The Women Tell All

Previously: Twenty-five women threw themselves at Aaron. Twenty-three missed. In some unseen footage, Aaron tells Gwen as he's rejecting her that he feels like he's falling for one of the two women who are left. Tonight, the twenty-three women who were cut from the running sit around with Chris Hyperbole and talk and talk and talk and make Shack wish he were dead. And then the bachelor makes a "surprise" guest appearance. Well, I guess it's not much of surprise any longer, is it? They have to tell us this before every single commercial break, like we're all on the edge of our seats to see Aaron not answer questions in front of a live audience.

Can you believe this show won its time slot? It beat The West Wing. Isn't that scary?

We open to a predominantly female audience screaming and cheering. It reminds me of those fake audiences for infomercials who "ooh" and "ah" at everything. Chris Hyperbole comes out to tell us all what an "amazing journey" this show has been: Hearts have been broken; relationships have been forged; hot tubs have been overused; and questions have been avoided. Now it's down to just Aaron, Helene, and Brooke. Chris Hyperbole tells us that the other women have come back in order the questions we've been "dying" to ask. Liar. Nobody asks these women, "What the hell is wrong with you people, anyway? Have you no sense of dignity?"

Chris introduces the women to the crowd. The women all sit on sofas in small groups of two or three. Who the hell are these women? I don't even recognize most of them. Liangy didn't bother to show. I bet she feels kind of silly for participating in the first place. Gwen is introduced last and gets a huge cheer from the audience. Scary. Gwen is dressed like an elementary-school art teacher. Chris Hyperbole says that he'll be talking to a few of the women in the "hot seat" later, and taking questions from the freakishly excited crowd. The crowd cheers. Actually, they remind me of the audience of Emeril Live. Those people just start cheering whenever Emeril adds any ingredient to his dishes, no matter how minor. A pinch of salt: "Whooooo!" Some minced onions: "Whooooo!" Dried beetles: "Whooooo!"

Chris decides to start the show not with a bang, but with a whimper of neediness as we return to the saga of Crazy, Clueless Christi. He calls Christi up to sit to him. She's wearing an ugly denim blouse-miniskirt combo with knee-high tan pleather boots. She sits down to Chris, who says they have a lot to talk about with her.

But first, a clip show. Christi meets Aaron for the first time and tells us she thought, "Wow. Wow." Christi insists to a slightly frightened Brooke that she's already falling for Aaron. Christi clings to Aaron at Napa Valley. Aaron kisses Christi to shut her up and stop crying, which Christi mistakes for wuv, twoo wuv. Christi freaks out when Anindita calls her out on her crazy-ass behavior around Suzanne. Christi cries and says that mean comments "hurt [her] heart." She's so ridiculous. Somehow, I had forgotten how unrelentingly overwrought Christi is. In some previously unseen footage, Christi tells Anindita that she's sorry for her reaction, but that she has the most "tender heart you'll ever meet." In a total Behind the Music moment, the image freezes on Christi and a tense chord plays. Then they show the clips of Aaron saying that he thought Christi had a "Fatal Attraction thing going on." We get a little box in the corner of the screen of Christi back on stage reacting to Aaron's comments. She's got a brittle smile plastered on her face. Aaron says he didn't understand why Christi was so emotional. In some more unseen footage, Christi tells us that they're always comparing her to Brunette Heather, because they're both from the beauty-pageant world. Christi responds, "Honestly -- I'm sorry, Heather -- but I don't think Heather's a girl he could take home to his family. And I was." Yeah! Heather was going to kill Aaron's mom and sleep with his dad! And then kill his dad! And then sleep with his dad's corpse! We hear everyone back at the stage going "Ooh!" to Christi's comment, while Heather and Christi both pretend to find it funny with their fake, beauty-queen laughs. Then we get several clips of Christi crying. Then she tells us she's going to be okay. Then she tells us she's not going to be okay. Heh. I'm going to have to cast my vote in the direction of "not."

Back on the stage, the audience applauds Christi's patheticness. Chris asks Christi if, looking back, her feelings of love were really genuine. Christi says that in hindsight, probably not. But she insists that she knows that she could have loved Aaron. She insists that the moments she spent with him were some of the best moments she had ever had. The parts where she wasn't crying, no doubt. Those five minutes were really awesome. Chris points out that Christi seemed to have fallen for Aaron awfully quickly. She says that Aaron asked them to "open up to this process and to open up to the idea that he could propose to any one of [them] in weeks. So if you're gonna be open to being proposed to in a couple of weeks, then you have to also be open to falling in love with someone much quicker than you ever would." See, Christi was just being a good sport. She didn't want to fall in love with Aaron that quickly. It was all just part of "the process."

