By Djb
Props to Wing and Sars.
The kicky, strummy, acoustic, just-hanging-around- my-SoCal-manse- with-my-man- and-also-fourteen- other-girls-who- think-he's-their- man-too-oh- and-also-there's- a-host-to- streamline-the- proceedings-and- also-incidentally- ten-camera-crews strains of "The Bachelor Theme Rag" kick it up on the soundtrack early this week. Man, I love it when they go acoustic. I think Fat Amy covered this song when they were on Unplugged in the Featuring Musicians Of Questionable Repute Who Should've Stuck To Entertaining Us In The Way We Were Already Used To edition, right after a solemn rendition of Eddie Murphy's "(My Girl Wants to) Party all the Time" and "Let's Go Mets," the 1986 team theme song, sung by...the New York Mets! And you know, you may once have thought it was just a dumb stadium anthem, but there's really nothing like hearing that song acoustic to bring out its full chordal texture.
Can you tell yet that nothing happened this week? I'm going on strike until they bring back Amber from last season and make her stumble around the mansion like she's doped up or dying or something.
We join the action in progress, Chris "Steven Again- With-The-Same- Exact-Spiel-Berg" Harrison standing in the living room, practicing for his Model Congress finals to no one in particular: "Ladies, welcome." Thanks, Chris. But I'm actually a guy, which sometimes comes up as a matter of debate around here, so thanks for clouding the issue even further. "As you've probably noticed, unfortunately, only fourteen of you moved in this morning." A smattering of panicked faces pass before the camera, none poutier and blanker than the vacant face of Lanah, who you can practically see telegraphing the message, "No wonder when I counted the girls in the living room, I finished usin' all my fingers, and then when I started with the toes, the little one didn't get to go wee wee wee all the way home!" That was a run-on way for me to call them all really dumb. And say, Chris, where is that fifteenth little piggy, anyway? "Antoinette fell seriously ill. She was rushed to the emergency room, and right now she's undergoing a battery of tests." The looks of the ladies become even more grave and concerned. Mary's eyes seem to ask, "Battery? You mean like the thing that made my last three boyfriends work?" But then, her grasp on English, not so much. Chris wishes Antoinette "a speedy recovery," and speaks for himself and for Entertainment's Please Don't Sue Us For Dying On The Show Department when he press conferences, "Hopefully, she'll be back with you very soon." In the spirit of continued competition and gamesmanship, the girls don't give a crap. Nothing like a little death to thin out the herd a little, am I right? ["If this were any other group of humans, Antoinette's removal from the scene would make them all eat cake. But I'm sure no one in this crowd has touched a carb since '99." -- Wing Chun]
The Grim Reaper ambles forward and presents Antoinette with a black rose, asking, "Antoinette, will you accept this rose...OF DEATH?" She's all, "Death, it's just a flesh wound. Even though I do feel like you and I have a connection." And off we go in a stock shot of an ambulance to a stock shot of a hospital exterior to the Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center. The music pumps up harder and deathier than before, as the sirens roar and the promise of the opening montage from the first episode lets us down with what actually happened barely two television hours later. Because the spoilers had her afflicted with everything from spider bites to rubella to alien soul occupation to the rage, it seems a bit anticlimactic when it's played out as it actually happened. Is a life lived not in montage really worth living? Whatever she's afflicted with, it makes not only Antoinette look pale and tragic; it also drains the pigment from all of the surrounding shots as well. The interior hospital shots of a "Look at me! I'm dying on the Bob show!" Antoinette are bleached to within an inch of the F-grade garage-sale Beta video this show is shot on. She's lying in a hospital bed as a doctor diagnoses her with a "kidney infection" at the end of a very long sentence I have to watch eleven times to suss out. In fact, when I first watched this, I had no idea what was wrong with her. Now I know what's wrong with her: she's in a hospital bed rather than in a hot tub. Antoinette voices over, "I don't want to be ten steps behind when it's the biggest days of my life and I'm sitting in a hospital. It really sucks." Gyp! I wanted weepy histrionics! Other girls making it all about them! A tear-streaked Bob at her bedside, later laying the last rose ON HER GRAVE! Bob and ashes, dust and Bob, I now pronounce you...man and death!
