He's one of "the most eligible bachelors in America"? Why, what happened to all the grownups?
Over a soundtrack of driving-yet-kind-of-faggy drumbeats that sound like they're about to kick into "Why Don't We Do it in the Road" as reimagined by Chuck Mangione, we begin this week inside the house of Andrew "Chardon, Nay" Firestone as he packs his pricey baubles and prays audibly that this "New Jersey" place the producers keep telling him about isn't as scary as it's depicted on the premium cable which he alone can afford. That toneless, vaguely nasal intonation that's hypnotized us all into a constant lulling state of "Wait, okay, now I'm sure I don't find him cute at all, so let's go ahead and just get on with our...or maybe I...?" for the past six weeks kicks in, as the thought-provoking voice-over of Andrew "Wine-O Forever" Firestone tells us, "I'm definitely looking forward to today. Getting the group dates over." Oh, I know. Those grueling group hot-tub sessions with four bikini-clad women while you're sitting there thinking, "When will I be relieved of this torture, oh Lord? WHEN? For the love of all that is holy, WHEN WILL MY MASSAGE SESSION TO A TOPLESS WOMAN COME AND EASE MY ACHING BODY AND MY TORTURED SOUL? WHEEEEEEEN?" Those can be a killer. Andrew continues in this vein, adding, "Getting out of Malibu." He says it with the relish of a man who would replace the word "Malibu" with the word "prison," and as if the man in question were Nelson Mandela. Dude, why is he so mad at Malibu? Was the Farmer's Market, like, totally out of wheatgrass shots or something? Fleeing the desperation and oppression of this tony, temperate coastal paradise as quickly as his chauffeured stretch limousine will allow, Andy throws some more shirts in his suitcase -- look out, Ricky! Wouldn't want to damage your "couple of silver spoons" -- and tells us that "these set of dates will change things emotionally and romantically." Why's that? Well, it's because "it's more like dating four ladies individually." Awww, someone went and taught L'il Andy some math! It's so cute, to watch him add all those numbers up in his tousled head all by himself! That must have been the lesson plan they covered in his class today. Which probably also explains why the first time he spoke his statement, he accidentally said, "It's more like dating four felt duckies individually" and necessitated a reshoot. Math is hard! Anyway, Andy decrees that, from now on, it's all about "finding the one." Look at Mr. Mathlete go! One is also a number! Though, clearly, it is the loneliest number that you'll ever do. One is the loneliest number. Much much worse than two. One is a number divided by two. And, for those of you who were under the impression that "tony" was a word specifically designated for Entertainment Weekly's "Gimme Shelter" column, here's some proof we can all adopt it for our own selfish needs. Because seriously? It's in there every week.
Over at La Villa Loco, the "ladies" are packing. Jen drags her own bags through the hallway, and it's clear that she'll just shepherd the luggage to her house all by herself, because it's not that far because what this show really needed to do was heap one more "the girl door" cliché on her already homespun persona. She voices over that "it's a little sad" to be saying goodbye to the other, non-Kirsten-esque girls because they've "all gotten to be close" and this is the last time they're "all gonna be together." Until the Rose Ceremony. And the one after that. And the reunion show. And at the cattle call to audition for whatever fast-food product Jason Alexander is hawking after Trista Rehn's Warholian clock finally get around to ticking down to the zero hour. But anyway, Jen's bummed.
Tina, meanwhile, is not bummed. She's in a room surrounded by so much luggage that she should have no problem responding to a sudden call of "Build the barricade!" should the French Revolution suddenly break out in Southern California and the only knowledge she has of keeping the bad guys at bay is from a touring company performance of Les Miz her parents took her to that one time in Madison. You know. She has that much luggage. Apparently the only box that hasn't been packed is the one marked "Clothes, spandex and Spy vs. Spy," indicated by her body-hugging black-and-white number befitting a trashy Vegas stripper. Too bad the box marked "my poll" has already been duct taped up tight. Tina confidently tells us, "We're gonna have a ton of fun and he knows that." Ice fishin' and brew drinkin' and doin' some kinda stuff with cheese, or something. Should be a real barn burner. But don't actually burn the barn! Because, then, where will the family sleep?
