Ben & Jordan Watch Bachelor Pad: Episode 6

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 6: “Nick’s Face is Melting”

Jordan: Greetings kids. 6 weeks in and the two hours a week length of this show is starting to wear me down. But it’s a marathon, not a sprint. I do not even know what I meant to really say here when I used this cliché.

Ben: A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

Interestingly, as you have been worn down, I have become more comfortable with the amount of time I’m devoting a week to these monsters, possibly because since the Olympics ended I’ve been able to watch the episodes via DVR rather than OnDemand, thus granting me the ability to fast forward and lose a solid 40 minutes of commercials for Timothy Green. That or your power has become my own!

Jordan: Episode opens with Rachel hacking up cigarette butts into her hands as she cries over Michael going home. Emotions are running high. UNLEASH THE CHRIS HARRISON! C.H. slaps everyone across the face with his dong, saying, “You will be playing as couples…including being voted off as couples.” Then a hole opens and swallows Chris Harrison, returning him back to his underworld of flames.

Ben: Wow, way to swipe my material.

I thought this swerve was lame. A week after the awesome game of Stratego that was Chris getting Michael booted, they cut down on the intrigue big time. They should have to play as couples but still be able to be voted out as singles through to the end.

Jordan: Nick and Rachel are partnered up by default, even making the other lowlifes make fun of them. Everyone scrambles to come up with a plan with this new game twist, leading to many, many violins strumming tense staccato notes. This is the only way producers can combat Chris’ constant “I am so bored by all of this” look.

Ben: Ah the final episodes of a reality show, where the realization that your entire alliance can’t win sets in as the booze dries out.

Competition: Spelling Beie

Jordan: Everyone gets on a school bus (cue short bus joke)…

Ben: Short bus joke.

Jordan: …and upon arriving Chris Harrison informs them they are competing in a spelling bee. Tony says aloud that spelling is the one thing he sucks at…which one or more wax museum attendees may disagree with. Nick sits uncomfortably in his flannel shirt and sunburn, head looking as unnaturally shiny has ever.

Ben: I was sure this was Kalon’s time to shine, as you would figure something like spelling was a skill he had tutored to him by Tibetan monks whilst dangling headfirst over a bed of nails as his master criminal parents watched on, but then I realized that being named “Kalon” was probably the result of nobody in his family knowing the proper spelling for “Colin.”

Jordan: Ed and Jaclyn spell “love”, which reminds me of Ed’s misdeeds with his teammate last week. Kalon spells “heart,” which now leads me to believe the producers have made this all one intentional joke. Blakeley spelling the one thing she will never possess, “engagement ring,” confirms this.

Ben: For more on this topic, tune into this blog next time for exclusive news…IT’S A TEASER, GANG!

Jordan: After a lot of spelling and mistakes, it comes down to Ed and Jaclyn and Chris and Sarah. After Ed and Jaclyn mess up the word “Flabbergasted”, I come to the conclusion that this is easily the least interesting competition I have ever seen on Bachelor Pad. It lacks any sort of opportunity for meanness. Chris and Sarah mess up “Entrepreneur”, which then made me laugh as the camera cuts to Kalon’s smug disapproval. That and “lobotomy” are the two largest words in Kalon’s vocabulary.

Ben: This is the perfect irony-laced time to note that Jordan is finally spelling Sarah’s name correctly after over a month and a half, saving me a solid five minutes of making corrections.

Jordan: I love the fact that Ed thought “cockamamie” was “cockamay” and proudly ended his spelling with “Y- Cockamay.” With the competition dragging on, the cameramen give the signal that they are running out of available tapes to film with and they mercifully give Chris and Sarah the lowball “Serendipity” word. This still proves to be a challenge for Chris, whose strategy is pausing for 10 minutes between letters and then forgetting where he is. Regardless, Chris and Sarah win. Cameras then all simultaneously point at Blakeley crying. Approximately 9/10 of the footage on Bachelor Pad is Blakeley crying or staring at someone with the intention of ripping out their innards.

Ben: Bachelor Pad was never more obviously scripted/edited than this segment. It was clear Chris and Sarah needed to win since there would be no drama if they took off and the final six all liked each other, so they got all the easiest words and you could practically see the times where Chris Harrison yelled “cut” and ran over to hand Chris not Harrison a cue card with the proper spelling of “Hi.” This was the natural outgrowth of the “eliminated girl picks the eliminated guy” swerve they used to save Chris and Sarah last week.