Anyway, none of that happened. Shut up, Antoinot. That's pronounced "an-twon-NOT," for anyone in phonetic straits.
While Antoinot takes her fantasy date to death's door, we're back at the house listening to Chris reading from the unabridged dictionary, under the tab of the letter "Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz." Onward he goes: "Be ready for some changes. Don't assume anything. For now, like always, you'll be dating in groups of five. But on at least one of these dates, five of you will leave, but only four of you will return." So those are the changes that they had to be ready for, then. And they can assume that that'll be it. And you know they're only going to have one of those dates out of the three, especially with one of the girls currently fulfilling her nubile-skin-showing quotient through a gaping hole in the back of a flimsy hospital gown. Anyway, rank looks of dingo-ate-my-baby shock and horror ricochet around the room. But it gets better. Kind of awesomely better: "So, if I show up on your date, you'll know it's an elimination date." First, I love that the expression for this date has been pre-coined for the lazy viewer's convenience: "the elimination date." Actually, seeing as it has been immediately elevated to the level of things that could one day be considered the Most! Shocking! Ever!, perhaps it should be properly capitalized to the Elimination Date. ["And if any of those bachelorettes slip up and call it the 'elimidate,' they are so booted." -- Wing Chun] Second, though, and much more importantly, I love that the tip-off that the date has gone horribly, horribly wrong is...the appearance of Chris Harrison. He's been incorporated into the narrative arc of the show as "Guy Who Makes Things Shitty." I love it, and I would actually love it more only if it happened during bad dates that I was on, i.e. "I thought was on the worst date ever, and then -- oh, you'll never even guess -- Chris Harrison just showed up out of freakin' nowhere. And he didn't even pay for his drink. And he wouldn't stop making me look at framed pictures of everyone else I'd ever gone on a date with and asking me if I felt this date was an important part of the 'journey.'" Aw, crap. Did I just write me some Bachelor fanfic?
We learn that the first Date Box has already arrived, and Chris sends Kelly-Jo out to get it. Why he specifies her for the trip is anyone's guess, but I sincerely hope it's because (1) there's a bucket of acid sitting on top of the front door that will fall onto Kelly-Jo's head when she opens said door, causing the bucket to fall onto her head as she stumbles around for our amusement, at least until she completely disintegrates; or (2) the Date Box is, in fact, a flaming bag of poop. Either way, Kelly-Jo returns inside moments later carrying a yellow suitcase with black trim that she rests on The Biggest Ottoman Ever. Chris bids the women a cryptic and malevolent farewell: "Enjoy this house. Enjoy the dates. And I'll see most of you at the Rose Ceremony." Mwah ha ha ha ha ha. Chris takes off with a "so long," and the girls begin applauding. Whether it's for the thing that's square, interchangeable, and lifeless or whether it's for the suitcase is anyone's guess. But before Chris is even out the door, fourteen girls -- minus one little piggy -- are crowded around the Date Box like it's glowing with the meaning of life. One of the Lindsays (I think) snatches an envelope from the inside the box and reads off the participants of the first date: Krazy-Eyes Brooke, No Distinguishing Physical Characteristics Meredith, Karin, Antoinette, and Kelly-Jo. Hey, Mr. Producer? I don't want to freak anybody out, but Antoinette is actually...ah, never mind. Oh, and there's a handwritten note from Bob! Here's what it says: "Let's take our hearts to San Francisco for the day." No wonder they let him write a whole book. His story editors write the way people talk! There's actually an audible "aaaaaw" from the girls. It's true: if this prose is any indication, that book he wrote is going to be amazing. Look! That sentence is even in iambic pentameter! Except with an extra two syllables at the end! Which is, like, two BETTER than Shakespeare. Let's name his classic book before it even hits the stands in November. I nominate the title One Hundred Years of Bobitude.
