By Djb
Props to Jerry Bruckheimer. Someone needs to love him this week, and he's currently without his favorite wubby. His security blanket. The one he calls "world domination."
Bob "'E' My Name Is Eugene" Guiney sits poolside at Chez Go Away, staring aimlessly off into his own blank, desolate, childless, overexposed, fame-in-the-sixteenth-minute future. He puts his hand over his mouth in a reasonable emotional facsimile of "Gosh, this is the all-too-human face of the conflicted soul," but I'm more inclined to believe that his hand is there as a substitute for any of the women of this show, seeing as Eugene has gone almost fourteen seconds without ramming his tongue into something and his mouth is probably starting to get bored. Wearing a red button-down we've seen him in before but the collar of which somehow seems a lot more Star Trek-villain-y than it has in fashion incarnations, Eugene stares into the camera and has secretly already booted Mary in his mind. I mean, come on. But he's willing to play along for the hour, because protracted heartbreak is for ratings and actual emotional investment is for suckers and he'll forget all about the pain he's caused, because he's got an In Touch photo shoot coming up he needs to think about, I'm sure.
Owing to the fortuitous advent of the picture tube this past week, television was just invented and so Eugene takes this opportunity to re-explain the rules the show we're in the seventh episode of the fifth season of watching: "I'm about to go on three overnight dates with three very stunning, very wonderful women." But then, what has he done about the three bachelorettes who are left on the show now, hardy har blee? Whatever, that was a cheap shot. The three women left really are pretty much fine, such as they are. It's only their "connection" with Captain James Tiberius Jerk of the U.S.S. Used To Be Fat But Now He Is Skinny that brings down their property value ever so. And, speaking of what, at this point, feels like the never-ending middle of their five-year mission (or "five-year journey," as they'd probably call it on this show), Eugene outlines for us the course they'll be charting this week: "First, I'm going to Alaska with Kelly Jo. From there, I'll go to Jackson Hole, Wyoming with Mary. And finally, to beautiful Belize in Central America with Estella." Hey, check out Globo-Bob, kickin' it with the geography! He knows where it's at! Jackson Hole in Wyoming. Belize in Central America. As opposed to the Belize in Hoboken, New Jersey and the Jackson Hole on Neptune. Maybe the publishing world should consider changing the atlas team to Rand-Guiney for Eugene's second publishing effort. And then, turning the tables, McNally could be the Bachelor! Eh, never mind. McNally actually has a huge ass. But what if -- and follow me, here -- he goes from being fat...to being skinny! I know. Radical. But I've seen it work before, somewhere.
Travelogue completed and stardate logged, Eugene cops to being "nervous" about the experience of the coming week: "I'm feeling feelings for these ladies, and I know they're feeling feelings for me." Is that that song by Milhouse's dad? ["It could be. By the way, can I have the keys to the car, lover? I feel like changing wigs." -- Wing Chun] Also, honorable mention to the word "feelings," which has just charged ahead into fourth on the list of most frequently used words on this season of The Bachelor, moving up six notches ahead of former challengers "death," "dead," "father," "fairy tale," "lobster claw hand," "Cuba," and "visor," but still ranking significantly below perennial winners such as "journey," "connection," and -- sing it with me if you know the words -- "Nana." But anyway, Eugene's nervous: "It becomes more and more challenging to figure out what the right thing to do is, possibly for our future." Now he's responsible for the entire future? I join him in his previously expressed nervousness.
North, Miss Tessmacher! North! The Stock Footage Film Festival shows its culty fan fave of Private Plane Taking Off You're Supposed To Believe Eugene Is On (I loved the original, but Gus Van Sant's pointless Private Plane Taking Off You're Supposed To Believe Anne Heche Is On remake was so unnecessary and self-indulgent), and in mere montage-y moments, we're helicoptering over the icy ice of Iceland. Though they say Iceland is green and Greenland is icy, just as you park in a driveway and drive in a...holy crap, when did I become my mother's "Email forwards to drive my kids crazy" Outlook folder? Was it after I knew that Lincoln had a secretary named Kennedy and that Kennedy had a secretary named Lincoln, or before? Anyway, a slo-mo helicopter that looks like I imagine would be something ripped from the opening credits of M*A*S*H (I never watched that show growing up...it was way too brown) flies over water lapping up onto a huge shelf of ice that's either a glacier or The Fortress Of Solitude. We arrive at a skyline of what Cleveland would look like if propped up against the background of a Blue Mountain Arts card you'd send your hippie daughter on Earth Day. And there, in this distant, desolate wasteland, we find Eugene (wow, there really is no getting away from him, is there?) waiting on the aforementioned ice shelf and telling us, "We've arrived in the vast cornfields of Canada!" Just kidding. What he actually says is, "I'm in Alaska today in the middle of a glacier. I'm waiting for Kelly Jo." We stumble upon Eugene to find...wow. I'm sorry I have to be the one to say it, but that outfit is just not flattering. At all. It's a good thing we're distracted by the vast desert of blinding snow that surrounds him, or else we'd be awfully put off by the insanely mirrored, cop-in-a-'70s-porno sunglasses (hey, I can see my house in there!) and the black sweatshirt unzipped and showing us the skintight blue shirt replete with stomach rolls and echoes of the manboobs that were. By the way? I'm totally writing a slim volume of extremely pretentious poetry and entitling it Echoes of the Manoobs That Were. Please buy it. It'll be good. I promise. I'll rhyme "Nana" with "Copa Cabana."
