Real Epic Journey: A Bachelor(ette) Blog

There's a NEW Zealand?

2014-02-18T02:45:00.001-06:00

As we visit yet another perfect place to fall in love (New Zealand!), there are some unresolved issues we need to address.

Clare is still puzzling over her regretted finger banging episode in the South China Sea. Juan has been quite the gentleman by airing his grievances publicly and questioning Clare's commitment to the innocence of children everywhere. Has this woman no shame? How will little Camila react when she sees daddy taking a four a.m. dip in the ocean far from camera view only to flip out and wish the whole thing never happened?

While Clare tries to sort through that manufactured mess (which quite honestly, still confuses me), Cassandra, who hasn't seen any steady camera time in about five episodes laments her "boyfriend" dating other women while she sits at home pining away for her son. That's just no way to treat a woman, Juan. If only someone could have prevented this kind of situation somehow. Confiding in fellow single mom Renee seems like the natural reaction, not to mention that Renee acts and looks a lot more like Cassandra's mom than her peer. If Renee had a heart, she'd adopt Cassandra.

Andi is the big winner of the first date and irons her best plaid shirt for the occasion. Lookin' sharp, Andi. Clare seems really mad about this. Probably the date, not so much the plaid. This would have been the perfect time for some make up sex. Looks like these two are officially having their first big fight. Not that Clare is bitter or anything. She's audibly gnashing her teeth through that fake smile. She's so happy for Andi, after all.

Juan's big plan is some river speedboat runs and maybe some wading through a cramped chasm affectionately named "The Squeeze." The locals told him this was a typical date in New Zealand, so who is he to argue. That boat was really moving.

Hair tangled, after a quick dip in a waterfall and a trip to hair and makeup, these two like-birds settled in for an exotic meal next to a geyser. And when I say next to, I really mean on top of. Couldn't have set up that picnic any worse. Sure enough, another Bachelor meal completely ruined by mother nature. I don't think a couple has actually eaten a meal on this show in a good 4-5 years. It's always something. A good 80% of their calories come from alcohol anyway. Even sans geyser, this dinner was probably doomed. There was a lot of confusion over the concept of edible lamb chops. You'd think it was octopus.

Failed meals aside, Andi is quite the catch, but Juan doesn't really seem to know what he's doing with her. Likewise, she seems to be merely tolerating his attempts to impress her, or at least pretending he's some other guy that she might actually want to date. This has been a problem with Sharleen as well. Usually this kind of hookup would be in a bar somewhere at 3 a.m. and everyone would silently part ways the next morning acknowledging that it was a bad idea for everyone involved. Instead we get weeks of this awkwardness.

Andi: "I can't wait to have a family." [big introspective grin]
Juan: "You will." [moves away]

Juan needs bite size meals like Nikki and Clare. He's not ready for seven course presentations and prix fixe. You figure these ladies will just politely excuse themselves at some point and never come back. Not a prediction, but it wouldn't surprise me.

Back at the resort, 21 year-old Cassandra, who is younger that some of my t-shirts, is predictably making a big deal about her birthday, much as would be expected from someone who just recently was bestowed the gift of legal drinking. It really would be the "best gift ever" for Cassandra to get that coveted one-on-one. The only sticking point is that he's not the least bit interested in forming a mini Brady Bunch with the former NBA dancer. Juan is interested in a date with stupid Clare, though. I'm sorry (well, no I'm not), but Clare is the kind of person that mentally exhausts you after a 10 minute conversation. She's either continually smiling or continually pretending to smile. There's this sustained faux energy level that just smacks of insincerity. She doesn't look 32, but there's a lot of miles on those tires.

But first, OGO-ing in Rotorua. What is OGO? I'm glad you asked:

In 1994, Andrew Akers and Dwane van der Sluis invented a big inflatable ball that people could jump inside and roll around in. Initially they thought they could use the ball for walking on water [ed: like Jesus] but they soon found they could have more fun rolling down hills in it.

There are many fine OGO options, but these crazy kids decided on the 40 liters of water option just to mix things up, and unfortunately to ruin any carefully crafted makeup jobs. Not that they need it.

Oh dear.

Nikki will never look better than she does on this show, and yet I feel like I'm seeing something that would almost certainly scare me if I wasn't properly prepared for it (and I wasn't). You know, maybe Cassandra isn't that bad after all.

Probably not the birthday Cassandra was hoping for thus far, but maybe her fortunes would change in Hobbiton ("Discover the real Middle-earth" -- the part that isn't lazy CGI). We've barely gotten any emotion other than soul-draining ennui out of Sharleen, but by god, take this woman to Hobbiton and it's like Emily Maynard discovering Dollywood. Sure, no Peter Jackson (he of $6 billion worldwide gross revenues), but plenty of small furniture and cool mugs. Fortunately, the miruvor (brewed from the honey of the undying flowers in the gardens of Yavanna) is still 100 proof.

It is in Hobbiton that Renee learns that she's one of Juan's "special ones." We're not sure what that means exactly, but to this point it's meant taking a back seat to virtually everyone left on the show. According to Renee, emotionally this is where she expects to be roughly 8 full months into a relationship. There's managing expectations, and then there's this.

Similarly, Cassandra seems to be living in an alternate reality. She's just trucking along in life: freshly 22, a kid, and now just needs a husband to wrap it all up in a bow. Turns out that Juan is a guy, so maybe he could be the dad she needs. For her son. And wouldn't it just be the best birthday present ever if she got that rose?

Juan confidently announces "I think I'm gonna have a happy ending here" which doubtlessly produced some stifled chuckles, but no one was laughing when Tolkien enthusiast and fluent Elvish speaker Sharleen got the rose. Second place was a set of steak knives. Third place was getting kicked off the show. It was a valiant attempt to make this dismissal seem emotional and setting it to somber music, but it had all of the heartache of an ATM transaction. Later, Cassie.

All of this work and we still haven't resolved this Clare thing. Well, I have. Beat it, sister. Juan hasn't, however. He's still wrestling with the paradox of this hot little body paired with a brain that doesn't quite execute logical thought. The irony of this particular situation is that Clare is right. (God I hate typing that.) If she wasn't so desperate to win this competition she'd rightfully say "what the fuck, dude?!?" I don't claim to know what happened in the ocean that night, but for it to elicit that kind of regret on his part, it must have been something truly special. They say nothing good happens after midnight. Well, doubly so 100 feet off shore.

So here's the big kiss-and-make-up moment, and Juan's already using every move he has in his arsenal. Lots of baby talk and hair touching. So, basically he has two signature moves (maybe three: the "me no english" lost in translation card), and Clare doesn't seem to be taking the bait.

Okay, so she took the bait. Recap:

Juan: "You wanted it, so I didn't want to disappoint you."
Clare: "So, what's the line?"
Juan: "I never do anything in front of Camila. Not hold hands, nothing."
Clare: "Your daughter isn't here. They edit stuff out, dummy."
Juan: "Now you know."
Clare: "You make any excellent point. Just don't make me sad."

Even watching this from the relative safety of my couch, the hairs on my neck stood up.

Rest of the date consisted of defining the verb "bolt," changing into some MC Hammer pants, and (naturally) not eating the food. Easily the best night of Clare's life.

By the evening, it seems pretty obvious that Nikki is the clear cut favorite. She's giving him the green light and then some, and all of it without looking too insane (which seems to be a skill of late). Again, no idea what happens from here on out, but there really isn't much mystery left to this. He's already had a "fight" was Clare. Nikki is basically telling Juan she's ovulating. Sharleen looks like she's ready to vomit. Andi is in love with some image of a guy she'd like to be in love with one day. Renee is a good buddy and listener. Kat is about to be killed off three shows too late. Chelsie is making no impact whatsoever. What more is there? See, this would be the perfect time for a plot twist. Bring in five more women, all latinas, with the show conducted entirely in Spanish with subtitles. Nikki's had it much too easy. She hasn't had to use Courtney's full arsenal on these pushovers.

The only real question was who to eliminate first: Kat or Chelsie? My thoughts on this are well-known. Maybe I have an unhealthy ~~obsession~~ fascination with Chelsie, but how do you not keep this girl around? Sure she's a little silly and immature, but she's certainly a lot less likely to kill you in your sleep than Clare. Does she have a glass eye? Fake limb? What am I missing here?

Am I the only fan of this girl? Hello?

Chelsie's big appeal this week is that she wasn't Kat. Mounting what was left of a defense, Kat confided to Juan that she had been journaling her experiences. This conversation then morphed into some standard night one boilerplate about her drunk dad and accompanying sentimental music. A little late for the schmaltz. Nikki is picking out flatware and registering at Pottery Barn.

To the surprise of no one anywhere, Kat leaves. To the surprise of most everywhere, Juan acts like it was some kind of painful blow. Yes, we all remember Kat in a bikini, but I think we're strong enough to move on.

Let's see what's left:

6. Clare - Yeah, no thanks.
5. Renee - A good pal and I hope a great Realtor®.
4. Sharleen - I fear what happens in Week 7 with no Hobbiton.
3. Nikki - As long as she stays dry, I'm a little bit on board.
2. Andi - These control issues are catching up to her.
1. Chelsie - I'm ready for a commitment.

Let's be honest: this crew is kind of a mess. Two of these ladies are probably going to leave on their own. He only really has much of a connection with Clare and Nikki, and they absolutely hate each other in a way that is far beyond healthy.

Good luck with this.

Sex and the South China Sea

2014-02-06T01:10:00.000-06:00

"We were on a recon in a steaming Mekong delta. An overheated private removed his flak jacket, revealing a t-shirt with an iron-on sporting the MAD slogan "Up with Mini-skirts!" Well, we all had a good laugh, even though I didn't quite understand it. But our momentary lapse of concentration allowed "Charlie" to get the drop on us. I spent the next three years in a POW camp, forced to subsist on a thin stew made of fish, vegetables, prawns, coconut milk, and four kinds of rice. I came close to madness trying to find it here in the States, but they just can't get the spices right."

Act I: If Renee doesn't get a kiss soon, she's going to dry hump herself raw

I'll start by saying: I don't really "get" Renee, and I really don't get why Juan seems intent on teasing this poor girl by taking her on all of these one-on-one dates. Sure, they're both 32 and single parents, but she's a frumpy Realtor® from Sarasota, and there are real live attractive women he could be spending his time with. Renee would barely merit mention on a "Hottest Women of ERA Realty" calendar. Fellow single mom and veneer goddess Emily Maynard sure as hell didn't have any interest in anyone else's kids, and neither does Juan. Hopefully this charade ends soon, because as much as I'm not interested in Renee as a contestant, I'm equally uninterested in seeing someone with her trusting nature and fragile disposition get crushed on national TV. You can tell it's going to get ugly too.

After a date highlighted by two flowers, a custom form fitting dress, and lots of intimate alone time, Juan comes to the conclusion that kissing Renee would raise too many difficult questions in the mind or her 8 year old son Ben, so he definitely will NOT be kissing her tonight. I'm fairly certain she's going to kill this man in his sleep.

It seems as though Juan gets paid to mess with Renee's head. There's little else that makes sense about this.

Act II: Clare needs to stop getting kisses because she's a crazy-eyed psycho

Renee probably doesn't give two shits anymore, but she probably didn't realize just how much of an also-ran she was on the show until watching Juan do this about five minutes into the group date:

"I can't. I'm a dad. Okay, fine."

I think this was the point where the women started to turn on our soccer enthusiast. There comes a moment in every Bachelor's season when he has decide whether to say "fuck it, I do what I want" or not. It's got to be terribly enabling to the base male ego to have scads of women vying for your attention. Several weeks into this process, a man in such a position of power almost can't help but feel that he's entitled to these vast riches and is beyond reproach. True masters of the craft, however, can deftly navigate this minefield and sense the danger before them. It's only Week 5. You're just growing into the role. You think you have it all figured out, but what if Vienna is a nut job? What if Courtney just wants to gain exposure to enrich her modeling career? What if Clare is generally kind of a bad idea? Give yourself some options, man.

The ladies were starting to talk mutiny. The interminably cute "science educator" Chelsie lamented her romantic morning spent with the usually mute but highly photogenic Alli. Lonely power lawyer Andi was letting the litigious gears turn in her head about how she could "sue everybody" over her lack of one-on-one time. I'm telling you, this whole thing can turn on a dime, and before you know it, you're left with that kinky-haired whatshername as your only option.

Raiden smoothing things over with Mileena.

Juan kind of picks up on his lower approval ratings by nightfall, but still decides that it's a pretty great idea to spurn the rest of the women for some special pool time with Clare, who still draws a favorable resemblance to Kristen Bell, but with about an eighth of the charm. I admit that this Clare fetish is a little puzzling from my view four months late and over 8,000 miles away, and there's very little that will help me understand. Clingy, overeager, vapid.. you know, the good stuff. I'm sure I have it all wrong, though.

He hasn't totally lost control of his throng. Even the hyper-skeptical Andi, who seems to be out for blood at times and voices her "control" issues like they are a mantra, can be coaxed off the ledge with some choice baby talk and beach cuddles. It's got to be exhausting bitching about Juan being a dog one minute and then faux-protesting to the camera the next over your embarrassing make-out session that isn't fit for mom back home. And surely a few of the most worked up among them have to be in a continual state of disappointment over this one rose for a bunch of women dynamic they have going. It's almost like this is some kind of dating show and they're just doing this to get people upset for effect.

But wait, we're still not done with Clare. This is quite an extraordinary run for someone who was on a group date with a bunch of other girls. I know that these days run long, but if we are to believe the commentary (and I usually do), Clare shows up at Juan's door around 4 a.m. for a proposed dip in the warm South China Sea. A little pushy, a little ballsy, but also a little shrewd. What better way to score some some intimate contact than to book a date in camera unfriendly waters a good 100 feet off shore? Do I know that they didn't play "just the tip" out there? I do not. In Clare's words:

"We just went for it. And I don't regret it. Pure bliss. In every way."

No one would have to clarify that they don't regret swimming in the ocean, right?

Act III: Nikki goes straight to hell

Fresh off the beach sex and with a solid three hours of sleep, Juan sets off on a solo date with Nikki, who, I must say, is doing an incredible rendition of Courtney Robertson. She even has the glib lines down. On the prospects of rappelling into an infinite abyss:

"Oh good, I can't see the bottom. That's always good. Should someone call my mom and tell her I love her?"

"I either live, or I die, or I poop my pants."

Actually, there's a good possibility poop is involved in any of those scenarios. Of course they "randomly" send the girl into the physical challenge they are least mentally or physically equipped to handle. Nikki has several close brushes will a full-blown anxiety attack, but fortunately Juan is there to restore her sanity with some dangling besitos. All I can think is that Renee has to be so pissed right now.

There must've been something special in that bottomless cave, because folks, we have our first official "falling for" utterance of the season. Not even a bottomless Clare went that far. Sprinkle in a little chatter about taking care of sick kids, and it's very possible we have a new leader in the clubhouse.

"When we get engaged, you're gonna stop touching my ears, right?"

It was nice to see Renee finally get that kiss, which was the perfect contrast to Juan nearly impregnating Clare the previous night. "It was so worth the wait!" Make sure to tell yourself that when you're packing up to leave.

As much as I don't like Clare, and I really don't like Clare, huge power douche move using his daughter as an excuse for regretting his deep sea mutual masturbation session. I figure he's probably realizing that Clare isn't much more than a fun time and is already looking for a way out, and bonus points if he can put the blame on her. Luckily for Juan, Clare is very reasonable and measured in her reactions, so this should quickly find an amicable resolution with little residual damage.

"Hey. Just delete it."

Aside from Juan claiming he was raped by Clare, there wasn't much need to go off script. Danielle, Kelly, and Alli were just happy to have made it this far. I thought it was especially charitable of the producers to splice in some Danielle commentary about rose ceremony "jitters." Better late than never. Andi, on the other hand, looked like she was going to vomit:

"I'm in control.. I'm in control.."

At least we're now (almost) down to the actual competitors. Okay, so Cassandra has no chance, but I could make at least a partial argument for the other seven.

Big Board™:

8. Cassandra - God, I'm so bored.
7. Kat - Lovely rack. Just lovely. I'm drawing a blank otherwise.
6. Renee - I think I hear Ben calling.
5. Clare - I didn't think I could feel sorry for her, but I actually feel sorry for her.
4. Sharleen - Getting by on being "different." Impressive run for such disdain.
3. Nikki - Seems like she could probably kill a man if necessary.
2. Chelsie - Threatening the top spot merely by staying out of trouble.
1. Andi - Doesn't seem like she can take much more of this lack of control.

This is, of course, my personal preference. Who do I like to win? If I had to bet the farm, it would be Nikki, but I'm not convinced he likes any of them enough to actually propose. Might be another Womackian oh-fer.

Asian Invasion

2014-02-03T01:59:00.001-06:00

We’re going on a trip..

[giddy!]

Get your passports..

[OMG!]

We’re going to a country in Asia..

[!!!!!!]

With a total land area of just over 100,000 square kilometers..

[???]

Good for 109th of all countries in the world..

[?]

And the home of Gangnam Style..

[Japan? Wait.. China?]

Seoul..

[Japan?]

South Korea!

[OMG! Japan’s little cousin!]

Our first excursion outside the U.S.! Are we doing the Asian circuit again so quickly? I feel like it was just yesterday when Ames Brown regaled us with stories of his ultra marathons, many of which were, in fact, hosted in SE Asia. I don’t think “we’ve” been to South Korea before, but it’s about damn time. There are few places that can simulate New York City so perfectly, but with double the population density. I hope you all packed soap.

Aside from openly mocking Korean culture, this episode was all about framing up Nikki as the "bad girl." Yes, the one that is "different" around the girls than Juan. The obligatory girl that isn't there for the right reasons. I’ll say up front that I’m not buying this, especially when they are going so desperately out of their way to telegraph their intentions. “Hey, America. Nikki is mean! You should hate her!” Sorry, I won’t. Did they have pull this crap with Courtney? No. Courtney let her handiwork speak for itself. They’re pressing their luck by pushing off Nikki as some kind of super villain. I get that she is a little grumpy about being a girl and such, but that doesn’t make her a bad person. At least not yet. And honestly, if you're going to focus hate, I'll offer up Clare as a suitable alternative.

My grandparents would cringe, but Korea is probably currently best known for Gangnam Style and while I’m quite positive Next Entertainment "reached out" to Psy (who is basically the nastiest media slut in modern times), even he has his limits. In his place, they found “The Spice Girls of Korea” 21! Check that, 2NE1. "21" was already taken, and lord knows we can only have one band named 21.

In case you were worried, pre-assembled corporate girl groups are not an annoying feature exclusive to the US and UK. It’s truly a worldwide phenomenon. In Asia, it’s a really big deal. Take Japan’s AKB48, for example. They’ve sold over 25 million albums and have 89 members. 89! On the flip side is Hatsune Miku who is merely a solo act, but has the distinction of being a hologram. I guess Gorillaz isn’t real either, but at least I feel like I know who Damon Albarn is.

Since we’re in foreign musical territory, let’s talk YouTube views. 2NE1’s video “I Am the Best” has over 77 84 million views! In an age where a cat chasing a laser pointer can get 10 million views easy, this is a little underwhelming. Maybe in 2009 this was a big number. Our boy Psy on the other hand has over 3 billion collective views. That’s like one view for every “I know, right?” Emily Maynard has ever uttered.

I wasn’t really blown away with the dance moves, but I was pretty impressed with lead vocalist Park Bom’s command of English. My god, it’s like she grew up on the East Coast. Funny enough, actually she went to high school in Maine (of all places) and graduated from the Berklee College of Music in Boston. That's so Korean of her.

Unfortunately, NBA Dancer/Medical Sales Rep Kat decides this dancing gig is her big break and tries desperately to upstage everyone with her “look at me” head jerks and wild flailing. I’d be shocked if some people watching in that mall didn’t call to help that poor girl having a seizure on stage. In case you’re wondering if the mental condition of thinking you’re really good at something only to actually suck at it has a name, it does: the Dunning-Kruger effect. It nicely explains the horror of many an American Idol contestant thinking they’re amazing singers, and perhaps explains why people like James Canupp post videos of themselves butchering church tunes. (Trust me, you want to hear this.)

This isn’t much different than Juan Pablo thinking he can walk on with the L.A. Galaxy, I suppose.

And while Kat and Juan are totally feeling the vibe of Korean pop, Nikki is throwing a mini tantrum and letting everyone know that she does NOT dance, even though she probably can just fine. Maybe a good case of anti-Dunning-Kruger.

I really want to believe that this is Korea’s answer to One Direction, but I have to think the latter could pull a better crowd at some random five story mall, and certainly if some enterprising producers were actively recruiting people to show up. Tiffany used to do a lot of mall work in her day and basically set the standard for mall-based performances back in 1987. Korea seems to be a good 25+ years behind the curve here.

Probably the best part of the entire sequence was this:

Fore: Chelsie slapping her shapely bottom to the rhythm. Aft: Nikki wearing a stupid hat.

I’m sure fans in the mall watching this mess probably didn’t even notice the Juan Pablo harem on stage, but can you image the reverse: a bunch of Koreans dancing on stage with Justin Bieber for no earthly reason? It would probably trigger Homeland Security. Mostly because Beiber is a dirty Canadian felon who needs to be deported immediately. We can't have rich kids heaving eggs at their neighbors.

All of the excitement of mall concerts wound down later with a trip to some kind of garden sanctuary. No one is quite sure what it was, but there wasn't really anything to do. Juan just took the ladies aside one by one for private chats. That's not really much of a date. At least there wasn't any pretense here. Awkward? Oh my, yes. Kat, for starters, wanted Juan to know that she's not just the "fun" girl, no matter what her dance moves might have said earlier. I mean, she moved to Arizona for work, for god sake. If that doesn't scream stable, mature woman, not much can. But there's even more. Kat's dad had 7 DUIs, followed by some lemon-making out of lemonade or somesuch. It's all a little murky, to be honest, but she's definitely not the crazy guacamole peddler that Nikki makes her out to be.

Don’t worry, Juan is keeping his eyes open. As open as his beady little eyes will allow. He's not going to let some crazy blonde girl touting her world class diaper changing skills to dupe him. No sir.

No such worries with Cassandra, who sounds vaguely like a head injury victim.

Sharleen gets yet another one on one date, which makes her "happy."

Sharleen can barely contain her excitement of yet another date

It's more than just caution, she can't really stand this guy. One has two degrees in music performance, and the other would get a degree in soccer if they offered one. One is going to have her tubes tied just to make sure she can't procreate, and the other is going to have a half dozen kids. One is pretty bland, and the other is "not bland." Which is a good thing. Like I've said before, an all-expenses paid vacation is a great motivator.

The rest of the girls get some "Krazy in Korea" time. This is the part of the show where we point out how strange and weird Korea is, at least in a PG rated non-Old Boy re-inactment sort of way. Karaoke at a converted brothel was a nice start. Surprised that didn't get edited out completely. But wait. Swan paddle boats? “Dr. Fish Zone” for a fish pedicure? This truly is the dumbest date yet. At least we get to see Clare recoil in horror over semi-exotic food. It's all the same with a little kimchi (Korean for "sweaty sock flavor").

Much of this show has revolved around Renee and her inability to kiss Juan, but my god she wants to. She's even licked her lips and everything getting ready for the big moment (that will likely never come).

Any second now...

Renee is so desperate that she basically asked Juan to kiss her. "What would Camila think if she saw me kiss you." Not wanting to kiss her, he asked her the same of her son. Oh, he's good, this one. I don't know why he claims he needs to be all chaste for his daughter when he's been mauling more than a few women already. "I've kissed six girls already." Is there some kind of quota? Looks like Renee isn't hot enough to earn some kissing time. Sorry, Renee.

More than a few “friend zoners” on this date. Lauren, for one. "Are you going to kiss him?" "Probably not." Well, she tried anyway, and this was the dramatic result:

Vacation (and free booze) nearly over.

Lauren claims they’ve had “great conversations.” What conversations?

Even the girls that have connections seem to be clinging to sanity.

"This is how a velociraptor eats its prey."

But of course Andi plays it cool and gets the rose. Why? Because she's not some amateur. She's also this blogger's top seed and Bachelorette hopeful. Suck it, Clare.

I like the little Nikki-Clare rivalry. Clare is going to crash and burn at some point, but Nikki is ensuring that it happens as soon as possible. Which is fine with me because Clare is wearing out her welcome. While it's truly amazing how she pushed herself out of her little comfort zone in Sacramento to tour the world on ABC's dime, there's little more we need to see. The real question is just the level of batshit.

As is typical, a long, drawn out ceremony to get rid of Danielle and Lauren. Whoa, check that, Danielle sticks around as a chaperone/baggage handler for their Vietnam trip. Elise, who seemed especially pissed off for a first grade teacher, is gone. I could never keep her and Nikki straight anyways. “Who knows what’s in store now.” Literally anything could happen.

Eleven left, and probably six too many. Let's check our Bachelor Big Board:

11. Danielle - Astounding to see her still around. Should have been a night one casualty.
10. Cassandra - Has found the coveted Cloak of Invisibility.
9. Renee - This is getting a little sad.
8. Kelly - Bonus points for making fun of Clare and an being kind of an unofficial field host.
7. Kat - Her efforts to be more than the girl with the big tits didn't really pan out.
6. Clare - Intense therapy may improve her chances. She's not bad to look at, she's terrible to listen to.
5. Alli - Juan couldn't really care less. I'm starting to come around to this.
4. Sharleen - It's not often you get someone with genuine disdain for the guy.
3. Nikki - I like her verve. She's Courtney light.
2. Chelsie - She definitely needs some seasoning, but I'm thinking long term here.
1. Andi - *sigh*

Gone but not forgotten: Amy L., Lacy, Victoria, Lucy

Muchos Besos

2014-01-21T01:40:00.000-06:00

I love Episode 3 each season. Such a wonderful convergence of adrenaline, estrogen, and angst. It rarely disappoints. This time around we get a pool party, so you know it’s gonna be a good times.

Of course we’re still hanging around L.A. which means we have less travel distractions and can really dissect these ladies with surgical precision. Sometimes, though, they implode on their own, so all there is to do is analyze the goo that’s left behind, followed by a thorough disinfectant. We’ve already toe-tagged Victoria (the Brazilian) who self-immolated with minimal encouragement, and thusly I have high expectations for the rest of these pillars of psychological fortitude.

Though I must say that I’m beginning to be charmed by a few of these lovelies. It’s true. I’ve really let my guard down this season and I’m putting myself out there. I know I’ve been hurt before, but you have to take some risks, you know?

Not high on my list is primero one-on-oner Cassandra, the ex-NBA dancer. So I wonder: what is she doing now? Maybe nothing. Hell, I just assume most of those occupations are made up or randomly selected. We do seem to have a lot of free spirits, dog lovers, and other bullshit titles this season. I’m kind of hopeful this continues. I could see a lot of “recurring reality show celebrity,” “experimental drug trial recipient,” “not here for the right reasons,” or “daytime Emmy winner” among others.

Back to Cassandra, the former NBA dancer (which contrasts the current NBA dancer Kat and current NHL Ice Girl and current ex-Bachelor cast member Alexis). This reminds me to talk about Kat in a bit. My god, we need to talk about Kat. So, right, Cassandra. The lanky, pointy, clefty mommy. She’s okay I guess. Juan seems to think she’s pretty stellar. I guess he liked her taut behind during the salsa portion of the talent contest. It was a nice butt, I will say that much. I guess I’m tentatively on board, but I feel like this fish should be thrown back as soon as we’re getting some more nibbles elsewhere. Of the single mom pool, Cassandra is probably tops, but that’s not much of an endorsement.

Their date was pretty dumb: some kind of car-boat hybrid thing (the “Panther”) as a prelude to dinner back at Casa de Juan. Maybe a little kid refrigerator art, a little wine, a little dancing, and who knows? It did have a bit of a fantasy suite vibe to it, even if there was no key and implied invitation to sex it up. They did jump hand-in-hand into the ocean from a boat, and now they’re swapping kid stories and nuzzling on a couch. Is the finale next week or something? I feel like we’re on an accelerated schedule, or maybe they shot the episodes out of order (my oft-raised Christopher Nolan time-shifting concept.. some day). Like I said, though, Cassandra isn’t really going to cut it here. This was definitely the signature episode for botched kissing, if that’s your thing. At least there are boobs later.

"Zero to fun in just fifteen seconds." I made that up.

Meanwhile at the mansion, Kelly (dog lover and not-hot redhead) was drinking all of the $8 Sauvignon Blanc and complaining about being ugly and insufferable. Elsewhere in the mansion, Renee was doing her best to provide therapy to whichever blonde it was that said her mom had a long horrible bout with melanoma. “Did she get better?” “No, she died, babe.” Almost as awkward as that botched kiss. Some hugs were exchanged, though. Renee is definitely a strong candidate for house therapist. Victoria kind of died on her watch, but she’s making a strong rebound getting others through their own tragedies.

Let’s get that soccer exhibition out of the way. It’s probably easier to book a stadium in the US before we start wandering around the globe again. I got the impression that Juan felt like this was a good opportunity to showcase his eroding skills in the hopes that some scout would be watching. There was even a “Bend it like Juan Pablo” moment. Maybe not so much a bend as a slight curve. At some point it seems that the LA Galaxy might have been in attendance, but I think it was probably just a bunch of the crew in Herbalife jerseys.

Not that the girls were any good at the beautiful game, but Sharleen definitely played exactly like you'd imagine an opera singer would, taking a lot of unnecessary punishment in the process. I thought about saying “balls to the face,” but felt that was a little much. Juan did find a way to run her over like a tackling dummy. I assume he helped her up. I think they edited that part out, though. (Just checked again. He did not help her up.)

Sharleen taking one to the melon.

I do like that Juan has no concerns about group date dynamics and hurt feelings. He’s just kind of going for it all out there. Usually group dates are fairly boring, but these have been sensational in total volume of souls tortured and tears shed. Nikki went in for some alone time and got no besos. Andi, however, got muchos besos en la cocina. I’m a big Andi fan, so nice going there, cabrón. Even the super chaste and clinical Sharleen got in on the action, and in the most public way possible. At first it seemed like we were going to get night one Sharleen where she gets all frumpy and weird, but instead we still got that, yet Juan was like “screw this” and went in for the kiss anyway. At least I think that’s still considered kissing (in some countries). As bad as it was, it still looked hot and heavy to the hens sitting 100 yards away who couldn’t stop obsessing about it.

“This is my life.”

Yeah, not a bad gig you got there.

Just to mix things up, Nikki got the rose for playing hard to get. Better yet, it thoroughly messed with the fragile psyches of the girls that he did kiss. Pretty shrewd move if you ask me.

I have to say that the second half of this episode really shone. In no uncertain order: bikini pool party(!), Elise’s struggle with maturity (and math), and some girl named “Chelsie” emerging as a legit option.

As Chelsie rides off in the Tesla jamming Venezuelan music (I think this), Elise (the first grade teacher and veteran of an 8 year relationship) kind of loses her mind over it. And really, no one is quite sure why. The sequence went something like this:

“I’m not worried. She’s a little girl. He’ll figure that out. I’m fine. I'm good. It's all good.”

“She’s not ready to be a mom. She’s the furthest thing from a mom. It’s she going to be Camila’s step mom? There’s no way that will ever happen.”

“She’s definitely going home. There’s no way she can stick around. She’s a baby. Whenever I look at her all I see is a baby.”

“Do you know how old she is?” “I think she’s 25 or maybe 26? How old are you?” “27.”

And we can safely infer there was a good hour of additional footage we didn’t see. Of course the real answer is that Chelsie is “only” 24, so maybe Elise was onto something here. We haven’t had that exciting of a maturity conversation since Doug and Chris engaged in the world’s worst verbal slap fight over who was a better potential husband for Emily. I have no idea why Elise was so threatened by this one girl getting a date, but then I suppose there’s only room for one blonde teacher on the show. I’ll take the science teacher over the glorified babysitter every time.

