B&L Finale Recap "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly"

   I start off by apologizing for the lack of blogs last week. I was traveling Tuesday night so could not watch this show, and I figured no one wanted to read my Survivor blog on Thanksgiving. Furthermore, this show in particular was fairly boring last week as it was basically an episode of Extreme Home Makeover. So, with all of those apologies doled out, I thought I’d run a proposition by you. To celebrate this finale episode, I’ll forgo the normal recap and do something different. I haven’t been shy about my critiques of the show. There is some to like, but ultimately it fails at entertaining. I thought I’d summarize the issues the show has to correct if it wants to continue, and for the sake of positivity, what it already does well. Good? Well, I guess it does not matter since I’m writing it anyway. Julia, stop talking to your readers. They don’t talk back.

  First though, I’ll do a quick summary of the episode. Ben and Lauren decide to have a combined bachelor and bachelorette party in Las Vegas. It is populated with so many bachelor alum to the point where you know producers decided who was invited and not their actual friends. Eventually, the guests find out that Ben called the wedding off and it gets awkward. But, have no fear! The end of the season is here! This means that by the end of the episode Ben comes around and tells Lauren that he wants the wedding to be back on. 

   Also, a little news for you guys. Grant and Lace, the couple from Bachelor In paradise that has been heavily featured on this show, have broken up. For those who read my Bachelor In Paradise blog, I predicted that these two would break up very quickly and be the first of those couples to be broken up. I’ll take my “I was right” money in cash.  It will go to my annual charity of getting me junk food to get through finals.

So now that that standard part of the recap is done (as I told you it wasn’t much to go over), I want to talk about the season as a whole.

The Good:

. The overall plotline of Ben getting cold feet and the emotional issues that caused for Lauren was spot on with how it happens for most couples. The struggle felt real. It was just overdone when it was the focus of almost every episode. We need to see the good of the relationship as well, and that suffered.

. Both Ben and Lauren come off as decent people that are enjoying the opportunities that come to them instead of being explicitly fame hungry. The shots of Ben at work did a good job showing that.

. When the show incorporated humor that did not have to deal with bachelor alum, it could be pretty funny. I thought the prank scenes were cute as well as Ben trying to dance when he sucks even worse than I do.

The Bad:

. The scriptedness was pretty hard to deal with. Obviously, all reality shows are scripted to some degree. However, this show did not even bother to hide when those instances were. Of course, JoJo called right when a mariachi band starts playing. Of course Ben “bought” Lauren a fiat when she was mad at him. I bet it wasn’t that they wanted a sponsorship at all…. Of course they just happen to meet an elderly couple that went through the exact same communication issues as them to convince them not to break up. At times it was eye roll inducing and I don’t want to have to be annoyed by the show I am trying to be entertained by.

. The Bachelor cameos. Okay, look I love The Bachelor shows. The alum are entertaining. But, seeing an alum every episode took away from the actual show and felt forced. We did not need to see the twins almost every episode. Grant and Lace should never have been featured when neither Ben nor Lauren were close to them. The cameos ended up not being special because you expected one every episode.

. Each episode felt the same. The circumstances from every episode might have varied a bit, but the format was the same. They start off happy. They talk about the wedding. They fight. Then, some special event occurs. This event causes them to realize they want to stay together. The end. Wash, Rinse, Repeat. The show needs to vary things up. Repetitiveness works on The Bachelor because it is a competition show. You expect the dates and then the elimination. A reality show about a couple’s lives should not have the same issues every episode.

  There it is. My thoughts on how the show could improve should they receive a second season. I appreciate everyone who has read my recaps for this show over the season. My Survivor recaps should continue until its finale in December. Expect Bachelor related blogs to resume in January when The Bachelor premieres. I’m currently working on a format for how I will write those blogs so don’t hesitate to let me know if you have an area you would like me to focus on.

