I spuddle.

So Portugal looks nice, doesn’t it?   I mean, it’s no Turkey, but it’s pretty and it’s sunny and Ali has an opportunity to wear summer clothes and beach hair and I want nothing more than to send her to a salon for a blow out because what is so wrong with having hair that doesn’t look matted and filthy, or, my bad, ‘beachy’?   On a semi-related-but-not-really-note, I was reading some crap magazine or just perusing the interwebz and I read that Ali had lost twenty pounds because when she saw herself on camera she was disgusted by how she’d let herself go by just eating and drinking like a normal person (albeit a normal person who REALLY likes wine).   Then I got depressed because she is not FAT, she’s a size six, and that’s just warped and in the picture I saw (the ‘after’ pic), she looked frail and yet ridiculously overly happy, like AH YES BEING SKINNY IS WHERE IT’S AT, and then I really decided I didn’t care, it’s inevitable that whoever is on this show just gets sucked into the Hollywood vortex and spat out on the other side with frozen brows and jutting hip bones and a panicked expression in their eyes, unless they are “Jake”, in which case, they just get the cold, dead eyes of a feelingless droid.   But I digress.  Because if I don’t, then I find that I’m talking SERIOUSLY about this show and then I hate myself even more.   I’m one step away from starting an I HATE ME club, where I will be the president, CEO, and also the minion and the annoying guy who types too loud and that girl with the terrible breath.

So there we are in Portugal and once again the best part of the show is the part where the cameras pan Lisbon and the architecture looks nice and we all ponder why we aren’t just watching a documentary travel show about Portugal and then we realize that hey, this IS sort of a documentary travel show about Portugal!  And then we congratulate ourselves for being all smart and educated and stuff!   And then the DATE CARD arrives and we realize that this may just be the most boring episode of The Bachelorette EVER because even the date card delivery is just a lacklustre envelope sitting on the front hall table, looking depressed!   I think the first card went to Roberto but I wasn’t paying that much attention.   Oh, it definitely was.   I found it hard to focus on this show because my eyes kept slamming up against the Boringness and insisting that instead I look away and contemplate exactly how our single house plant has stayed alive all these years in spite of the fact we rarely water it and the kids swing on it.   It’s a big plant.   Where was I?   Oh, right, Portugal, where Ali and Roberto are proving how fun they are by taking wacky photos of each other in the street, which — in my experience — never happens in real life, unless you are very urgently trying to add some “fun” snaps of yourself to your facebook page and also, you are sixteen.   Then they have more fun by making out and dancing and Ali tries not to look shocked that someone as good-looking as Roberto is dry-humping her in the street.    Then they eat and point out that neither can cook so if they end up together, both will be very skinny from never eating or very bloated from eating too much fast food or they will break up because Roberto will go home for every meal so his mother can cook him something Spanish.  Random!  Isn’t he Puerto Rican?   Why wouldn’t she cook something Puerto Rican?   Not that being Puerto Rican necessarily removes your ability to cook from other cultures, it just struck me as odd or maybe I was just desperately searching for something to be amused by because it nothing else was happening at all that was even somewhat entertaining, which that wasn’t, so go ahead and stop reading now.

Next up, Frantic Frank and Ty have a two-on-one, which makes Frank sweat nervously and palpitate because apparently TY is his biggest competition.  Has he ever heard Ty talk?    He is insane if he believes that Ali is after a guy who is “tickled” when women have ambitions.   What does Ty do again apart from sit around and strum his guitar mournfully?  Does he have a job?  Or any amusing ambitions himself?   Ali is clearly not into the date or the show at all and I can’t help but wonder what is up with her, did one of the producers tell her she looked fat?  Because she looked like I look on days when I’m filled with self-loathing and angst, much like yesterday, when I’m surprised I didn’t just leap across the counter of The Source, where the sneering salesman smugly judged me for calling one of my kids “whatever your name is”.   Judge much?   I HATE YOU.   What?   Where am I?   I just wanted a power adapter and because I couldn’t remember the word “adapter” because the kids were climbing the flat screen TVs and I was flustered, apparently I was filed under the category “customer who wants me to sell them an iPhone even though what they want is a POWER ADAPTER AND THEY ALREADY HAVE AN IPHONE.”   Wow, I have no idea what I am talking about.

Next up, a date with Kirk!   Ali looks ready to cry and run from the room but he obliviously soldiers on and ALL SHE WANTS IS A POWER ADAPTER.   Oh, wait, that was me, at The Source.   Whatever.   I don’t know what she and Kirk talk about because the producers decide to fast forward through their date entirely so that they can give us even more of Jake and Vienna bickering nastily.    Good call!  If by “good call”, I mean, “I’m seriously never watching this show again!”   But I probably will anyway!

Let’s not forget Chris from Cape Cod, who has a dead mother and cannot get through a single scene without mentioning it forty times and I’m starting to wonder if he wouldn’t be better off in a therapeutic retreat than on a sordid dating reality TV show.   If by “starting to wonder”, I mean “SOMEONE HELP THAT KID”.   I feel bad for him, I do.   He loved his mom and I guess he didn’t know that when he came on the show that the producers were going to take his fresh wound and continually squeeze it until nothing was left.   I hope Ali cuts him soon so that he can be free of the tyranny of cable TV exploitation.   Seriously.   I am not always kidding.   He gives Ali, who is feeling no connection with Chris as she’s just told us, a tennis bracelet like his mom and sister wore all the time, which depresses the hell out of me and I cry for the rest of the show, but only inside my head, because if I was crying out loud, I wouldn’t be able to hear Jake and Vienna’s embarrassing spat.

At the Rose Ceremony, which feels rushed and silly, because it is, Ali dismisses Ty and then a giant Electrolux reaches down from the sky and sucks him back through the space-time continuum to 1950 where a nice pot roast and martini are waiting for him.

And THEN, what we’ve all been waiting for!   Chris Harrison actually does some work!  If by “work”, I mean, “he is forced to stray from his usual ten lines that he spouts on every program!”   In an effort to look like a hard-hitting journalist, Chris asks Jake and Vienna some tough questions!   Except they aren’t that tough!  And I hope Jake kept that job at American Airlines or wherever because he’s gonna need it!   Celebs can only get away with being deranged (see: Tom Cruise) when they are already major movie stars!  Jake, who has been on three shows now if you count whatever he was filming during the WEEKEND OF THE BREAKUP, is scuppered.   Sorry, Jake.    You blew it.   See, America wants you to grin and crinkle your eyes at them, but ALSO they want you to be human!  (And a pilot!) And not an ice-cold, controlling, irrational, abusive, actor-wannabe jerk!   So, too bad.   Better luck next time on your next reality TV series, “Dancing With The People Who Blew Their Career By Making America’s Skin Collectively Crawl”!   I don’t have much to say about Vienna except that I doubt she’s a particularly good actress and I completely believe her about the dresser and the measuring tape.    Vienna, go back to Florida!  Save yourself!   Or whatever!   I don’t much care!    But I do agree that Jake is not good boyfriend material!   Because he’s a psychopath!   I am overusing exclamation points again!      Next week, hometown dates!   I think!    See you then!

Filed under: The Bachelorette