Mary applies copious hair products, yet it's Bob's partner Greg who looks like he got the bulk of them. His coif not blowing in any wind, he tells us that Mary gets the first individual date, based on the fact that she says she's falling in love with him already. Great. Feed the delusion. They're going to a theme park. En route, they both agree that they want to have a great time, and Mary says that she wants them to be twelve today. "Dog years" joke, anyone? Who's with me? She's OLD! And she hasn't said anything in Spanish in a while. So what else is there to make fun of, am I right?
Champagne and kissing in the car. Sex and booze in a stretch limo. Yeah, my "twelve" looked just like this. Except with more baseball cards and fewer broken dreams.
Back at the ladies' villa, Lee hyphen Ann is sad because none of the other girls likes her. She sits outside on a swing, rocking back and forth on it and thinking, "Hey, they named this thing after my moods!" She's sad that she "does not feel comfortable in this house at all." She's "miserable" that the girls throw spitballs at her in Geometry class and won't let any of the boys take her to the junior prom. So she calls a house meeting to talk about her feelings, sheepishly creeping into the kitchen while everyone else is cooking dinner and asking, "Can I talk to you in the living room?" Why the sudden change of venue? Is she opposed to, like, fighting in front of the cheese? Why not just have it where four people already happen to be assembled? In a confessional, Meredith calls Lee-Ann a drama queen, adding in an accusatory "yech" for good measure. I wish she had said that to Lee-Ann's face, with a sexy girl-fight breaking out soon after, with the shortie pajamas, feather pillows bursting open in slo-mo, jiggling, and what-have-you. Because after I said on TV that I thought Pamela Anderson had hottie breasts, this is what my life has become. Anyway, outside of my rsum and back on the television show, Lee-Ann blubbers and tells everyone she's sorry and wah wah poor me. Right. Not even Brooke's mole is moved. No one gives a crap. Lee-Ann is sad some more, and Kelly Jo pretends to care a little, telling us that she's like "Sybil" and giving Lee-Ann tips on how not to have been totally psycho in the first place.
Back at the Shady Pines field trip to an unnamed amusement park, Mary tells us, "Once we deplaned the private jet..." "DEPLANED"? I've have actually heard that word a total of one other time in my life, ever, in an ancient (though, I have to admit, hilarious) Paula Poundstone HBO special from one billion years ago, in which she discusses the fact that you don't use the word "de-car" and "de-train," so why should "plane" be any different? To which I always answered, "It's not, and no one says it." Except now. At the park, Bob makes Mary close her eyes, then tells her to open them. Such a motor command hardly matters, though, what with the milky cataracts already completely obscuring her remaining vision. All the lights of the amusement park go on at once and OH! So beautiful! There are fountains! So romantic! It's like PARIS! Secretly, Mary just wants to be home with a glass of bitters, watching her stories. But she's pretty game, considering, and she tells us in a voice-over that it seemed at that moment that the only people in the park were "he and I." Sigh. And I thought grammar was such a key component of education in the 1950s. She must have been under her desk in an air raid drill the day they learned what happens in the "predicate." La la lee lee loo. Bob and Mary ride a really scary roller coaster. So scary! Good thing she has a big (though he used to be bigger and now he is skinny), strong man at her side. He wins some basketball game thing and she claps. He feeds her cotton candy. They drink with two straws out of one ice cream soda. They neck. Later? Down by Lover's Leap? There's going to be some serious heavy (though now it is skinnier) petting.
“ Is there a Guess The Height And Weight booth at this carnival? I guess that Bob used to be fat and now he is skinny. ”
Is there a Guess The Height And Weight booth at this carnival? I guess that Bob used to be fat and now he is skinny. And I guess that we'll have to saw Mary in half and count the rings.
Later, in an extremely well-lit gazebo, they waste no time with the making of the out. The scene, it is set for romance. Multiple glasses of Shiraz litter the table. Talk inevitably turns to Bob's domestic situation, as he lives in a dusty outpost that manifest destiny has not yet reached, and his earlier, hard-line attempts to make people move within a million miles of where he lives now are obviously not paying dividends with this crowd of fame whores looking for TV guest spots and not a life as a mortgage broker's wife in B.F.E., Michigan. Mary tells Bob that she would move for the man she loves, but would miss her family in Florida. So she'd like to be able to see them sometimes, ending that request by asking him, "So how do you feel about that?" He answers, "YOU WILL NEVER SEE YOUR FAMILY AGAIN, MY PRETTY!!!!!! BWAH HA HA!" No, he totally doesn't. What he actually says is much, much dumber. He says -- no kidding, no lie -- that just now he "realized" that "the majority of people in Michigan who own second homes...own them in Florida." So you know what this means? Well, let's reason it out. Bob is a person in Michigan. Maybe someday he'll own a second home. The majority of people in Michigan who own second homes own them in Florida. This means that BOB TOO can own a second home in Florida! So he can visit Mary when he and his wife Kelly Jo are in town. Or when him and his wife Kelly Jo are in town.
Hey, you know what I just realized? The most commonly consumed sweet in New York is cookies. I'm in New York. I TOO CAN EAT COOKIES! And, interestingly, Tracie and I are about two-thirds of the way through a box of cookies called "Le Petit Ecolier," which is a kind of graham cracker thing, covered on top with dark chocolate, on which is embossed, well, a petit ecolier. Je t'adore, Monsieur Le Petit Ecolier. That means, "I adore you, Mr. The Little Schoolboy." I pity the fool who doesn't love...he.
