By Sars
Previously on Flatliners: overnight trips to Cabo blah blah Bettina went home.
Chris Harrison! Chris lets us know that the "jilted bachelorettes" have returned to tell all. Of course, the word "all" has a different meaning in the Bachelor-verse, to wit: very little. Chris catches us up on the season so far -- romance, broken hearts, tense competition, blah -- and welcomes some of the most "memorable" 'ettes from Season 11: Michele (toned down a bit, styling-wise, and looking much better), Kristy, Sarah, Solisa (unfortunate bangs, trying-too-hard grin smeared across her face), Lindsey, Stephy, McCarten (ack), Hillary, Jade (who needs to step away from the crimping iron and stop wearing grey to her face), Sheena (greeted by big cheers), and Bettina (less so).
Chris leads off with a softball about the first night and whether they were excited to see the Bachelor. Jade had her face pressed up against the window of the limo, Sarah says Brad's exactly her type, and Hillary burbles that he's "hotter than David Beckham." Oh, Hillary.
Chris segues into a segment about how the competition can get "nasty," and we get a montage of previously-seen footage -- Kristy saying 25 girls fighting over one guy is a recipe for disaster, DeAnna talking about backstabbing, door-slamming, McCarten excusing her corrosive personality on the grounds that she says things "to your face," Hillary and Stephy calling other girls bitches, and so on. Then the show debuts the picture-in-picture technology via which the 'ettes can cringe at themselves while the older footage is running. As Jade snarks on all the "fake boobies" in the house, PiP shows her guffawing. Bettina is snobby about Solisa, whom PiP shows staring at the screen open-mouthed. Hillary calls Bettina a used car; PiP shows Bettina looking blank, and maybe a little disapproving (and so what -- that's how she always looks), and then Hillary cracking up. Hillary calls Stephy immature; PiP Stephy is like, "Okay then, Miss I Want Brad To Do Me From Behind." Hillary tells Jade that McCarten is McNasty, and DeAnna is McSkanky; PiP McCarten looks pissed as, onscreen, Jade laughs and Hillary says that "McNasty smells like a fish taco." Jade screams at McCarten; PiP Jade laughs; McCarten snarks on Jade; they both snark on DeAnna; Hillary's glad McCarten's leaving (roger that); McCarten cries.
Back with the live audience, Chris says it got pissy fast at the house, and asks Jade what's up with that. Jade says she didn't have problems with anyone but DeAnna and McCarten. Chris tells McCarten she and Jade were viewed as "the bullies" in the house, which McCarten answers by uptalking that maybe they were "the forward people, and the mature people? Because we were able to confront people to their faces with how we felt?" First of all, do not confuse honesty with maturity; in your case, it's selfishness, and a conceited belief that you aren't required to make an effort to get along with others. Second of all, that isn't what "forward" means, you horse's ass. The word is "forthright." Learn the English language. Third of all, I suspect you behave the way you do because you've become accustomed to being the prettiest girl in the room, and if that's true, remind me not to drink the water where you're from. Most of the other 'ettes pull "oh, is that what that was, you twunt" faces behind McCarten as she bitches about people talking behind other people's backs. Chris asks if "forward" is a nice way of saying "bully." I ask Chris if "nice" is a nice way of saying "illiterate." McCarten shrugs that she doesn't think that's being a bully, and if you have something to say, saying it to someone's face "is a lot more commendable than saying it behind their back." Yeah, you know, I think we get it. And no, it's not cool that Hillary said you smelled like a fish taco, but…it's Hillary. She goes in way too hard with that kind of comment because she's inexperienced and insecure. If you're such a commendable straight-shooter, it seems like you might have figured that shit out by now. Also, "their" is a plural; "back" is a singular. You aren't better than anyone.
Stephy suggests employing the old "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" adage, and McCarten snips, "Which is what you were good at, Stephy." Stephy turns to the audience like, "…See? All the time with this," although I don't know what McCarten even means by that. Sarah wants to know why McCarten couldn't be friends with the rest of them. McCarten, laughing: "Because I didn't want to be friends with you, Sarah." Sarah Bunting hopes that applies across the board. Sarah, also laughing: "Okay, point taken. You little skank." Snerk. Then Chris asks if that exchange qualifies as forward, or as bullying. McCarten admits that that was in fact bullying. Sarah makes a face like "yeah, if I gave a shit maybe." Cut to a shot of Hillary full-on glaring at McCarten. Chris asks how McCarten "came to be at odds" with so many of the others, and McCarten sniffs that a lot of them were only there "for attention," and implies that Jade and Hillary should have focused more on Brad, and less on hating her -- but she thanks them for the compliment, since obviously they felt threatened by her. McCarten has, although I hate to concede it, an excellent point, borne out by the fact that both Hillary and Jade look angry right now.