Elise will at least be comforted to know that Chelsie had a terrible time on her date, except that the opposite of that happened. I’ll admit that, unlike in Elise’s world, Chelsie was nowhere on my radar, but after seeing more of her, I’m moving her into the official Real Epic Journey Top Five (stay tuned below).

To this point I think JP has done a fairly good job of being an innocuous Bachelor and inducing the ladies to do their naturally crazy thing, but an annoying trend has emerged and I’m worried it’s going to continue. Whenever a girl is uncomfortable or in need or reassurance, suddenly “Daddy Juan” appears and starts in with his awful baby talk (the accent surely makes it worse). I’m sorry, but everyone can’t be your little buttercup sugar dumpling sunshine, and you can’t smooth things over like they’re three years old. Amazingly, this seems to have worked for the most part, but this is a pretty awful long term strategy. It was in turbo overdrive with Chelsie when she was having a near anxiety attack about the idea of jumping off a bridge. Of course it didn’t help that they just stood there on a ledge discussing the jump for 10 minutes while staring down at uncertain death, but that’s another matter. Suddenly Juan turns into this smothering cuddle monster: “Look at me. I’m here for you. We can do this together.” This went on and on. I’m all for reassurance, but that was pushing its reasonable limits. It was uncomfortable. I thought he was going to squeeze her to death.

"If the cord snaps, not saying it will, just let your body go limp. Okay?"

Oh well, it’s still early. He does seem to have a desperate need for all women to be in love with him at all times. “How are you?” “I’m alright.” “Just alright?” He even broke down Sharleen’s well-honed defenses with his baby talk nonsense. Eventually he’ll get some resistance on that, and it could turn ugly, especially if he keeps insisting they stare into his beady little eyes that don’t quite look in the same direction. Just saying, there’s some risk there.

If you’re keeping tally, that’s the first extreme outdoor adventure and the first use of a GoPro this season. Unfortunately it’s the second private concert by a mildly successful musician, but the first with a recent arrest record. Terroristic threats and abuse of an elderly person? Terrific. Does he steal free shoes from orphans too?

But none of this really matters, because we have a pool party to get to, and I think I speak for everyone when I say “I love you, Kat.” I think Juan Pablo agreed since he found a clever way to position his head millimeters from her, uh, kitty. But the real stars of the show were those prodigious mams that bounced with so much purpose and, um, inertia. It’s amazing how an also-ran can suddenly appear out of nowhere. All it took was a green bikini and a favorable interaction with gravity. Well, maybe she's a one week superstar, but it was a hell of a reveal. Let’s keep our eyes on those things and see what emerges. I forget which of these jealous bitches called poor Kat a “whore,” but really she’s only a whore because it’s not you. Well, medical sales reps are technically whores too. Valid point. Still, the whore did score a nice deep tissue massage.

Yep.

Of course all of this sudden Kat attention (honestly, they were all impressed) caused immediately hurt feelings and self-doubt. Clare took things especially hard and hid behind a large wooden door for some reason. This had shades of Victoria sobbing in a restroom stall, but maybe not quite that crazy. Afterall, these two had a real connection in the shimmery snows of L.A. mere days ago. And to think: no call? No text? Not even a Facebook like or a simple retweet? I’m with Clare on this. How dare you, sir. Fortunately, Juan can melt the tension with some smooth baby talk, and it’s like these two never left those snow covered dirt hills of SoCal. I still like Clare, but let’s get it together, girlfriend.

Are Sean and Catherine really getting married? Sean strikes me as a guy that would get married just to spite the haters. That’s my theory. This all seems strange and wrong.

So after all of this psychological trauma (including that Bachelor Wedding promo), we only lose two this round: Lucy (who was, well, pretty boring and a little loopy) and someone named Christy (who took her lack of cumulative camera time especially hard).

Down to a much more manageable Lucky 13, here is the official Big Board™ from worst to first:

13. Kelly – Being a red head should buy her something, but it didn't. I would trade her for virtually any of the previous cast-offs or even a second dog.

12. Elise – All we really know about her is that she sure whines a lot. Maybe she should get a job interacting with adults and revisit this in five years.

11. Danielle – Allegedly a psychiatric nurse. Could come in handy, but Renee seems to have this angle covered.

10. Lauren – I’m willing to bet you don’t know who this is.

9. Nikki – Preferred type of dancing: “Is drunk dancing a type?” Of course.

8. Cassandra – Meh. (Nice tush.)

7. Renee – Very motherly and very, very plain. Probably has her act most together of this crew, but then this is a reality show and not reality.

6. Clare – Rapidly crumbling under the pressure. There’s still hope. I think. (Probably not.)

5. Alli – Hasn’t really done anything to earn this spot other than look good.

4. Kat – Big mover of the week. Unsustainable, but let's see where this goes.

3. Sharleen – A terrible fit, but the most intriguing personality of the lot. Should be awesome to hear her belt out an aria.

2. Chelsie – Anyone that can inspire an hour long tirade about how immature they are has the goods.

1. Andi – I don’t see much that would change my mind. Again, I hope she “loses” at just the right spot so we can see more of her later.

Juan Pablo: Licensed Psychologist

2014-01-15T01:18:00.004-06:00

Juan's got his fancy car gassed up and ready to go. Check that, it's a Telsa. Okay, so he's got his 800 pound battery packs all charged up and ready to go. He's been planning this date all day. Clare, I hope you're ready, baby.

But wait, Lucy's boobs are showing. Clare who?

Horrible editing.

Oh right, Clare. Hairdresser or somesuch. She's open to being open about the possibilities of there being a potential of something there. I think that's code for being in love.

It's already evident that Juan Pablo is pretty good at this El Bachelor thing. He has the women openly thankful for the opportunity of seeing him off on a date with another chick. I'm already impressed. Of course it's a bit early for there to be rampant jealousy, but he's laying the groundwork. So far so good.

Looks like Clare is hooked. These dates are getting pretty absurd already. A sledding and skating excursion in LA rips this out of the realm of reality pretty fast. For his part, Juan privately foresees a stepmom in his daughter's future. I hope for his sake he's just playing along.

I don't have a good read on Clare. Seems lovely enough. Well, aside from the big ol' grin talking about her dead dad. That was strange. There's not a great history of dead dad talk on this show, so I'm already nervous. She does look a helluva lot like Kristen Bell. We could be doing worse, I suppose. That Kristen Bell thing works for me, so we'll put Clare squarely in the top half for now.

If it's one thing to know about me, know this: I hate the private concert date. And goddammit, it's already showing up in the first one-on-one. Worse, I never know who these idiots are. Josh Krajcik? No clue. Looks more like Jack Black after a trip to J. Crew. Or a slimmer Hurley from Lost. I'm being told he was the runner up on the first season of the X Factor. Well that is something now, isn't it?

If we do have to endure private serenades from C-list recording artists doing their best John Mayer impression, I at least want some awkwardness. Couldn't these two have had bad chemistry or something? This is much too sweet and endearing.

Next we get Kat the medical sales rep who looks a lot closer to 39 than 29. It's a world class dimple, though. It didn't take long to get a private jet date worked in. Remember the date Emily Maynard had with whatshisface at the The Greenbrier in West Virginia? Of course you don't. Pretty short story shorter, the guy was a human sedative and was asked to kindly step away from the unfinished prime rib. Point is, sometimes it doesn't matter how elaborate the date is. If you suck, you're toast. I'm not saying Kat sucks, but you never know.

So as they're lifting off, Kat ponders their destination. The great beaches of Miami? Maybe the bustle and night life New York? You know, when she really thinks about it, she could get used to flying all over the world with her 32 year old retired soccer pro. Well, "pro" in the loose sense that he was paid to play, but not "pro" in the sense that he was any good. I mean, retiring because you had a baby? Who does that? In the history of organized sports, what male athlete has ever retired because he had offspring? How about retired because you weren't talented enough for a lower tier soccer league. Regardless, there won't be much jetsetting on that soccer pension, so don't get your hopes up, Kat.

And what's better than Miami or NYC. Give up? I'll tell you: Salt Lake City, baby. Mormons! Mountains! Michelle Money! Jef Holm! That asshole Bentley! The list goes on and on. There is some seriously fucked up fascination with SLC. No idea why they are so completely obsessed with a nothing town like this in the middle of nowhere, but I'll be damned if we don't find some new excuse to work it into the show somehow.

And where better than SLC to host the world's only ecstacy-fueled fun run. I think by definition teetotalism excludes MDMA. Pretty sure this is exactly how Brigham Young envisioned things when he founded this religious oasis. It's also another example of the producers elbowing their way into large public events and forcing the audience to deal with their stupid dates. Of course in their drug addled state no one probably noticed or cared, but if I'm paying to go to some concert -- even if it's Skrillex or some other stupid dubstep bullshit -- I don't really want to be subjected very special guests Juan Pablo and Kat having their own dance-off for 20 minutes. I hope everyone was properly compensated for having to endure that.

Group dates are usually just a cacophony of estrogen. Things like this usually happen:

Unidentified also-ran contestant extending her tongue in admiration of our Bachelor

Some ample opportunity for anxiety, infighting, and maybe a little light hair-pulling. You never really know. I do appreciate how the producers continually set these women up by suggesting something that caters to their narcissism like "sexy photo shoot!" only to pull out the rug with "but you have to dress up like fire hydrants and get pooped on!" It's one of the few details they consistently get right. Models n Mutts. "Are you ready to go meet the models?" Didn't seem subtle enough, but I laughed.

Best part of the photo shoot was definitely the emergence of Andi. Sure I'd be a little nervous about the prospects of dating a federal prosecutor, but even with Lucy gallivanting around like Lady Godiva, this blogger is smitten with this instead:

You had me at "I'd love to pose naked with you."

I have no idea how this whole deal turns out (no spoilers here, friends), and maybe it's the three buck Chuck talking, but I'm having a hard time remembering a better prospect. I think that makes me the official #1 Fan of Andi Dorfman. I hope she loses so she can be on TV a lot next season as The Bachelorette. Let's set it up already. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about here.

So far, the ladies have been getting along swimmingly, almost like they're attending a sorority reunion, and it's kind of pissing me off. "Can I cut in?" "Sure!" What the hell is that? I was thinking the biggest misstep of the evening session was going to be former NBA dancer Cassandra dropping the huge bombshell that she ~~had a son~~ talked to her mom 10 times a day. Fortunately, we were treated to Victoria's tenuous grasp with sobriety.

I'm certain Juan Pablo didn't think he'd be called in to talk Victoria off the ledge, but they were clearly getting desperate. For some odd reason, hairy super producer Elan Gale, all mic'ed up like he was on a covert narco raid, couldn't get through to her. It was time to call in the big guns. "[taps on door] Can you talk to me?" "No. NO." "Okay, I'll wait for you outside."

As with every past run-in with armchair diagnosable psychosis, the entire incident was brushed aside as if it was merely the product of the intense pressure of competition. Hell, Juan Pablo himself admits he nearly lost his mind competing with Chris, Drew and Brooks for Desiree's heart. Eerily similar, no?

I'm a little troubled, not so much that Victoria has a severe mental condition that requires heavy sedation and electroshock therapy, but rather that she performed so ably as to be dismissed in episode 2. I had some high hopes for this Brazilian (and most Brazilians, really). Sometimes casting a human trainwreck works sublimely, other times it resembles hot oil midget wrestling. Nevertheless, in Victoria's honor, let's all pour out "not even one glass of champagne." (sniff)

RIP "The Straddler"

We really shouldn't be losing this much hotness so early. Maybe they need to have chaperones to keep the top talent around longer. I don't know if that makes practical sense, I'm just thinking out loud here.

In that same vein, we lost another soldier on that hill tonight, and I'd just like to acknowledge her briefly in this space. It was a desperately short run, but as Lao Tzu wrote (in Tao Te Ching) "the flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long." Or maybe a tenth as long. Whatever the case, goodnight sweet former WCTV Fox 49 field reporter Amy Long.

"This is Amy Long live here at the Bachelor Mansion sitting here with the last shred of my fleeting dignity."

She was cute, she was effervescent, she reeked of immaturity, but to quote Nancy Kerrigan almost exactly 20 years ago today: "Why?!?" At least we still have her tasteful Model Mayhem shoots. 9/13/13: Never forget.

I'm starting to enjoy the "Ice Queen" Sharleen's shtick of playing hard to get, and of having country singer name in an opera singer's body. Seems like she's a lot of work, but you can tell Juan finds her to be intriguing, maybe because they're polar opposites. Could be this season's Jef, but hopefully with less plagiarism.

"Ladies, Juan Pablo, this is where we eliminate the show's only black chick. Also, there's an all new Killer Women tomorrow at 10/9 central.
When you're ready."

Next week we'll unveil the official rankings. Still too many who-the-hell-is-thats around.

Until next time, keep your champagne chilled and boobs properly exposed.

Me llamo Juan. Juan Pablo si usted es desagradable

2014-01-07T01:01:00.004-06:00

I admit that I totally ran of out gas doing this blog. Used to take me (seriously) hours to cobble together rapid fire witticisms that only a one-liner jack hammer like Daniel Tosh could appreciate. And then I made the decision to take screen shots and caption them. God, what a time sink. It burned me out. But you know what? I fucking love watching and eviscerating this show, so I'm back. For now.

I was surprised to learn about this Juan Pablo epidemic that CH is convinced everyone is afflicted with. Even guys, apparently. It's viral, so don't bother with antibiotics. I know we're in a liberated age, but I audibly winced listening to our android host lavishing praise over how hot our primero latino Bachelor is. He's so hot, in fact, that even completely straight men across the nation were demanding the Venezuelan footballer be the next Bachelor. You could hear the boisterous clammors in the streets. Thank god ABC caved to our last desperate wish. Now if we could just erase producer Elan Gale's desperate attempt to be relevant, everyone would win.

I did wonder how the accent would play, and aside from intense 6 day/week personal training, it's clear the next order of business was to enroll the Miami resident into de-latinification training. Well, to a point. Having been around many a Spanish speaker, I think his Inglés está muy bien. Well, it damn well should be. The guy was born in Ithaca, NY (go Big Red) and spends all of his time in the US. Maybe all of those chats with Marlins garbageballer Henderson Alvarez screwed him up. I mean, what kind of pitcher averages a 93 mph fastball yet only strikes out 5.0 per nine innings? (source: Fangraphs) Perplexing.

Like I've said may times before, it doesn't matter who the hell the lead is so long as there's lots of hotness and complete insanity, and I assume we'll have plenty of both. Only a complete lifeforce energy suck like Ben Flajnik could ruin a Bachelor season. At least he had Bachelor Hall of Fame inductee Courtney Robertson to bail him out. I wonder how those two crazy kids turned out? I'm sure they're blissfully married and have a large happy family by now. She even wrote a book about it.

Juan has a little kid of his own, a sweet daughter named Camila, who most likely will play a role somehow, but I assume we'll see a bit more discretion than using her like Emily did little Ricki. I'll bet one-F Jef wants a do-over there.

Of course you're probably wondering what J-P left behind en route to single dad-dom. Fortunately there are some internets for these things, but I did some sleuthing for you.

Carla Rodriguez

Yeah, she's cute, I guess. Anyway, good luck replacing that, ladies.

Speaking of which, let's see what we have in the mystery estrogen grab bag this season.

My non-cut-night-one favorites (mostly to look at, perhaps to talk to):

Lawyer Andi
TV anchor Amy L.
Chelsie (only because she mentioned chemistry, brought 50 mL centrifuge tubes, and seems to be the best kind of psychotic)
Lucy (I'd be a free spirit too if I was best friends with Kate Upton)
Victoria (you auto-keep the Brazilian)

That's a pretty formidable top five right there. I have no idea what their prospects are, nor do I really care at this point. The thing is, it's not hard to whittle the list down from 27, so spare us the dilemma, Juan.

I certainly didn't understand the fascination with "Sharleen" the Canadian/German? opera singer who seems to have been cast on the show at gunpoint. No idea what was going on there, but Juan felt like he absolutely made this woman's night. Either that whole thing was a set up or Juan is really that confused. I can only hope she sticks around because we haven't see outward disdain like that since Ali left a freshly tattooed Kasey on that glacier and flew off with "Rated-R" in a chopper. There's a lot of trainwreck potential with this (actual) diva.

At some point Lucy probably comes clean and tells Juan that she's a runway model, but even if she bathes in patchouli oil you can't hide that body even in a burlap sack. Probably a three episode stay, but I'll pray for more and invite you to do the same.

Not much lost on the night one cast-offs. I could barely understand Maggie (from SC) who probably feels like the Confederacy is just taking a breather. I did like Lacy, who was the nursing home owner. Her favorite snack was listed as "Hot Cheetos," so maybe not such a big loss there.

That mostly covers it. Now let's get to the bungee jumps, helicopter tours, skinny dips, emergency room visits, anxiety attacks, drunken arguments, and all of the amazing journeying.

Mis amigos, this is the final sentence tonight.

That Girl with the Creepy Brother is the Bachelorette!

2013-05-28T02:48:00.000-05:00

Hi, I'm Chris Harrison.

Another exciting journey for love begins. This time it's Desiree Hartsock, third runner-up in our previous Bachelor contest, and easily the poorest Bachelorette we've ever featured on the show. How poor? Poor enough for us to dub in engine knocking noises as her 10 year old Honda Civic pulled up to the mansion in Malibu. That's pretty poor in my book. Don't worry, we hooked her up with a baby blue Bentley. It washed the destitution right out of her.

There will be drama, conflict, and no doubt heartbreak, but I know I speak for naïve women everywhere when I say that a not insignificant number of us are rooting for Desiree to fall deeply in love with the idea of being in love. Most of my production staff has other motives entirely, but don't let that dissuade you true believers from embarrassing yourselves publicly on various social media outlets. I'll be right there with you. Use lots of hashtags and maybe post some recipes on Pinterest while you're out there hacking on the web with us.

Lest we get too creative, let's go to the video montage.

Bryden is our military guy subtly chosen for our Memorial Day airing. His turn ons include walking the streets of Missoula with high powered weapons, wearing his fatigues for the show, and stubbornly avoiding relationships. He also likes women named "Desiree," "Starla," and "Monique."

Will is a banker who loves life. And Chicago. And life in Chicago. And yelling "WELCOME TO CHICAGO!" Seriously, he was really welcoming to us in Chicago. Will studies Bikram Yoga which, if you didn't know, is a form of yoga typically performed in a hot room with crazy high humidity. This probably explained the high five-fest afterwards. We wanted to edit that out, but Will insisted on high fiving everyone on the street, including our crew. He actually had to chase the guy (Tom) operating the boom mic to give him a high five. It was like, "why is Will so intent on giving everyone high fives?" Then we remembered the Bikram Yoga and Will's severe dehydration. We also noticed that his shower "didn't take" and had to fix some serious pit stains on this guy in post-production. But man, the high fives just kept coming. Will noted that not a lot of black guys do Bikram, but then, not a lot of black guys make it onto the show, so it seemed like appropriate symmetry.

Drew is a digital marketing guy from Scottsdale, AZ, which long time fans of the show will note almost exactly follows Ben Flajnik's résumé, so you know he's going places. Well, except that, unlike Ben's history of complete entitlement, Drew's life story is pretty much a total trainwreck, so this probably kills any shot he has at the winner's circle. Sorry, Drew.

Nick Roy is truly the first tailor/magician double threat we've had on the show, and believe me, we've looked. It turns out only two groups of people enjoy magic more than women: children and the elderly. Needless to say, I like Nick's odds.

Zak is a drilling fluid engineer who lives in "the middle of nowhere" which is also known as "10 minutes outside of San Antonio." When he's not squatting on 15 acres of deserted property, Zak spends most of his time as a stunt double for Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino. Since the demise of The Jersey Shore, Zak has had much more time on his hands, mostly devoted to working out. Just how far will these abs go? If history is any guide, pretty far.

Robert is an entrepreneur who invented signs. Or, rather, spinning signs. Or maybe the process where guys spin signs on the side of the road in an advertising context. Which is now a global thing, as I understand it. It was good enough for some unsolicited high fives in the office when we showed up. Wasn't quite as good as what Will showed us, but it was pretty good. Honestly, Will kind of ruined the high five thing for everyone.

Mike R. is a dental student and a self proclaimed "Renaissance Man." Usually Renaissance Men don't get cut on night one, but Mike did.

Brandon is our house adrenaline junkie who loves to wakeboard over unsuspecting waterfowl. We asked him to show us what else he likes to do for fun, and all we ended up doing was driving to a different lake to film him wakeboarding over what we think was a different group of pelicans. Pretty much took up the whole day. To his credit, he did treat us to In-N-Out Burger, which was nice.

This season, we really hosed down the driveway for maximum sheen, and I think it paid dividends. Truly, this was the most amazing journey from the limo to the front door that we've ever seen, and I think most of our viewers would agree with that. Many of you may not be aware that I get a close up view of things while hiding in the bushes. Not in a creepy way, so maybe "hiding" isn't quite the right word. "Distant admirer" is probably more apropos. This is the first time I've weighed in with my thoughts on these initial meetings, so drink in the insight.

Our boy Drew was first out of the gate, and I'll be honest, he looked a little needy actually running into Desiree's arms, but he must've made an impression with his giddy schoolboy charm. Reminds me a little of my good buddy J.P. Rosenbaum, but with hair.

Brooks didn't fare nearly as well. We even added in the standard "bumbling idiot" music for his entrance into the house. Gets a lot of use.

Brad brought a wishbone, and Des won. We wish Brad well on his uphill climb.

Bryden didn't seem so awkward during his hometown video. The fresh bowl cut couldn't have helped his confidence. He showed up on set like this, and our hair guy just about quit over it. "You want some pomade or mousse to spruce that up a bit?" he was asked. "I'm good" was the reply.

We love shtick here at The Bachelorette, and God's honest truth, we don't tell people what to do. So when Michael G. wanted to retrieve Desiree's original penny from her last stint on the show, we were all for it. "What a great idea," I secretly thought. Well, Michael fished for that penny for about five solid minutes even though we edited it down to nothing more than 10 seconds. We actually sent his pants out for ironing! Did we add the penny "ploop" sound? I admit that we did.

Kasey is the social media guy who stalks people on Twitter. Trust me on this. #creepy #reported #nomeansno

Will gave Desiree the rare high five hug, but stumbled a bit with his Greek goddess bit. Better to just keep it simple, I say. #fingerguns #fistbump

We like Mikey a lot, but he kind of lost us with the "I can empathize with your psycho brother" bit. Even Des thinks her brother is psycho. Will we exploit this later? No, because everything on this show is organic and flows naturally -- like pouring chum into a shark tank.

You might be wondering where this "Fantasy Suite" is that Jonathan kept talking about and where he got this key. Turns out it opens a mechanical room in the sub-basement level of the house. Most of us thought it was a joke. We actually found Vienna Girardi living down there.

I actually tried to talk Zak out of going shirtless. I know I'll get a lot of grief over this, but we don't want this to be the abs show. The FCC actually told us to "cool it" with all of the ab footage last season.

A lot of you might have noticed how badly James botched his lines, but what you don't know is that was his third take. He actually had to become a SAG member just to complete shooting.

Oh man, Larry. He pulled some kind of tango move that caused Des to rip her dress. Probably not the best idea to throw a woman toward the ground without a little warning. I saw him practicing this earlier in the day with the prop master and it looked terrific, but she was wearing J. Crew chinos.

We don't usually allow people to start fires on the show, but Nick R. really won us over with his magic. A few of our staff are still missing watches, however. Might be unrelated.

Funny story about Zack K.'s Chuck Taylors. He actually lost his luggage on the way to California and had to rent that tux at a strip mall the same day. They didn't have shoes in his size (14), so we crashed a Goodwill to find something that might work. He looked a bit like an oversized prom date, but I think it went over well.

Some of the "haters" out there won't believe that we didn't set up Diogo with that suit of armor, but we didn't. He had it shipped via FedEx that day. I even signed for it. So maybe he wasn't the most eloquent guy we've had on the show, but the armor looked great.

Okay, so I'll admit that Chris vetted his shoe-tying joke with the staff beforehand, but we couldn't stop laughing, so obviously it was a green light all the way. Des even gave it a "funny." Are all mortgage brokers this hilarious?

Mike R. probably misjudged his likeness to Patrick Dempsey. Set the bar a little too high there. Personally, I would have summoned that British accent. It's at least 30% more alluring to women.

Some might find what Robert did with his tie a little odd, but he did that in every interview he had with our staff. Always said he wasn't a "tie man," pulled it off, and tossed it somewhere. Nice ties, too.

We suspect that Des was botching Juan Pablo's name on purpose, but can't quite figure out why.

Adrenaline junkie Brandon rolled in on a motorcycle all the way from Minneapolis, even though he lives in nearby Costa Mesa. It puzzled us too. That's pretty hardcore.

Brian went with the fuzzy coat, and the guys were sticking stuff to it like velcro all night. We actually assigned an intern to just pull stuff off of it. I don't think Brian had any idea.

Yes, Micah really did design that suit himself, but he only sewed some of it. Most of it was sewed by his mom in Detroit Lakes. She can't really sew either.

The poem by Nick M. seemed corny, but it moved a couple of us to tears (not saying who). I think it was the part about ocean waves.

Dan probably had the first meeting about right: just hug, say something innocuous, hug again, then get the hell out of there.

We loved saving the best for last with little Brody and his dad Ben. How cute was that? Brody should have stuck around to get a rose. Remember: there are no rules.

Ben wasted no time after that first impression and actually won the first rose of the night with his easy going personality. It was so easy going that he was actually able to gloss over the fact that he and his best friend had a baby together. I hope that Nick R. was paying attention because that was some real magic.

Bryden pulled out his own kid story from his time in Iraq and won a rose himself. I'm seeing a trend here. Although a couple of others did well for other reasons: Juan Pablo (ball handling), Zak (abs/pool antics), and Drew (non-threatening).

There weren't any drunken antics this time, but that didn't stop guys from losing their minds. Larry, off his game since the dancing mishap, went for his patented Svengali hypnotic stare in a desperate attempt to pull out of a deadly flat spin. He seemed a bit unstable, and honestly if this guy is your ER doctor, you'd better hope his medical training is far superior to his way with women.

Second thought: Jonathan was pretty shit-faced when he went in for his second Fantasy Suite pitch. The one-legged push-ups and blood shot eyes suggested that he might need to be watched a bit more closely by security. Let me stress that Des was never in trouble. Guys in the control room were all over this situation, and trust me, the other men in the house could sense it too. Ultimately, we had to send Jonathan and his swollen love tank home, but we wish him well after being destroyed on national television.

I know I get a lot of heat about my classic "this is the final rose tonight" spiel, but I think it's an important feature of the show. I can tell you that not all of the guys are paying close attention, and they need to know that they should react shocked and dismayed after they get snubbed. We also think it's important to have some continuity to the show, and after all of these years, who can argue with the results?

Joining Jonathan on the short, lonely, white van home are Dr. Larry (despite his 48/51 dipping record), Magic Nick, Sir Diogo, Dentite Mike, and "that guy" Micah. Not exactly the '27 Yankees here.

Thanks for reading, folks, and be sure to tune in next week!

-CH

We've Been Rickrolled!

2012-07-23T13:54:00.001-05:00

Hard to believe it's already over. It seems like just yesterday we were carelessly throwing skateboards into the bushes. I suppose the writing has been on the wall for a couple of weeks now, but I personally had a difficult time accepting what went down. Maybe this upcoming trip to Charlotte will help heal some of those wounds. Don't worry, I'm using miles.

We're back in Curaçao where the guys get to meet Emily's very West Virginian family. We'd seen glimpses of mom before, but this time we got the whole toothless crew. Not exactly a striking resemblance here. Emily seems to have avoided the ugly, slack-jawed yokel gene. Mostly I was thrown off by mom's five pack a day voice. Quite a contrast to Emily's lilting, helium-infused drawl. Had we met any of the Clampetts before? I honestly can't recall.

Arguably the most pivotal day of his life, and Jef shows up wearing a plain white t-shirt, metal chain, canvas sneakers, and what appear to be Jeggings. The only things missing from this hipster ensemble were a gaunt dismissiveness and a half drunk can of PBR. I have a feeling this look hasn't fully penetrated the South yet, so perhaps it's being mistaken as an homage to James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause, but without the interesting rebelliousness. Emily keeps referring to liking guys "with an edge," but unless "edge" refers to polite Mormon sensibility, I think she might be a little off target here.

If you thought Jef was going to tap the brakes a bit during his meeting with the family, boy were you wrong. Any concerns about getting engaged? Nope. Any worries about Ricki? Zero. You sure about marriage? Absolutely. Okay, then. Is this the same guy that was picking dirt off his shoe when Emily gave him a rose? This is all quite puzzling. Stockholm syndrome?

I always find the conversations with the siblings to be a bit strange. I can see laying it on thick with mom, but Jef telling Emily's brother that, effectively, he can't wait to consummate the relationship seemed a little much. Have we had another "Ernie" on the show? Seems like a nice enough feller. Mmm-hmm.

I found it interesting that Emily's mom thought that Arie was going to be some arrogant prick. Seems like a strange presumption to have. Here's a guy that is living firmly in his dad's shadow and has been less than successful at his craft, and yet he's supposed to have this giant ego? I presume they've actually met some of the bigger douches that Emily has dated, and there have been plenty. Like Dale Earnhardt Jr. And megaslob Jeremy Shockey. Jef's the guy with the crazy rich family and who is the CEO of his own boutique startup courtesy of his trust fund. There's where I'd start looking for an ego, though really, neither guy has much attitude to be worth the effort.

Ernie (love that) seemed to have a similar preconception of Arie and even threw out something about him being too "practiced" and "smooth," which honestly made me laugh. I guess speaking clearly and with your entire mouth is looked upon as "elitist snobbery." Arie is probably best described as a fun-loving goofball on his worst day. Jef's the guy that cribs all of his best lines (we'll get to that). Looks like someone has an uphill battle here. At least Ernie left "confused." It's all just part of this magical journey, folks.

Emily was hell bent on getting her family to agree with her decision. On Arie:

Dad: "He's a very likeable fella."
Emily: "Buuuuut..."
Dad: "Nah, I really don't have one."

Translation: make your own damned decision. It was here that we knew Arie was toast. Emily wanted to be bailed out from the guilt.

I've said before that having a date the day of the proposal is stupid. There hasn't been a single one of these "dates" that has led to anyone changing their mind. Sure, Emily arranged for Ricki to meet Jef, but that was going to happen regardless. It's not like their date went so incredibly well that she decided to set up some impromptu meeting. Why the hell else was she there?

Still, that beach chat was some of the most painful dialogue we've seen, and surely the most strained between these two. Emily says she's stressed about things, but Jef is still carrying on like a 15 year old who just discovered girls. Unfortunately, his level of unflappable optimism is also characteristic of someone that has just committed themselves to a cult. Not that I doubt that Jef has dated, you know, girls, but his level of enthusiasm is just red flag central. No one can be that self-assured of something like this. How this doesn't set of warning bells to the single mom is beyond my understanding. It's as if neither has any kind of experience to draw from.

"You know how I feel about Ricki" had to be the strangest line of the series. Well, maybe "just because I haven't met her doesn't mean I haven't been thinking about her every day" is just a tad worse. Sure, he's been laying it on extra thick, but to have some connection with a child he's never met just seems, well, felonious. Sean kind of pulled this same act, but Emily was able to at least figure out that it was empty rhetoric. Not sure why Jef is getting the free pass with his over-the-top platitudes. The only difference seems to be word choice, although as we'll learn, Jef has had some help in that department.

Over these many weeks, Ricki has traveled all over the world and met numerous staff members, nannies, and producers. Why meeting any of the guys had to be treated any differently is a bit of a mystery. If things didn't work out, it would be just as easy to pass them off as one of countless production people that made the show work instead of her potential future step dad. How hard would it have been to tell Ricki that Jef is just there to make sure the pool is extra clean? Come on, she's six.

