I spuddle.

I’m late with this recap because I was busy and honestly, writing this all down was suddenly as appealing as a root canal, which I’ve never had but am as terrified of as I am of rattlesnakes and men weilding machetes.  I’d like to add that I watched this episode with my 12 year old stepson who is starting to get a really mixed up idea about dating and I blame ABC if his future is ruined because he thinks that if you don’t tightrope walk to dinner, you have no chance of getting to first base.

Hi ho.   OK.   I don’t know why I just said “hi ho”.  It just sprang from my fingertips.  But now that I analyze my own subconscious carefully, it’s clear that I hate myself because if I didn’t I wouldn’t subject myself to this show on a weekly basis, and also that I was probably mentally greeting Ali.  Hi, Ho!   [insert drumroll here]

So my stepson chatted through most of this episode and then he fell off the back of the couch, so I may have missed some of the finer details, but let’s just say that this episode starts off with a one-on-one date where Ali, who is scared of flying, takes Roberto up in a helicopter for dinner.   I am not exaggerating when I say that when the Bachelor/ette takes credit for the dates, it makes me scream so loudly in my head that sometimes I burst blood vessels in my eyeballs.   But who am I to be a critic?   Oh, wait, I AM a critic.   Well, I’m not, but isn’t anyone who reviews anything called a “critic”?   In which case, I bloody well am.   So anyway, Ali takes Roberto on “her” helicopter, which is “her” idea, much like I’m the “Princess of Persia”.   She’s terrified and luckily Roberto is there to grope her breasts, which has a universally calming effect on TV dating reality show contestants.   They arrive at their destination, the top of a building.  I’m going to extrapolate that a fear of flying also translates to a fear of heights but Ali is determined not to show how afraid she really is and allows herself to be hypnotized by Roberto’s teeth.  I have to say that I am also hypnotized by his teeth.  If that kid wanted to sell me insurance, I’d totally buy it by mistake because his teeth would make me.   No one in the world has teeth like that unless they are on network TV.  Oh, wait, never mind.   So Roberto and his teeth are told that in order to actually eat, the ONLY WAY TO GET TO DINNER is to walk across tightropes suspended between two buildings.   Apparently neither building has an elevator.   I would have paid good money to see the producers wobbling across the tightrope with the tables, chairs, BED, and food.   Well, not GOOD money, but maybe a buck fifty.

Roberto and Ali are attached to those ropes in forty-seven different ways, so I’m aware that they will not fall to their grisly deaths, but that did not stop me from having some kind of sympathetic and/or empathetic panic attack which involved shortness of breath and hand sweats.    Then I hated myself even more for actually falling for such stupidly blantant produced manipulation of my fear glands.  Hey, that sounded dirty.  Stop manipulating my fear glands, ABC!

Anyway, they ate.  It may be the first time in Bachelorette history that I’ve actually seen chewing food on TV.   Wow, that’s exciting, isn’t it?  WHO HAVE I BECOME?

Ali and Roberto seemed to really enjoy each other’s teeth and tongues and this date dragged on to the point where I believe that Roberto is either going to win or come second because if he wasn’t going to win place or show, we wouldn’t be seeing this much detail of his eyebrows.   He’s a good looking guy but I don’t think I’d faint if I saw him pass on the street, yet Ali seems to believe that no human as attractive has ever walked the land before.   Which is great, I think many refer to this as “lust”.   She’s worried that she’s not attractive enough for him, which is an awesome beginning to a marriage, if you ask me.  I mean, where is the fun in your life if you don’t spend it feeling like your partner is “too good looking” for you and that you are a hideous, ugly, worthless creature who does not deserve his attention?   EXACTLY.

Back at the house, a bunch of nonsense is going on and I have to assume Justin is doing something heinous to invite the ongoing hate-fest that accompanies his every breath, but the producers cleverly don’t show us that part.   What they do show us is so boring that I’ve forgotten it, or maybe that’s when The Stepson spectacularly hit the floor.    Who can say?   I will say this:  I had no wine.   Having no wine and watching The Bachelorette is akin to having your teeth drilled with no freezing, which I’ve done, and trust me when I say you probably don’t want to do it unless you like pain, in which case, go for it.   Enjoy!