Eugene watches Kelly Jo copter in from the great icy beyond, waving at her during descent and confessionalizing everything they have in common: "We share a common sense of humor. We have very similar family lives." We both like soup. What he really wants to spend the day figuring out is, "How compatible are we in a relationship sense?" Oh, come off it, Barfcissus. She's you in silk panties. Of course you like being around her. But it won't last. You'll get as tired of you as we all have.
Certain problematic production decisions make us all go a little Estella's dad, as Eugene lengthily meets Kelly Jo at the still churning helicopter. They kiss (natch) hello as she climbs out of the vehicle, all the while confessionalizing that she wants this date to leave a "lasting impression." If you mean "convince Eugene that he should be yours forever," Kelly Jo, you're wrong. If you mean "leaving a bad taste in our mouths," you're right. If you mean "leaving a bad taste in your mouth, but for an entirely different reason far too gross ever to explain fully here," you're also right. Kelly Jo admits to us that she wants Eugene to be her husband, as the two of them hold hands while walking away from the chopper, into the never-setting sunset.
KellyJo wants to know the game plan for their date. Let's see. This is Alaska, right? So: snowball fight, snowball fight, snow angels, curling competition, Coors Light commercial, snowball fight, skiing downhill with Lloyd Dobler, snowball fight, snowball fight. And then back inside for cartoons and Sunny D. Or, actually, Eugene gestures toward a nearby conveniently-located dogsled, also featuring actual dogs, and tells Kelly Jo that they're going to be "taking it up the glacier." Ick. That's just not safe in this day and age, and, besides, I've read that it hurts like hell. People say I have intimacy issues, but I just think that you just need to wait until you're with someone you really trust. Anyway, they hop on and montage up the hill, Kelly Jo sitting down on the sled and Eugene standing behind her (I guess she's a pro at this whole "taking it up the glacier" thing, to hazard it in that position). The dogs run and run. Eugene seems concerned with the direction the dogs are taking them in, so he heee-lariously undertakes some hand signals like he's just come from a visit to Safety Town. Cuba Gooding Jr. got $10 million for doing what they just did. Except he got his dogs to talk, people. Meanwhile, Miss Tessmacher got herself nothing more than a pair of chapped hands and Gene Hackman making her take it up...oh, never mind.
Kelly Jo confessionalizes that the whole day has just been "fun," and that she's sure it's going to get "better and better." Uh-oh. It doesn't take much parsing to read that that's what optimists say in the middle of a bad time. The two of them wrestle in snow, and then fall down (whoops!) in what looks like a choreographed musical-theater number where people fall in love over the course of one song. ["Djb, I would gladly pay a penny for your thoughts." -- Wing Chun] Brief smacky kissing (no, really) ensues among the drifts, but before Frosty has a chance to go thumpity-thump-thump with his corncob pipe if you know what I mean and I think you do, the helicopter from the first act goes off in the third, and Eugene and Kelly Jo are interrupted by its deromanticizing roar. They seem bummed, obviously not having been briefed about the cartoons and Sunny D. that are now certain to follow.
