrating staying, while Bing Crosby sulks. It’s paranoia city as Bing tries to figure out who flipped on him. He tells Jamie he wants to partner with her, which makes her stare blankly at him and wonder what the word “partner” means.

Ben: I don’t know whether it’s that he’s really smart, that they’re all really dumb or simply that we’ve got omniscient knowledge of the events taking place in Bachelor Pad Manor to explain why none of the cast suspects Kalon is the mystery flip vote every time out. Probably a combination of the three. But mostly the second one.

Jordan: Chris Harrison shows up with questionnaires. He throws them at our contestants and dashes away quickly, like he has with all of his screen time this year. This season is way more fun if you imagine Chris Harrison sprinting to pick up a check and yelling, “I get paid per episode, so that’s the same for 10 minutes or 2 seconds of screen time, bitches! C.H. OUT!"

Ben: Chris Harrison absolutely has a bet going with the guys in the truck on whether he can top his previous recording for getting on and off set each week. If they win, he buys them all cars. If he wins, he gets their souls.

I noted the disdain Jaclyn had for receiving any sort of written questionnaire and silently mourned the efforts of every teacher in the Newton public school system.

Competition: Game Show of Doom!

Jordan: “Time to be Mean.” That should be the name of this thing. You could see it coming from a mile away. Lowball questions with things like "who was on what season"…and then the devil horns come out.

Ben: How did they all know all those details about seasons they weren’t on? Weren’t they all aghast that there were fans on the show and yet clearly they are/were fans before/after being on the show as well? These are the types of questions I would ask myself in my sophomore year Philosophy class had Bachelor Pad existed in 2001 and I was awake during my sophomore year Philosophy class.

Jordan: Favorite questions? Who said, “The person in the house who accomplished the most in the house is ME! I’M AMAZING!” …ED! Of course!

Ben: I also enjoyed the part where Chris made fun of Ed for being old and wanting to extend his 15 minutes of fame, doubly because Ed then fired back that Michael was on the same season as him and Reid, which I totally did not know because there are not helpful labels to tell me so every segment of every episode (if you only read this blog and don’t actually watch the show—and I’m assuming there are scores of you—this is me employing sarcasm as a defense mechanism because I’m an idiot).

Jordan: Who said the person who has accomplished the least in life is Blakely? NICK SAID THAT! (who the hell is Nick?)

Ben: I bet Nick’s questionnaire was filled with horrible things about Blakeley, Chris, Jamie, Ed, Jaclyn, Michael and basically anybody interesting because he desperately wants screen time. It’s the same reason he hooked up with Donna last week with one eye blatantly checking that the camera was on him the whole time.

Nick’s my new pick to win.

(Nick is not my new pick to win)

Jordan: Who said the person who would be the worst parent is Erica Rose? EVERYONE! (Actually it’s Kalon the Psycho, but we all know we all think that Erica would probably eat her kids or something demented).

Ben: The worst parent would be Chris, who would get bored of his first child, have a second, tell that one to leave him alone because he’s tired, then run off with his third born.

Kalon would raise meticulously neat, well-groomed and physically fit children who would rule the corporate world by day and bury bodies by night.

I believe Erica Rose would not reproduce by human means, but by mitosis.

Jordan: And JACLYN WINS! Cut to Ed smiling and finally exhaling for the first time in weeks. You KNOW he is going to drink to celebrate. Cue oral sex yodeling.

Ben: And now, let’s get our weekly Jaclyn inside analysis from our resident expert…

“Jackie’s win here did not surprise me at all. She excels in anything manipulative, narcissistic and that will destroy a group dynamic.” – Ned Morse, retired youth soccer coach and role model

Jordan: Time for the guys to guess which lady said what. Men can say mean things, but truly ruining lives with words is women territory.

Ben: Sorry ladies, he’s spoken for.

Jordan: Lowball questions, blah blah blah. Then the dirt:

Who said the amount of men they have slept with is 11, no 10, no 9? Yup, we ALL know that is Blakely.

