Bachelorette Buzz: Week Nine

On week nine of The Bachelorette, we leave all of last week's families back in the States and head off to Fiji with Ashley and her three boytoys. The episode begins with replays of past dates with the guys, accompanied by Ashley’s voiceover—which, because the show opened with the same thing last week, has become so predictable at this point that it could be formatted as a sing-along with a giant red rose bouncing over the words.

We snap back to reality where Ashley opens the door to a big surprise. Oh my! Who could possibly be at the door? Commercial break. The suspense is killing no one.

Okay, wait. We spoke too soon. The show returns from its break and while most of us thought it’d be Ivy Man Ames, since he’s got the means to show up unannounced and was the most recent dumpee, we’re actually really surprised to see Ryan's permanently happy face!

We're wondering what he's doing there, because he can't exactly pull the “Oh, I was just in town, and decided to drop by” line. As it turns out, his optimism really never does die, and he wants a second chance. Guess who doesn’t have a permanently happy face. Ashley.

Ryan explains that he didn’t see his dumping coming and says he doesn’t think his one-on-one date with Ashley was conducive to getting to know him. “I feel that we didn’t have a full chance.” Ryan slips Ashley his address in Fiji and leaves.

Ben and Ashley go on a date on a big fat awesome boat. They lather sunscreen on each other while Ashley straddles her beau. Because as every good Penn Dental student knows, you needa get to know your equipment before you start operating. They snorkel and look at corals and fish. Aww, sunset on the water.

Later that night, Ben’s shirt is awkwardly see-through, V-necked, and tucked in. Things that might work individually, but…no, let’s be real, see-through never works. Ben opens up while Ashley listens. Kiss kiss.

Ashley pulls out an invitation (read: permission slip) from host Chris allowing the couple to forgo their individual rooms and take up the Fantasy Suite together. Which isn’t a snarky name we came up with; it’s the real deal. The couple takes him up on his offer, and things get super uncomfortable when the cameras continue rolling. America endures some soft-core porn in the form of make-outs in the pool and silhouette lighting and then over 7 million viewers (Seriously?! Why are people watching this?) watch Ben and Ashley enter the Fantasy Suite.

Next up: Constantine. Ashley reveals that the date will start off with a helicopter ride, and Constantine gets crazy excited. Oh, boys and their gadgets... They fly over a coral reef and Constantine’s all, “Can you imagine what that’s like underneath?!” Ashley keeps mum, but thinks, “Yeah, I checked it out yesterday with Ben.”

Ryan stands alone in the middle of the beach and looks up longingly at a helicopter that we are led to assume is Ashley’s. Scourned lover. Tear tear.

Constantine and Ashley go check out waterfalls and jump off! And luckily, they can both swim. Over coconuts, Ashley asks C how many houses he looked at before he bought one. He gets all excited and says 108, not realizing that this is a test. Because he didn't catch the metaphor. Because he is stupid. Ashley looks at him reproachfully until he figures it out ten moments too late and goes, “Ah! I mean, you know, houses and women are different!”

Ashley and C go back to the same hotel where she stayed with Ben the night before. C does something with his wine and tells Ashley that Ben taught him how to do it. She’s all, “Is it weird that you and your friend are dating the same girl?” Um, is it weird that you took him and his friend to the same hotel after their daytime dates?

Ashley tells C that she doesn’t feel him returning the chemistry. He admits he’s not head over heels in love. C knows “what the Fantasy Suite means and what it implies.” He respects Ashley too much to—

Wait. Obama needs to interrupt this show to tell us about the National Debt. Give us a second. We'd give you a recap of the speech, but it was essentially itself a recap, so we'll just leave you with this final thought: How many red ties do you think he has?

—continue. “This means the end of the road for me,” says C. He leaves. Ashley takes out Chris’s Fantasy Suite invitation and cries over her blue balls. “What if I end up all alone and all of this was for nothing?” Well, good thing Ryan’s in town.

Ashley knocks on Ryan’s door. His address happens to be in her same resort. What a coincidence. Honestly, we think the kids are perfect for each other. They’re both so hopelessly desperate, we’re actually rooting for this to work. “It was premature,” says Ashley. “But… I did know that it was the right decision.” She dumps him for the second time. Ryan’s scared of being alone, too. He cries. We want to hug him and tell him that everything’s gonna be okay, but he’s already madly chanting, “It’ll happen, it’ll happen.”

JP and Ashley go on a water plane thing. They’re making out. JP's all, “I’m ready for the end," and we're all, "Yeah, samez. Hurry up! We want to watch the Real Housewives of NY Reunion and Obama just set us off track as it is! Stop wasting our time with your 'feelings' and mush!" Making out on the beach. Voiceovers. Feelings. Mush.

“I said goodbye with two guys this week,” Ashley says to JP, who obviously assumes he’s the last one standing and this unnecessarily gets his hopes up. She explains that she actually only dumped one guy this week, who was really dumped weeks ago, and that another dude actually dumped her.

Ashley gives JP the Fantasy Suite invitation. He takes her up on that.

The next day, Ashley sits down with host Chris who struggles more and more every week to sit through her reasoning. He breaks it down for her nice and simple: Two boys left. What’s gonna happen? Ideally, this means that we only have to sit through one more episode of this crap, but Ashley reveals that she's still the insecure girl that we met in May and she just can't get over the fact that Constantine dumped her, so she's devised a whole new strategy for this rose ceremony. Her new approach: seeing if the boys will actually accept her rose at the ceremony when their names are called.

Ashley tells the boys beforehand that this is her strategy and after some unnecessary long silences with piano backgrounds, both of them accept their roses and make it to the final round. Shocker.

Next week: Ashley’s family.