Interestingly, Jef is the second guy to see Ricki. Ryan was actually the first during their hot and heavy "juice box" date. Jef's meeting started out in a similar way with two people essentially spying on this poor kid. It's like they were at the zoo trying to see the elusive three-toed sloth in its natural habitat, except fifty times more stalkerish.

"Do you think she can hear us breathing?"

Honestly, I think any of these guys would have been just as good with Ricki as Jef was. It's not like it's difficult to be amusing to a six year old. Okay, maybe not everyone is going to don the pink goggles, but I find it hard to believe you're going to learn much from an afternoon of swimming at the hotel pool. Of course that didn't stop Emily from projecting their lives forward a decade and deciding that Jef was going to be ten time Father of the Year. It's moments like these where you have to wonder what this woman was thinking coming on this show... again. The track record for marriage is horrific, but then you throw a kid into the mix and it's even more reckless of a decision. This poor kid has already met Brad Freaking Womack (and his accompanying anger management issues). Hasn't she endured enough tragedy in her young life? I think the sensible thing would have been for Ricki to meet both guys so that Emily could at least make an informed comparison. I get that you don't want a revolving door of dudes meeting your child, but Emily seems to think this is how she's going to find a husband, and so one would think that should involve something beyond picking a guy and making sure her kid doesn't freak out at the pool.

Even though Jef is tying a bow on this, his path to victory is going to present structural problems once the cameras are off. I think part of his appeal to Emily is that he's not Brad. He's generally harmless. Emily might be able to take him in a fight. He's also much different than she is and doesn't seem to take life as seriously as a woman who became a mom at 19. It's probably an overreaction to what happened with Brad, but whatever. The issue as I see it, though, is that Jef is presenting himself as a guy that has no spine, no real things he's willing to take a stand on, and someone that is overeager to placate his partner. Emily seems to buy into the idea that Jef is going to be like this forever, and god help him if he isn't. But honestly, what guy is going to be a living doormat for the rest of his life? There's bound to be real world issues that come up, but Jef is already establishing that he's willing to cave to any of these. Well, at least until reality sets in. This seems to me to be the surest way to making your life completely miserable. There has to be some give and take. Once the guy said he was going to move to Charlotte, I knew this had no chance. Emily has nothing staked in this relationship. If it doesn't go exactly as she thinks it will, there's nothing lost. It's not as though everything has to be equal, but Jef has committed to being her obsequious servant boy. He probably couldn't have gotten this far without doing so.

The other major issue arose when Jef gave Emily that Curaçao photo book. Okay, so it wasn't a hand made scrapbook, but it did have terrible stick figures drawn in, so I think it qualifies. Either he isn't aware of the curse or he doesn't care, but I think we can safely give this relationship three more months tops.


"Oh honey, you bought me a book from the gift shop!" "Yes, but I defaced it with tiny stick figures..."

Emily really has no business getting engaged to anyone. No one on this show should. Ever. Emily's problem is that she's bringing a young child along for this ride which is just idiotic and irresponsible. Worse, she seems to be basing her decisions on the overwrought promises from a guy who is telling her everything she wants to hear and none of what she needs. I won't say that Arie is "better" for Emily. She's ultimately the one that has to fall in love with someone, but it seems that he had a much better perspective of what it takes to be in a long term relationship and the complications associated with bringing the child into it. Instead of trying to convince her that everything is perfect and incredible and always will be, Arie at least seemed to have a more realistic outlook. All told, this is probably the worst way to meet a potential spouse, so neither guy seems like a good option. I do know that whatever Jef was peddling didn't make a lick of sense, no matter how idealistic either of them are.

Emily suggested that a key part of Jef's appeal was all of the wonderful things that he said to her, especially the amazing letter that he wrote. Trouble is, Jef plagiarized most of it from a wedding video on YouTube. I took the liberty of moving the link ahead to the relevant exchange of vows. It's worth watching the three or so minutes to see just how much material is verbatim. Remember "laugh until your cheeks hurt?" Stolen. How about "love that makes the story books jealous?" Lifted. It goes on and on like this. For being a sensitive, passionate guy, Jef sure seems to be spectacularly uncreative.

With Arie still hanging around, Emily had the unenviable task of letting him know that, not only was he not going to be the last man standing, but that he wouldn't even get a chance to make his case. I suppose you can't fault her for cutting the guy loose once she knew which way she was going. I'm sure she'll never address it, but does it matter to her that Jef depended on Cyrano de Bergerac for his lines? Even the glib throwaway ones.

Poor Arie had to throw together that "love potion," which looked suspiciously like a salad, and slather it onto the arms of a woman who didn't want him. They love setting up people like this. I suppose it could have been worse. He didn't get denied at the altar like Ben, sweating like a pig. At least he'll get a decent explanation of what's going on in her head, right? Chris Harrison gave her that great advice about being honest and forthcoming. If only Arie could have seen how good Jef was with those pink goggles, he'd understand everything. Really, if you think about it, this boiled down to a battle of internet memes. Arie didn't exploit YouTube and someecards.com as effectively as he could have. That's what happens when you're on the wrong side of 30. "I like your necklace. Is that a phoenix?" No, it's actually a giant albatross.

Strange mix of former Bachelor franchise has-beens in the audience. Of course you have Ashley and J.P. since they are still together and perpetually engaged with no wedding date. Ashley gave Emily props for cutting Arie loose so that "she could enjoy her day." Yes. Yes. Well said. I'm sure all of America was curious what DeAnna Pappas thought about all of this. It's been a good four years since she had anything to do with this show. Interestingly, she is now married to Michael Stagliano's identical twin brother Stephen which just goes to show you that this process can work in creepy, unexpected ways. Michael is back on Bachelor Pad after winning last season. I guess I don't see the point. We also got a brief glimpse of Ashley Spivey, mostly so we could marvel at her sweet ass. Thank you, ABC. I have absolutely no idea what she said.

Impressive. Most impressive.

Emily proved to be even more terrible than I could have imagined during the proposal. She offered nothing dramatic or compelling. "I didn't even go on a date with Arie yesterday. And he's not even here today!" Seemed a little weird to be so gleeful about kicking another guy when he's down.

Without the benefit of notes, Jef was suddenly a whole lot less eloquent. I remember Brad's proposal to Emily. She was a sobbing mess. In contrast, Jef was fishing for words and built the world's longest run-on sentence ever constructed. "I love you and we click and.. you're awesome and.. I'm glad we met like this on a show and.. I can't wait to be with you and.. you're hot and.. I promise to take care of Ricki and.. I love you and.. will you marry me?" Neither one of them really seemed into it. Then they played timely music from The Karate Kid, Part II soundtrack. Instant goosebumps.

I was a little surprised that Arie was so messed up by this girl. He was obviously more emotionally attached to her than he let on. Flying to Charlotte to drop off his journal was kinda crazy. Why was it in a padded envelope? I think she read it. I know she read it.

Michael said it best: pretty sure Arie will find comfort in the arms of another. Probably several. We're all praying for him to get through this difficult period of mass female pity and instant fame. People seem overly worried about who the next Bachelor will be. Roberto is still lined up despite rumors to the contrary, but if not, Sean or Arie can probably take one for the team. It really doesn't matter anyway. Even Ben's season was entertaining, especially with Courtney gumming up the works. Speaking of which, I wonder when those two are going to stop pretending to be engaged.

I don't think I'll be covering Bachelor Pad. Sorry, kids. It's just not real enough for me. I'd much rather watch that rumored Jef and Emily reality show (which I suggested in the first place). I want to be there when he discovers the mess he's made of his life and how his hipster days are numbered. No more cool pics hanging with your homies on Instagram. It's all Easy Bake Ovens and Squinkies from now on.

The Men Promote All: Bachelor Pad Coming Soon

2012-07-18T03:37:00.003-05:00

These "Tell All" shows are nearly universal disappointments, maybe with the rare exception of Courtney having to defend her pitch perfect shtick to a band of blood thirsty amazons, but Emily's guys weren't able to deliver anything remotely satisfying. I was even disappointed in the bloopers. How is that possible exactly? Yeah, let's waste air time on Travis tucking his stupid egg in at night. Great choice, guys.

Since I do enjoy a challenge, let's see what kind of second layer analysis we can deliver here. A Bachelorette "Next Level," if you will. Warning: there may be math.

Since there is never a good flow to these shows, I'm just going to throw some stuff out there rather than do anything chronological.

Let's start with Chris. I want to begin here because I feel sort of disgusted with myself for backing this guy in the Great Doug-Chris Maturity Summit of 2012. Now, to be fair (and to save face), Doug wasn't exactly the most stable guy in the house, so maybe that skewed my view of Chris somewhat, but it should have been more evident early on that Chris had a screw or two loose. At first, Chris really did seem to have things a bit more together, but he was particularly confrontational and focused on this issue of maturity and "being a man" more so than anyone should be bothered with. The surest sign that someone isn't what they say they are is that they talk about that one thing endlessly and how great they are in that one area. Chris seemed to measure himself by his "maturity" and yet showed that he possessed, well, none.

Over time, Chris started to inherit a "negative edit," shall we say, where some of these issues were being featured more often. My guess is that there was a smorgasbord of material to use from earlier episodes, but it was shelved in favor of more bombastic, and frankly, more interesting personalities. Nonetheless, I'm pretty sure Chris was a sloppy immature mess from day one of shooting.

So maybe maturity isn't his thing, which is fine. Still, in hindsight, I'm trying to figure out what his big selling point was. He was overly serious, laughably uncoordinated, socially awkward, surprisingly weak, curiously aggressive, and cried all the time. Of course we're only able to see things as they are edited, but he did make the top four somehow.

Looking back at his dismissal, Emily barely mustered any emotion while Chris got.. angry? Harrison rightly asked why a somber moment would be manifested in quiet rage, but all I was able to discern was that he lost a couple of friends and that somehow meant that everything should be strange and convoluted from now on. And as to his prospects for true, lasting love, don't forget to watch Bachelor Pad featuring Chris hooking up with at least three women on the show. Not the smoothest segue I've ever seen, but I think we can all see why Chris was a natural for that role. I just hope no one gets killed.

A few other notables to discuss. Let's examine Ryan. This will be short; there's really not much to dissect here. Ryan is perfectly described as what you see is what you get. He's roughly the intellectual caliber of Jessica Simpson, loves himself unconditionally, and doesn't really let anything bother him. In the end, I find it exceedingly difficult to dislike someone like Ryan. Arrogant? Maybe, but the guy seems a little too spacey and unaware to be a threat to anyone, so why not just enjoy the show? I have no idea what makes someone like Ryan tick, but my guess is that a lack of synaptic junctions would account for some it. "I have a lot of worldly gifts, but there's a ton of depth." You just want to pinch his widdle cheeks. I've convinced myself that Ryan truly believes he's a Renaissance man, but it's nearly impossible to take him seriously. That shit-eating grin is just too much. Not everyone will see it that way, and I get that. Chris, for example, couldn't stop bashing this guy, even after it was over. What's with the taunts and strong language? That's no way to treat The Bachelor: Augusta.

Kalon was this season's aborted attempt at the bad guy, and wow did it ever backfire. My only advice to production is to do a better job vetting your prospective villains. Put that in the hands of a senior person, not some intern. Please. I get what they were going for here: suave guy that lays it on thick yet says a bunch of stupid shit to the other dudes to get them worked up. Instead what they got was a glib bomb thrower who insulted everyone with nearly no effort. If you're going for the role of house asshole #1 who actually sticks around, your best bet is not to insult the person you're trying to win over, at least as obviously as he did. "I love it when you talk, but I wish you'd let me finish" was inspired, but "we need to get back to rehearsals.. you can run along" was the kind of tone deafness that is reserved for sociopaths.

The faux discussion with Kalon about why he went on the show was patronizing. Gee, why would anyone go on a show? It's TV. You get exposure. You get paid. It's fun. But Emily had a kid, and you knew this! It's madness! You scoundrel! Which is exactly why he was cast on the show in the first place. Why do they even pretend like all 25 dudes are hand picked for their suitability to be Emily's wonder husband and super dad to Ricki? We've had 25 seasons of just this franchise, and yet they still want to act like no one is paying attention.

Of course Kalon is exactly the kind of USDA Choice Angus Douchebag you want on Bachelor Pad, so for whatever that's worth, he'll be there. How Kalon will profit outside of the Bachelor sphere is a bit fuzzy, though. I could see him parlaying this into a few appearance fees at shitty bars, but beyond that, I think the well is pretty dry. He and Chris really made a mess of themselves whereas I think every other guy probably netted out on the plus side. It's actually difficult to come out of this thing worse than when you walked in, but they somehow did it. I'll toast a Natty Light to that.

Since Sean was sent home, it's as if every woman in America has been horrified by the injustice. Just read the social media comments:

Victoria McDonald Lo Piccolo How AWESOMW would it be if she turns both Arie & Jef down and chases Sean down, like he did her that one night, and tells him how she made a mistake and wants to be with him?!?!? THAT would be the perfect suprise ending! I like Jef a lot and Arie is okay but Emily and Sean are just...*sigh...

7 hours ago · · 17

Kimberly Herbert I personally think this is one of the best bachlorette seasons ever. I think she was refreshing and was really smart in most of her choices . Hopefully Sean will be back thus ending the best one yet :)

7 hours ago via mobile · · 1

Deb Kalin Loving Sean!!! I can't get enough of Sean!!! What an amazing man!!!! Sean for Next Bachelor Please!!! xoxoxo.

6 hours ago · · 6

Marla Melton Newell She messed up letin Sean go maybe she wakes up befor its to late!!! Ill sure take he is such awesome man u dont find them kind anymore!!! She needs to drop Jeff & Arie & take Sean back!!!

6 hours ago · · 2

I could post pages of these things. Ladies, stop. Please. Enough. We're all suffering as a human race with every nauseating misdiagnosis of this situation. Your first clue that Sean isn't worthy of your idolatry is that he finished third, just ahead of the psycho. A real, live woman who actually interacted with this guy decided that he was third best out of a field that was approximately three deep. But, you'll say, he acted perfect, and Emily even said he was perfect, and he said he'd be the best dad, and he had amazing abs. Yes, those abs where really something. However, is there some special skill needed to decode euphemisms? "Perfect" simply translates into "this guy is telling me everything that I want to hear." At some point, you have to act like a normal person, and for whatever reason, Sean was unwilling to do that. Come on, he had a niece named Kensington. Kensington had her own air conditioned play house with a vaulted ceiling.

It's not that I dislike Sean. He seems nice enough and all. He surely has the facial expressions all just so and the safe lines written up for minimum offensiveness. I'm sure it's great for selling insurance. The point is that Arie and Jef seemed to have a pulse. Sean came off as the guy that seemed to want and maybe was capable of having exactly 2.3 children. Yeah. And we seem to be glossing over his woeful performance on that Curaçao sandbar where he admitted to a three year loveless relationship with a vapid cheerleader. How 'bout them Cowboys?

Regardless of how serious you treat this show, whether you think Emily needs to find her ideal soul mate or just want to see maximum drama, Sean isn't the droid you're looking for. He can deliver neither. Let's just focus on what's left and hope for the best. And since Roberto Martinez is apparently the next Bachelor, abandon all hope ye who enter here. It's not happening. Besides, we've already had an unparalleled bore as the Bachelor last go round. This one would just be blonde. You know I'm right.

No else one really worth talking about beyond this. Doug? No thanks. Charlie still seemed to be battling that head injury. I will say that I find it hilarious that Tony is going on Bachelor Pad after suffering that near aneurysm over missing his son. The lure of D-list celebrity was just too great to overcome. She is an evil temptress. We'll forget about all of these guys in about two weeks. I'm not above using Wikipedia when the need arises.

As to the remaining two, it's really difficult to say for sure where this is going. I have a difficult time believing that Emily chooses a teenaged Mormon Rick Astley, but then again Jef's dad, Monte, is Executive vice chairman of World Financial Group, so that might be a factor in extricating herself from the Hendrick empire. Some of the same criticisms of Sean also apply to Jef. This guy has been laying it on pretty thick for a few weeks now and going for broke. He's even threatening to make love stories jealous. Man, I miss being 16.

Arie seems like the safer bet to me, but there is the fact that he's part of a racing family which seems a little too close to the old days. There's also the Cassie Lambert baggage to sift through. However, Arie seems to be the most realistic about any potential relationship with Ricki. Instead of telling Emily that he'd be her dad absolutely, no question from moment one like every other idiot, he knew that it was a complicated situation that would take time. What Jef was selling is an unsustainable vision of perfection. Arie seemed to have things a little more grounded.

In the end, I want to be entertained. It's a show. Sadly, I don't think anything groundbreaking happens here. No possibility of Emily saying no to both guys, no being rejected by one and taking the second as a consolation prize, no pregnancy announcement, no marrying Chris Harrison on live TV. Believe me, I'd love any of these to happen. That probably would have necessitated a Kalon-Ryan finale, and those guys flat out blew it.

You Can Pry Tears from My Cold Dead Eyelids

2012-07-11T02:34:00.002-05:00

Curaçao. My god I love writing that just for the cedilla, which is perhaps my favorite diacritical mark. The "ring above" (as in Ångström) is probably a close second. Since I know you're here for my linguistic and geographical tangents, let me warn you that I'm not an expert on Curaçao by any means. In fact, my first thought turns to the strange blue liqueur rather than the curious cultural amalgamation of Dutch and Spanish colonialism. Like Dubrovnik earlier in the season, the capital Willemstad (and its polychrome architecture) also has sections that made the coveted UNESCO World Heritage list. Makes you wonder if the producers are big United Nations fans. Aside from that, all I really know is that Andruw Jones is a native, and even at 35, you do NOT throw that guy a high fastball.

As you've likely figured out, I'm not a fan of Sean. Like, at all. Emily habitually calls him "perfect," and I think despite the unfortunate descriptor, she has actually sussed out the critical flaw. There's just nothing going on there. Of course he's "perfect." He never does anything to reveal himself as being the least bit human. That's not perfection, it's creepy.

Interestingly, while Emily has a natural instinct to avoid guys like Sean who only give you one pristine side of themselves, she's also begging to the camera for Sean to tell her how much he loves her. He's the only one that hasn't, after all. Given how much Sean has treated this process like a job application, or a game show (which, oddly, it is), you'd think he would have ticked this off the check list already. I mean, he's already gushed about how he'd love to be Ricki's dad. Would it really be too bold to tell Emily that he loves her? Not that I advocate it, it's surprising he hadn't already. It's the in thing to do, and Emily is so craving validation that she needs to go three for three on this. Lucky day, toots.

If you used the old rules for Official Bachelorette Drinking Game this season, it would have been a sober ride. There's been a surprising lack of bungee jumps, high wire acts, swimming with sharks, and the usual adrenaline-inducing milieu. Instead things have been decidedly low key bordering on catatonic. Emily has always struck me as 26 going on 50, and likewise the dates reflect something you'd find on a spunky seniors cruise instead of a reality show looking to deliver the coveted 18-34 demographic every Monday night. Still, you knew they'd bust out the ol' copter tour in the Caribbean. Like clockwork.

The airlift to some nearby desolate island (shoal, really), likely strafed during test runs in WWII, was an awful harbinger for Sean. Though most seem to have missed this point, he'd been pretty evasive until now, yet Emily was more than willing to give him a pass each week. Well, not this time. So how was that three year relationship with ex-Cowboys cheerleader Brooke Sorenson? Apparently it was a lot of going through the motions. It's just as well, I suppose, since now she's married to mediocre Phillies sub and Jersey Shore aficionado Laynce Nix. All things considered, that's probably a lateral move.

Cool hair, bro.

Sean went right for the played out "love but not in love" maneuver which I'm sure gave Emily all kinds of confidence in his seriousness and long term potential. He made the case that approximately ten hours of hand holding and nose-to-nose kissing should trump three years of a hollow relationship with another blonde curiously similar to Emily. Wow, the mood went from uncomfortable to "Nate"-level uncomfortable. I'm afraid that patented squint-wink won't bail him out this time.

"No, my eye is fine. Really. Why do you ask?"

There's no question Sean knew he was on a sinking ship after the island sit down went horribly awry. So what does he do? Writes a letter to Ricki, naturally. These kind of crazy overtures are the Hail Mary pass of the Bachelor franchise, especially facing fourth and very long like Sean was. Had he tried to be Walt Whitman in a less distressed moment (a la Jef), I suppose it could have worked, but to write a letter to Emily's kid as if it was a near certainty he'd be her dad was, well, a bit over the top and more than this blogger could stand. I never would have guessed that Sean would be the kind of guy to go all Lloyd Dobbler on us, but the only thing lacking here is a trench coat and hoisted boombox.

I suppose we should discuss the Fantasy Suite and how much it resembled literally no one's idea of a fantasy. I know Emily has stated ad nauseum how much decorum she has to maintain as a mother and what a upstanding role model she has to be, but I think that lie was exposed when she signed the contract sometime last year. It's not like dating 25 guys simultaneously is exhibiting any great restraint. And don't forget, she's basically in love with three at the same time. I think I remember my mom telling me a similar story, but those were the 60s.

Sean got the war-torn island, but Jef gets the 120' yacht Insulinde (yes, I checked). Yeah, no foreshadowing there. As much as I don't get this at all, I finally have to admit that Jef has better than coinflip odds of taking this thing. She really seems to buy into whatever Jef is peddling, and from this view it doesn't seem like much. Although lately, I have to say that Holm is laying it on pretty thick. That marionette scene was cloying and forced, but it seemed to tap into some archetypal image that Emily had imprinted on her brain in her youth. Jef seems like he'd make a pretty cool little brother. I'll spot him that.

Recall that Jef's parents were busy doing "charity work" (an interesting euphemism for "indoctrination") in South Carolina at the time of her visit, but after hearing such great things, they want to meet this temptress for themselves. I feel like I have some inherent loyalty to Arie, being a fan of his dad and calling this shot early, but there just has to be more compelling TV with a Jef victory. And now that we know After the Final Rose will be a live show, there's just so much more entertainment potential than if Arie wins this. I'm officially torn... but we'll get to that.

I think one aspect of the Jef-Emily relationship that bugs me is how juvenile this is playing out. Their conversations, while playful and flirtatious, are like an Abbot and Costello routine in Stupidville.

Emily: "How do you feel about meeting my parents?"
Jef: "I love parents. I love hanging out with parents."
Emily: "I'm a parent. Do you love hanging out with me?"
Jef: "Uh-huh."
Emily: "Cool."
Jef: "You are a parent."
Emily: "It's perfect."
Jef: "Do you think I'd be a good parent?"

It's around here where I'd love to invoke Samuel L. Jackson as Jules Winnfield. "Say 'parents' again..." Emily visibly struggled to rattle off a list of Jef's natural parenting qualities. Well, he did go down that kiddie slide backwards.

It's been strange to watch Jef turn the tables on Emily and put her on the spot. I think that's a shrewd move, and one that Ryan completely mangled, but I never would have figured Jef would be the kind of guy that could pull it off. All I'm seeing is a clumsy Patrick Dempsey trying to land the much hotter Amanda Peterson (who was the near ideal embodiment of every snotty rich blonde girl you ever knew circa 1987) in Can't Buy Me Love. It's as if Jef is paying Emily to like him, only the stakes are a bit higher than grass cutting money and suede jackets. Rumor is, though, that Emily's wardrobe budget reached Palinesque heights. That's saying something.

I was keenly interested in the various "where should we live?" conversations that inevitably take place during dinner. I think my favorite of all time was Brad's discussion with Ashley. Any hopes that girl had of potentially living in Maine and setting up a dental office were put to bed almost immediately. After her win, Emily fought tooth and nail to stay in Charlotte and only rarely went to Austin to hang with Brad and his entourage. It's interesting, then, to see how willing Emily was to live anywhere these guys wanted, even *gasp* Salt Lake City. Really? This has me wondering if the heretofore generous Hendrick dole has a terminal date. That possibility has to factor into the required net worth of her final choice. No slackers with Arie or Jef. They're both living about as hassle free and trust fund rich as Ben Flajnik.

But getting lost in all of this is the possibility of Emily moving to SLC. C'mon, now. There's no way that's happening. Is there? I'd watch a series based on that premise alone. Hey Fleiss, make that happen. Do I have to tweet you or something? I'm kind of new here. I'll even storyboard it.

Arie also got some precious boat time with Emily, but on a catamaran. I guess there are only so many modes of transportation you can work with. Dutch guy, Dutch colony.. I would think bicycles, but Emily didn't pack anything other than heels. I'm glad we were spared ten minutes of swimming with dolphins and just cut to dinner. Finally, a good editing decision. I, too, was curious what Arie Jr. does on a typical Tuesday morning. It's rare that we get such insight into the posh lives of entitled progeny. Well, aside from that one guy running for president with the multitude of offshore accounts, and of course the Kardashians. Arie wakes up at around 9, which is more likely 11 given his reaction, and Emily wakes up at some time earlier than 6:30, thank you very much, which is probably more like 10 as grandma clearly appears to be raising that child. Arie did divulge that he likes to "be around people" and "eats out" almost every night, which is code for hitting the Phoenix clubs pretty hardcore. Not sure if his lifestyle is a deal breaker, but I've been told some limited research on the subject via Facebook reveals a lot about this guy.

Not to get all serious business here, but Arie had the most realistic answer regarding Ricki and how that relationship would have to evolve. Here you've got Sean and Jef penning these epic overtures about how they would cherish and adore Ricki even before meeting her, but Arie has actually done this before and knows it doesn't exactly work that way. I'd love to see Jef show up and tell Ricki that daddy's home. After all, that's what he's pretty much promised to do. That would be fun to watch in a way not too dissimilar to World's Scariest Police Chase Videos 5. Ricki versus "The Fun Dad." Buckle up.

Some choice splicing of Emily's teary-eyed reaction to Sean's video overlaid on all three made things a little suspenseful, but it would be difficult for the logical mind to deduce anything other than Sean heading home. He had a good run, but at some point you probably need to start acting like an actual person rather than an ad for match.com. Sorry, ladies, Sean would make a terrible Bachelor. He'd probably make a capable extra in a future P90X video, though. I'm thinking Ab Ripper X.

Sean was so thoroughly torn up by his dismissal that he just stared at the producers sitting in the back of the limo. It's always a shock when the paid vacation is over. Most people cry, though.

So we're down to week one favorite Arie and the hipster CEO. I think Arie is the right choice, but my contrarian blogger side says Jef has the most artistic promise. Seriously, if that guy and his hair win this, we need to have a Jef and Emily spinoff, but only if it's shot in Utah. Episode 1: "Meet the Parents." Loving this already.

Chicago is for Haters

2012-07-10T01:54:00.003-05:00

Sorry about the delay. Even dedicated bloggers take a vacation, folks. Good thing nothing really good happened last week. We all knew Chris was going home. Let's do a quick recap anyway.

Emily first goes to Chicago which is by far the most interesting city on the tour, but Chris made it seem like they were visiting some drab eastern bloc city, like say, Kraków or maybe Warsaw. This reeked of a pity visit. Everyone, save Chris of course, saw the writing on the wall. It never should have come to Emily having to polka and pretend like she was serious about this guy. For whatever reason, maybe it was lost in translation or something, Chris's dad decided to tell Chris that Emily was "falling in love with him." Here's what really went down:

Polish dad: "So... [deep sigh] do I sense some love?"
Emily: "Absolutely."

Way to set him up, pops. Chris's sis wasn't buying any of it. She pretty much told Emily to cut him loose, no matter how "crazy good" her psycho brother was feeling. No problem. Done and done.

Next stop was one F Jef at his family's "Holmstead Ranch." See, because their last name is "Holm." I know. St. George, UT is actually nowhere near Salt Lake City. It's closer to Vegas, or even Scottsdale, for that matter. Basically, it's desert, but an oasis of dune buggyin' and skeet shootin'. Well that and the place looked immaculate. Jef might have some bucks as People Water CEO, but it's apparent that invisidad and mom are no strangers to coin either. If this journey has been about anything, it's been the relentless pursuit of happiness... via wealth.

Emily was curious about the specifics of the alleged family revolt against his ex-girlfriend. Jef said that "maybe" it was his parents that didn't like her. Oh and his siblings weren't too fond of her either because he's a free spirit that can't be tied down. Good thing six year old girls are super easy to take care of or that would have presented a problem.

Jef and his brother normal spelling Steve had a heart to heart:

Jef: "I mean I'm totally, like, falling for her, dude."

Steve then pointed out the inconsistencies of Jef the Bachelorette contestant who is totally like falling for Emily and Jef the free spirited, unapologetic hipster. Minor points, really.

Sensing a need for a clincher, Jef was then seen reading Emily an over-the-top poem that reminded me of things teenagers write when they are madly in puppy love with each other. Whole lotta promises in there. What if Ricki just hated the guy? Boy, that would be embarrassing. I sincerely hope that love notes aren't legally binding in Utah.

Next was Scottsdale for a visit with an Indy racing legend and his underachieving son who has been dying to get on this show for a few years now (thanks for making it happen, Cassie). This is actually the second son of a racing legend that Emily has dated. She was also pursuing Dale Earnhardt Jr. some years ago, but we can state with some confidence that this is the first open wheel racing boyfriend for Miss Maynard. So adaptable, this one.

This was Emily's second encounter with foreign-born parents, but fortunately she wasn't subjected to sausages and polka this time around. Arie Sr. and Mieke seem to have adapted well to their adopted home. Better tax structure in the United States versus Europe. Ask Steffi Graf about that some time.

Rather than put her at ease, Arie got Emily more than a little nervous about meeting mom. I'm not sure why. If anyone can relate to being a prospective trophy wife, it's Mieke. I have to throw a flag on using Dutch in front of Emily. As someone that has dated his fair share of bilinguals, this is a huge no-no. There is nothing that will alienate a person faster than speaking code in front of them. And to be honest, Dutch is such a strange language, the only acceptable use is when it's being spoken in the throes of passion by Charlize Theron. Oh wait, that's Afrikaans. Close enough.

Junior's sit down with Senior was, well, brief. Not sure our two-time Indy champ is loving the camera time. Seems odd for a guy that has had such a prolific career, on and off the track...

Rawr!

Yes, that's the May 4, 1992 issue of People where he was named among the "50 Most Beautiful People in the World" that year. In case you can't read the text, here's a choice snippet:

"This gentleman has also started a few engines with his turbocharged shag and flinty green eyes—including that of wife Mieke, 35, who admires 'his naturalness. Even after a race, his hair all messed up, he still looks great.'"

That shag has lost a bit of its horsepower, but there's no denying his flintiness.

Last to bat was Sean, who I've maintained has been little more than a smiling goofus about whom nothing is really known. The producers seemed to have a little fun with this as well by painting him as a live-at-home slacker. Not that this was inventive or all that funny, but I think it was a subtle poke at Sean's lack of substantive.. anything. Maybe that approach was preferable to the conversation he did share with Emily about his "sweet as can be" ex of three years that he dumped because he wasn't really all that into it. Well, that was awkward. Let's go meet the perfect family.

Well, right on cue, little "Kensington" runs to hug her uncle. That was so over the top that Emily rightly ignored it. No bonus points for instructing the niece to act like you're Jesus. Maybe this really was the perfect family because Kensington even had a house of her own, complete with central air. All I could think about was, "what are the property taxes on that thing?" I'm sure "Smith" had his own mini Ferrari which probably costs more than my two real cars.

No, Sean doesn't still live at home (we think), but his parents have one of those creepy rooms that looks like it was kept as a shrine to their child. I'm not sure this is much better.

The only thing worse would have been Sean chasing Emily down again. Sadly, check.

All that just to eliminate Chris. Seems like a lot of wasted production cost. During the rose ceremony, I couldn't help but notice Emily doing her best skinny Jessica Simpson impression. Works for me. I think it was the hair.