Survivor 33 Recap "How To Be A Dumb Surfer"

  Previously on Survivor, the Cool Kids were completely blindsided by Michelle being voted off. They didn’t realize that Survivor casts more normal people than Big Brother and so didn’t realize that being in a powerful alliance turns off people not in said alliance. Despite Taylor’s insistence of not being a “dumb surfer”, I think we can all agree that this episode helps cement that he is indeed a “dumb snowboarder”.  How so? Well, let’s talk about the episode.

  The episode starts off with Jay proclaiming how stupid the millennials are that voted against him. He mentions that Zeke and Hannah are at the bottom of the GenX tribe, and so voting out a millennial was just hastening their demise. I disagree with him because I doubt that the GenX tribe will stay strong, but I can see his logic. Taylor and Jay reconvene and decide that they need to make the tribe like them again and that their main way of doing that will be to throw Adam under the bus. 

  Taylor, for some reason, still thinks he is being sneaky about the stash of food he has. But A.) Everyone knows he was eating the tribe’s food already, so I hardly doubt that anyone at this point doesn’t know he stole food. They just may not have known the extent of it. He was called out on it at the last tribal, but for some reason still thinks that people didn’t know about it. #NotSmart

  Jay tries another approach of sneakiness by attempting to get back in Hannah’s good graces. Hannah tells him that she felt used and that if she had stuck by the millennials she would have ended up as a goat. For those of you new to Survivor, a goat is a person you take to the final 3 because no one would ever vote for them. What Hannah doesn’t realize is that she is a goat for both sides. The millennials now won’t vote for her and the GenX people never would have voted for her. She keeps talking about wanting to build a resume. But, she already has. A bad one. A can’t even work at McDonalds bad one.

  So we get to the reward challenge where 2 teams of 6 are competing for a day at the spa with some good food. In an absolute blowout, Sunday, Brett, Chris, Taylor, and Ken win. I thought about describing the competition, but the amount of time it would’ve taken me to type that up would have been longer than it took for them to win. At the spa, Brett decides to get really really drunk. Unfortunately, this doesn’t provide much entertainment because he apparently can control his alcohol and does not make any game changing mistakes.  

  While they are at the reward challenge, Jay sees this as an opportunity to mend fences with Adam. Unfortunately, Adam wouldn’t know how to mend fences if he had a degree in it. He immediately asserts that Jay is on the bottom and there is nothing he can do about it. Jay predictably is then angered and tells Zeke and Hannah about the conversation. Both Zeke and Hannah roll their eyes at Adam. You suspect the guy of having an idol but you blatantly tell him that he will likely have to use it soon?! Not only that but in terms of social game that was an idiotic move. Even in Adam miraculously made it to the final tribal council, he would have no shot at getting those jury votes.

  Before the immunity challenge, Sunday starts becoming insecure about fellow GenX member Jessica, She is so paranoid that she contemplates keeping Jay and Taylor to get Jessica out first. This reveals 2 things. 1.) Jay’s social game is good enough that people are finding excuses to keep him around. 2.) Why do girls always have to target other girls? There are only 3 girls left in this season compared to around 10 boys and you are telling me Jessica worries you the most? What about David the guy who has lied to you almost every day? I’m telling you, I don’t think her decision is based on any strategy except be the last girl standing.

   At the immunity challenge, the players had to stand on a small beam and balance a ball on some wooden concoction. If you fall off the beam or drop the ball(pun intended), you are out of the competition. There was also the added component to the challenge. If you felt safe enough, you could opt out of the challenge and spend the time eating food. Will and Zeke opted out. Zeke makes sense as there was no way he was going home. Will’s decision was dumber. He would have gone home last week if he hadn’t won immunity, but now he thinks he is safe enough to sit out. I get that he thought he wouldn’t win, but at least try. Eventually, Ken ends up winning.

  Immediately after, David decides that the vote should be split between Jay and Taylor to ensure that one goes home even if an idol is played. Sunday doesn’t like this plan and wants to campaign for Jessica to go instead. Brett says that he will talk to Chris, but no conversation is shown, so yeah that doesn’t look like a possibility at all.

