I spuddle.

Is it five episodes?  I’ve lost track.  It’s exhausting really.   This season, there has been so much… crying.   For someone who was quoted in my weekend paper as saying “I just don’t want to take it too seriously”, Jillian Harris is sure taking this capital-S seriously.   But I’ve jumped ahead.   That’s a little trick I’ve learned from watching The Bachelorette this season:  Make the entire show teasers for what is coming up next on the show!  Sometimes make the teasers longer than the show itself!  And now my kids are crying and have fallen over and are washing their own hands and there is a terrible sound of water hitting floor and I should probably rescue them.   Please stand by.   Ah, me.   What a mess.   Never mind.    Water evaporates, right?

The show opens with something that I missed.   I don’t know if I’m losing my hearing (it’s possible, I’m no spring chicken) or if the fan on my laptop is just bizarrely loud, but to me it was like a bunch of murmuring, which is a fun word to both spell and say out loud.   Try it.   I don’t know what was said but the upshot is that they were going to Whistler, no doubt another one of Jillian’s mountains.   She owns a lot of stuff, like cities and other geographical tidbits.   It is announced that Breakdancing Michael is to get a one-on-one.   As much as I think this kid is not particularly a good match for Jillian, he is at the very least entertaining.    His puppy-like enthusiasm for EVERYTHING is endearing enough that you don’t notice so much that he dresses like a kid who has raided his Miami Vice-loving dad’s closet.

The happy couple head off to do some zip lining, which looks as much fun as throwing yourself off a platform over rocks and ice can be.    Not sure I would trust that tiny metal hook thing, but then again I don’t really trust anything or anyone, especially the creepy guy who perches in the bus stop across from my house and stares and smokes.   I’m watching you, Creepy Guy.   I KNOW WHO YOU ARE.    Anyway, Michael and Jillian have fun.   I kind of suspect that Michael always has fun.    I can’t help but think that Jillian appears to be about twenty-one years older than him, although she construes this to mean that he keeps her as youthful as she is “at heart”, a phrase which makes her seem even older.    I’d like them to be a match, but they just aren’t, which is too bad because that puppy would be so HAPPY if they were.   Happy, happy, happy.   He also says that he falls in love with any girl who kisses him ON THE LIPS (which, come to think of it, makes he and Jillian a very good match because they have this in common, except replace “girl” with “dark-haired boy”), unless I misheard due to the deaf/loud fan thing.   I think that even when Jillian ultimately rejects him, he’ll be OK.   He’ll bounce back, probably literally.   They share some champagne — the best ever! (and in Michael’s case, probably his first ever!) — and discuss deeply the right reasons.    Jillian enjoys the fact that, as she is so entirely unique, she is not looking for the same kind of love as everyone else, who — according to her — want to just “tiptoe through the tulip fields” all the time.   Yes, well, I know that’s what *I* go in for, but I can’t speak for the rest of the world in general.   Jillian also specifically wants NOT to have a nice house.   She’s an interior designer, right?   I call “Bullshit”!   What do I win?

Another date box appears at the hotel room of the remaining guys, this time on an end table with a lit candle on it.   V. romantic and slightly bizarre.   Why can’t these notes be delivered by, say, a PERSON?   Do notes delivered by small pieces of furniture seem more mysterious, romantic and important?   Well, maybe.   I’ll have to wait to judge until one of my end tables writes me a note.

