I spuddle.

I was drinking last night when I watched this, I’ll admit it up front.   I’m kind of a one-glass-of-wine-then-I-get-dizzy-and-have-to-lie-down person, at least I am lately, so the fact I had TWO glasses of wine last night may affect my ability to be completely objective about this episode.   Also, I have a wicked bad headache this morning and am mainlining coffee.   WHO IS THE LIFE OF THE PARTY NOW?   That’s right, not me.

Anywho, I got to thinking while this episode droned on in the background of my wine-fest last night that ABC really messed up.    Jake — shockingly! — is just a flat out boring person.   The Bun has this picture book called Flat Stanley which is sort of awesome, about a kid who gets squished by a heavy bulletin board that his parents hung over the head of his bed and becomes one-dimensional.   For him, it’s all good because he gets to get mailed to California for vacations and can hang on the wall in an art gallery.   It’s just not working so well for Jake and I don’t even think he’s ever been squashed by a bulletin board, though God knows if he was, he’d be more interesting.   At least watching him being blown around by the breeze while the girls desperately fought over him would be amusing, like watching kittens batting at a dead leaf.   Everything — and I mean everything — this man says is just flat.   SOMEONE TELL ME THAT I’M WRONG.  Because I don’t think I am.   When he murmurs something like, “It’s OK to fall!” or some inanity about how marriage is not perfect but love is perfect, he sounds like he is reciting the folic acid content on the side of his morning Bran Flakes box.   I don’t get it.   I seriously don’t get why these women even give a crap about who he picks, but I have it on GOOD AUTHORITY (as in, I watched the clips of what is coming up next week and am guessing) that someone (Gia) comes to their senses and actually quits the show because actually she just really doesn’t want to spend the rest of her life dying a little inside from boredom every time her husband speaks.

But back to our churlish recap, because that is my specialty and I am not one to shirk my duties, although I am pretty excited that I just worked both “churlish” and “shirk” into the same sentence.

The show opens with the ridiculous RVs pulling into a hotel in San Francisco that obviously was either embarrassed to be featured on the show or refused to pay to have their name displayed.    I believe it was the Intercontinental Mark Hopkins but I’m just making that up based on my blurry memory of this episode and some pictures that I got on Google when I searched Nob Hill Hotel That Has Enough Dignity To Not Want To Be On The Bachelor.    The girls are back at their usual low-key catfighting in which Ali hates Vienna and Vienna scratches back with a big, extra toothy grin.   Does she have more teeth than most people?  There is nothing wrong with that, but I’m always stunned by the sheer extra toothiness of the girl.    Maybe I’m just noticing because I have a tooth ache so am extra tooth-focussed.    I do not have any cavities so any kind of dental pain sends me into a downward spiral of despair and angst.   No, I don’t really know why either.  And yes, actually I DO have a cavity, come to think of it.   Why am I talking about my teeth?

There is a two-on-one date which Corrie cleverly announces as being Ali and Vienna, allowing Ali to turn on all her vicious hate-filled “charm”.   But ha ha!  It was a joke.   I find Corrie annoying and insipid but I did appreciate this move, even if the producers made her do it.   Ali trying to backtrack was like trying to watch a toddler climb back down an escalator that’s going up.   i.e. Futile and also sort of sad.

No, the date was actually Vienna and Gia and I guess I wasn’t paying close attention because no rose was involved, instead they were taken to a 12th century TUSCAN CASTLE (please note, they are in Napa, which did not exist in the 12th century) and for some reason this makes them all believe that they’ve travelled overseas without their knowledge and are ACTUALLY VISITING A HISTORICAL MONUMENT.   Awesomesauce.    The date itself is both boring and awkward because Jake is helpless in the face of any situation that requires him to be quick or witty.   Instead, he flatly asks them boring questions and thankfully Vienna goes slightly batshit crazy which at least moves things forward enough that I didn’t fall asleep.   Trust me, there was danger of this.  Gia is somehow hurt that other girls also drape their legs on Jake.    Girl, that is Jake’s only move.    Did you not notice that?   It saddens us all.   He comforts her by licking her tonsils and the viewing audience leaves the room to go dry heave in the general vicinity of a toilet.

