A few days ago, one of my best friends had a baby.

When I held it for the first time, a few things came rushing over me.

1) WHY? WHY ARE YOU LETTING ME HOLD THIS? I JUST CALLED HIM AN “IT”, I CLEARLY HAVE ZERO IDEA HOW TO CARE FOR THIS AND MAY DROP HIM AND THIS IS NOT SOMETHING YOU CAN RETURN TO COSTCO, BUT WHILE WE’RE ON THE SUBJECT, WHO IS IN CHARGE OF THE RETURN POLICY AT COSTCO, IT’S HORRIBLE AND THEY WOULD PROBABLY LET YOU RETURN A BABY IF YOU PINKY PROMISED YOU BOUGHT IT NEXT TO THE VACUUM CLEANERS OR THE CHILI THEY ARE SAMPLING THAT DAY THAT IS HIGH IN SODIUM YET STILL DELICIOUS.

2) I gave a shit.

I’m not saying I’ve never cared about babies before. They seem nice enough. I’ve double thumb-tapped an Instagram or two of them making a face that made me think, “who knew a face could make that face!” That’s about the extent of it, though. In my adult years (I use the term “adult” rather loosely), no one in my close family has had children yet, so I just hadn’t felt this.

To put it in context, this friend is my Clarissa, and I’m Sam. We grew up down the block from each other and I would go to her house nightly and walk right in. Sometimes I actually even came up to her room via ladder and borderline expected the small guitar twang to occur. She’s the closest thing I had to a sister, and if you told 13 year old “stealing booze from our parents and riding around on our bikes” me that I’d see this girl have a freaking kid someday and things would pretty much still be the same old same old, my 13 year old head would explode.

But, I just held him, and though my adult head has not exploded yet, it’s got a lot of things on its mind.

I looked that little Benjamin Button in the eye and felt an overwhelming urge to tell him things. You know that feeling you get when you get picked up at the airport and you hug the person, get in the car and you both smile because you have no idea where to even begin? It was that, but with someone who can’t talk. (Or do anything, basically. Not being a dick, little man, it’s just scientific fact if we’re being blunt.)

So, Tanner, here’s all the things I feel like telling you. I know you’re zero years old and pretty much vacillate between an intense lip tremble and pooping your pants, but I’ve got tons of neurotic pieces of advice floating through my head and I figure someday you might find them useful.

1. Poop your pants as much as you can right now. 

You’ve got license right now to essentially poop your pants whenever and wherever you want for a good amount of years. Don’t feel like being at the restaurant anymore? Poop yourself. Don’t feel like watching that show anymore? Poop yourself. Just feel like going poop? Poop yourself. If you do this when you’re older, you’re just the grown up who pooped themselves, and that will follow you around for the rest of your life. Do not take this for granted. Get pooping.

2. This is the last time crying as a male will be an attractive quality. 

Much like pooping, crying gets much less cool the older you get. I know, I know. When you cry right now, it seems to unlock unlimited sympathy. This is only because you can’t talk and we have no fucking clue what to do besides hug you. Learn words and it’s over. As an overly sensitive male who has probably lost 3,947 girlfriends due to crying: get it out now, man. It doesn’t go well later. Unless you stub your toe. That really hurts and you can make an argument for it.

3. Enjoy your hair. 

You were born with more hair than I currently have now. In your baby head, I bet you’re feeling pretty good about that. Maybe even pooping yourself in excitement (which, as stated earlier, is a fair reaction at this juncture.) Here’s the thing: every day you are alive is one more day you’re closer to being bald. Morbid? Sure, Tanner. It’s morbid. But one day, you’ll wake up and wonder why there are hairs on the pillow. Or the shower floor. Or EVERYWHERE TANNER. IT JUST FALLS OUT EVERYWHERE, AND YOU’LL NEVER BE THIS BEAUTIFUL AGAIN. While you can grow it, I recommend you try out an outlandish amount of hairstyles. Anything beyond the side part isn’t quite doable past around 27 for most of us, so, get to work. Your parents are pretty cool and probably won’t have a problem with whatever style you go with, and if they do, just say that Drew said you could and I’ll totally take the hit (very small fist bump.)

4. This is the only time you can show your penis to strangers in an unoffensive manner for a long time. 

Look, I’m not encouraging it. I’m just saying that later in life, it’s illegal for the most part. You’re living in a strange gray area where you can do a hodgepodge of wildly offensive/illegal things and it’s not only okay, it’s often humorous. Get weird. Be “that (very small) guy” at the 1 year old pool party. Fart loudly in public places. We’ll high five you for it and try to teach you the word that best describes whatever you just did.

5. Learn as many languages as you can early. 

Awww, is it sooOoOoOO hard to learn words right now? You know what’s not hard later on in life if you learn them in multiple languages right now? Getting laid. Jeuh t’en prie, little man. Jeuh t’en prie.

6. It’s okay to be a huge nerd, and probably lucrative, even though you don’t know what the term lucrative means. 

You’re going to want to do things like “play sports”, or “be a man.” That’s fine, and I encourage it and all that. But as I write this, most people who are rich in this world are dudes who got the crap kicked out of them in most phases of childhood because they were mouth breathers who wore pants with elastic waistbands and played Dungeons and Dragons or Magic The Gathering. That baby born in the room next-door  to you in the hospital could already be learning how to code. DO YOU WANT TO BE LESS THAN HIM, TANNER? DO YOU? 0110101, LITTLE MAN. 0110101 NOW. However…

7. Start doing pushups and pull-ups as early as humanly possible.

You can make the part where you’re a nerd easier if you just exercise early on. If I could have it back, I would’ve been ripping bicep curls at like age 6, because I’m 31 and still don’t know how to do them right (and also don’t do them, so.) If you’re moderately jacked and doing nerdy crap, no one ever seems to have a problem with it throughout life. Plus, everyone makes fun of the kid who can’t even do one pull-up on the physical fitness test day in middle school. Get ahead of it early.

8. Learn the lyrics to the song Wonderwall. 

For some reason, everyone in every city, everywhere knows them. Even when you’re old enough to read this, that will be true. Learn them. It’s mostly just saying “wiiiinding” and “blindddddding” a lot of times so it’s not that hard. More than anything, you’ll look ahead of your time. And, no. I can’t tell you what a wonderwall is, nor can anyone, because sometimes people make up words and you just have to roll with it, Tanner. Stop asking hypothetical questions before you can speak or read.

9. Stop texting at the dinner table.

It’s rude. Maybe by the time you read this there’s some mind computer or glasses that shoot laser texts or some sh*t like that. If that’s the case, don’t shoot laser texts at the dinner table. Your father worked very hard to grill whatever it is you’re eating and he’s very good at it. I know, because I’ve been drunk at your first house and had the things he grills or smokes and they are fantastic. Your laser texting can wait.

10. Commit to either Spider-Man or Batman early, and don’t wafer. 

This is more of a personal preference, I just think it’s important to pick a side and stay on it. Whatever you do, don’t pick Superman. At the end of the day, he’s just a failing journalist who can fly and clean up nicely. Batman is a f*cking MAN THAT RESEMBLES A BAT and Spider-Man is a MAN THAT CAN ESSENTIALLY DO THE SAME CRAP SUPERMAN CAN AND ALSO SHOOT WEBS OUT OF HIS WRISTS. For the record, I’d say go with Batman. When he’s not a man that’s a bat, he’s rich. Which is basically a super power, it turns out.

11. Open the door for people. 

It takes zero effort and it’s very nice.

12. Talk to strangers. 

Look. Everyone’s going to tell you not to talk to strangers. To be fair, it’s pretty good advice until you’ve learned how to control your “need to get candy vs. need to not die or be kidnapped” general decision making skills. When you grow up a little, though, it’s the best advice I can give. Strangers are interesting. You don’t know them, they don’t know you, and you’ll have utterly fascinating conversations about utterly fascinating things. Talk to the lady on the bus. Talk to the person next to you on the airplane (unless they put their headphones on, you’ll understand that once you get there). The best conversations I’ve had in my life are with people whose names I’ll probably never know.

13. Don’t look it up on WebMD. 

Whatever you do, do not self diagnose on WebMD. It’s too late for me, because as of now I have 3,987 types of cancer, 4,298 rare diseases and at least 13 avian flus (as I write this, I’m engaged in a text message back and forth with my friend who became a doctor due to a new bump near my jaw that I fear is, no doubt, irreparable jaw death syndrome.) You have the opportunity to be better than me. Don’t look it up. Take an advil, you’re fine.

14. Don’t ever send out a mass invitation on Facbook. Ever.

For your sake, I really hope this isn’t even a possible “thing” by the time you’re old enough to do so, but just know this: Everyone will hate you if you do this. Especially if you do this for a nightclub event, and probably one that has a one word name like “spill.” or something just awful. If you are distributing things for nightclubs on Facebook and you’re reading this, something has gone horribly wrong and I can only imagine your reading this will have happened too late. I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do for you. I still love you, though. Just don’t ask me for money. (Do you need money? I’ll lend you some money.)

15. Tie your shoes before you get on an escalator. 

I’m hoping by the time you’ve read this some future escalator has come out or they’ve been eradicated altogether because they are GIANT METAL DEATH MACHINES/the sharks of the transportation world. But if that’s not the case, don’t chance it and lace up. Look, I’ve never seen it happen, but I am 31 and I still don’t trust those things. Since we’re on the subject…

16. Learn how to tie a tie at a young age. 

I’m 31 and still struggle with this. I’ve had to download an app (this will be an antiquated sentence when you can read at a fifth grade level, but still) that teaches me how to tie one to this day, and I’m pretty sure that’s not doing it right.

17. Tell your Mom and Dad that you love them an outlandish amount of times and remember that you are a lucky duck, bub. 

I wish you had known your Mother and Father before you were born. I’ve seen things, Tanner. Things maybe we can’t talk about here. I’ve seen your Dad as the life of the party no less than 1,387 times. I’ve seen your Mother heralded as the Obama of young white females (okay I said that, and I was drinking, but it’s valid, you just can’t not like her.) I’m sure, as you read this, they are embarrassing you/have embarrassed you recently. But you’ve got two of the most fantastic parents a person could ask for. Let them know, or I’ll come over tonight and talk to you about my emotions, which I have too many of. Either that or we’ll talk about Jurassic Park, which we need to get started on as soon as you’re ready because what if it happens, Tanner? What if we have to head back to Isla Nublar?

18. Wave if someone lets you into their lane while driving. 

When I looked at you on day two of your life, you seemed like the type of guy that will no doubt do this someday. This one’s really just more of a formality.

19. US Weekly and never InTouch. 

And don’t say you were just bored at the grocery store while checking out. Again, more of a formality, as I’ve heard from your Mom that this one has already gone into effect.

20. Make girls mixtapes. 

Please, just trust me on this one. It may be the most important thing you ever learn to do.

Looking forward to getting to know you, little man.

Now get poopin’.

–

Rocket Shoes Mixtape 69: Music even a zero year old could get into.

STREAM IT at the links below:

DISC 1

DISC 2

DISC 3

DOWNLOAD ALL OF THE MP3′s at the links below:

DISC 1

DISC 2

DISC 3

If you’re horrified right now, raise your hand.

I’m guessing the entirety of the Internet just did. Because I did, and I’m holding the back of my shoulder and waving my hand aggressively while I do it.