I'll get the Curaçao recap going shortly. Lots to work with there. They actually had me hanging. Dare I say it, but that was some compelling TV. Sure beat The Glass House, anyway.

That Was A Clown Episode, Bro

2012-06-28T03:07:00.002-05:00

What an interesting episode this week. No, the outcome wasn't really in doubt, but it was fascinating to see all of the novel ways in which guys could make asses of themselves on TV. I have to assume that most of what we saw was real because it would be impossible to script something this horrendous and film it.

Let's start off with the forced drama regarding the bizarre love triangle of Arie, Emily, and Cassie. Hoo boy, did they ever play this one up. Some of you might have even read US Weekly's stupid-as-hell claim that Emily learned about Arie and Cassie sharing coffee ten years ago and dropping him "right then and there." Sure. I liked the angle of ABC showing us a bit of raw footage and addressing this thing, but in the end, all it did was raise more questions. And did anyone really buy that cameras weren't rolling during the real discussion among these three? I'm sure someone out there did. Why that wouldn't have been thrown in is a mystery to me. They invented this drama, and to not milk it for all that its worth is puzzling.

In case you're unclear about what to make of this, let me help you out. Cassie has known Arie for many years. She's been looking for an opportunity to cast Arie on the show and felt this season was ideal. This should tell you all you need to know about the casting process. Sorry, it's not exactly the hand-selected batch with Emily's eternal happiness in mind. Usually it just ends up being guys that walk through the door and/or old entries in the staffs' little black books. Personally, I don't buy the idea that Arie lobbied to be on the show. His racing career peaked about five years ago and wasn't all that promising even then. Nepotism only gets you so far in sports. Eventually you have to display some talent. Unfortunately, Arie Jr. isn't quite the racing prodigy dad was.

We did learn a good deal about Emily and her entitlement issues. How DARE they cast someone on the show that a producer knew. She was so worked up about it, they even had a special one-on-one date planned exclusively to showcase her passive-aggressive behavior. There's nothing like watching a date where the chick is stewing about something and throwing out mildly leading questions in the hopes that the guy will magically pick up on it and address it. Jesus, just ask him about it already. Emily turns this into some test of "loyalty" and "honesty," meanwhile she's dating six guys simultaneously and hasn't made one mention of her perky new store-bought breasts. Or fancy new nose. Or those tasty veneers. Whole lotta hypocrisy here.

Certainly, Arie was told by the producers to avoid the whole Cassie gambit from day one. "We got this. We'll tell her." It must've come as quite a shock to him when he realized that they didn't handle it. Emily insisted that it would have been better to learn about it day one, but it's pretty clear now that would have been a horrible idea. I suppose we can debate whether the producers intentionally brought in Arie knowing this would be an interesting train wreck down the line, but that would be giving them too much credit. To wit, Cassie's word salad during her conversation with Emily:

"But I don't think he's hiding that he knows me. We've been very corg[dial?].. like full, it's not like, but we're asking, at first something too, like, it's been so long we don't really know each other that well. It's like.. I haven't, in ten years we've seen each other like twice?"

Holy Christ, what the hell was that? Yes, I typed that verbatim.

If Arie does get the hook at some point (I still see no evidence of this), knowing Cassie won't be the reason. Emily knows there wasn't anything to get bent out of shape over, and it's clear that the producers hung him out to dry saying they'd handle it with Emily. I have a hard time believing she'd hold that against him. Mostly, though, I have no faith that she likes Jef or Sean more. As for Chris, I think she's deathly afraid of that guy going off his meds.

So yeah, Prague. By now we're not even pretending that Emily has this magical encyclopedic knowledge of Europe as she's seen toting around a Let's Go guide. Arie and Emily check out some of the better known landmarks, like the 600 year old Prague Astronomical Clock and St. Vitus Cathedral. It's trite to say how amazing certain stops are along these epic journeys, but Prague truly is a special place. It's a shame they've worn out superlatives describing lesser destinations. Like Charlotte.

You can get a sense of when they were filming in Prague because everyone is freezing to death and drinking "hot wine." But then we see Emily breaking down all of her dates while looking like she was tanning in Tahiti, or in this case, Curaçao. So strange. It's like she botched all of the recaps on location and had to redo them later.

You can see just how terribly Cassie messed things up. Arie dropped the ol' "L-bomb" (thanks, Ben) on Emily, and she reciprocated by kissing his face off. Poor guy. Seems a little early for this maneuver, though. Off hand, I can't remember "I love you" showing up before the hometown date. Lots of "falling for you" crap, but not the hard stuff. I'm sure it's been done, but in more desperate situations. Yes, I feel like I'm a habitual Arie apologist/borderline fan boy, but everything that I can surmise points to this guy waltzing to victory.

Week 7 is the official episode of one-on-one dates, and that means everyone's a winner, well, unless you're a creepy psycho like Chris. Even the Wolf scores choice solo time with Emily. Not that it went well, but sometimes you have to acknowledge a true miracle when you see one. Wolf's run through Prague has been more improbable than Buster Douglas knocking out Mike Tyson. It's been less predictable than John Travolta's movie career. It's been less expected than the Spanish Inquisition. Unfortunately, it's also been less compelling than a Dan Brown novel. Oh yeah, I went there.

Not since the days of Ames "Amesbot 3000" Brown have we been subjected to such a dearth of emotion. Awkwardness, no.. that's Doug's department. Wolf has been skating through with an ingenious combination of guile, incognito, musk, and a nearly endless list of sad-sack stories. This week's chapter featured Wolf versus "This Doctor Dude" who stole his girl and left him as a burning heap of wreckage. At some point you'd think Wolf would bring something positive to the table and maybe show Emily that he's not walking through life with a rain cloud perpetually over his head, but instead we tune in each week to learn some new twist on how to never catch a break in life. Hell, that lock wouldn't even close.

Wolf: [oblivious to metaphors] "What does that represent, do you know?"
Emily: "Um, it represents... data security."
Wolf: "Interesting. That's what my company is all about."
Emily" "Don't you pretty much just shred paper for a living."
Wolf: "Well, important paper, yes."

These budding lovers then share an intimate meal in a dank dungeon filled with brackish water and mold, which, according to the kids at Let's Go, is the fastest growing venue for burgeoning romance in eastern Europe. Inspired, Wolf recounts how "Doctor Dude" sucked the life out of him and induced him to look like a fool on a major network reality TV dating show. Emily probably wasn't ready to play psychotherapist, but I feel like these two had a really productive session this week. Wolf's HMO even covered it.

Emboldened, and drunk with delusion, Wolf heads back to the hotel to gloat about the fact that he will later be sent home. "Nailed it." This performance also has the side benefit of thoroughly messing with Chris who is about neck-deep in a bubbling lake of crazy sauce. And then, lo, out of absolutely nowhere comes this strange moment where Sean, who has been Kool & the Gang from day one, hurriedly runs off to search for Emily in a city of well over a million residents. Safe to say we have found the worst producer-inspired moment of Season 8. Absolutely rancid.

The group date is actually the place to be this week since it's the only place to get a rose, but don't tell that to Chris. He'd rather wallow in his own tears than pay attention to show mechanics. Doug isn't faring any better. It's as if the only thing he's comfortable doing is talking about his 11.5 year old son, Austin, who is into castles and all that "boy stuff." I think that Austin would have a better shot of landing Emily than his dad. Of their home town date that will never happen:

Emily: "What different side would I see?"
Doug: "Nuthin'..."

But it got better. Or in this case, even more strange. Doug accidentally touches Emily and profusely apologizes, as if doing so by mandate of court order. Could it possibly get more awkward? Of course it could, and it does. Doug decides to make his move.. during elimination.

"...and that's why I have to send you.. holy shit what are you doing?"

And then, as if on cue, he sobs like a baby on the cab ride home, most likely because he dearly misses his precious balls which seem to have been lost somewhere in Bermuda.

With Doug out of the picture, it's just Sean and Chris on the three-on-one, which is now a two-on-one, and soon to be a one-on-one. The man with the largest key gets to spend more private time with Emily. Too bad Wolf isn't around to ask about what keys represent.

It's not the the length of the key that matters. It's the girth.

Because he's acting like a guy that's been there before, Sean gets the rose, while Chris continues his slow descent into madness. I'm beginning to worry about this guy, not so much for his prospects of lasting another week, but for the safety of the cast and crew. Someone certainly doesn't like sharing his toys with the other children. It's too bad Arie already ran the "Hulk smash" bit with Doug. It would been perfect here. Chris angry. Chris want hometown date.

Effectively, everyone still breathing got a one-on-one, except for Chris. Emily's favorite charity contestant Jef gets the last crack, and this was easily one of the muddier nuts to crack in recent memory. It's safe to say that Jef has a decent shot to win, but it's anyone's guess as to how and why. I'll entertain theories if you have one. A particularly good conspiracy theory is that Michelle Money's brother is buddies with Jef, so Michelle let good buddy Emily know that she should keep Jef around. Why does Ms. Money keep entering the fray? Maybe they should stay the hell away from Salt Lake City already. It's like everyone knows each other.

Going with marionettes was an odd but perhaps fitting choice for these two. Jef seems to be painfully shy, or awkward, or exuding that patented Mormon sterility... or all of that, and maybe this was a good way for these two to share their innermost feelings, by proxy, through a puppet. Yes, it showcased Jef's immaturity and youthful demeanor, but it also said, "you're safe here. Tell me where the bad man touched you. Use the Michael Jackson doll."

Once they decided to pack up the dollies and ceased their discussion of nail polish colors, Jef and Emily started getting serious about their pending home town visit with Jef's family. Well, some of it. And as excited as Emily is to meet them, well, sorry honey, mom and dad are ~~big shots in the Mormon church~~ "committed to some stuff for a few years" and can't be bothered to meet you. But they're so "crazy in love," and you should see that. But you can't. However, there will be punch, and possibly pie.

And not to scare you away or anything, but my parents didn't like a particular girlfriend of mine, so I ditched her. But don't worry, my parents, whom you will not meet during your visit, will love you. This is going to be great.

Jef and Emily agreed on a lot. Too much.

Emily: "There aren't many people I could lay on the floor with."
Jef: "Me either!"
Jef: "Would you want to live together first?"
Emily: "It makes it so easy to get out."
Jef: "Totally."
Jef: "How soon after we got married would you want kids?"
Emily: "Yesterday."
Jef: "Me too!"
Jef: "I can't wait to be the fun dad."
Emily: "I can't wait to fight with you over being the fun dad."
Jef: "Me too!"
Jef: "I want to date you so hard and marry the shit out of you."
Emily: "Me too!"

I think we all went through a good "me too" phase. These two will make great prom dates.

Later, Jef took things to another level entirely. This never made it on the prime time broadcast, but I think it shows just how serious he is.

"We're no strangers to love. You know the rules and so do I. A full commitment's what I'm thinking of. You wouldn't get this from any other guy. I just wanna tell you how I'm feeling. Gotta make you understand. Never gonna give you up. Never gonna let you down. Never gonna run around and desert you. Never gonna make you cry. Never gonna say goodbye. Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you."

There was some dancing too, but mostly he just moved back and forth like a white guy.

With Doug already gone, just Wolfner left to axe, but don't tell that to Chris. This guy unraveled in record time. I guess there was more to that little tête-à-tête with Doug than we first suspected. I'll show you mature...

Chris, 15, weepy virgin

It was good to see Wolf going into that rose ceremony like he owned the place only to get chopped down despite Chris imploding in front of everyone. How bad of an option do you have to be to lose to the guy begging to stay? I'm sure he'll find a lovely emotionless woman with which to rule that paper shredding empire.

Interesting previews for next week, shown Lost style. They've already lifted the end title "boom," so why not the editing too? Seems like we get an out of context weep-fest from Emily about making the wrong decision. I doubt it means anything more than she doesn't like upsetting the psycho guy. Still not sure how the finale plays out. Curiously, there haven't been any clips from it (usually we'd have a few by now), so maybe things are a little different this time around. Live reveal?

No real shifts on the board:

Arie - I'm sticking with my day one call. Cassie is in the rear view and didn't seem to do any damage. Seems like that was about his only obstacle.
Sean - Still hasn't shared anything about himself. Getting weird at this point.
Jef - This visit has the potential to go about as well as Brad's visit to Shawntel's family mortuary.
Chris - I think we're ready for that thorazine drip. Stat.

The Jef, Doug, and Travis Estrogen Extravaganza

2012-06-19T17:23:00.002-05:00

So lately I have been reading all of the "spoiler" info this season, but only after I was told that the usual suspects have been flummoxed by ABC's new (apparently successful) misinformation campaign. I've read all kinds of speculation about who the final guy is, but it seems like one giant pissing match among bloggers who haven't the faintest clue. An Instragram pic is compelling evidence? Really? I think it's safe to say that, as of today, no one knows what the hell is going on, which is plenty fine by me. My bread and butter isn't spoilage anyway, it's mockery. And honestly, it's a better deal for me if there's some uncertainty floating out there. Also remember that nailing down the final winner on these shows has been notoriously difficult in past seasons. There have been some embarrassing episodes by those who shall remain unnamed. Besides, there's nothing particularly entertaining about knowing who Emily will pretend to want to marry.

Week 6 finds the crew in Dubrovnik, Croatia which is at the very southern tip of the country and on the Adriatic Sea. If you took two steps further south, you'd be in Montenegro, but it's not like any of you is going to win a geography bee any time soon, so never mind. Dubrovnik itself is essentially a medieval walled Byzantine fortress that is ideal for guarding and protecting reality show hearts. The old city section of Dubrovnik was named as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979 which means that you ought not bomb the piss out of it should you ever become a ruinous dictator. I know we have a few budding Slobodan Miloševićs out there.

Emily's histrionics over Kalon – let's be honest – telling the truth seem especially rich in light of her sending little Ricki back to Charlotte with the babysitter (i.e., grandma). Boy, she sure showed him. I don't see why Ricki couldn't have stuck around. What, is Eastern Europe not good enough for her little princess?

This season has had a few minor twists. Not exactly the wholesale reworking that I've begged for, but there have been some nice surprises here and there. One of these is the perilous one-on-one date. The two-on-one is a known death spiral, but it's always been assumed that going on a solo date meant an auto-rose to the next round. Thankfully, not anymore.

Eggman has somehow lasted six whole weeks and amassed something like 20,000 frequent flier miles, but the free ride stops here. It's anyone's guess how he's lasted this long. He's exactly the kind of roster filler that gets clipped on night one, but this dude won the reality show mini-lotto. It probably says more about the quality of guys they cast on the show than anything else. Still, I'd rather have someone with a pulse than this guy wasting valuable seconds of air time.

We probably should have suspected doom once he showed up in pink plaid. I realize that we're probably at the nadir of fashion sense in 2012 (see any NBA postgame press conference for reference), but perhaps the staff could deign to hire a consultant for these poor lads. It's not like I'm Karl Lagerfeld, but c'mon folks. The Old Navy clearance bin has been picked over already.

I'll give Travis some props. He seems like a nice enough guy. It's kind of difficult to really root against him other than he doesn't really do any fun tricks on command. I suppose this is his main problem. He's sort of perfectly unremarkable which underscores just how amazing it is that he's even made it to Croatia to eat pistachio gelato. Because everyone loves a good staged date, Travis rates this one a solid 10 out of.. 8. Seems a little weird to go with 8 as your rating scale. I rate this particular episode 38 out of a possible 53. It had a good beat, but the dancing, as always, was terrible.

Dinner with these two had about as much sexual tension as an episode of Will & Grace. Travis was already extrapolating hand holding to marriage, but Emily was more interested to learn why he hadn't dated anyone in two years. Seriously. Two years. Hell, Emily dated Jeremy Shockey (who is essentially a John Daly starter kit) since breaking up with Brad. At least she was in the game, no matter how gross it was. Point is, no one expects you to be chaste between fiancés. Let's live a little here.

Whoa, double rainbow. The official power-gay symbol of this episode.

Although Travis was pretty amped about opening up a little and maybe getting that first kiss sometime in hypothetical Week 36, Emily wasn't feeling that special tingle in her loins and banished Travis to the friend zone which earns you a home version of the game, boxed leftovers, and a disposable umbrella, but sadly no ticket to Bachelor Pad. Drink it in, folks. This is probably the last time you'll ever see Travis, unless of course you're a resident of Madison, MS in which case we'll see you at the parade in his honor next weekend.

The marketing overreach hasn't been as bad in years past. Remember the "Leap List" debacle? It's still bad when a segment of the show feels gratuitously commercial. I think my breaking point was Emily saying "Disney Pixar's Brave" instead of just "Brave." This is not how real people talk. Say, have you seen that 20th Century Fox production Prometheus starring Guy Pearce and Charlize Theron, directed by Ridley Scott? Well, you should. It's polling a solid 74% on the Tomatometer.

I don't know if this kind of shoddily embedded advertising actually works or not. I was frankly too busy noticing that Emily kept morphing from tan to pale and back during her interview segments. Since it was obviously chilly when they shot in Croatia, and we know "Prague" isn't Czech for "tropical paradise," it seems some of these clips were shot way way after the fact. Is it really that difficult to sum up a group movie date?

To further confuse matters, Croatia played host to Scottish highland games. Of course they did. Makes perfect sense. They even imported a couple of real live Scrooge McDuck sounding Scots to run the thing. I was surprised just how weak and uncoordinated Chris was. Jef, okay that I expected, but Chris seems like the kind of guy that might drink a protein shake or two. Honestly, it was far too much like watching a foal try to walk immediately after birth. I guess these kinds of contests are supposed to get the testosterone flowing, but all we really saw was Sean running over everyone like a freight train. They missed an opportunity by excluding Ryan from this thing. At least he would have put up a fight.

Emily can never seem to decide whether she is rating these guys on physical attributes or not. You get these little moments of "dang, that shit was hot" and then she'll disavow everything she ever said as if it was a self-destructing Mission Impossible tape. There's no other way to explain why she's so infatuated with Sean. He could be a self-admitted kid toucher and she'd be none the wiser. Maybe if she had bothered to ask she'd learn something.

Emily: "What's going through your brain right now. I feel like there's more than you're telling me."
Sean: "No..."

Like an open book.

Jef is another matter entirely.

Emily: "By the way. What took you so daggone long..."
Jef: "For what?"
Emily: "To kiss me?"
Jef: "I'm scared of you."

He's like the reciprocal of Sean and this mess is endemic of the hipster virus that's been plaguing our nation for about a decade now, though it probably just hit Salt Lake last year. Emily must think Jef is absolutely loaded to keep making excuses for him like this. If you want a girlfriend, Jef is definitely your man.

Ryan had the misfortune of getting the second one-on-one date and thereby earning his walking papers. I had some hopes for this guy getting his act together, but it's pretty evident by now that he's a perfect storm of stupid and overconfident. The Jesus stuff was just bonus. Surely at some point Ryan would have been sent packing, but I think might have been able to outlast the Wolf had he managed to drive better than my grandmother and maybe quell his obsessive need to refer to Emily as a trophy wife. I actually liked this guy's shtick. It just needed to be dialed back from 11 to around 6. Wasn't a fan of the Wolverine tribute manscaping, though.

"For your guys who are cutting this up... do a good job of portraying exactly who I am and not, you know, an arrogant ass."

I'm encouraged. This shows at least some evidence of self-reflection. He's going to be terribly upset when they don't ask him to be the next Bachelor, though. Plenty of better arrogant ass options out there, in my opinion.

"I even put the list in reverse order to look like a gentleman. 'Looking hot' is last."

Wolfman was probably next against the wall, but that cagey bastard pulled the dead grandparent trump card, or in this case, cards. This guy is lucky he wasn't left spelunking with "Nate" on their two-on-one cave match. Quite the story of survival. It's astounding how quick these guys are to sob in front of Emily. "Please don't send me home. This is the best vacation I've ever been on." Sorry, Wolf. That data won't destruct itself.

Not sure what the hell is wrong with Doug. I know he's probably still on probation due to acting out a scene from Falling Down, but if a woman instructs you to grab her ass, son, you grab her ass and you like it. It's like Doug never thought he had to do anything beyond mentioning his kid. Awful, awful performance in the clutch. I can't stand to watch a show where a woman instructs guys on how to flirt. Isn't that what junior high was for?

Not sure what loving your son has to do with your complete lack of game. Cry it out.

Ditching these two was probably the right call, but the numbers don't really work down the stretch. They'd probably have to trim an episode. Yes, there are rules to these things, Chris. Amazing how they had an extra rose ready to go. That sequence was just as bad as the weak dubbed preview where Emily asks Chris who else in the house isn't all about her. I suppose we'll see that actual clip at some point, but why even bother with the head fake? Save that crap for Lizard Lick Towing. This year they seem to be pulling back the curtain a bit, and there's some real genius in there. It's when they start with the editing shenanigans that people just get annoyed.

This deal about Cassie Lambert's relationship with Arie has to be influenced by all of the spoiler chatter out there. I think it's a good move to bring it up on the show. Any previous year and they'd bury this like spent uranium and pretend it didn't exist. I love the new approach. Obviously, Emily isn't too thrilled with the news that Cassie dated Arie, but come on... it was nine years ago, and from what I can tell, Arie was being charitable by dating her. Not exactly a head turner, this one. Actually, the only reason Arie was cast in the first place was because of Cassie's influence. She's wanted him on the show for a long time, and this season just made sense given the racing connection.

Emily giving Cassie Lambert's leftovers a rose.

There is some buzz that Emily goes nuts and cuts Arie on the spot, but there's no chance that's accurate. I still think he's winning this thing, and this Cassie crap is ancient history. She'd be a moron to hold it against him. What was he supposed to do? "Oh hey, didn't know when I should bring this up, but I used to bone your producer. Good news is that she was a dead fish in bed. We cool?" It's not like it's his fault he was cast on the show. You'd figure they would have told Emily this rather than let it fester or expect Arie to explain it, but at least it provides a nice twist. Finally some shit getting real.

Given that Doug and Wolfie are huddled together on a sinking ship, let's take a look at the final four:

Arie - hitting some severe turbulance with this Cassie revelation, or so it appears. Who knows how Emily will digest this long term. Either she gets over it (which should be easy... for most people), or she lets it eat at her and tries her luck elsewhere. I don't think this will be enough to derail the inevitable.
Sean - I feel like we're actually having knowledge about this guy sucked out of our brains each week.
Jef - Emily is absolutely hell bent on dragging this guy's limp body across the finish line. I'm still completely baffled by it. As time goes on, I'm going to start rooting for Jef to win. It will be the strangest outcome of all time, and by all time I mean all male-female bonds between humans from the big bang until now.
Chris - Suffers an unfortunate spate of crying which has befallen many a former contestant. Good game.

Kalon Mercifully Got the Fuck Out

2012-06-12T02:19:00.000-05:00

Well, here we are, inexplicably in fair London. I say that only because I'm absolutely shocked it wasn't pouring rain. Probably cleaned that up in post-production. Usually I feel like there's a theme to these destinations, but not so much this season.

Last time we were comforted that li'l Ricki was still getting an education by nailing those "blue list" words and working with the hotel staff on her addition, but not so this time. It's all about fun. Hey kids. Big Ben. Parliament. Posh and Becks' West End flat.

The guys are housed at the May Fair Hotel which is insanely expensive and, incidentally, a stone's throw from Big Ben and Parliament and a slew of other landmarks these guys have never heard of. Sean gets the first solo date with the less than subtle clue of "love takes no prisoners." Now, I didn't major in Brit Lit (pretty much the opposite), but A Tale of Two Cities is on my Kindle, so the Tower of London comes to mind. Not so much for Sean. I think the original date card said "Sean- Let's grate cheese on your abs. -emily"

Fresh off her bus ride with Ricki, Emily is ready to flex her considerable knowledge of the city, like clumsily pointing out where William and Kate shared their first kiss in Buckingham Palace, and "West Minster Abbey," also known to some locals as Westminster Abbey, the immortal home to famous dead guys like Geoffrey Chaucer and the above referenced Charles Dickens. It's a good thing her Palinesque pen-on-hand crib notes survived a bout of sweaty palms because that could have been a disaster. I know Emily isn't stupid, but she's certainly not intellectually curious either. Likewise, Sean wouldn't have blinked if Emily was spouting off details about Morocco instead.

But remember, Emily thinks that Sean isn't boring, or tells herself that. Usually guys that look like Sean are boring, but not Sean. Nope. Why? Because he's "silly," carries her bag, and lies to her about his last date being five months ago, and over a year before that. I have a feeling he could tell her that he dismembered his last date and hid the body parts in a swamp and she'd think it was just his genuineness shining through.

Yep, Tower of London date. If only there was some hint of this earlier. Of the serious contenders remaining, we know the least about Sean, but it's not like that matters to Emily. In fact, you could essentially overlay Doug's dialogue with Sean's on their respective one-on-one dates and find a 95% match, but Emily was "skeptical" of Doug being "too perfect." Sean must be just flawed enough. Or maybe fitness models with no kids get a free pass. I'm telling you, Emily doesn't want to take on a step kid. She'd never say it, but it's a plain fact. She and Kalon are more alike than she'd ever admit, right down to the cosmetic accessories.

Evidence of Sean's fantastic responses to Emily's questions?

Emily: "How many kids do you want? Is it something you've thought about?"
Sean: "I hadn't put a lot of thought to it."
Emily: [playful feigned shock]
Sean: "Like two. Two is a good number. Me and my sister were good.. but I'm open-minded."
Emily: "Okay. Three, four?"
Sean: "Three, four.. six, ten.. whatever."
Emily: "Okay. Good to know." [points to head]

What did we learn here exactly? Fill in the blank: Sean wants ___ kids. About all I can say is that he's probably looking for an even number (zero included). Beyond that, who the hell knows. What I do know is that Emily's tired-looking friend Wendy has had more physical intimacy with Sean, so she has a lot catching up to do, and it seems like that's the plan.

If Sean ends up going home at some point there are two nagging issues: 1) what will Arie think of Emily fawning over Sean like a choice cut of USDA Prime? and 2) can we please never cast this guy as The Bachelor ever? Putting a finer point on the latter, Emily is dead wrong: Sean is boring as hell. Ben Flajnik was more compelling. Hell, I'd watch DJ Stevie as The Bachelor before I'd devote a second to watching this wanker flex his dimple and utter the most anodyne blather for two hours on Monday nights. I won't do it. Thankfully, it looks like the role is going to Ali's ex Roberto Martinez (folks, your first law suit inspired minority Bachelor), I wanted to pre-file my formal complaint now in case anyone get the idea that Sean is ratings gold.

Group date is in Stratford-upon-Avon. The date card has an overused Romeo and Juliet quote. Guys, what do you figure we'll be doing? I think most seventh graders know the answer. As group dates go, this was a supreme loser. I was all for throwing a throng of kids at them, and of course unleashing the sexually repressed gal pals, but this was basically just cliché for the sake of cliché. Oh, we're in London. Let's do Shakespeare. The only redeeming moment was Kalon telling Emily to "run along" so that he could focus on winning this puppy. Way to think that one through, genius. Well, by this point Kalon probably knew he was done. I honestly thought this guy had some potential to mix it up, but pretty much even failed at that.

"Kitchen's over there, sweetie."

Let's get to the "baggage" fallout already. The only saving grace of an otherwise pitiful episode. Kalon has been a mystery to me from the moment he left the helicopter. I think the idea was for him to be the disruptor of the house, but when you have about 15 seconds of camera time during an entire episode like he did last week, you might be falling a little short of your duties. I'm forced to conclude that Kalon either is several mentally ill or a nihilist. I mean, say what you want about the tenets of National Socialism...

By this point, Kalon is dropping more bombs than the Allies on Dresden, and it seems a little reckless. It's not like this is saving you any face. Take a page from uber-villain Bentley: just walk off into the sunset. For anyone reading at home hoping to realize their childhood dream of being a reality TV bad guy, here is a perfect case study of what not to do. My god, at least draw up a plan and stick with it. Or have a show veteran guide you through the process. Showing up and just taking a shit on the place isn't the way to make things happen. Jesus, you made me like Doug for a second there, and that's just flat wrong, dude.

I'll get to whether ratting out Kalon was appropriate or not in a bit, but surely Doug saw this as his opportunity to play hero. After some brief intelligence gathering, Doug has a classic "not here for the right reason" sit-down with Emily which gets her southern juices a-flowin'. She's ready to serve Kalon's balls on a platter with a pint of Guinness, but Doug implores her to think about it since he knows first hand the consequences of flying off the handle and threatening your girlfriend with a shotgun. I wish I were kidding.

"I want to go West Virginia hood rat back woods on his ass."

Well, now. I can't say I saw that coming. Is she sure about that "hood rat" thing?

Had Kalon been somewhat entertaining, I could have gone to bat for him as I have for a lot of other agitators in the past. It's a show, after all. Sorry, not this time.

If there was any doubt that Emily wasn't taking this seriously, I think those suspicions have now been allayed. She just about storms off the set. She honestly thinks this is a show about finding her a husband. Good grief.

"My god. I called myself a hood rat."

Doug predictably overplayed his hand, again, but was curtly rebuffed. This man has no other cards in the deck. It's either Single Dad Crusader for Justice, or nothing. This is why America hates you, Doug. And yes, we can tell that you're reciting anger management mantras during these tense moments. Just try not to kill anyone until you leave, okay?

Please, mind the step.

Emily tells the guys she's disappointed in them and that she feels like no one "had her back" and proceeds to run that phrase into the ground about as badly as "I know, right?" (Especially bad this week.) She's dead wrong about this. Foremost, she needs to understand that this isn't the Emily Maynard Show starring Emily Maynard, it's The Bachelorette. If she bothered to watch any of the previous 25 seasons of this franchise, she'd realize that no one, aside from a few delusional viewers, is interested in finding her a husband. Certainly no one associated with the show has that goal. I'll give her credit for being able to read some of these fools (Sean excluded), but she seems to be completely delusional about how this show works. Her interests and theirs are not aligned. There's a reason they paid you a large sum to be on the show, over and above the free travel and wardrobe. You're not a special snowflake in the eyes of ABC/Next Entertainment. To them, you might as well be.. gasp.. Ashley Hebert.

Moreover, these guys are nothing more than cast members who happen to see you here and there for a few weeks. None of these guys are your boyfriend. They definitely aren't your husband, and they sure as hell aren't your kid's father. If you want someone to "have your back," you probably need to exist in the real world and not on some TV show that has a vested interest in manufactured drama. As much as I loathe hypocrisy, I think one of my least favorite traits is self-martyrdom. Lower yourself off that cross, honey, there's a lot of show left.

Consider also the history of ratting people out. It never ends well. Ever. (Are you listening, Doug?) No matter how much the lead might implore to hear all of the juicy details about what people are saying or doing, the rat always meets an untimely end. Epidemiologist/rapper Emily learned this the hard way with Ben who practically insulted her for caring about what other people thought. This rule might be less rigidly applied on The Bachelorette, but it's still a rule. You never tattle. You cannot win going this route. If Emily was serious about wanting a guy to be some kind of informer, Doug would have scored big time. Instead he got the equivalent of "get bent."

Seems like the shark move was to not be on this bloodbath of a date. Continuing to defy all logic, Jef gets his chance to register a pulse on his one-on-one date. Of course Emily is still being all moody the next day over this Kalon deal, so Jef wasn't totally in the clear here. Still, this woman has ultra-low expectations with this guy. Being the least threatening option appears to be good enough, at least for now.

Emily "chooses" a date to have tea with an etiquette expert, which in England amounts to an appointment with a licensed sadist. The person(s) that booked this and thought Shakespeare in the park was a brilliant idea should be fired immediately. No warning, just put their crap on the street and consider it an improvement. Of course they left early. Either that was scripted, or they couldn't stand another moment of how to orient the teapot spout to properly align with the prime meridian.

Continuing with their clichéd tour of London, Jef orders up "two pints" and some "fish and chips." Later they'll see a Sex Pistols tribute band, get pissed on Whisky, make pavement pizza, get knackered, head home, and not brush their teeth. That would be so British.

