By Djb
Props to Wing and Sars.
We again join the action in progress this week, finding ourselves in the Ladies' Villa just as Chris "Hostess Ding Dong" Harrison calls the ten remaining bachelorettes downstairs. Upstairs, the ladies put down their slam books ("She's way too emotional!" writes Christina of Liz. "She has a boyfriend back home!" writes Ann-Michelle of Kirsten. "I'm two dumm too no aneething! And drunck, to!" writes Amber of, as she spells it, "Ammbur." Eventually, all the remaining contestants arrive in the living room with empty pans, various prospecting gear, and t-shirts reading "I Heart 1849!" to discover two new nemeses on the premises: meet, as Chris explains it, "two of Andrew's closest friends. This is Kevin and his girlfriend Shannon." And I'll tell you what: I missed it the first time around that Shannon was Kevin's girlfriend. So for a few deluded hours, I thought -- even during the most dire, Andrew-judging moments of this episode (get that napkin off your head in public, you entitled, spoiled infant) -- that it was cool Andrew had friends who were girls who were just, like, friends. I wasn't aware that Shannon was the wingman (literally, "the one who serves the wings while the boys are watching football") to a guy made out of body hair and gigantic nose cartilage who causes the Oxford English Dictionary definition of "lunkhead" to be all, "Oh, you mean I'm that guy! I get it now." In a confessional that is whatever the opposite of the word "prophetic" is, Kevin offers, "I think I know what he's looking for in a girl, and I'm here to help find who his future bride may be." Right. By sending him up the champagne-and-puke-made river with Amber Drunkelman. Good show, Lord and Lady Lunkhead.
Some people learned that TV was invented juuuuuuuuust now, so Chris goes over the rules of engagement (will he propose? WILL SHE SAY YES?) for the fourteen hours of episode that lie ahead: "For the few days, you're all going to be going on dates with our bachelor. There's gonna be two intimate one-on-one dates and two group dates. Who's going on them? You'll find out over the few days as the date boxes arrive." Just like in real life! Except I'm not always home when they arrive, so my date boxes keep getting bounced back to UPS and being held at a distribution center fifty miles from my apartment, except this one time that I saw the really weird Russian guy who lives downstairs holding an opened box addressed to me in one hand and a prominent heir to a tire fortune who I think I saw speaking the words "it's actually all about the wine now" in the other. Damn those wily, date-box-stealing Russians.
Lord and Lady Lunkhead, we learn, are solely responsible for deciding which two girls will get the one-on-one time with L'il Elfin Andy, and that the two of them will learn a bit more about the girls through "a list of compatibility questions." As L&L Lunkhead accompany Ann-Michelle out to the pool for the first round of questions, we catch up with Lady Lunkhead (she was probably only separated from her boyfriend because she was on her way to the kitchen to get him a beer for him to drink and crush against his forehead while he burps and laughs with inordinate volume at a Tim Allen stand-up special), who drops new bombs in the latest battle of The Lunkhead Wars, explaining, "I think being an ex-girlfriend…that I can probably give him more insight." Augh! They dated? How did I miss that? And, hi. She went from L'il Andy to Lord Lunkhead? I guess her physical type is "guy who makes sure I end up on TV, somehow." I would fall back on the hoary cliché that girls like her wouldn't date him even if he were the last guy on earth, but considering his stooped gait and excessive amount of gorilla-esque fur, I think instead he was the first man on earth and therefore doesn't have much statistical chance of making it to the planet's final days.
Lady Lunkhead poses the first question to Ann-Michelle: "Which best describes what you hope to be: career woman, soccer mom, or society wife?" Don't pick the one that means you love money! We go rapid-fire through the women in that "audition scene in every movie where people are engaged in the same task repeatedly" kind of way. It's the audition scene in The Commitments. It's the roommate-hunting scene in Shallow Grave. It's the how-would-you-spend-your-Publishers-Clearinghouse-money scene in Heathers. It's EveryScene. But at least it's a helpful tool in ensuring that I know the names of all the remaining girls. It's like flashcards. Answering the question I quoted in its entirety before sixteen superfluous editorial comments intervened, Ann-Michelle offers that she's "a combination," failing to add by way of further explanation, "Y'know, like my skin." Kirsten is a "soccer mom." Tina from Wisconsin is a "career woman." Liz (I have heard your plaintive call, America. She is "Elizabeth" no more) puts the button on the end of the scene, pausing for a second before asking, "What are my options again?" Ba-dum! Where's the snare drum guy when you need him? He's doing session work for the karaoke arrangements of Billy Joel songs going on two channels over? Oh.
question. Sound it out, Lord Lunkhead! "Whose marriage do you most admire and why?" Jen: "My grandparents." Audree: "My parents." All of them? Amber: "Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt. I just think they're incredible." Wait, though. That's kind of brilliant in its raging, teeming dumbness. Amber is like hanging out with a trashy magazine; she's like what the world would be if Us Weekly were made out of girl instead of out of mulched papyrus. And at least she didn't go with the Cox-Arquettes.
Speak, Lady Lunkhead: "How soon should sex take place in a relationship?" Christina thinks it should take place from "day one." Sorry, snare drum guy…looks like we'll be doing our rendition of "The Lady Is A Tramp" without you this week. Tina from Wisconsin just giggles like an idiot…sex is funny! Jen believes that "if you really love that person, you can wait." As opposed to hating them mercilessly, in which case you shouldn't even bother with names, especially if you've given her $300 for the hour and she won't even let you kiss her. Ann-Michelle waxes, "Sex should take place when it is time for the couple." Meh? As opposed to when it's decreed by the government agency that usually makes such decisions, the Federal Department of Copulation (www.good-good-love.gov)? Was that just another corollary to 1441 they conveniently forgot to tell us about? Damn them and their weapons of mass…adoration. Right. Anyway. What the hell am I talking about right now?