It's not a motorcycle, baby, it's a chopper. When we meet Eugene, it's inside a confessional clearly shot on German Tourist At The Gay Games theme day, which I'm sure is huge in Alaska. He's wearing a periwinkle -- and I don't mean to go so 64-Crayola on you, but that's exactly what it is -- mock turtleneck (which, as its name indicates, exists wholly to be mocked) that's tighter against his skin than Mary when she's ovulating. He tells us that after he and Kelly Jo came down from the glacier, they "had a few moments to take a hot tub in the middle of the Alaskan forest. Which was very lovely." And sure enough, as so often happens in the middle of the Alaskan tundra, Eugene and Kelly Jo come upon a basin of steaming water. Good thing they just happened to be in their swimming duds at the time, eh? And what is he wearing NOW, for crying out loud? It's the same black sweatshirt, unzipped to his navel! With nothing under it! And blue, floral-patterned Jams! Why? WHY? And who says "take a hot tub," anyway? Ack! My brain! It's exploding! They're joyriding around the Alaskan frontier and I'm Pacino in Insomnia. Can't sleep! Must sleeeeeeeeeep!
Champagne in a hot tub in the middle of Alaska. People, is there anything technology CAN'T do? Kelly Jo and Eugene toast the end of culture and talk more about themselves. Eugene asks Kelly Jo if she wants to have a family, and they agree, "I love kids." Kelly Jo doesn't love kids. Kelly Jo is kids. Carry an egg from Home Ec around with you for a week and let's talk again after this unit is over, okay? I know a lot of our parents had us when they were in their early twenties, but Kelly Jo...well, she's just saying that she wants a family because that is what people say. Because it sounds better coming out than "I want to be a barren spinster." And because at least it's the one kind of lip service that she can breathe out of her mouth during.
Meanwhile, Kelly Jo fesses up to us, confessionalizing her most opportunistic strategy yet: "I feel like I do have a little one-up, because I think other girls who are older are thinking they want to start a family right off the bat." So Eugene's inability to commit is going to be the thing that most informs his decision to commit? And, nice diplomacy, Kelly Jo, not naming which girl you mean when there are only two other girls left to choose from. It is true, though. There is quite the age gulf between Kelly Jo and Mary. Like, that one of them was born in the '60s, and the other one was probably born in the '80s, with Eugene not exactly smack in the middle of the two of them. Honestly, from an age standpoint, Eugene would be better off choosing Mary, so that at least certain cultural touchstones would be shared in common. Here are two scenarios:
Eugene: I love this episode of Speed Racer.
Mary: Oh, dios mio! Me, too, Bobby! Let's name our child Racer X and put a "Baby on Board" sticker on the back of our powerful Mach 5!
Or it could've happened this way:
Eugene: I love this episode of Speed Racer.
Kelly Jo: What's Speed Racer?
Similar hypothetical conversations might ensue after such conversational kickoffs including "I love School House Rock" or "I love this song by The Cars." But hey, guess what? We forgot about Estella. The one who's going to win.
And then, dinner. Is this date feeling a little plotted to anyone else out there? After the hot tubs, Eugene and Kelly Jo walk up a flight of stairs in what looks like a high-school gymnasium and take off in a cable car reading "Alyeska Resort." No charge to take the cable car for guests of the Seven Glaciers Resort! Way to pinch whatever wampum, whale-blubber currency they use in that godforsaken no-man's-land, you guys!
Oh, right. America. Forgot.
It's 11 PM. And it's still light out. And Robin Williams is the bad guy, but I'm the one who accidentally shot my partner. And that is why I cannot sleep.
Up at dinner at the Seven Glaciers, Kelly Jo decides to get "all serious" with Eugene, admitting that she has the love of him: "I know I wouldn't be in love with you if I didn't feel something back from you." Huh? The word "unrequited" pops up out of the dictionary and is all, "Yes, but what about meeeeeeee?" I mean, there's some faulty logic if ever I've heard it employed. But nevertheless, a good manipulation strategy in trying to get him to love her back. Kelly Jo also doesn't expect Eugene to respond because she knows he can't, so that takes some of the pressure off him so he can just make with the tonsil hockey (y'all know I would NEVER ordinarily use that expression, but...well, Alaska is very big into hockey) as the camera pans around and around. "You are fearless, aren't you?" Eugene asks like it's the point in the movie where she's just proclaimed her love for him against all odds. I don't get the sense that any of these people know that this is actually happening to them. It's really kind of disturbing, really.
Eugene confessionalizes by way of confessional, "Mary and I certainly have a wonderful chemistry together." Meh. "Chemistry" moves up in the ranks as the show's most overused catch-all word. But it does prove an accurate point, seeing as when you mix his primary periodic chart element (#129 - odium) and hers (#134 - oldium) together, the result is a frothy mixture, one that smells of hair gel and rank desperation, but possesses absolutely no real substance to speak of whatsoever. Case in point: "Mary's at a point in her life where she wants immediately to have a family, and I don't know that I'm at that same stage in my life at this point." That is such bizarrely evasive language to say, "She wants kids, me not so much. She's done." Such a sad aquatic irony that they'll be spending the say going down the river when I believe the words they're looking for to describe Mary's chances are actually "up a creek."