It’s been a scary week. I, like you, have no idea where to even begin. Bombs are going off. Martial law is practically in order. And the fact of the matter is…

I don’t know what’s going on. From minute to minute…hell, second to millisecond, I am told 4,398 new things that have happened by people I don’t know on 4,398 social and news networks, and I just have no idea what’s going on. And that’s just it: a lot of us, honestly, have no idea what’s going on. And that’s okay.

What I do know is that what’s going on is horrific. It’s scary, it’s humbling, and it makes America seem like a teeny tiny place. Boston isn’t a city anymore, It’s just America. If there’s anything we can be proud of, it’s that something horrific is going on, and we’re stopping everything just to be good people. For the most part.

Like a lot of you, I followed the Watertown/Marathon bomber manhunt live on Twitter last night. To say following it in real time was unreal would be the largest understatement on the planet. The amount of times I pulled to refresh was an odd precursor to how I assume I will get my breaking news for the foreseeable future. What was more strange than that were the tweets in the middle of the feed. The tweets that were going on in the middle of something atrocious.

“And then the news outlets caught up with the rest of us. Welcome. We’re sorry if the coffee’s already cold. Been here a while.”

“Twitter has officially replaced all the news networks. Just now. #watertown”

Look, I’m a Twitter junkie. Sometimes I wonder if my love for it has grown larger than a teenager’s love for porn, for the very reason that’s becoming clear amidst this tragedy: it’s a strange, addicting voyeuristic view into everyone’s life in real time. It’s real life as a movie. In times of crisis? It can be a wonderful, educating thing. But it can also be something that’s accidentally irresponsible.

People have been using it to report false things. People have been using it to spread hate to minorities. Like any free speech “thing”, they’ve been using it exactly how they’re allowed to use it. Combine how it’s been a positive and how it’s been a negative, and when this is all over, we’ll have hundreds of interesting classes to teach and lessons to learn about the future of news and journalism and everything. Repeat: when this is all over.

Just…not now. Let’s not take time right now to waste breath on how “pathetic” the dinosaurs of media are for not getting things 115% right, right away RIGHT NOW. Let’s not take this time to say how horrible they are at their jobs. They, just like you, are a bunch of humans who, believe it or not, need to sleep from time to time. And eat. And they may have family in this. And they may, just like you, be human beings who are struggling to understand what’s happening. So for now, let’s just make a deal.

Let’s be hippies. For this moment, let’s just be positive, and tell the people we love that we love them. Let’s tell people we DON’T love that we love them. Let’s not be a republican or a democrat. Someone who’s NEENER NEENER for guns or someone who’s NEENER NEENER against them. Just…stop. It doesn’t matter if the people who did this were white, or black, or brown, or yellow or pink polka dot-ed. They aren’t nice people, and the rest of “all of the people” should come together to prove that we don’t care about that part.

Be thankful that we’re okay, and more importantly, that in horrible times, we can be reminded that Americans are inherently good. We take care of our friends, our family, and the smelly guy on the bus. We take care of Americans, because we believe in each other and the country we live in.

Let’s be thankful that right now, in the midst of everything terrible, we’re just a bunch of people who want to make sure that everyone who is a person is okay.

We can talk about all of that other stuff later. Okay? Just, not now.

Be a hippie for a minute, guys. Send your thoughts and prayers and anything else’s to everyone who’s been affected and to the state of Massachusetts.

We’re with you, Boston. We’re with you.

Episode 9: I hope this cave doesn’t abandon me because people have before, so who knows. 

Where We Left Off

Last week, Sean lowered the self-esteem of 1 more woman, bringing the women-he-could-marry-on-TV total down to 3.

The girl who was declared “not the prettiest princess” was:

Dez, because her brother was not a good choice, like milk.

Sean had hometown dates with each of the remaining girls, in which he asked each of their parents if he could have their daughter’s hand in marriage, because on television that’s how marriage works.

On AshLee’s (the girl who was adopted and we are supposed to talk about it), he found out she’s not going to take it well when she doesn’t get picked to win the televised round robin marriage tournament because adoption adoption, crying, adoption.

On Catherine’s (the vegan who likes the beef), he probably should have stolen a lamp because that was the best thing he had going.

On Lindsay’s (the girl who wore a wedding dress on a first date), he found out that Lindsay is probably more into role playing than the wedding dress led on.

And on Dez’s (the bridal stylist who has never been bridal’d), he found out Matt Saracen is a real person and that he does not like the television show The Bachelor.

Other than that, we mostly just found out that Missouri doesn’t know how green lights work.

This week we’re down to the final three women, which means they will fly somewhere normal people cannot afford to vacation so that one person can find out on national television that more than one person is more appealing to get married to than they are.

–

General Recap

We open on a shot of Sean standing on the edge of a boat in Thailand as incredibly racist “this is Asian-ish” music plays, because he’s in an Asian-ish place.

I worry about how Sean sustained an injury to his knee, though I can only imagine it was from all of the sweet reps he was doing on the muscles machines.

Sean walks through the forest in a shirt that has sleeves, but then realizes that Sean doesn’t wear sleeves, so he changes before he walks through the hotel.

All of that sleeveless walking makes Sean tired, so he takes a nap to think about love and how hard it is.

Mostly I’m just happy that he finally bought a pair of fucking sunglasses.

–

I feel like Thailand is all around us in Thailand.

Sean and Lindsay, the girl who wore a wedding dress on a first date, take the first date and go to a Thai market, where they look into buying things like colored chicks. It seems like I’m being wildly racist in typing that. I am not.

Lindsay says that they’ve been on luxurious dates like helicopter rides and other amazing things, but that she’s excited to go on a normal date like going to a market because that’s what normal people do. Sadly, Lindsay leaves out the part where normal people also pay for things like the entire vacation and everything they buy at the market in real life and ABC does not.

Sean makes Lindsay eat bugs, because Lindsay doesn’t want to and I wouldn’t be surprised if Sean then kicked her in the shins and ran off of the playground because that was his way of showing her he liked her.

Sean says that when he’s with Lindsay that he feels like he’s with his high school sweetheart and that that’s what he’s looking for in a marriage, and see? Shin kick/playground/you’re the best.

They kiss and Sean says “Mm! Know what I mean?” and Lindsay says, “Trust me, I know what you mean,” and that’s how Christians tell each other that they want to have sex.

They walk to a beautiful beach and stumble upon a giant group of monkeys at sunset. The monkeys turn and look at them, as though saying, “you have GOT to be fucking kidding me.”

They feed the monkeys grapes, and I notice that Sean is wearing underpants under his swimsuit, which makes me angry because that is redundant, as swimsuits are already underpants.

Sean says that he’s asking himself, “Could this girl be my wife?” and I hope so, Sean, as that is the entire point of the television show.

For dinner, Sean takes Lindsay to It’s A Small World, but Thailand.

Sean could use an astringent.

Sean asks if she’d be willing to move to Dallas, to which she responds that she has everything open, and even Sean sort of looks like he’s thinking about saying, “that’s what she said.”

Dancers come out as music plays, and Lindsay says that all of the sudden, Thailand is all around them, and who knows what’s been around them before that sudden.

Lindsay opens the letter that explains to them that they can stay together in the fantasy suite and has an awful lot of trouble reading it, and all of the sudden it dawns on me why she just can’t seem to shake that “substitute” in front of the word “teacher” in her job title.

Lindsay says “I love you” to Sean, and then Sean says “I love hearing you say that,” and that’s sort of like telling someone “you are the best” and hearing them say “I know, right?”

We see the lights of the room still on, though we’re all pretty sure that Lindsay’s dignity is taken off swiftly inside.

–

I hope this cave doesn’t abandon me because people have before, so who knows. 

Sean talks about how AshLee, the girl who was adopted (and we are supposed to talk about it), has said a lot of times that she loves him, followed by her saying that she is on an island with the love of her life within 45 seconds of the beginning of her segment.

I finally realize that she’s basically just Stacey from Wayne’s World.

She says that she’s just this school girl in love, and I think about how funny it’d be if she was basically Drew Barrymore from the film 50 First Dates and just wakes up every day thinking she’s still in high school and honestly believes that Sean is the guy she married when she was 17.

She then says some iteration of the word “love” five times in under 10 seconds, and I begin to wonder what it’s like when she tries a food she likes or hears a song that she enjoys.

Sean tells her that they are going to go swimming in a cave, and she brings up the fact that her parents abandoned her as a child, and that has nothing to do with swimming in a cave because caves cannot adopt you, nor can they abandon you.

As they enter the cave, she says she’s more vulnerable than she’s been in her entire life, and that’s not true because adoption.

She says that the cave is scary, but that that’s what love is like. That when you’re in love, it’s like you’re going down this dark alleyway, and if she was describing love to a child they would start crying maniacally.

She says that in this situation, you have to let go, otherwise you don’t fall in love, and I worry that AshLee might be a scosh hyperbolic.

AshLee says that if Sean proposed to her today there is no doubt in her mind that she would say yes, and I’m really hoping that when he does not pick her, they do a split screen and show a parent telling a child that Santa Claus isn’t real because the reaction might be identical.

ABC advertises the show Wife Swap during the show where people are trying to marry someone  in a round robin marriage tournament, and that’s funny.

AshLee talks about how the overnight date is the one thing she’s been worried about on the show, which is strange, because I feel as though she’s barely come short of blaming inanimate objects about her fear of abandonment.

She talks about marriage and why she is still single and says, “you know, why settle? I’m glad I waited!” which is an odd thing for someone to say who got married at the age of 17 because that is the opposite of waiting, and/or not settling.

She says that she doesn’t take getting engaged lightly and the same exact joke as the previous sentence because it’s still funny and getting engaged at the age of 17 is, in fact, taking getting engaged lightly.

He invites her to the fantasy suite, and though hesitant, she allows him to adopt her for the night. She tells him as they sit there her exact ring size and what she’d like her ring to look like, and Sean must know in this exact moment that he’s made an adopted grave mistake.

–

I’d marry you. Also, I mayyyy have an eating disorder. 

For the third time in one episode, Sean stands on the end of a boat just like he saw in the hit film Titanic, and finally someone bites and Catherine, the vegan who likes the beef, does the “I’m the king of the world” joke and I think to myself how happy I am that I don’t date people who would make that joke.

Catherine says that this is the most open she’s been with anyone for 3 1/2 years, and that’s a very specific amount of time and I wonder if someone else that she didn’t know had a tree fall on them around then.

They kiss in the water, and I wish someone would wipe the camera.

They get out of the water and he just slowly eats her face.

She talks about how going into the fantasy suite is tough for her, because she’s more traditional when it comes to relationships, which has been made pretty clear by coming on national television to find a relationship. She says that she would have to put a “different” side of herself out there in the suite, because “different” is better than saying “if we go into a hotel room, I’m going to have tons of sex,” on national television.

She tells Sean with a straight face that she hopes he understands that she doesn’t only like him because he’s hunky and beefy, and I feel that the Catherine who used to say that she loved the beef is betraying herself.

She says that she’s been made fun of all her life, that people would say “oh you’re chubby, you eat too much,” and this seems like the wrong time to casually bring up eating disorders.

We watch two attractive people talk about how much they like each other, and then we presume that they have tons of attractive people sex.

–

Adopted adopted, adopted, adopted? Adopted WAIT WHAT THE FUCK.