At least my dad can’t take the hit for Jaclyn losing this one, that’s on the Newton public school system.

Winners Date

Jordan: Chris and Sarah go on a date. They laugh, they swim, I bang my head against a wall. I want to write anything interesting about this date and I just can’t. They bore the living hell out of me.

Ben: I’m right there with you, tall friend. This date felt like it last for beyond the full two hour length of the show. Sarah’s wide-eyed proclamations of how amazing everything around them was as they were shuttled by a train to a barn where they got to sleep (with real hay!) reminded me of every dating show parody ever, most notably Burning Love.

Jordan: Back at the house, Rachel breaks down and looks to Jaclyn for compassion. Smart move, idiot.

Ben: DAMN! Kalon just texted me to tell you that was cold.

Kidding! I’d change my number if Kalon had it…

Jordan: Jaclyn then goes to Tony and Blakeley and says Rachel should go home because she misses Michael so much. Rachel then parades around the house in black, her voice sounding more like nails on a chalkboard than ever, her face thrice as haggard as George Harrison (and he is dead). Nick pleads with her to stay in the game because he needs more time in the sun to fry his face like an ant under a magnifying glass.

Ben: Did Jaclyn, Blakeley and Rachel have their girl power “we should all be here until the end” pow wow in the midst of this? I honestly can’t remember. The Chris/Sarah date drove me to fill out insurance forms or something.

Jordan: Back on the shitty date, Chris and Sarah talk about their relationship and the revelation comes out that Chris has not had a serious relationship since he was a sophomore in high school. This is no small thing. It either means he 1) hates humanity, 2) is gay, 3) just wants to sleep with women with no emotional connection, 4) is gay. There must be some reason he kept refusing to sleep with Jamie and Blakeley and then would always “accidentally” pull his pants down and fall on a broom handle.

Ben: Jordan Geary’s opinions are his own and do not represent those of anybody involved with this blog or anybody we know or may have ever met in passing.

Jordan: Back at the house, Jaclyn tells Rachel and Blakeley she will try to vote out Kalon and Lindzi. They certainly are the most “annoyingly named” pair. I am really, really tired of correcting my spelling whenever I write Lindzi’s name.

Ben: I was tired three weeks ago of correcting your spelling, but I’m still here. Hi-yooooo!

And this was the aforementioned pow wow.

Runner Up Date

Jordan: Next, Ed and Jaclyn get to go on a date because they lost the competition. Yes, you read that right. This show makes its own rules.

Ben: They really thought that “competing as couples” thing through long and hard.

Jordan: Ed and Jaclyn fly in a plane. Jaclyn reveals she is afraid of flying, but says she is comforted by the fact Ed is with her. She fails to realize that in the event of a crash Ed would use her body to soften his fall, then use her corpse as a flotation device back to shore.

Ben: The whole time they’re flying, all I’m thinking is “That plane is way too small to have a bathroom. What if one of them needs to pee?”

What is wrong with me.

Jordan: When they land and sit to talk, Ed looks into her ugly mug with sober eyes and tells her he doesn’t want to fall in love, has feelings for someone home, and generally wants to be anywhere else in the world than where she is. Jaclyn makes her bitter beer face and is crushed she can’t spend the rest of her days with the guy who communicates with oven mitts.

Ben: “Ed is a class act. He’s the most real, genuine nice guy of anybody on the show. He would never sleep with a bunch of girls despite having a relationship back home. Or cheat on his fiancée.” – Jordan Geary up to this week (approximate translation)

Jordan: Tony and Blakeley walk and he takes her on a little impromptu date. She kisses him and he promptly sweats buckets his face gets purple with excitement. I would think he had never slept with a woman before except I believe he said he had a son. Maybe he found the child on the side of the road, or in a basket at the base of a river (like the opening sequence in Willow)?

Ben: If we were doing a Bachelor Pad drinking game, “Drink every time Tony mentions he is doing this for his son” would be the first rule I would make.

Jordan: Ed and Jaclyn continue their date. Jaclyn continues to mope about Ed not being in love with her, not quite understanding that there were no feelings behind his drunk yodeling while giving her his pickle and then forgetting her name. Yes, this is how Cinderella and Prince Charming got together, but that’s a FAIRY TALE. This is REAL LIFE.