Suddenly, we’re on a group date.  The idea of a “group date” has wandered so far away from the word “date” that it’s now just an opportunity again for the men to do some acting work to see if they have a future on TV beyond the whore-a-licious nightmare of MEETING THEIR WIFE on The Bachelorette.   They make a video for the Barenaked Ladies who apparently have decided to check their pride with the concierge, or maybe they just left it under their seats on the bus to LA.  Who can say?   I certainly can’t, and I LIKE the BNLs.   I do.   There, I said it.  I HAVE SOME OF THEIR ALBUMS.    So Ali makes out with a bunch of the man-whores, I can’t say which ones because I was busy dry-heaving.   Frank was also dry-heaving and sweating because he and Ali have such a great connection.  She’s his girlfriend!  EXCEPT SHE IS NOT.  But whatevs, let’s just cut through the baloney and get to the part where Wee Willie Weatherman, having landed the plum role of “making out with Ali in some sort of book store”, starts crying.   That’s right, he was so worried about kissing his potential future wife (HA HA HA HA HA) that he CRIED.   Does this kid have no dignity?  JUST KISS HER, FOR THE LOVE OF MIKE.   Everyone else has.   I was so embarrassed to witness his peculiar tiny-man breakdown that I may have done some crying myself.   Why she doesn’t cut him loose, I have no idea, except I do know:  the producers won’t let her.    He’s PRICELESS.

At the “wrap party” (better known as “Ali in a hot tub making out with each guy in turn, except the weatherman”), Ali demonstrates her taste for exhibitionism and finds a partner-in-crime in the guy-with-the-blond-spiky-hair-whose-name-I’ve-forgotten.   They go to it all over the place until I start to wonder if I’m accidentally watching that channel you have to pay extra for.   Meanwhile, Frank sweats angrily.   If that blond-guy-whose-name-I’ve -forgotten gets the rose, why Frank is gonna … do something.  But actually, the nameless guy DOES get the rose and Frank does nothing, so… well, we’ll just let that scene fade to black, shall we?  OK.

So then Justin hops to Ali’s house on his crutches because Chris Harrison basically told him to and obviously the producers encouraged it or he wouldn’t have done it, and that’s fine, they chat and whatever he’s done in the house, I have no idea, but he seems like a nice enough kid to me.   Then he hops back, or do they give him a ride?  Because if they don’t, I’m sure he has crutch blisters.   Crutching is hard work.   I was on crutches once and I would no more have hopped to Ali’s house than go to a Justin Beiber concert and throw my panties at his head.   Of course, I wouldn’t walk to Ali’s house either, nor would I actually drive there.   I can’t think of a single mode of transportation that would entice me there, come to think of it.

So somehow Justin gets home and does some smirking and the men do more hating, and Ty gets all in a lather about the “right reasons” and anyone who EVER says that again should immediately fall through a trap door in the floor, never to be seen again.   Ali has a one-on-one with Hunter who I’d first perceived as one of those funny-looking but overly-confident guys who somehow cancel out their odd appearance with a fun cockiness, but actually it turns out that he is a human flat-line, which is too bad because BOY that was painful to watch and why they showed it at all was a mystery to all of mankind or actually only the ten of us who still watch this show.

Back at the house, the men are doing what they do, which is smack-talk about Justin.   Who cares?  No one.  Let’s skip ahead to the cocktail party/rose ceremony.   Where, guess what?  The men smack-talk about Justin.   I actually feel sorry for Justin at this point because of the crap production values of this show, he appears to be scapegoated for no reason except that every other man in the house is so relieved that they are not the victim of the bullying that they are bullying extra to make sure that Justin remains the kid who is stuffed in the locker for the remainder of the show.   Justin cries, which was actually sort of moving, as opposed to Wee Willie Weatherman crying, which was just uncomfortable.   There is a wide degree of differences between the different forms of man-crying, and trust me when I say that Justin nailed it and WWW failed it.   I KNOW THESE THINGS.

Ali cuts loose Chris and John, who were too normal to have warranted any screen time, so no one was surprised and even Chris Harrison didn’t bother calling it the MOST DRAMATIC ROSE CEREMONY EVER because he doesn’t have to bother saying anything anymore.   It’s not in his contract.

Next week, more of Roberto’s teeth.   Stay tuned!   Or not.   Either way, I don’t blame you.

Filed under: The Bachelorette