Sean watches videos each of the girls made telling him how much they love him, and adopted adopted, adopted cries in hers because jesus, she is the absolute fucking worst.

Sean eliminates AshLee, and maybe I was wrong about who was the bunny killer all along.

ELIMINATED:

AshLee, because adoption adoption I LOVE YOU adoption DIE BUNNY adoption. Adoption.

FRONTRUNNER:

Lindsay, because she doesn’t know what a helicopter is, but who are we kidding, neither does Sean.

Rocket Shoes Mixtape 68: Songs that you should consider adopting.

STREAM IT at the links below:

DISC 1

DISC 2

DOWNLOAD ALL OF THE MP3′s at the links below:

DISC 1

DISC 2

See you guys for the finale.

Last week, I did not review Episode 8. I woke up on Tuesday to someone whom I love very much having the day Tierra only dreams of having: a real medical problem that didn’t come from being batshit crazy.

Because of this, there just wasn’t a lot of funny haha in me and I needed to take the time to take care of her, because she’s the best and I didn’t meet her on national television, nor do I give her roses after every time that I see her to signify to her that I still like her and am not going to eliminate her from consideration in my life.

In other words: life got in the way of me being a snarky asshole on the Internet.

I wanted to say thanks to everyone who wrote or commented that actually seemed to miss me writing about this ridiculous show. That’s not just some self-deprecating bullshit: it’s crazy that something that sort of started out as a huge joke has turned into something I really love to do. You have no idea how cool it is to know that you’re making people…strangers laugh. Just know that I read every last thing you guys write me and I hope we can keep doing this for however many seasons these people humiliate themselves on national television.  You’re all just the goddamn best.

I’ll do a full recap about tonight’s episode on Wednesday. In the meantime, below is the “i’m putting in a 1% effort just so we don’t miss a full week” version of the usual ones just to catch us all up. See you in a few days.

Episode 8: My white trash brother hates you and asked you to “holler at him.” Want to get married?

Where We Left Off

Last week, Sean lowered the self-esteem of 2 more women, bringing the women-he-could-marry-on-TV total down to 4.

The girls who were declared “not the prettiest princess” were:

Tierra, because Sean couldn’t take her sparkle.

And Leslie, because there were no more dark rooms to kiss in.

Sean had one-on-one dates with Ashlee, the girl who was adopted (and we are supposed to talk about it) and Tierra. In one he found out that the girl who was adopted also got married when she was in high school (which was like a red flag hatching and waving its own red flag) and in the other he found out that a girl couldn’t make proper statements grammar complete sentence making. Other than that, Tierra told everyone she couldn’t control her face and that she had a sparkle that her parents didn’t want her to lose on national television.

It’s time for hometowns, where Sean goes to meet everyone’s family and asks four fathers for their daughter’s hand in marriage, because that’s how real love works and is in no way sleazy. I will go over general takeaways from each briefly, but that’s about it.

This week, we’ve been promised that AshLee is in love are you listening she’s in love she’ll tell you again she’s in love, Dez’s brother was a poor choice for a dinner party guest because he uses the term “holler” unironically, and that Sean goes through an emotional roller coaster.

As opposed to an unemotional one.

–

I’m in love, I’m in love, I’m in love? I’m in love! I’m in love. Wet blanket. Adopted.

The first hometown date was with AshLee, the girl who was adopted (and we are supposed to talk about it).

We opened on a shot of a Texas Flag on a street named Texas, followed by a sign that says “Welcome to Houston” because Houston is in Texas and they wanted to make sure that we all knew that we were in Texas, no, seriously, Texas.

The rest of her portion of the episode was made up of various quotes that verified that AshLee is going to become incredibly unstable if/when Sean does not choose her to win the round robin television marriage tournament. Unstable quote highlights include:

- “Before I met Sean, I thought I knew what love was, I had no clue!” (Which we were aware of, because she married a guy when she was 17. So.)

- “I’ve stepped out of my comfort zone because he said to trust him.” (And everyone knows that it’s a good idea to trust someone who is meeting the parents of the three other girls he’s dating immediately following your date.)

- “I need him to be the one.” (I’m out of red flags.)

Other than that, AshLee cries when she talks about swimming in Canada, because swimming is hard and sad and she’s adopted.

They blur a picture of a Chevy logo on a car, which is like blurring a McDonald’s sign or calling it Smichshmonald’s to throw us off.

And that is not AshLee’s adopted father’s natural hair color.

Mostly, I’m just upset that she didn’t organize any closets while she was home.

–

You’re willing to do stuff? I’M willing to do stuff!

The second hometown date was with Catherine, the vegan who likes the beef.

They meet at a fish market and throw fish, because she’s from Seattle and that’s what everyone in Seattle does with their free time.

Catherine says that Sean is always “willing to do stuff” and that’s what she really likes about him, and I feel like Catherine’s standards could be a bit more specific, and/or higher.

Her family has a sweet crane lamp, and I think about how if I were Sean? I’d steal that.

Catherine’s grandma makes some weird faces.

Her sisters tell Sean that it’s probably not going to work out because they are the worst sisters ever, and Catherine’s mom doesn’t give Sean her blessing for Catherine’s hand in marriage because she seems to agree with the people watching the TV that maybe, just maybe, Sean is seeing other people. And mothers.

–

My Dad is a drill sergeant, let’s pretend I’m a drill sergeant because I’m probably a pretty huge freak. 

The third hometown date was with Lindsay, the girl who wore a wedding dress on a first date.

She says she has never been so happy in her whole entire life, and that concerns me, because dating someone who is dating up to 25 other people shouldn’t be something that creates said amount of happy.

Her town has a green light system that tells you that you can go straight, or right, or left, which is every possible direction and wildly redundant. I do not understand why they did not employ the green light system that the rest of the country/world has, but in a strange way it also explains a lot about Lindsay.

Sean is worried about meeting her father because he’s in the army, so Lindsay pretends to be a drill sergeant to prep him and says a bunch of weird shit like “kiss me harder” because I’m pretty sure she’s super Christian and therefore probably overly sexual because she isn’t allowed to be because God said, “nnnnnO. nnnnO.”

Sean asks her father for his blessing after saying he isn’t sure that he loves his daughter, so logically he says sure.

She’ll probably win, this episode is the worst and I’m bored.

–

This is my brother, white trash Matt Saracen. He hates you. 

The fourth and final hometown date is with Dez, the bridal stylist who has never been bridal’d.

She has him over for dinner and pranks Sean by inviting a guy over who pretends to be her ex-boyfriend, because guys love stuff like that.

After that, Dez invites her family over for dinner, which includes a white trash version of Matt Saracen.

The brother asks Sean if he minds if he “hollers at him real quick” and Sean says “Yeah, buddy,” and I’m surprised no one called each other chief or bro.

Dez’s brother tells Sean that he’s a playboy and that he’s full of shit, and that’s a wildly accurate statement and hey, good for you, white trash Matt Saracen.

They go back inside and Matt Saracen cries, because Friday Night Lights ended and that made us all want to cry, too.

Sean leaves and doesn’t like Dez anymore, because her brother is crazy and/or tells the truth and that’s no fair.

—

My advice is to make the right decision, which is not, in fact, advice. 

At the rose ceremony, Sean is confused so he stares off into the mountains because that’s what Sean does when he is confused.

Sean doesn’t know who to eliminate, so Chris the host tells Sean that his advice is to make the right decision, which is not, in fact, advice.

Sean eliminates Dez, and if I had any sparkle, it’s certainly gone now.

ELIMINATED:

Dez, because her brother was not a good choice, like milk.

SURPRISINGLY NOT ELIMINATED:

AshLee, because adoption adoption I LOVE YOU adoption I LOVE YOU adoption. Adoption.

FRONTRUNNER:

Lindsay, because she doesn’t know what a helicopter is, but who are we kidding, neither does Sean.

See you guys on Wednesday, and sorry for the delay.

Episode 7: I can’t control my eyebrows or my face because mom told me I sparkle.

Where We Left Off

Last week, Sean lowered the self-esteem of 3 more women, bringing the women-he-could-marry-on-TV total down to 6.

The girls who were declared “not the prettiest princess” were:

Sarah, because eventually he did need to talk about her arm.

Daniella, because she thought that a goat was a dog and even Sean isn’t that dumb.

And Selma, because she didn’t like things that were hot, or cold, or anything.

Sean had one-on-one dates with Catherine, the vegan who likes the beef and Dez, the bridal stylist who has never been bridal’d. In one he found out that the girl once saw a tree fall on someone when she was 12 (and it makes her sad now) and in the other he found out that he had taken a girl on a date in a tent who had, in fact, grown up in a tent. Other than that, Tierra almost died from a lack of attention and Sean made a girl with one arm cry.

This week, we’ve been promised that at least two people are going to say “I love you” to someone they just met on television, someone’s going to be blindsided/shattered by the fact that Sean likes the other people that she lives with on the “I like everyone you live with” show, and Tierra and AshLee are going to fight about Tierra’s face.

–

General Recap

We open on a shot of Sean flying in a seaplane with the six girls he has chosen to think about marrying on national television. He says he feels more optimistic than ever that his wife is here, which he says every week, because that’s the whole point of the show.

AshLee, the girl who was adopted (and we are supposed to talk about it), tells us that she wants to look into Sean’s eyes, and go to the beach, and see the sun, and wear a swimsuit, and see him wear a swimsuit, and if you close your eyes it sounds like someone just asked a four year old what they’d like to do today.

Tierra, the girl who is not here to make friends who suffers from Munchausen syndrome, flashes crazy face because why not, it’s been too long.

AshLee gets the first one-on-one date, and it looks like Tierra’s going full batshit earlier than expected.

The date card asks AshLee to get “carried away” with Sean, and she says that every time she’s with Sean she gets carried away, both physically and emotionally. Get it? Because he picked her up in the last episode.

Oh, AshLee. You adopted jokester.

–

I got married when I was in high school. I love you. Adopted.

For their one-on-one, AshLee and Sean are getting their own private catamaran that is going to take them to their own private island.

AshLee has gold crap on her pants, and it bothers me because I’m just a heterosexual male, doin’ heterosexual things like watching The Bachelor on a Monday night.

Because we’re five minutes into the episode, AshLee decides that it’s time to talk about being adopted again and cries, because adopted adopted, adopted.

I realize that AshLee organizes things professionally for a living, so I guess it’s either conversations about adoption or conversations about the one time she totally organized the shit out of a closet.

She talks about how she has trust issues, and I think about how it’s a good thing she came on the “I hope you don’t have trust issues, because man are you gonna be fucked up after this” show.

They lay on a beach and AshLee talks about how Tierra is the worst. Sean spends most of the time trying to get AshLee to notice his sweet, sweet bi’s.

They casually lay in the sand making out, and I worry that the tide is getting to high and I’d like them to be careful.

AshLee says that there are moments when they look at each other and their eyes connect, and that’s how looking at another person works.

Sean says that the date has been fun, sexy and romantic, and then runs out of adjectives because words are hard.

He says he hasn’t felt this way about this girl in a long time. I think about how it would be funny if the whole show were actually an elaborate joke, and in a twist ending it turned out Sean was actually a guy with Alzheimer’s.

At dinner, AshLee tells Sean that she got married when she was a teenager, because who saw the adopted girl having dependency issues coming. Sean says he’s okay with it, but makes a face that says, “I am actually pretty not okay with it.”