"Would you have sex without being in love?" Liz says "no" with such immediacy and alacrity that I think they must have edited in the response she gave when Lord Lunkhead asked, "Would you have sex with me right now?" He zings her with a quick follow-up question, asking, "Have you ever?" Liz again shoots out a "no" with great emphasis. Kirsten has. Tennessina has. Tina from Wisconsin oddly notes that she would "if the opportunity presented itself, maybe." "If the opportunity presented itself, maybe"? It's sex without love, not "a ride in the space shuttle." You're a skinny, single girl living in an age when the two main hobbies of men in your age group and location are ice fishing and date rape. Just say, "Casual sex is not akin to murder, is it?" and move on.
"Are you a seductress or a seductee?" "Seductee"? What is that, the Latin root of the word "seduce"? Veni vidi seducti? Amber non-answers, "These are good questions!" to deflect from the fact that she has absolutely no clue what the question means. Jen is a "seductee." Y'all, who's "Jen"? Tina from Wisconsin is a "seductress." Liz is "both," in a world where "both" means "neither" and "Liz" means "little sister." Christina cracks herself up with her coquettish response, "It depends on the time of day." Right. Like how she's sexy when it's dark in the room. We're already gone over all this.
"Sex on the beach or sex on the bed?" Shut up, show.
"That's all we got for you," Lord Lunkhead tells Christina, but she flips her Glamour Shot hair and extends her screen time with the follow-up retort, "Do I get to ask a question?" Lord and Lady Lunkhead giggle nervously in that "we already haven't picked you" kind of way, but Christina launches ahead anyway: "What's his, like, most funniest little quirk?" Here be hoping it ain't "a love for basic grammatical competence," Christina, or you'll be the most losingest in not much more time. Augh. Shit like that really makes you look dumb in a hurry. Look at her. Even her hair is spelled wrong. She makes me [sic]. But Lord Lunkhead graces her with a response anyway, saying, "He plays with his own hair a lot…I never see guys do that." Well, Lord Lunkhead, maybe if you gave it a try every once in a while, the collective store of your body hair wouldn't be trying so hard to escape your body via the top of your shirt collar. Because seriously, you are the most simianest of all.
Left alone with a clipboard and a camera, Lord and Lady Lunkhead review each of the interviewees (they came, they saw, they interviewed), accompanied by gauzy flashbacks to sixteen seconds ago to remind us of the difference between "Jen" and "tree." There determine that there is none. They believe Christina to have a "real outgoing personality," Ann-Michelle to be a girl you would "be friends with in college," and Amber to be physically "on Andrew's wavelength." They neglect to address her personality, just as God did when he sculpted her. When it comes to Tina With The Scarf, Lord Lunkhead thought "the scarf was a little much." Word. And also, totally a reason not to marry someone. They think Jen is a "sweetheart," in that way where "sweetheart" means "she's nice, and that's just exactly all she is." They review Liz favorably, but Lady Lunkhead thinks she might not be Andrew's physical type, noting that he likes pretty, petite blondes. Just like her! The relationship between the three of those so-called "friends" is so weirdly dysfunctional that New Order just showed up in my bedroom to perform "Bizarre Love Triangle" by way of example. I mean, not that they have that much else going on, really. Back on TV, L&L think Tennessina is a "girl Andrew." I don't want to quibble with the intricacies of the double helix, y'all, but chromosome for chromosome, it's actually possible that Andrew might by a girl Tennessina. I mean, look who's playing with his own hair, and look who's playing her Indigo Girls albums real, real loud after curfew. Just look! Or, as Tennessina's idols would no doubt refer to him: Chickenman, chickenman, chickenman. Chickenman.
I still think Jen and Heather might secretly be the same person. That is the most cheatingest.
While Lord Lunkhead goes to find a like-minded member of his species to help pluck burrs and nesting animal life out of his hide, Shannon sneaks in a quick wrap-up confessional: "There's a lot of concerns I have about gold-diggers. They could all be gold-diggers." Lord Lunkhead, meanwhile, shoots off the quick sentiment, "We really feel we could actually narrow down who would be right for Andrew in an intimate relationship," before spotting Dian Fossey lurking surreptitiously just over one of Malibu's rolling hills, holding a clipboard and writing furiously, and he scurries off on all fours, rejoining his pride and failing to find a modest way of covering his gigantic red butt.
Nobody loves a good date box quite like Livingston Taylor, so it's with the accompaniment of considerably gay strummy guitar noodling that Liz finds a gold-wrapped box sitting on a pedestal just outside the house. Since she found it and since she brought it in and since everything makes her cry like an overtired three-year-old who wasn't allowed to watch two episodes of Dora before bed, the girls defer to Liz and let her open the date box. She does so, and within finds a note addressed to Amber. The girls fake-cheer as Tennessina rolls her eyes extravagantly, and Amber sounds out a note (use your context clues, Ammbur!) reading, "Let's fade away under the stars." That's totally the name of the slim volume of Bachelor-themed, Ginsberg-esque poetry I'm going to publish through Mighty Big Press just as soon as this season is over. It'll be the most poetic-est! Kirsten snipes in confessional, "I don't think that if Shannon and Kevin knew that the last three times that she's been around alcohol and she's been really wasted, um, they would've have chosen her to go on a single date." Liz expresses similar skepticism about Kevin and Shannon's intentions as, back inside, we're treated to a wonderfully Fellini-esque moment of Amber standing in the living room, rocking an ice skate in her arms like a small child. Quiet down, bitches. The ice skate is sleeeeeeeping.
Darkness falls across the land. The midnight Amber is close at hand. A limo pulls up in front of The House That Spite Built, and from said car emerges Andrew "Little Lord Fauntler-goy" Firestone wearing a black zip-up sweatshirt thing over a black t-shirt. Are they on their way to drama tech rehearsal? Dorks. Andrew tells us that he's glad L&L chose Amber to go out with him, as "she's one of the ladies [he's] really, really interested in." Amber, meanwhile, tells us that she thinks tonight she'll be able to let her "true self out" because it will be a totally "normal" situation where there is "no one else around" except for a camera crew, a makeup team, the guy who holds that big-ass light, and some weird guy named Ted who's just always hanging out on set. Other than that, totally the most normalest. Meanwhile, Ted? Get a job, Ted.