"Hey, Mary!" Eugene girlfriend!s in his highest obbligato range as Mary steps out of her car. She's wearing a big-ass cowboy hat because they are on the range, baby. She leaps out of the car and into Eugene's arms because she never touches the ground when they're together, and she confessionalizes over this that she's "scared, but very hopeful." I feel that way too, Mary, except for anything that involves the vaguest chance of you not losing.
This is that super-active date that always makes me feel so bad for the girl who's on it, where they're all encumbered with big microphones in their mouths while riding helicopters or covered from head to toe in protective space gear while planting an American flag on the surface of the moon. Cut to Eugene and Mary in a kayak, their entire upper selves completely covered by bright orange life preservers, and their hands taken up with huge oars. It would be a huge blow to their date, but Eugene's just pretty happy that, in this position, sitting as far away from Mary as he possibly can at this moment, there is no way that he can possibly get Mary pregnant. Because she wants to have kids. And she wants to start soon. And she wanted you to know.
They row, row, row their boat, gently down the stream. Merr---no, see, that's where you were supposed to come in. Back there. At "gently." Want to try again? Okay, here we go. Row, row, row...NO. Oh, it hopeless.
Ah, the Snake River Lodge & Spa. Right in the middle of the Tetons, and get your mind the hell out of the gutter. Eugene and Mary doff their clothes for a massage, Mary wearing a white bikini that you do have to admit looks kind of awesome. For an old lady. Like the true gentlemen he is in so many ways, Eugene, upon seeing her, notes, "Ay, carumba!" And the only thing sadder than being catcalled from The Simpsons Book Of Pick-Up Lines Written By Ten-Year-Olds is that I'm sure Mary wouldn't hesitate to eat Eugene's shorts, were the opportunity presented. And then they're lying to each other on massage tables, as licensed professionals (for this is what they are) brush honey all over Eugene's naked body. Uch. I'll be using sugar in my tea from now on, as it is the sweetener least involved in this sick charade. We learn that the massage featured, in fact, "honey and apricots." As if there weren't enough reasons to steer clear of him, now physical intimacy with Eugene can actually make you diabetic. Awesome. But Mary, greased up and mentally decorating her first child's room, narrates that "[Eugene] hopped off of his table and started to massage my feet." Get back on that table, you animal. People are paid to do that well. This is a breach. I can't take it anymore. And neither can they, as we cut to them in a shower -- like, a double shower -- and Mary admits from the safe confines of a confessional she taped while hanging out with the wardrobe department of Flashdance, "I felt very tempted. You have water and honey trickling down your body and you have the man of your dreams washing it off, it's a very tempting moment." A tempting moment for what, exactly? I'm not kidding. What was she really planning on doing here that wouldn't have gotten them duly removed from the Snake River Lodge & Spa? I'd like to know so that I can avoid it if it starts to look like it's going to happen.
Nana?
In an identically-colored though slightly less mock-collared shirt, Eugene prefaces dinner by telling us that he's "excited" for their night ahead but also "unsure as to what to do." Well, avoiding meaningful conversation with either of the other two girls he might ask to marry him seems to be working fine, so what not just Control-C, Control-X, and Control-V and run with it? Can't have our expectations as viewers challenged too much, can we? Or...can we? Let's go see!
"The thing that does concern me a little bit," Eugene tells Mary in the Serious Guy voice that failed to convince Trista and now fails to convince us, "is your timeline might be a little different than mine." Why Eugene, whatever do you mean? "I remember you saying" -- yeah, that one time she might have mentioned it -- "that you wanted to have children immediately and wanted to have a family. And it made me think. I was curious what you think about that." Like it's her opinion on NAFTA. Okay, good, though. He's laid it out there. All we need now is for Mary to step up and level with him, telling him, "I don't think anybody really knows what their timeline is." No! NO!!! Please! This is only the seventh week we've ever known Mary, and even we know how to say "hot flash" in Spanish. She wants kids. She knows she wants kids. We know he knows she wants kids. If he's not the guy who can give them to you then he's not the guy. Too bad they spent the whole day kayaking when Mary's most practiced mode of transport is clearly the backpedal. That. Is. Annoying. "I don't want to wait five years," she admits. "I don't want to wait four years, five years." Those are two different things? What is that, the length of Nana's funeral on Jupiter? Ten, fifteen minutes = four, five years?