To diffuse the fact that she may or may not have just scared the shit out of him, AshLee yells “HELLO ST. CROIX!” because Sean loves to yell the name of the place he is in. He yells it, too, because Sean is an animal that has to make a noise if he hears one.

She then yells “I LOVE YOU SEAN!” because that’s the best way to make a guy think that you don’t have dependency issues.

She continues to tell him that she loves him over and over again, and it’s starting to seem like the girl with one-arm had less baggage.

At least she’s not adopted, in which case you could see how someone telling you that they didn’t want you on national television might scar you for life.

–

My heart is racing that there is a distant from you and I’m bad at grammar.

Sean says that he’s excited for his one-on-one date with Tierra because he has a lot of questions for her, and a lot of questions about her, and that’s how dates work so it sounds like he’s got a real head start.

Tierra says, “my heart is racing that I’m with Sean,” and that’s not a complete sentence.

They go shopping for the day and buy things like matching necklaces and infinity bracelets because Tierra is a grown-up.

They talk about the other girls in the house, and it becomes clear to Tierra that AshLee said mean things about her to Sean, and that makes Tierra boil-a-bunny upset.

For the most part the date is boring, because when Tierra’s not dying of something, it turns out she’s just white trash.

Dramatic waves crash in, because dramatic things are happening.

Tierra tells Sean that earlier in the day, “there was a little distant from you,” and that’s not proper grammar, or a saying, or anything.

Sean tells her that the drama with the girls has set them back a little. To signify this, we are shown more dramatic waves.

Tierra tells Sean that she’s falling in love with him, and they walk down the beach like normal people.

We all wonder when she’s going to get a disease or murder someone again, because once a girl has gotten fake hypothermia, everything else is a bit of a let down.

–

The girl who wore a wedding dress on the first date is the frontrunner right now. Let that sink in for a minute.

The group date is with Catherine, the vegan who likes the beef, Dez, the bridal stylist who has never been bridal’d and Lindsay, the girl who wore a wedding dress on a first date. Sean sneaks into their hotel room early in the morning and takes pictures of them, because there’s nothing creepy about that at all.

Sean tells them that they have five minutes to get ready and then they have to go.

Catherine says that it’s fine because she is low maintenance, and then goes to grab her electronic toothbrush that she’s roughing it with.

Their date consists of seeing the sunrise before anyone else in the world, road tripping across a tropical island and watching a sunset on the other side of it.

One of the girls says that it is the perfect date, and it’s the first time someone hasn’t been hyperbolic on this show, ever.

Along the way, they go to a treehouse and Dez gives Sean a big boy push on a swing, because whooo’s a big boy? Seeean’s a big boy.

They head to the beach to wait for the sun to set and HOLY SHIT LOOK AT THAT PELICAN DIVE BOMB.

Lindsay, the girl who wore a wedding dress on a first date, runs up to Sean to jump into his arms, and we’re all afraid that he might just take her out.

Catherine tells Sean that her dad won’t be there to meet him if he decides to keep her on for the hometown dates because he tried to commit suicide when she was a child. I wonder to myself if, maybe, just maybe, this was the story she should have gone with earlier instead of talking about watching a tree fall on a girl she didn’t know at camp when she was 12. But, tomato/tomahto, suicidal father/tree falling on camp girl.

She looks sad.

But then she see’s a dolphin, and everything’s ok.

Lindsay’s reverse-crazy psychology officially works, and Sean gives her the rose. To be clear: the girl who wore a wedding dress on a first date is in the final four, and one of the only girls who hasn’t said I love you.

In a Usual Suspects-like moment, I completely respect her for Kaiser Soze’ing the shit out of everyone.

–

Let’s pick fruit before you dump me.

Sean heads in to his one-on-one with Leslie, the girl he sits in dark rooms with, saying that he’s not feeling it, which makes sense because she’s the only one who wasn’t:

- Adopted.

- Raised in a tent.

- Someone who showed up to a first date in a wedding dress.

- Someone who deemed a tree falling on a stranger when they were 12 a life turning point.

They are going to pick fruit in what Leslie deems to be their, “own secret garden”, which she says is her dream come true, which is too specific of a dream to come true and I do not believe her.

She says that the more she sees Sean, the better she gets to know him, and I wonder if she’s been blown away by every human interaction she’s ever had her whole life.

She then says that their relationship has been a natural progression, and that that’s the best way to go about a relationship.

If she told us that having milk in your cereal was good, because that was the best way to go about having cereal, I wouldn’t even blink.

A cat walks by, and I miss Sean yelling “CROATIA!” in Croatia, and also realize I’ve watched way too much of this shit in the past year.

Even though she feels like she’s falling in love with him (which is a natural progression of a relationship), she decides not to tell him, and they instead enjoy an out of focus kiss on a sunny trail, because there are no dark rooms in paradise.

Before they head to commercial, we see a preview of Tierra making this face.

And everything is right in the world again.

–

I can’t control my face, or my eyebrows, or my “I’m crazy.”

Back at the hotel, Tierra and AshLee begin to argue because Tierra believes that AshLee sabotaged her date with Sean, because she did.

AshLee tells her that if she wants to get nitty gritty, she’ll get nitty gritty, and apparently nitty gritty means tons of puppet hands.

After telling AshLee that all of the other girls talk shit about her behind her back, Tierra shows her that two can play at that game and says that she’s done with the conversation with an abrupt close of HER puppet mouth.

AshLee tells all of the other girls what Tierra just said, and Tierra walks in the room and says that she never said that, like a kid who audibly farted and then said that they did not.

At this point, Adopted AshLee psychologically owns Tierra, and we get to watch her go full batshit and unravel like a bitch version of the incredible hulk. Some highlights:

- AshLee tells her that she constantly walks into rooms and raises her eyebrows, to which Tierra responds, “That’s my face, AshLee. I can’t help that.” Which she could, in fact, help.

- AshLee brings up the fact that Tierra said that her parents were worried about her coming on the show because she can’t get along with other girls, to which Tierra responds, “I didn’t say that, I said that my parents said that I have a sparkle, do not let those girls take your sparkle away” because that’s how you show everyone how gwown up you are on the pwetty pwetty pwincess show.

- AshLee tells her that the look on her face isn’t nice, to which Tierra responds, “I CAN’T CONTROL MY EYEBROW. I CANNOT CONTROL MY EYEBROW. I CANNOT CONTROL MY FACE” and all of those statements are false, because it’s your face, and some would argue that faces are the most controllable.

Tierra leaves the room crying, and even this Iguana can’t believe what’s going on.

Sean comes in to find Tierra, and she cries and says that AshLee sabotaged their connection.

In this moment it’s as though Sean catches a glimpse of the boiling bunny rabbit in his future, and it’s with sadness that Tierra is sent home.

She rides off into the sunset and says that she told herself coming onto the show that no one would take her sparkle away.

As she goes, I feel as though she’s taken mine with her.

–

Tierra’s gone, who cares.

At the rose ceremony, Sean lets the girls know that he sent Tierra home because he’s not looking for someone who brings the drama. In this moment, I realize Sean’s the guy who would say that he’s looking for a roommate who “doesn’t bring the party home” in a craigslist ad.

Leslie gets sent home, and oh who cares, I checked out the minute the crazy left the party in the van.

ELIMINATED:

Tierra, because Sean couldn’t take her sparkle.

Leslie, because there were no more dark rooms to kiss in.

SURPRISINGLY NOT ELIMINATED:

AshLee, because adoption adoption I LOVE YOU adoption I LOVE YOU adoption. Adoption.

FRONTRUNNERS:

Lindsay, because she doesn’t know what a helicopter is, but who are we kidding, neither does Sean.

Catherine, because SHE’S the cutest.

Dez, because wait no SHE’S the cutest again.

See you next week, everyone.

Episode 6: I’m dying of hypothermia. Just kidding, I’m fucking crazy!

Where We Left Off

Yesterday, Sean lowered the self-esteem of 2 more women, bringing the women-he-could-marry-on-TV total down to 9.

The girls who were declared “not the prettiest princess” were:

Jackie, because oh who cares.

And Robyn, because a black woman can only go so far on this show, even if they’re kinda white.

Sean had a one-on-one dates with Lindsay, the girl who wore a wedding dress on a first date and a two-on-one date with Tierra, the girl who is not here to make friends who suffers from Munchausen syndrome and Jackie, the girl who may as well have been a hamburger consultant. In one he found out that the girl doesn’t know what a helicopter is and in the other he found out a girl had more red flags than we could have ever imagined and therefore decided to continue pursuing her. Other than that, a girl thought a goat was a dog, another drank a cup of goats milk to prove her love for Sean, and everyone would like Tierra to die in a fire.

In the second of the back-to-back episodes, we’ve been promised that someone may or may not die of hypothermia towards the end of the episode because she went in a frozen lake and no, seriously, they’re gonna show us this time and if they don’t we are all just going to fucking snap.

–

General Recap

We open on a shot of Sean standing on top of a mountain talking about how he’s having some doubts about finding a wife on national television, and I wonder why the whole “I already tried to marry someone on television once and it didn’t work out” thing wasn’t a scosh of a red flag for him.

The girls are meeting Sean in Lake Louise, which is in Alberta, Canada / possibly heaven.

I think to myself how I’d really like to travel there, but worry that when people ask me why I went there I’d say, “because I saw it on The Bachelor,” and then no one would like me, ever.

As the girls arrive, they blur out the location of their hotel, as though it is a secret we cannot know.

Approximately 42 seconds later, they show us a giant sign with the name of the hotel. So.

We find out that the first one-on-one date is going to be Catherine, the vegan who likes the beef. Daniella, the girl that no one really cares about who is terrible at volleyball, is sad because Sean has asked every single person in the televised round robin marriage tournament on a date except her. Even people he eliminated.

I feel bad for her for a second because that is, in fact, embarrassing. But then a friend sends me this video and nope, don’t feel bad anymore.

–

Once when I was 12, I saw a tree fall on someone I didn’t know so I’m sad sometimes.

Before their date, Sean has Catherine, the vegan who likes the beef, stand out in the middle of a frozen tundra because, romance.

Sean pics her up in a snow bus, which is apparently a thing.

They drive to the top of a mountain and Sean brings the vehicle to a complete stop, then grabs the walkie talkie on the bus and says, “please stay seated until the vehicle comes to a complete stop” because Sean doesn’t understand physics or how to tell good jokes.

For the rest of the day, they do handstands and summersaults and make snow angels and no YOU’RE the cutest, NO YOU’RE the cutest.

Later that night, they go to a castle made of ice because he is a prince and she is the princess.

Sean says, “Catherine and I are in this insane ice castle, just surrounded by ice.” I feel like someone off camera just said, “Sean, can you tell us what’s INSIDE the ice castle?” and he answered correctly and then got a treat.

This part of a one-on-one is usually where the girl tells a sad story about being adopted, or how she had her heart broken. Catherine seemingly doesn’t have anything sad to talk about, so she tells him about this one time when she was at camp and a tree fell on a girl in front of her and died. She says that this made her want to grow up and get married and have a family, and those two things have nothing to do with each other.

In real life, if a girl told you a story about seeing a tree fall on someone they didn’t know when they were twelve on a second date, then started crying, you’d run for the fucking hills. But they’re in an ice castle.