Jef knew about the Kalon mess before his date, but it's obvious that no one gave him a heads about Emily being upset that no one told her about it. Hell, Jef was there during the original incident and, from his recollection, politely suggested that Kalon should leave. Sure you did, champ. After seeing that meltdown last night, I was cringing for Jef when he started in on his baggage analogy. I think he dodged a bullet there. Even if you're a set of Louis Vuitton luggage, you're still baggage. Besides, that was my obvious metaphor in post one, you uncreative bastards.

These two wrap up at the London Eye, which is officially now the EDF Energy London Eye because everything needs sponsorship these days. The Massengill Bachelorette can't be far off because no one knows douche like Massengill. In their private pod-thingy, Jef asks Emily where she sees herself in a year, which sounds eerily similar to the question she asked Joe at the Greenbrier.

"Hopefully I'll have, like, a boyfriend. Or fiancé, or husband, or somethin'."

Or somethin' indeed.

Emily may not be aware, but Jef is mormon, so maybe the proper follow up is "how many wives do you want?" Not to assume that Emily has a religious test, but she probably has a religious test, and I imagine dating a mormon is one step below dating an atheist on the shame continuum. It seems obvious that she's never been to Salt Lake City because there's no chance she's moving there, even as a hypothetical. I don't think the Hendrick support system would allow for that.

Something about Emily and Jef together just feels... weird.

Not that Jef is a bad guy or anything, but it seems like he and Emily are more likely to share recipes, do each others' hair, and maybe have a dance party than have some sweeping romance. Had Emily not asked him to step it up, I doubt he would have done anything differently. We know that Jef likes free travel, a healthy per diem, and exposure for his company, but it's still completely puzzling why Emily likes Jef, aside from their disdain of food. We've learned nothing this week.

At the cocktail party, Emily beats the same tired refrain of no one having her back. She seemed especially upset with Arie who she felt let her down, never mind that she insisted that she's a big girl that can fight her own battles. Pretty good mixed messaging here. Arie had it right, though. There's no point in obsessing over what other people are doing. It's a dead end. Jef seemed to think he had the moral high ground, but what exactly did that little hipster do to confront Kalon? Emily probably thinks she wants a guy like Kasey Kahl to guard and protect her heart. The problem is that she really doesn't. No one likes a Kasey Kahl. Even Vienna couldn't stand him.

Sean wisely took full advantage of not being on the group date of death and of course claimed that he would have kicked Kalon's ass if he was there. Sure man. Not only would you not have said anything, but you probably would have just sat there with your patented shit-eating grin. Love the hindsight, though.

Emily is still convinced that her attraction to Sean is more than just physical, never mind that she still doesn't know a thing about him. She has butterflies, but not so much in her stomach, rather near her naughty girl parts.

The rose ceremony seemed to be all about sending messages. Doug led the do-gooder intervention, so he gets the first rose. She was disappointed in Arie acting the way any normal guy would, so of course he has to sweat it out until the end. Don't let it happen again, Arie. Remember that no good deed goes unpunished.

I'm really upset we won't be learning more about Alejandro's mushroom farming, but that's the risk we took when we started this journey. If you put yourself out there like that, you might get hurt.

"You're sending the Wolf? Shiiit, negro.. that's all you had to say!"

Let's take a look at the Big Board:

Arie - Hanging on to the top spot by a hair. Had a rocky week, but it wasn't bad enough to move him from the top spot.
Sean - It seems to be down to him or Arie with the rest pretty far back. We still don't know a lick about this guy. Seriously.. nothing.
Jef - She doesn't really like the rest of the guys very much. For whatever reason, she likes Jef. All 125 pounds of him.
Chris - Invisible this week, so he slips to fourth.
Doug - Won some temporary points with calling Kalon out, but it seems increasingly evident that there's nothing there. No step kids, thanks.
Ryan - I like him for the humor value. I hope he starts to get desperate and lashes out at the guys. Please?
Travis - Mississippi needs you back.
"Wolf" - Should have been eliminated with "Nate." The red pants didn't do him any favors.

Battle of the Bros

2012-06-06T01:40:00.001-05:00

Before we begin, I'd like to dedicate a moment of silence for Eduard "Trololo" Khil, one of the finest voices of our time.

Goodnight, sweet prince.

Week 4 sees the Emily, Ricki, and the fellas finally traveling away from the friendly confines of "small town" Charlotte and moving to big time Bermuda (population: 64,268). Most importantly, this is the week Doug becomes unglued, which is something I felt was just a matter of time. There's something not quite right with Superdad.

Usually, guys are pretty amped to get a date with the only girl on the show, but Doug spends all of his time either worrying about getting clipped or taking jokes at his expense way too seriously. He really did look like he was ready to fight a few times there, and I suppose that's enough for a good Hulk smash reference. I laughed.

"Fuck you and your playful banter."

Doug is easily the most passive-aggressive dude on the show, and lordy he does not like being called out on it. Can't a man be self-deprecating in peace? GOD.

I think I said earlier that Chris looks like Brad. Sorry. Doug is pretty much Brad 2.0. So much so that Emily compares the two for appearing to be "perfect." Of course Doug doesn't really strike anyone as perfect, but this is weak code for saying "you're trying too hard" and "isn't there more to you than being a dad that gets criticized for hanging out with his son too much?"

I have to say that overall I've been impressed with Emily's ability to read guys, which was completely unexpected. She's not stupid, however she might have a bit too much confidence in her deductive skills. Smart people don't point to their heads to say, "check out all of the brainy goodness packed in here." I'd say she's got a good read on Doug, though. She knows that this guy polished up the patina before coming on the show. Still, I think she's vulnerable to the idea that Doug may be some sort of robotic super husband-in-wait who is ready to swoop in to save her and Ricki from not having a big strong man in their lives.

Doug's biggest problem is probably overconfidence. Not exactly Ryan-level overconfidence, but vulnerable to the idea that stuff he does in the house won't get back to Emily. She's already heard about his penchant for drama, and he'd better hope that she doesn't learn about his tendency to refer to himself in the third person. That would be such a Brad move. I'm not exactly a big Doug fan, but that was unexpected. Kids, it's never okay to do that. It correlates 98% with being a douchebag.

Emily hates it when guys compete against each other, but since the show template calls for a group competition date, that's what you get. Rather than have an MMA-style cage match this time (Ames nearly dying probably scared the lawyers), they opt for competitive yachting which is meant to expose the hoi polloi among us. Now, I'm no expert on tactical sailing, but I did watch Dennis Conner in his prime against the Aussies so I think I'm more than qualified to weigh in here. One thing I can say definitively is that you can't just draw a clear line from start to finish and expect to win. There are a lot of factors involved, something which the red team didn't quite grasp. Especially looking stupid were Chris, Sean, and Travis for high-stepping at the halfway mark. I suspect that Charlie would have joined in, but he still seems to be suffering effects from his fall. In fact, he may not be aware that he's on a TV show.

It's not your fault, chief.

A hearty "well done" to Arie and Ryan for pulling things together in that win. Jef did his part acting as human ballast. I don't think Kalon was even on the boat. I thought he was going to be the big pot-stirrer this season? Can we get some consistency here?

The future America's Cup champs get their evening with Emily, which mostly serves as a gateway to embarrassment. Arie's been playing things just about perfectly to this point, but I think he looked a whole lot overeager here. He also seemed to drain himself of testosterone with that mom sweater, gentle caresses, and baby talk. Charlie was embarrassed? No, that's embarrassing. Arie needs to throttle way back on the schmoopie and soul-devouring kisses. Calm down, man, there are like 120 laps to go.

Jef continues to be the most curious aspect of this show, and I mean that in almost a clinical sense. At first I thought he might be gay, but at least they could talk about conditioner or Glee. Now I'm thinking he might be a eunuch. As much as I don't get Emily's fascination with him (hell, no one does), I'm fascinated by her fascination with him and I'm not ready to say goodbye just yet. I don't think this indifferent shtick can last a whole lot longer, though. Well, I should correct that a bit. Jef pulled the equivalent of pouring his heart out to Emily by having her kiss his owie he somehow suffered while not doing anything on the boat.

Momma make baby feel all better.

That move should be good for another three weeks.

I haven't settled on whether Ryan thinks he's leading the pack or if he can sense some trouble, but regardless, he's a constant source of unintentional comedy. This week, the Presbyterian College alum sprinkles in a bit of religious behest with his attempt to turn the tables on Emily. She has a great responsibility to do something good with this role as the Bachelorette, after all, and Ryan has decided to make sure she delivers. Or something along those lines. I wasn't really paying full attention during that part.

"For everyone to whom much is given, of him shall much be required." -- Luke 12:48

"Thou shalt keep thy butt in the gym." -- Ryan 4:13

I'm sure Ryan thinks this is all a very good idea to put some heat on Emily and start butchering scripture, he's quickly earning a fast pass to Earlyexitville. Ryan should understand that his best asset is to mess with the other guys, not mess with the lead. This kind of idiocy works with someone like Ashley who always played the role of "just happy to be here," but Emily isn't going to put up with this kind of holier than thou crap. At least make it clever crap.

Not sure why there has to be a rose given out on these group dates. It was more of a war of attrition out there. Kalon was basically invisible, so no go there. Arie acted like a dog that hadn't seen his owner in two weeks, so I think she had to reel that in a bit. Ryan completely stepped in it, so that really only left Jef as the lone man standing. Can't you just feel the excitement?

Emily decides the all-important group date rose recipient while Jef picks some dirt off his Chuck Taylors.

After getting the rose, Jef utters perhaps one of the best lines in Bachelor franchise history:

"It feels like something we share together is really important to her."

I'm not sure I can properly characterize the awesomeness of that line. It's so marvelously indifferent and patronizing. Of course he followed that with something about "falling for" Emily or somesuch (while fighting back laughter), but it's lines like that make you wonder just how the guy made it on the show or what his endgame is. I gotta say it.. I have absolutely no idea what is going on here.

I can't help but think that this is some type of weird performance art.

Now that I have an expanding readership, I think my suggestions may actually be making it to top network brass. Here's one: ditch the godawful two-on-one dates. With rare exception, they always feature non-factors and are never the least bit interesting. Even that segment where Ali left Kasey and his fresh tattoo on a glacier wasn't very good TV. I think the idea of two guys fighting for the Bachelorette's affections looks good on paper, but by now the two-on-one has such a dire reputation that all it does is sap the life out of everyone involved. Need we more evidence than Wolfman, Captain Quinoa, and their endless series of toasts? A new low water mark and maybe the worst 20 minutes of TV in 2012. Leave this act in the cave, please.

Returning to guys that actually have a shot in this, Chris confronts Doug in a rare moment of grown-ass man to grown-ass man candor. You rarely if ever see this between guys, and you sure as hell never see it between women, so this was kind of a novelty. I'll go ahead and pick sides here. Chris is exactly right that Doug is overly judgmental, especially about "maturity" and people being fit to be a father. If Chris only knew just how much he was milking that angle to the cameras and to Emily, his head would probably explode. Conversely, Chris is making too much of this, and in the end he'd be better served just staying above the fray and letting this one go. It's not like Emily is going to consult Doug on whether he thinks Chris should be Ricki's new dad. Still, it was entertaining to see someone call "Mr. Perfect" out for what he is. Doug's response was feigned bewilderment, most likely because he's not used to someone just laying it out there. He also displayed some classic projection with "look at the way you're getting upset right now, man." Great stuff, Doug.

Chris also pointed out that he thinks Doug is a phony, and given that Emily kind of reached the same conclusion, that one had to sting a little bit. I wonder if we'll find out what Doug's deal really is. I'm hoping there's some kind of Scooby-Doo reveal at the end where we find out Doug is really Mr. Withers who hates meddling 25 year olds.

It was during this mini-kerfuffle that I was reminded to make the following observation/assertion: the male version of the insipid "I know, right?" (an Emily standard) is "come at me, bro." We need to quash these phrases like the linguistic roaches they are.

I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by the Harrison-Maynard pre-elimination fireside chat. Lots of good nuggets in there. My theory is that these conversations are nearly always pretty frank, but that they edit them down to the weak tea that we usually get so that there's no good info about the potential finalist in there. In the era of spoilers (namely Reality Steve, but increasingly others like Wet Paint), I think ABC has decided to roll with the understanding that probably about 30-50% of the viewership has already spoiled the season by reading online sources. Why they can't plug that leak, I'm still not certain, but it's been an ongoing issue for years now and this might be one sign of them adapting to this new reality.

The loss of Michael reverberated at about 0.4 on the Richter scale and was felt as far away as the bathroom of the guys' hotel suite. I'm still not convinced that he was a real person as we've come a long way with CGI. I was a bit more surprised by Charlie leaving, although I don't think he had much potential to stay around long term. Charlie seemed to be in a permanent fog and never really woke up. He also had a strange crying fit on the van back from the regatta. If you cry at odd times, you're as good as gone. Just ask "Nate" who strangely sobbed about his perfect brother. So weird.

I'm a little curious about the guy that self-destructs and calls Ricki "baggage." I assume it's Kalon, but don't really want to risk learning the outcome yet. Somehow I've managed to avoid spoilers, although when you Google certain names, it's increasingly difficult to filter out the insider info. I think that's kind of a shame. It's actually much more interesting to watch this show without the script.

It's time to redo the rankings, and in preparation for this, I read Ali's horrendous Week 4 blog where she confidently states that Arie is getting too much positive TV time and that must mean that he's being built up by the producers as a head fake and to be the next Bachelor. An astute commenter (so rare, these) rightly pointed out that Roberto basically went wire-to-wire on her season and never really had a bad day, so what the hell is she talking about. While I think what Ali is saying is possible, it would require one of the other guys to win, and I just don't see that happening.

New numbers:

Arie - Still a lap up, but is a little heavy on the throttle. Needs to conserve some fuel. Just starting to notice the Baby Fish Mouth tendencies.
Sean - Probably the guy Emily most wants to bed. This guy is still a complete unknown for the most part. He could be cool, but he could also be a serial killer. We really have no idea. We did learn that he played football for Kansas State. I'm thinking serial killer might be more likely.
Doug - We have more info on him at this point than Emily does, so I think he's faring a bit better with her than the public. I think the fall could be sudden and spectacular.
Chris - Starting to let Doug get in his head about being a guy who isn't ready for kids. Needs to chill out a bit. However, I do have a hard time believing that Emily would pick a guy younger than her. Nothing he can do about it.
Jef - I refuse to believe there is anything there. In every conceivable way acts like Emily's kid brother. I also don't see how this helps water sales.
Ryan - Lost any shot he had last week. I love the self-delusion, though.
Travis - Blends in with the furniture. Lost me with his strange version of "Kokomo" where "Bermuda" is uttered over and over.
Alejandro - A miraculous story of survival.
Kalon - I think he self-destructs next week in a fiery blaze. Conspicuously absent this week.
Wolfman - "Thirty seconds. We went like this, he went like that. I said to Hollywood, 'Where'd he go?' Hollywood says, 'Where'd who go?'"

The Arie and Emily Kiss-a-thon

2012-05-29T04:13:00.001-05:00

I know it's a common, maybe tired, rant, but I'm going to start off here: why, pray tell, do we need to have Chris Harrison associated with this show in any capacity? How does he add anything to it? His lines have been recycled for at least 10 seasons, and there's absolutely no way to prove he's even showing up anymore given that we can now project a convincing holographic Tupac. Harrison could disappear, never make another appearance, and probably 85% of the viewing audience wouldn't even say boo. Seriously, if any of you has a compelling argument for this guy keeping his job, please let me know so I can be astounded by your tortured logic. I either need to be enlightened or have a good laugh at your expense.

Moving on..

Usually we learn a lot in week 3, and this time around is no exception. In fact, I'm betting the house, farm land, pension, family pet, and Franklin Mint pewter chess set on Arie. There's just no mystery anymore. Unless this guy complete screws up, a la J.R. Hildebrand, he'll be Mr. Emily Maynard. Of course there will have to be some speed bumps along the way, real or imagined, but I don't see how anyone can win this other than him.

With that bit out of way, let's have fun with the also-rans, shall we?

Chris is one of about five guys that doesn't induce instant vomiting (from us or Emily), and he also looks the most like Brad Womack, so perhaps it makes sense why Emily keeps gushing about his alleged good looks. We also get to see these two in action as they scale the wall of the Mint Museum of Art (which used to be an actual branch of the United States Mint prior to the Civil War, er, War of Northern Aggression -- I forgot we're in the South this season). And you thought they'd ditch the physical challenge portion this season. Shame on you.

I'm buying that Chris is in the top three or so, but he's kind of suffering from being a bit too nice, in fact, just about as much too nice as Ryan is being too aggressive. It seems like some of these guys are deathly afraid of kissing Emily as if she's this ephemeral virgin goddess that will vaporize before their eyes if their intentions are not deemed true and worthy.

"I hope that opportunity will present itself."

Yah, okay, news flash: it's presenting itself right now. There's even thunder in the background. Just kiss her already. My god. A high five? I felt less uncomfortable when Alessandro used "compromise" fifteen times when discussing kids. I'm sure Sean felt less uncomfortable when Emily's sex-starved friend Wendy nearly raped him in broad daylight.

Apparently age is an issue with Emily wherein the applicants need to be 30+ or at least have a demonstrated proficiency in raising children. When she re-learned that Chris was 25, her expression was one of "dear Lord, what have I done?" Sheesh, relax. You're all of 26. Yes, I know Brad was basically 40, and perhaps there are some daddy issues going on there, but come on. Maybe once he divulges his net worth she'll lighten up a bit. I'd say the 24 year-old Alejandro is really screwed.

I admit that I know less than nothing about current country music, but this is the second week we get a private concert with awkward dancing, and we haven't even gotten to Dollywood yet. I can feel the fatigue of this meme setting in. First indication is dry mouth and a slight burning sensation. Chris did the honorable thing and said he couldn't ask for better than Luke Bryan, but my suspicions are that: 1) he could, and 2) this is the first this Chicago-based Corporate Sales Director has ever heard of Luke Bryan. Not exactly Bankie Banx obscure, but close enough.

Two of the most uncomfortable things these guys could go through would be to be grilled by Emily's friends and have to look interested in playing with kids, and fortunately we got both in one episode. First, they had to get past the friend gauntlet featuring a Pippa Middleton stunt double, the horny old blonde, "Ashley," and some random Indian woman.

Pippa looking skeptical of this dodgy bloke (arse not shown).

Some highlights, well, maybe just 'lights:

Tony talking non-stop about his son
Jef being told to act like he gives a shit
Doug talking non-stop about how other guys don't have sons
Ryan's "confidence" as his best attribute for being Mr. Mom
Charlie looking like that head injury is still a nagging problem
Eggman Travis bringing along his egg. Man..
"Wolf" referring to his female friends as "girlfriends." Oh no he di'int.
"Jersey" demonstrating "pop and lock," or the robot, or some hybrid thereof
Sean seducing Wendy (?) with the raw power of his preferred Aryan DNA
No one talking to Michael, because he's actually an M. Night Shyamalan plot device

I had suspected that Sean was about to make a passing move on the straightaway, and here it is. He'd been essentially a non-factor until now, and I think this is the producers' way of saying that he's going to be around for a while. And if things don't work out with Emily, there's at least one homely middle-aged woman that can't get enough of him. That is, if he doesn't press charges first. Good grief, woman.

I have a feeling this will be entered into evidence at some point.

I think we all knew that Ryan would step in it sooner than later, and sure enough, there he is telling Emily that she'd better keep up her waifish appearance or he might not love "on her" as much (ew). Whoops. Five demerits and loss of down. I think we can safely scratch Ryan off the short list. However, this might be the transition of Ryan the Faux Gentleman to Ryan the Paid Agitator. Sounds good to me. Let's rock.

I'll bet many of you missed this:

Left: Lurid man-on-man action. Right: Something a bit more heterosexual.

Yes, that's our resident Data Destruction Expert Wolfman rubbing all over Ryan on their way to dinner. Meanwhile, Sean is actually escorting the lone female in the group. I think you can do the math here.

Sean is having a hell of a week here, but this line about how he's been studying how to be an amazing dad from his father for 28 years is wearing pretty thin. Yes, I'm sure you were taking notes on this throughout your childhood and in anticipation of this moment trying to woo a single mom. I guess if that's the only card you can play, it's.. something.

Emily called Doug out on only talking about being super dad and got hit with a tsunami of deadbeat mom, dead epileptic dad, and foster homes. That's right, cry, honey, cuz Doug isn't playing around. You have a dead fiance? Yeah, that's nice. Doug has three dead fiances, and all of their parents were killed in tragic kitchen accidents making apple pies for childhood cancer fundraisers. Don't even go there, Emily.

Doug has been difficult for me to figure out. There are times when I'm thinking he's a shoo-in for the top three, and other times when he's just a flat bore. You can't call this guy's backstory boring by any stretch. I think that will guarantee him the "good guy" free pass to the final four or so, but after that, Emily will have to figure out if she's ready to lump Doug's prodigious baggage in with her own. My guess is that, for as much as Emily wants all of these guys to take on her kid as theirs, that she's not ready to take on some other guy's kid as her own. Yes, that's massively hypocritical, but I'm nearly certain that's how she's thinking. It remains to be seen just how much of a benevolent crusader for peace and justice Doug is, but as of right now he's in pretty good shape.

The same, obviously, can't be said of the champion rope-swinger/lumber expert Tony who looked about as mentally tough as his five year old back home in Beaverton. I really don't want to pick on a guy who misses his kid, because lord knows I can relate, but I do find it interesting that these people put themselves in this position and then are blindsided when they discover that maybe it wasn't a good idea. My wife brought up a good point about Tony: his son doesn't have the same support system in place since his wife ran off with the pool guy or whatever, so he probably feels twice as responsible as the usual father. Nonetheless, he should have had an inkling that he wasn't going to make it through this. Unfortunately, this didn't make for compelling TV. If I could have fast forwarded the live feed, I would have. And let's be honest. This is just one less guy for Jef to have to pretend to compete with.

If Arie is going to win, he needs a killer one-on-one date, and sure enough he gets one.. in Dollywood. I've never been there, but it really is like the South's idea of Disneyland. And no, Florida isn't the South. Stupid Yankee.

In a vacuum, I don't think I'd pick Arie to be the winner of a contest for Emily's affections. He looks sort of unremarkable and acts a little dorky, but he seems very comfortable in his own skin and has nary a whiff of pretension about him. Seeing Emily around this guy, you'd think he was conjuring up magic or something. She acts like a little kid and has no defenses up. You almost have to see it to believe it. Even Brad had to whittle away at Emily for 10 weeks to get much of a reaction. Arie pretty much clinched this in week 3 and will be doing victory laps for the last 7.

Even though Arie isn't the least bit country (hell, he barely even qualifies as Dutch), this whole Dollywood date turns out pretty well for him. He gets to take Emily on a roller coaster (complete with Wilhelm scream, which we've seen before), win li'l Ricki a cutesy stuffed animal, and meet an eerily lifelike audio animatronic mockup of Dolly Parton. Sorry, I'm being told that was actually Dolly Parton.

I think few doubted that Dolly is Emily's real life hero, and perhaps even fewer actually believe that Dolly has been faithful to her husband Carl for 45 years (46 on May 30th). In fact, some even doubt this dude exists at all. It's difficult to even find a picture of him. I can't think of a better role model for a fake show about love than Dolly Parton who has a fake marriage to a fake man that she allegedly met at 18.

Switching off the cynicism for a few seconds (bear with me), Arie had all the right answers even when Emily tried to play it tough with him. Kids? Heck, he dated a girl with two of them, up until last year. Oh, and get this: he missed the kids more than her. Pfft, some test. When does this get difficult?

Emily: "Where did you come from?"
Arie: "'s-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands."
Emily: "Ah."

This was over once she compared him to the dead guy. They could have just cued up Don't Stop Believin', cut to black during that carousel ride, and called it a series. Sure, that would have left a lot of devoted fans, me included, confused and empty, but not everyone can appreciate a David Chase ending. Sorry, but this viewer needs to know what happens to Ryan. And one-F Jef. And Meadow. But not really fat A.J. Or "Nate," for that matter.

I've watched this Kalon disaster three times now and the only thing I can come up with is that he's there just to fuck with people. There's no chance he does something like that with the intention of winning anything. First, the guy sits down with his back to Emily, then he starts shooting his mouth off with heaping sarcasm about "having the week off" and Emily "graciously allowing Tony to go home." "I wish you would let me finish" was just icing on a very stale cake. Believe me, I love great shtick, but this was like a kamikaze mission to nowhere. If I didn't know any better, I'd say that Kalon was either suffering a stroke or on heavy medication. Not everyone can carry off the plant role well, but Kalon might be the worst plant in recent memory. There's just no theme or continuity here. He's just a chaotic mess. Reminds me a bit of Blakeley, but I'm pretty sure she was trying, bless her heart.

Not to be outdone, Alessandro proves that he can do even worse than the guy paid to be terrible at this game. I know what you're thinking: a guy wearing a thumb ring can't win on this show, and you're right. RIP Alessandro "Gypsy King" Goulart. Thank god I don't have to type another word about you ever.

In the aftermath of these two idiots you have Arie playing it cool and looking a whole lot like the current boyfriend, and Sean laying it on plenty thick with promises of sweet texts and his now patented "28 years of father understudy" line. Good enough for second place which is saying something because this guy was barely on the radar until now.

I don't think anyone was surprised by MC Stevie going home, but it's really difficult to figure out what's keeping Michael or "Nate" there. I think "Nate" had a few lines after they chucked the egg, but Michael has been totally mute for a long time now. It's not like Jef is gunning for Mr. Loquacious. His line next week is just fantastic:

"It feels like something we share together is really valuable to her."

Jef is truly a fascinating case study in complete indifference. I'm almost hoping he wins.

It seems like Ryan could be melting down over Arie lapping the field, but we'll see how much of that is just dumb ass bluster. Wrasslin' "Rated-R" Rego turned out to be a pussy cat in the end. I'd like to think this arena leaguer has more gas in the tank.

Revised rankings:

Arie
Sean
Doug
Chris
Jef
Ryan
Charlie
Travis
The Field

Wocka, wocka!

2012-05-23T15:20:00.000-05:00

Boy, that Kelly Clarkson is still so unapologetically chubby. Still gets work, though. Is anyone really going to watch this Duets show?

Anyway..

Sophomore episode of the new "Maynardized" Bachelorette, now with half the adventure, but twice the usual douchiness. There's always that initial shock from the average viewer where they can't believe they're watching this show. "What dreck!" they'll exclaim. "This is boring. I can't watch this." Then they dutifully tune in the following week. It's kind of the same song and dance people play with SNL, though mostly to see Ke$ha vomit on herself or Lindsay Lohan perform drunk.

Yes, even seasoned veterans like myself go through these 12 stages of Bachelorette self-loathing (although I've built up a tolerance) but then we remember how much better we feel about ourselves after watching, and everything that was once askew suddenly seems right again. Look, we made it through a dozen episodes of Ashley freaking Hebert. We sure as hell can get through this with Miss Emily at the helm.

First date honors go to Ryan Bowers who, as I noted, played football in Europe as well as the Arena League. Bowers was a standout defensive back at Presbyterian College, home of the Fighting PC Blue Hose, whatever that is (I'm told it's socks) and whose most notable athletic alumnus is probably Allen Morris, a Wimbledon quarterfinalist in 1956. True story, my guidance counselor in high school, Jeanne Arth, was a Wimbledon doubles champion, so really, this kind of puts things into perspective.

Bowers preens for his big day. Raging hard nips redacted.

Personally, I like anything that breaks the mold on this show, so this "Snack Mom" bit was a welcome change. Why not have the buff DB whip up some cookies in the kitchen while donning an apron? Inspired, I think. While we all know Ryan was wincing inside, he actually held it together pretty well throughout this challenge, and that's to be commended. Sure there were a few slip ups, but for the most part he got through it in one piece. The goofy grin reminds me of Stiffler from the American Pie franchise, so I kept imagining Seann William Scott trying to hold it together while drinking Juicy Juice in the grocery getter. "You put it in Park, right?"

I think we need to question Emily's bona fides as supermom warrior princess, though. Stirring cookie batter with a wire whisk? Who does that? People who don't cook. Yeah, that's right.. get all those sticky bits out with a spatula, just like they do it on Food Network. Let's not even ask who paid for the Maynard homestead, although we're all wondering it. I think that might be pulling back the curtain a little too soon. I just hope the eventual winner is ready to sign one hell of a prenup with the Hendrick family lawyer.

Just so it's clear this is Season 8 and not 7 of the Bachelorette, here is the best visual distinction I can provide:

Pictured: Not Ashley Hebert sultrily rubbing up against an Aston Martin.

I don't really care if she's got the vocabulary of a fifth grader or incessantly licks her veneers. At least we don't have to hear about continuing dental education credits.

I distinctly remember Emily referring to Charlotte as a "small town," and you'd think someone from West Virginia would have their small town meter properly calibrated, but a city with a metropolitan population of nearly two million people and two major sport franchises doesn't strike me as being small by any stretch. Then again, the Tokyo viewers were probably like "I know, right?" but in Japanese.

Bless her little heart, Emily seems to be under the impression that the Bachelorette isn't a "competition," but rather a legitimate attempt to find her a husband that she so richly deserves. Yes, somehow in the ten year history of this franchise, suddenly in iteration number 24 all of the rules have changed and now we're looking at how to best find a couple that can be happy together. It must be exhausting to justify this kind of crazy dichotomy to yourself where on the one hand your a hyper-protective mother hen, but on the other, you're a fame-starved attention whore. Lest anyone misunderstand Emily to be uncommonly virtuous and above reproach, I think that facade has already ended up on the floor in a million tiny pieces, which is an order of magnitude fewer than the dust that was once Joe's ego; we'll get to that.

Ryan's answers to Emily's "grilling" weren't all that impressive, or really any better than what Joe meekly threw out there. I think the difference was that Emily is much more attracted to Ryan, and that she got a whiff of some actual testosterone. I guess telling Emily that you'd move anywhere and do anything to be with her wasn't the most alpha male response.

Usually we have to wait a good six episodes or so before the concert date with the band that I've never heard of, but the producers are going all out and reshuffling the deck this season, so we get this clichéd little nugget in week two. I'm obviously no country fan, so I just assume every country act with a guy and girl singer is Lady Antebellum until proven otherwise. I think Garth Brooks/Chris Gaines killed real country anyway sometime in the early 90s. This wasn't country, it was at best folksy pop. At least we had a good bit of irony with (Kissed You) Good Night and no real kiss. Terrible.

Like it or not, we now move on to the Muppet portion of this show, and for me this had to be one of the more out-of-left-field moments I've seen in a while. Don't get me wrong, I actually like the Muppets and think their shtick is still pretty funny (more Waldorf, less Harrison, please). I guess it jibes with the kid-friendly theme, but in the age of carefully orchestrated cross-promotion, I don't really see what the hook is here, and believe me, there's always a hook. The Muppets film from 2011 was released on DVD in March of this year, so maybe we're all supposed to head on over to Amazon to pick it up?

Maybe it wasn't the most entertaining segment, but we did learn a few things:

1. We need way less of this:

2. Emily can't dance worth a lick. She can't even sway correctly.
3. Nothing ever good comes from guys trying out their own comedy.
4. A charity event featuring The Muppets only brings in about $40 a head.

Before we get to the self-destruction of Joe, I think we need to examine Emily's curious fascination with one-F Jef. Ever since he rode in on a skateboard, Jef has made exactly zero impression in front of the camera, but somehow Emily can't seem to stop obsessing about this guy. If someone asks you if you speak English, that might be a sign you're not stepping it up.