Outside the house now, they share a laugh about the fact that they're going ice-skating. Amber asks Andrew if he's ever been ice-skating before, and I'm surprised at something he says for the first time. Rather than assert his inherent betterness in all areas of art, culture, commerce, and ice-skating (i.e. "My grandpappy invented ice, actually" or something like that), he just cops to never, ever having been ice-skating before. Amber's confessional tells us, "I don't think I'm very excited to go ice-skating, just because I feel like I'm going to be on the ice the whole night." There's a pause so glacial here that you feel the producers really could have cut the comment right there to continue developing the "Amber as simpleton" theme, but everyone's groggy from too much of that dee-licious Firestone wine to hit the "cut" button, and we're privy to the rest of her sentiment: "On my butt." She continues, "But I think it'll be cool because I'll be with Andrew." Okay, ladies. For the last time, they don't show him the dailies. You don't have to pour it on him every second. He already knows he's great, even without the behind-the-back lovefest. Such rhetoric is so excessive as to warrant a brand-new word to describe it. May I suggest "propagandrew," perhaps?
L'il Andy himself suggests that tonight's date is going to be extremely important, and we arrive at a deserted-but-for-them ice-skating rink in Century City, right under those two tall buildings you go past driving west on Olympic. Y'know. Those. They strap on their skates, and the two of them are one football-in-the-crotch shot away from some awesome Funniest Home Videos footage for about a second, until they get their bearings and skate boringly around and around and around. Wholly wanting for any and all conversation beyond that which is immediately appropriate for the activity at hand ("Skating is hard!" "Ice is slippery!" "I'm so dumm!"), Andrew kind of does something shitty in kicking it up to this notch: "Someday, if we have kids, what an amazing story it's gonna be!" Wait -- he keeps going, doing spot-on imitations of what he apparently he imagines his of-Amber-born progeny will sound like. And they all sound exactly like him: "Mom, Dad, how'd you guys meet? Well, it was on a skating rink. I didn't know you guys skate. Well, we don't!" Slow down, Sybil! There are too many of you in there! Maybe some helpful visual cues such as hand puppets or a ventriloquist dummy named "Andy's Little Helper" would help me parse out each of the characters in this spontaneous passion play of yours.
Christina must have very little in her life. Because seriously, that is some intense amount of glee she expresses when Date Box 2: Pandora's Revenge makes its appearance in front of the house. There's more spirited jumping, until Christina cracks open the note to discover that "Ann-Michelle, Liz, and Christina" will be sharing a group date in which, the note tells us, "An oasis awaits us. Let's see what the future holds." Liz expresses disappointment in a voice-over, and Tennessina mysteriously announces in the background mix, "It's gonna be some kind of Moroccan restaurant." What? How does she know that? What's going on? Is "an oasis awaits us" Moroccan for "Ann-Michelle, Liz, and Christina are going on a group date to a Moroccan restaurant"? I have a limited cultural understanding of any location other than "inside of my own tortured mind."
Back at the silent movie that is Andrew's date with Amber (sssshhh…if you listen carefully, you can hear the two of them not making "a connection"), they sit at a table in the middle of the skating rink enjoying (or, well, not) a private (save for the guy doing the crane shots) dinner together. Andrew pursues an absolutely unacceptable conversational line with her, asking what seems like immediately, "Do you think all the girls in the house are all there for the right reasons?" Amber's one sort-of-endearing moment is her response, "Don't ask me that." And honestly -- don't, jerk. The only conversational approach to dating worse than "that's enough about me -- now what do you think about me" is, clearly, "That's enough about me -- now what do you think of Kirsten?" You wanna ask a girl about a girl? Why not ask that girl about herself, tool. Maybe that -- and trusting your own judgment -- is the correct way to make a decision about who is there because they dig you (Liz), who is there for the national exposure (Ann-Michelle), and who is sticking around so long after this show's expiration date because of the cash, cash, cash (everybody…and me!). Maybe this line of questioning throws Amber off, but I think that actually gives her too much credit. I think the date goes badly because, well, she's kind of dumb. Which I may or may not have already pointed out.
Silence. Silence. Silence. And then, magic. Amber takes a few thoughtful bites of cuisine I now know she does not deserve (you can hear Bobby Flay in the background -- having personally prepared this meal for them, I'm sure -- inserting a steak knife between his eyes at what comes ) before putting down her fork and asking Andrew, "So, what's your favorite restaurant?" Which is a weird question (they're from different cities, and America is a bit of a restaurant-heavy place), but alas not what she asks if you (or, well, me) will just let her finish the question: "What's your favorite restaurant…chain?" Oh, that's too good. Ask a multi-billionaire what his favorite chain restaurant is. I'm guessing the only reason he's even heard of chain restaurants is because I've read Fast Food Nation and I know how intrinsically linked chain food and Republican party financial donations are. But other than that, I don't see how "free salad and breadsticks" is a marketing tool that holds much appeal for someone who can order the exact thing for free…while on his private jet to the island his family owns. Not that I'm talking about me again. I got all that energy out last week. And for this, I thank you for sticking around. Seriously. Amber digs in: "I like the Olive Garden." Which, for a certain echelon of people, is more of a personality descriptor than "I'm from a decidedly suburban area" or "I'm a Nazi" or "I was born without a head and my head is a prosthetic head." I'm not saying that everyone who has ever gone to the Olive Garden is inherently trashy (stop looking at me like that. I'm not saying that. I'm not) and I'm also not comparing their patrons with the German political party responsible for the systematic annihilation of millions of innocent lives. I'm not even saying that there's anything wrong with being born without a head. But…the OLIVE GARDEN? That's awesome. Andrew immediately professes not to like the Olive Garden at all (and the thirty seconds of dead air in the following nine commercial breaks explain what happened here, I think), causing Amber to follow up, "You don't like Italian?" You know who just killed themselves? Italy. I'll bet Amber also really digs that exclusive Irish bistro known as "McDonald's," and the royal house of burgers and fries presided over by the benevolent monarch, The Burger King. Failing to find commonality in something so, well, common, conversation again grinds to a halt, and the sad music kicks up once more. Amber doesn't even hazard her conversation bullet point -- "You know what the two most appealing words in fine cuisine are to me? 'Pizza pizza.'" -- deeming it a failure before the words are even spoken out loud.