Chris stupidly asks if the date in Napa Valley signified the "beginning of the end" for Christi. Well duh. Everybody laughs at the inherent stupidity of Chris's question. Chris asks Christi why this was the case. Jesus, you just showed the damned clips! Not content to repeat things over and over, now Chris is begging the women to repeat things that we've already seen five times. She had a meltdown, okay? Well, maybe I spoke too soon: Christi uses the opening to blame everything but her own personality -- it was a long date; there was wine; Suzanne put a hex on her; Osama bin Laden spoke to her in the bathroom mirror, et cetera. Chris brings up Aaron's camera comments about Christi's behavior being reminiscent of Fatal Attraction. Everybody laughs. Christi insists that she's never boiled a bunny. Then she says she was very surprised to hear Aaron make those sorts of comments. She thinks they're ridiculous. She says, "Call me an emotional basket case if you have to [I think it's clear that we do], you know, but I don't think anything I did was remotely close to a Fatal Attraction or to anything that's psychotic." We see shots of the other women looking sort of uncomfortable with their fake smiles. In their heads, they're all thinking, "Reee! Reee! Reee! Reee!" Christi gamely notes, at the uncomfortable silence, that not everybody agrees.

Chris asks Christi how her appearance on the show has changed her life. He points out that Christi is now known nationally as some crazy, emotional woman. Christi says that it's been a "character-building" experience for her, because she knows that people are going to have opinions about her now before they ever even talk to her. She says she has to laugh about it now, because otherwise she doesn't know how else she'll make it through. By crying incessantly, I imagine. Chris asks how men have reacted to her appearances. She says she's shocked. She thought nobody would want to date her after seeing her on television, but she claims that she has been asked out more in the past month than she has in her entire life. Although, knowing Christi, she probably thinks she's been "asked out" when the bagboy offers to push her groceries out to the car. Alternatively, I think a lot of men are looking forward to telling their friends, "Hey guys, I boffed that crazy chick from The Bachelor! No, the blonde one!" Everybody applauds at this information, which I find rather insulting to her, like Christi is some sort of contestant in the Special Olympics of dating and deserves praise just for not throwing up on the guy. She says she has a new boyfriend. Somewhere, all the hairs on the back of some bagboy's neck suddenly stand up. Chris asks if she's in love with this guy already. Christi says no. Not until she makes sure he bags the cleaning supplies separately from the canned goods.

Chris opens the floor to questions from the audience. Some woman points out that Christi was "all over" Aaron on the Napa Valley date. Was that strategy or chemistry? What sort of fake-ass question was that? She should have asked, "Was that neediness or desperation?" Christi non-answers that she was just doing what felt right, and Aaron was doing the same. She says that eventually they both realized what they were doing and stopped, because it wasn't fair to the other women or something. Or that's what Aaron told her. Another woman asks if Christi's carousel ride with Aaron (where he straddled a pink sperm whale -- hee!) was "as awkward for you as it was for us." "Awkward"? I thought it was hysterical! These "audience members" are so coached. Nobody is even trying to hold Christi accountable for her behavior. Christi says that -- duh! -- it was. She says that it was Aaron who brought up Napa Valley again and said he wanted to "delve into why [Christi is] such an emotional person." She says they both just ended up sitting there for most of the ride. And that's it for questions. How lame.

Commercials. How the hell did Ralph Fiennes and Stanley Tucci end up in a clearly insipid movie with Jennifer Lopez?

When we return, Chris blathers to us that the show wasn't just about the women getting to know Aaron; it was also about the women getting to know each other. Actually, given Aaron's non-responsiveness, the women probably know each other better than they do Aaron. Chris offers a little poll about the bachelorettes to see how well they know each other. Which bachelorette spent the most time in front of the mirror? They all point at each other. The answer is Kyla, whose face is now the color of a pumpkin. That's just not right. Somebody needs to stop her. How can somebody so obsessed with her own appearance be that oblivious? Her face isn't even the same color as the rest of her body. Kyla explains that she changes her outfits all the time. Who was the biggest camera hog? Everybody agrees that it was Suzanne. Suzanne pretends that she has no idea why they'd all think that about her. Who was the biggest gossip? Brunette Heather. Everybody agrees. They just call her "Texas" to differentiate her from the other Heather. Heh.

This happens to be the segue for pulling Brunette Heather up to the hot seat so we can all replay the other crazy contestant's behavior. We get another clip show. Heather cringe-inducingly tells us all that she has this all "locked up." She has a "game plan" and she definitely wants a victory. This woman is so screwed up. I can't even begin to entangle the thought processes that would cause someone to behave this way. Personally, I think she's loopier than Christi. Christi will grudgingly admit that she's emotional. Heather's the one who made the comment in her initial interview about wanting "a big rock." Of course, if she had snagged Aaron, she would have gotten two. During the first evening, Heather worries that all the women are really pretty, so she has a lot of competition.

, they show some previously unseen clips of Heather cooking for all the women. She cooks quite a bit. She tells us that she's thinking that if the other women keep eating her food, then they may not fit into their fancy dresses anymore. You'd think a beauty queen like herself would be familiar with the slimming magic of bulimia. In the kitchen, Frances jokes that Heather's going to make them all fat. Heather jokes that this is, indeed, her strategy. They repeat Heather's quotes about how this is kind of like a pageant for her, but instead of fighting for a crown, she's fighting for a man. Frightening. The women all toast Heather for cooking for them. Heather jokes that they were still able to get into their dresses that week, so her plan didn't work.