  This leads to an explosive tribal council where I didn’t know if I was laughing at the stupidity of it, or if it was genuinely funny. Taylor decides to sell out Adam in an attempt to stay. He reveals Adam’s advantage that he can steal a reward. However, to do that, he also had to reveal that he stole the food again. Adam did a fairly decent job at reiterating that his advantage didn’t really have any impact on the game so it shouldn’t impact voting. Taylor did a decent job in saying that Adam knew way more than he let on about Taylor stealing food. Taylor even lied and said that Adam HELPED him steal the food and ate it alongside him and Jay. That’s a lie. But, it makes sense that Taylor would say that. Adam is already doubted by the tribe and anything Taylor can say to make that worse is worth doing. Even if it only ends up helping Jay. Another funny exchange occurred where Jeff was asking people about their reactions to Taylor having stolen food. Jessica immediately tries to make it an age thing. Jay becomes my lord and savior because he counters that it is not an age thing, and that some millennials aren’t raised like that. Finally, someone said it! My parents didn’t raise me to be stupid either. But, the kicker was that in explaining this Jay indirectly refers to Taylor as a “dumb surfer.”  Taylor immediately looked offended, but likely only because he is a snowboarder and not a surfer. I’m not sure Taylor knows the meaning of the word dumb. He might be that dumb.

Best Player/ Also My Favorite Player

  While in danger still, he did a decent job of cementing relationships to help him exploit cracks in alliances. He has also lost Taylor who ultimately was just deadweight to him. He was even smart enough to vote out Taylor to ensure that the votes weren’t split against him.

Worst Player:

Need I say more?

B&L Recap "Trouble In Paradise"

  Since the powers that be decided not to air a new episode during election night, we were instead treated to a double header last night. And by treated, I don’t mean of the chocolate or sports car variety, but the bug bomb your room or take an antibiotic type of treatment. While I’ve always wanted a spin-off of one of the Bachelor couples, I can’t help but feel Ben and Lauren were a misstep. Every episode has ended up being the same. Ben has cold feet. Lauren doesn’t understand that. They keep fighting. Then they make up because of “love” and all of that jazz. But don’t let my feelings about the show spoil it for you. Let’s talk about what happened this episode.

   The episode starts with Lauren shopping for bridesmaid dresses with her friends. She talks about wanting them all to feel comfortable.  I flashback to the previous weddings of my sisters as a bridesmaid. Sorry, I don’t know why I’m shhhakinggg now. Ptttsssddd??? Anyway, off of that subject for my sanity. Lauren discusses how the day went “perfect” and she can’t wait to tell Ben. As expected, he will ruin that “perfect” day by talking again about his cold feet. Here’s a thought. Try some bunny slippers. Move out of Colorado. You’ll get warmer real fast. Oh, they meant about the wedding? I could never have guessed. 

  To deal with their problems they decide to go to pre-wedding counseling. Because they haven’t had any Bachelor alum in 10 minutes, the show hyperventilates and decides to bring in Lace/Grant and the Twins. I use to love The Twins, but do they really need to be in every episode? Could they not get any other alum? Heck, I bet Josh/Amanda would have loved to do it for tv time and I would kill to see them in couples therapy. Anyway at this counseling they play the nearly-wed game. I’m sure most of you know the rules. Your partner answers a question and you have to see if you know what they said. Everyone is surprised because Ben/Lauren do poorly, but Grant/Lace do well. But, all of Grant’s answers outside of one had to do with sex. He and Lace were having sex within 2 minutes of meeting each other. I wonder what their relationship is all about. Next time, ask them about when Grant expects to start cheating on Lace. I’m sure Lace will get that question wrong…..