Back at Spite Club, a few members of the Coffee Klatch hang around the kitchen, blah-blahing the day away. Jen segues that Kirsten isn't "open and friendly, the way that the other girls are," and the plot thickens as we pan outside to find Not Open And Unfriendly hanging with L&L Lunkhead, trying to curry favor with the judges, as it were. Outside, Shannon asks Kirsten how she feels about Andrew, and she cleverly uses this moment in the most opportunistic way possible: "Just like you guys, I feel totally comfortable talking to you." In a confessional, she tells us that she'd rather talk to them anyway, noting that if she ends up with Andrew, L&L would probably be "good friends" of hers. Or even if you don't win, seeing as Andrew does such an impressive job of keeping all of his ex-girlfriends in his social circle, showering them with new boyfriends and free trips to Malibu. Lady Lunkhead agrees with Kirsten that "if you want Andrew, you want Andrew, and you need to get over this 'let's be best friends' thing." You mean the part where you're socially acclimated? Because honestly, that's insane. Lord Lunkhead pegs Kirsten as "the person to beat," saying that her personality is "second to none." Well, then, who is None and why does she have such a crappy personality? Kay-o! Dude, better get that snare drum guy back in here for when I go all vaudevillian on your asses again.
Andrew and Amber are done. And, I mean, they totally are. They put their shoes back on (did they eat in their skates?) as Andrew confessionalizes that conversation is -- wait for it -- a "two-way street," and that he felt "awkward" all night and responsible for "filling the space." So then, worst date ever, right? I think we saw that pretty clearly. Let's see what the not-at-all-deluded Amber has to say: "There's definitely a chemistry there and I definitely enjoy his company. I kind of think we do have a vibe." A vibe of "hit the road, Amber of the Proletariat." But then, even weirder, in the limo on the ride home, Andrew's final, valiant attempt at "filling the silence" is trying to kiss her and being rebuffed. He leans in. She whispers "not yet." He apologizes sheepishly. As well he should. They share some excruciating conversation born of Amber segueing, "I was telling the girls, 'I hope I don't fall asleep on him again.'" Ouch. Silence. Silence. Silence. Quick! Make with the hand puppets again! They're the only chance you have!
day. L'il Andy shows up at the house decked out in a leather jacket and sunglasses befitting a biker chick with a man grudge (Chickenman! Chickenman! Chickenman!), and we're off to the Moroccan restaurant which is called, according to the letters on the wall outside the establishment, "Moroccan restaurant." They call it something else, but really, that's what it's called. I wonder if Amber would be intrigued by their "all the free nan and chutney you can eat" policy. And don't even tell me nan is Indian and not Moroccan, because I already forgot that I wrote it. Thanks.
Oh, yum. That looks awesome. The inside of the place looks, well, like what you might imagine the inside of a Moroccan eatery to look like. Exotic, red-hued flair. Eating with hands. Belly-dancing waitresses? Ah, the Other, filtered through L.A.'s food scene and restaged by the very, very devilish hand of Mike Fleiss. Christina feeds Andrew, and she notes that Andrew spit some food back out and Christina pants and dives into his backwash and re-eats it because when it comes to Christina, neediness is at the top of her own emotional food pyramid. An insanely insipid plot development develops, in which Andrew feeds Liz a piece of lamb and she chews, swallows, and cops to not having eaten a piece of meat in twelve years. She defends the whole deal in a confessional: "I don't know if it was in the name of love or if it was just a spur-of-the-moment decision to go ahead." Or if it was a spontaneous decision to abandon twelve years of ideological principles in the name of impressing a guy who doesn't even know if he wants to be alone in a room with you yet, even if that room is a public ice-skating rink. If only we could just belly-dance our troubles away. Oh, look!
Oh, and Audree finds the third date box. Blah blah blah Kirsten, blah blah blah one-on-one date. The room goes eerily silent. Lord Lunkhead helpfully observes, "There was enough tension in the room that you could have cut it with a knife." Wow, Kevin. Is that yours? Because I have Bartlett's Quotations on line one asking if they can edit it down and print it, if it's all the same to you. Moron.
Oh, look! We're belly-dancing! Christina shakes it with all the moves as the gold-clad waitresses (the poor dears) put the three girls between them one-by-one for Pharaoh Andrew's edification. He responds to this shameful moment of Mesopotamian objectification by putting a napkin on his head and clapping like a loon. Watch out there isn't a big ol' chunk of discarded lamb in there, you patriarchal butcher. Ugh. Gallantry is so other white meat. Anyway, Christina shakes her moves with no problems, and Ann-Michelle dances like I imagine she would to any musical genre from this-totally-cool-band-my-one-friend-is-in to I'm-on-the-list-for-this-other-really-cool-band. Liz, meanwhile, cannot get down with the exotic flair of it. She looks like Fred Willard in that scene in Waiting for Guffman where he's dancing around with the bandanna and keeps almost dirty dancing with Eugene Levy, only to turn away at the last second, like, five times in a row.