Ben: That’s right, people, for Jordan Geary, Bachelor Pad is his basis for reality. He ends every day by giving his wife a rose and telling her she can remain in their home.

Jordan: Jaclyn snaps and says to Ed “I don’t want to look like a whore.” He snaps back “I don’t want to look like a shithead.” To win her back, Ed embarks on THE BEST SPEECH EVER. He says he wants to sleep together to “build teamwork” and that the chemistry is “very comforting.” He goes on to say “By us sleeping in the same bed, yes we are a couple,” which is enough to have Jaclyn smile and kiss him. They then walk to again have sex as Jaclyn says “We’ve bonded in more ways than one…it is what it is.” Somewhere Jaclyn’s family is watching this and wondering who the hell could have coached this sort of behavior in their little angel.

Ben: How dare you. If Ned Morse couldn’t coach this girl to block a penalty kick, he wasn’t about to try and teach her to respect herself as a woman (that’s part of the advanced Ned Morse Coaching package, not the beginners set).

Jordan: Ed and Jaclyn come back from doing it and reveal they have to give out roses. This has people groveling at their feet with a silly Godfather-esque soundtrack behind them. Long story short, they give the roses to Blakeley and Tony. This means in the shooting range Nick and Rachel are everyone’s bullseye. By this I mean Nick is as red as a bullseye. Seriously, his nose is about to fall off on my television as I write this.

Ben: Remember the good old days when we thought Nick was a sound tech who kept wandering into the shot?

Jordan: Kalon and Lindzi try to campaign to Blakeley and Tony stay, knowing they are the other couple in jeopardy of going home. Nick then swoops in to talk to them, leading a sleigh of eight reindeer behind him as he does so. Nick decides to then come to life and actually speak at the WORST MOMENT POSSIBLE, self destructing and yelling at Blakeley and Tony to keep them. In the shadows, Kalon laughs maniacally and watches Wealth TV on a hidden portable television.

Ben: And thus Nick became the insane wildcard I was hoping Rachel would become after losing Michael, making him perhaps my favorite contestant remaining.

Jordan: Rachel weeps about missing Michael, and between that and Nick sticking his foot in his mouth, I suddenly find it very hard to root for these two. Plus, someone needs to take down the Chris-Sarah juggernaut, and I think Kalon and Lindzi represent the best shot.

Ben: I had the exact opposite response! If this train wreck team can somehow pull it off, it truly spits in the face of everybody on this show who actually put any effort toward winning by conventional means, and that puts a huge smile on my face. If Kalon can’t win it by scheming, I’m cool with Nick and Rachel trying to win by being a living blooper reel.

Oh, also, my dad spoiled a moment here like three days before I saw the episode by saying “Michael is back in some fashion” and then it’s just his voice saying “Hello?” when Rachel call him. Well played, father…

Rose Ceremony

Jordan: Quick ceremony (no one is left), aaaaaandddddd…..

RACHEL AND NICK ARE STAYING! The ghost of Michael looks down upon them like Obi Wan Kenobi, smiles, and then looks out at the clouds as a single tear rolls down his cheek.

Ben: Oh man, I don’t even really like Star Wars—guess how well that goes over working in the comic book industry—and your analogy just made me laugh out loud. Good show!

Jordan: Kalon and Lindzi leave. As their limos leave, Kalon stops his limo, runs, and gets into Lindzi’s limo with her. This makes every woman simultaneously forget he is a cold-blooded killer and squeal, “Awwwwww.” He thusly sets up a brilliant spider web for any unsuspecting female to walk into for the rest of his life. Jack the Ripper stands up and does a slow clap.

Ben: Whether you have an alternative lifestyle or are merely a woman, Jordan Geary is here to offend you.

Special report from our Senior Fact-Checker Megan Morse, who immediately jumped on Google Gossip (no such site, just made it up) after this episode: Kalon and Lindzi are still together! They have been regularly sighted and photographed together around Texas and L.A. TRUE LOVE WINS OUT…or she’ll go missing within a few weeks.

Jordan: The show ends with Ed and Sarah imitating Tony and Blakeley. If Ed doesn’t get his own show after this, I will be sad and disappointed. My “Ed as the next Bachelor” campaign begins NOW!!!

And ends now, as I am too lazy to do anything.

Goodnight!