It seems too that Eugene's been briefed that Mary might have some of her own reservations about this whole affair. She wrings her hands and launches right in: "Obviously, you're going out with two other girls." Math is hard! She tells him in no uncertain terms that the thought of Eugene being "intimate" (as the seventh-grade health-class terminology would have us understand) with either of the other girls weighs heavy on her rapidly deteriorating mind. She dances around it, though, and Eugene is forced to ask if Mary's asking if he's "been intimate" with either of the other women. She tells him that she doesn't know if it's right for her to ask that, but, while she's asking, yeah, that's kind of what she's asking. Eugene hems with the hawing for a moment, and settles on cyclical diplomacy: "Whatever moments I share with you are no one else's business, just as the moments that I share with them, at this point, are not anyone else's business either." And there it is, right there in Mary's eyes. A flicker that tells us she knows she's blown it. It's all adding up: between the jealousy, the inappropriate questions about the other girls, the suspicion, and the asking Eugene to start being a baby maker the second that ring is on the finger? She's toast. Just as long as she's not "eggs," too, because she's got only so many of those left over to spare.
Back in Flashdance Confessional, Mary tells us that Eugene "didn't come out and verbally say it, but when I looked in his eyes he gave me an answer. And it made me feel better." Well, look a little closer, Mary, because I think if you were looking for the truth rather than the line you're dying to believe, you'd understand that one Don Henley said it best: "You can't hide your lying eyes when you've got a cheating heart." And the rest of us can see right through his. Mary and Eugene toast to a wonderful dinner and a wonderful day, and to "possibly having dessert...here." Mary looks genuinely confused. "'Here'?" Eugene tried to get the Fantasy Suite note out of his pocket fast enough to coincide with the "here," but it didn't happen in time. Go, Smooth Sammy. Mary reads the note, which Eugene rather cynically recites along with her at this point. But Mary tells us she felt "comfortable" and "safe," because if she can't help making everything about the womb, well, that's just what makes her Mary, isn't it? Lying to each other by candlelight, Eugene asks point-blank, "You're cool with everything we talked about?" Mary says she is, because her milky cataracts have covered up the t-shirt Eugene is wearing that reads "I'm with no rose," with an accompanying arrow pointing directly at her. It's face-sucking-tastic!
Instead of the Trista-like Charlie, the quiet, dark horse of Ryan won. Instead of the personality-strong Kirsten, the quiet, unassuming Jen won. Ladies and gentlemen: welcome to your date with Estella. We seem to have popped in on the set of High School Reunion, joining Eugene on a private island in Belize. Sucking the helium that seems to be her lifeblood, Estella squeaks in a confessional that she's "so excited" about this experience. She meets Eugene on a deck as he steps off a boat that will take them to their island, as Estella tells us, "I'm going into this blind." Man, between Estella and her dad, that family is just trying to exhaust every one of the senses until there are none left, eh? Incidentally, in her choice of Eugene, Estella also strongly indicates that she doesn't have any taste. I'm just saying.
"Can you Belize it?" Estella asks Eugene on the boat. Wacka. Wacka. Wacka.
Right away, Eugene and Estella are off to snorkeling. They pull on their gear and leap in among sharks, swimming with the stock footage (and that is reeeeeeeeally obviously stock footage) and hoping not to get bitten. We fade straight to nighttime on the island, where they sit at the end of a long boardwalk and Eugene ruminates on the fact that there's another Rose Ceremony "in two days." Oh, man, two days, still? Estella, taking the opposite tack from Mary, goes totally egalitarian, asking Eugene how he's doing in what must be a very difficult time. He said it's a hard decision to make, and she offers to "help" him. As the sun goes down, they sit down to dinner, toasting to each other. Estella tells Eugene she knows what she's feeling in her heart: "I know I like you a lot." Awwww. Except, not really. But Eugene chooses her anyway. She can't imagine "walking out that door" and never seeing him again if she doesn't get a rose, adding, "That's what bums me out." Eugene responds that he's making an effort not to compare the girls to one another (well then, what are we doing here?), but that when he was with Estella, he wasn't thinking about any of the other girls. Oooh, sorry, Kelly Jo. And, at this point in the evening, Eugene pulls out the ubiquitous card. Estella sees the names on it and asks, "Who's Bob?" Indeed, readers of this recap will be asking themselves the very same question! Bob indicates himself, Eugene, with a raised finger because these two are like one of those comedy groups of two that make the people laugh, and Estella tells him that she was "just kidding," adding, "I thought it was Eugene." She reads the card aloud: "Estella and Eugene." She lets Eugene choose what their lodgings will be, and they retire to the Fantasy Suite, Estella telling us, "I'm in love with him. I want to be with Bob." Who? Back into the conveniently-located hot tub they go, Bob tells us, "I had my mind made up as to who [sic] I was going to give roses to." See, now, I don't believe that for even one-half of one second. He's scared of the fact that he still doesn't know what he's going to do, and doesn't want to hurt anyone along the way. It's a world of pain out, there, Eugene. A world of pain, indeed.