Back at what Andrew calls "my place" (the whole world is "your place," isn't it, Andy?), he sits outside with Liz, who tells him that he is, among other things, "so cool" and "so fun," but she tells him that she's not going to constantly get in his way trying to seek his approval. Andrew tells us that Liz "has a lot to say," in a way that I don't know if that's a good thing or not. But what is good is…hot tub! Woo hoo! I swear, L.A. is going to have to institute some kind of Great Bubble Embargo or risk some kind of shortage. Stay on land, people. It's where the money doesn't get all wet. They clink glasses in the hot tub before Christina and Andrew retire inside and sit on the couch. They both look like they're completely naked. And, I mean, wet couch. Yuck. Christina shares with Andrew that she feels the mysterious "connection," but that she doesn’t want to "play the fool." Apparently someone has failed to hear the song discussing the fate of "everybody." What she wants, mainly, is to kiss him, she tells us, because "that will definitely tell [her] if there is a physical connection." They kiss. Then Andrew and Ann-Michelle kiss. Immediately, Christina is mad. She follows him into the house and asks, "Why did you kiss me today, if you kissed everybody else?" He's cornered. He somehow manages to formulate the sentence, "I wanted to" and "I thought you wanted to" into one very impressive sentence that those "Rrrrrrn wanted to." He tells us, on the other hand, "That's sort of why I'm here, and why they're here. I don't think I could feel comfortable keeping any of the ladies around for another rose unless I felt that they felt romantic feelings towards me." Yup. Physical intimacy never lies.
What's on tap for today, L'il Andy? "I'm gonna pick up Kirsten at the Ladies' Villa, bring her back to the Bachelor Pad. And there are some surprises here waiting for her." He's so literal with the terms. Does anyone even call it "the Ladies' Villa" besides him and the subtitles? What does that even mean? Did somebody take the words "sorority house" and sprinkle a dash of "Old Lady Spice" on them? Anyway, they play a spirited game of pool at Andy's, the high stakes results of the game being, "If you win this, I have a present for you. If I win, you have to give me a kiss." She whomps his ass, and he kisses her (hey!) in congratulations before retiring to prevent her fingernails from getting dirty by having to do any actual "digging," per se. He returns with a present, which she unwraps to discover is a new dress. It's black. I guess it's nice. I don't know. But it will never hold up in the hot tub, so what's the point, y'all? We rejoin the action a jump cut later, and Andrew describes her look in the dress to be "smoking." He, meanwhile, has changed from a suit into a suit. That wily villain is a master of very subtle disguise. Kirsten describes herself as a "princess" (drink!) and says that the moment they exited the house "felt like a scene out of a movie." Good God. The collective store of celluloid that exists in the universe would be fully depleted if this length an episode were turned into a movie. Kurosawa himself is all, "It's not bad, but a bit long, no? But don't cut the belly-dancing. That I do like." Oh, Kurosawa. Always loved the belly-dancing.
"Amber and Liz were really close at first," Jen tells us. They were? Gotta be honest…it's the first I've heard of it. Jen notes in a confessional that there is now tension between those who were just recently were thick as thieves, and surmises that it's because Amber got a one-on-one date with Andy and Liz did not. Over at the pool, though, Liz says that their tension predates the dates, mentioning that she's felt tension with Amber since right after the last rose ceremony. Which means that their friendship started to flag after they'd known each other for approximately eleven minutes, rather than the previously understood thirteen. Liz asserts that she doesn't need to know every detail of Amber's date with Andrew, just that she had a good time. Actually, she doesn't want to be Amber's friend. She wants to be Amber. I lived with these two girls for a while once who were totally Liz and Amber. One was even blonde and one was brunette, and they played out those personalities in the most cliché, patterns-of-light-and-dark, Spy vs. Spy kind of way. The blonde was not the smartest, and she ran with many, many boys, while the brunette passive-aggressively schemed to be more like the blonde but only did so by repeatedly taking her castoffs. But when it came to the two of them actually being friends, blonde couldn't even process the existence of another human being, so brunette had to do all the work for both of them. Blonde kept her emotional distance exceptionally well, maintaining a strictly "I'm just too bombed to talk about this right now" policy that lasted the entirety of the six months I shared living space with these two girls, along with a Midwestern football player and an alcoholic mama's boy. These people have been trying to track me down for many years now, actually, so if any of the four of them are reading this, let me make this as clear as I possibly can: I'm not the person you're looking for, you've got yourself the wrong man, and I have never once been to Sydney, Australia.
So that's very much like Liz's relationship with Amber.
Amber listens to Liz's tirade for a few sympathetic seconds before hitching her IV pole of booze up and staggering off drunkenly. We catch up with them again upstairs an indefinable time later, where Liz tells Amber, "I don't want there to be tension." And around and around it goes. There's a thermostat in the background of this scene. It is a steady 77 degrees in the house. I'm not supposed to know that, or wait for it to cross the camera's path again so I can wait and see if the temperature changes. It doesn't.
Kirsten and Andy are on a yacht. Andy gives Kirsten a lot of diamonds. A necklace, a bracelet, earrings. She tells us it makes her feel "special." She admits to him, "I don't have a lot of jewelry at all," which I'm guessing is either a) a lie or b) truth by comparison to the amount of swag she's going to expect once the ring is firmly on her finger. He comforts her: "We can work on that." Coincidentally, this is when Christina tells us she believes that she and Andrew have a "connection." And how many karats is that connection, do you think, Senator Gold-Digger?
I'm bored. Is anyone else bored? I'm stupidly bored.
"Saddle up, cowgirls. Let's spend the day horsing around." Why are the notes for the group dates are starting to turn into really unimaginative category names from Win Ben Stein's Money today? Anyway, the final group date will feature the prostrating stylings of Audree, Tina, Tennessina, Jen, and Heather. One of Jen and/or Heather has simply got to go, or I'm going to make a dumb mistake someday soon. By of illustrating for us the unnatural nature of the dynamics of group dating, Jen explains, "When I go on a date with someone, I don't bring along four of my girlfriends who are interested in the same guy." You don’t? Anyone up for the easy joke? 'Cause here it comes: Audree's all, "You don't?"