Ben: I was confused by how in her cutaway she said the answer to this question was nobody’s business, but if she didn’t give the real answer on camera, she still painted herself as a ditzy woman of loose morals and did nothing to deny it, right?

Jordan: Who said the most scandalous place for sex they’ve had sex on top of a car in a parking lot? Sarah…who I predict will sex up at least 20 more guys before this season is over (for those of you wondering how that number is so high, remember that there is a crew of guys filming this on location).

Ben: What I want to know is, was the parking lot full at the time? Was it a garage? Daytime? At an elementary school? The answers to all of these could be “yes,” because Sarah is a freak, and Chris Harrison is not asking the tough questions because he’s not paid by the hour and his war with heaven is nigh.

Jordan: Who said Jaclyn is the most fake because she lies constantly? Jamie. Wow. Not smart, Jamie. Eliminate the comma in that last sentence and that becomes a perfect nickname.

Ben: In her defense, she probably didn’t think these answers would be shared with anybody. Because she’s an idiot.

Jordan: Who said Jamie is the most annoying in the house? THE ONE WHO WANTS TO KILL HER! BLAKELY! (Cue psycho stabbing music).

Ben: I love how much Jamie wanted Jaclyn to be the one who said that, and how happy Jaclyn was that she wasn’t the one who said it (I wager she didn’t actually remember whether or not she did until Chris Harrison read the answer).

Jordan: AND ED WINS! Wow, I am so happy with the two that won this week. What happens when two people on the same team both win? Have the producers through this out? My guess is no....and "no" usually means some sort of bizarre twist is coming.

Ben: When I’m happy with the two people who won (well, one at least, I can’t really in good faith root for Jaclyn) because at least the philandering womanizer and stuck-up brat are more entertaining than the more emotionally needy people, well, I know I’m watching Bachelor Pad.

Jordan: Cut to Jamie weeping hysterically to Michael after she feels bad about calling out Jaclyn. Cry me a river, sister. Psycho Kalon then does his best to comfort Jamie, comparing comforting her to murdering a dog…yikes. Speaking of murder, Chris talks to Blakeley and accurately jokes that he envisions her stabbing him one day. This WILL happen, folks.

Ben: Man was this segment ever a perfect encapsulation of these characters, from Jamie being an emotional succubus, to Michael’s magnetism for charity cases, to Kalon’s not-even-moderately-veiled sociopathic behavior, to Blakeley’s instability to Chris’ inevitable downfall of his own devising. If you only watch one segment of Bachelor Pad…watch the bit from last week where Ed can’t climb up a ramp covered in chocolate, it was hilarious.

Girl’s Date

Jordan: Jaclyn’s choice! She chooses Ed, of course. Sarah acts shocked, somehow thinking she is the only one who has slept with him. We all have.

Ben: Sarah reached her nadir with me here, as I was so sick of her pining for Ed in ridiculously fond remembrance of their one drunken hookup.

Jordan: The date begins, fittingly with glasses clinking. Screw cotton, liquor is the fabric of Ed’s life. They date turns out to be them standing in an empty Dodger Stadium, which is as boring as it sounds.

Ben: Honestly, is a full Dodgers Stadium that much more exciting these days? (I looked up how they did last season to verify that it is not)

Jordan: They hit balls, they sing over the PA system, and then go on a picnic on the pitcher’s mound. As the duo tries to figure out how to screw on the pitcher’s mound, the big shock comes in…the producers have screwed THEM. Jaclyn has to give a rose to someone else! Dun dun DUUUUUN!

Ben: I like Ed and Jaclyn as a couple because Ed has no allusions of romance and if Jaclyn does I won’t be unhappy when she gets her wakeup call.

Jordan: Back at the Bachelor Pad house, Chris calls Blakely a nutjob, which (as much as we all hate Chris) is accurate. Chris then goes to Jamie and plants the seed, so to speak, in her brain dead brain for her to sleep with him. Jamie smiles blankly. The world watches on, wondering if she thinks she is fooling anyone into thinking her 20 ft long eyelashes are real.