"Mr. The Little Schoolboy." That made my day.
And...we're still on this date. Mary has her real estate license. Bob holds two giant stuffed animals. Mary confessionalizes that the more time she spends with Bob, the more she loves him. Even though she has no control over the situation, when she looks in his eyes, she can tell that he shares the same feelings, and that gives her hope. Cue doom-infused minor chord. Because sister? You don't have a prayer. End of date.
Bob and Estella are going to Vegas! Bob thinks it's "amazing" that his friends "happened" to choose two women whom he wanted to get to know more. Bob says that Estella is beautiful, and there's something about her that he finds really compelling. Deaf father, maybe? Or pretty, pretty boobies?
“ Oh, my god. That is so transparently pandering. Pandertown Village, USA. If she were an Australian tree dweller, she's be a Pander Bear. ”
Lee-Ann fares thee well with a "ciao, chicas" when she's called to worship at the Altar Of Bob. The Altar Of Bob is also Bob, himself. By the way. As she steps out, the rest of the girls are all, "Ciao to you to, stank," and it takes a crack team of Mary, working around the clock, just to translate Lee-Ann's multilingual parting shot. Well, she gets the second word of it, anyway. The first part, though? Lost to Babel.
Meredith tells it like it is: "I absolutely don't want to see Lee-Ann get a rose tonight." Which is so crazy, seeing as we'd all been laboring under the mistaken notion that Meredith wanted to see Lee-Ann showered in ten million roses, all day all night. As the couple hit the lanai, the action turns inside to find Meredith, Kelly Jo, Estella, and Brooke, not enjoying responsibly, and eavesdropping. Man. Why not just put one of your sixteen empty glasses up to a wall somewhere and you'll be able to hear the whole conversation with crystal clear, Stakeout-gleaned ease?
Outside, Bob tells Lee-Ann that he got a chance to speak with his friends, and Lee-Ann plays defense, volleying, "I'm sure they had nothing but fabulous things to say about me." Lee-Ann tells Bob that she loves his friends, "no matter what happens," and back inside, Meredith mumbles, "I can tell you what's gonna happen." And yet we were surprised when Lee-Ann was booted. We should have just talked to Meredith. Lee-Ann -- and, okay, this really is kind of pathetic -- keeps talking, telling Bob, "All day I was thinking, who would be the two that would go, and I cannot even imagine because everyone's so awesome." Oh, my god. That is so transparently pandering. Pandertown Village, USA. If she were an Australian tree dweller, she's be a Pander Bear. We know you don't like the other girls, and we know they hate you. At this point, own it. Inside, Meredith and Kelly Jo react accordingly, Kelly Jo laughing hysterically and Meredith offering the somewhat less concise "If I could choke myself with this bracelet, uh, this necklace, I would." Good one. Back outside, Bob asks Lee-Ann if she needs to know anything about him ahead of a "decision" she might make later in the evening, and Lee-Ann correctly responds, "I'm not making a decision." She tells Bob that if he offers a rose she's going to take it, quite confusingly adding, "I definitely want you to play my dad in Horse." The first person who can correctly tell me what the hell that means, I will challenge your dad to a rousing game of Horse. And know this: I. Will. Win. Unless you don't have a dad. In which case I'll play your Nana. Lee-Ann reminds us of the ultimatum where he lied to her about giving her a rose this week. "I don't care what anyone thinks. I will get a rose." Uh-huh. Is "saying everything the opposite of the way that it actually happened" one of the rules to "Horse"?
“ Kelly Jo, will you accept this rose? Dude, I've gone on business trips just for a free trip home also. Smoothly turned. ”
Bob enters, taking his place to the post of roses, and tells them, "By accepting this rose and opening your hears and your homes to me, I feel greatly appreciative. So thank you." Thank you to the following four:
Kelly Jo, will you accept this rose? Dude, I've gone on business trips just for a free trip home also. Smoothly turned.
Mary, will you accept this rose? Renew your passports, folks. We're going south of the Border, down Mexico way!
Estella, will you accept this rose? Crap, he totally got her confused with Meredith again, didn't he?
Shut up, Chris
Meredith, will you accept this rose? Nana would be so proud! But it would pass after ten or fifteen minutes or so.
I can't stop doing that.
Brooke cries and cries, hugging Bob and leaving graciously. She tells us she'll walk away regretting that she didn't tell him how interested she was in him. We'll regret not having the chance to tell her that it wouldn't make a damn bit of difference if she had.
And then! Fireworks! Drama! Wild, spiteful, howling cries! Right?
Or no. Lee-Ann takes it like a lady, giving Bob a hug and telling him it was nice meeting him. She tells us -- without a tear, mind you -- "I don't know what happened...If one of the girls told Bob something bad about me and he listened to it...then, yuck. Grow up. Grow a freakin' spine and make your own decisions." She adds that she was a "great catch," and that she wishes they had ended up together. Well, we've all wished a lot of things that didn't come true. But seriously, Bob? Look, dude, if you didn't want to play that game of Horse, all you freakin' had to do was say so.