And, in the spirit of healthy competition, girls wishing for the death of...each other. Take us there, Meredith: "Antoinette is not able to go on the date to San Francisco. I feel bad that she can't go..." Stop right there and don't say any more! "...but it gives all of us a certain point of advantage. It's one less person that we have to worry about." She doesn't realize that's tantamount to wishing someone dead, does she? Or maybe she does. I wonder in Shakespearean cadence: is Antoinette the girl who soon will die? Oh, look! This iambic pentameter thing is easier than it looks! Except I forgot the extra two beats: is Antoinette the girl who soon will die today? Sigh. If there's anything more beautiful than Shakesperean verse, it's iambic bobtameter.
Kelly Jo (didn't her name use to have a hyphen?) somehow manages to look and sound simultaneously like all of the designing women as she confessionalizes, "Bob picked us up for our date." A private jet lands in San Fran, and a first shot of Bob "Dippity Don't" Guiney ensues, as he helps the girls climb down from the plane. Wow. Nothing happened on that flight at all, people. Kelly-NoMoreHypen-Jo keeps on, "It's a dream to be with the guy that you really want to be with. Granted, there's other girls with ya, but what can you do?" I'll make a list for you later.
Let's go crazy, Bay Area-style! The MontageMaker3000 feature on the AVID is seriously wheezing and smoking from overuse right now. Skyline! Fisherman's Wharf! Golden Gate Bridge. Um, baby seals? Alcatraz, where losers are always whining about their best. We land on a boat that is empty, save for the four ladies and Guiney Love, cruising around the bay or the harbor or the Quay or whatever it's called when you live your life of the sea. Despite the famed quirkiness of the San Francisco weather and the visible results of the wind, Bob's hair does not move, except of its own accord. Bob? As the old saying goes? When you don't look good, you don't look good. He's in the middle of his prepared material, standing facing the girls, who are seated politely in two rows, facing the performer. It's a wonder he doesn't carry a microphone and a plain brick wall with him wherever he goes. He asks his assembled audience, "You know what's so weird about weddings?" Why is he a George Carlin routine from 1979 right now? I can feel this sentence heading toward an end of "And in baseball...you go home!" Not a joke, George. Not your material, Bob. Anyway: "The weirdest thing's that weddings are for everyone but you." Iambic fourteen-amter! Shakespeare: 10. Guiney Love: 14. No. Contest. He adds that he doesn't want his wedding to accommodate the guests, but that he wants it to be, effectively, all about him. Well, that's the egalitarian spirit, isn't it? A rowdy audience member named, I think, Meredith, dares to interrupt the performer's flow with her own non-surprisingly non-dissenting opinion: "I'd get married at 7-11 if it was the right person." It's not the worst conversational gambit I've ever heard, as conversational gambits go, but Bob merely uses it as a jumping-off point for his own "riff" on how wacky it would be if someone actually got married at a 7-11. Matching Slurpees! Big Gulps! Hands intertwined over a bean burrito! Hey, Bob, you forgot "guests throwing Chex Mix" as you get into the limo. And you forgot "taking your honeymoon in Flavor Country." And you also forgot letting someone besides you get a word in edgewise.
Because he's not the typical Bachelor (read the press notes, people, if you're not as convinced as I now am), Guiney Love has to call attention to the fact that this is where he pulls one of the girls aside. "Here's where I do something totally uncomfortable. Brooke, I'm gonna take you back and we're gonna talk." Krazy-Eyes? Of all the people. Kelly Jo is still laughing audibly at the 7-11 material because she didn't understand ANY of it, but Meredith confessionalizes that she was "surprised" when Bob chose Krazy-Eyes to have sixteen private seconds with. Guiney Love and Krazy-Eyes make their way down a flight of stairs and then aft (I think? I want to pretend Life of Pi taught me things about boats or literature -- and I know my opinions on this are widely documented elsewhere -- but I guess it didn't), where they sit and strategize the part where she doesn't win. Bob tells her that he wanted to have some time to talk to her alone, and then tells us that he wanted some time to talk to her alone. Guiney Love confessionalizes, "Because Brooke's a little bit quieter than everyone else, I really wanted to get to know her better." And we cut back aft (port? Stern? Boatifically?) to find out that Bob actually meant "I wanted to get to know better her thoughts about how groovy I am." Krazy-Eyes opens up, "I love the way that you're close with your family." Bob tells us that he does love his family, and Krazy-Eyes tells us in confessional, "Bob's amazing. And Bob is the guy you want to be with for the rest of your life." Don't you second-person me with your hypno-eyes, you wicked sorceress. Through all this, Bob has a hand on Krazy-Eyes's leg, and his cuffs are folded back just once, allowing a silver bracelet to dangle casually at the end of his wrist. I wonder if that piece of jewelry has a secret compartment that dispenses Drakkar Noir, should he need to firm up his "South Hoboken, 1987" aesthetic that made it all the way over to central California.