The group date is a snowmobiling excursion, which is apparently Every Canadian Girl’s Dream Date.   Which means that either I am not a Canadian Girl (which I am) or that Sweeping Generalizations Are Often Stupid.    As far as I can tell, the snowmobiling date primarily involves brief one on ones with each guy, perched awkwardly on a snowmobile.    It could be a stage-set, that’s how interactive they are with their surroundings.  I may be confusing the order, but who cares?   Tanner, looking shiftier than ever, warns Jillian to keep her eyes open.    His role in this is apparently to be a bit like the narrator of the Lemony Snicket books:   Keep the mystery alive!   Wes assures Jillian that he is there for the Right Reasons, although we see a teaser for next week’s gripping episode wherein he says, “I’ve been here for six episodes, I’ve got all the exposure I need.”   Indeed, that may be the only bit of savvy that Wes has shown this season:   if he stays much longer, we’re all going to remember how entirely loathsome he was, however if he leaves early, we may just forget.   Oh, who am I kidding, I don’t think we’ll forget.  Ever.   He will likely go down in history with Jason Mesnick as being the Most Dislikeable Person Ever On This Show, as though this show has a history that people will recall with any clarity as likely they were playing Drink! every time Jillian mentioned the Right Reasons and were too drunk to actually recall any of the details of any episode.

Meanwhile, a drama involving Ed is unfolding.   His boss has told him that if he doesn’t get his lazy ass back to Chicago, the job that we know he loves is going to someone who isn’t wasting away the weeks on a reality TV show where the “prize” is getting married and then having to take a whole bunch more time off work to do media blitzes.    Ed sensibly is obviously going to pick the job as he and Jillian have had a total of about two hours together, most of which was spent dangling off the side of a building, which was clearly never Ed’s schtick to begin with (although he obviously enjoyed the Hot Tub Humping which came after it).      But the drama is strung out, we are treated to several shots of Ed looking anguished and then Jillian dances, Coyote Ugly style on an ice bar.    There are more one-on-ones, these ones inside.   I think Reid is up first or maybe my notes are such a mess I can’t tell.   He thinks she smells good, like gasoline (or did I mishear that?) and also doesn’t want the same thing other people want  (I can only assume he’s referring to tulips).   He wants adventure.   Yes, well, most people don’t want that.   Adventure?  Spontanaeity?   NO THANKS, UNIVERSE.   Where DID they find all these unique individuals?    Jillian places Kiptyn’s hand on her ass, where he awkwardly leaves it, and asks him if he likes her.    There is making out and some tongue slapping that the camera moves in on so closely we can see taste buds.   Not pretty.  I doze off, most likely a subconscious desire to Not See Any More Tongue.

At this point, I wrote “I BET ED IS THE NEXT BACHELOR” and underlined it several times.    Take note.   I confirmed with the Magic 8 Ball (“It is decidedly so.”)   Just FYI.

Jillian gives Ed the rose in an effort to make him feel badly about leaving, which he does, because he just seems like the kind of guy who worries about letting people down and fears he has actually hurt her.   Don’t worry, Ed, she’ll recover on the shoulder of someone else.

Next up is a one on one with Jesse, in which Jillian takes him up in Her Plane to Her Glacier.   “Welcome to my glacier!”  she actually says, which is odd because she then says she’s never been to a glacier before.   If I had a glacier, I would visit it all the time.    Or would I?  No, I wouldn’t.   Jesse rabbits on about how it’s the best day of his life, but maybe it doesn’t translate well to film because really it just looks like a field of snow where they frolic ‘playfully’ for the benefit of the camera.   Walking through deep snow is very tiring, I can attest to that, but it’s good for them because apparently Jillian is up to 112.5 so makes a few self-deprecating comments about being fat in an effort to earn compliments, which Jesse happily obliges with.   He then compares the best Date ever to the best Day ever, a line that Jillian steals at the Rose Ceremony.   Well, it was probably Her Line to begin with.   Everything is Hers!   Jillian, Jillian, Jillian.   I do like her sunglasses, and no, I don’t know where she got them.