It doesn’t matter though, because no YOU’RE the cutest. Sean gives her the rose and eats her face.

–

Help, I’m dying of making up things I’m dying of to not get eliminated from a televised dating show.

It’s time for the group date, and from the previews what we’re all hoping is the part where Tierra starts dying of hypothermia, and/or Munchausen’s.

Sean meets the girls for the date and tells them that they’re going to be canoeing across a lake, and Sarah, the girl who has one arm (but we’re not supposed to talk about it) just canNOT catch a break. Surprisingly, she paddles the shit out of that canoe, and deep down we’re all pretty stoked for one arm.

Leslie, the girl Sean sits in dark rooms with, gets to ride in Sean’s Canoe, and that makes Selma angry, and we all know that when Selma gets angry she gets angry.

She says that she wishes a shark would just pop out of the lake to eat her, and sharks don’t exist in lakes.

The girls find out they’re going to do the polar bear plunge and jump in the lake.

Selma, the girl who looks like Princess Jasmine, says that she comes from Baghdad and that she’s a warm weather person, and therefore won’t do the plunge because she hates the cold. When she was in a desert, she said she hated deserts because she was from Bahgdad, and she also has fake breasts and came on a show where you kiss boys and said she couldn’t kiss boys and it turns out Selma is just the worst. She is the fucking worst.

After they all jump in and get out happily, Tierra gets out of the water and begins to go full Munchausen, and this time it’s hypothermia.

It goes through many stages.

1. Gollum.

2. I’m dying and this is my last breath.

3. Wrapped in a hobo bag.

4. Zombie

5. Hobo in a wheelchair.

6. Homeless pirate with a latte.

Sean comes to visit her and laughs about how this is the third time she’s had medical attention since being on the show, and she says, “after the ambulance came I thought ‘this guy better marry me!’”

Sean notes that she always finds ways to get one on one time with him and then stares off into the distance as though he’s finally putting it together. He tells her not to come to the rest of the date that evening.

Sarah, the girl who has one arm (but we’re not supposed to talk about it), brings pictures of her family to the cocktail party and tells Sean that she’d like him to meet her parents, because who doesn’t say stuff like that on a second date that you’re sharing with 8 other women that he’s interested in.

Like clockwork, Tierra puts on her crazy pants and heads to the date anyway, and all of the girls want her to die in a fire.

Leslie, the girl Sean sits in dark rooms with, says that, “we have a Tierrorist on our hands” and that’s funny.

Lindsay, the girl who wore a wedding dress on a first date, says that Tierra is too young to get married to Sean, and Lindsay and Tierra are the exact same age.

Sean gives the rose to Leslie, and Tierra makes the “I’m gonna go stab and boil some bunnies” face.

Back at the hotel, Sean decides to send Sarah, the girl who has one arm (but we’re not supposed to talk about it), home. He states that it was because she showed him her family photos, but we’re all pretty sure that it probably has to do with that whole “you’ve got one arm” thing.

Sarah cries a lot, it’s really depressing, and I’m not going to post pictures of it because she seems like a real human being in this moment and I’m a terrible person.

However, I breathe a sigh of relief, as now there are only girls with two arms on the show, and that means that it’s open season again.

–

No I’M the cutest. NO I’M the cutest.

Before Dez, the bridal stylist who has never been bridal’d, goes on her one-on-one date with Sean, Daniella, the girl that no one really cares about who is terrible at volleyball, wonders out loud why Dez is on a second one-on-one date when she hasn’t even had one. I wish someone would say to her, “because you think that goats are dogs.”

Dez and Sean repel down a mountain.

Dez says that it’s a lot like a relationship, because it starts scary and then it’s difficult and hard, and apparently Dez has only been in the most depressing relationships ever.

As though Dez knows that Catherine, the vegan who likes the beef, is on her heels for being the cutest, she climbs a tree with Sean and then they both yell “HELLOOOO CANADAAA” at the top because Sean loves to yell the name of the place he is in and wait now DEZ is the cutest again.

They finish their date in a teepee, as though to say, “fuck your ice castle, Catherine.”

She tells him that when she was growing up she was so poor that her family used to live in tents often, and I bet Sean feels pretty awkward about the fact that he took her on a date in a tent.

He asks her what she wants and she says, “a family,” and he says, “You want a family? I WANT a family!” and then gives her the rose.

They kiss in the shadows, because it is the closest Sean can get to darkness.

–

Blindfold me, adopted adopted. Adopted.

Back at the rose ceremony, Selma decides that though she doesn’t have the courage to jump in a lake, she does have the courage to shame her family on national television and kisses Sean like she’s in middle school.

He doesn’t give her a rose, so that was probably worth it.

Because it’s been a while since adopted adopted, adopted, AshLee says that she wants to relinquish control to Sean and asks him to blindfold her. She then tells him to take her to another room because it’s a metaphor for walking a blind path together or some shit, and then she cries while he kisses her like Christian Grey.

I am beginning to hate AshLee, and realize that’s going to be difficult when she probably wins.

ELIMINATED:

Sarah, because eventually he did need to talk about her arm.

Daniella, because she thinks that a goat is a dog and even Sean isn’t that dumb.

Selma, because she doesn’t like things that are hot, or cold, or anything.

SURPRISINGLY NOT ELIMINATED:

Tierra, because she is fucking crazy.

FRONTRUNNERS:

Catherine, because SHE’S the cutest.

Dez, because wait no SHE’S the cutest again.

Lindsay, because she doesn’t know what a helicopter is, but who are we kidding, neither does Sean.

AshLee, because adoption adoption adoption, adoption adoption. Adoption.

See you next week.

Episode 5: Drink this goats milk and I’ll love only you. Just kidding, I love everyone you live with also.

Where We Left Off

Last week, Sean lowered the self-esteem of 2 more women, bringing the women-he-could-marry-on-TV total down to 11.

The girls who were declared “not the prettiest princess” were:

Leslie, the girl who said she was a poker dealer because she played one on TV once.

And Amanda, the girl who broke her jaw who used to look angry in front of fireplaces.

Sean had one-on-one dates with Leslie, the girl who said she was a poker dealer because she played one on TV once and Selma, the girl who looks like Princess Jasmine. In one he wasn’t allowed to kiss a girl with fake breasts because she has morals and in the other he let a girl realize her dream of pretending to be a prostitute that she saw in a movie once. Other than that, he took a one-armed girl roller skating and Tierra, the girl who is not here to make friends who suffers from Munchausen’s, acted like a gremlin in an alleyway.

This week, we’re getting two nights of episodes back-to-back, because God hates me and wants me to write over 6,000 words in two days. We’ve been promised that someone may or may not die of hypothermia towards the end of the episode because she went in a frozen lake and honestly, does anything else even matter?

–

General Recap

We open on a shot of HOLY FUCK, WHAT HAPPENED TO SELMA’S FACE.

The girls and Sean are headed to Montana because Sean likes the outdoors and whatever Sean likes, the pretty pretty princesses need to like, too.

Daniella, the girl that no one really cares about who is terrible at volleyball, says she’s, “looking forward to seeing her boyfriend!” and then does this.

This would pretty much assure anyone else of never getting laid, ever, but this is a competition to marry the guy who yells the name of the place he is so that everyone knows where he is, so anything is possible, really.

Catherine, the vegan who likes the beef, says her name, and then Sean’s name, and then says the name of the state they are going to and makes a shape of a heart with her body to signify that they will be in love in the place she just said, because she is a grown up.

Tierra, the girl who is not here to make friends who suffers from Munchausen syndrome, says that she hopes to get a one-on-one date and says that she’s been patient. In the last episode, she hid in an alley like a fucking gremlin waiting for Sean to open a door so she could pop out at him, which is, in fact, the opposite of patience.

Lindsay, the girl who wore a wedding dress on a first date, is told that she will have the only one-on-one date of the episode and then cries. I wonder to myself what happens when they tell her that her table is ready at a restaurant, or when the barista calls her name at a coffee shop.

AshLee, the girl who was adopted (and we are supposed to talk about it) gets angry because only adopted girls are supposed to get one-on-one dates.

Sean and Lindsay walk outside and see a helicopter in a gigantic open field. Lindsay asks, “Is that a helicopter?” and I can see how it could be a little confusing.

They get in and take off, and the other girls point at the helicopter in amazement, and I’m wondering if anyone has ever seen a helicopter before.

They all wave at the helicopter like children wave at airplanes. Or birds. Or anything else that has no idea that they’re waving at it.

—

I think I know you, but I’m not ready to commit to that.

Sean tells the girl who wore a wedding dress on a first date that he likes her so much because she’s not high maintenance as she sits wearing outlandish amounts of makeup on a mountaintop, and my head almost explodes.

She says she feels like she knows him, and he says that he thinks he knows her, too. No one is for certain, though.

Sean then squints like he did in every episode of the show he was on six months ago where he tried to get married to someone, so he must be feeling pretty comfortable again.

Instagram picture.

Lindsay says that she doesn’t know what brought her here, or what led her here, or how this even happened.

A helicopter brought her here, a casting agency led her here, and it happened when she auditioned for a televised round robin marriage tournament.

They make out a bunch and talk about how they’re really getting to know each other, even though they haven’t gotten to know each other.

She gazes up at him exposing a classy tattoo, and he gives her the rose.

They walk outside to dance on a stage while a town stares at them.

He tells her that when he first saw her he thought she was just a crazy girl in a wedding dress. She responds that she thought he was just a crazy boy in a tie, and i’m pretty sure she doesn’t understand how dressing up for a first date works.

She says he’s “very good looking on the eyes,” and that’s not how that saying goes.

–

If a girl with one arm can’t win a hand job contest then I give up.

Selma, the girl who looks like Princess Jasmine, says that she is excited to see her Prince Charming while looking exactly like a genie.

It’s not racist because it’s true.

Sean asks the girls to follow him to a field full of goats. When Daniella, the girl that no one really cares about who is terrible at volleyball, sees them, she asks if they are dogs. To be clear, in this episode, girls have been unsure of what a helicopter and a goat are.

The girls find out they’re going to do a relay race involving a canoe race, using a saw and milking a goat, and it sure is getting hard to have one arm on this show these days.

I think about that and realize, however, that milking a goat is pretty much simulating a really intense hand job, and in a bizarro twist of fate? Maybe Sarah, the girl who has one arm (but we’re not supposed to talk about it) was born for this.

It turns out Dez, the bridal stylist who has never been bridal’d, is really good at milking a goat, and I can’t tell if that is a turn on or horrifying.

She then chugs a glass of the goats milk and if you did the thing where you closed your eyes and then opened them real fast again, you could absolutely mistake this for porn.

The girls find out that even though the team that lost was supposed to go home and not join the other girls on the rest of the date, Sean is going to invite them anyway, and that’s no fair.

Selma speaks in the third person and says that when Selma gets angry, Selma gets angry, which seems like a pretty straightforward analysis of getting angry.

Tierra, the girl who is not here to make friends who suffers from Munchausen syndrome, puts on her crazy pants extra early and decides to crash the date that she has not been invited to. Instead of just casually walking in, she does what she does best and sneaks up on Sean like Stacey from Wayne’s World.

Tierra acts batshit crazy and talks about how she decided to go on the date she wasn’t invited to because she needed to see the guy she’s dating.