Ben: And again you speak for both “we all” and “the world.” You are the Ed of this blog in more ways than one, friend!

Jordan: Ed and Jaclyn talk about who to give the remaining rose to. They debate whether to give the rose to Chris or Kalon, OFFICIALLY killing any hope I had of either of them being smart enough to win this thing. Ed says he trusts Chris, which after last week’s “I trust Reid” makes me want to meet Ed and sell him a plot of land in Siberia.

Ben: You thought Ed could win this? Oh, buddy…

Between the lothario skills of Chris, the emotionless manipulations of Kalon and the experience of Michael, Ed is lucky if he cracks the final four.

Jordan: Chris and Jamie talk in the kitchen in their bathing suits. The slow seduction continues. By “seduction” I mean Chris belching out “let’s bang” and Jamie somehow seeing the romance in it.

Ben: Pretty much all the best moments this week came from Jamie rationalizing all of Chris’ actions into grand romantic intentions as she quickly leapt from dim pretty girl to in denial maniac.

Jordan: Ed and Jaclyn kiss each other on the mound by being put on the Kiss Cam. Fireworks then go off, and Ed does his big, loud yodel thing while he watches. I want this yodel to be my phone’s ringtone. When a call goes to voicemail. It will say “What was your name again?”

Ben: This is a fantastic idea!

Jordan: Jamie and Chris are in bed and the night vision is on. This. Means. Sex. Chris attempts to stop her incessant chatting the only way he knows how: kissing her and making fun of her. Millions of ladies at home all simultaneously say they wouldn’t fall for a guy like Chris and ignore the fact they all have at one point.

Ben: Taken!

Jordan: Cut to Jamie telling all the ladies how much Chris likes her, while Chris practically burns an effigy of her and defecates on it. True love.

Guy’s Date

Jordan: Jaclyn and Ed must pick someone to go on the date Ed won. My wife turns to me and says, “Here is what I think will happen: Ed will choose Chris and Chris will choose someone OTHER than Jamie or Blakely. Specifically, I think it'll be Sarah. This will make Jamie and Blakely go completely batshit insane.” I tell her if this is true I would be elated. Being able to predict the evil in reality shows AND using my favorite phrase (“batshit insane”)? GOD, I LOVE THIS WOMAN!

Ben: Why am I writing this blog with you and not Chloe?

Jordan: Jaclyn chooses Chris…oh my gosh. Can my wife really be right? Oh please, oh please, oh please! Drum roll…

CHRIS CHOOSES SARAH!!!!!!!!! HOLY SHIT! HOLY SHIT! HOLY SHIT!!!!

Ben: I’m going to give Chloe the benefit of the doubt that she did not watch last week’s “next week on” and did accurately predict all this on her own…because they did kinda show all of it.

Note from Megan: They did show that Chris would be going on a date with somebody who was not Jamie or Blakeley, but not that it was Sarah, just that it was a different girl with dark hair.

Jordan: Blakeley, the paragon of rational thought, confronts Chris and stares at him with the wide eyes of a Tarsier (look it up). Chris waffles on whether he can be faithful to Blakeley as a partner, which is surprising since everything in her demeanor says she can’t wait to have him get his guard down so she can cut off his dong and throw it in a field. Blakeley bursts into tears and Chris politely comforts her by stalking away from her and speaking to Jamie. Chris then tells Jamie he couldn't pick her because it would make the house angry at him, which makes no sense, and Jamie nods happily and grins. I kinda want Chris to tell Jamie that the sun no longer exists, just to see her get really sad and start shivering after believing him.

Ben: Ha!

Again, Jamie obliviously smiling and gushing about how Chris took another girl on a date and stayed overnight at a hotel with her “for them” was the highlight of this episode for me. I have become a monster.

Jordan: Chris and Sarah go on a date and Sarah points out, much like I did a few entries ago, that Chris looks like Gerard Butler (though I said he looks like Butler’s uglier twin). The limo they are in then flies at 80 mph around a parking lot and Chris stares on blankly, meaning it is a stuntman theme date. During stunt training, Sara accidentally kicks Chris is the face, then tries to kiss him. This is how I imagine most of Sarah’s dates going throughout her life.

