The Bachelor: Double vision...sort of.

Tonight on The Bachelor, we had fifteen minutes of "identical" twin-related hilarity, surrounded by an hour and fifteen minutes of filler. An hour and a half, ABC, really? Are you just too cheap to find a third show for Monday nights?

Apparently, this week we'll have two group dates and one individual date. For those of you who, like me, are new to the show this season (I find that the eleventh season is a fantastic time to start watching a show), each date will have a rose up for grabs. If you don't get a rose on the individual date, you're immediately eliminated. The first "date box" is circus-themed, and the daters will be Stephy, McCarten, Jenni, Lindsey, Sarah, and DeAnna.

Brad tells the daters on the way over that he expects them to participate in the circus stuff, which, combined with the fact that the date showcases a company that participates in some pretty well-documented animal cruelty, makes it my nightmare date. I am really, really not on board with this giant circus advertisement, so we're going to speed right through it. Tightropes, giant balls (heh), clowns, juggling, and crazy awesome tumbling by Jenni ensue. In the solo time, Brad and Jenni hit it off, Stephy confesses that she's been single for five years, and McCarten continues to annoy me. Oh, and then the girls are IN THE CIRCUS. Um, Worst. Date. Ever. I can't believe they're excited about this! ...Or am I the only one here who really hates clowns? (And people who hit elephants with big metal hooks?) These girls just seem to be soaking up the limelight, though, so whatever. Brad ends up giving Stephy the rose as a reward for putting herself out there, which I completely didn't see coming. (Single for five years!)

Back at the mansion, Hillary gets a fancy dress and a trolley in the date box for her solo date, while the other girls make zero effort to pretend to be excited for her. Brad, though, is very excited--he says she's the one girl who keeps him laughing. She has to meet him in front of all the other girls, which is SO AWKWARD. And even more so when he presents her with $1 million worth of jewelry to wear for the night. They fly to San Francisco for a private dinner, where Hillary gets all teary about the possibility of finding love, throwing Brad for a loop and ruining her makeup. It's...intense. And awkward. Let's just call it "intensely awkward." He gives her the rose, and though he says he thinks her red eyes and smeared mascara are beautiful because she showed her emotions, I'm going to go ahead and chalk that one up to Brad being a gentleman who couldn't send a crying girl home. Because that was a complete train wreck of a date. They head over to the Ghiradelli chocolate factory to eat and smooch away their sorrows.

As the girls eat dinner at the mansion, McCarten and DeAnna are pretty honest about not wanting to see Hillary make it back from the date. Fair enough, I guess. McCarten is pretty witchy about it, but it is a competition, so I suspect that everyone feels the same way but just isn't being as loud about it. The next day, however, it causes some definite tension when they are equally honest about their wish for Hillary's elimination right to Hillary's face (though she did ask for it).

The rest of the women get their date box: Kristy, Sheena, Jade, Bettina, and Solisa will be going sailing. The boat is gorgeous, and seems, oh, about a million times better than the circus. Kristy, getting a boat-steering lesson from Brad, interviews that he's only seen her serious side. And she's right, if by "serious side" she means "crazy tongue-diagnosing side." Solisa, for her part, makes up for her lack of bikini to rip off this week by giving Brad a lap dance. Sheena rocks a jet ski, but gets too competitive in her effort to show off, cutting Brad's jet ski off and getting in trouble with the coast guard. Probably not the best move, as she later realizes. Bettina goes the smarter route, riding on the jet ski with Brad. Later, in their one on one time, Brad goes out of his way to tell her how great she is, which makes it all the more uncomfortable when she tells him that she's been divorced. He's shocked, and ends up giving Kristy the rose.

And now, finally, we get to the much-hyped Most Shocking Cocktail Party EVER, in which Brad and his not-at-all-identical twin brother Chad (Brad and Chad? Seriously? So I don't even have to make up a funny rhyming nickname, like Schmad?) pull a Parent Trap-style switcheroo, to hilaaarious effect. Brad thinks that the girls who are attracted to him as a person will be able to tell the difference, which would almost kind of make sense, if Brad and Chad were actually identical. I'm going to call this more of a vision test. In the next step, they'll have to look at pictures of Brad and Chad while Chris asks them "Which is better? Number one, or number two?" Chad heads into the mansion to meet the bachelorettes while Brad watches on a monitor in his limo.

McCarten is the first victim, and she totally doesn't catch on to the fact that he's not Brad. In fact, she gives a hysterical (in the context) speech about how it's important to be herself, so that what he sees is really her. He laughs at her a little (HA), and then goes to meet with Lindsey, who is also completely fooled. The next victim is Sheena, who isn't buying it at all, which just goes to show that you don't need a lot of solo time with Brad to be able to tell that this dude isn't him. Way to go, Sheena! She clearly just saved her butt. Kristy also calls it right off the bat, as does Bettina. Stephy and DeAnna figure it out as well, and Sarah says he seems different and more laid-back, but doesn't realize it's not Brad. Interestingly, she doesn't think their solo time went as well as usual, which indicates to me that she actually does have chemistry with Brad himself.

Best moment ever: Chris reveals Chad's existence, sending the women into various fits of disbelief, glee, dismay, and mustache (in Kristy's case). I hope that seeing those two completely non-identical twins standing next to each other makes the losers who didn't guess it even more embarrassed. McCarten. Although Chad earns my emnity during deliberation by saying that Brad shouldn't hold it against her, because "she would've figured it out" given more time. FALSE, you guys. She had no clue, and only noticed that something was at all wrong when he laughed at her.

In the rose ceremony, Brad gives roses to Sheena, McCarten (WHAT?!?! You suck, Brad.) Jenni, Jade (Boo!), DeAnna, and Bettina. So Sarah gets the boot instead of McCarten? Even though she actually noticed that something was different about him? Whatever. Solisa's goodbye speech is all about how Brad saw the "special parts" of her, because she "wear[s] those parts on the outside," but "those special parts weren't parts that he was looking for, unfortunately." Wow. I can't even make that funnier than it already is, given that she's run around topless, let him do a body shot off of her, and given him a lap dance in the past two episodes. "Special parts," indeed! Lindsey gives the typical "I'm not going to cry [walks off camera crying]" speech, and reveals herself to be way more invested in Brad than she ever showed. Maybe those giant eyelashes were interfering with her vision when she was talking to Chad.

Next week: Improv, catfights, and hopefully Jade's last appearance on this show.