Chris then calls Hillary on her status as the tactless cringe generator of the group (he uses the word "outspoken," but whatever), and refers us again to Hillary calling Bettina a used car. Hillary at least knows to cover her face in embarrassment, and as Bettina smiles, enjoying her discomfiture, Hillary tries to say that she just says "witty things" and doesn't mean them; I think her point is that sometimes she goes for the punchline even if it hurts people's feelings, which would be a lot clearer if Hillary were anywhere near as funny as she thinks she is. Regardless, McCarten butts in to remind everyone that Hillary said those things behind Bettina's back, and Hillary's like, whatever, I'd have said it to her face. I doubt that, and Jade's defense of Hillary doesn't do much to convince me otherwise, but McCarten is pretty determined to slag the two of them however, and asks in her faux-curious Mean-Girl "I'm just wondering why you suck so bad" voice why Jade talked so much trash about DeAnna not being genuine. Jade's like, that didn't come from nowhere, but doesn't elaborate further -- and I wish she had, kind of, because I still don't like Jade, but I'm a bit more inclined to give credence to her complaints about DeAnna's authenticity than I was a few weeks ago. Chris wants to know why Hillary's biting her tongue, since she was psyched when McCarten went home, and Hillary wastes no time in pointing out to McCarten that she can't have spent that much time focusing on McCarten to the exclusion of Brad, because she stayed a week longer than McCarten did. Also a good point. The crowd ooohs. "Touché, that's fair," McCarten says. …All righty then.
Back from the break, Hillary comes down to the "hot seat" to talk to Chris about her meltdown(s). She's wearing her hair way too big and Dallas-y again, and it's parted too far over, so it emphasizes her big forehead; she's also wearing a raspberry halter dress, and it isn't a good color for her, plus whenever she folds her arms in even a little bit, she gets butt-chest. I have her freeze-framed right now and she looks like the third runner-up in a Loni Anderson look-alike contest. She's not a bad-looking girl, but she needs to stop styling herself based on strengths she doesn't actually have. Anyway, Chris rambles on about Hillary's "strong bond" with Brad, and we see Hillary meeting Brad, interviewing about putting everything on the line, weeping in San Francisco, shaking her head at herself in PiP, and really super extra not getting the "I don't like you That Way" hint from Brad. We also see practically her whole hysterical farewell again, which, seriously, the residents of the Mennonite Home For The Blind And Deaf can recite this shteez from memory. She lost it. We heard. Move along. PiP Hillary looks sad all over again, and it finally ends, and we go back to the live audience, which applauds. Heh.
Discussion of whether it's tough for Hillary to watch that (it is, duh) and how it felt when her name didn't get called (it sucked, duh), and Chris gives her some guff about how often she cried, which she takes well, joking about how "they should have served [her] PMS medication or something," which…isn't funny, and then there's a weird cut suggesting that she said something even less funny that got chopped. She admits that all the boo-hooing would have freaked her out, in Brad's position, but Chris says that "wasn't [her] demise," and goes into a discussion of "the F word" and how Hillary didn't catch her snap. He does say in Hillary's defense that it's easy to see, watching it back, how obvious Brad tried to be about it, but harder in Hillary's position; Hillary says that in that situation, you hear what you want to, but she wishes Brad had just told her at the pool party, "Hey, I just want to be friends." "I think he did," Chris snorts, and Hillary's like, but…okay, you're right, he did. Chris is like, maybe he should have hired a sky-writer, and Hillary says yeah, maybe he should have. Then Chris imitates Hillary reading the sky-writing: "'Hillary, we're friends.' Oh, he's proposing!" Ouch. Hillary laughs it off, though. Chris asks what hurt the most, which I think is ground we've covered pretty well, and sure enough, she repeats that she fell for Brad and got the friend card instead. Did Brad make a mistake not picking her? Hillary says she wishes they could have done the hometown date, because maybe she could have pulled it out, but "everything happens for a reason."
After a commercial, Chris brings Bettina over for a grilling. Blech. Chris talks about Bettina's "emotional journey" -- and by "journey," he must mean "flatline" -- and calls Bettina "controversial," and then we see Bettina footage. Bettina lying about falling in love with Brad. Bettina bitching about her date when Sheena comes home. PiP Bettina's expression not changing, at all. Bettina receiving a rose, and then a hilarious smash cut to Bettina's dicky dad glowering, cued with a drum crash on the soundtrack. Hee! More dicky dad. Brad and Bettina argue about her family. Bettina goes home. In the car, she crabs at the camera to "just…get out of here," which I don't think we saw before. PiP Bettina's face continues to show zero emotion.
