On a special Tuesday night airing of The Bachelor, Sean takes the women to Canada for some... extremely cold dates.
On the first one-on-one date, Catherine and Sean spend some time frolicking on a glacier, making snow angels and sledding. Team Bachelor forgot to instruct Catherine to remove her huge hoop earrings, and, the way this show has been going, I fear for her safety. After handstands and flips, her ears remain intact. Phew.
For the evening portion of the date, Sean takes Catherine to an ice castle (literally, a castle made entirely of ice. Pretty awesome, if you ask me.), where she opens up to him. She details the story of her friend being killed by a falling tree, which has made her cherish each day. Sean says he is crazy about her (if you're keeping tally, that's 1) and gives her the rose.
The group date this week is meant to challenge the women (because all prior dates have been cakewalks, right?) -- they're going for a canoe ride across [the fantastically gorgeous] Lake Louise. Lesley jumps into Sean's canoe, and the six others split into the remaining two canoes.
If the girls didn't think that was hard enough, Sean informs them they are about to join an elite club in Canada and take the Polar Bear Plunge.
With an EMT and lifeguard on site, the girls strip down to their bikinis and prep for their challenge.
"I'm gonna get hypothermia for a rose, and I'm totally fine with that," says Lesley.
All the women except Selma jump in (her rationale: she comes from Baghdad. They are warm-weather people. If my memory serves me correctly, was she not the one cursing the heat during her one-on-one mountain climb??).
The girls all manage to make it in and out of the frigid water, but, back at the dressing tent, Tierra exhibits symptoms of actual hypothermia, landing her in the medic's care for the second time this season.
The EMTs work to bring Tierra's body temperature back up, and when she finally comes to, the first words out of her mouth are, "I wanted more time with Sean." Wolf. Crier.
Sean pays Tierra a special visit, instructing her to stay in bed and get the feeling back into her legs while he hangs out with the rest of the group-daters.
Lesley gets the first alone time, where she opens up to Sean and tells him she "loves love" and is excited to start that process.
Sarah shows Sean pictures of her family and says she hopes he can meet them soon, to which he confesses meeting the family is a big step and he's not sure if he's ready for that.
He'd better get ready, since hometown dates are only two weeks away!
Despite Sean's orders, Tierra wasn't really going to sit around and waste a night of troublemaking, so she forces her frozen toes into boots, gussies herself up, and heads over to the date. She walks in on the girls imitating her, à la Sandy walking in on Rizzo's "Look at Me, I'm Sandra Dee."
Sean enters the room, sees Tierra has arrived, and promptly steals her away to chat. I don't know how many times he is going to fall for her act!
Sean decides to give Lesley the rose for turning a corner with him (and because he's crazy about her -- tally: 2), and Tierra is spitting nails.
Before going on his second one-on-one date, Sean decides he doesn't see a future with one of the girls and needs to tell her immediately. He pulls Sarah out of the room and explains that their relationship this week felt forced, and he would rather her leave now than have her sit through another rose ceremony. She holds it together so well and finally breaks down and cries when he walks away.
Now that that's taken care of, Sean and Des head to Banff National Park for their date - a picnic in the park. Except the picnic is at the foot of the mountain. So they must rappel down the mountain. Cliché, cliché, cliché; fear conquering, metaphor, cliché. They make it down, share some food, and decide to climb a tree. Because rappelling wasn't adventurous enough.
At night, Des reveals that she wasn't rich growing up and lived in tents and trailers. So, she wants to raise her family on love and laughter. The things these girls decide to share sometimes just boggle my mind. Des gets the rose because he is crazy about her (tally: 3).
It's cocktail party time!
Selma pulls Sean aside for some alone time. She realizes she didn't have the courage to jump in an ice-cold lake, but she does have the courage to show him her love with a nationally televised, off-center peck on the lips. In her confessional, she told us she needed to bring out the big guns tonight. If you watched the show, she most certainly did.
Lindsay promises herself she will make the most of her time with Sean and not kiss him at all during their chat. This proves too hard, so they make out. He is crazy about her (tally: 4)!
AshLee hands Sean a blindfold and babbles something about letting him lead her in their relationship. He carries her, blindfolded, to another room and kisses her, and she is ecstatic. I am just confused. She has a moment of clarity. More power to her.
Time to hand out roses!
Catherine, Lesley and Desiree are all sitting pretty with red roses already; the next three go to Lindsay, AshLee, and Tierra.
Daniella, snubbed of a one-on-one date, and Selma, who just went against her cultural beliefs and kissed a man on national television, are sent packing, and now we're down to six women.
Enough of this extreme cold -- they'll heat things up in St. Croix and the U.S. Virgin Islands next week. What medical emergency will send Tierra to the hospital this week? Will Sean realize she is the boy who cried wolf? Isn't Sean's head spinning with all this "crazy about you" talk? See you all in St. Croix!