Ben: This date made me do a 180 on Sarah, because she seemed to be the first girl to recognize that Chris is not there for love, but he’d be a good dude to partner up/have a good time with because he’s got sway in the house and has no problem being man candy. She’s honestly the perfect match for him.

That said, if next week when he has a threesome with Erica Rose and one of the twins she pulls a Jamie and falls in love with him or pulls a Blakeley and…I dunno, goes after him with garden shears, my newfound fandom will be curtailed.

Jordan: Back at the house, Chris Harrison surprises the remaining contestants by actually appearing onscreen and then saying that neither Chris nor Sarah will get a rose on their date! ED is the one that gets gets to hand it out to a remaining lady. I want Ed to put on a wig and give it to himself.

Ben: You are on fire this week! I want you scripting this show yesterday.

Jordan: Chris and Sara kiss again on their date, which warms my heart because smug, "I'm so cool" Chris is officially accepting Ed’s sloppy seconds. ED’S SLOPPY SECONDS!!! Billy Bob Thornton then high fives Ed because Brad Pitt has his sloppy seconds.

Ben: Wow, I didn’t even think of it that way. I now like Sarah even more! And Ed even more more!

Not Billy Bob Thornton though. Mr. Woodcock was horrible.

Jordan: Speaking of Ed, it’s rose giving out time! He picks gravel throat Rachel, which is obviously a move to make Michael happy. Ed somehow falls ass backwards into a good decision! Go Ed!

Ben: I never thought I’d say this, and my dad may well disown me, but I think Jaclyn is the brains of this operation.

Jordan: Sarah and Chris make out on their date. Somewhere as this is happening Ed is urinating off of the roof.

Ben: I even kind of like Chris more after this episode, because he seems genuinely into a girl, or at least willing to be up front with her. I don’t want him to win, but he showed glimmers of humanity.

Jordan: Blakeley and Jamie talk. With Chris out of the house, they can talk rationally about him. They can figure out that he is playing both of them and doesn’t care about anything except sex, not shaving, and flannel shirts. Oh wait! They are both dumb, emotional, opinionated, and under his spell! Never mind! They go crazy and start yelling at each other. Hoo boy, I am already anticipating the beating Chris is going to get on the “After The Final Rose” special from Jamie and Blakeley while the housewives in the audience shake their heads at him. On a side note, someone needs to install a sign between Sarah’s legs with an “open for business” sign.

Ben: I have nothing to add, other than to give readers a little “behind the scenes” tidbit: Jordan always spells “Blakeley” as “Blakely,” so I have to correct it every time. He also usually leaves the “h” off of Sarah’s name, but started adding it in beginning with his comment about Ed urinating off the roof. He did not go back and change the other ones. The more you know…

Jordan: I must point out something: In a previous episode, Blakely mentioned that she finds it super weird that Jamie just seems to pirouette in place at random times. After seeing her do it twice in one episode…yeah, I concur. That is WEIRD!

Ben: I do this several times a day, it’s great for posture.

Jordan: Chris and Sarah enter, disheveled and proudly telling the house they did it.

Ben: HE’S BACK TO “SARA” WITHOUT AN “H”! This man is a mystery.

Jordan: Jamie then says to the camera she is saddened by this. Wait, is she wearing a TOGA? Whatever, I'm done with this chick. Chris Harrison comes in to say, “Time to vote out people”. He then says “well, my work is done here” and jumps into a hot air balloon to go on some wacky adventure while the contestants gameplan.

Ben: In my mind, there was cartoon smoke coming out of Jamie’s ears as the steam engine powering her brain strained overtime to try and figure out how Chris having sex with Sarah was something he did to clear the path for their fairytale romance.