Back on the main level (now THAT is a technical seafaring term if ever I've heard one) of the boat, Bob has long since reappeared, crying, "I've never been so cold in my life, actually." Someone suggests that they all "huddle," and Bob's harem closes in on him accommodatingly. Back before the date, Kelly Jo confessionalizes, "There's supposed to be five girls on this date with Bob, and, unfortunately, Antoinette did get ill and she wasn't able to join us. She's missing out on something that's pretty big." We know who the date was with. Why does everyone insist on saying Bob's name over and over again? And why does he feel the need to match them, equaling every instance of them saying "Bob" with him saying "I"? And why was Antoinot chosen to go on the first date when she would be capable of going on any other date besides that one, balancing out the five-on-each-date principle so pivotal to the show's existence? And, most importantly, what do you think of the title of Bob's upcoming bestselling book The Devil Wears Bob? Or his postmodern tome The Crying of Bob 49? Or his slim volume of poetry, The Bob Not Taken? Or his play, Bob? Y'know, instead of Hamlet?
Limo stock footage. "Today," Antoinot tells us, "I'm going into the house for the first time because I just got back from the hospital." She worries that she's an "outsider" coming in, and you can see from Estella's -- I think -- high-pitched "Hiiiiii-eeee!" that it's going to be one mighty big pain in the ass for them all to revise the Vegas odds back up to "out of 15." Mary comes running down the hall and gives Antoinot a giant bear hug, osteoporosis-ridden limbs crunching from a long lifetime of general use, and then she pinches Antoinot's cheeks and cries "I haven't seen you since you were THIS BIG!" before offering Antoinot some hard candies from her purse and telling her, "Put on a sweater, I'm freezing just looking at you." Because those are all things old people do. Antoinot is temporarily feeling the warm embrace of those who save face by pretending to love her, but the remaining girls waste no time before telling her, "Your date was today" and "You should be in San Fran right now." Zouch. Way to make her feel at home, people. Antoinot tells us, "I'm kind of bummed out that, y'know, I didn't get my date. I want to be in San Francisco with Bob right now." Why don't we go for you and tell you how it is?
We're back. It sucked.
Oh, very well. We'll stay.
Kicking it on a cable car because that's what you do in San Francisco, we're back up in the frozen north to find Bob, his four ladies, and one absent diseased pair of kidneys (still in L.A.) poised on the brink of sixteen Rice-a-Roni jokes that Bob stops me from making by making one himself. Onto the cable car steps a jolly old man who the subtitle tells us is, "Willie L. Brown, Jr.," Mayor of San Francisco. The girls SQUEEEEE like he's, I don't know, Bob Guiney or something, and Bob asks, "Is that Mr. Mayor?" This is so odd. The salty old mayor makes a quick, weird cameo, climbing aboard and opening with a joke, "Boy, I'd like to switch spots with you!" It's just occurred to me that I've never heard anyone say that to me before. Anyone? Djb For A Day? Sigh. Bob deems the whole thing "a perfect San Francisco treat. And I do love Rice-a-Roni, by the way." Ew. Someone who must have eschewed the carbs some months back has a big box of free on its way to his Michigan home right now. The Mayor finishes off his don't-recall-me-too campaign with a pitch for his town: "Have a good time at the Top of the Mark. You really haven't lived until you drink up there." And with that sales pitch for high-altitude alcoholism (not seen since Andrew's aged mother drank her family back into the tire business and yelled "Born in Cleveland!" in the hills of Napa on last season's finale), Mayor Kool is gone from the cable car to hop back in his MayorMobile for afternoon appearances on So I Married An Axe Murderer, girls club, and, if he can find a syndication wormhole in time, whichever of Too Close for Comfort or One Day at a Time was the one that took place in San Francisco.
