I spuddle.

OK, pretty peeps, here we are at the fork in the road, or actually the end of the road that is the loooooong (somewhat painful) journey of Jillian Harris on her quest for love, during which (according to her), she had to “slay a lot of dragons”.    Really?   She did?   Hey, didn’t she steal that line from Coach on Survivor?   Wait a minute, what network is this?   What show is this?   Where am I?

Oh, I’m right here.    Not to worry.   And there is Jillian Harris going through yet another rehash of her round the world adventure!   She did get to do an awful lot of travelling, I must say.    Maybe this show is worth signing up for just for the free trips.    Not for ME, obviously.    I mean for YOU.    If you are, in fact, single and willing to look for love in all the wrong places, not to mention too many faces.

But back to the big island of Hawaii, where Jillian is about to meet up with Ed for  a meet the family extravaganza.   There they all are, I can’t remember their names, but I do remember Jillian sobbing about how dysfunctional they were last season.    They look fairly normal, or as normal as any family can look in such a contrived situation with cameras everywhere.    There is not much to say about this meeting except Ed did “really well!” (according to Jillian).   Her grandmother was in awe of his “terrific good looks” (obviously she doesn’t find the contrasting trim on his wife-beater as offensive to the eye as I do) and her mother is happy he wants to have multitudes of children and her father is happy that finally someone is actually willing to marry his desperate daughter.    Jillian is thrilled to have brought home such a handsome specimen for their examination, although she does tell her cousin privately that although she did It with Kiptyn, Ed couldn’t perform.   I can’t help but wonder how many times Ed’s ED is going to come up, so to speak.    Everyone is happy and I spent a good part of this segment staring at the bricks around my fireplace because I found it somehow too painful to stare at the awkwardness on the TV directly.   There is hula dancing and merriment and as you and I both know, when people dance and sing after dinner on The Bachelor/ette, it’s a direct metaphor to “he/she fits in perfectly with my family!”   Because every family does that, don’t you know.

The next morning, Jillian tells us in her spritely chirp that it was like she took her “fiance” home to meet her family and now today, she has to do it all again!   It feels like that, Jillian, because that’s exactly what is happening.    Jillian and Kiptyn meet on a bench and commence making out.   I swore I wasn’t going to do this on this blog (i.e. say mean things), but I lied, because I have to mention it.   What is UP with that kissing?   You know how in the movie Bull Durham, Susan Sarandon says something about “long slow wet kisses that go on all night”?    Well, these are not those kisses, and you do not hear many people rhapsodizing about strange, puckery kisses that dart back and forth like a cleaner fish between the teeth of a shark.    For serious, there is something odd about that kind of kissing.   But Jillian likes it, because all she wants to do is continue with it, and frankly at this point I’m willing to change the channel if they don’t stop.    Finally, it’s off to meet the parents, whom she greets as though she hasn’t seen them for six months.   It’s the stupidest scene in Bachelorette history!   SHE WAS THERE YESTERDAY.    Remember, Jillian?   With Ed?    The “terrifically good looking” one?

It seemed to me that throughout this whole painful meet-the-family fiasco, Jillian was desperately trying to make her family like Kiptyn better than Ed.    Hell, it’s seemed to me through this whole season that she’s been determined to get everyone to see how much she loves Kiptyn.   Did I also mention that I have an absolutely perfect record of being wrong about this show?   That’s a spoiler, but who cares?   You’ve probably already seen who “won”, although I hesitate to use the word “won” in this situation because can you really win a person?  And also, has no one ever watched the show before?   ABSOLUTELY NO ONE WHO MEETS ON THIS SHOW STAYS TOGETHER.    So all this talk about “She’s making a decision that will possibly affect her whole life!”  actually hurts my head.    Or maybe I have a headache due to the searing heat and dehydration, no idea.    Either way, I need a Tyelenol.

And now, back to Ed.    The next day (I guess?   It’s all blurring together, no?  And I didn’t take notes, so this is from my memory which, as you know, is shaky at best.), Ed and Jillian have some photo ops, followed by what we can only hope is some serious sex because if Ed can’t do it tonight, it’s all over.    Also, is it my imagination, or is there an awful lot of overnighting this season?   I’m no stickler for “rules”, but it seems to me that in previous seasons, this last date (meet the family!) is torn asunder before any … climaxing… can occur.   I can’t believe I typed that, but frankly I’m tired, I stayed up too late watching the show and I’m too frazzled to be particularly subtle.   Oh wells.