Jordan: Unwanted losers Bing Crosby and Jamie talk about working together to stay, because frankly no one would want to keep around either of their loser faces. Even sweet, nails on a chalkboard-voiced Rachel is shown voting out Bing! Nick, who looks like he has sunburn on top of his sunburn, tells Jamie he will keep her if she agrees to vote out Bing. Can someone vote off Nick, by the way? I want to stop feeling guilty for forgetting that he is even on this show.

Ben: When Nick was attempting to scheme, it honestly felt like one of the stage grips wandered on to the set on a dare from his buddies that he could con Jamie into thinking he was a contestant.

Jordan: While Mr. Crosby looks obvious to go home, for the girls to go home it seems fairly split between Jamie and Blakeley. At this point, Psycho Kalon decides to just screw around with people’s heads for the fun of it. Say what you want about psychopaths, with their propensity for lopping people’s heads off and whatnot, but they DO know how to have fun.

Ben: I’m not actually sure they do, I believe that may be among the emotions they’re unable to process.

Jordan: Ed’s head spins and he frets because he is an actual nice guy with human emotions who can’t comprehend Kalon’s craziness.

Ben: Yeah, Ed is a sweetheart who was unable to make his reality TV engagement work because he was unfaithful on multiple documented occasions. He’s a nice guy on the Chris sliding scale maybe, and maybe not even then. There’s a distinction between “fun to watch make a jackass of himself on TV” and “nice.”

Jordan: Ultimately, by the time people vote it’s all just one giant shitstorm and I’m fairly convinced Kalon didn’t even submit a vote but instead used his time to rig the house full of explosives.

Ben: All I could focus on by this point was how Kalon’s lips are never not unreasonably moist.

Rose Ceremony

Jordan: The rose ceremony comes and Blakely makes another mention of donkey punching someone in the throat if she goes home.

Ben: I was wondering if I had imagined her doing that already or not. Thank you for confirming I am not crazy. In this instance.

Jordan: This wins me over and I OFFICIALLY want Blakely to stay. This show just wouldn’t be the same without her special level of insanity. For the guys, I want Bing Crosby to go home because he is boring and doesn't bring anything to the show. This is no small feat as he is up against Nick, who I am fairly convinced just delivered a pizza to my door tonight.

Ben: I think we went to college with Nick. We may have roomed with him and never caught his name.

Jordan: And the verdict is….

BLAKELY AND NICK STAY! Exactly what I wanted to happen! And to top it off, smug Chris feels betrayed by Kalon and has to deal with looking like an idiot on television. America heaves a collective sigh of relief that their favorite son, Nick, is safe. I now realize I am happy Nick stayed just so I can make fun of him.

Ben: Seriously, I can’t believe we hadn’t tapped into this comic goldmine until this week.

Jordan: In the loser limos, Bing Crosby defies logic by calling his time in the Bachelor Pad house the best four weeks of his life. Wow, what a SHITTY life!

Ben: Bing’s blank eyed smile as he went on for what seemed like a half hour about how great this experience had been and how it’s all downhill from here simultaneously terrified and depressed me. Every time it seemed like he was done and the camera guy was ready to power down, it seemed like he came up with another way to stay the exact same thing and extend his relevance one more precious second. I’m not convinced Bing didn’t cease to exist the minute we cut away from him. I think he may just be the collective psychic energy of everybody watching this show given form. Shame on us.

Jordan: Toga Jamie handles her expulsion with typical grace by breaking down and crumpling into a ball on the limo floor. Those in Vegas who had Jamie winning it all must now spend a long evening looking at themselves in the mirror.

Ben: Her confrontation with Chris over what a horrible person he was on the way out was unsatisfying to me. His “ladies first” gesture dismissing her to the limo was not. I assume we’ll get much more on the reunion show you mentioned.

Jordan: That's it for this week! Next week looks awesome, with Chris getting his comeuppance and scheming aplenty.

Ben: Also, Kalon attempted to express the human emotion of affection toward Lindzi. I’m assuming this will end with him voting her out because any sort of connection clashes with his prime objective and a single tear rolling down his cheek as she departs then hitting the ground and bursting into flames. It will be glorious.

Jordan: Jordan OUT! B.P 4 life!