Jenny, Lee-Ann, and Mary (and I only know this because Mary begins a sentence, "Jenny, Lee-Ann, and I were in the hot tub...") are in the hot tub, Lee-Ann dancing around like the dumb, painted harlot she is, and Mary confessionalizing the K-story of this episode (on a scale from A to J), "They were asking me to do a translation so that could say it to Bob." Mary wants to know what they would say in English that she could translate for him, and Lee-Ann suggests, "You are so hot, Bobby." In dead seriousness, Jenny points an "I'm With Stupid" finger at Lee-Ann and implores, "Tell her. I wouldn't say that." Lee-Ann pulls out a conveniently-located Drunk to Spanish, Spanish to Drunk dictionary as Mary takes them through the process: "Tu eras mui caliente." Pause. "Bobby." Is that even a sentence? You have much hot, Bobby. Lee-Ann stands up as much as her toxed-up motor control will allow and begins screaming over and over again what must sound to Mary in Spanish as, "Super monkey karate death car, Bobby." Seriously, she's not even close. She's not even trying. And this concludes the pesky language distro. Man, is Bachelor University getting harder this year, or what?
Krazy-Eyes Brooke takes us through the rest of the evening: "After the trolley cart, we went to the Mark Hopkins Hotel, we walked into this suite, and it was absolutely amazing." The five of them sit around and have this conversation. Meredith: "What if Chris comes in?" Other girl: "I think he's going to." Other girl: "Me too." Other girl: "Me too." Other girl: "So do I." Other girl: "Uh-hmmm." Bob: "Anyone want to know the difference between men and women in regards to utilizing the television remote control?" Okay, he doesn't really say that. But I'm just saying, these crazy bitches are always complaining that the reason they didn't end up with their soulmate (besides the obvious fact that, y'know, I guess they weren't really his soulmate after all) is because they didn't have enough time with him, didn't get to talk to him, didn't get to get him to know them. But now, here on a Power Play group date (featuring one girl in the penalty box...OF THE HOSPITAL), four women sit around with a staggeringly silent Bob, and all they can think to do is play a rousing game of Where in the World is Chris Harrison? He's in Oslo! With the rest of the textiles! V.I.L.E. Henchmen, all of them. The good news, at least, is that I now have a warrant to arrest Ihor Ihorovich. And after I let that slippery Nick Brunch get away last recap, if I can't complete the pass on Ihorovich, I am so fucked with Interpol I can't even tell you.
Bob steals Meredith away, and we cut to them lying on a bed, Bob asking her what she wants to do with her life. "Culinary school," answers this makeup artist, and I swallow any number of "best way to Bob's heart is through his now-stapled stomach" jokes like a box of free Rice-a-Roni, but it's only because he's asking for it because he was fat and now he's skinny and he wanted us to know. Bob talks to Meredith about the fact that he's glad he's talking to her, and she rests a kitschy clog on his leg before leaning in and getting the good, good Guiney Love she knew was coming. The night ends with Guiney Love speaking for all of America with a guiding principle for life that works either in context or out: "I was really glad Chris Harrison did not show up tonight."