Now, of all the guys cast on the show, Jef probably had the most to gain from his increased visibility since he has something to sell in People Water. Sure, there's a philanthropic angle since water purchased results in an equal amount of water donated, but he might as well call it Jef Water since he's running the show as CEO. It is curious that this 15 year old hasn't put in much effort to sticking around, and for whatever reason Emily has found this kid to be a puzzle that she desperately wants to solve. Usually I'd speculate that there must be more going on that we haven't seen, but it might actually be less. The guy looked completely checked out when Emily gave him the group date rose.


Emily: "Will you accept this rose?" Jef: "I guess."

There are too many other options for her to keep this up, but I do find the whole thing interesting. Let's hope Jef stays with the aloof thing. I want to see how far it gets him.

Now back to Joe, or rather James Van der Beek. I think it was all over for Dawson when he went with the pink and blue plaid number and stepped out of the limo. Say, around this mark:

Way to dress up, guy. Emily decides to take you on a trip to the Greenbrier resort in West Virginia, which amounts to a swanky hometown date of sorts, and you go with the finest flannel you could find at the consignment shop. Talk about an uphill climb. Oh, but it got worse.

I think we gained a bit of insight about Emily's upbringing here. The Greenbrier isn't like staying at a Days Inn. 26 presidents have stayed there. Tom Watson is the emeritus golf pro (a position formery held by Sam Snead). There was an intricate underground bunker built there that was meant to house Congress during an emergency. And then we learn Emily "hung out" here a lot as a kid. Well la-tee-da, Miss Thang. I think I'm starting to understand why she cut loose the biology teacher.

Some other stuff happened, namely this:

It's not that Joe is a bad guy or anything, but it's like he didn't give this any thought. Emily is sort of treating this like a future daddy job interview, and Joe gave the most ham-handed, vanilla responses he could think up. If you're going to rock the pink plaid, you'd better have something that can back it up. The gist of his five year plan amounted to "having no regrets" and perhaps being married, or maybe not, depending on how the wind blows. I'm sure he made a number of other unforced errors during dinner, but I think we got a good sense of how out of touch Joe was even post-editing.

This was the first real dismissal, and Emily looked like she just ran over a raft of baby ducklings. She even pulled out her own variation of the ol' "it's not you it's me." If this is how she's going to respond to paring down the field, I wonder how she's going to get through this. Don't worry, Em, Dawson will find other work. There are plenty of TV movies out there that need a non-threatening, mildly talented, semi-lead actor.

Gotta, be honest: loved the fireworks after sending the guy packing. It had that special twist-the-knife feel that I think we can all appreciate.

My favorite moment in the show had to be Ryan's seven page note. I still can't figure out if this was something hatched by the producers to goof on all of the interruptions, but whatever it was, it had me rolling.

"Are you excited? It's like Christmas. Tony has to sit here and listen to you read this."

Seems almost too perfect. Plus, you had a number of guys watching this whole thing like it was a pay per view event. They had to be tipped off this was coming, right? The best part was that Emily read the whole damn thing out loud, for 15 minutes, and Tony just stood there. I can't describe how awesome that was. If that was all hatched by Ryan alone, then kudos, sir. I am in awe.

Kyle and Aaron were sent home, probably because they looked too much alike. Aaron seemed more with it than over half of the guys that remain, so that was a bit of a head-scratcher. I think the Party MC has a three episode contract, but what about this guy Nate? Here, I did a frame grab of him so I can prove he exists:

"Nate"

Nice energy.

So, we're down to a manageable 16 dudes, which means it's time for tiered rankings with commentary. Here goes:

Speed boating:

1. Arie - Still my favorite to win, easily. Did nothing to upset that prediction this week. Made a deft move telling Emily about his ex-girlfriend who had two kids. I don't think Emily is looking for a guy with kids, but one that is okay with it. Arie is also sufficiently famous and well off to support that Greenbrier lifestyle.

2. Chris - Seems like a genuine guy and has a slight resemblance to Brad Womack without being as dickish. "Corporate Sales Director" also sounds like money to me.

Jet skiing:

3. Ryan - I honestly don't think he has a lot of long term potential as he seems to be playing a role more than being genuine, but he's done everything right so far, and that's worth something. Ryan also scored some good ol' boy points.

Swimming with the current:

4. Charlie - Recovering from a major injury will curry some Florence Nightingale favor. Has avoided the "look-at-me" tendencies without being invisible.

5. Doug - First impression rose winner played the single dad angle pretty well, but seems to be playing that card a little too often. In fact, it's about the only thing we know about the guy.

Treading water:

6. Jef - Doing everything in his power to not advance, yet is cruising along. I think next week we see some push back.

7. Sean - This guy gets a lot of commentary in, but rarely says anything among the group. Not sure how that works or what it means just yet. On the verge of being invisible if the production staff wasn't so intent on getting him air time.

8. John - Not sure how seriously I can take "Wolf" or that I know what "Data Destruction Specialist" means.

9. Alessandro - Still creepy.

10. Alejandro - I really need to know more about this mushroom farming. Then we can cut him loose.

Swimming against the current:

11. Tony - Victim of some awesome shtick. I can't believe he stood there while Emily read seven pages of bad prose. Seems a little tone deaf. Hasn't parlayed his fatherhood into any kind of advantage.

12. Kalon - There purely to be obnoxious, but it's not really having much effect except on MC Stevie. These two can probably go home at the same time.

Mirage:

13. Michael - The village mute. This sort of thing baffles me.

14. "Nate" - I had no idea who he was. Honest.

15. Travis - Another "sales" guy who blends into the background.

Floating corpse:

16. Stevie - C'mon.

Emily, Emily, Emileeeeeeee

2012-05-16T03:47:00.002-05:00

Yeah, we're back. I know: there are even more blogs, vlogs, and posts about this franchise than ever, but you know what? All of them suck. This one just sucks slightly less. Worse, every former cast member has their own take on the obvious, offering nothing remotely pithy or incisive. That's why you'll always come back home. Pull up a chair, friend. We have lots to discuss.

In case you're new here, or just forgot how I run things, I'm avoiding spoilers. Now, I know that's nearly impossible these days with all of the tabloid coverage, tweets, etc. but really, what fun is there in analyzing something that is a known quantity? There's no way I could churn out anything remotely captivating if I knew the script beforehand, so we'll just leave that odd bit of obsession to folks like Reality Steve. You know, that guy does an awful lot of patting himself on the back for someone that is spoon fed information from others. Why those sources wouldn't just launch their own site is beyond me. The guy takes all the credit. You take away the spoilers, and you're left with a sad man dictating startlingly routine observations to his web cam and yelling at his dog for 60 minutes.

So, for as long as I can avoid them, I'll be dealing with the drama as it comes and absent any insider info. That way I can prognosticate, speculate, ruminate and be fantastically wrong, or maybe even right, but the best part is that it will be from the heart. <3

Long-time readers will remember my fondness for Miss Emily Maynard. Of course I'm not alone in that reverence, but she's quite the southern peach. Yeah, there's a good bit of baggage there with the ghost of Ricky Bobby overshadowing everything, but at least it's Louis Vuitton quality. We also have our first single mom running the point, and the first show that starts in the lead's hometown and carries the kid in tow the entire series. Given that conservatively three fourths of these dudes are in this for personal gain, I think this twist has potential. Li'l Ricki is also a bit older now and is probably more likely to let ol' mom know that she hates some of these guys. Could be a nice surprise.

Emily does have her flaws. She stupidly fell for "None of the Above" Brad Womack and stubbornly dated him for a good six months before finally acknowledging that he's a narcissistic man-child who has never had to compromise with anyone on anything. This isn't a criticism; Womack is a Bachelor principal nonpareil. I hope to high heaven they bring him back for a third installment. Real-world Brad is a joke, though, and you'd think mommy Em would have been a tad more hesitant to prance around Austin like an idiot after the lights had dimmed. For whatever reason Emily has always been framed as being pure as driven snow, but I think that image is thankfully out the window. Like we're supposed to believe she just goes to bed at 8 after Ricki is tucked in for the night and cries herself to sleep. She's right in the wheelhouse demographic for trashy E.L. James novels.

There's also the issue of Emily's feigned reticence to be the Bachelorette. While I don't think anyone really bought that she was above fame-whoring, you have to at least give her credit for negotiating this thing to be filmed in her backyard and parlay a nanny-led world tour for her precious ingénue. Just think: it's your big internship with ABC and suddenly you're toting a five year old around London and trying to find Victorious episodes in the hotel room. Great if you want to be an au pair, but that's not CV-worthy stuff. I don't know what kind of coin Emily is making off this, but I hope to baby Jesus it's at least double what Ashley Hebert pulled down.

Now that we've put aside the requisite bookkeeping, let's check out the Tool Shed™: 25 of America's Most Eligible Bachelors! I'll confess to not knowing what "most eligible" means or how you get on such a list. The way Chris Harrison confidently states it as gospel, I say who's to argue? One side note, however: Harrison himself is now an eligible bachelor. Well, I don't know if the divorce has been inked yet, but I do love the richness of that latest tidbit. Seems to be a bit of karmic symmetry to it. Of course we are instinctively required to wonder if ABC has the nards to cast him as the Bachelor at some point, and clearly the answer is "hell no." Or maybe, I should just quash that concept altogether lest some young media upstart within Next Entertainment think this is a good idea. He has all of the dynamism of a Ben Flajnik on Ambien. For that niche 1% swath of the female population that can't get enough Harrison, I think you're in for disappointment.

Okay, yes, the gents...

First we meet Kalon, which sounds like a brand of spray paint or DuPont polymer. This is a flat out button-pusher pick. This kid is brash and unapologetic, but is he really all that much of a loose cannon? Not so far. There's always some dummy that loses his shit over a guy like this, so that's fun to watch. Still scratching my head about "Luxury Brand Consultant." Does that mean he helps to dress celebrities? Is he a personal shopper? He claims to have turned off the obnoxiousness, but people like that can't shut it off completely, especially not in a TV frat house. I think he realized it was bad for business. I give the tennis forehand a C+.

Ryan Bowers teaches little kids to flip tires. There's probably not enough trainers out there pushing kids like this. Ryan played "pro football," but in Europe, which is like being a competitive bobsledder in Saudi Arabia.

Tony is one of a few guys with the "in" of having a rug rat. I don't know if that helps or hurts in general, but it's a good conversation starter. He also trades stacks of lumber and whips ropes around in his spare time. Who has two thumbs and recycles eight year old jokes on national TV? Tony does.

Did you know there's a class action lawsuit against the Bachelor producers and ABC citing racial discrimination? I can't imagine what they're talking about. Meanwhile, there's one black guy on this show in eons, and with a 76% chance of advancing, he was sent packing night one.

The singer/songwriter, David, writes tunes about, get this, finding love. Hard to imagine. The one sample we get of his craft amounts to an homage of Woody performing "Kelly Kelly Kelly" on Cheers. "There is going to be a chemistry there." Can't wait.

Charlie did everything perfect until he nearly died falling from a faulty balcony. That wasn't so perfect. At least he has a good titanium face joke he can use as an ice breaker.

Harry Connick III, or Jef with one F, is a horrible skateboarder who sports a bad 80s era jean jacket, but seems to have some kind of anti-Womackian vibe working for him with his disarming boyish charm. Emily called him "cool" which may fit given that he's the iconoclastic head of a charitable bottled water company, but I keep getting a Hank Scorpio vibe. That's right, the CEO of Globex. God, I really hope he's not gay like Ryan, the solar energy CEO that Ashley canned. Not a good history of CEOs on this show.

Arie. Hmm.. well, I love how they dance around (or actually plain avoid) the fact that his dad is a racing legend and the winner of two Indy 500s. Arie Jr. isn't quite the phenom that Sr. was, but he's held his own. This seems like gratuitous casting, but something tells me that this guy is going to hang around a while. It's not really the racing connection per se, but to this point it seems like he might actually be the most down to earth dude they've thrown out there, and that's saying something since he's the only guy on this show with his own Wikipedia entry.

Sean is the token blonde guy. First out of the limo has a decent track record, so he has that working for him. The guy was kind of invisible otherwise.

Doug has a kid too. At least he doesn't have six of them. The letter from his son was a deft touch. The only problem with it is that he could be pigeonholed as that guy who won't shut up about being a single dad.

Jackson was just plain weird. Emily looked confused. Good riddance.

Kyle had a turquoise tie. That's all I got. Well played?

Chris reminded me a bit of "The Brad." Seemed to be less full of bullshit, though. There's still time to find out if that's true or not. Not sure where you get a custom bobblehead. [googles] Turns out custombobblehead.com has them. Who knew. They could have done a better job with that Emily bobblehead. She looks a bit like a bobblehead in real life, so it's interesting that the doll doesn't adequately capture that.

Aaron teaches biology by day, and wears awful yet "ironic" horn-rimmed glasses by night. I bet his favorite movie is Ghost World.

I'm fairly certain Emily thinks the native language of Brazil is Spanish since she offered up a hearty "gracias" to Alessandro. I'm sure he would have been fine with Mandarin as being close enough. Something creepy about this dude, I mean aside from him uncomfortably staring at her breasts. Looks like the facial hair is fake or something.

So here we go with the shticksters: boombox, check. I'm sure MC Stevie knows fellow Jersey boy Pauly D. Bonus points for becoming unglued over Kalon, but that's only good for an episode or so. We'll have to see some real neuroses to pull for this guy long term. Some grade A douchbaggery here.

Randy shows up as grandma and exits as the guy with the horrible green shirt, vest, and no game.

Nate does virtually nothing and get's a "so cute." Stumper. Ladies, help me out here. He seems like the kind of guy that could rob a bank and no one could identify because he looks like average Joe everyman.

Brent is 41 with six kids. Who the hell did he bribe?

Wolf? Let's just go with John. Thanks.

Travis is this year's victim of corny ideas from the production staff. Remember Jeff the Mask? How about Travis the Eggman? Sitting on a cornflake, waiting for the van to come. Corporation t-shirt, stupid bloody Tuesday. Man, you been a naughty boy, you let your face grow long. I really hope they pay him per minute of egg cradling. At least he seems to be a whole let less weird than the Phantom was during his ill-fated run. The music might be better too.

Mike is from Austin, which of course conjures up all kinds of terrific memories for Emily, like that time when she thought about moving to Austin permanently but then broke up with Brad. Regardless, I don't think he really needed to offer a mnemonic for her to remember the guy with the long ass hair.

Is anyone here a marine biologist? Jean-Paul is, and now he's gone. Au revoir, mon amie.

Well, at least there won't be any lawsuits waged on behalf of Colombians. I'd say they've been adequately represented. I'd like to learn more about mushroom farming, myself.

Phew, glad that's over. Only a few outright painful intros. I think there's a good number of these guys that I hate already or will learn to hate in due course. Usually there's only about five dudes from this show that I can stomach.

Not certain where the drama will come from this time around. Bentley set a high bar, but I don't sense something like that here. Hard to say after one episode. The previews seem to focus on someone calling li'l Ricki "baggage." Please tell me there's more going on this season. I did like Emily telling whoever to "get the fuck out." That was raunchy and hot. More, please.

Next week I'll throw together some ranked tiers with commentary. I'm not going to bother with 19 dudes still in this. I'd probably have a dozen of them on the bottom rung. If you want my snap reaction of who will win, I'll go with Arie. (Last time I said J.P. would end up with Ashley and was dead on.) I think the racing thing is actually a slight net negative, but he seems to have his shit together. First impression Doug gives me a stage three clinger vibe, so I don't think he'll hold up well over time. You can tell she likes this Jef guy, even if his mother didn't love him enough to bless him with a real first name. Charlie exudes sufficient "I won't kill you in your sleep" persona, so I'll throw in with him as a potential finalist. The rest either give me hives or left no real impression. Sorry, no more roses tonight.

It's Over

2012-03-14T14:12:00.000-05:00

This is probably the most spoiled season finale in Bachelor history, so there really wasn't any intrigue going into this episode. Even local Girl Scout newsletters had details about Courtney's eventual victory complete with snarky comments. Nonetheless, it's something that a lot of us had to see to believe, or in my case, appreciate. As you know, I've been a dispassionate viewer and perhaps even erring on the side of being a Courtney defender given how well she was able to navigate the landscape. If you keep in mind that this is nothing more than an elaborate game show with pleasant cinematography and an enormous travel budget, it's easier to make better judgments and not look like a reactionary dimwit after a few weeks of sober hindsight. This wasn't about spawning outrage, it was more about the depths to which one man could delude himself. And it turned out to be on par with the Marianas Trench (are you paying attention, James Cameron?). What I found especially interesting is how he brought his mom and sister down with him.

For as much as ABC would like to maintain the illusion of suspense, the only suspenseful element was just how he was going to let Lindzi down and how he was going to justify it to himself. I've personally struggled with how to characterize Lindzi. She's obviously someone that has desirable attributes (i.e., she's hot), but this whole narrative of having some kind of perma-guard up is just exhausting even for the casual viewer, especially in someone that is 27 with one whole significant relationship under her belt. Nonetheless, it's hard to fault Ben for shelving her. I think we also have to admit that the whole horse deal was a net negative. Maybe not baton aficionado bad, but pretty bad. I kept imagining Lindzi's room at her parents' house festooned in pink/purple and filled with endless displays of Breyer collectibles. Maybe even an "autographed" pic of Zenyatta? "Hay there, Lindzi! Best wishes from your favorite mare, Queen Z." I guess we could have gone with Rachel Alexandra instead. I really only know what Google tells me on this topic.

In sitting down with his mom and sister, Ben is already poisoning the well. He's made it abundantly clear that he wants them to rubber stamp his choice of Courtney. Here we are at the finale and Ben has maybe a few days tops before he has to decide, and he's telling his family that he might need "more time" with Lindzi to figure out if she's right for him. More time? That's not even a clever euphemism. He may as well have said "I don't really like the other one, so can you just affirm that the model is better so this isn't awkward at Thanksgiving?" Ben's poor dead dad even got pulled into this mess. What did he ever do to deserve this kind of shabby treatment?

I'll say up front that I'm a little peeved that the "family interviews" didn't get more air time. What's more compelling TV: seeing Lindzi spill food on herself or watching Courtney read from her fake scrapbook? We got about five total minutes of grilling from Julia and Barb when it should have been more like 20. Makes no sense. You budget 90 minutes of actual run time and only like 6% of that is spent scrutinizing the final two? It's not like they had Ashley's psycho extreme couponing sister there grandstanding in front of the camera or anything. This was nothing like that debacle. No, we had genuinely well-meaning yet obviously judgmental family this time. I was really rooting for Julia to make a mess of this, but boy what a letdown. Of course Lindzi didn't exactly go the extra mile, but seeing how Emily died on the table after going after Courtney, maybe she was just playing it safe. "We're just very... different" wasn't going to get it done. Lindzi had to know that she needed a game changer. Better would have been, "Courtney is probably schizophrenic, but she might merely be bipolar. Our resident epidemiologist wasn't exactly sure which."

"C" sort of vowed to be on her best behavior, which got a hearty yet uncomfortable chuckle from both her and Ben. Maybe she is crazy. Would she implode? Did anyone really believe that she would? The only thing shielding ol' Jules and Babs from Courtney's ire was that they weren't part of the competition. It would have been fun for them to see ten weeks of episodes leading up to their meeting in Zermatt, but sadly all they got was some tepid rumors about Courtney not doing her dishes in the mansion or sharing her Paul Mitchell apple-scented conditioner.

Julia just plain whiffed in her one-on-one time with the Courtinator. For being a no-holds-barred protective sister, it basically boiled down to her saying, "well, I have to believe what you tell me." Great stuff, Jules. Way to sleuth that one out. Courtney found Ben's mom to be an even easier mark. Just shower her son with endless compliments, and you're in. "He is the best." Best what? We've all seen Cream Dream, Barb. Your boy "Storm Horse" might have created a video sadly worthy of a Tosh.0 web redemption.

I was hoping that "the edit" happened to cut all of the good exchanges and that we were going to get some kind of critical analysis of Courtney as a non-game show contestant, but instead Julia was "blown away" with how "amazing" she is. Maybe we've underestimated Courtney's skills, or overestimated Julia's. Or both. I knew that Courtney was pretty adept at messing with slow-witted Bachelor contestants, but I honestly thought she'd at least hit a speed bump with Julia. Another possibility is that the family is just going along with it (likely), but "blown away?" Just think: that's out there for posterity. If ever someone wants to assess Julia Flajnik's ability to judge character, someone can just pull up the YouTube clip of her slathering affectations on Courtney Robertson in Zermatt and say, "whoops."

Promotional consideration provided by the makers of this sweet hat.

I know that most of you will think the line of the show was Lindzi saying "call me," but you're wrong. The line of the show was Ben saying, in all seriousness, "there's depth" in referring to Courtney. While I think she's a high aptitude contestant and surely had her way with just about everyone on the show, "depth" is not a word that should enter into the lexicon. In fact, I'd go in exactly the opposite direction and choose "surface." The repetitive nature of her act is a dead giveaway. The constant hair touching, the facial gestures, the eye rolling... it's all consistent with someone walking a fine, phony line. Had anyone bothered to push her around a little bit, they would have seen it. Ben chose to ignore it. He seemed more interested in rubbing peoples' noses in his pick. That's fine, but four months later, how's that taste now, Ben?

"Ben is sooo funny. Seriously."

Your guess is as good as mine as to why they have dates during the finale. As if something's going to change. Anything in a post Fantasy Suite world is going to be a massive letdown. Working from my newest controversial premise that Lindzi is possibly a virgin, having a private marshmallow roast in a gondola isn't really going to work any miracles. It's safe to say that she started to act a little desperate and was throwing out more indicators that she "liked where this is going," but the whole thing was starting to look a little embarrassing and on an eight week time delay. I mean, Courtney was bearing the goods in the Caribbean forever ago and Lindzi is still talking about walls being up. Not exactly the horse race this could have been.

There is this sort of unwritten rule about the lead not reciprocating with their true thoughts in the interest of suspense, but given that, conservatively, six billion people already knew the outcome of this show weeks ago (welcome, Macau readers), I really don't see the point anymore. If you're feeling it, for the love of god just say so already. While the past 15 Bachelors (we count Brad twice) have been all kinds of terrible at perpetuating this quasi-falling-for-you state, Ben is setting a new standard of awful. He comes across like Lindzi's therapist as he thanks her for finally opening up. No one has ever showed less emotion than this guy toward someone that he's supposedly falling in love with, and that continues right on through to the mechanical dismissal which was more fitting of a Week 3 send off. I suppose we can say that he's been the most consistent Bachelor ever, if that's worth anything. Being a dry bore has been a hallmark of this guy ever since his nascent days as a glimmer in Ashley's eye. Inexplicably, this franchise is nearly bomb-proof from ruin, yet they seem to be hell-bent on testing that theory all the time. If Next Entertainment ever comes calling, you'd better believe I'm on board, but I'd need sole creative license because I'd knock things sideways. Think Jerry Seinfeld running that video cam operation for bootlegging new releases. I'd need some serious headsets.

At this stage, I think the helicopter dates are a cruel inside joke that the staff keeps running out there just to set people off. Or maybe it's a tribute to all of the Bachelor drinking games out there. If so, touché. That aside, if helicopter rides were somehow correlated with healthy relationships, I'd see the point of all of this flight time. Then again, this isn't a show about love. It's about putting people in the most preposterously unlikely situations to foster the hardest most painful love hangover that can be captured on camera. Well then, to paraphrase Tom "Viper" Skerritt from Top Gun: "Keep sending them up."

You've probably wondered about Ben's insistence that there are two Courtneys: the one that everyone else knows, and the Courtney that only he knows. I've wondered about that too. Is he really convinced that people can cheerfully exist on two planes simultaneously? If so, is this remotely a good idea? Isn't that some kind of condition? Usually you don't see any static between the final couple until well after the show is over, but these two have shared substantial conflicts already. This leads me to believe that Ben honestly has no earthly idea what he's doing in a relationship of any kind. He so casually dismisses obvious warning signs and acts as though things "can only get better." Name one occasion in this show's history where that's been remotely true. Go on, I'll wait. From what I can surmise, even if you are madly in love with someone at the end, you have about a 1 in 30 shot of sustaining that relationship for more than a year. Hell, even Ali and Roberto gave up, and they seemed about as ideally suited as two people could be on this show. Ashley and JP admitted they were just now talking about marriage in a year or so. And moving to Jersey. Yeah, wow. Again, this isn't a show about love, folks. You get married in spite of what goes on here. It's kind of like meeting someone at the DMV and getting married. In fact, the odds are probably a lot better there. Now serving: 358.

I've written at some length about the perils of handmade gifts, but Courtney's scrapbook was obviously something the producers put in her hand to gin up some emotional appeal, so it really doesn't count. Remember Blakeley's attempt at something like this? I'll forgive you if you don't, but it was horrendous and obviously her own work. Courtney had pics shot of them atop the Mayan temple. What, did she hire a tour guide to surreptitiously snap photos from the ground? Whatever. I don't know why the production staff is so heavily invested in us believing how genuine Courtney is. On the contrary, I think the show benefits if she's a huge phony. Things like this only distract from our amusement. There's this curious ongoing myth building in reality TV world that you have to manipulate results to maximize audience interest, but I think that's a false premise on its face. You can't teach Lindzi to drop her fork. Twice. Sure Courtney was "in it to win it," and that's fine, but less is more. If you want to launch a show about love, go for it. This is The Bachelor we're talking about.

The best moment of insight into who Courtney is was on display during her last night together with Ben. For whatever reason, she voluntarily brings up her issues with the other girls and whines to Ben that his mom and sister mentioning it made her uncomfortable. All I can say is, good luck with this one, bro. This is the exact opposite of accountability. Not only is she not taking ownership, but she's actually accusing you and your family of giving her a hard time. If you think that's bad, fast forward about a year and imagine how comfortably she'll be in dictating every aspect of your life. Neither of you are people that are used to compromise or not getting your way. Put that in a blender and you're going to get a mixture of shit. But in the interest of preserving the sterling record of disaster that this show has produced, by all means ignore every conceivable warning sign that comes up. It's not you, it's everyone else, champ. The world doesn't get it. You're the only one that knows anything. Trust me. This is going to work out so awesome for you guys.

So now that Ben is about 60% sure that Courtney is the right woman (and 150% sure that Lindzi isn't), it's probably a good idea to shop for $100k rings. Neil seems to have initially forgotten that Ben did this last season given his goofy "I'm Neil Lane!" greeting, but he cleaned it up a bit with his "not your first rodeo" comment, so I think we're good. It's great that Ben really appreciates Neil donating a free ring. Again. I think he should have to give Courtney the ring he picked out for Ashley as punishment. You're trashing Neil's good name here. One of these days this poor guy is going to get to sell ABC a wedding band too. Maybe we should go with Kay Jewelers for a while until things get back on track. That schlocky "Open Hearts" collection from Jane Seymour is much more in line with how things are run here.

As tempting as it is to drop a compulsory Cruella De Vil reference in, I think I'll pass (see what I did there?). Though I will mention that Lindzi's feathery number was eerily reminiscent of Chantal's goose dress the last time this went down (seriously, see what I did there?). I think we can officially say that anything even resembling plumage is a bad harbinger.

Where's the funeral?

I genuinely do fell bad for the woman that gets shot down. Really I do. Lindzi is no exception. Sure, she knows she's going to lose, and no amount of jibber-jabber is going to fix that, but that doesn't stop her from trying. I guess every second counts in her mind. She does seem like someone who truly loves the guy, although no one is quite sure why. I'm not sure she knows either.

For whatever reason, Ben tells Lindzi that he's fallen in love with her, BUT she still loses.

"I love you!"

"LOL, J/K."

Deftly handled, Ben. That just seems unusually cruel in a violates-the-Constitution sort of way. Better yet, after a solid 15 seconds of explaining himself, he wants her to leave. Well, that certainly was... efficient. Stranger still, Lindzi seemed surprisingly calm about the whole thing, maybe out of shock but more likely because she knew what was coming. Yes, "call me" was a touch pathetic. This whole exchange just seemed casual and weird. But then, Lindzi was a little weird.

Ben channeled a few seconds of Brad Womack with his well-timed "but..." with Courtney, but in the end she got the hardware. Winning indeed.

"Aww.. I want it with the inscription 'suck it, bitches.'"

It was good to see Harrison giving Ben and Courtney a hard time which is more than he's ever done in all his years as host. I suppose it's hard to avoid what everyone is thinking, but there were a few moment where I was like, "whoa, dude.. ease up a bit." I'm not sure why he characterized Ben as cutting and running, but I did get a kick out of it. I'm sure Courtney was just a peach during that whole run. And to be clear, Chris, Ben wasn't kissing some other girl.

Not Courtney.

See?

Well, now that they squared that away, I'm sure these two will be next in line for a big Chris Harrison-officiated wedding. I just hope I'm invited.

I think Emily's Bachelorette season has just commenced filming in Charlotte and will premier on May 14th. Excited? Yeah, I dunno either. I just hope she's willing to forgo her individual room a lot. It has to be more interesting than watching Ashley, right? Not a high bar.

Bachelor Pad 3 is on the horizon for mid-summer. Mark your calendars for that mess, and don't forget, you could be a part of the action. I seem to remember something like this on Paradise Hotel or one of these other defunct franchises. If you do happen to land a role, please remember to be entertaining and always ask yourself: what would Courtney do?

¡Ay Chihuahua!

2012-03-07T01:41:00.001-06:00

At first I wasn't going to do a write-up for The Women Tell All, but there was a lot of cud to chew on, most of it centering around the women hosting a mob beat down of Courtney. I have to say I was far more entertained than I usually am by this little fake show they put on before the finale every season.

Before I go too far with the props, the Bachelor Pad 3 promo was a complete snoozer, mostly because I don't even know who half of these yahoos are from a dozen seasons ago, and there's about zero chance that someone like Ali (aspiring L.A. based post-reality professional something) or Frank (still dating whatsherface) is going to show up. It definitely wasn't worth the price of admission to see that Kasey guard and protect some random drunk chick's panties either. And we all know my feelings on Ryan. Fast forward.

The attempt to re-litigate Blakeley's transgressions seemed to just take up valuable air time as we waited for the real drama to show up. Blakeley is low-A farm hand compared to Courtney's major league-ready skills. There's no comparison. I doubt anyone cares or even remembers much of what Blakeley contributed anyway. All I really recall is some hideous dental work, copious makeup, and fake tits. If anything, Blakeley had some mental stability issues. Remember her huddled in a corner like a meth addict? No? It's not important. She was all over the map, and not really worth the attention. Worse, this discussion created an opening for Samantha and Jaclyn to start talking. Somehow, Jaclyn found a way to get even uglier, and Samantha earned most shrill former cast member of all time status, which is truly an accomplishment given the scores of candidates. Just think: this was the edited version. I can't imagine they thought going in that this nobody who did nothing on the show would have so many grievances to air. I have to say that Brittney redeemed her otherwise useless self by deftly cutting Samantha to shreds with her "chihuahua" comment. It was spot on and worthy of the insults bandied about in the British House of Commons. Brittney was also the first person I can recall that admitted she had zero attraction to the lead. Casey-with-the-boyfriend was also in that camp, but never said as much (she didn't have to). Monica too. You'd think they could at least come clean about that. Not everyone is going to like the guy.

It's amazing how far Shawntel has fallen in my book. She was pretty much one of my top two favorites from Brad's second coming, yet her need for attention (apparently to sell books?) knocks her down a few pegs. I still don't know why they didn't just cast her as one of the 25 women instead of having her show up unannounced one day which was just amateur hour. That had no chance of creating much compelling drama save a short-lived schism mostly perpetrated very oddly by Elyse. If they really wanted to shake things up, she would have been there from the beginning. I think everyone knew that trying to throw her into the mix that late in the game was going to end like an organ transplant before the era of anti-rejection drugs. It was a little interesting to see the outright venom spewed over Shawntel. I can't really think of anyone that is more benign that she is, yet they treated her like a malignancy. Even showing up again, it was funny to see so many of these women unable to stop caring even many months later. Funnier, she's skinny as a rail, yet there was non-sarcastic discussion about her weight. Erika (I believe she was on the show at some point) clarified her "big thighs" comment:

"The point is... I don't have tiny thighs, girl."