For the first time ever, Sean looks horrified, and it’s about fucking time, man. Hide your rabbits.

Sean says that when he’s with Catherine, the vegan who likes the beef, he just wants to snuggle with her, because that’s what men say on national television.

She continues to be the cutest (no SHE’S the cutest) and I’m worried Dez is starting to lose a little ground.

Daniella, the girl that no one really cares about who is terrible at volleyball, cries because she saw Sean talking to other girls and it huwted hew feewings.

Dez tells her she’s here for her, and boy is Dez doing it wrong, because I think everyone has been making it pretty clear that they are here for Sean.

Daniella tells Sean how huwted hew feewings are and says “like” like, seven times. Like.

She then, like, gets the rose, and jesus fucking christ we have to see her for at least another episode.

–

I’m crazy because my ex-boyfriend was a drug addict who died. So. No red flags there.

As Tierra, the girl who is not here to make friends who suffers from Munchausen syndrome, and Jackie, the girl who could honestly be a hamburger consultant, get ready to go on the 2-on-1 date with Sean, Tierra says that she’s excited to see her husband.

Tierra then says that Jackie doesn’t know that she’s on a date with Tierra and her husband.

Jackie tells Sean that of course she’s not talking shit about Tierra, but talks shit about Tierra.

Sensing Sean has picked up on the fact that she may, in fact, murder him at any given moment, Tierra plays all three of the get-out-of-getting-eliminated cards as they go and talk:

- “Someone I know died.”

- “I have trouble letting people in because I’m such a good person.”

- Crying. So much crying.

She then threatens, “I hope Sean doesn’t hurt me” and makes a look at the camera that says, “You’re right, viewer at home, I am in no way stable.”

The threat works, she gets the rose, and the bunnies are safe for now.

–

Tierra has no friends, she’s the worst, etc.

Dez, the bridal stylist who has never been bridal’d, calls Sean out on keeping charity case girls, and Sean gets angry that she won’t just say that she’s talking about Tierra. He says, “it’s fine if it’s about her, but don’t keep me in the dark,” which is strange because Sean lives for doing everything in the dark.

The girls confront Tierra about being a terrible person, which makes her so angry that she swears a lot.

Tierra says that she is over being on the show. That if she wants to get engaged, she can easily go get engaged, because there are, “plenty of (bleeping) guys in the world.” Sean walks by and hears her talking like a crazy person, so she better think of some Munchausen’s shit fast.

All I can think about is how much beautiful firewood he has access to that he is taking for granted.

My eyeballs bleeding, I begin to realize that I’m mere hours away from watching two more hours of this shit, and I cannot believe how angry I am that they didn’t show Tierra dying of hypothermia yet.

ELIMINATED:

Jackie, because oh who cares.

Robyn, because a black woman can only go so far on this show, even if they’re kinda white.

SURPRISINGLY NOT ELIMINATED:

Tierra, because she is fucking crazy.

Daniella, because she thinks that a goat is a dog.

FRONTRUNNERS:

Catherine, because wait no SHE’S the cutest.

Lindsay, because she doesn’t know what a helicopter is, but who are we kidding, neither does Sean.

AshLee, because adoption adoption adoption, adoption adoption. Adoption.

–

Rocket Shoes Mixtape 67: Songs I could rationalize chugging a glass of goats milk to.

STREAM IT at this link.

DOWNLOAD ALL OF THE MP3′s at this link.

See you on Thursday with the next one.

Episode 4: There’s a gremlin in the alley! Nevermind, it’s just someone I’m considering spending the rest of my life with.

Where We Left Off

Last week, Sean lowered the self-esteem of 3 more women, bringing the women-he-could-marry-on-TV total down to 13.

The girls who were declared “not the prettiest princess” were:

Kacie, the girl who hated drama who was dramatic whose job was “Ben’s Season”.

Kristy, the model who wasn’t attractive.

And Taryn, because she had to be like 48.

Sean had one-on-one dates with Leslie M., the girl he sits in dark rooms with and AshLee, the girl who was adopted (and we are supposed to talk about it). On one he set a worthless world record and on the other he cried because adopted adopted, adopted. Somewhere in between, he found time to blast his pecs on the beach while an ugly model cried during a horrible game of beach volleyball. Other than that, Tierra, the girl who isn’t here to make friends, showed off some pretty fantastic signs that she’s got Münchausen’s.

This week, we’ve been promised that Sean is going to make a girl with one arm go roller skating, a girl is going to live out her fantasy of being a prostitute that gets taken on a shopping spree and that Tierra is tired of being batshit crazy only sometimes.

–

General Recap

The episode opened up on a shot of girls who look sad, probably because they live with 12 other girls who are also dating the same guy that they are interested in.

The host tells the girls that Sean sees his wife in this room right now, because that is the entire point of the show and something that he definitely needs to reinforce.

Since we didn’t get to see Sean blasting his pecs to open this episode, they make sure we get an amazing double shot of his ass.

Selma, the girl who looks like Princess Jasmine, is getting the first one-on-one date with Sean, and says that now they’ll take it to the next level, followed by the next level, and then they’ll have babies. She may have sounded like a crazy bitch had it only been the next level, but luckily they’ll take it to two levels before Sean will impregnate her, so instead she sounds like someone who isn’t putting the cart before the horse at all.

Leslie H., the girl who is an actress who once played a poker dealer on the TV so now she lists that as her job, cries because she says she just really wants a date. We’re pretty sure we knew this, because she went on national television to find one, which may or may not have hammered the desperation home.

–

My mother doesn’t want me to kiss a boy on television, so I bought fake breasts to deter that from ever becoming an issue.

Selma and Sean take a private jet, and Selma puts her elbow on his crotch to let us know that she’s classy.

She says she’s dreaming right now and that she doesn’t even know if this is real. To be fair, I’m pretty sure she’s Princess Jasmine, so it’s entirely possible.

As though on cue, she says that she feels like a princess in a castle, and if they started singing A Whole New World I wouldn’t even blink.

She constantly clasps her hands together, and it’s starting to weird me out.

They land in the desert at Joshua Tree National Park, and Selma sounds unimpressed, saying, “He took the Iraqi to the desert,” and you know what, that’s funny, Princess Jasmine.

She continues that, “she does not do well in heat, at all.”

That’s what she said. If she was sort of boring and not that much fun in bed.

Selma clasps her hands together again like a middle eastern princess.

As they drive around, Sean gets a sweet sun flare pic opportunity, and I think about how he should totally Instagram that shit and/or make it a prof pic.

They rock climb, and Sean says that her form looks unbelievable, and by form he means ass.

Selma says, “I gotta show this man I got it in me” and then we all laugh because it’s just getting too easy.

She starts to moan and say “ohmygodohmygod” repeatedly and if you closed your eyes and opened them real fast, you could easily mistake this for a porn.

For their evening date, Sean takes Selma to a trailer park, because that’s what all princesses dream of.

Selma tells Sean that she can’t kiss him because she grew up in a strict, conservative home with a mom who doesn’t approve of her dating boys in public. I’m not sure Selma knows this yet, but she’s on a television show where you kiss and date boys in public, and she also has gigantic fake breasts that are not, in fact, that conservative.

Sean says that her eyes are asking him to kiss her, and it sounds like the beginning dialogue of a cautionary date rape video.

He gives her the rose. She says that she feels that her fairytale is just beginning and that he is her prince charming, and I don’t have anymore jokes about this.

–

Boy, have I got the “not one-arm friendly” sport for YOU to play!

Before they head out on the group date, the girls were told that they’d need to “roll with the punches today.”

Because of this, Lindsay (the girl who wore a wedding dress on a first date) says that she thinks they’re getting in one of those “giant hamster ball thingies to go rolling down a hill.”

In what is a surprise to everyone, the girl who is a substitute teacher that wore a wedding dress on a first date is not, in fact, all that smart.

Sarah, the girl who has one arm (but we’re not supposed to talk about it), says that she’s got a good feeling that having only one arm isn’t going to hold her back today, and boy is she wrong because the girls are going to participate in a roller derby.

As they begin to learn how to skate around the track, it becomes apparent that two arms are a pretty big part of that whole “balance” thing.

Sarah starts crying because, you know, a guy is making her do one of those things that are really hard to do with a disability.

Sean say that his heart goes out to her, but it seems like maybe he should have had his arm go out to her instead, since that’s the thing she’s missing one of.

Just in the nick of time, Amanda, the girl who looks angry in front of fireplaces, saves Sean by falling on and possibly breaking her face off, which causes Sean to, in turn, make this face.

She has to go to the hospital and now no one has to do roller derby at all.

For the night portion of the date, Tierra decides that she doesn’t like anyone and throws her toys on the ground and wants to leave the show because IT’S NOT FAIR.

AshLee, the girl who was adopted (and we are supposed to talk about it), tells the other girls to be nice because, “Tierra just isn’t comfortable with this,” to which both Robyn, the black girl who’s pretty much a white girl, and Catherine, the vegan who likes the beef, give an amazing “oh you have GOT to be fucking kidding me” reaction to.

Tierra cries and and says that she’s breaking down inside, that she, “cannot be tortured like this!” Because of this, she does the only logical thing one could do and decides to hide in a dark corner of an alley to wait for Sean to come out of the room that he’s talking to Lindsay (the girl who wore a wedding dress on a first date) in. She looks like she may or may not be taking a crap on the street.

When Sean walks out, Tierra pops out like a fucking gremlin and cries a lot, interrupting his time with Lindsay.

She then talks about how hard being on the “dating one guy with a billion other girls” show is for her and that it’s not what she signed up for, even though that’s actually what she signed up for. She looks sad, so Sean goes to get her the rose out of sympathy and/or fear of being murdered. As he walks away, she immediately makes the “holy shit SHE’S THE KILLER, RUN YOU ASSHOLE” face that people make in scary movies when they still have the knife.

Sean Gives kisses Tierra and gives her the rose in the dark, because that’s where Sean gets things done.

The whole night Sean has been wearing a puffy jacket underneath a blazer, sort of like a kid whose parents said, “if you want to wear a helmet and a cape to school, you can.”

–

I’ve always dreamed of being a prostitute that a rich guy took on a shopping spree.

Leslie H., the girl who is an actress who once played a poker dealer on the TV so now she lists that as her job, gets the final one-on-one date with Sean.

He sent her diamond earrings to wear on the date, and she’s excited because she’s never gotten jewelry from a boyfriend ever. Considering she’s never been on a date with Sean, I’m worried she may be a little loose with that term.

For the next 10 to 15 minutes, we are all forced to watch a boy take a girl to buy clothes, which is terrible in real life and it turns out is also really uninteresting on television as well.

It’s Leslie H.’s dream date, because for some odd reason every girl loves the movie about a rich guy that pays a prostitute to have sex with him and then decides that he’d like to date her.

When we get to the dinner portion of the date, it becomes very apparent that he’s going to dump her on national television, because they never play music during those dates so that they feel like, you know, an actual terrible date.

I begin to understand that taking her on a shopping spree was sort of like playing with a dog all day and then taking it for a really long walk before you were going to take it behind the shed to shoot it.

Sean does not give Leslie H. the rose. He says he can’t put his finger on it, but the connection is just not there.

I can put my finger on it: she’s black.

Sean listens to sad songs because Sean is sad.

He then drops a rose to dramatically signify that love is hard.

