Oh, my god! They found Hitler's Mercedes! We fade up on an ole-timey-looking car of ambiguously Nazi-esque repute (by my calculations, anyway) to find Bob "Your Kiss Is On My List. And Yours. And Yours. And Yours And Yours Oh And Also Yours Too And You Three Over There" Guiney standing beside it, thinking of making out with the driver and then giggling shrilly about it later. "Today," Bob identifies our setting so that we may synchronize our nuclear clocks, "I'm picking up Lee-Ann in a vintage limo and we're heading down to the Queen Mary for a romantic evening on the water." Clearly, a universe of fun awaits us. A universe in which "Lee-Ann on the water" means "Lee-Ann underwater, as shark bait or one who is drowned and blue of lips might be," a universe in which "romantic evenings" means "baseball playoffs, but with a different ending than the one we ended up with," and a universe in which "Queen Mary" is the name of a transvestite burlesque entertainer who wears pink heels and performs from an oeuvre exclusive made up of songs from the Pat Benatar collection. Then and only then will I redirect the Planet Express for a direct flight into the proposed and aforementioned Universe Of Fun. Do you see now, creators and esteemed upper management, ABC Networks, what we mean when we say we want things on the show to be "different"? Do you see why maybe four white roses isn't quite the most! Shocking! Or! Radical! Thing that could have happened?
Bob, stop trying to kiss the Queen Mary. S/he isn't even a contestant.
Anyway. Recap. Right.
Bob continues in a confessionalizing voice-over that "There's lot I need to figure out about Lee-Ann...the ladies voting her least compatible does make me think that there might be something I don't know." Gosh, ever since he and Queen Mary learned all there is to know about the crying game back in that Bachelor Fan Fic paragraph up above, Bob's gone really gun shy, suddenly. Bob continues, "I'd like to figure out what that might be." He looks out the window of Hitler's Mercedes with an expressive, pensive, far-off, musing look of there's-a-lot- I-need-to-figure-out- about-Lee-Ann- the-ladies-voting-her- least-compatible-does-make- me-think-that- there-might-be- something-I-don't-know- to-figure-out- what-that-might-be.
Meanwhile, back at The House That One Man Can Put Asunder, Lee-Ann fills out the other perspective of this "He Says/Lee says" dichotomy, telling us...effectively, exactly the same thing. And that thing is this: "I was voted least compatible in this house by the girls, and that ensured me a one-on-one date with Bob." Except when she tells it to us, it's during her grooming ritual, where we find her alone in the bathroom with a hair dryer in one hand and the biggest, roundest, rarest brush in Big Round Brush State Park in the other. Seriously, every brush you ever thought you lost actually ran away from you in search of that brush when called upon to heed the cry from the Mother Ship. The way some girls used their brushes as ad hoc microphones to dance around their bathroom and sing "Build Me Up Buttercup" or "Summer Lovin'" or the songs of Pat Benatar, Lee-Ann tethered that thing to a beam high above family room and let it dangle at eye length, using it as an ad hoc microphone to announce heavyweight boxers's weights into. As soon as she was old enough to lift it.
“ 'On Sunday afternoons,' Mary tells Bob, 'I've gotta watch football.' Can you stop being a Coors Light commercial fantasy and start being a human being in one minute? ”
Meredith. Nana haunts the proceedings once more as we rehash the reasons that Bob and Meredith had such an atypical first date. Meredith thanks him for being so great through this tough time, and he retorts, "It's kind of early in a dating relationship to have to deal with grief like that." Well, excuse Nana for dying then, won't you? Meredith tells us that she's "really, really feeling something" for him, hoping that they can be together "in the end," and also for the ten- to fifteen- to ten-minute service that is certain to following immediately afterward.
"Lee-Ann was definitely upset," Karin tells us. Karin takes Lee-Ann to a remote corner of the room -- in front of a roaring fire Karin must have designs just to shove Lee-Ann headlong into -- and tells Lee-Ann, in the nicest way possible, "I look at you, and you're such a beautiful girl...." Oh, don't worry, Karin. Lee-Ann will take it from here: "...that could have any man that I wanted." She tells Karin that she's not having any fun, doesn't dig sharing a man with nine other women, and doesn't want to "behave tonight and then be miserable for a week." Karin tries to hop in, but Lee-Ann wants her to know, "I'm too good for this [bleeped expletive that is 'shit'], and if you don't realize that then open your eyes." And, okay. Having watched the show that introduced a slobbering nation to its poster boy for fat-and-then-skinny, one would presuppose that Lee-Ann would enter into the game with a basic idea of what the rules were. On the other hand, anyone who decides that they're too good for this shit? Might actually be. Take her rambling logic (which, effectively, equals "This whole social dynamic is gross and weird") and juxtapose it against the shot, that of Bob asking Mary is he can steal her for a moment, and her leaning into him and actually responding, "I will give you many moments" in a social dynamic I find gross and weird. I'm not saying Lee-Ann should be sold as a collector's card and packaged with gum. She's still not my hero. But I am saying that if someone's gonna call this show on its bullshit -- whether as a result of a personally motivated agenda or no -- they might as well go ahead and let us watch it. Right before she gets booted so far off the show she ends up in deep space.
Mary "missed [Bob]. A bunch." Gross and weird. "On Sunday afternoons," she tells him, "I've gotta watch football." Can you stop being a Coors Light commercial fantasy and start being a human being in one minute? How about right now?
"When you go out there, I just want you to be prepared," Karin says ambiguously. "I'm fine," Lee-Ann responds in a way that means "I'm drunk." "I'm always fine. Do you ever see me crying?" She's so tired of talking about "Bob, every day of the week." It's true. It's so, SO true.