  Lauren doing poorly just puts more doubt into Ben’s mind before the couples do part 2 of the therapy by completing a Ropes course together. All the girls are freaking out. I guess I’m not as much of a girly girl as I thought because it didn’t look scary at all. I mean, yes, heights suck. But did they really think that the show would EVER suggest doing something that would cause them to get hurt? There’d be lawsuits and cancellations if they did. Any logical person would have known that they would be perfectly fine. Yet again, maybe I’m just not like most girls, but the crying just got annoying after a while. 

   After the ropes course, they have the standard therapy session of talking out feelings. Ben again elaborates on feeling unlovable and how that makes him want to be extra sure before he marries Lauren. He feels they haven’t done enough to get married. This angers Lauren because she completely uprooted her California life and moved for him. She feels blindsided. She really shouldn’t because he has literally expressed this every episode, but she does. The therapist trying to help them, decides to do an exercise where they dress in wedding clothes so they can gauge how they would feel if they got married that second. Ben does a 180 and decides he’s ready to be married. Yeah, no that doesn’t happen. It only freaks him out more and he calls off the wedding. You know producers, maybe this would have had more impacted if you hadn’t shown that clip 70 billion times before the episode aired. Just a thought.

  So they go to Chris Harrison to tell him the wedding is off. This was again a repetitive segment where Ben and Lauren continued to express the same problem. Chris Harrison continued to act like he cares about the leads, when its just the paycheck that he is after. Ben realizes he is in the dog house so to compensate he  buys Lauren a new car. It’s a successful tactic. If a girl is mad at you, buy her an engagement ring, dog, house, or car. Usually, we will be blinded by that long enough for you to get at least a day of peace. The not happy couple then takes a road trip.

  On the way home, they stop at the IheartRadio Music Festival. I’m surprised because that took place in September. So the turnaround on these episodes is getting faster and faster. It also makes it appear worse that Ben and Lauren are still having these issues. Anyway, they fight. Again. The press keeps asking them about a wedding date and Lauren feels like Ben is faking that things are going okay. What is he supposed to say though? Dear press that we don’t know, we are fighting a ton and the wedding is called off. No. I get Lauren is upset, but every situation doesn’t need to be about the wedding. 

  Of course they aren’t allowed to end the episode on a bad note, so ‘spontaneously” Ben and Lauren meet with a couple that’s been married 70 years. Blah blah Blah. They offer advice. Blah Blah Blah. Ben and Lauren are happy again. ZZZ ZZZ ZZZ. Woah. I just woke up. Sorry about that.

  The episode ends with the big reveal that Ben had the house redecorated to Lauren’s taste while they were road tripping. The house is a little too overtly feminine for my tastes, but if Ben can suck it up, good for him. Until next time folks, keep dreaming about being on a reality show so you can afford a brand new car and complete remodeling all in the space of 3 days. 

Survivor 33 Recap "Chicken Littles"

  How ironic is it that the episode I missed recapping due to debate was likely the best blindside we will have all season? It was so beautiful and she truly did not see it coming. Heck, even I didn’t see it coming and thought that Jay/Will would back out of it. I hope the rest of this season can be as entertaining. Debate itself is a lot like Survivor. Of course, there are a certain set of skills you should come into the game knowing how to do like swimming and basic social skills. However, each season has different people/judges that you have to tailor your skills around. That is what Michaela failed at and what the winner of this season will ultimately have to prove they can do.

  So now on to this episode. After the Michaela vote, Hannah is blindsided and upset. Hannah is probably the biggest person ever to play the victim. When she has a freak out about every vote, it’s obvious why Jay and will wouldn’t want to fill her in on a potential blindside. She would’ve told Michaela. It has nothing to do with Jay thinking that he is so “charming” and that you will fall in line.  Hannah seems to be taking the Revenge of the Nerds thing too far and wants to isolate people that she has no reason to isolate. Please get her off of my screen Survivor gods. Please. 