I begin to worry for Leslie H., as I can only imagine that the imaginary poker dealer job market has dried up while she’s been on the show.

—

A girl called Tierra “Tierra-ble”, and I can’t top that.

A few key takeaways from the rose ceremony:

- Everyone hates Tierra, the girl who is not here to make friends who suffers from Munchausen syndrome, and she is upset because she feels like people, “haven’t liked her right out of the bat,” which is not a saying.

- Catherine, the vegan who likes the beef, calls Tierra “Tierra-ble” and then kisses Sean in the dark, and becomes a “who saw that one coming” contender.

ELIMINATED:

Leslie, the girl who said she was a poker dealer because she played one on TV once.

Amanda, the girl who broke her jaw who used to look angry in front of fireplaces.

SURPRISINGLY NOT ELIMINATED:

Tierra, because she is fucking crazy.

Jackie, because she hasn’t spoken for two episodes on a show that has aired four episodes.

Daniella, because she is the opposite of “not dumb”

FRONTRUNNERS:

Dez, because she is the best. THE BEST.

Selma, because she may or may not believe she’s in a Disney film and Sean is about as interesting as Prince Eric.

AshLee, because adoption adoption adoption, adoption adoption. Adoption.

See you next week, everyone.

Episode 3: Let’s set a world record for the most boring shit that’s ever happened on television, ever.

Where We Left Off

Last week, Sean continued to lower the self-esteem of 3 women who probably already had some self-esteem issues by eliminating them from the “try out to get married on television and hopefully don’t publicly humiliate yourself” show, bringing the women-he-could-marry-on-TV total down to 16.

The girls who were declared “not the prettiest princess” were:

Katie, the yoga instructor who looked like the main character from the animated film Brave.

Diane, the single mom who stared at streams.

and one of the black girls, because you can’t have more than three black girls on this show at once.

Sean had one-on-one dates with Sarah, the girl who has one arm (but we’re not supposed to talk about it) and really hammered home the fact that he was totally cool with her only having one arm (NO SERIOUSLY, HE’S TOTALLY OKAY WITH IT), and Dez, the bridal stylist who has never been bridal’d who’s probably going to win. For most of the rest of the episode, Sean either blasted his pecs or played dress up with the girls. The in-house crazies are officially Tierra, the girl with a messed up forehead who isn’t here to make friends and Amanda, the girl who looks angry in front of fireplaces.

This week, we’ve been promised that Tierra is going to fall down the stairs, people aren’t going to have any idea what to do with their champagne glasses when they’re kissing and that the girl with one arm is probably still only going to have one arm.

It’s not mean if it’s true.

–

General Recap

The episode opened with a shot of Sean blasting his pecs and staring off longingly into the distance, and I’m pretty sure this is the exact same shot from episode 2 and they’re not even trying.

The girls find out Leslie M., the girl who Sean sits in dark rooms with, is getting the first one-on-one date with Sean. Robyn, the black girl who’s pretty much a white girl, tries to sound gangster and says that she wishes she had gotten the date card and that it had said, “let’s ditch these bitches and go fall in love for real,” which is about as believable as me walking into a room full of black dudes yelling, “SUP MOTHAFUCKAS.”

–

Let’s set a world record at boring the shit out of people.

Sean says he has something really special planned for Leslie M. today on their one-on-one date, and by special he means “a date your girlfriend would dump you for in real life.” They’re off to The Guiness Book of World Records Museum.

Leslie M. says that, “this date was soooo different than I expected!” Which is a girls way of saying “you’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

Sean takes a silly picture, because he’s just a jokester, jokin’ around.

But whoOoOAhhH Sean reveals that his Dad set a world record for driving across the country the fastest/pretty much the most worthless achievement, ever, and that he was hoping that they could set a record of their own.

Sean then says, “I think it’s safe to say that this date could go down in the record books,” and oh I see what he did there.

It turns out that Sean and Leslie M. are here to set the record for the longest on-screen kiss ever, which is currently 3:16 seconds. I realize they are going to televise 3:16 of them kissing and commentating on this straight, and wonder if Sean knows enough words to talk about 3:16 of anything.

In what seems to go on forever, they kiss for over 3:16.

I wonder if at any time Sean was worried about getting a boner on national television, but then realize that he’s not blasting his pecs so he’s probably safe.

He says that the event is just about the two of them sharing a romantic moment, which is immediately followed by a shot of him grabbing her ass, romantically.

They finish the kiss, and Leslie M. says that today is the best day of her life. To be clear: the best day of her life is breaking a Guinness World Record for the longest on screen kiss on a televised round robin marriage tournament with a guy who has previously lost one televised round robin marriage tournament before. I worry that the people on this show have really low standards, and then I realize I’m watching The Bachelor, Season 17.

They head to a hotel rooftop and talk about things that they have in common, like taking AP classes in high school which is usually the first question I ask on a date when I’m around the age of 30. Sean tells her that she’s the only girl that he wants to set records with and she is excited and amazed that she is the only one. I’m not sure anyone has told Leslie M. that she lives with 16 other girls that Sean is interested in sleeping with yet.

Sean tries to eat her face, and both of them have no idea what to do with their champagne glasses while he does.

He gives her the rose and tells her it’s pretty rare to connect with someone this quickly. You know, because the last time he connected with someone that quickly was on a television show about 3 months ago.

Leslie M. says that the evening has been very magical in a good way, because apparently she’s been on tons of dates that were magical in a bad way because she dates wizards with a dark past.

–

There’s no crying in all-girls beach volleyball. Just kidding, that’s all there is.

For the group date, Sean is going to take most of the girls out to the beach to play competitive beach volleyball against each other. The losing team will get kicked off the date, so we’re pretty much guaranteed a lot of emotional instability.

AshLee, the girl who was adopted (and we are supposed to talk about it), talks back at home about how glad she was that she didn’t have to go on the group date because it looked like there was probably “activity” and considering she also does “having O.C.D.” for a living, I begin to realize that AshLee and I have a lot in common (besides having stripper names and being adopted).

Before volleyball starts, Sean and the girls candidly run into the water giggling and holding hands and he does pushups while they sit on his back, because when you’re a bro at the beach, you have gotta throw down some pushups for the babes.

Kristy, the model who isn’t attractive, looks like a girl that you’d see at Coachella that you’d have a strong dislike for.

And Daniella checks out her boobs.

Once the game begins, it becomes rather clear that the boob staring was foreshadowing, because she is not good at sports.

To be fair, Dez tries to kick the ball, which is, in fact, not how you play volleyball.

After the game, Kristy begins to cry because she can’t believe how hard it is to lose beach volleyball when you’re a model and it’s no fair she’s the pretty princess and gets whatever she wants.

Not to be outdone on national TV, Leslie H. (the girl who is, in fact, not here for Sean) cries too. She feels like she’s found all of the qualities of a husband on this show, like, “someone who is on TV.”

Sean sits down with Lindsay, the girl who wore a wedding dress on the first date, in the dark and says that she keeps surprising him because he didn’t know she had this side, even though it’s entirely unclear what side he’s referring to, as she hasn’t said or done anything.

In the last episode, he didn’t know she had a different side, so that’s a total of two sides he didn’t know she had now. I begin to imagine Sean looking at a pair of dice at a casino, mesmerized.

He then sits down with Dez and OH MY GOD SHE IS THE CUTEST. SHE IS THE CUTEST, GUYS.

I realize that she’s heading into that territory where a girl is so adorable that other girls find it to be too adorable, and that every girl in America will begin to hate her by default, the same way they hate Kiera Knightley because she talkkkksh through her teeeeesh.

Amanda and Dez, almost on cue, begin to hate each other for this exact reason.

Kacie, the girl whose job is “Ben’s Season”, notices this and decides to pull Sean aside to tell him, “I don’t want to start drama, but Dez and Amanda are fighting and I don’t like it.” So, to be clear: she starts drama.

Sean calls Kacie a crazy person, and she begins to cry and make an incredibly awkward face while doing so.

She says she’s not supposed to cry this early, insinuating that she was pretty cool with doing so, just later.

—

Adopted adopted, adopted adopted adopted. Adopted. Adopted? Adopted.

AshLee, the girl who was adopted (and we are supposed to talk about it), is about to go on her one-on-one date with Sean, but then Tierra (the girl who’s not here to make friends) falls down the stairs and goes boom.

Sean arrives and starts a sentence by saying, “as a guy who has had several concussions,” and that answers a lot. Just in general.

As the paramedics rush in, all I can think of is how hilarious it would be if Sarah (the girl with one arm) ran around maniacally screaming, “AHHH MY ARM! MY ARM!”

I then, as usual, realize I’m the worst person in the world. To be fair, though, I realize it would be really funny, and I’m pretty sure that even Sarah would agree with that.

The paramedics try to put Tierra on a stretcher, but no one puts Tierra on the stretcher and she bitches them out until they let her go, mostly because she’s a crazy bitch who was lying and is probably Glenn Close’s niece.

She gets time with Sean before he leaves for his date, and every girl in the house officially wants Tierra to die in a fire.

AshLee and Sean head off for their one on one date in a Jeep with the top off, and I know she’s furious that the wind is ruining her hair, because all girls are furious when the wind ruins their hair.

For their date, they are going to spend a day at Six Flags with the whole park to themselves, and Sean has invited two diseased children to spend it with them.

I won’t say anything about this entire part of this episode, because I actually love that they did this and for a small moment believe that this show did a wonderful, genuine thing.

Thankfully, the date eventually turns back into just two grown-ups on a national televised date at a Six Flags, and I can be a terrible person once again.

They sit down to talk and AshLee begins to play the adopted card for about 1,378 minutes straight. While I get that (UGH, AGAIN) this is a wonderful story, I realize she’s doing this entirely to put herself in “undumpable on television” holy ground and not for the right reasons (like Tierra would have had she been adopted).

Sean cries when she says “adopted” for the 2,408th time.

He gives her the rose and they talk about how they’re falling in love at a Six Flags, like we all dream of doing one day.

–

I’m running out of minorities and handicapped people to eliminate, so it’s safe to say this shit’s about to get real.

Back at the house for the rose ceremony, Tierra says to Sean, “We’ll have a lifetime together!” Sean responds, “you never know!” and if I were him, I’d start checking pots for boiling rabbits.

Immediately following, Sean gets taken away by Dez and Tierra exclaims that she’s ready to punch walls, because she, “gets what she wants.” She then makes about a billion terrifying faces, though oddly this vacant one terrifies me the most.

It really doesn’t matter though, because no one is going to beat Amanda’s resting bitch face. No one.

As the roses are handed out, Kristy makes a face that validates anything I’ve ever said about her.

And we realize that Amanda has no friends in the house, because someone would have tucked that tag in.

ELIMINATED:

Kacie, the girl who hates drama who’s dramatic whose job was “Ben’s Season”.

Kristy, the model who isn’t attractive.

Taryn, because I thought she was like 48 (even though she turned out to be 30. Yikes.)

SURPRISINGLY NOT ELIMINATED:

Jackie, because honestly does anyone care about this girl?

Daniella, because she seems the opposite of “not dumb”

Leslie H., because she is a poker dealer actress who isn’t here for the right reasons.

FRONTRUNNERS:

Dez, because she is the best. THE BEST.

Selma, because she may or may not believe she’s in a Disney film and Sean is about as interesting as Prince Eric.

