In my wildest dreams, The Bachelor is the longest con, and no oneânot the bachelors, not the bachelorettes, not the contestants, not the limo driversâis an actual person. Ha! We were tricked! The âI love yousâ and marriages have all been fake and humanity is still intact. But alas, no one is that talented/horrible at acting, and weâre on the fourth episode of the 19th season. And I am completely sucked in.
Before we go any further, what we need to remember here is that our cowboy/farmer bachelor Chris IS SO FUCKING BORING. Heâs missing a top lip, seems tired all the time, and has yet to string a single interesting sentence together. This season has been fake-controversial because Chris just canât stop making out with all these women the network put in front of him to make out with. My Bachelor-expert friend pointed out that maybe Chris canât stop kissing everyone because he canât think of anything to say⊠other than the stock lines that ABC probably wrote on his hand: âIâm here to find a wife.â âOf course I care about you.â âI just want to get to know you and the other girls.â âThis is really important to me.â
Last nightâs episode was an hour-long mash of: a group beach/camping date with one unhappy camper who pouted the whole time (I respect that), a boring Cinderella date orchestrated by Chrisâs three boring sisters (itâs hereditary) in order for ABC to laboriously plug the new Cinderella movie, and a muddy obstacle-course wedding-dress challenge won by the only contestant with bigger arms than Chris. But really, only two important things happened last night, and they are both named Ashley:
Last night's big fake suspense was based on Ashley I.âs stupid virginity. Ashley I. is a 26-year-old freelance journalist who resembles a Kardashian and is a virgin virgin virgin who canât stop talking about being a virgin. The virgin would like Chris to know that sheâs a virgin, so once everyone is asleep on the group camping date, she sneaks into his tent to tell him the news. But Chris is groggier than usual, and Ashley I. doesnât actually say the âvâ word, so he fails to pick up what sheâs putting down with sentences like âIâm inexperienced in every wayâ and âIâm freaking innocentâ (she also has an interesting perma-slur that I think is caused by her giant veneers and the showâs ever-available alcohol supply).
Ashley I. obviously believes that being an adult virgin female should be perceived by men to be some kind of⊠good thing⊠(âI just need him to know that Iâm wife material!â) so sheâs frustrated that he didnât get it. After some freaking out to the camera and to the other contestants, she corners him again the next day, and finally lets the virgin out of the virgin. And... HEâS A LITTLE FREAKED OUT. Good for him. I mean, obviously that is the worst. Who wants to have some sure-to-be-awful sex by publicly deflowering a crazy person on TV? Donât answer that. Yuck. Itâs not the biggest deal, thoughânot to anyone but Ashley S. and the sleazy editors of the showâand the episode ends with her receiving a rose.
BUT WAIT WAIT WAIT RIGHT THERE. Guess who else is a virgin? Becca. Who? Becca. A person the camera has yet to land on for longer than three seconds who looks so similar to all the other similar-looking gals, I didnât realize she was there. Sheâs a chill virgin. No big deal. She got a rose too. TWO VIRGINS, ONE CHRIS. Woof.
Ashley S. might not be a sex virgin, but she certainly is a reality virgin. Last nightâs saddest news was that Ashley S.âthe #1 space cadet and my favorite contestant on the showâwas not given a rose. Iâm pretty sure she was only kept on for longer than the first 15 minutes of the first episode because the producers could see that her klonopin-and-white-wine vibe was a ratings goldmine, because thereâs no way boring Chris wants to hear her hiccup about aliens or the moon. We'll miss her babbling about the onion that was actually a pomegranate, her references to "the Mesa Verde dome,â her vacant-eyed determination during the zombie-shooting paintball challenge, and her garbled whisper-questions for Chris: "Are you real?" "What are you? I mean, I know you're a Scorpio, but I don't care about that." Kaitlyn probably said it best: âI donât think that Ashley S. is here for the right reasons, because I donât think Ashley S. knows where âhereâ is.â I miss her already.