  After this, we are treated to the Survivor merge. For those of you new to Survivor, it is no longer a tribe game. At this point, everyone is on their own. The rest pretty much works the same as usual, there will be an immunity challenge, but only one person will win it. Then everyone will attend tribal with whomever won immunity being safe. This is where the real game kicks in, and as Adam put it “separates the great players from the mediocre ones”. And boy did he foreshadow which side he’d be on. (Hint: It’s the latter.)

  Old groups from before the tribal swap reemerge as allies and the millennials think they are sitting pretty. Jay even calls himself the “kingpen”. I roll my eyes because whenever Survivor shows someone overconfident you know that that very episode they will suffer a setback. Overconfidence is a Survivor killer. This overconfidence shows itself to Zeke who is now desperate to take out Jay. Adam is also desperate, but in a different way. He goes searching for another immunity idol to add to his collection. Instead, he finds an advantage that allows him to steal another person’s reward. This is a freaking pointless advantage. The only reward challenge that is even worth the anger of stealing it from someone is the advantage in the final 4 immunity challenge. But after tonight, we all know Adam won’t make it anywhere close to that point. So all in all, a fail of a Survivor twist. Try harder.

  Another fail this episode was Taylor. Boy, how many times was this kid dropped on the head as a baby? I’m guessing enough that Child Protective Services should have been called because this boy is not very smart. He decides he’s going to steal the tribe’s food because he is hungry. The worst part is that he isn’t stealthy about it at all, and he doesn’t make sure everyone is asleep. However, this wasn’t even the stupidest move of this episode. Yes, unfortunately that is true. The stupidest move goes to Adam. Adam runs up to Taylor and tells him about his advantage. ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME? You just voted out his girlfriend, and you are telling him not only about your advantage, but the fact that you want to target his best friend Jay, and Jay’s best friend Will. In what universe did he think Taylor wouldn’t rat on him? As much as I dislike Taylor, I wanted Adam to go home this episode due to the sheer amount of stupidity shown by Adam.

  GenX gets together to discuss which of the millennials they want out. The consensus is that they want it to be Will or Jay, until David intercedes. He thinks Jay has an idol and so instead they should vote out Michelle, who will be blindsided and the idol won’t be played. It’s not a smart idea. As evidenced by tribal later, Taylor and Jay thought they had this in the bag. They could’ve blindsided Jay without the idol being played and taken care of two birds with one stone. But instead they’ve taken out a worthless player and alerted Jay to the fact that he will need his idol in the future. They’ve lost the element of surprise. But, I digress.

  The players head off to their first individual immunity challenge and it’s a tough one. The players must balance on a small pedestal, while holding onto a metal bar. If their arms even slightly move off of the bar, a bucket of water will drop on them eliminating them from the challenge. Ultimately after a long battle between Jessica and Will, Will wins. This, along with intel from Zeke, convinces Adam that Taylor had revealed his plan to vote out Will to other people. I roll my eyes because he should’ve assumed that the second Taylor left the conversation and ran straight back to Jay. 

  The Genx members are in a pickle because they can’t seem to agree on who to vote out. This frightens Adam so he goes back to the millennial tribe and tries to work with them. Of course, this frightens already paranoid David into doubting him. Hannah tells Adam that he needs to chill it with the flip-flopping because it is ruining his chances at this game. Screw Adam for making Hannah have a moment where I agree with her. 

  So we head off to tribal council and all in all it wasn’t very interesting. There was more comparison of GenX vs. Millennials that made me want to vomit. Taylor continued to act like an overconfident bozo and then Michelle was voted out. The vote could have been suspenseful if they hadn’t shown Zeke saying while voting “I have never trusted you.” Obviously, that wouldn’t apply to Adam so everyone knew then and there that Michelle was a goner. Yet again, I find this to be a dumb move. They could have easily gotten Jay or Taylor if they had played their cards right. Now Jay knows to be on the lookout to play his idol and he may even start the search to find another one to give Taylor. 