Oh, look. A pointless subplot that got plugged in on the final day of editing. Let's let Christina tell it: "I think all the girls just started calling Tina 'Tina Fabulous' because she's very feminine and always put together." A gauzy, behind-the-scenes-at-the-Sports Illustrated-swimsuit-issue montage ensues of Tina from Wisconsin (who I will never, ever, ever refer to "Tina Fabulous" ever, EVER, even though I'm convinced that the other Tina, Tennessina, came up with the name, but I'm sorry, I don't take my nickname cues from the amateurs) ensues. Then it ends. That's the whole scene. I think someone gave her that name because other people were starting to call the other Tina "Tina Quarterback" or "Tina Who Likes The Ladies" or "Tina Chickenman Chickenman Chickenman." But I digress. Again.
Good golly, Andrew. It's a good thing you stopped to remind us how high society you are, else my mind might have wandered. Back on the boat, Kirsten's diamonds twinkle, and she looks at him with dollar signs in her eyes. Er, I meant "stars." Oh, wait. Actually, I totally meant "dollar signs." Weird. Anyway, they're drinking wine on the boat, and Andrew embarks on her "first wine-tasting lesson." Now, okay. I'm not trying to claim I didn't go to a pretentious college or anything (you and I are way past all that, aren't we?), but I took a wine-tasting class with a bunch of friends my senior year of college at my campus bar. It's hoity, but it's not like it's inaccessible to the masses. Yet Andy treats this moment like he's taking a can of beans and an open flame out of Kirsten's hands and replacing it with knowledge as old as the very living grape of earth. And, hi. He doesn't even really do that great a job. For a "winery" "owner." First of all, they're tasting white wine, which is never preferable to red because there is far more complexity and diversity among the reds. A nice white can be fine with fish or chicken, but being able to tell the difference between them will be as impressive to society's "haves" as insisting that you can appreciate the diverse bouquets of Tab versus Fanta. He instructs her to hold the glass by the stem, but doesn't tell her why. Why, you may ask? Well, as long as they're paying me: white wine is served cold and red wine is served at room temperature (duh), so one always holds the white wine glass by the stem to avoid warming it up with your hand's body temperature. This is why red wine is not always served in long-stem glasses. Also, because white wine is served cold, there is clearly an increased chance for condensation on the glass, which is another reason white wine is always served in a long-stem glass: the bottom of the glass acts as the coaster, so the dripping water from the outside of the glass has farther to run to get to the pricey tablecloth and make it all wet and mucky. Did I make that last one up? Maybe.
Anyway, Andrew swirls the wine in the glass but doesn't tell her why he does so (it's to measure the size of the wine's "legs," or the rivulets that form on the inside of the glass as the wine runs down it. The thinness/thickness of the legs is a determinant of the ingredients of the wine, and therefore the taste. Just swirling the wine around in the glass is a pretentious affectation that is absent a base of knowledge. Knowledge that is, in and of itself, also a pretentious affection, truth be told). He then puts his whole face in the glass and takes a big ol' whiff, takes an eensy sip, inhales like his medieval goblet is a ten-foot water bong, and swallows (which, technically…oh, never mind). Kirsten laughs like she gets one diamond per misplaced cackle, and puts the glass down on what she hopes is Big Bucks, not Whammies. She tells him that what she really wants to learn how to do is ballroom dance, and he oh-so-suavely retorts, "I'll give you a lesson tonight." This Renaissance genius! What can't he do? Besides "puberty"? Nothing. Kirsten keeps the flirt-o-meter needle on "needy," adding with painful honesty, "Then we can go to Vegas and get married!" L'il Andy thinks that's a great idea, and he grunts like Frankenstein's monster in appreciation. Whatever. I say anything that offers me license to ransack this scene with a torch-wielding angry mob has to be worth my having sat through. They dance and kiss, kiss and dance. Andy fills us in: "As Kirsten and I were dancing on the top of the boat" -- it's called "the deck," you fool, THE DECK -- "a boat happened to go by in the other direction and it had a wedding party on it." Wow. How totally unplanned, spontaneous, and not at all like when Trista and Ryan ran into forty weddings when they were wandering lost around a golf course or something last season. Sadly, this episode lacks the same level of pencil-sketches-of-white-tigers intensity as the aforementioned also-totally-manufactured emotionally relevant moment.
Meanwhile, back at Chez Chez Chez What You Want But Don't Play Games With Their Affections, L&L Lunkhead toast with plastic cups, and he announces, "Raise your glass. To us." Right. The only "glass" that animal is acquainted with is the ceiling that he prefers to remain intact so that the sloppy seconds he inherited doesn't become more successful than him. The girls toast half-heartedly -- after all, those two morons chose the two most hated girls in the house for both one-on-one dates -- as Shannon's confessional lets us know that their opinion is going to play "a big part" in who will receive roses from Andy. Outside, Lord Lunkhead addresses the knotty issue of everybody hating Kirsten to Christina, and Christina voices over, "She's not completely over this ex-boyfriend, and being here is just a way to kind of forget him." Lord Lunkhead listens intently, telling us that he thinks Christina might be trying to eliminate Kirsten on purpose. Dude, I thought you were going? Lord Lunkhead certainly would object to that, so it's odd and he and his Lady friend would choose to drop the bomb on Andy the very living moment he gets home from the yacht. Let's let Lady Lunkhead take it, shall we? "Four people today were like, 'Yeah, she has a boyfriend, yadda yadda yadda.'" Man, it looked from the preview like Andy was going to buy that story and we were actually going to have a plot. But that's not what happened at all. Meanwhile, inside, Kirsten blathers on about her amazing jewelr-- er, "date," as the girls sneer at her insane superficiality. Whatever, ladies. Her boat may float in a shallow pond, but you've got to admit that that was still a pretty nice fucking boat.