Heather tells us all that she thrives on competition, as we cut to her embarrassingly awkward spa date with Aaron. They replay Heather throwing herself at an uninterested Aaron. They replay Aaron telling us that he didn't see any chemistry with her. We get the picture-in-picture of tonight's Heather, who has this sort of tight-lipped mild grimace, like she's trying not to react to this. They replay that lengthy speech from Heather about seeing the house and the kids and the careers with Aaron. They did a hysterical parody of that very speech on Saturday Night Live, where Rachel Dratch extended it to include Aaron beginning to work late at night and running off to have an affair. Aaron tells us again that they didn't have any chemistry. Heather cries and tells us that she'll be okay, eventually. Once she pops a few percosets and washes them down with tequila.

The audience applauds Heather's delusions. I just realized that Heather is wearing black leather pants. Chris points out that Heather was "in it to win it." Heather says that she did compare it all to a basketball game or a pageant, but insists that she was there to have fun. She says that she didn't expect Aaron to be "of the character that he was," and that she let her guard down. What "character" is she even talking about? The guy is a human cipher. I think that's what some women like about him. He's so blank that it's easy to project their idealized personality traits upon him. He smiles at her, so that means he's charismatic. He kisses her, so that means he's romantic. He cracks a joke once, so that means he's charming and funny. Chris says that Heather seemed rather emotional. She insists that she's not, and jokes that Christi's the emotional one. Foreshadowing and Irony chuckle from the control room and make out a question for one of the audience members to ask later. Heather thinks that she's strong. She's wrong. She's wrong. She says that people are so used to seeing her be "strong," that they don't expect her to have emotions. No, I imagine that they don't expect her to have the type of erratic display of emotions that she exhibits. That's because we tend to assume people are sane until we find out otherwise.

Giving up all pretense that he has any competence as an interviewer, Chris simply asks Heather what's running through her mind. She's probably thinking, "There's that saying, 'If you love someone, set them free.' Aaron set me free. That must mean that he loves me!" Actually, she's not happy that Aaron didn't tell her that he wasn't feeling what she was feeling. She rightfully points out that "it takes two to tango," and says that she thinks Aaron's behavior was hurtful. I do remember that he had made a number of sexually suggestive comments to her on that date that I would have taken as interest, were I in her shoes. I wouldn't even have to be crazy. Chris foreshadows, "What if you could see Aaron again. What would you say to him?" Heather says she'd ask Aaron why he wasn't honest with her. Great, now I'm pre-recapping stuff. She points out that she's a person and has feelings. If you prick her, does she not bleed? If you don't give her a rose, does she not have a nervous breakdown? Chris thanks her for answering his questions and sends her back to the sofa to Angela. Nobody cares about Angela. She lasted longer on the show than Christi and Heather, but nobody cares what her experiences on the show were like.

Chris opens the floor to questions from the audience. Foreshadowing and Irony's agent stands up to ask the women if any of them gained any weight from Heather's cooking. Everybody laughs. Frances jokes that Heather's cooking and the trick with the hairspray -- where she convinced the women to spray their bodies in order to get tans, but they got sunburned instead -- was part of her strategy. Everybody laughs. Except Heather, who suddenly bursts into tears. The hell? Okay, I'm having a sudden bout of compassion. Don't worry, it won't last long. I think what's actually happening here is that Heather was actually more emotionally affected by watching Aaron's comments about her again than she let on, and she finally lost it when Frances made that harmless joke. I mean, I think Heather's crazy, but she's not that crazy. Still, get a grip, crazy lady! Okay, the compassion's gone. Everybody gets uncomfortable when they realize Heather's crying. Angela tries to calm Heather down. Chris has this nasty little smirk on his face when he asks Heather why she's crying. Heather insists that what Frances says was "just hurtful." Everyone looks confused, because, of course, Heather was making the same damned jokes to begin with. And, you know, if you're going to treat all these women as competition for some strange guy that you want to win like a trophy, you can suck it up for a little trash talk. Heather insists that she was just cooking to be the "mother hen," and that se wasn't actually trying to make anybody fat. Frances insists that she was kidding. Chris points out that Frances made the same joke Heather did. Heather goes on this long rant about how she worked so hard to make macaroni and cheese for everybody all the time, and it was her "hardest recipe." I'd go, "Huh?" except I know that Alton Brown spent an entire episode of Good Eats explaining how to make good mac and cheese, so Heather must have been doing it the long way. I seem to have struck a Food Network theme in this week's recap. Frances apologizes and assures Heather that she didn't mean her comments seriously as Angela gives Heather a comforting hug. Chris sends us to commercials, still smirking that at least somebody cried during the episode. Barbara Walters is quaking in her boots, I'm sure.