Oh, now I get it. Moving along...

The first serious postmortem involved Emily who, quite honestly, should have fared better. Yes, her boobs were hanging out all over the place, but shockingly that's not where I'm going with this. On paper, she's an A+ and Chris Harrison certified (it got awkward), but became steadily unglued over the course of the show. Every season has its benevolent crusader for justice and truth, and that was Emily this time around. She just couldn't stomach the duplicity anymore and felt that it was her obligation to set things right. Of course this has a 100% chance of failure, and that record remains intact. There's just nothing to be gained by whining about someone else. It's weird to me how women are so shocked by how other women act, especially in an environment designed to promote conflict. Hell, the companion to this show is Bachelor Pad which is rightfully banned in 37 countries. She also had to know that being the house snitch is poor form and gets people shot in certain 'hoods. For as smart as Emily seemed to be, she had very little clue about how things work on this show and sinking street cred. Her hindsight was pretty good, though, because she certainly understood what went wrong by focusing on Courtney. Ben exuded his own petulance by not giving her a break over it. That "tread lightly" line still irks me. What an entitled dick he can be at times.

It's kind of a shame that The Bachelorette is already cast because I think Nicki would have been an ideal candidate. There's really not much to dislike, and if there's anyone that's been on this show that is absolutely dying to get married, it's her. I could almost guarantee a wedding, and I know those are in short supply with this franchise. Sure Emily Maynard is a swell option and all, but she's got the potential of clamming up (friendship suite?) and being much less interesting than advertised, especially with her daughter constantly hanging over things. Nicki seems like she'd let it all hang out, and then some, and god bless her. I know no one will care about or even remember who she is in a year, but they might want to keep her résumé on file for later.

I thought Kacie looked about as good as ever. She obviously got too carried away and had an immature outlook, but she seemed like a different person during the interview. You need to have a few bumps on the head here and there, which is why I never understand anyone that protects themselves as if there's that one person that will sweep them away, cure all of the ills of the world, and fart rainbows. Kacie had that mindset, there's no doubt. She may still. I do know that she's going to make some lucky guy really happy at prom this spring.

Okay, here we go... Courtney. So, let me just lay out my five cent opinion on what makes her tick. Like anyone, Courtney is a product of her upbringing which appears to have gone awry. Her family dotes on her and has never asked a thing of her. She oozes entitlement. The mean girl thing is mostly a false front and her go-to reaction to deal with conflict. How or why that developed is anyone's guess, but something pushed her to build that wall. She's actually fantastically adept at deflection and gaining the upper hand and knows exactly how to tweak women. She has a carefully developed defense mechanism that allows her to avoid vulnerability and never get hurt. Many of these women exhibit similar defenses, but none are as entrenched as they are with Courtney. To the benefit of the show (in my mind), Courtney has a first strike policy and will attack the moment she's uncomfortable. It's almost like she was genetically engineered to be on a show like this because she's a fine-tuned survivalist who undercuts her rivals and renders them impotent to do anything. Not a single one of these women challenged or even put up a tiny bit of resistance to her because Courtney was so aggressive that they had no idea how to react to it.

As effective as she is dealing with rival women, she's also honed an ability to gain sympathy from pushover guys. The women had it about right with Courtney, but they didn't spot her any points for being a superior game player or consider the possibility that most of what she did was played up for the situation and the camera. While I do think that she's duplicitous, it's not as though everything she displayed was her innermost genuine personality. I think early on Courtney was playing to win, but over time you did see a dramatic shift when she started to have actual feelings and realized that she'd be held accountable for her actions. Ben was actually paying pretty close attention to how she comported herself with other people. Actually, her willingness to go on this terribly named Women Tell All show and just let people unload on her is really interesting. She didn't have to do this. It seems as though it has to serve a purpose, and one possibility is to salvage an actual relationship with Ben. Another is that she's endured a tremendous amount of negative reaction to the point where she feels the need to endure some public punishment in the hopes of gaining some sympathy. Maybe both of these things are at play. Or maybe they paid her a princely sum. Whatever the reason, she barely put up a fight and did her best to act sincere. I doubt she expected this kind of backlash, and she doesn't deserve it. Last I checked, The Bachelor is a TV show. It's not remotely real, and should never be mistaken as such. Guys like Reality Steve harp incessantly about the dreaded "edit" and how we don't really know Courtney, but I think that's basically wrong. The public has a similar opinion of her as the women who spent countless hours with her. They align too well for the show edit to convey something grossly different. Her show persona is probably close enough to how she was on set. The only question is how much of it was shtick and how much was who she is. My guess is that she's actually very normal and nice to people she cares about and not so charming to those she sees as threats. If you're on a show where surviving week to week is the goal, I can see how that would exacerbate these traits. Why this would cause the women to totally freak out is another matter. Then again, they're women, so I think that's a question that neatly answers itself.

Bringing Courtney out to atone for her sins was going to get ugly, and it lived up to it. There were times when it looked like some kind of saline solution was welling up in her eyes. Remember that this was four flippin' months after all of these things happened, and yet some of these women acted like the wound was still fresh and in need of a new Band-Aid. A lot of them made complete fools of themselves, especially with this question about why Courtney wasn't a better house buddy. If this show was called Super Epic Sorority BFFs, they might have a valid point. It seems that every reality show that boils down to a competition for survival has this issue of friendship that comes up all the time. People are really concerned with how friendly people are while they are on the show. I've never quite understood that. People audition for all kinds of reasons. Surely Courtney was there to promote her career (especially as an aspiring actress), and I still think that's true. And yes, she probably would have netted out better by "twisting the knife" fewer times. But then again, would the show have been as good? Would she have ended up in the finale? Would that horse-face Jaclyn have gotten any more camera time? The verve with which these women were going after her with questions left me embarrassed for them. Sure, I think Courtney gave a tepid and unconvincing apology, but how could it possibly matter in the long run, and apologize for what? It's been four months. Move on with your sad lives.

"If only I had braided someone's hair, this would all be different."

Mercifully, they let Courtney leave, but not after death by a thousand tiny, obnoxious cuts. That's reality TV royalty you're insulting, you haters. I'll stick up for you, Courtney. Sorta.

The final phase of the show is the "why did I get sent home" fishing expedition for closure which I basically hate. There's just nothing to be gained here, and Ben has shown no appetite for it. If the guy didn't want to give you a good reason then, there sure as hell isn't going to be an answer now. I was a little surprised just how abrupt and almost cold some of the dismissals were, as with Emily, but why even dredge this up. If someone's still broken up over it, all you can do is make it worse but trying. It's hilarious that of all the women he could apologize to for cutting them loose he would choose Casey who actually did go home to her boyfriend. Nice one, dummy.

Jennifer got way more camera time than anyone expected. Not a bad thing -- she looked deliciously insane -- but it's not always a great idea to let your nuttier nutcases ramble on for too long. Oh, and no offense to Blakeley, but why did you keep that slutty stripper over me? I mean, would you take that tawdry whore to meet your mom? No offense, of course.

Ben really must've been super offended by Emily throwing Courtney under the bus because he pretty much reasserted that's what killed her off. It's probably more about him wanting to end up with the model than anything else. I'm pretty sure I could have cut her some slack, but that's just one non-winemaker's opinion.

It's weird how gaga Nicki still is over Ben. She gushed about how he's the best man she's ever met (100%, till she dies, etc.). What kind of jackasses is this woman meeting in Dallas? At least she's giving non-threatening bores all over America hope that they too can land on a reality dating show, reject a hot divorcee, and be publicly thanked for it. I think we'll see Nicki again. Just a hunch. I just wish she'd get better standards.

I'm really looking forward to next week, especially After the Final Rose for the potential implosion and seismic event induced by a Courtney victory. It really could be something special. No, this season hasn't been without its flaws, but as Russell Crowe once famously asked: "Are you not entertained?" I am. I am entertained.

The One Where Ben Sleeps with Three Women

2012-03-03T22:45:00.000-06:00

My god, we're almost to the finish line, and not a moment too soon. As the ladies are dismissed, this show becomes increasingly focused on Ben and his chill-bordering-on-sedated personality. When he does talk, it's usually crappy in the moment (ITM) clips where he pretends to be talking to someone just off camera. That's where we get those tired lines about how "incredible" everyone is and how he can totally see spending every waking second with them for the rest of his life. As much fun as it's been watching Courtney shake Ben to death by the jugular and dismember the corpse, I think we need to get to a conclusion here soon.

Next in the queue of "perfect places to fall in love" is Interlaken, Switzerland, which is a bit of a departure from the tropical locations to which we've become accustomed. If there are two things the Swiss are known for it's spineless neutrality and fine chocolate. If three things, you throw in no-questions-asked banking. Four things, and you have to consider watchmaking. Five, and Heidi makes an appearance. Taking it to six, and I think Roger Federer creeps into the discussion. Beyond that it's a bit murky. Maybe Ricola? Cheese with holes?

Interlaken is actually a not a terrible place to film because, well, no one lives there. The population has never topped 6,000. At first I thought ABC just rented the city out for a week since it had an eerie Truman Show vibe to it, but knowing the Swiss, that would have required payment in bearer bonds or "six nines" gold ingots. Interlaken is the German speaking region of Switzerland with, of all things, Portugese as the second most commonly spoken language. I'll let you try to figure that one out because I sure can't.

Why falling in love requires locations with incredible scenery isn't immediately clear to me, though it's become a staple of this franchise. Every season they try to one-up the previous one with more and more exotic locations and even more daring helicopter adventures. Surely the exotic dates have a huge role in these people transitioning from acquaintances to an engaged couple in a few short weeks, but I'm curious just how much influence it actually has. Speaking of Portuguese, could you get, say, Brazilian uberbabe Adriana Lima to fall in love with some schlep on a show like this?

The breathlessly gorgeous Lima and schlep husband Marko Jarić

Maybe that was a bad example.

Still, I think the point is valid. How much sway do the endless string of surreal dates have over the mindsets of these people? Wouldn't it be more telling to see if people can fall in love under more mundane circumstances? Believe me, if Beauty and the Geek were still on, that's where I'd be focusing my literary energy.

Down to three, we have Courtney, Lindzi, and ~~sacrificial lamb~~ "dark horse" Nicki who Ben doesn't really even like all that much. As if some hippie wine snob from Sonoma is going to marry a brassy goofball divorcee from Ft. Worth. Not to say that I'm not a fan, because I am. I honestly didn't think I'd think she was finalist material at first, but given the fatal flaws some of these women have displayed (ahem, Emily), I think you could do worse. The problem is that Nicki is the kind of girl that would be easily distracted by loud noises and shiny objects, and flummoxed by setting the clock on her oven. But in the plus column, she has all the hallmarks of a fiercely loyal partner and of course cleans up nicely. Regardless of any of her positives, she and Ben are about as compatible as VHS and Beta, so they'd might as well get this over with, but not before some pre-dismissal sexy time. Sorry, that's how this show works. Read the contract. It's right there next to the "no brown M&M's" clause.

The only thing Ben needs to endure before they hit the sheets is some pseudo-serious discussion about their hypothetical future together, should the winner and runner-up be unable to fulfill their duties. Nicki, of course, has already started to measure the drapes for their new imaginary pad in Sausalito while Ben insists that none of this is too much too soon. Suspecting that Nicki envisions a gaggle of kids and hoping to artificially prolong the suspense, Ben responds that he and his sister both want four, which has most of us uncomfortably wondering why Julia isn't in the top three. Nicki only wants two kids anyway, weirdo.

Turns out the Chris Harrison-approved "fantasy suite" is in an entirely different building from the one where they ate dinner, which seemed perfectly serviceable for fantasy-related activities. You have to love the excess. The chalet did have a hot tub, and far better camera angles than the log cabin. Seeing Nicki just throw herself at Ben makes you wonder if she's just lacking the gene that codes for the need for reciprocated feelings. I've never seen someone offer less of themselves and get the kind of benefits he's reaping. It's just unbelievable. He even tagged Jennifer Love Hewitt with minimal effort. I know that's probably not the grand conquest it once was, but still I officially hate this guy.

Lindzi has been difficult to figure out. At first I didn't really find her all that impressive. The horse thing just seemed a little much for me. Then I felt like she was a clear favorite after her one-on-one date at the speakeasy. I've been going back and forth ever since. She's attractive, obviously, but there's something a little off about her personality. She's so unsure of herself and has these strange expressions all the time like she's expecting rejection at any moment.

Yes, Lindzi, you're through to the finals.

For weeks now, I've felt like I've seen this kind of thing before, and then it suddenly hit me: Lindzi is channeling Laura Dern's equine-obsessed character "Diana" from the movie Mask. While Diana was shy and apprehensive because she was, well, blind, Lindzi is shy, apprehensive, and occasionally plain weird because she was once welcomed to Dumpsville, population one.

Lindzi and Ben sharing a tender moment in the Alpine foothills.

Following a very trite and totally played out "adventure date" down 100 meters of rope, Ben and Lindzi hit their own hot tub where Lindzi suggested that the "ice queen" (her pet name for herself) was melting. I'm certainly no expert on what it takes to win this game, but I would think that was a serious unforced error. Even if you are an ice queen, or even just a little frosty at times, it's probably best not to call yourself that, or to suggest in any way that you're a bad lay. I still can't get over a 27 year old woman who has had one serious relationship. How is it possible to look like that and have one guy she's had any significant history with? She also mentioned that putting up walls "works" for her. Maybe "dry ice queen" is more accurate. This sex card deal is going to be awkward for sure.

Whoa. Or not.

Because the pungent stench of merlot, Lady Stetson, and coitus still permeates the prior fantasy suite, the producers hook these two up with a fresh version. It's a good thing that Interlaken is the unofficial fantasy suite capital of Western Europe. I read that in Fordor's.

I think we just assume that every stay in the fantasy suite results in sex, but we don't really know for sure. When The Women Tell All, "All" doesn't seem to include this information. We do know, for example, that Brad had his way with Chantal O'Brien (mostly her prodigious mammaries) because Emily said as much on national TV. We also know that Emily remained solemnly chaste during her visit to the romper room, or so she claims. (It'll be interesting if that's how she plays it during her run as The Bachelorette. If so, booooo.) I think the point is that you don't have to give it up to be successful. In fact, it might save you a fair amount of self-loathing and ridicule in the long run.

Finally, the champ arrives to show everyone how things are done. You can tell Ben is serious about Courtney because he'd never wear something like a fruity bow tie for his model girlfriend. Oh hell no. That's saved for the also-rans.

I haven't entirely figured out the most current mix of game-playing versus actual emotion from Courtney, but I think she might be deluding herself into thinking that ABC will just fly the two of them around in perpetuity:

"This is what it'd be like.. our life. Traveling together, and.. it's exciting."

Yep, that's how it's going to be when the show is over. You can tell she's a student of history because all of the former couples have done nothing but jetset around the globe on ABC's dime. I don't think Ben has any illusions of finding a wife out of this, but if he did, it might have been a good idea to pick someone that isn't used to this sort of thing, especially as part of their career. It's going to take a whole lot of Envolve wine selling to keep this sort of thing going. Courtney dated the lead guy from Entourage. Ben starred as "Storm Horse" in a video called "Cream Dream."

Wengen must be German for "ghost town," because just about every scene looks like this:

Totally strange. Did ABC tell everyone to beat it? Is no one driving the train? How are you going to get any dang cheese in this town?

Wisely, the staff sets Ben up on his date with Courtney in a fully stocked wine cellar. Courtney has had a glass of red perpetually affixed to her hand throughout the entire show, and in order to close this deal he's going to need reinforcements.

Usually when women start pouring their heart out about their insecurities, it's a bad thing. Actually, a terrible thing. It's almost always a one-way ticket home. But not for Courtney. Not only does she have admitted trust issues with men, but women too. Basically, she trusts no one. She's probably also skeptical of most pets and even some houseplants. If you've never seen a guy talk himself into a girl, witness Ben carelessly dismissing every obvious warning sign possible. Hey, the constant hair touching alone would drive me insane. At least they can agree that "there's more good than bad," which has to be the very definition of settling. I suppose Ben thinks Courtney is just too hot to turn down, but is she really? This isn't exactly Miranda Kerr here. She makes a better insult comic than model. Even if Ben's not looking for Mrs. Fjordnik or whatever, I don't really get it. Courtney is tapping into something very revealing about Ben's inner psyche, and should he choose to forgo his individual dignity, he should use the next episode to act like a moron on national TV because we are fresh out of fantasy suites.

Usually I'm all for some cast off coming back to plead for a second chance, but the past few versions of this have me rethinking it as an interesting plot device. Ryan the "solar energy executive" and repressed gay man was the last person mixed up in this sort of thing, and it was so poorly executed and forced that the whole concept needed to be placed in more capable hands. The lead has to at least give a shit about the person coming back. I do believe there was a time when Ben liked Kacie, but after learning that her dad was Glenn Beck and that she was pretty hardcore into baton twirling, I think his emotions turned from like to pity. Kacie is just too immature for any of this, and that's at least as big of a hurdle to overcome as Ryan being overtly gay. Regardless, some genius at Next Entertainment decided it would be interesting to send Kacie all the way from Tennessee to Switzerland just to ask why she was sent home. I hope she at least got a two week European vacation out of that because there is no way she should have agreed to that humiliation. Maybe this was a teaser promo for Kacie's Super Sweet 16? She has no shot at being The Bachelorette, so I don't really get it.

Well, sure, there was yet another warning for Ben to watch out for Courtney, but he's far too invested and prideful to take anything dumb Kacie has to say at face value. She also didn't exactly lay out the most compelling argument. Relaying that she once said there are "other fish in the sea" isn't really much of a smoking gun. Still, there is a pretty complete mosaic of evidence building that suggests the model might be using this as the ultimate showcase rather than a chance to date some average looking bore. As Harrison noted, the wheels are turning in Ben's head, but they have the distinct sound of being hamster-driven rather than that of a V12 diesel engine.

While I, for one, wouldn't have kicked Nicki to the curb, I think we can all agree that Ben wasn't really digging her vibe all that much. Had Ben had an actual choice, I think Courtney could have been cut at this point, but she showed enough fake contrition to stick around. Her game has been a little off once the field narrowed as it became more about one-on-one interactions than just looking better than everyone else. Courtney's not as much of an ass-kicker down the stretch, but I think she can hold off the horse whisperer. The best possible outcome for this show is for Courtney to not only win, but rub everyone's nose in it. The cherry on top would be for her to tell Ben that she duped him and pulled off the greatest feat in reality show history. I'm pretty sure that's asking for too much, though.

Word is that Courtney will be on The Women Tell All which could make for an entertaining show. Usually these things are pretty terrible, but I like this potential twist. There really isn't anyone that I care to hear from in the rear view. Maybe Jenna will announce that she's contestant #1 on Bachelor Pad 3 or that she's never made a dime from blogging. Neither of these would be surprising.

The real fun is going to be After the Final Rose. Could be a real doozy this season if Courtney runs out the clock. If only we could somehow harness the estrogen-fueled Facebook/Twitter outrage that will invariably result. It could probably power Zermatt's endless ski lifts for 100,000 years.

Culture Wars

2012-02-29T00:12:00.000-06:00

Clearly I need a vacation. I've been run ragged over the last month or so, and this blog has suffered mightily. The posts were getting later and later. The quality progressively worse. No two ways about it. I have failed you, dearest readers. But we soldier on anyway, because there is just too much ripe fodder, slightly stale though it may be, and I'm still hungry.

So let's rewind the mental TiVo and go back to hometowns. Ah yes, the all important contrived meeting of the entitled Bachelor and all of the families he's going to lie to or politely ignore. There's nothing more natural about some guy asking for four different womens' hands from four different dads, and them all saying "sure, why not."

If we learned nothing from Season 15: Brad Womack Strikes Back it was that "hometowns" should be as cloying and awkward as possible. It's fitting that Shawntel had a minor (and pathetic) cameo this season because it foreshadowed the sheer awfulness of these hometown visits. It's really hard to believe Miss Nelson was sent packing after laying Brad out on a metal table and threatening him with impossibly large needles. We see a continuation of that over-the-top approach with the visits this season. You like stereotypes on overdrive? You got it.

Kicking things off was Lindzi and her paddock of Lipizzaner stallions. Ride in on a horse, ride out on a horse, I say. Once it's time for Cirque de Soleil to leave town, I'm sure we'll be treated to Lindzi sobbing to a taciturn canter. Clearly she has no other worldly interest other than horses, so naturally that's where this is headed. This episode is already inducing audible groans, and I'm barely two minutes in.

I've actually been to Ocala, or as I like to refer to it "Gainesville's kid sister." It is certainly known for horse breeding. In fact, a few derby winners have come out of there. For being kind of an armpit in North Central Florida, there's a smattering of money in Ocala. Lindzi seems to be a woman of means, or related to it at least. I'm sure Ben can empathize with that burden. Neither has had a care in the world their entire lives.

So as I watch Lindzi's dad, Harry Cox (c'mon...), tell Ben about the rules of horse cart racing, it seems to me that this as close as we'll get to eavesdropping on American nobility. Chilled chardonnay in the grassy field followed by a faithful re-enactment of Ben-Hur. I'll bet you've never even conceived of doing something that snooty and out of touch before. Why not fire up the plane and shuffle on down to South Beach for a mint julep by the pool after this? I might have to watch a re-run of Jake visiting Vienna's poor ass family to cleanse my palate. Yeesh.

This show seems to attract certain types of contestants, and one of those is the attractive sheltered girl who has had an inordinately small number of relationships equaled only by the inordinate pain and suffering apparently caused by that lone relationship. Mom seems to gleefully recount Lindzi's days as a shut-in who never ate candy or talked to boys, but is this woman running a boarding school or raising a daughter? Now look what you've done. She's going to wash out of this contest an even more bitter soul. Nice going.

Now, I may not be a fan of how that all went down with Lindzi, but it was a five star visit compared to most of these hometowns. At least there weren't any threats of embalming or tours of the basement taxidermy shop. It could have been worse. Well, it got worse with Kacie, but we probably all knew that. Kacie is fighting her own immaturity most of the time, but her family certainly didn't do her any favors, and maybe that's a good thing. I mean, who is to say that dear ol' dad should just take one for the ABC production team and say "sure, break my kid's heart for ratings." I'm shocked more parents don't give a little push back. I think we're jumping ahead because I think it was over before it ever got that far.

Now, I want to think that Kacie had nothing to do with this, but part of me isn't so sure. If you asked a random 15 year old girl what she would do to impress a boy at school, you'd probably get a response similar to what Kacie put on for Ben. I'd be interested to know if the tea party with her dollies was edited out forever or can be found on the director's cut.

Video analysis has allowed us to pinpoint the exact moment that Kacie lost.

Now, before I completely eviscerate Kacie, I should say that I'm actually a fan of hers. The problem is that she had an emotional flat tire somewhere in high school and never found a way to grow up. TV is probably the last place that a person should confront their psychological foibles, but in this case I think it might be a good thing. Or maybe it's going to do irreparable damage to an already brittle psyche. The difference basically boils down to a role on Bachelor Pad 3.

For those of you who haven't moved around much, you may not truly appreciate the regional differences. One person's Bible Belt is another's Bourbon Belt. It's all in how you look at it, and your love of Jesus. Sonoma and Clarksville are about as similar as Keith Olbermann and Glenn Beck, but even those guys share two N's in their name.


Surprisingly, not Glenn Beck.

I'm sure a lot of viewers, and Kacie herself, will blame dad's skepticism and cold demeanor for her washout. Nah. The majorette was toast well before that meeting ever took place. Still, it's difficult to ignore just how squeamish Ben is during his visit. If you could construct a personal hell for a wine maker from Sonoma, it might be a dry county in Tennessee.

Kacie's dad was a tough sell, and good for him. The show is a sham and has never been about finding love. It's about finding inventive ways of publicly humililating and exploiting people. Why families are so willing to allow this has been a great mystery to me, but I, for one, think Mr. Bourgeoisie (or whatever) has it right. Screw these people, and this snooty mop top drunkard from Sonoma, or Liverpool, or wherever he's from.

If Ben thought Kacie's mom was going to be any easier of a nut to crack, he was disabused of that notion early. I did find it funny that she said she "watched the show a lot" and that her primary concern was co-habitation and not the myriad other ridiculous outcomes that invariably end in people losing part of their soul to the infinitely deep abyss that is this franchise. Maybe she needs to watch again. People living together isn't the source of their undoing. It's actually the only sane choice that keep them from making an even worse decision later on. Even though you know places like Clarksville exist, it's still funny to see people use "California" as a pejorative to collectively represent everything that is wrong with society. I'll give Ben credit for keeping a straight face during her rant about single-handedly preserving societal norms amid the forces of progressive evil. It's a just a bottle of wine, people. At least dad didn't wheel in a chalkboard detailing how Ben is secretly connected to San Francisco uber-liberal Nancy Pelosi, Van Jones, and ACORN. But then, Clarksville was home to Jimi Hendrix when he developed his ability to play guitar with his teeth, so it's not like they don't have blood on their hands.

It's kind of interesting how Ben chose women who hail from places to divergent from his own roots. Ft. Worth? Can you really see this guy blending in anywhere in Texas (OK, Austin... you got me). We kind of lost track of Nicki for a while there, but I have to say, she totally redeemed herself in this episode even though the producers did everything in their power to ruin any shot she had by saturation bombing Ben with the thickest, bloodiest slab of pure Texas they could muster.

Looks totally natural.

Ben seemed like a good enough sport, but I'm sure he was counting the seconds to removing his cowboy boots in favor of some dope Airwalks.

Unlike Lindzi and Kacie, Nicki shows signs of being battle-tested, in a good way. Yes, we know all about her divorce which she seemingly won't stop talking about, but beyond that she carries herself like a woman who has experienced the highs and lows of life and is probably a lot more adaptable than any of the other women. "Divorce" doesn't really imply untold heaps of baggage. For as much as Nicki has "failed" in her one try at marriage, it's probably more practical experience than the kinds of imaginations that Lindzi and Kacie have concocted in their pretty little heads. Not to say that Ben is looking for actual marriage (in fact, one could easily argue he's not the least bit interested in it), but if he were, I can see a path here that might actually work, at least on paper. They do strike me as very different people with totally different goals. But that minor inconvenience aside, it could totally work, right?

The fatal flaw is that Nicki is completely in love with the idea of being in love, and Ben is just a proxy. She would like nothing more than to change her Facebook status to "married" without much regard of who that person is. We've seen Nicki sparingly throughout this series, especially compared to the other three, and yet she seems to be all-in on this bet for whatever reason. I guess the lesson here, fellas, is to be a vacant, inaccessible mouth-breather who is good at nodding and delivering generic platitudes. Women seem to eat that shit up.

I've been a Nicki fan from the early days, and my bias is obviously showing. She'd be my pick, y'all.

Lastly, and in the minds of many, very least, we have Courtney waiting for Ben in Scottsdale. Now, if you've done your assigned homework, you'll know that Ben is a music production graduate (we think) of the University of Arizona who obviously spent a good deal of time inebriated and wasting his parents' money before moving into the totally unrelated field of "internet advertising" (I'm thinking porn) and ultimately piggybacking on his friends' winemaking venture. Not a bad career arc. The rest of these hometown visits have been like traveling to Mars compared to Scottsdale.

I think there are two camps forming here, and since I don't know shit about Twilight, I can't reference it, but I do know that people either love Courtney for what she's bringing to the table (count me in), or they hate her (and generally don't understand what makes for good TV). I speak here to the unwashed who refused to give up on the idea that this show is about love and that Courtney is somehow undermining the emotion for all mankind.

It's time to wake up, people.

You may not be on board with her shtick, but you have to, at a minimum, respect the effort. Ben has earned this treatment. The guy is borderline comatose and is setting a new low-bar standard of reality TV personality (with the possible exception of fellow Ashley cast-off Ames "Bot" Brown). Why Ben deserves some genuine, amazing woman to fall madly in love with him as a matter of course is way beyond my comprehension, so I'm all for whatever Courtney is pulling. And really, I'm not entirely sure I know what that is anymore. Until now, I was under the impression that she was 90-95% emotion-free and running a clinic, but she is a woman, after all (sorry, ladies), and I'm seeing some cracks in the façade. There are moments that seem to be -- it pains me to say it -- genuine from her. My latest impression is that she is harboring a little baby crush on the guy, even though she's honed years of being a self-absorbed, entitled diva who blames everyone else for her minor misfortunes. People like Courtney have developed a visible patina that, at first glace, seems to make them emotionally impenetrable, but I think there's a pretty gooey middle inside this Tootsie Pop. Whether we see it is another matter entirely, and certainly Ben sure as hell doesn't have the skill to pull it off. Whatever happens, I hope Courtney doesn't careen into a wall on the final lap. We've all come too far to let this experiment fail now.

We're quickly trending toward Keeping Up with the Kardashians 2

It's a shame we didn't get a better juxtaposition of Courtney's skinny dipping conversation set against Kacie's mom admonishing against the horrors of indoctrination through babysitting. It's like twin universes where all of the masses and charges of elementary particles are jumbled up. You certainly can't blame the guy for picking four similar women. They have nearly nothing in common with each other, although I could see Kacie's dad fancying that nifty sweater vest that Courtney's dad is sporting. Just wild speculation on my part.

It's interesting that every other hometown visit was akin to a foreign culture immersion program sponsored by Berlitz, but Courtney got the benefit of just chilling in 'Zona. Well, there was that bit about getting almost married, but I think that was actually less obnoxious than watching your potential mate twirl a baton, cart race, or ride a bull. If you're thinking this thing is starting to looked a bit rigged, I agree with you. The staff is pushing Courtney harder than a pregnant women dilated to 10 cm.

I will say that watching Kacie get the heave-ho was hard to watch, and I genuinely felt bad for her (might tweet her later, we'll see). She was probably the one that truly convinced herself that Ben was her guy. I'm not sure why she was so convinced of that, but I at least bought into the depth of her delusion. Daddy raised her right because that was one hell of a tirade she unleashed at the end. Her "this is why I don't love" seemed to ring a little hollow. It's difficult to believe that there are many attractive 24 year old women out there who have been spurned by reality show suitors. Besides, there's plenty of other shows out there, and even more if you widen your net to include Europe and Asia. They'd love Kacie in Japan.

Now that we're down to the final trio, we should start to think about potential Bachelorette candidates. Emily has things locked up next time, and I'm wondering if that effectively screws this crop out of a lead role down the line, but is Kacie an option? Nope. Maybe on 16 and Pregnant.

Next week's episode is Switzerland, which is great timing because I just got a free Swiss Army knife in the mail. No kidding. Talk about kismet.

I'll be sure to blog up the next installment soon. Give me another chance, baby. We can make this work.

Oh yeah, you bl

Ben is so screwed

2012-02-18T04:29:00.000-06:00

There are some episodes where I can barely contain myself thinking about all of the wonderful commentary that will unfold here, and then there are episodes like Belize that drive me to want to claw my eyes out. Sure, there was some good stuff near the end, capped by the most hackneyed symbolism we've seen in 23 seasons, but forcing us to suffer through 90 minutes of fluff to get there hardly seems like a fair trade. Well, I'll admit here that I don't watch the show live. It's true. Even with copious editing, we're looking at over an hour of cliché and repetition to get to that 20 minutes of creamy nougat. It's in there, but it just feels like a lot of work to me. I think one obvious problem is that Ben is completely terrible at feigning interest in women he doesn't like. Brad was great at it. Even kicking girls off that he couldn't stand, like that uber-bore Britt, he made them feel like all that was standing in their way was unfortunate timing. He really felt for these ladies. Don't ever doubt it.

