Chris Harrison blogs 'The Bachelor': season 14, episode 4

It has been another great week for The Bachelor and I want to thank all of you for already making this season such a huge success. This has been one of the most emotional seasons we have ever had. I understand this has also been an emotional season for you as well. Some of that emotion has turned into anger and some of that anger has been aimed towards me in the comments. I’m perfectly okay with this and appreciate the honesty. I do want to mention one particular comment that really impressed my wife and I. Z wrote a comment early last Tuesday afternoon and it was awesome. I highly recommend you all go back and read it, as it was as nasty as it was eloquent. I must admit I had to look up a lot of the words she used but Z, you rocked the rant.

This week I really enjoyed surprising the girls with the RV’s and the road trip. While they were extremely excited at first I don’t think they really understood this was a true road trip and they would be roughing it. Most of the girls wore high heels when they got on the RV’s. Once they realized how it was going to be most of them went and changed except for Ashleigh who kept the heels on! When they were getting on the RV’s Ali and Vienna went in separate directions. They wanted nothing to do with one another.

The girls cooked a lot of campfire food but the snack of choice was smores. These girls put away some smores but Corrie took the cake. That girl ate 8-10 smores a day for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Gia got the one-on-one date this week. Jake told me this was “a hot date.” I’m not sure what’s harder to believe, Jake didn’t kiss a girl till the 11th grade or the fact that they played spin the bottle. Jake told me he’d never played spin the bottle before. I was going to tell him about seven minutes in heaven but I don’t think he’s ready for that yet. At the end of this date, if you listen close you’ll hear the piano version of “On the Wings of Love.” This is one of my favorite versions of this song.

The group date started at Pismo beach. We all learned a good lesson at the beginning of this date. If you drive a huge RV onto soft sand it will get stuck. The date was held up for quite some time while we called tow trucks to come haul the RV’s out of the sand. Lesson learned! If you ever get the chance, spend a night at the Madonna Inn. If you couldn’t tell, each room is named and has a theme. If you’re up for a fun night at a freaky hotel this is your spot. Two things with the girls really stood out on this date. Jake and Ashleigh had no chemistry together. He wanted there to be something but there just wasn’t. The other thing was Vienna’s attitude finally got to Jake. Her telling everybody she wanted to go last kind of set Jake off and he let her have it a bit during their one-on-one time. The two-on-one date was tough for everybody this week. The girls really liked Ella and Kathryn. Both these girls are very sweet and they didn’t want to compete with one another. Ella was a bit more aggressive and Kathryn really didn’t use her time wisely but in the end it didn’t matter. When Ella’s bags were taken away the women were stunned but when Kathryn’s bags were also taken the ladies were absolutely floored and a couple of them started to cry.

The rose ceremony was especially cool this week. It was held at a beautiful mansion in Saratoga called Villa Montalvo. It’s now a historic landmark located in a state park. The Villa is named for the popular 16th-century writer Garcia Ordonez de Montalvo, who coined the name “California.” As you can see, I have a lot of time on my hands when I’m on the road. Okay, the history lesson is over. Time to talk about this rose ceremony. Jake decided himself to come and talk to me. Clearly, we weren’t exactly expecting it and the producers had to find me. I was out in the courtyard waiting to go in and announce the final rose. Depending on where we hold the ceremony sometimes I can’t hear or see what’s going on and I have to wait to be told to go inside. Needless to say I was a little surprised to see Jake come walking out looking for me. When he started talking to me he was bumbling over his words a bit and I had no idea what he was talking about or what he wanted. We finally did get it figured out and as you saw I took a rose away. I really respect the fact that Jake took it upon himself to send four girls home this week when he didn’t have to. This guy isn’t messing around. If he doesn’t feel it for somebody he would rather send them home instead of drag it out and take more time away from the women he really does have a connection with. Vienna getting that final rose really set the other women off, especially Ali. They really don’t like each other and things only seem to be getting worse between them.

A couple of things before I let you go this week. I’m really excited to be on Ellen Wednesday. She’s so good at what she does; I always enjoy my time with her. Yes, I’ll admit I have a bit of a crush. I also want to tell you how excited I am to be a part of our new show Bachelor Pad coming to ABC this summer. I won’t bore you with details yet but we’ve wanted to do an “all-star” show for some time now and this is the perfect way to do it without messing with our other shows. The cast is not set but you will be seeing many of your favorites from seasons past! It will be a fun summer show and I can’t wait to get to work on it. Speaking of work, I hope you’ll join Carrie Ann Inaba and me on the Grammy Red Carpet pre-show this Sunday on TV Guide Network. Have a great week and as always I’ll be reading those comments. Z, see if you can outdo yourself this week. You can find me on Facebook and Twitter @chrisbharrison.

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