The trailer for Group Date III: The Groupening unspools mercilessly, landing us back at Catty Corner as Tennessina buttons up a shirt and emits a low, growly laugh that all but drowns out the sound of her second X-chromosome asking itself out loud, "Y'know, what am I even doing in here?" Andy shows up at the house, telling us that he's feeling the "pressure of the Rose Ceremony starting to creep in." And considering that this episode has now been broadcasting into the homes of America (and the miniscule English-speaking population of Canada, bless their frozen souls) since the day the first picture tube rolled off the first picture tube assembly line, that is some low, insidious, Jaws-theme kind of creeping right there. Today is what you might call "the consolation date" or "the economy-size date." This is a date you buy at CostCo because the price is so low and the value is so high, and you promise yourself that you're going to use all of it, and then it just sits on top of the refrigerator or in the back of the laundry room for a thousand years until you find it again and you throw it away all ashamed because, ew, my date has grown a sickening green mold. It's five girls together. And some I still can't tell apart. Jen? Heather? Get a nametag. Or get a defining exotic mole or facial tic. Or get lost.
And we're off to easier-to-take-five-girls-you're-not-interested-in-than-to-spell "Calamigos Ranch" (and Malibu Conference Center, fans of rustic corporate events will be relieved to learn), where we find a mechanical bull sitting in the middle of a field. Andy explains that "the lady who lasted the longest got some alone time." So whoever remained on the bull got some peaceful time away from you for a while? Hang on tight, ladies! One by one, female integrity is pitched violently off the bull and onto the ground (what a convenience that, even in this totally natural environment, the ground below them is still made entirely of squishy blue safety mats), with Tina from Wisconsin taking the prize and getting the gift of…a spin on an empty, creepy, broken-down merry-go-round! All stops pulled out for this group date, people. I mean, Kirsten goes on one solo date and the cost of her jewelry alone roughly equals the GDP of Palau, and all Tina gets for her tough-as-nails physical endurance is a trip to the opening sequence of a horror movie called Carnival of Death starring her as the damsel in distress and L'il Andy Firestone as "the pissed-off ventriloquist dummy come to life." Blah blah blah, the scene follows the general circular non-trajectory of the ride, as Andrew tells Tina that his friends really liked her (though not that much, I'm guessing, considering where they ended up) and Tina screams over the creaking of the deadly rusting toy, "I think that you're absolutely amazing, and I think that I want to get to know you better, but I'm not going to say that I know too much about you, 'cause I don't." Good job, Tina. A fair, equitable, and…ack, run! The horses are coming to life!
Sorry. I had no other way to get the hell out of that scene. I tried to write a "grab the brass ring" joke for twenty minutes, but it just didn't take.
And, football. Tina and Andy walk to an open field, where she wows him with her ability to pitch a football in stiletto heels and drink beer. I mean, I guess she's cool and all. But wouldn't marrying her be like making a commitment to spend the rest of your life living inside a Coors Lite commercial?
Okay, this shit I hate. Now, we've talked about The Bachelorette and how the editing really protected Trista and we never saw what were doubtlessly some dicey moments for her. Because they never showed her being really mean about any of the guys, which she probably was. And they never showed any of the guys talking about how they thought she was less than stellar, which they probably did. But the one thing they really never would have shown was Trista asking any of the guys what they thought about any of the other guys, and the reason I'm pretty sure they never showed that footage is because I'm pretty sure that said footage does not exist, because I'm pretty sure you have to really be an insensitive, uncertain jerk to pull that on someone. Oh, speaking of which. Back with the rest of the ladies, Andy asks all five girls what they think about Kirsten, and Audree and Tennessina launch into a speech about how Kirsten doesn't have time for any of the other girls, leading Tennessina to muse, "If you didn't make friends in this group of people, there's an issue." Jen tells us in a confessional that she thinks maybe he should be a better judge of character than that. Word, Jen. For that excellent assessment of things, I promise to keep knowing who you are. Well, as long as they keep putting your name on the screen every time you're on it. Other than that, are you Heather?
Andy and Tennessina finally get some alone time, which Andy uses to, as he puts it, "grill her a little bit about Kirsten." Wow. Jerk. Tennessina is so already in the "friend" role. She tells us that if Andy chooses Kirsten, she'll know that he was the wrong guy for her all along. Tina, perhaps sensing that her time is limited, changes the topic to herself for one prized second, coming on a bit too strong and telling Andy she wants to be in the top four. Well, I want to be in the B-52s, but it seems like they're already pretty happy with their lead singer, so.
Andy asks Jen about Kirsten. Just kidding. Well, sort of.
Back at the They Can't Cope-a Cabana (the most emotionally unstable spot north of Havana), Amber and Kirsten loll about in their bikinis, Kirsten telling us that she thinks other people are "jealous" of them for having alone time with Andrew. Out by the pool, questions are asked of Liz about the "fight" from the day before, which Liz denies was any kind of fight at all. I deny that that was a necessary scene at all.
Hot tub! Er, again! The six of them crowd in, and Andrew does the Relationship Lightning Round, going around the circle and asking each woman one meaningful question. Tennessina says her wedding reception doesn't necessarily need to be in her hometown, but she seems momentarily thrown when Andy asks the question because she doesn't know if she's supposed to be answering for herself or for Kirsten. He then asks Audree where she wants to go on her honeymoon, to which she responds, "Tahiti." I mean, I'm sure it's nice. But as cliché honeymoon choices go, it kind of strikes me as the Olive Garden of the South Pacific, y'know? Andy then asks Tina from Wisconsin what she wants her wedding to look like, and she responds, "I think I’m gonna leave it up to the lucky man." He retorts, "Me? You're gonna leave it up to me?" See, ew. He's already having kids with Amber, eloping to Vegas with Kirsten, and now he's planning Tina's wedding. That is one busy guy. Except he's not. Because he'll never do any of those things. The rest of the girls are ignored.