Guiney Love shows up at Catty On A Hot Tin Roof, voicing over all the while that he'll be leaving momentarily on his second group date with Kristi Kute Cheeks, Estella (and, woe be it to the weight requirements of the plane, an enormous Pepsi machine that almost boots her out of the frame), Jen, Lindsay, and Misty. Hmmm. The middle date. The correct number of women. A Chris-free first date. My breath is held tightly, lest a sigh of resignation escape, hurtling that soda machine right on top of the one person I actually kind of like. A limo (in which, I guess, NOTHING happened) cruises them to a helicopter pad, and they soar over smoggy, not-that-interesting- from-the-air Los Angeles. One of the girls shows everyone else where her apartment is, and my crappy joke thunder ("I can see my house from here!") is stolen on the second group date even more egregiously than it was on the first ("Something about Rice-a-Roni!"). Her apartment gets a round of applause, and hundreds of thousands of square miles of sprawl below is all, "Thank you very much. I have so many people to thank." After the helicopter ride (on which, I guess, NOTHING else happened), we're off to the W Hotel. They have the whole pool to themselves, and Bob swims around by himself actually yelling "You go, girl!" as they strip off their wares and prepare to look good in a hot tub or a tub of any other kind. Misty is first into the pool with Bob, but...wait, she can't swim! I know this because of the sickeningly unsubtle way in which she swims right over to Bob and into his arms, as if she's jumped into some kind of shark-infested, I don't know, "dehumistyfier"? Estella tells us that Misty is "outgoing" in a bad way, and that she knows how to "grab a guy's attention," and we cut away before we splice in the end of Estella's sentence, which could have been taped at any point ever, talking about anyone at all: "She's my biggest competition." Over at the bar, Kristi Kute Cheeks makes a throaty cat noise at the sight of a robed Misty and Bob carrying their drinks into some kind of pool house. Lindsay worries that Misty is a "Size One," and tells us that's she's going to "stay away from her." Why, because Misty won't be visiting any of the West Coast's finer international airports in the couple of hours? Oh, um, spoiler.
Dumber than a ventriloquist dummy at a Dumb Convention in the month of Dumbuary, Misty sits facing Bob on a couch, sipping a margarita with a dumbed rim, asking in her perkiest blond voice, "So who do you feel like right now you're gonna get rid of?" Bob flinches ever so slightly, so Misty makes sure to qualify, "I mean, if Chris shows up." Well, that makes this utter violation of tact and decorum acceptable, when she changes the question from "Who are going to get rid of the time you have to boot someone?" to, well, "Who are going to get rid of the time you have to boot someone?" The differences are subtle in that they are none. And Bob, for some reason, strikes me as the kind of guy who might have seen this show once or twice, so he should really know that the only appropriate answer is something in the "let's just live in the moment, baby" family. Instead, he actually gives the binding answer that she's looking for, clumsily volleying back, "I wouldn't want to get rid of you, I know that." Guiney Love then rears his giant alter ego head, and smacky kissing ensues. Misty tells us in confessional that she doesn't think she's getting booted at all. Few people know this, but the first sentence in Herman Melville's Mo-Bob Dick is actually "Call me Bob."
Bob takes Estella away for some alone (and masseuse makes three!) time, and we're finally seeing another one of those staggering changes on this show we've been hearing so much about: during the spa massages this season, the guy and the girl face each other! What will they think of ? Candlelight dinners at fancy getaways that feature pinot noir instead of a merlot? Because this is really thinking outside the box here. Anyway, Estella (faces Bob and!) tells him that everyone thought her deaf dad rocked. Seriously. "All my friends loved my father. They thought he was so cool. He was deaf, but everybody understood him." Yeah, but they made fun of him the second they left your house. Hey, get those flaming torches out of here! I'm just the messenger, the deaf-imitator. Kids just do that shit. I'm sure he was a great guy and all, but as soon as his back was turned...oh now, see, that one was totally my fault.
Bob employs a lot of repeat-the-last- thing-your-companion- just-said-to-you- to-show- you're-listening TherapySpeak in this segment, which seems to mean he actually likes her quite a bit. He regurgitates, "You grew up with a deaf father." What? "You grew up with a deaf father." What? "You grew up with a deaf father." WHAT? See, now that one was my fault, too. Bob continues, "You basically grew up with two languages." That's true. My aunt was a therapist for the deaf for a long time, and so I know the alphabet. And how to say "asshole." And also, to say my favorite thing, "flying asshole." There's actually a way to say that in sign language. It's kind of hard to explain, but I'm doing it right now at my desk.
Estella backstory flibbity.
