The Bachelorette Season 8 - Week 5 - Recap

Here’s my recap for Week 5 of The Bachelorette Season 8 in which Emily and her 10 suitors snog on the streets of London. Sean and Jef zoomed up the leaderboard this week with romantic one-on-one dates while Kalon got a visceral tongue-lashing from Emily. Note: tongue-lashing in this case is a bad thing.  Gentlemen, you do not want to get on Ms. Maynard’s bad side. More to follow.

Sean’s One-on-One

Sean and Emily take a tour through London, first atop a red double-decker bus and then on foot. One thing that I’m enjoying about this season is that the dates are more realistic. Not that getting an all-expenses-paid trip to London is realistic, but I’m glad they didn’t bungee jump off the top of the Tower Bridge or scale the walls of Big Ben to reach their dinner at the apex. (Oh wait, wasn’t there a date similar to the latter earlier this season……..)

Adrenaline strengthens attraction, so it’s not surprising that contestants have found “love” through the epinephrine-pumping dates that have become commonplace throughout the Bachelor franchise. Seeing Sean and Emily simply stroll through the London streets, taking pictures with each other like any other tourist couple would, was cute. The most endearing part of the date was when Sean got up in front of a big crowd at the famed Speakers’ Corner, a location for public discussion and debate, to broadcast his feelings on love. “Let me tell you what I think about love… I have been in the presence of great love all my life, and I’m searching for that great love… Today I’m with this beautiful girl, and I’m hopeful that it may be here.” The camera shows a giant smile on Emily’s face. She’s loving it.

Sean easily gets a rose.

Group Date

The guys are once again subject to public humiliation (qlassiq group dates) when they have to act out scenes from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. In front of a live audience. In full costume. John, Ryan, Kalon, and Alejandro take their turns portraying Romeo while Doug and Arie switch off playing the nurse.

This brings us to Best Quote #1, courtesy of John, the most reliable source of one-liners this season thus far. After Doug and Arie dejectedly accept their gender-bending roles: “I get to flirt with one of you… I’m hoping for Arie, no offense Doug.”

The guys shrug off their embarrassment and have fun with the task at hand, realizing that Emily is probably trying to see if they can lighten up and have fun rather than judging them on their acting abilities. Zinger-slinger John quips in Best Quote #2, “Doug kissing me [on the cheek] was kind of rough, but it was warm and it was wet… so two out of three isn’t bad.”

Best Quote #3: Ryan, after the camera pans to a shot of Emily with Arie in a long wig and dress: “Which one is Juliet?”

Kalon, on the other hand, is the only one to misinterpret the situation (qlassiq Kalon) and tries to impress Emily with his acting as if he were auditioning for Broadway. “You can run along now,” he says to Emily in Best Quote #3, after she comes to check in on him during rehearsal. “He needs to lighten up, he’s way too intense,” she says as a result, understandably.

Ryan is pumped because in his scene, he gets to kiss Emily. While the audience members collectively aww and chuckle as he sneaks in an extra kiss, the guys grimace from the sideline. “If Shakespeare was alive, he would’ve said ‘Thoust suck,'” Arie says re: Ryan.

The night of the group date is when the episode changes from light-hearted fun to heated drama. Chris tells the guys that Kalon called Emily’s daughter Ricki “baggage,” and all of them are pissed. Kalon, aka Captain Oblivious, aka Mr. Ultimate Social Norms Violator, aka Idiot, says that he’s not going to apologie for his comment. Bad move, bro.

We’ve finally reached the scene that has been teased all season long. Doug mentions Kalon’s remark to Emily, and all of a sudden, Kalon gets his bell rung by the sweet southern belle. Best Quote #5, said by Emily: “I’m so angry right now… I want to go out there and rip his limbs off and beat him with them. I want to go West Virginia, hood rat, backwoods on his ass.” She greets Kalon with a giant slap across the face, branding a red handprint of shame into his left cheek. Kidding, she’s too ladylike for physical violence.

Still, though, my respect for her grows as she demonstrates her deep loyalty toward and love for her daughter by standing up for her. When Kalon tries to backtrack by saying that he didn’t mean for “baggage” to be taking so negatively – seriously, what an idiot – Emily owns him with Best Quote #6: “I’d love to hear you talk but not until I’m done… I got that one from you,” referring earlier this season when he said those same words to her. BURN!!

Finally…

Emily: Is there anything else you’d like to say for yourself?

Kalon: No, I just –

Emily: Then get the **** out.

And all of America cheers. You go girl! She’s so upset both at Kalon and less so at the guys for taking so long to tell her about Kalon’s comment that she decides not to give out the group rose. “My dream guy would be willing to stand up for me; I don’t know if I have a guy who would be willing to do that,” she says. Wait, but isn’t that what Doug did?

Jef’s One-on-One

Emily has a new fire in her belly in the aftermath of the Kalon Butt-Kicking, and she hopes Jef will prove that he’s completely there for her. The pair head out for a traditional afternoon tea hosted by etiquette teacher Jean, who flings etiquette corrections at them left and right. Best Quote #7: Jef, showing his annoyance that he isn’t getting enough time to talk to Emily alone: “This one-on-one just turned into a two-on-one with Jean.”

They bail and head out to a bar where they order two pints of beer and a platter of fish and chips. Much better. Naturally, the Kalon situation comes up in conversation. Best Quote #8: “If Ricki’s baggage, then she’s a Chloé handbag,” Jef says in one of the most aww-worthy lines of the night. Emily loves it. They eat dessert in the London Eye, and for one of the first times this season, Jef pours his heart out to her. “I just want someone to share the details with… I want to be with the person that I’m best friends with. I honestly feel like we could have something great,” he tells her. After his genuine display of emotion, Jef easily gets the rose, and they kiss along the Thames River. “This is definitely the most anticipated kiss of my life,” he says.

Cocktail Party/Rose Ceremony

Emily grills the guys and serves them up for dinner. They’re caught off-guard by her hard-hitting questions about loyalty. Ryan takes the opportunity to act out the Romeo and Juliet balcony scene again, interpreting the lines as “everything here is beautiful, but you’re the most beautiful thing here.” It has definitely seemed as if Emily’s tried to steer clear of Ryan’s smooth playboy moves and gigantic ego these past several weeks, but she admits that she liked his spectacle here. They kiss, for reals this time.

Emily’s left with eight dapper (for the most part) lads, Sean, Jef, Doug, Ryan, Chris, John, Travis, and Arie. Alejandro is eliminated… *insert obligatory “Don’t call my name/I’m not your babe, Alejandrooo” song lyric here.*

Next week, the gang’s heading to Croatia. I’m going to bet that at least one of the guys didn’t know where that was and faked a cheer following Emily’s announcement. “Hey, sounds foreign. Snaps for a continued free vacation!” (Wouldn’t be surprised if that was Ryan. He doesn’t seem like the sharpest knife in the drawer.)

To read my recap of Week 4, click here, and to read my overview of Weeks 1-3, click here. It’s not too late to start following this season! Thanks for reading, and let me know what you thought of this episode in the comments.