Worst Player:

Taylor. Now, this was really close between him and Adam. Both were idiots that have no chance of winning the game now. The difference is, at least Adam showed some signs of figuring that out. So based on that, Taylor gets worst player of the episode.

Best Player:

No one really stood out. Sure David pitched the Michelle vote, but I ultimately think that was a bad move, so I won’t give it to him. Instead, I’ll give it to Zeke for effortlessly transferring to a position of power on the Genx side of the tribe.

Favorite Player:

 Ken is still my favorite, but Jay is rising up the ranks and could challenge him if he makes it far enough. So, for the sake of variety, I'll give this episode to Jay.

B&L Recap "Welcome to the Real World"

  Hey guys! Welcome to a little mini-post edition of my blog. I’ve got a lot going on this week from tests to a debate tournament this weekend so I don’t have as much time to devote to this recap. However, I know many of you read this instead of actually watching the show so I still wanted to provide you with a basic outline of what happened. Especially since game 6 was on last night, if you watched this show live I would be surprised. That’s my job to do for your benefit.

Alright, so with that being said, we can break down the episode into three parts.

1.)    The house hunt

2.)    The struggle over future careers

3.)    Lauren’s blog launch party

  Ben and Lauren decide that they want to look for a new, larger place to raise their family in. Since the  houses” in a segment more scripted than an HGTV show. Look it up, those shows are all scripted. Basically, she goes from showing them a disaster property that’s worth 200k and then right after shows them a dream home worth 900,000 that’s “only a little past your budget”. If the other house you showed them was 200K, the 900K isn’t only “a little” past budget. Ben wants the fixer upper because money. Lauren wants the dream home because she wants to settle in the home she will live in for the rest of her life. Here’s a brief newsflash for her, most people do not live in one house their entire life. There’s no need for you to buy a perfect 4 bedroom when you aren’t even married yet. The couple splits the difference and decide to postpone house hunting.

  Then Lauren starts to struggle with the idea that she no longer has a job. She used to be a flight attendant, which are awesome by the way, shout out to my aunt! I digress. Lauren had to stop working because she kept getting recognized and in interfered with her doing her job. I sympathize for her, that could not have been easy. However, her logic on the show for finding a new job was either really stupid or scripted. She decides that because she loves to “cuddle” with animals, she should be a zookeeper. Because, we all know that’s all zookeepers have to do. It took one minute of her shuffling poop before she realized it wasn’t the job for her.

  Finally, Lauren settles on the fact that she wants to start a lifestyle blog. It will focus on beauty tips, her life, fashion, etc. While I admire her trying to find a job, let’s be honest, her blog being successful doesn’t really have much to do with her work on it. If she hadn’t gone on The Bachelor, no one would give a crap. None of those industry professionals would’ve shown up at her party because she has no relevant experience. Also, is there really anything new she can add with a beauty blog? There are thousands of them on the web already and I doubt there are that many unique tips that she could share. This blog, if it makes her money, will solely be because people want to read about Ben’s fiancé. Eventually, she’ll be last week’s news though so she needs to find another career at some point in her life.  The launch party goes well enough with her receiving only positive feedback (as if anyone on camera would’ve said anything negative). Lauren starts to worry that Ben won’t show up, but instead he surprises her with her brother and her mother coming to the party. She’s thrilled and all is forgiven. It’s a sweet gesture. Hopefully, Lauren holds on to that to help her deal with the fact that Ben is starting to question the wedding because Lauren didn’t know he was allergic to coconut. Okay, it had more to deal with what that meant and not the actual coconut allergy, but this a blog and sensationalism works best.

  You know what else works best? You watching game 7 of the World Series tonight. However, don’t worry about missing Survivor. If CBS foolishly decides to air it, I will cover it in a recap tomorrow. It might be shorter than usual because I have to pack for my debate tournament. We will be driving all the way to Kentucky. Let me know if you want me to do a post about how the tournament goes. What I write is all up to you.