For as much as we complain about reality television being scripted and phony, you wouldn't think the producers would go out of their way to find a lead guy that was so uninteresting and bereft of personality. Okay, so he runs a winery with his childhood buddies (one of which comes from the Benziger wine family, so not exactly from the ground up). He was also embarrassed by a marginally attractive girl on national TV. That doesn't mean we should reward him with months of paid vacation in exotic locales where hot women throw themselves at him. The producers are slaves to their formula, and have been for years paralyzed by the fear of screwing up the franchise, and yet they screwed this up anyway. God, I'd almost prefer that gay solar power exec Ryan to Ben, and that is saying something. At least he was flamboyant and completely weird all the time. I think it's time we had a clinically neurotic Bachelor.

The remaining women are a pretty good batch overall, I'll admit (save a few nuts). It's probably close to what I would have picked if I had been in that situation (easy for me to say). I can't really quibble with things from that perspective. If you're a woman, though, you're of course genetically obligated to hate Courtney and post about it at length of message boards, twitter accounts, Facebook walls, and comment sections. I suppose I get it, but at the same time, not really. Who would be entertained by Ben coasting through this and proposing to some mousey girl like Kacie B. at the end? That would be truly awful television, and you know it. Everyone secretly loves Courtney for what she's doing. How do I know this? The ratings bear it out. Go ahead: try not to watch. You can't do it. It's the world's slowest trainwreck, and no one can look away.

I wouldn't shoot like that. Your guns could jam.

Going into this episode, I was pretty much driving the Lindzi Express bandwagon, but I'm tapping the brakes a bit. There are times when I'm convinced she's the best choice by far, and others (more often lately) when I think she was raised by wolves or something. Nevermind that she and Ben don't really sell themselves as a couple (it's invariably awkward), Lindzi seems to be suffering from that curious illness that befalls many women on the show where they talk themselves into thinking the Bachelor is a finalist for Most Interesting Man in the World. I suppose it's difficult to mentally extricate yourself from the magical journey and think things through rationally, but come on. At the end of the day, Ben is basically an average dude who has essentially sleepwalked to being on TV for two seasons. He ferments grapes for a living. Still we get hyperbole like:

"Ben's all that I was hoping for in someone, and 20 times more."

Maybe you should raise the bar then, Lindz. It's not that Ben is a bad guy or anything, it's that he's barely registering a pulse. I've never seen someone try less hard than this guy. Ben could quite literally be anyone, and you get the impression that Lindzi would have this reaction. I want to believe in you, Lindzi. I really do. Allow me to do that again.

I'm not sure why Ben had a one-on-one with Emily this week. We already know she's in the dog house with no hope of escape. My only guess is phony tension with Courtney who responded by flailing around like a fish out of water over Emily's time with Ben. It's no fun to be kept around as a plot device, but that's basically what happened. It's a shame too because she pretty much had an LL Cool J type comeback. When she's not rapping or whining about "vapid" models, Emily is pretty much top tier material. Her biggest problem has been the need to be the purveyor of Bachelor truth and justice, or in other words, a giant tattle-tale. This week, Ben and Emily had a perfectly nice time together: they rode bikes, pretended to spontaneously hunt for lobsters, talked about not focusing on Courtney, and toasted to their future with some Bud longnecks like a couple of bros. So maybe it could have gone better, like without ten mentions of Courtney, but Emily should have coasted to the final four. Maybe on Bachelor Pad 3.

Ol' Fish Lips get the final one-on-one after a Ruthian called shot, which I thought was pretty impressive. How could she know? The paranoid among us would say the producers tipped her, since of course, she's a plant, but I think it's just pure bravado. Courtney knows full well she's lapping the field and figured that she was next in the queue. Ben was obligated to give her "please for the love of god don't leave" date to ensure he can add "dated a real life model" to his LinkedIn profile.

Once Emily shoves off, I think we're seeing Kacie as the next contender for biggest h8ter of Courtney. These women just don't get it. I think we can cut Kacie some slack since she's 15, but for the most part these ladies should know better. It's like they never attended high school or chased after the same guy at summer camp. While Kacie was an early favorite, her immaturity and, god help it, her cackle are sure to send her packing. I know I'm giving advice about four months too late, but Kacie's best shot here is to just kick the ever-loving shit out of Courtney. Not only would that be the best thing we've seen on TV this decade, but it might actually save Kacie's hide. Absent some kind of big move, I think Curley Top is looking at a disappointing finish. I know I'm not alone in being more than a little turned on by all of the cutesy aggression. Let it all out, honey.

"Maybe if I stare hard enough, she'll drop dead."

Courtney, being the Shaq of her reality TV generation, demonstrates that she's basically immune to the normal rules of engagement. Whereas Emily writes her own pink slip by kvetching about Courtney, said model flips the entire concept on its ear and bemoans Ben's time with Emily. Response?

"If anything, I respect it more that you tell me these kinds of things. I do."

I'm almost crying with laughter. At this point Courtney could probably tell Ben to eat his own poop and expect his full and eager compliance. Way to keep this one under control, Ben. The show might as well be called The Bachelorette now or maybe The Dog Whisperer the way that Courtney has Ben trained to beg on command. It's so pathetic, but fitting to see him embarrass himself like this. And you didn't think he could reach a lower point than Ashley dumping him on one knee. Shame on you.

I'm no body language expert, but anyone that's seeing chemistry here, or even a slight interest of Courtney in Ben, is deluding themselves. This girl is running "game" straight out of Neil Strauss' how-to guide of the same name. This is pretty much textbook maneuvering, but I've never actually seen a woman do it, under the scrutiny of a national TV audience no less. It's kind of like seeing a fish walk or something equally preposterous, and I, for one, welcome our game-running model overlords.

Communication: the key to a lasting relationship

Any scene with Rachel is borderline unwatchable, so of course this whole "let's send Rachel off to swim with sharks" bit was pretty much as insufferable as expected. The highlight was Kacie getting a rose and watching the other two have to choke on it. Somehow that devolved even further into three concerned mother hens worried for little Ben's future with Courtney. I'm surprised they aired this footage, honestly. You could see complete resignation from Nicki who spoke like she gave up on this whole thing about a week ago. It's one thing to hear Emily chirping in your ear about the evil model, but when three other women say exactly the same thing, you might want to at least look into the possibility that you're being duped. Or you could just carry on and pretend that everything's going exactly according to plan.

I feel like we've been deprived of these for six long weeks.

Ben knows exactly what he wants to do, so he calls off the cocktail party and rushes into the rose ceremony, but only so that he can interrupt it to talk to Courtney. Makes sense. He had hours to do it on his own time, but why not do it when everyone is ready to hear the verdict? Can we at least be a little more subtle with the producer-dictated drama? Oh, so now that they had a few minutes to hash it out, it's been addressed and the ladies can calm down. Seems reasonable. It's moments like these when you almost believe that Ben and Courtney are both in on it. The latter actually might be. Him? Nah. He's truly awful at this. I believe every terrible decision he makes is his own. Part of me thinks they'll reveal this season was all a carefully crafted hoax like The Hills, but then how would they get all of the genuinely dopey reactions from Ben?

"Bar called. They're out of rum."

Good riddance, Rachel. You're terrible. As for Emily, the girl looked genuinely disappointed, and Ben looked like he couldn't have cared less. That bastard. How many rapping epidemiologists are there in the world? Maybe two or three? I'll bet they don't look as good in a bikini, though. Congrats, dummy, you dumped a good egg. That's doctor good egg to you.

Next week is hometowns. Let's just avoid embalming tables this season, okay?

At Least There's a Bikini Pic

2012-02-08T00:03:00.000-06:00

Oh, there you are.

So, unlike you, I didn't watch the Super Bowl. Well, I did see some of it. Like that Mario Manningham catch. I also watched enough to know that a game where a guy tries not to score a touchdown is, generally speaking, pretty stupid.

Unfortuntaely, I haven't been immune to the "is Eli better than Peyton?" crazy talk. I know this is a blog about a dating show that is watched by 70% women, so most of you couldn't care less if you were offered cash to do so, but let me just air this publicly. No, Eli is not better than Peyton. He's never been better than Peyton. He can't even shit on a toilet better than Peyton. A guy with a career 82 passer rating isn't an all-time great at anything.

Okay, I feel a bit better. Let's head to Panama City (yes, the real one, not the shithole in Florida).

I honestly didn't know neo-birther Donald J. Trump owned commercial property in Central America, and in Panama no less. Interestingly, Panama is the birth place of John McCain who is about as latino as the Mexico-born George Romney. Some might question the decision to build a $400 million luxury high rise during a global recession in a country with an average per capita GDP of of $11,700, but not Trump. Of course the bonds they used to finance this bad boy were recently downgraded because it turns out that, wouldn't you know it, Panamanians generally can't afford to live in ornate luxury high rises. Still, the architecture is stunning in that it looks like every weird building that's been built in Dubai over the past decade. Actually, I think it's supposed to look like a sail, but it mostly looks like a huge vagina.

Hmm...

I hope you weren't thrown off by Ben stepping in for Chris Harrison with the first date card. I had to do a double take myself. I was thinking, "this is what passes for fresh script writing on this show?" Can you just imagine the production meeting that day? "Get this: Let's have Ben give out the date card!" Holy shit that was an monumental change of pace. I hope you were buckled in for it.

You often hear about "the edit" people get (well, I do... industry talk and all), and there is some truth to that. The producers can mold the perception of some people by stringing together unflattering moments. Usually, "the edit" is used for evil, as in the case of Courtney who has been portrayed as the meanest mean girl in the cheer squad. However, I've always maintained that they can only use what you give them, so if "the edit" shows you calling girls "bitches," then you probably called girls bitches. More interesting is to decipher how much of each girls' comments is played up for effect and how much of it is real. We've already established that Courtney has a nice blend of shtick going, but there's assuredly some sincerity buried in there somewhere, and she's hardly worth anyone's ire. It's been sad to see her run unopposed for a while now. A contestant like Courtney needs a competent foil. A Rafa to her Federer. There's nothing like that here. Rather, we're getting a lot of Jo-Wilfried Tsongas who spray wild backhands all over the court.

The syrupy sweet Kacie seemed to be a slight victim of the dreaded "edit" this week during her re-enactment of Cast Away with Ben on an island that is safely within swimming distance from downtown Panama. I'd noticed it earlier this season during their fabled Sonoma dinner date, but Kacie might have the most grating laugh ever recorded. You could chalk this up to her being just a sweet southern belle who just loves the hell out of life, but it comes across as almost defensive... like she's compensating. People who smile at everything and laugh incessantly give me the creeps. I imagine the producers made sure to give us a generous helping of that hideous cackle just to hammer home the point. Well, mission accomplished, gents. Everyone has their little pet thing they do, but that laugh would probably break me after about a week, Alex DeLarge style.

With hometowns just around the corner, or rather two agonizing weeks away, things are starting to get real. Kacie shares with Ben that she used to barf to look even more waifish than she already does, and Ben reciprocated by sharing that he heard her say that. He never says anything remotely interesting, this guy. Kacie divulges a substantial moment from her life, although eerily like a badge of honor, and Ben essentially shrugs. How can we expect to take Ben's epic journey seriously if he won't even share his favorite varietal? He likes red and white? Good grief. Yes, and I'm a fan of an entire athletic conference. At least tell us that you had an extra toe removed at birth or that your sister is actually a man. Something. It's like talking to a wall that politely nods every few seconds. It was kind of cute to see Kacie open up to Ben and for her to gush about how "easy" he made that for her. The bar is so god damned low I question whether there is a bar at all. In real life, Kacie wouldn't give a guy like Ben a second look. On this show, she can't be any more obsequious. I'm sure he can't wait for you to run and get those groceries, honey. Take the Prius.

Kacie can't survive long term, "edit" victim or not, and this is a little disappointing since there aren't a lot of viable options left, so it makes you wonder just how this show is going to sustain viewer interest. I'm getting worried. Courtney will have to start fighting with herself.

If the vagina building wasn't your cup of tea, maybe Ben's penis boat was more your thing. Constructed from a hollowed out remnant from the local rain forest, it could comfortably seat 10 when fully erect. Don't think we aren't paying attention, ABC. The FCC went after M.I.A. for recently flipping off the world. Don't think that your crude sexual innuendos are safe from the scrutiny of a government agency that inexplicably avoided Rick Perry's shit list. Now, thankfully Ben's boat got nowhere near the gaping waterfront hotel, but they did manage to allegedly discover the last forgotten tribe of the isthmus. These people are known for goading women into removing their tops and, of course, henna tattoos. All I could wonder is how you arrange for something like this. Is there a lost civilizations tour group you can book with?

"We'll just be over here masturbating."

Courtney is right: none of the other girls seem to care about making a move. It's sad to see all of this potential being derailed by a total lack of competition. The last big hope was maybe Blakeley to stick around for a while, hone her craft, and potentially lash out in a drug-addled rage, but even that dream is dead now. What are we going to be left with? Emily crying at Courtney to be her friend as she packs up to leave? It's pathetic. I think we can conclude that there aren't many women here who give enough of a shit. When Ben did his little Chris Harrison impression, he was almost too good at it. It's not easy to perfectly mimic his patented brand of asexual blandness.

This is the second week of stalled momentum, and I blame Ben's "go with the flow" mentality. It's rubbing off on everyone and lubricating much needed friction. Ben declared Lindzi to be "drama-free" which is about the highest form of praise he can bestow upon a female. Why he keeps talking himself into this idea that the remaining girls are "easy going" is beyond me. For as many women (other than that hussy Jamie) that he's claimed to have kissed, he doesn't seem to be very familiar with how estrogen works.

I've never dated a model, but I'm guessing they aren't usually drama-phobic. That's just the general impression I get from watching shows that feature Tyra. Courtney is just a shade below putting a leash on Ben and parading him around for show. How that fits with the "flow-going" he talks so much about, I'm not sure. She basically got his blessing to bitch it up out there in the field, most notably around Emily who is the least capable of handling it. I think Ben actually likes Emily, but she's got a weak disposition in the face of female aggression, and we all know how crucial it is that the wife of a Northern California wine maker to be willing to mix it up. She's got a lot going for her, but there's a perfect storm of self-destruction and inferiority complex that will probably sack her chances. Kissing Courtney's ass was strange and showed obvious weakness. If she really wanted to resurrect her prospects, she should have thrown her in the pool for a wet cat fight. Bold, but necessary at this stage. And don't worry, the water is chlorinated.

Jamie is basically Emily's pathetic twin. She's just as meek and desperate to stick around, but having done nothing to earn it. I'm not sure there's been two minutes of more uncomfortable television in the last five years than what she pulled. It was like watching a dog walk for a mile on its hind legs. I actually like Jamie, and maybe it was the competitive format that threw her off, but at least get a few drinks in you before you pull a stunt like that. Courtney has a glass of Merlot permanently glued to her hand. Just a thought. If six weeks in you're like "screw it, I'm going to kiss him," maybe you'd be better off as a Jeopardy! contestant.

I'm warming up to this idea.

I can't remember any of the show's two-on-one dates ever being interesting. Usually you have some dead weight clogging the system, and that can be safely said of Rachel (who?) and Blakeley. I don't know why they insist on having Ben dance, but we've had more than our fill of it this season. Blakeley looked like she had done something like that before. I don't think they call it "salsa" where she's from since it usually involves a pole and small bills. She put on a decent show, though. Even Rachel was a fan: "I think she really uses her sexuality with Ben a lot, and I don't understand why." I don't want to sound like some kind of arrogant know-it-all, but I think I know why.

I can only imagine the dilemma of cutting loose someone that should have left three weeks ago. Blakeley was so confident she was staying that she pulled the ol' "arts and crafts" angle that has been the ruin of many a poor soul. Attention future contestants: you cannot save yourself with construction paper and some crayons. It cannot be done. Once you find yourself clipping random words from magazines and using child-safe paste, you might as well salvage some dignity and walk off the set. I still remember Chantal O'Brien's homemade map. If she couldn't make that angle work, no one can.

Nice. Is that comic sans?

Yes, we're all going to miss Blakeley a lot and remember her for her unshakeable decorum she exuded throughout this season. Don't worry, folks, I think we'll be seeing plenty more of Blakeley in coming seasons of Bachelor Pad. Notice I said seasons. There's about zero chance that doesn't happen.

Looking forward to Blakeley hooking up with Jake Pavelka soon.

I'm not sure there's been a contestant more mentally checked-out than Casey. They finally had to give her the hook purely out of principle as she wasn't even getting enough camera time to justify her per diem. From what I've been able to gather, Casey is a part-time model which explains why she follows full-time model Courtney around like she's her summer intern. I feel like devoting more space to her will somehow result in her receiving residuals, so suffice to say that it was a welcome exit even if she was nice to look at. The problem was that she was boring as all fuck and never said a word. The only remotely interesting thing she ever did was pretend to be devastated about not finding a husband. I've said it before, but if hot 26 year old models can't find love on a highly rated television show, what hope is there for the rest of us?

"How do I quiet the voices in my head, Chris?"

Ben played the "you've cost deserving women their time with me" card as if he really wanted to keep any of the garbage he's already sent home, but we could easily play the "you have to be an idiot not to know that Casey can't stand you" card, or the "don't give me that you dirty hippie, we all know the producers are manipulating this" card or the "maybe if you were more interesting, women would want to talk to you" card. As you can see, it's a pretty big deck. In addition to a copy of the home game, Casey gets sent home in style via a '98 Ford Windstar. I really hope they make her pay taxes on these trips. What we lost can never be fully recovered, but every little bit helps the healing.

I'd post some fresh rankings for Week 6, but honestly, I don't really see the point. Courtney looks like Ahmad Bradshaw falling against his will into the end zone. I still like Lindzi the best, but we've hardly seen her in the last two weeks. I have a feeling Chris Harrison is going to visit next week to tell the girls Kacie was sent home for being underage. Let's hope the show gets its mojo back rather than resorting to black censor bars as cheap gimmicks. Courtney needs a tango partner, and I need better material.

La Isla del Encanto y Chica Desnuda

2012-02-01T01:43:00.001-06:00

You'd think an episode that features Courtney getting totally nude would be a high point in the season, but it sure didn't feel that way to me. I think we're getting some fatigue due to the large number of women who have no business still being there. The downside to 25 women is that it takes an eternity to get rid of them all once we tire of them. The tribe needs to speak more quickly because Ben is incapable of feigning interest in even three of these women. I'm starting to pay more attention to Ben's temperamental hair again, and that can't be a good sign.

I think by now we've come to expect the gratuitous product placements and commercial sponsorship that occurs during a show (Seinfeld used to feature a new Mac every season), but there no way to yell out a gravely-throated "PUERTO RICO DOES IT BETTER" and have it sound in any way natural. Stick with the lingering shots of "W Spa & Resort" and fleets of Honda RAV-4's instead. If I'm visiting PR, it's for the sun and fun, not the awkward plug. Just for that, I'm going to the Dominican Republic instead.

Not to say that Nicki made the best decisions in getting ready for her date (she probably could have done without the weeks-old chipped yellow nail polish), but she put a lot more effort into things than Ben did. Sure, he knew he'd be picking up some plantation era duds in Old San Juan after that fake rainstorm, but the hot pink bacon necked t-shirt and gray Old Navy bargain bin shorts short said "I dare you to make me care about how I look." I'm honestly sad to report this, but the more I see of Nicki, the less I like her. Not because she's a bad person or anything, but it's just a shame to see those good looks wasted with such a one-dimensional personality and a brain that doesn't seem to have sufficient internal wiring. There are times when I wonder how she can successfully feed herself.

Voted "best dressed," under $10 division.

Nicki is probably the most desperate of all of these women to find a husband, and she makes it very clear that it almost doesn't matter who the guy is as long as she can sign her name with "Mrs." again. She seems to wear the "divorced" tag like it's a scarlet letter that she can't wait to rid herself of. Still, I paused for a moment when she said she'd be "bummed" to go home after her one-on-one date with Ben. Bummed? For as overwrought as she gets at times, I was expecting something more like "suicidal."

The success or failure of the show doesn't rest on Ben's shoulders, and thank god for that because he's working intently to make this show extremely difficult to watch. My least favorite moments are the segments where he tries to convince us just how much potential he sees in certain women. With Nicki, he feels like a "kid" and thinks this day is going to go "extremely WELL" with special inflection on the "well," for whatever reason. By now, you've taken stock of Ben's odd mannerisms, and if we give him a pass on the dancing for a moment, he has this strange tendency to put emphasis on words that don't require it. He also gets this confused look on his face as if to say, "I can't believe I just said that I would have a great day with this woman." In many instances, Ben acts like something of an entitled dick. He's acquired a large head throughout this process, and some of the girls have been dutifully put in their place for thinking this is your usual relationship dynamic. Well, it's not. It's one-way traffic, as Martin Tyler would say. Know your role, Emily. We'll let you know when we need a case study on cholera outbreaks in sub-Saharan Africa.

Being a fresh divorcée, the producers promote the idea that Nicki is a deeply flawed woman who can only be fulfilled by marrying again. And boy, has she ever come to the wrong show to fill that void. Though we have a rich history of forced moments to sift through with this franchise, seeing these two sit to watch a wedding from across the street actually stands out as painfully forced. Why would anyone want to do this in real life? You might walk by and say, "oh, hey look... a wedding" and move on. But no, we see these two intentionally walk to see this thing and ponder what it all means and hit us over the head with Nicki's past and supposed motivations for being on the show. If I buy what they're selling and let myself get a little too carried away, I start to find symbolism in these images, something akin to, say, Hopper's 1925 House by the Railroad which depicts a Victorian mansion isolated by vast space and partially, yet intentionally, obscured by a lonely set of railroad tracks running perpendicular to our view. Is marriage an elusive if antiquated notion? Has modernity eviscerated our traditions and values? Is monogamy rad enough to be viable? Did someone give Courtney that "Be Nice" t-shirt?

Hopper, Edward: House by the Railroad (1925), oil on canvas (24 x 29 in)

"Nicki's been MARRIED."

Oh god, Ben, keep your pants on. I don't know if I'm alone here, but I find it odd and maybe humorous that someone who has never been married, and gets visibly uncomfortable with the very idea of marriage, judges someone so thoroughly and harshly about their divorce. You'd think his disdain would be for someone who stayed married, but yet he seems to treat Nicki like she's patient zero of a leper colony. But now we're getting into Emily's area of expertise.

Any time you can pit the women against each other in teams, I think that's a good thing. Who knew ~~strippers~~ VIP cocktail waitresses could play baseball? Not Courtney. I've seen fairly athletic dudes look like inept idiots trying to hit a baseball, so I was surprised that most of them held their own. Yeah, it had a bit of an MTV Rock N' Jock feel to it (back in the era when they played music), but overall it was entertaining. And these ladies were going all out too. Even Casey S., who couldn't care less because of her boyfriend back home, seemed to be going a good 60% in this one. I think I even heard Kacie B. call the girls "bitches" at some point. That's pretty serious stuff. It was an effort that Roberto Clemente would have approved of. I would have liked more power in this game, though. No one seemed capable of taking that noodle arm Ben deep, and he was serving up junk the whole game. What was that fence at, 150 feet? This is the problem with having a gaggle of 110 pound women play baseball. And yes, there is crying in baseball. Lots of crying. Pitiful sobbing, really.

Maybe they used cricket scoring.

I still don't know what was up with the score. The game was supposed to go two innings, but it was tied 6-6. This should have been a Blue Team victory at the end of the third, but instead they went two more innings until Red pulled ahead and blanked them in the bottom of the fifth. Win by two in the third? Multiply by

π

? Carry the three? Fourier transform? I'm lost here. I'm assuming there was some reason for this and not just lousy math, although the latter seems entirely plausible to me.

Kacie actually gets Ben to admit that his previous relationships have been "INTERESTING" but largely unrequited. He doesn't want to talk about them voluntarily, but it doesn't seem to be a sore subject or anything, just that he's already declared himself king of reality TV and doesn't care for the scrutiny. My guess is that Ben is treating this with exactly as much seriousness as it deserves and prefers not to bare his soul lest he ruin future hook up possibilities with the other potential Jennifer Love Hewitts out there, i.e., Hollywood types who are fans of the show and will drunk tweet for attention.

Courtney is exactly correct that Kacie does come across like a little girl, baton twirling or not, and I think that's probably going to wear thin on Ben and the audience alike. Still, Courtney seems to think four extra years of seasoning and a penchant for public nudity is winning game plan. Could be. It is a stark contrast, I'll give her that. The best part of all of this is how the model can turn the gooey-sweet Kacie into a foul-mouthed sailor with almost no effort. Courtney has this evil villain thing down pat by now. I've read people comparing her with Vienna and claiming they're basically the same person. Courtney isn't Vienna, folks. Vienna was trashy, sunken-eyed, and stunningly stupid. Yes, she made the other women angry, but mostly because of Jake's cluelessness (great how that relationship ended up). Courtney is much more tactical and deliberate. She's playing a game of chess, if chess was actually a much easier game to play than it is. Chess just makes it sound important. Most importantly for evil bitch status, she knows how to prey on womens' insecurities, having studied her own for years. It's not easy to do what she's doing. In fact, it's really never been done to this effect before. Michelle tried, bless her heart, but didn't have the chops or emotional stability to make it happen. Let's see how version 2.0 fares. Part of it depends on how willing Ben is to play along, and he seems almost deathly afraid of a woman like Courtney. If that's not entertaining TV, you might as well stop watching now. "Waaa, Ben is boring." Suck it up. This is important television.

Elyse, who may as well have been invisible to this point, is just as young as Kacie. She's also just as naïve, but with 95% less Kewpie Doll. Maybe that's because she's accomplished everything she ever wanted to at 24. It is a rockin' tan, I'll give her that. Ben says that he "likes what he's seen" so far, and it's difficult to take issue there. Unfortunately, that's about all Elyse brings to the table. You know you're in trouble when Ben tells you that he's getting close to being in a serious relationship and you've yet to talk to the guy. Pretty good chance you're not in those plans. But we push on anyway knowing full well that Ben is going to pull a page out of the Brad Womack Official Bachelor Handbook and dump Elyse by the side of the road. Or the moor of the dock. Or however you want to align these analogies. She's this season's Britt, but with a better body and an allegedly superior résumé.

"Oh that little thing we're towing? It's your ride home."

There are worse women still hanging around than Elyse. Way worse. Take your pick: Blakeley, Rachel (took me a second to jog the memory), and Casey S. are all beyond their sell-by date. There's also Jamie about whom Ben has had nary a thought in five weeks, so she's expendable too. There wasn't much perceivable chemistry with Elyse, and she spent an inordinate amount of time talking about getting married as soon as possible irrespective of whether she met someone interesting, so that might have been it. Still, why throw potentially useful equipment overboard when there's tons of jetsam you could dump instead. I mean, Rachel? Ew.

With Elyse gone, that's one more "incredible, incredible woman" that is sent home by dinghy. David Gray's "This Year's Love" is starting to sound like a funeral dirge.

As far as I'm aware, there are no "rules" to the show that say you have to sit on your hands and wait for the next thing to happen, so Courtney storming the beach with her nude assault has to be considered a rare act of honest individualism and, I want to say "outside the box" thinking, but it may have been firmly inside the box. Eventually, Brad figured out Michelle. Ben isn't figuring out Courtney yet. He's barely able to keep up and even looks nervous around her. I don't really care if these two have a connection or not. What really matters is how things play out in the hen house, and my guess is that it won't go over well. Is there no one that can trip Courtney up on the way to the end zone? She's practically high stepping all the way down the field. It's getting ridiculous at this point. I'm trying to figure out which of these women can throw a wrench in this plan, and I'm coming up empty. All of the strong-ish personalities are gone for various reasons (perceived lesbianism, etc.), and all you have left are needy crybabies. I think the only thing that can stop this train is Courtney pulling a Michelle and unleashing the real crazy, or Ben deciding for himself that her mouth really is as weird as it seems. I've conjectured that Ben is taking this show about 30% seriously, so there's a path for Courtney to win. A very real path.

"Those other girls?"

Blakeley got a little more camera time this episode and spent it begging to stick around through the trip to Panama. She pulled out all of the stops, even calling Ben "charismatic." He even had to have smirked at that.

I feel a little stupid, and maybe even used, by endorsing Emily early on in this blog. That was severely short-sighted by me, and it was probably fueled in part by hubris after essentially calling J.P. as the winner in week 1 of The Bachelorette last summer. Of course, guys are like a Golden Book compared to women who are more like a Joyce novel, but nonetheless, I should have seen the vulnerability and telltale weakness in Emily's game. I guess I was drawn in by remnants of normality, but didn't consider that she hadn't been battled tested yet. I hated her rap shtick on night one, and that memory should have stuck with me longer than it did. We've rarely seen someone self-destruct more thoroughly than Emily is right now. She's a slow-motion trainwreck with about 50 box cars coming off the tracks one by one into a giant burning pile. It's difficult to watch, mostly because it's completely avoidable.

Speaking of which, in late January of 1986, NASA called up the engineers at Morton Thiokol for a quick chat:

"Hey guys, NASA here. Say, quick Q for you. Have y'all tested those super important SRB O-rings at temperatures below 30 degrees? You know, the ones that prevent crazy hot gasses from leaking out and blowing up the space shuttle?"

When informed that they hadn't collected sufficient data even below 53 degrees, NASA pulled the equivalent of "fuck it" even though prescient guys like Roger Boisjoly practically begged them not to. You know the rest.

Good thing Emily gets another shot to fix what she screwed up the first time, right? I mean, how often do you get a second chance like that. Phew! Just Emily and Ben from here on out. No distractions, no Courtney bashing. Good. That's settled. So now that we've totally moved on, let's talk about what a vile skank Courtney is.

Whether Ben actually likes Courtney or "gets" her is really immaterial to me. More interesting at this moment is how he tells Emily to "drop it and tread lightly, be careful." I've seen probably ten full seasons of this franchise (okay, it's more) and that's got to be the most out of touch line I've ever heard from a principal. Tread lightly? Or what? Is this an episode of Dexter? Hard to find a body in the ocean, is it? Good grief. Ease up there, Don Corleone.

So naturally, Emily transitions into her super attractive self-loathing state which is getting to be a tired thing to watch. Do none of these women (other than Courtney) prep for this show? This sort of thing comes up all the damn time. If you want to alert Ben about something, at least have the sense to do it anonymously, and certainly don't pull that same stunt twice. Whatever part of the brain spawned this idea was probably also responsible for generating that horrid rap.

With Elyse on a pontoon back to the states, there's only one to discard. We're still not down to any difficult calls yet, so it almost doesn't matter what he does. Stay tuned for more bad acting and strange insistence that everyone is still in the running.

Blakeley was nearly about to hyperventilate until she got her rose. Or at least it appeared that way. Crisis (sadly) averted.

Casey S. keeps treading water as Courtney's personal assistant and adoring fan. These people need staff too.

We still know nothing about Jamie.

The general consensus seems to be that Jennifer was a surprise exit, but I don't think it's all that shocking. Ben's body language with her was always pretty lackluster, and all he could muster as a compliment was that she was a good kisser. That never evolved into anything more substantial. Jennifer just has a crazy look about her, and he was probably smart to cut that off early. She was more like his stalker than anything else. That hiccup-cry deal proved it was the correct call.

This really should have been a four-girls-go-home show. There's still nine left? Dear god.

Only chicas with a shot in hades of winning this thing:

Kacie B. - Showed some sassiness and a total lack of decorum. To quote Ben: "It kind of turned me on."
Courtney - Running a clinic at this point. Will probably have to pull a hammy to lose.
Nicki - Texas and NorCal don't really mix. Did you know she's divorced?
Lindzi - Disappeared on us this week. Still digging the dimple. Best strategy would be to challenge Courtney to a fist fight soon.

In purgatory:

Emily - Might need some self-help books on introspection and things you can control.

Play them off, Keyboard Cat:

Blakeley - Enough.
Casey S. - Can only suckle at the teat of Courtney for so long. The free vacation is about over.
Rachel - Time to rest those awful vocal chords.
Jamie - Total head-scratcher. Seems lovely enough, but Ben pretty much ignores her completely.