Am I getting these dates in the wrong order?  Because there is also a one-on-one with Tenley who suddenly Jake can picture as his wife more than the other girls (because she’s been married before and he has no imagination?) in spite of the fact that he’s spent virtually no time with her on previous episodes.    I think Tenley may be more than a few watts short of being able to fire up a lightbulb, she seems very pretty and also extremely vacant, and apart from discussing at length the break up of her marriage, she has nothing going on that she thinks is worth mentioning.   She and Jake both think that marriage is something she’s messed up before by not greeting her hard-workin’ man in lingerie every day after work, thus forcing him into the arms of his only female co-worker.   Whatever.   Maybe the guy was a chump.   I really hate it when women take responsibility for their husband’s cheating.   HE cheated.   This makes him wrong.   No one forced him to cheat.   Maybe if he wasn’t such a chump, she’d have been more tempted to open the front door in a thong.   Who can say?  And also, who cares?   Exactly.    At this point, my twelve year old stepson blurted, “DON’T PICK HER!”  And so I said, “Why not?”  And he said, “She has a horrible moustache.”   She doesn’t, but for some reason this was actually the highlight of the show for me and amused me almost as much as that Christopher Walken movie that involved a horse with rigor mortis being carried on the roof rack of a car, which still stands in my memory as the Funniest Movie Scene Of All Time.    (Not counting Monty Python, of course.)   Maybe I just think it’s sweet that he’s evolving to have some amount of snark, which while I didn’t pass on to him genetically, maybe I am still responsible for in that nature vs. nurture way.

The date drones on and then finally wraps up with a bunch of kissing, which is all Jake knows how to do because conversation stymies him.   Then we move on to a one-on-one with Corrie, who is the conversational equivalent of that really dry bread cracker stuff that my mum used to eat when she was on the Atkin’s diet in the 1970s.   I believe it was called Wasa bread.  Does that still exist?   If it does, trust me, it does NOT replace bread as a delicious carb-alternative, it just makes you want a piece of real bread so badly that you’ll be willing to start exchanging your own kidneys for toast on the black market.    Corrie awkwardly doesn’t kiss Jake in a move that confuses him entirely because if not for the kissing, he has no idea what to do or say.   Then she explains that she’s a virgin but also that she’s highly sensual, which is confusing because everything about her body language screams DON’T TOUCH ME, YOU REPULSIVE PERVERT!   Why they show so much of this date is a mystery, but maybe that museum that they are in actually DID pay the sponsorship fee, unlike the hotel, so they are giving them extra air time.    Either way, YAWN.

Finally, it’s Ali’s turn.  And it’s HER CITY!  So she’s super duper like totally excited, you know?   She really should be the next Bachelorette (although if she is, I may have to take drastic measures, like GIVE SOMEONE A PIECE OF MY MIND but still, you know, like watch the show) because she’s already naturally adopted the language of the Bachelor/Bachelorette in that she takes credit for things that she cannot possibly believe are anything to do with her.   Her city!  Look!  Her seagull is eating her crab!   Her boats are bobbing in the harbor!   Her bridge is big and shiny!   Kill me.

Jake takes her up to the rooftop (HIS rooftop) and she points out all the things that are HERS, like where she went for brunch once (or actually, a brunch place that was willing to be on this humiliating trainwreck of a show).   I don’t even know what happened on this date because I was so busy giggling drunkenly on the couch about how the producers obviously told Jake that Ali was going to GIVE HIM A PIECE OF HER MIND and he kept trying helplessly to make her say she hated Vienna and she refused to do anything but grin inanely and straddle him on the grass.    Then there was a bunch of making out and I wasn’t paying that much attention but then they randomly ran into the water and ruined their boots.   Er, whatever.   Waste of a pair of boots, if you ask me.

There was a bunch of posing and kissing and DOES HE EVER ASK THESE WOMEN ANYTHING EVEN REMOTELY INTERESTING?   No?   NO.   Then suddenly we are at the rose ceremony and Corrie is sent home because a virgin who is saving herself is absolutely no fun on the pending overnight dates and PRESTO, Jake is off to meet the families of Gia, Tenley, Vienna and Ali.   I don’t know how this happened, is this an extra short season?   It seems awfully early to be asking Daddies for their daughters’ hands in marriage.   But who am I to judge?   I got engaged within weeks of meeting Mr. Spuddle.

I can only hope that at least ONE of the parents this season runs over a dove and then has a ceremonial burial in the backyard because only a suicidal bird can ressurect this season into some semblance of entertainment.

And I’m not even kidding.   WORST SEASON EVER, ABC.    Dudes.   You should have picked Reid.   I TOLD YOU SO.

Filed under: The Bachelor