The Bachelor Season 21 Episode 4 Recap: Meet The Baby Sister

Lest you’ve forgotten where we left off last week, everyone but Corinne is mad that Corinne straddled Nick in the bouncy house. Corinne, who may or may not have a sleep disorder, is snoring blissfully. Vanessa — to borrow the parlance of UnReal, a classic “wifey” — takes our Bachelor to task for enabling Corinne, saying, “Tell me if I’m over-exaggerating.” Meanwhile, Taylor and Sarah climb into bed with Corinne for a chat, which makes me think of the way LBJ’s staffers had to follow him into the men’s room for meetings. “I don’t know how the bounce-house situation unfolded, but it hasn’t looked the best,” Sarah says, advising her to pull it together. I don’t think I’ve ever heard the words “straddle” or “bouncy house” so much in so short a period of time. Corinne is resistant. “I’m not privileged in any way, shape, or form,” she insists. She’s just like you and me: a simple, no-frills American with her own personal nanny. In the blink of an eye — and an aggressively long set of false lashes — it’s time for the rose ceremony we didn’t quite get to in the previous episode. The other women think Corinne is going home. They know that Corinne is too young, too inexperienced. They want Corinne to go home. They need Corinne to go home. Some of them are crying at the idea of Corinne not going home. But I know, in my heart, that Corinne is sticking around — and so would they, were they true students of The Bachelor. She has so much more weirdness yet to bless us with. It’s ultimately Christen and Brittany who say their goodbyes. “I love the taste of victory,” Corinne says in a post-ceremony interview, taking a mock bite out of her rose and another step closer to her destiny of becoming a living, breathing human GIF. The next morning, the women are told they’ll be joining Nick in his hometown, and scream with more excitement than anyone has ever exhibited about the prospect of visiting Wisconsin. (No offense, Wisconsin! You seem fun. Love the cheeseheads.) Nick meets up with his parents in a neighborhood coffee shop. Mama Viall has a rock-and-roll vibe, in a leather jacket and a Claire Underwood pixie cut. Papa Viall has stylish glasses and the same beard as his son, but in gray. “We don’t want to see you on the show again,” Nick’s dad says, a sentence that sounds like it is both a joke and very much not a joke. Danielle L. gets the week’s first one-on-one date in the adorable, vaguely Stars Hollow-y town of Waukesha. She and Nick decorate cookies in each other’s icing likenesses at the local bakery, then, in what is surely one of the laziest staged reality TV moments of all time, Nick *~*~Just Happens To~*~* spot a familiar face through a store window. She’s an ex, Amber, and the three of them sit down together for an unnecessary but not unpleasant discussion of Nick’s romantic M.O. They retreat minus Amber to a grassy hill, where they compare notes on their teenage romantic foibles and make out on a blanket. Could this be the least exciting one-on-one date of all time? Come on, Mike Fleiss, at least hook Danielle L. up with a hot tub. Over a drink, Danielle L. talks about how her parents’ divorce 10 years ago has affected her outlook on dating, which, girl, okay. Naturally, she gets a rose. As a final surprise, Nick leads Danielle L. to a theater packed with shrieking young women where an ostensibly famous person named Chris Lane is performing. Nothing will ever be as funny to me as how reliably anticlimactic this franchise’s musical guests are. Back at whatever temporary mansion they’re staying in (what if they had a massive traveling tent like The Grand Tour?), Rachel, Alexis, Vanessa, Jasmine, Jaimi, Sarah, Whitney, Kristina, Astrid, Taylor, Josephine, Danielle M., and Corinne are tapped for a group date on a dairy farm. Nick is casually bottle-feeding calves when they arrive. Winning as that sight might be, Corinne is displeased by, among other things, the odor and the flies. “Cows are okay,” she allows. The women are put to work — in the name of love, of course. They feed the cows hay, milk them, and shovel manure, which Josephine impressively pulls off in a pair of pristine white pants. Corinne, decrying this as the worst date she’s ever been on, sits it out by her prissy lonesome. That night, Kristina hints to Nick about having had a difficult past, but one that she cannot yet reveal due to the time constraints of their brief conversations—making her, in my opinion, an excellent candidate for a melodramatic Freeform spinoff. Corinne, a self-described sexy “corn husk,” encourages the other women to openly air their grievances with her, then proceeds to take their criticism incredibly poorly. She offers a defensive non-apology for sleeping through a rose ceremony. “Michael Jordan took naps,” she scoffs in an interview. “Abraham Lincoln took naps.” “The name of the game is ‘trust no one,’” Corinne says, which is odd, because I’m pretty sure the name of the game is The Bachelor. And for what it’s worth, she is apparently also no longer trusting herself, because a few minutes later, she suddenly claims that her prior misbehavior was the result of a “very serious medical condition” and a “panic attack.” Kristina is not here for this. “I’m not stupid,” she says, winning both my heart and the group-date rose. For their cute if decidedly unsexy one-on-one date, Nick escorts Raven, a true sweetie pie, to his little sister Bella’s soccer game. After both grownups get their asses kicked playing goalie, she meets the parents, then Nick whisks her and Bella away to a genuinely awesome-looking roller rink, where Raven asks her 11-year-old potential sister-in-law if she watched Bachelor in Paradise. (No, she wasn’t allowed.) From there they head to the bright lights of the city, for dinner in the lovely yet spooky bright-white space cathedral that is the Milwaukee Art Museum. Raven recounts how she walked in on a boyfriend cheating on her—not only that, but she kicked down his bedroom door “spidermonkey fast” and beat his head with the other woman’s high-heeled shoe. And not only that, she recalls: “I know what her vagina looks like.” She accepts the rose without needing to brandish a stiletto, then they glide around the museum in presumably stolen roller skates. Before the rose ceremony, Corinne holds forth on how “disgusting” Taylor is. And she’s not the only one. “It’s absurd to me how unaware Taylor is of how she comes across,” Josephine complains, having abruptly rebranded herself as Corinne’s henchwoman (Josephine : Corinne :: Daniel : Chad). Corinne resolves to confront Taylor, cuddling up with her before a fire under not one, but two blankets as she incongruously explains in a voiceover, “She’s a fake-ass bitch and I’m calling her out.” After all that, amazingly, Taylor somehow doesn’t come off so great — Corinne characterizes the condescending tone her nemesis uses to explain the concept of emotional intelligence as “Miss Proper,” and you know what? She is not wrong. The episode ends on a “To be continued,” with Corinne expressing her desire to punch Taylor in the face. Based on the preview, it looks like they’re due for a two-on-one date next week, which will no doubt be bloody. (Oh, I get it! Taylor : Corinne :: Alex : Chad.) Before we part, I’d like to leave you with one happy revelation from tonight to carry with you in your heart until we meet again: Dolphin devotee Alexis’ two biggest fears are Nicolas Cage (yes, the actor) and aliens. Have a great week.