Christina, meanwhile, puts some strappy high-heeled shoes in a bag and smiles dreamily. But wouldn't she be better served with a more appropriate footwear? Shouldn't she be getting ready for...THE BOOT? Oblivious to such insane spoilerage, Christina predicts, "I'm excited to show Andrew a little bit of my culture and a little bit of my heat." Yeah, so who wants to be the one to tell Christina she'll never get anywhere in this world if she keeps letting Glenn Frey write her copy? Then she says sixteen things about Portugal.
And, finally, cut to Whorepheus Descending, as Kirsten makes her way down a long flight of steps to the front door of the house. Wait. She's the dumbest. It's no wonder Andrew has pronounced her name some constantly-varying permutation of "Kristen" or "Keer-sten" or "Kehr-sten" for the duration of this show so far, as she comes across so dim from her interviews that it seems like she even forgets her own name sometimes. Here's some of what she says: "I'm just so thankful because I feel like he and I have gotten so close, just for the fact that we've had two one-on-one dates. And the other girls -- or two of them -- have never even been with him for, like, an hour alone." For those of you who needed a direct translation but left your "Delta Delta Delta to English" dictionary at home, thank me later. And thank me with cash. But even typed out, I have no idea what Kirsten's talking about. Maybe it's because she delivered that interview from a beach setting, and I can't hear her wisdom over the crashing surf. If you hold Kirsten's head really close to your ear, you can actually hear the ocean. And not just when she's near the ocean, either.
Vroom! That's totally the sound effect Andy makes every time his limo pulls away from the curb. We're at the airport now, where Andy voices over his travel docket for the week, failing to throw in so much as one kitschily ironic "You have to change in Atlanta" as he drones on, "I'm gonna be in Wisconsin to meet Tina's family, New Jersey to meet Christina's family, Florida to meet Kirsten's family, and then Ohio to meet Jen's family." What's an "Ohio"? Is that some fake place he tacked on at the end just to make sure we were following along? You know, they say if you hold Andy's head really close to your ear, you can hear the sound of loose change rattling around. But really, really high-value change, like dollar coins and those animated gold coin things that Scrooge McDuck swims through. And if you listen really carefully, you can hear the sound of me, dancing around outside your window, yelling "Tiny head! Tiny head! Andrew has a tiny head!" over and over and over again. Because he does. And because I'm a jerk. And, clearly, because I have a lot of time on my hands.
Andrew's Spruce Moose lands in Oconomowoc, a small hamlet known to its denizens as The Town That Buying A Vowel Forgot. It is a depressive, snowy wasteland of flatness and dead corn. If I had to guess, I would say that this date was shot in the month of "Wisconsin." Okay, I'm totally kidding. I like Wisconsin. I think only wonderful things about Wisconsin. I'm sure even Oconomowoc is lovely. That said...brrrr. From the comfort of his limo, Andy muses, "I think, of all the ladies, Tina's the one who's most standoffish when it comes to being intimate." We're then treated to a montage of Andy making, like, fifteen different attempts to plant a kiss on Tina, and her turning away every time. Jeez. Take a hint, Poindexter. But then again, he is the one with the power in this relationship, and he haughtily tells us that if the tide doesn't turn regarding Tina's willingness to put out in an attempt to prove that premature physical intimacy between them is a way of proving that she likes him...well, it's going to be "very difficult to try and see giving her a rose." It would be difficult, locked as her hands would be inside the wall of self-respect she's built around herself by not Screwing For Dollars, as the other girls have had no problem doing. Anyway. Andrew steps out of the limo and into a climate clearly borne of a day on which God was angry at fat guys who wore Speedos at the beach and went about creating a land in which such atrocities of the flesh would never manifest themselves, ever. Tina appears on some small, roofless, four-wheel drive vehicle that is the very size and shape I would have turned my toy Tonka trucks into when I was eight years old, driving across a frozen, icy pond like spring might never, ever, ever...oh, it never does, does it? I jam my thumb into the painfully underutilzed fast-forward button, trying to jump past the nine months and fast-forward into summer like this is some fucked-up, Einstein's Dreams fantasy temporal universe. I'm probably just messed up from rewinding my tape to try to get down Tina's speech about "butterflies in her stomach" and repeating the experience of watching snow fall up over and over and over again. It's very dislocating. Andrew tells us that Tina told him to "get on the back of the ATV." What's going on? ATV? Is that a term known by people who love snow or people who love money? Or both? I'm not well acquainted with either camp. Cut to a jerky (both camera jerkiness and, y'know, filled with jerks) montage of Tina and Andrew riding around on a truck on the ice, looking like -- as my grandmother says whenever she has the misfortune to see people engaged in activities of which she does not approve -- a bunch of horse's asses. Go, grandma. Speak the truth for a nation that concurs.