Jillian and Ed drive off in a jeep and talk about how beautiful they both are.   Then it’s the main (produced) event!    Let’s call it:  Let’s remind Ed how he’s impotent by flying him over volcanoes and talking repeatedly about build-ups of pressure and releases!    There is no metaphor here!   Oh, those clever producers.    I have to say this is one of the first episodes of this show where I’ve been hyper-aware of the fact that Jillian and whomever are being posed before making out.   “Here, make out in this waterfall!”   “Wait for the camera guy to get into his scuba stuff, and make out underwater!”  “Now make out on this bridge!”   You could practically imagine the director or whomever (do shows like this even have directors?) placing Ed’s giant hand on Jillian’s slender thigh, just so.

OK, I’ve just heated up my coffee in the microwave, only I forgot to put the cup in and I actually reached into the empty microwave to get it out even after opening the door and seeing it was empty.    Why do I do these things?   Did I think the coffee would magically appear?    Much like I knew Reid was going to magically appear later in this episode, only by “magically”, I mean “in a cab”?   BECAUSE I KNEW IT.   I DID.   It may be the first thing on this show I’ve ever been right about, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Back in Ed’s room, things get hot and heavy, or they must because the next time we see Jillian, she’s sweaty and exuberant.    Guess what that means?    But we don’t have time to think about it much because it’s time for a date with Kiptyn, in which again the producers are taking some metaphors and stretching them beyond all recognition and then having Jillian explain them.    In this case, they go on a fast speedboat (just like Jillian’s journey to love!) through shark infested waters (no, they don’t mention this, I just happen to know that their location is a favourite snack bar of tiger sharks, which makes it all the more alarming when they leap onto a surfboard to paddle to shore) (there is no explanation as to how all their stuff got to shore, presumably the camera guy and the props person got to actually ride on a boat so as not to risk amputation of their calves and feet).    There is so much of that darting-fish making out on this date that again I got to thinking about why we don’t paint the brick around our ugly fireplace because really, it’s just flat-out ugly.   On the other hand, if you paint brick and then change your mind, it’s a total pain in the ass to un-paint it, so maybe not.

Kiptyn does some thinking out loud and eventually concludes that he does love Jillian and wants to marry her.    Jillian looks SO HAPPY about this that I am TOTALLY CONVINCED she’s going to pick him.    TOTALLY.   And I am SO WRONG.   But what?   I don’t get it.   For this whole SEASON, I’ve been sure she’s in love with him, and yet she picked Ed.   Is she doing a Jason?   Will she change her mind later?   Because Ed is sort of a sure thing and Kiptyn is more of a wild card and she’s intimidated by his family?    If I were Ed, watching this show later, I’d probably heave myself under a bus because it’s just so obvious how into Kiptyn she is and she is NOT a good actress, so WTF?

I’m going to skip a bunch here because I have to go to the dermatologist to have a black, scary mole removed and I’m obsessing about my potential run-in with melanoma and panic and, you know, death, so Jillian’s foibles are mostly just irritating me.    In any event, somehow we get past the ring-choosing and advertising for the ring-maker.   Both men choose enormous and ostentatious rings that are so big they make me think, oddly, of Dolly Parton.    Did she have big… rings?   I don’t know either, but that’s the first thing that came to mind when I saw them.   It could be a random association, like how ink blots always look like poodles dancing on balls to me.     No idea.

The men get dressed in their finery and I can’t help but notice that Ed’s shirt appears to be dirty.    Wear a clean shirt, for god’s sake, or at least iron it.   Kiptyn’s shirt is not dirty.   What am I, a reporter?   Who cares about their shirts?   At this point, I’m feeling badly for Ed who is surely going to be rejected but then… who gets out of the limo first?   KIPTYN.   And we all know that first guy up is always the reject.     Jillian is waiting for him at the end of a dock across a pool, I’m a little worried because you know what Jillian is like around water.   I hope she doesn’t wreck her dress, although I must say I don’t like her dress much, it’s too bridal/prom and looks really uncomfortable across her belly and she’s bloody tiny so why she looks like she’s wearing a dress that’s too small is a mystery.    I know that makes no sense, but it did to me when I typed it, and you know how I feel about backspacing.    I just can’t be bothered.