Back with Chris, he talks about how Bettina came into the process "skeptical -- almost cynical," but fell in love with Brad anyway, so this is probably difficult for her to watch. I can't really co-sign any of that, and Bettina doesn't either, agreeing in an "ehhh, not really" tone that it's sort of hard. Chris asks about Bettina's comments about her date sucking; Bettina shrugs that she was just venting and she doesn't really know what else to say, so Chris asks Sheena, who says she and Jenni were "taken aback," everyone was "shocked," and most of the girls just wanted time with Brad, so the complaining came off weird. Bettina BSes that she meant the date itself, not the time with Brad, but…the date activities themselves shouldn't matter if you dig the guy, which is Sheena's point, which…Bettina just proved. Chris asks Hillary about her beef with Bettina; Hillary says that, in the end, she couldn't really figure Bettina out, and she thinks Brad "kinda saw that too." Well, you could put it like that, I suppose, if you were Bettina's lawyer, but she already knows you talked shit about her, so why not just say what we all think -- that what seemed initially like mysterious reticence is actually a lack of anything interesting to say? That her smarmily censorious father trained her not to have an opinion on anything, so she's now an obedient bore who's just as judgmental as Daddy? Or was that used car line the best you could do?
Chris asks Bettina how she salvaged things with Brad after the "rough patch" of the hometown date. She's surprised she got a rose at all after that, watching it now, and when Chris follows up, she says she knows Brad felt judged, but she actually felt "turned off by Brad," because he was "kind of attacking" her family. I think what he was "kind of attacking" was their rude behavior towards him, and you for not sticking up for him. Rightly, on both counts. Bettina defends her family's right to "have an opinion on" him, especially given the short time-frame of the romance et cetera, but again, the issue is not that they had an opinion, negative or otherwise. It's that they made him uncomfortable, deliberately, and then you made it out like they had a right to be assholes to him when he's a guest. Chris: "So Brad got a little defensive, then." Bettina smirks, "Little bit, yeah," like Brad's the one who made an ass of himself. Weak sauce, Bell. PiP Brad, meanwhile, is sort of nodding to himself like this is about what he expected to hear.
Audience participation time. Jen asks Hillary about watching Bettina's hometown date, and if that upset her, and Hillary says her family is welcoming, so Brad wouldn't have had to suffer like that at her house. Another woman asks Bettina if it was uncomfortable "being intimate" with Brad on the overnight date, given that he had two other overnight dates going on. The rest of the audience titters at the elephant lumbering across the stage; Bettina pauses and looks at Chris, who says, "Don't look at me, I wasn't there." Hee. Bettina then non-answers that she and Brad "didn't even kiss until…then, so, yeah." Read: "As if I would fuck anyone my father didn't hand-select from Who's Who Of Academe."
This is really boring, you guys.
Commercials, then it's Sheena's turn in the hot seat. Aw, Sheena. I kind of miss her. Sheena meets Brad. Sheena wants her chance. Sheena knows Chad isn't Brad. Sheena gets a dress and sparkly earrings; the editors spare us another viewing of Sheena falling down the stairs. Sheena doesn't get a rose, and cries. PiP Sheena bites her lip. Nobody claps after the footage ends, because Sheena is cute and not hateful.
Then there's the blah blah about the devastation, regrets, and so on; Sheena is still sad, but regrets nothing, and also has a very distracting lock of hair trying to cross her part and rejoin its brethren on the left side of her head and it's driving me nuts Sheena just flip it over to the other side flip it flip it do it now argh. Boring recap of her dream date by the pool; Sheena name-checks her stumble on the stairs, adding that it showed she's a real person and "we all fall sometimes." The audience claps for this hokey sentiment because she's the only likeable one on the stage besides Chris. Chris transitions into an intro of "Mr. Brad Womack," but backstage, Brad pushes Chad out towards the stage. Sheena: "Aw, I'm not falling for that again." Sarah and Kristy are shown confidently mouthing the words, "It's Chad!" Little late, girls.
Chad sits beside Sheena, and the difference between him and Brad is even more noticeable here, as he's dressed a little more Texas than Brad usually is, and is clean-shaven now. Time to review the Chad switcheroo, and especially to make fun of the girls who didn't figure it out: Lindsey, who's cluelessly asking about engagement lengths (PiP Lindsey is like, "Whatever, we drank all day, leave me alone"); and Sarah, who's bibbling about how laid-back he seems (PiP Sarah: "Gah, I'm an asshole") and how she's glad he doesn't care about their age difference. Then we see the reveal from the original episode, and PiP Lindsey and Sarah both laugh about their own shocked reactions. Chad says, in a Chadterview I don't think we saw the first time, that if you don't know that he's Chad, then you don't know Brad at all.