We're in an empty Elks Lodge or Masonic Center of some kind, as Andy and Tina drink hot cocoa and plan on not ever getting married. Tina reassures Andy, "It's not that I'm playing hard-to-get, so don't think that I'm doing that. It's just that I think I am hard-to-get and that I don't fall for just anyone." Andy asks her, "Anything you're scared about?" Why must he insist on turning every interpersonal interaction he has with a female into this boringly protracted game of Twenty Questions? And how does he succeed in somehow being animal, vegetable, and mineral, all at the same time? And yes, Tina's scared of something. Clowns and snakes. But who in their right minds wouldn't be? Misguided to the point of thinking she can both respect herself in the morning and do so while waking up on that morning as Mrs. Firestone, Tina tells us via interview, "I think Andrew did respect the fact that I haven't kissed him and that I don't just hand out kisses to anyone." Andrew segues us right into nighttime (theoretically speaking only, considering that the arc of the earth means the sun is set to rise at exactly 6:32 AM on the first day of July...and then, it's Farmin' Season!) with the oddly phrased "If Tina is putting up an act, it will be difficult to keep that up in front of her family." An act? What act? That she's an international superspy? Or that she's not so fabulous after all? Or, as my friend Potes posits, that she's hiding her secret alter ego "Drag Queen-a" from a world on the brink of figuring out she's a man? Heh. Drag Queen-a. Good one, Potes.
North, Miss Tessmacher! North! We're on the ATV (see how hip I've gotten with the lingo? See how much hipper I'd be if I were somehow able to stop using the word "hip" in my writing?), traveling across the frozen glacier that is the northern third of our great nation. We pull up in front of a delightful colonial with a deck and a picket fence and, probably, during the summertime, a pitcher of lemonade dripping with condensation while the parents sit on porch swings and chat about days gone by and the kids loll maybe on a hammock or out by the crick while that Country Time guy narrates everything anybody does. Inside, we meet Tina's mother, father, and her two sisters. I think I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Tina's dad bears a striking resemblance to Chuck Norris, if I could remember what Chuck Norris looks like. I think he looks a little like Tina's dad. How's that for a physical description? Tina's two sisters look like Tina, and Tina's mom looks like Tina in twenty years. So, basically, she looks like Tina with no makeup on, while she herself has makeup on. Got it? Chuck shakes Andy's hand and asks, "How's the weather out there?" which would have been like asking, "Andy, you ever heard of money?" in the "foregone conclusion" realm of introductory inquisitions. I guess Andy thinks the definition of the word "rhetorical" is "of or pertaining to that guy in Gone with the Wind," because he never could have imagined that he didn't need to supply an answer, blabbering, "It's a little colder than California right now." The "right now," of course, indicating a time period between the beginning of humankind until continental drift switches the location of the balmy desert southwest and the uninhabitable American tundra.