In any event, our girl Jillian painfully (and shockingly) (to me) (because I was SO SURE) (and have been wrong about every single season of this show so far) (but still, I was SURE) rejects Kiptyn who claims to be “really really hurt” but actually doesn’t look all that hurt.   I’m sure he IS hurt because rejection sucks and also he can no longer claim to have never been dumped, which I suppose will sort of change his life to a degree in that he won’t be able to say that anymore.     I feel confident he’ll get over it.

But look!   A cab!   What?   Why isn’t Ed in a limo?    BECAUSE IT’S NOT ED.   I totally called it, only I didn’t want to spell it out in case I was wrong, which is stupid, because who cares if I’m wrong?   It’s Reid, and he’s decided to declare his love!   Oh Reid.   It’s a little bit sweet at the same time as being contrived (because really, why didn’t he do this last week?) by the producers to add a “twist” that had never before been added.    Poor addled Jillian is really thrown by it, and that can’t be acting because, well, you know.    She and Reid stand together hugging for so long that I’m almost sure that poor Ed, once again, is going to get thrown under the bus or, you know, simply told that he’s not the one (I just like to say “thrown under the bus” at least once per recap for no particular reason).   Jillian agonizes back in the house and Chris points out that she MUST already know, perhaps the first semi-wise thing I’ve heard Chris Harrison say in the last decade or however long this show has been on for.   Jillian smiles and agrees, that has made it clear!   It’s Ed!   Only Ed!  And I’m struck once again by the sort of sad irony of having a name that exactly matches the condition that all of America thinks he suffers from, I know this because the single most popular search term to hit this site (after “How much does Jillian weigh?”) is “Ed impotent erectile dysfunction”,  which, come to think of it, might just be people looking for information on ED who know nothing about The Bachelorette.

Reid is walked to the car AGAIN and I forgot to notice if it was a limo or a cab.    It must have been a limo because the camera crew surely wouldn’t have fit into that little taxi.    I don’t know though.    I’m sure they wanted to make it appear that he’d shown up on his own volition and not on ABC’s tab.    Reid cannot understand her choice, which is a bit baffling because he had to know that there were two other frontrunners and he’d already been, you know, REJECTED.     He really really really doesn’t understand, which makes me think perhaps he’s kind of an idiot and before this I’d found him charmingly neurotic.   I did want her to pick him at the last minute though, so I’m on your side, Reid, I just, you know, don’t understand WHY you don’t understand.   She’s in love with Ed, dude.   Sorry.

But!   Finally!   We have made it to the end!   I’m only barely watching at this point for some reason, I have no idea why, but there they are and they are both crying or something and Jillian wants so badly to get to the ring that she’s vibrating like my sister’s Jack Russell does when she wants a treat.   Ed is taking his time giving it to her and I’m sure she’ll have to play the show back to hear what he says, but eventually she snatches the ring and they’re obviously happy, so I suppose that’s good, but you know, I kind of hate to be wrong so I’m going to predict that their “marriage” never gets to the altar, but hey, maybe I’m cynical and tired and they’ll have a long happy life together although I’ve heard people who work for Microsoft rarely come up for air so I don’t know how that work/life balance they parrot on about is going to culminate in a long, happy life, but what do I know?   Nothing, that’s what.    I know I’m late for the doctor so I really really must go and maybe I’ll edit this later to add the stuff I missed, but maybe also I won’t because probably I’ll be deep in the throes of a mole-removal-related panic attack so I may be busy.    We’ll see.

Oh, and no, I still don’t know how much Jillian Harris weighs but I’m working on finding out, in that I’m still willing to guess her weight now that the season is over, and my guess is:  114.   I think she gained a pound or two.    You know, from the stress and all that white wine.

So, for lack of a clever ending, I’ll just go ahead and say it:

Bye.

Important update:   Jillian Harris is 5′2″ and apparently weighs 105 pounds, or did at the beginning of the season.   My guess is that she’s up to 107 or maybe even 110 now, and I say that because I like to play at guessing Jillian’s weight if for no other reason than it entertains YOU.   You ask, I research, and I tell.    Ta da!   You may now rest easy with this information clutched tightly to your heart.

Filed under: The Bachelorette