AshLee, because adoption adoption adoption, adoption adoption. Adoption.

–

Rocket Shoes Mixtape 66: Songs That Set The World Record For Being Good at Being Songs

STREAM IT at this link.

DOWNLOAD ALL OF THE MP3′s at this link.

See you next week, everyone.

Episode 2: If you can’t find your wife in a “dress slutty for a romance novel cover” contest, romance is dead.

Where We Left Off

Last week, a guy who lost the most recent “get married on television” tournament to a hipster whose name wasn’t spelled right was introduced as this season’s Bachelor. He was picked to be The Bachelor because he basically just works out and likes his family, which would seem like someone who’s setting the bar pretty low/every girl’s ex-boyfriend who she left for the guy she is currently dating with more ambition, but who are we to judge (besides the one’s to judge).

He met 21 white people and 5 carefully selected not-white-people. He eliminated six people at the end of the episode by not giving them a rose, signifying they were not the prettiest of the princesses.

Lauren, the girl who threatened that her father would kill Sean within 3.6 seconds of meeting him.

The Token Black Girl Who Was Too Black For The Show, because she was the token black girl that was too black for the show.

Keriann, because she called herself an entrepreneur and no, Keriann. No.

Paige, the girl who has been on more televised round robin marriage tournaments than Sean in the last year, which is incredible because he’s only been on one, which should be the limit like jury duty.

Kelly, the girl who was surprised she was eliminated after singing a song to a blind date about how they were about to fall in love.

And Ashley P, the girl who said she couldn’t understand how she was still single after asking someone to strip her and spank her on a national television show about finding “the one”.

Episode two is usually when:

1) Someone isn’t here to make friends.

2) Someone hates competing for men that came on the “competing for men” show.

3) Someone reveals themselves as “the bat shit crazy girl”.

Lucky for us, those boxes were checked. A lot.

Our first one-on-one dates of the season are with Sarah, the girl who has one arm (but we’re not supposed to talk about it) and Dez, the bridal stylist who hasn’t been bridal’d yet.

–

General Recap

The episode opened with a shot of a Sean blasting his pecs while staring off longingly into the distance.

Then Sean took a shower, and I get the feeling a lot of this season is going to be Sean blasting his pecs and showering.

Sean tells us that, “if he had to guess, he could see himself getting down on one knee and proposing to his wife at the end of all of this,” which is a pretty courageous guess, as he’s on the “getting down on one knee and proposing to the girl you pick to be your wife” show.

The host of the show meets the girls back at the house and lets them know that if HE had to guess, HE could see Sean getting down on one knee and proposing to his wife at the end of all of this, and everyone is wondering if anyone has told them how the show they are hosting and starring in works yet.

Sarah, the girl who has one arm (but we’re not supposed to talk about it), gets the first invitation for a one-on-one date, and informs us that having only one arm makes her physically different, which…you know, yeah.

I feel out maneuvered by ABC, because you simply cannot make fun of a person with a fucking physical handicap (no matter how terrible of a person you are, which I am). It’s not funny. However, I pledge to myself to make fun of her as an equal to the other women on the show, and feel, in an odd moment, like a good person for being a bad person…equally.

Sarah says that, “just because she has one arm doesn’t mean they’re going to stop having fun,” and I don’t know what that means because why would only having one arm stop you from having fun? Don’t answer that.

Sean comes in to pick her up in a helicopter, and everyone watching this show misses Kalon, and I become really sad that I can say that with a straight face and that I know how to reference things like that now.

Randomly, they interview one of the girls and I realize that they put “Ben’s Season” where they usually put people’s professions, and I feel like that’s not a profession.

Sean goes to grab Sarah to take her on the helicopter and seems to make a point of grabbing her half-arm a lot while looking-ish at the camera, as though to say, “does everyone at home see that it’s cool with me that she has one arm? I’m cool with it that she has one arm.”

Sean and Sarah fly away and Sarah says that this is probably the biggest dream of her life that’s come true so far. Which means that one of her biggest dreams was to fly around Los Angeles in a helicopter with a guy who lost a reality television dating contest. So.

Sarah says, “we’re gonna start falling in love and it’s amazing.” While it’s a creepy statement, she seems to be the only fucking person on the show who knows how the show works.

–

I want to make it very clear, guys, I’m really cool with the fact that she has one arm. Like, really cool.

They land on top of a building, and we learn that Sean and Sarah are going to jump off of it.

Oddly, all I can think about is, “wait, how do you tie a ponytail with one arm?” This question is simultaneously horrible and totally Google-able, all at once.

The guy who is teaching them how to jump off of a building is wearing a rad Jurassic Park t-shirt that they blur out, and I think to myself, “I bet he’s so pissed they blurred that rad t-shirt out.” Because it’s rad. I also think it’s weird that I can identify a blurred out Jurassic Park logo.

They jump off of the building and survive. Sarah says, “the only thing I thought i’d ever be scared of, jumping off the side of a building, I did today.” I am amazed that if she were asked to write down the things that you are scared of, she’d write down “jumping off of the side of a building,” drop the mic and walk away. Then again, this is the same girl who just said that the biggest dream of her life was to fly around Los Angeles in a helicopter. So. Maybe she’s a bit hyperbolic.

After surviving the one thing she was scared of, Sarah and Sean talk about how cool he is with her having one arm because they haven’t beat that horse dead. He gives her a rose, and all of the sudden all of those shots with two armed girls from the end of this season that usually give away everything seem like decoys, because I think the girl with one arm has a shot. Probably not. But still. I’m trying, guys.

Back at the house, we find out who’s going on the group date and it becomes wildly apparent that everyone hates Tierra. As though on “second episode” cue, Tierra let’s us know that she’s not here to make friends, and we all wonder what the fuck is wrong with her forehead.

I’m fairly certain she is a Republican.

–

The girls all dress slutty, Sean takes off his shirt, it’s not Halloween though, etc.

The girls all jump in a limo and have fun with each other on their way to a group date with Sean.

Tierra doesn’t have fun, though, and neither does her forehead.

The girls are going to meet Sean at a castle so that they can play dress up and compete to be on the cover of a trashy romance novel, because princesses love to be on the covers of slutty novels sold in grocery stores in Nebraska.

Some seem more excited than others about this. (I’m looking mostly at you, model that’s not attractive.)

The rest of this plays out like you think it would: Sean takes his shirt off a bunch, catty girls talk endless shit about each other, Kristy (the model who isn’t attractive) takes it way too seriously/wins, and the whole thing takes way too long.

Within this segment, Tierra somehow manages to let us know two more times that she’s here for Sean and speaks about herself in the third person.

We’re in Single White Female mode, and it’s amazing.

When dress up is over, it’s time for the gang to drink and get their one-on-one time with Sean and compete to the death to get a rose.

The main takeaways from this part:

- Sean and Leslie go and sit in a dark room that is too dark to talk in on television. She says she’s hopeful to fall in love, and Sean acts surprised and says, “You’re hopeful? I’M HOPEFUL? YOU LIKE MILK? I LIKE MILK!”

- Kacie, the girl who’s job is “Ben’s Season”, asks Sean if he’d like to be more than friends. He pauses a really long time, the way you would if you do not, in fact, want to be more than friends with someone. I don’t really care, I just think her forehead is very oily and I’d like her to use some product for that.

- Catherine tells Sean she’s a vegan but she “loves the beef”, and somewhere her mother is proud of her.

- Tierra acts batshit crazy and tells him yet again that she’s here for him, and at this point it’s like someone going to the bar and telling their beer that they came here for it.

- Katie, the yoga instructor who looks like the main character from the animated film Brave, decides that this competition is too hard and leaves the show. Considering her chances of winning, this would be like the backup quarterback going up to Tom Brady before the game and saying, “Hey man, you go ahead and start this game. I’m cool.”

Kacie gets the rose, and then let’s us know that “she’s not going to quit because something’s hard or uncomfortable.”

That’s what she said.

–

I’m gonna play a prank on you, because the last time I did that to a girl on national television she dumped me. What could possibly go wrong.

When Sean was on The Bachelorette, he pretended that he lived with his parents to scare Emily. It did scare her, and she dumped him.

To recreate this, Sean and his broham host Chris decide that he should play another prank on Dez, the bridal stylist who hasn’t been bridal’d, by taking her to an art gallery and making her believe she’s destroyed expensive art.

If that didn’t sound interesting, that’s because it wasn’t and it was boring as shit.

Long story short, we watch two bros just acting like bros who can’t believe they’re totally gonna prank her, bro.

They totally get her, and surprisingly don’t yell, “I TOTALLY GOT YOU, BRO. I TOTALLY GOT YOU!”

After that, they go back to his place to have dinner and Dez gets a rose, because she is the best and I like her.

I have Jef with One F flashbacks and feel like we might be watching the girl who’s gonna win. She’s like Zooey Deschanel if Zooey Deschanel was likable and attractive. So, not like Zooey Deschanel.

Sean says to her that he wants to marry his best friend, to which she says, “you wanna be my best friend?” in a happy little voice, and either every girl loves her or just fucking hates her right now. Just like Anne Hathaway.

–

I’m going to give you a rose to signify that I’d consider either dating you or 18 other women.

The lead up to the rose ceremony is always fun, because it’s sort of like if someone filmed the desperate thirty minutes that lead up to closing time at a bar.

Key takeaways:

- Sean says he feels like he got to see another side of Lindsay, the girl who wore a wedding dress on a first date, which was probably the side that wasn’t crazy and wearing a wedding dress on a first date. Who are we kidding, though. She is. I also just really wish she’d just go with “Teacher”. Believe in yourself, Lindsay. Believe.

- Amanda, the girl who I said was normal in the first recap, is fucking crazy, it turns out.

- Tierra still isn’t here to make friends.

- Robyn, the black girl who’s pretty much a white girl, asks Sean if he would date a black girl.

He answers by saying that he has dated a Persian, a Mexican AND a black person, so TAKE THAT. I think to myself, “And now a girl with one arm, Sean. And now a girl with one arm.”

- Leslie, the girl who Sean sits in dark rooms with, says that she feels like Amanda is playing games with Sean.

For the record, they are on a show that is, in fact, a game.

Sean eliminates Diana, the single mom who stares at streams, and tells her that he just didn’t feel like it was right to keep her away from her girls if he didn’t feel like he saw something long term between them.

Which is a nice way of saying, “The last time I was on a show where a woman had children from a previous marriage and I was trying to marry her, I was forced to lie and say that I was interested in becoming her child’s Dad. That is not the case anymore, so let’s cut the bullshit.”

ELIMINATED:

Katie, the yoga instructor who looked like the main character from the animated film Brave.

Diane, the single mom who stares at streams.

One of the black girls that I’m not sure spoke during this episode, because you can’t have more than three black girls on this show at once.

SURPRISINGLY NOT ELIMINATED:

Kristy, because she is a model who is not attractive and doesn’t seem to have any redeeming qualities.

Taryn, because I think she’s like 48.

Leslie, because she is a poker dealer and those usually don’t go well with family values.

FRONTRUNNERS:

Dez, because she is the best.

Selma, because she may or may not believe she’s in a Disney film and Sean is about as interesting as Prince Eric.

Kacie, because when your job is “Ben’s Season” and you’re getting roses, this show can’t really be about trying to get to know people so why not.

See you next week, everyone.