What starts out in Vegas....stays in Vegas

Our favorite mate selection story  continues with Ben taking the ladies to Las Vegas . Ben will continue to build connections while simultaneously culling the troop of candidates. Nature can offer some advise to Ben as he continues his pursuit. We are reminded of female crocodiles hanging around and picking the biggest and strongest croc to mate with in order to pass along these survival traits to the next generation of crocodiles. This strategy has proven effective over a time tested 275 million years. Hopefully for the species sake , the crocodiles  avoid  getting politically correct and   chastising  the biggest and strongest crocs that may not be  sensitive to the feelings of  less “strength privileged  crocs”,  and we can expect the mate selection process for crocs to remain intact. In this case, the female just needs to hang around for the winner to establish himself in the battle among the males to earn the win in the mating sweepstakes. But for the emperor penguins , much  as we see in the Bachelor, the females are the ones that compete for the males and select with whom they want to mate.  As we watch the Bachelor we wonder how these ladies can distinguish themselves. So perhaps the female emperor penguins efforts can serve as a guide.

There are generally three ways that penguins attract their mates:
Trumpeting ( by males) is done to tell other males to stay away, to attract females, and to show possession of their nest site.
Mutual- This is done after the male and female are paired up and it strengthens their bond. They stretch their heads and necks upward and they vocalize.
Bowing- This is also done to strengthen a bond and is when one or both penguins bows to each other. When they are bowing they may also "quiver" which is when they vibrate their beaks and make a low hiss or growl noise.

 

I think we can make some parallels and offer the troop some guidelines to help them navigate the treacherous waters of the Bachelor’s journey.

Trumpeting : The best manifestation of this  skill was demonstrated by Courtney Robinson during Ben’s season. While Ben was chatting casually with another candidate, Courtney walked by in her bikini and stretched  out by the pool distracting Ben to  the point he lost his concentration and simple had to stare.  Not everyone is ready to adopt this strategy but among this years crop it seems Calia is suited to give this a shot

Mutual: this is where “hot tube skills” come into play. It seems all are pretty well equipped to compete here. Ben seems to like this arena even more than helicopter rides. Any location however is deemed “in play” where hot tub skills are involved

Bowing : although I do not expect hissing or growling we can chat about how the conversation flows with Ben and our candidates. Some are comfortable ( Lauren B) while others are strained  ( Olivia) .This is the arena where quiet confidence and poise matter the most. This is a tiebreaker category and one that can end or perpetuate the journey.

 

This week Ben opens with a helicopter flight with JoJo. Jo Jo is emerging as a nice friendly sort and seems to be comfortable with our boy. For Bachelor nation she doesn’t offer much conflict so we expect her to move on for a while  but we are not suggesting she go pick out curtains.

Ben finally acknowledges  the twins Emily and Haley who as it happens live in Las Vegas. Ben gets them in the limo for a drive and all we need is for Ben to feature a 70’s porn star mustache to complete the image. Our twins list their occupation as “Twin”. This loose classification suggests next year we will see a candidate with an occupation of “Middle Child”.

The twins look exactly alike of course  seems to be presented in a manner to resemble Taylor Swift.  As we know in the journey to find love the bachelor takes helicopters, yachts  and stays in luxury hotels. But Ben takes the Vegas twins  home to meet their mother. The mother greets us and she is exactly what the twins will look like in 25 years. Also she is alone so we are left with a bit of Disney movie mystery as to where is the other parent ? We recall Belle only had her dad. Bambi’s mother got killed, Ariel is another and of course we watched as Simba lost Mufasa. Now the twins as in same boat.

In the Disney movies we  often witness a character  who is growing up and taking responsibility. These youngsters  overcome adversity. Now our twins are in the same boat and I find myself rooting for them. ( I still get chocked up when Mufasa dies and Simba is there trying to revive him)

Ben has not engaged too much with them and determines he needs to see them as individuals and  not as “the twins” and one has to say home. He chooses Emily to stick around and Haley is left at home with Mom and the beautiful dogs. Overall I have to give Ben credit for this as he is not able to proceed and see if he can develop a relationship. However, Emily will not be singing Hakuna Matata  with Ben.

 

The rest of the show is focused on presenting  Olivia in the worst light possible. To be fair  this effort did not take much manipulation and she has firmly established  herself as the one the girls cant stand ( nor can we in bachelor nation) but given the screen time and amount of conflict she had to advance for another week.

Ben let Amber and Rachel go which didn’t surprise anyone especially as we never saw Rachel and I think Mexico is on the agenda next week.  so lets see where we are:

Lauren  B : has to be top seed at this point. Unless they find a dead girl scout in her room she is a shoo in to final four

  

Calia : Ben classified  her as sex panther. For emperor penguins this skill would be a winner so she skates into the final four. I am warming up more to her as time goes on.

 

Lauren H : the observer effect  refers to changes that the act of observation will make on a phenomenon being observed. On opening night I thought this kindergarten teacher might be best match for our midwestern  lad  from Warsaw Indiana. But much like Simba had to move on so has Ben and I think he leaves Lauren  H behind at some point  to the final four.

 

Jo Jo: seems to be on good path,  I give here a chance to be on the  cusp of final four but ben will not have sleepless nights when he lets her go.

 

Olivia:  this chick has collapsed  from “great first  impression” to “ most likely to be murdered by a family member” in three  short weeks

 

 Amanda:  She was rarely seen this week because I think she is out working for Bernie Sanders to get elected to take care of her kids college expenses

 

Jubillee; I think the producers are keeping her around  for balance reasons but Bernie has a better chance of being elected than Jubillee does of making the final four

 

Jennifer: I know she is out there but we better see more of her soon before she is packing up

 

Leah:  Rarely seen  thus far but a dark horse

 
Becca: Final four possibility but cant compete with Lauren H for warmth  

  

Next week we will continue our journey.