Back in Eugene, Oregon (well, Malibu), Chris and Eugene sit in the Room Of Reckoning, Eugene telling Chris that it surprised him how much the three women have opened up to him. He doesn't want to hurt anyone, but he knows that he's going to. Chris reminds Eugene that the women haven't seen each other, and that they won't be able to talk to each other once they enter the house. As Chris sees to that deed, Bob attends to the video messages. Kelly Jo feels like "the luckiest girl on earth," because she knows that there are people on the planet who will never experience the kind of emotions that she has with Eugene. Chris sees her in and sits her down as Mary tells Bob that she wants a rose so she can fall in love with Eugene's family, just as she has fallen in love with Eugene. She enters and house and sits, her hair pulled into a tight bun and her neck decorated with a big, black flower, because that is far more a metaphor for the kind of rose she'll be receiving tonight. Not to mention the only flower she'll be receiving tonight. But y'all knew that already, didn't you? Finally, Estella shows up, telling Bob in her video message, "Hi. Omigod, I had the most amazing date with you." She tells him that she's falling "head over heels" in love with him, but I'm just not buying it. She finishes up that they should "come back to Belize on [their] thirty-fifth wedding anniversary." What a fool Belize, the future Mrs. Eugene Guiney. What a fool Belize.
The ladies sit in silence as Chris enters the room. He dumps the two roses and wishes them a good evening. "Good evening," they barely whisper. NO TALKING! Chris tells us that he's just talked to Eugene, and that Chris has "never seen such a conflicted Bachelor." He wishes them all the best and goes to fetch Eugene. He's so conflicted! Which shade of mock turtleneck goes best with Mary's pain?
Eugene comes down now as the music swells, and he tells them that it's "very difficult" to tell one of them goodbye. It's killing him to be in this position. The position of not horizontal. What could possibly happen ?
Kelly Jo, will you accept this rose? Man, she really thinks she won. Like, REALLY.
Fifty-year pause. I file my nails at my desk like a 1950s receptionist.
Estella, will you accept this rose? She takes the rose and tells him, "You better Belize it." Yes, but do you Belize in life after love? I can feel something inside me say I really don't think you're strong enough. Do you Belize in life after love? I can feel something inside me say I really don't think you're strong enough.
But it's poor old Mary, on her way out to pasture, who will have to grapple with the existential nature of Cher's lyrics in a limo ride off the grounds of the Eugene O'Neill Theater Institute. Horribly cliché south-of-the-border music Mary could dance around a hat to kicks up, and she reflexively goes for her cell phone, only to discover that that's not what is making the Mexican novelty song play for once. She hugs the other two girls goodbye and retires outside with Eugene, where the two sit down on The Bench Of Buh-Bye. He tells her that in real life he wouldn't even have a damn chance of meeting someone like her, and whispers that he thinks she'd be compromising by being with him. Did he just pull an "it's not you, it's me"? Nevertheless, Mary buys it (I've bought it), and tells him that if either of the two girls loves him half as much as she does, then it's love. Awww, poor Mary. She cries and cries, but she's pretty classy, still. "All I did was fall in love with you, and there's nothing wrong with that." Oy. That's genuinely sad. They hug goodbye one more time and she's in the limo out of town. At least her kids won't have his genes. Or his, um, Eugenes. See, now I don't even know what I'm talking about.
"I thought he was it," Mary flatly monotones. Then her throat squeaks and she starts to cry again, and she tells us that she can't be mad because Eugene's following his heart. Away from making a commitment to someone he's going to ask to marry him. Inside, Eugene toasts the two remaining women, glad that they're at least free of this terrifying "Bob" figure about whom they keep reading these evil little recaps all over the web.