Lord and Lady Lunkhead's departure really warrants its own segment? There's a whole "goodbye, we hate you" montage of hugs and love, and their limo stops by Andy's place on the way out of town. When it comes to Christina, Andy worries that it's less about him that "the idea of" him. What does that even mean? Lord Lunkhead asks if it's a problem that she's thirty. Wait! He's twenty-seven. See, this is what I mean about everyone on this show Harold & Maude-ing the old lady. They're back to Kirsten now, and Andy writes off the whole "she has a boyfriend back home" thing. Liz, Andy says, is "nervous," which is the nicest way to say "loose cannon" in TV Land. They talk about Tina from Wisconsin, whom they think is pretty cool, after all. Lord Lunkhead pronounces all of the girls "great," which should be really helpful to him to make up his mind. End. END!
It's Rose Ceremony night. The girls parade in for Andrew's edification, Tina from Wisconsin choosing wisely this week not to go with her "Lesser-Known Flags of the Middle East" wardrobe theme, as everyone knows that the chartreuse color of the United Arab Emirates simply doesn't match her eyes. Clothing-wise, though, it seems that the two Tinas have experienced a bit of a Kirk Cameron/Dudley Moore body switcheroo, as tonight it's Tennessina's turn to wear the spangly, Bedazzled sequins. Her chances with Andrew may not be solid, but her outfit is decidedly Solid Gold. Andrew immediately asks Tennessina to go outside with him -- I think because his delicate, pampered corneas can't process the glare of the sequins refracting off the lights -- and asks if she has any last-minute questions for him. She tells him that she wants to know what he pictures in a "Mrs. Firestone," and he blah blahs about confidence and drive. He lies that he's interested in her "to no end" (in fact, I feel that unforeseen "end" is quite a tangible, marked point in time), and she tells us afterwards that she's more interested in him than ever after their one-on-one conversation. Oh, man. Wait, what's that? No, Tina, "oh, man" is just an expression. I wasn't referring directly to you when I said that.
Andrew again focuses his growing attention on Tina from Wisconsin, leading to my very favorite confessional of the evening. Well, let's just let charming Kirsten tell us all about it, shall we? Here we go: "They call her Tina Fabulous. And y'know what? I'm sorry, I'm gonna be a bitch about this, but she is not that fabulous." Oh, snap! Zing! Bitch! Although it is true that everyone says she's sarcastic and funny when all she is is mean.
I can't handle this Kirsten thing anymore. It's enough. She's not compelling enough to make her the central plot of this episode. Andy tells her that there's a rumor spreading that her ex-boyfriend dropped her off at the airport, and she shares with us that she thinks there's a "mini-sabotage" going on in the house, then starting to cry that she's "so pissed off" at how shallow people are. Your comparative depth is a beacon unto us all, dear.
Wait. End. END!!!
Jen and Andrew retire outside, where he tells another girl how comfortable he feels with her.
Andrew and Audree address the religion question for the first time. Is a Mormon in a winery a marriage or a sitcom?
Liz wants to make sure she puts "everything out on the table." Because her demeanor was so reserved and un-psychotic before that.
Amber tells him that she's "not herself" around him. He tells her that he feels like they've had some "weird" situations. She feels like she's not getting a rose tonight, and she celebrates this by developing an eating disorder on television, eating twelve thousand cookies and announcing, "I'm gonna be the fat girl on the reunion show." Oh, word.
Shut up, Christina.
Liz: "I like that tie a lot."
Andrew: "I think this tie is the bees knees."
Yeah, I see why this episode had to be two hours long.
Finally! Our Guardian Game Show Host indicates the end is nigh, as Chris enters the room with his usual perilous glass-clinking routine. He steals Andy away, and once they're comfortably seated, it's on to the issue at hand: "Things have changed." They have, indeed. Once I was interested. Now I am dead. Chris shakes himself awake as Andy explains that he's experiencing feelings for more than one woman. Andy says he's pretty secure in the six women that he's giving roses to tonight, giving away the fact that he won't be doing much more deliberation from this point onward. Let's get on with those video messages, then! They're all crazy about him. They all want roses so they can get to know each other better. Ann-Michelle appears to believe that they actually went to Morocco.
Does anyone else think that Audree's glamour shot makes her look exactly like Aimee Mann? Yeah, me neither.
Chris speeches the ladies that the mood has become "serious," and Andrew reads from the arbitrary collection of words that make up Magnetic Poetry: The Filibustering Bachelor Collection when he tells them, "Tonight, it's about following my heart." Let's follow along!
Kirsten, will you accept this rose? She'll drink to that. She'll even swirl the wine around in the glass pretentiously. She just won't know why she's doing it.
Jen, will you accept this rose? Heather steps out. Crap! He chose the wrong one!
Ann-Michelle, will you accept this rose? She is such filler he might as well have given the rose to NotAmber.
Liz, will you accept this rose? May your tears of crazy water it for many days to come.
Tina Fabulous, will you accept this rose? Ouch! But Dad, it hurts to catch a football! Remember that episode of Who's the Boss? God, I loved that show.
There's only one rose left, people. And Chris Harrison wanted you to know.
Christina, will you accept this rose? She kisses him and asks in her scariest whisper, "Please don't do that again." The "choose you last" part, or the "give you a rose" part? Because I predict that in the coming weeks you won't have to spend much time worrying a whole lot about either.
The women hug and cry, Tennessina telling us, "You can't change anything about yourself to make somebody like you." Oh, you're so much bigger than all this. Audree takes the high road and hugs Andrew. Andy, meanwhile, takes one more stab with Amber, whom he meets out front of the house. He tells her, "This wasn't the right time for us." She tells him, "I don't care," before cold-shouldering him and strolling off without another word. She tells us that she thought his insincere send-off lacked sincerity. The six women and Andy clink champagne glasses, each swirling the bubbly around in the glass pretentiously and not having the slightest idea as to why.