Oh hello, we're just here recovering from last night's Women Tell All in which the Women. Told. All.
It was a bit jarring to jump back into the season, even if it was for the fantasy suite episode, and even if it was to watch Arie graduate from "I love that" to "I love you." Twice-ish. He said "I love you" once, and then the second time, he switched it up to "I'm not falling, I am." (Though he did make the "I love you" official later on.)
That's right, Ben Higgins copier Arie Luyendyk Jr. officially said "I love you" to two women, but not three, which is why our favorite taxidermist Kendall had to say goodbye. We feel there are greener pastures or deader rats or whatever ahead for Kendall, which is why we're not too sad for her.
The question at this point is who will "win" in the end?
If we were to base things on tonight's dates, Becca is the obvious choice. She and Arie have always had an easy chemistry, and their relationship has never looked like a struggle on screen. Their boat date tonight just looked so relaxed, and they're both so convinced they're goofy dorks that this feels like it could legitimately work.
But on the other hand, his date with Lauren B. was so intense. It's always been obvious that Arie is attracted to her, but she's not very talkative, and Arie and Lauren do not have a tendency to talk about what goofy dorks they are. They're serious, and Lauren can only get more serious if she feels like she's the only girl, even though she's not.
She's clearly struggling with the very concept of this show, The Bachelor, on which she is a contestant and has been for a while now, and her need for reassurance really put a damper on that date.
Like, we get that Arie is attracted to her, but we have seen so little of the reason why, because she doesn't talk very much or with very much inflection on camera. But as we've seen, Arie's got a lot more personality in real life than he does on screen, so maybe Lauren B. is the same? They really could be perfect for each other when there are no cameras.
Now, we need to go back a bit to discuss Becca's "fantasy suite."
It was less of a suite and more of a tent with a wooden door, and it appeared to be right out in the middle of the desert with absolutely nothing around it for miles. That's the kind of set up that could go from super romantic to super murdery real quick, but lucky for everyone, no murders took place. There was just a lot of kissing and sentences like "nothing can get in the way at all," which are always a no no on this show.
And for Becca it was a no no, because the very next scene involved Becca's ex named Ross showing up after having just discovered the very premise of The Bachelor.
He claimed he would have swum to Peru if he had to, but he did not swim there. We have a feeling producers would have been happy to bend time and space and finally perfect teleportation in order to get this man to this set to deliver lines like "That's my proposal to give her."
Oddly enough, much of Becca and Arie's conversation revolved around Becca's ex, who she dated for seven years, which is many more years than like, a month.
"It's the only girl of my life," he claimed. "I came her to get her, because she's the one for me."
"But do you think she feels that way?" Therapist Arie asked calmly as he sipped his morning coffee, explaining casually that he and Becca had already told each other they love each other, sorry Ross.
Arie asked that if Becca were to choose Arie and not Ross, could Ross please respect that choice? Ross was like IDK, I just gotta get my girl back.
Becca was real shocked to find Ross standing on her Peruvian doorstep, mostly just going "Ross, no, no."
"Like, I feel like you live your life in a movie, and like you think it's gonna work out like The Notebook," she said, echoing our thoughts that if we were watching this from a different perspective, we could easily be rooting for Ross.
"Yeah, I do. I do think that," he said.
He then gave a speech worthy of a scruffy Ryan Gosling but not worthy of us transcribing it, and it did not work on Becca. It kinda sorta worked on us though, and we were like "Rossssss!" as he wandered away. He felt like a fool for coming here, an absolute fool.
Becca then had to go reassure Arie that she had no interest in Ross and didn't know why Ross was there and didn't want Ross and Ross sucked, and so the fool was gone for good.
And so we were left with two ladies with two very different personalities and one hell of a tease going into next week's Three Hour Finale that we Cannot Miss. Trust us—if we've come this far, we will not miss it.
The Bachelor airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on ABC.