Andy posits, "I felt like I was walking into a house with a girl I've been dating and trying to impress her parents and trying to impress upon them what kind of person I am and what kind of person I could be with their daughter." Isn't that exactly what you're doing? We cut to the obligatory Q&A session, Tina's sister (y'know, the blonde one) asking Andy what impressed him about Tina. He responds that she "threw a lot of attitude" at him, citing quickly (because that's the kind of thing you say when you hate someone because of how much they hate you) her "confidence and energy and fire." In the room, Chuck Norris takes some interview time, telling us in a slow Midwestern drawl, "I don't think Tina is scared of love." Back in the dining room, Tina's relatives address how they would feel if Tina were to move across the country to be with Andy, and Chuck jokes that "if she doesn't go with you, she's gonna go with someone else, so you might as well take her." Okay, her family is kind of groovy. There's this weird moment where Tina's sister gets up to go to her first school dance, and the only reason I'm even mentioning it is because someone would have noticed it if I hadn't. And I'm way too tired to check my email these days.
Upstairs after dinner, the couple sits on two really uncomfortable bridge chairs, and Andy goes in for a kiss and finally gets one. So happy is he to have finally scored with all four of his remaining "ladies" that he actually puts his arms up in victory and takes Tina's hand. I guess he's just waiting for the coach to come running out and pour a giant vat of Gatorade over his head before we're allowed to cut to the scene. Yep. I'll wait. I sure do like Gatorade. Blue is my favorite flavor.
Edited quickly back downstairs now, Tina tells Andy, "I got you something." Uh oh. That's always a bad sign. She hands him a framed painting of a sun setting over some kind of body of water, with the words painted on, "I Want U 2 Want Me." Oh, crap. That is awesome. She told the little boy that she liked him in the lexicon of the Seventh Grade yearbook. That moment is 2 Good 2 Be 4 Gotten. And even more than it reminds me of that one chick who gave the creepy monkey guy a puzzle of herself onJoe Millionaire, it makes me think of the Simpsons episode where Ralph falls in love with Lisa. And for evoking such memories of better times, I think that Tina should be the winner. Tina? For your adventures in super-cheesiness, I Choo-Choo-Choose You.
Tina bids her parents goodbye, and we're off to the Great Northern for a drink and a fire in the fireplace. Andrew and Tina sit on a red, velvet couch, Andy telling her that every concern he'd had about her is gone. She shares with us that she's afraid her "heart will get broken" and that she'll have lost "of the greatest guys [she's] ever met." Who? Oh, him.
Hey, I can see my house from here! Actually, I totally can't, because there's a "Manhattan" in the way. We're very much in New Jersey right now, and I think this sequence provides an important counterpoint to the weather in Wisconsin, because both Andrew and Christina are wearing light fall jackets, and this is one day during a New York winter during which time it snowed literally every day, all the time, forever. Also, there's no way they're playing these dates in order. Aren't Wisconsin and Ohio, like, either to each other or the same? Why go all the way east and then south to go back? The Spruce Moose would surely crack under such strain. Andy is standing in a town square area of some kind, holding a bouquet of tacky flowers which obscure shots of the city skyline a mere sixty miles across the Hudson. Christina takes the flowers and his hand and they enter the limo. We cut to whatever the main street is in Montclair (I've never been there, partly because it's the one town in New Jersey no one from my family lives in and partly because I get my full share of authentic ethnic food locales right here in Bensonhurst, thanks very much) to find them entering a bakery. She points to an enormous, horribly gaudy, forty-layer wedding cake (one layer for each of Christina's rapidly advancing years, just like counting the rings on tree bark!) with a cascade of frosting shaped like roses pouring down the side. For those of you playing at home (and there's no watching without playing, clearly), that was the moment Andrew applied the mental boot to Christina. First, because his family is demure and tasteful in matters of fine wines and cakes, I'm sure. And second, who the hell would want to get married in a room with a wedding cake six inches taller than he is? The tiny wedding-cake groom would surely drown in the rich ethnic frosting.