Jesse seems like a nice enough guy, she asks him where he sees himself at 35 (isn’t he 33?) and he says he wants to have a successful winery, wine bar, nice house, wife, kids, all that.   He’ll have to hurry, he only has two years.   Oh, wait, I checked.   He’s 27.   Well, I guess he has time.   Isn’t Jillian 31?   Or did I make that up?   I have no idea anymore.   Someone please leave that info in the comments because looking up all this is distracting and I must get this posted before our picnic in the park, followed by hunting for crabs under rocks at the beach.    My glamorous life.   It’s like tulip tiptoeing, only different.   Jillian also wants these things, so enthusiastically tells Jesse that she would be thrilled to give up her career and go anywhere with him, maybe having a career in his hometown or maybe just hanging out in their nice house.   But wait, didn’t she just tell Michael that she specifically did NOT want a nice house?    I smell a rat.   Or maybe it’s just gasoline.

Jesse tells her that he loves her voice and then the hottub looms in the background.   I’ll admit that I physically recoiled from the TV at this point because we all know what happens when you submerge a Jillian in hot water.   That’s right, it’s porno time.   I have no idea what happened because I didn’t watch, but I’m betting on some grinding and exploratory tongues.   Jillian gives Jesse a rose and mentally plans out the decorating scheme for the nice house they’ll share in the valley.

We return to Jillian’s Fairmont Hotel and are treated to the longest segment ever involving Ed leaving the show.   Seriously, producers, five minutes would have been plenty.   I got confused by why he was KEEPING the rose, and then I remembered my earlier prediction.    He will keep the rose and somehow they will cleverly show him with the rose in his hand when this season winds up, only he’ll be looking for someone to give it TO.    Someone real!  Who is there for the right reasons!   Who likes adventure and spontanaeity!  Which I can’t spell and can’t be bothered to look up!  Jillian’s performance during this particular segment is nothing short of shameful and actually makes me hate her a little bit.   First of all, she’d initially told Ed she would “completely understand” if he had to leave for his JOB, because hey, everyone needs a job and she knew he loved his job, and in this economy, etc.    Then when he finally made the decision, she suddenly stopped understanding.  “I don’t understand!” she wails.   “I don’t understand!”   Then she tells the camera that she would not give up on capital-L Love for a job (overlooking the fact that she didn’t love Ed, never mind how much Chris Harrison wanted her to say that she did) and, in fact, she didn’t realize she even liked Ed until he announced he was leaving.   Which begs the question:  If he had stayed, would she EVER have realized it?   The answer is no.   Ed, you did the right thing by unfriending her, kid.   I’m sure you’ll be a very popular Bachelor next season, if you can clear it with your boss.

By the time the Rose Ceremony begins, I’m almost entirely asleep and also distracted by something disturbing I heard today that I won’t get into here but that might possibly give me a heart attack if I keep thinking about it.  In the Reality World that I like to escape to,  Jillian is making tearful and gut-wrenching choices.   She only has to get rid of one guy this week, and that guy is Mark.   That wasn’t so hard after all.   I predict that Jake is next, followed by Tanner, or the other way around.  Goodbye Mark.   Mark looks sad, which is no change from how he always looks, so it’s hard to tell if he cares or not.   He blames the fact that he has “walls up” because that’s what people blame when they get voted off the island in an effort to retain their dignity.   I didn’t notice walls.  In fact, I felt like I knew too much about his last relationship.   But who am I to say?   I just want some tulips to tiptoe through, damn it, is that so strange?

After the Rose Ceremony we see a number of teasers from next week, which suggest that next week will be more interesting than this one, which is a relief.   This week was the Least Interesting Week Ever.   I never thought I’d say it, but I missed the dramatic tension provided by David and Juan.   In winter clothes, Tanner couldn’t even SEE Jillian’s feet, much less molest them.   That said, I look forward to seeing which of the remaining guys is impotent, a development which apparently is Coming Up Soon (or not coming up, as the case may be).   I really, really, REALLY hope it’s Wes because that’s the kind of girl that I am.   You know, a tulip-tiptoer who likes seeing assholes getting a good swift kick in the karma.

See you next week, my pretties.   Bring your pink wine, we have drinking games to play for all the Right Reasons.

Filed under: The Bachelorette