Back out on a hot tin pool, the rest of the girls are engaged in a discussion that goes, "He's gotta be kissing some girls." Misty very quietly says something to the effect that she kissed him, and Kristi grabs her face and screams a high-pitched, fake, "Yay!" Misty recoils, "Not yay!" And Kristi Kute Cheeks instantly endears herself to me, because she gets to the bottom of Misty's "not yay" in one country second, and knows that what the patronizing bitch means is, "What I meant is, 'Yay for me, not for you.'" So Kristi rounds on Misty and is all, "So, wait, you didn't or you did?" leaving Misty to stammer and look stupid and plant the national flag of Dumbland in the ground to claim it proudly as her own.
Kelly Jo is inside the refrigerator deciding which flavor of Pepsi Vanilla to choose when a new Date Box arrives at the NoManner House. The remaining six girls -- Lindsay, Lee-Ann, Mary, Jenny, Lanah, and a late-breaking Antoinot -- "look out Hollywood, here we come!" Several gigantic feathered boas come streaming out of the box, and unless this where we learn that "be ready for some changes" and "don't assume anything" means that these chicks are all drag queens and that they're about to break into a boozy six-part rendition of "The Ladies Who Lunch," this season and I have always entirely had it with each other.
Jenny bitchtastically expresses her consternation that Antoinot is coming on the date, seeing as "there were five of us, and now there's six." I ain't no mathgician, but I gotta say, I think she's right. I mean, mathematically speaking.
Kristi Kute Cheeks has an adorable yellow flower in her chair and is in the middle of a story about being married and being sixty. I think Bob should pick her. Estella opens her mouth to tell exactly the same story, when from off-screen the dinging of a fork against a champagne glass can mean only one thing. They break off in horror, and Chris wastes no time: "This is an Elimination Date. I brought four white roses, which means, unfortunately, one of you will be going home tonight. And Bob, you have a decision to make right now. So if you will come join me." Of course they had to do this is L.A. The airlines would never have allowed Chris to take his precious fork and glass set as carry-on.
After a full production break to reset all of the cameras for a Rose Ceremony and after a full round of confessionals from all of the girls (er, I mean "Right away and not a moment later"), Chris and Bob are standing to each other. Bob has a terror-stricken look on his face as he explains, "I hope you all know that I didn't expect this, so I hope all you guys can kind of bear with me a little bit." Well, except he knew about the idea of the Elimination Date, I'm sure. And even if he wasn't told as explicitly as the girls were (which I'm sure he was), he might have thought to say, "I don't like Chris that much either, but why are you so adamant about not seeing him here NOW?" at some point in the earlier riveting San Francisco exchange. And, seeing it didn't happen that first night, it was going to happen on one of the other two. I'm not saying the decision wasn't difficult for Bob, but this raw, numbing shock is a weensy bit overstated, wouldn't you say? It's "I have to get rid of the one girl I haven't drunkenly macked with in the pool yet," not "Oh no, space monkeys are attacking." Just for clarity's sake.
And can someone turn down the waterfall in the outdoor fountain? I know that hotel is nice and all, but no one said the Rose Ceremony needed to take place in the tiki bar at the Rainwater Café. They're making the man scream.
Estella, will you accept this rose? But it's white! Isn't that the rose of chastity? Should it make us feel that maybe Misty won't get one after all?
Misty, will you accept this rose? Oooh. If the expression "jump the shark" hadn't itself done so, Bob would just have at this moment.
Kristi, will you accept this rose? I'm officially rooting for her to win it all.
Jen, will you accept this rose? Oh, great. Another bland, blonde dark hose Jen in an ill-fitting gown gets another step closer to being the Bachelor's final prize.
In the limo, Lindsay cries and tells us, "I really think Misty should be in this limo. I do. I do. I don't think she's right for Bob. I don't." She has her last ever word in subtitles, as I can't understand her through the racking sobs as she tells us, "It sucks. It really sucks." Whatever. This show was a full Lindsay over its "Lindsay Quota" anyway.
Awwwww, ABC still thinks The Practice is on! That is ADORABLE!
Okay, as if there was going to be more than one Elimination Date. C'mon, people. Lee-Ann tells tells us that word snuck back that "Lindsay from California did not come back." Lee-Ann tells us, "I want to go home." Lee-Ann shares that in common with only Lee-Ann. About her going home. Not about other people wanting to go home. About...oh, forget it.