Andrew and Christina enter the bakery, which is apparently Portuguese in derivation ["Oy. Hope you like incredibly heavy bread that sits in your stomach like a wad of lead, Andy." -- Wing Chun], as Christina tells us that her culture is important to her. A waitress brings over a big plate of breaded food and Christina feeds Andrew a bite and explains what it is he's eating-but-not-keeping-down. And, fine. Her culture is important to her. But, codfish? In a pastry shop? What culture is that, that dares to mix seafaring creatures with sugary confections? The Taste-Bud-Deprived? Practical-Joker-Americans? The cast of The Little Mermaid? Tell me who. Yeah, Andrew doesn't like it either. He refuses water, for some reason, because he's a big man (in sarcasm only, of course), and he tells us in interview, "If tonight's dinner doesn't go a little bit better, we might have to sneak out and grab a burger." Oh, ha. Let us malign those with a cultural heritage, rather than just being the blandly generic WASP you and your family take such pride in being. Now stuff this trout-filled donut in your mouth and think about who you've upset.
In the limo on their way to the house, Christina again waaaay overestimates her place in the hierarchy with a horribly off-base question, proving that "sequitur" was the only thing left off the menu back the bakery. And here it ends: "You said you've been in love before, right...Do you think you're feeling that for me?" Andy waffles (smeared with a delectable sardine-based syrup, I'm guessing) monumentally, spitting out something about a "possibility" or "moving in that direction" or something, and Christina tells us that she's sure Andrew "appreciated" her direct questioning. Andy, meanwhile, interviews that he wishes their conversation could be a little less "intense." Totally. Wouldn't want to just jump into a nationally televised engagement without a little idle chitchat about the weather and fish and maybe a nice cruller. Christina takes Andrew's hand and tells him that his response is "good enough." She turns fifty and she's never been loved. Shut up, Portugeezer.
Whatever. These people are way too olive-skinned for Andrew's fair west coast sensibilities. There are, like, sixteen people there. At dinner at Christina's house, Andrew encounters the typical questions about why Andy chose to be the Bachelor (he waffles, with monkfish) and where they plan to live if they end up together (he waffles, with whipped cream and a singular anchovy). John, Christina's father, tells us in a Portuguese confessional (and trust me, you don't want to end up spending night in a Portuguese confessional if you can avoid it), "It'll be very hard for me when [Christina] moves to California. She's my baby." Awww. How cute. Good thing the only thing he needs to worry about is the chapter in the ESL handbook explaining that dusty linguistic outpost of the English language known as the "if/when" matrix. In a situation like this one, it really might be better to learn the difference. Does anyone else feel like He Waffles With Monkfish would be the world's best Native-American name for him?
That was fast. Out on the porch, Christina interviews, "After spending the day with Andrew, I know for sure I'm falling in love with him." After ONE DAY? I can't even tell if I have a cold after one day. It just takes your body time to process these things, y'know? Cumulatively, Christina has now spent the approximate amount of time with her "love" as I have with the guy at the deli across the street from my apartment. And do you know how I feel about him? I feel like I want my coffee large, with milk and one sugar, just like I order it. Let's not complicate the relationship any more than that, if possible. No names, even. After all, we've only known each other for ONE DAY. Andrew is "a little bit confused" at the end of the date, and he wants to have a "heart to heart" back at Christina's house. She tells him that she feels like "this is right," and he waffles (with...ah, fuck it, I'm out of fish) but gropes her big time anyway.