Back live, Chris asks if Chad found it intimidating to step into Brad's shoes. Extremely, Chad says: "You know, obviously I don't look like Brad, at all, and --" This gets a big laugh, as does his joke, which is that he knows Brad is better-looking. I don't think he's necessarily joking about either of those things -- especially now that Chad isn't styled to look even more like Brad, you can really tell between them quite easily, and nothing against Chad, who is perfectly handsome, but Brad is in my opinion the better-looking of the two of them. Chris asks Chad why Sheena rules, and he says it's because she's classy and genuine. And he knows this because…Sheena is actually his wife!
Not really; just trying to liven things up. Anyway, it's time for Chris to tease Sarah about not getting it, and Sarah says that Chad said he was tired, and she had no reason not to accept that; she trusted Brad and wasn't looking out for a trick. I gave them crap for it at the time, and I still think that, if the only reason you're on the show is try to marry that one guy, you should be able to smell that particular rat, but it's a reasonable enough explanation. Solisa backs Sarah up, and says that, after her one-on-one time with Brad, Lindsey went up to Solisa and said she thought Brad had been drinking. Heh. Lindsey then says she could tell right away when she hugged Chad that "he was a little bit shorter," but she didn't know how to bring that up, or if she should, so she didn't. Chris as Lindsey: "'Did you stay in the dryer a little too long, or…?'" But Lindsey says the same thing as Sarah -- why wouldn't she expect it to be Brad, versus someone else.
Another break, and then Brad himself comes out to non-answer some non-questions from Chris. It's deeply dull: Chris asks if it's awkward for Brad to see all the rejects, but Brad is happy to see them. Brad is happy to have had the opportunity to become The Bachelor. Brad often worried about making a mistake re: women he didn't give roses to. Every Rose Ceremony broke his heart.
Now the women ask Brad questions. Hillary leads with the fact that she gets it now that they were just friends, which gets a big laugh, but she wonders why he wasn't more direct. "Like if you had a tattoo that said 'Just Friends,'" Chris suggests. So mean. Love it. Brad jokes that he does have that tat, actually, then says more seriously says that he loves Hillary to death, but not that way, and he tried to tell her that, nicely, but she didn't get it; he's sorry the producers wouldn't allow him to spare her the embarrassment. (That last part was silent.) up is Bettina, who wants to know why Brad gave her a rose when her family bummed him out so much -- yet another question whose clear answer is, "Because the producers 'advised' me to keep you around," but Brad can't say that, so he responds diplomatically that it's about him and Bettina, not about her parents, so he gave her the rose for her, not for her family. Chris tries to get more out of Brad on why Bettina didn't make it past Cabo, but he just repeats that he didn't feel like he knew her -- although Brad does say rather pointedly that, while it's fine in theory for Bettina to be reserved as a person, if you go on this show, you kind of have to put that aside, or not be surprised if it bites you on the ass.
Now it's time for a montage of tacky behavior that we've already seen, but Brad hasn't: the girls talk about how hot Brad is; drinking; bikini wedgies; drunk Stephy; topless Solisa; lap-dancing Solisa; body-shotting Solisa; Hillary belching; Jenni's doofy rhyming toast; Hillary's NC-17 Brad fantasy. Back live, Hillary is giggling into her hand as Chris asks Brad if he wants to rethink his decision, and Brad points to the table centerpiece and says he wants to give Hillary one of those roses. Oh, fine: heh. Chris says he knows Brad can't tell us "how this thing ends" (soon, thank God…hee), but is Brad happy? He's never been happier, Brad says, and pops off a string of platitudes about following his heart and not being fake.
One last commercial, followed by a recruiting segment for the Bachelor, which is a series of Bachelorettes past and present talking about their ideal man. The only comment of note is Bettina saying her dream Bach is "hot, and well-educated." Oh my God, Bettina. THER. UH. PEE.
Chris introduces footage of the final two. Brad has chemistry with Jenni. Brad claims to love DeAnna's independence. Jenni is smiley and perky. DeAnna is intense and blinks constantly. Kissing. Grand pronouncements about perfection and lifelong commitments. Gobbling of chocolate-covered espresso beans at Sars's desk.
Back on the stage, Chris polls the rejects: who will get the ring? Betting Jenni: Michele, Stephy, Hillary, Kristy, Sheena, and Jade. Betting DeAnna: Sarah, Lindsey, McCarten, Solisa, and Bettina. Interesting -- I would have expected Jenni to have a larger edge than that. I think it's Jenni, myself, and the previews for week's finale don't contradict that, although they don't really reveal anything either way.
time: Brad's family meets/grills the final two. Jenni gets weepy. DeAnna blinks some more. Brad buys a big rock. And I get my Monday nights back.
Over the credits, Jenni bugs out with her iPod and a head full of curlers.