Off we go to downtown Hollywood (ew). Bob and his concubines pull up in front of Grauman's and are greeted by literally six million screaming fans who must have been told that Poopsie Carmichael was coming to do a special appearance or something. The women step out of the car and do a slow-mo Reservoir Fame Hogs walk. The seven of them put their hands in concrete and Bob signs his name. Did he just get a star? Fame is for suckers.
And, Hollywood Montage Of The Drive From My Gym To Pam's House! Cinerama! Formosa! King King Club! Wait, what the fuck is the King King Club? A burlesque show ensues, with the sexy dancers getting no seconds of screen time before Bob's dancers move in for a show of their own. Seriously, this is the flesh trade at its worst. Mary shakes her ass right in Bob's face. A lot. Seriously, it's disgusting. Lee-Ann steals Bob away to some creepy-ass back room with red walls and a mysteriously-stained mattress. They make out. A lot.
Pre-Rose Ceremony gloom sets in downstairs as Chris and Bob retire to the Room of Reckoning. Bob tells Chris that it's been "impossibly difficult" for him. Chris asks if Bob's still so "guarded," and Bob admits that he already has feelings for the girls beyond what he ever thought possible. He doesn't find it out of the realm that he would fall in love with one of the women. Chris takes the roses and retires back downstairs, and Lanah tells us she'd marry Bob if he asked, and The Last Lindsay proclaims herself "the all-around package." Lee-Ann says she'll wake up tomorrow "with the rose right beside" her. And thorns sticking out of her hair and bloody gashes all over her face. It's almost worth keeping her around for.
Chris morbidly returns downstairs, stares across the giant expanse of the rug, and The Department Of Inessential Tasks files its quarterly report now that he's already proctored the Elimination Date and therefore has no more useful purpose in this episode or ever: "Bob only has ten long-stemmed roses to hand out, which means four of you will be going home tonight." Once again, Chris reminds the ladies of their own "power" to "decline his invitation." Krazy-Eyes scans Bob as he makes his way into the room, hoping to hypnotize him into making the wrong decision. Bob sets himself at his mark, and because he's not like the other Bachelors, he has "laughed at every Bachelor coming up here, complaining what a difficult decision this can be." But now it's a hard decision. Because there are no more distracting sets of extraneous twins.
And now.
Meredith, will you accept this rose? I like her. Therefore, she is no longer a pick for the final four.
Jenny, will you accept this rose? Man, she cleans up real nice for the Rose Ceremony, I must say.
Kelly Jo, will you accept this rose? Whah, mee? Whah, I don't know nothing 'bout no roses or lovin' a man, but...well, suh, if you say so!
Antoinette, will you accept this rose? This pity rose because you were in the hospital? That I plucked out a condolences bouquet sent prematurely to your estate? Is that a rose you feel compelled to accept?
Mary, will you accept this rose? And keep your ass out of my face?
Brooke, will you accept this rose? You are getting sleeeeeeepier and sleeeeeeeeepier.
Karin, will you accept this rose? Wasn't she eliminated? The editors certainly seem to think she was. She'll have to vote absentee for whether she's keeping it or not.
Misty, will you accept this rose? Buh-bye, Lindsay.
Estella, will you accept this rose? What? Estella, will you accept this rose? WHAT? Estella, will you accept this rose? WHAAAT? Sorry.
Shut up, Chris.
Lee-Ann, will you accept this rose? That's not how to pronounce Kristi's name at all!
This was a weird crop, I have to say. Lindsay tells us that she was "a little crushed" by this, but that she feels better for "not having thrown herself at someone." I'm always disappointed by the grace of a classy exit. Which is why we're happy for what happens , when she tells us, "I'm surprised Lee-Ann got a rose...he's definitely not the one for me if he likes her." Hee! Save it for the reunion special, including the face she makes after she says it.
Lanah is "upset, because [she] could see [herself] marrying Bob." Kristi Kute Cheeks disappears without so much as a peep. Back into the night. Alone. Like the Phantom of the Bob-era. Which was originally a book.