The door to Kirsten's house sits wide open (I guess opportunism doesn't even have to knock once in this house), and Kirsten walks in and gives her father a big, buy-me-something hug. But for once, it's a manageable-sized crowd. Just the father, mother, and brother. And hey! Kirsten's brother has the same name as my brother! Which is totally weird, because she and I totally don't even look alike at all! Cut to the five of them sitting around the living room, Kirsten's mom asking where Andrew's family lives, following up by asking what someone who spends his entire life learning how to correctly pronounce the word "Ynez" does for a living there. Is there really no coaching behind any of this? Was Kirsten not permitted to contact her parents for three weeks? Did the crew who came in to set up fourteen cameras in the middle of the living room not tip anybody off? I totally refuse to believe it. I do. Anyway, Andrew cops to the vineyards thing, but Kirsten's dad (Chuck Norris, looking as aged as much as I have aged during the course of this episode) starts catching on that wine = money and hazards, "I'm sorry, I didn't catch your last name." In a cool world, Andrew would volley back, "You didn't catch it because I didn't say it," and then come awesomely film noir-ish chatter would ensue, in which they'd both end every sentence iterating the word "see" as clearly as possible while chomping on their cigars, constantly referring to each other by their 1950s names of "Smithy" and "Slim." Anyway, none of that happens. Instead, we are dispiritingly reminded once more of the sheer lack of original ideas that exist in ours, the human race, as Kirsten's mom is first out of the gate with her inquiry, "The Firestone that has to do with the tires?" It could make a grown man weep. Or Andrew, as well.
At least in Florida, you can eat outside. We're kicking it poolside at dinner, when Older Chuck Norris brings up a dicey question: "What about the other three ladies attracts you to them? Any qualities that they have that Kirsten doesn't have?" Well, first, they possess the identical qualities of "fathers with tact," which is obviously something Kirsten's father lacks in spades. And while you can easily tell that the producers are all, "Don't be afraid to ask the tough questions" to the families, this one is a bit much. At least kindly Andrew has the good graces and decorum not to dignify this with an...oh, wow. He's going for it. One is "older," one is "mothering and nurturing," and one has "an energy and a fire." Every time he talks about Tina, I feel like he's reading about the beginning days of the planet earth from a dog-earned public library copy of Nova. Out of nowhere, we cut to a brief interview in which Kirsten takes issue with Andrew's categorization of Tina, telling us, "He doesn't know who she really is, and I hope she figures that out before it gets too serious." Potes? Did you hear that, over the soundtrack's subtle noodling of the theme song to The Crying Game? First there are kisses. And then there are...rides on the ATV. Kirsten's parents approve, so we're back in the limo where the smacky kissing ensues. Andrew tells us, "I definitely feel like I'm falling for Kirsten." I guess Kristen will just have to go home heartbroken. And Kehr-sten as well.
Oh, look. A personal anecdote: When I was very young, my grandfather used to sing a song to my brother and I that went, I kid you not, exactly like this: "Oh, I don't give a damn 'bout the whole state of Michigan, the whole state of Michigan, the whole state of Michigan. I don't give a damn 'bout the whole state of Michigan, 'cause I'm from Ohio. I'm from Ohio! I'm from Ohio." And he wasn't. From Ohio, that is. But this behavior isn't really that far afield, coming as it was from a member of my family. From our earliest days, my brother and I were collaborating (him: writing songs, me: waving my arms for attention and taking credit, a trend that continues in our current collaborations) on songs we still sing today, including the Alanis-esque revenge saga of "You're a Jerk" and the actually-really-good "How Many People?" No slacker in her own right, my sister had a sleeper string of hits, scribing solo the singularly-voiced "Cutting Cantaloupe is My Life (And I Will Cut it with a Knife)" and co-authoring the repeat-sign-friendly fugue, "Snot Factory (I'm Only Home for the Weekend)." My sister really likes writing songs with parentheses in them, I guess. The only difference between those songs and a song like "I Don't Give a Damn 'Bout the Whole State of Michigan ('Cause I'm From Ohio)" is that, when we asked my grandfather after the derivation of the song, he simply would not cop to having written it himself. Instead, he would offer some vague explanation about how he learned it during "The War." I guess the ostensible "war" to which he referred was either some war between Michigan and Ohio (the skirmishes between The Midwest Territories were not well-documented, but alas that does not mean they did not occur) or my grandfather's war against approaching senility, as I don't see how he would have come across that song while acting as a dentist somewhere not in America during World War II. And though we never exactly found out where it came from, you'd better believe it was the inspiration for such other Blau hits from "I Went to a Wedding" to "I Want to Eat My Car."
And singing it repeatedly to myself was the only way for me to trudge through this visit back to the flat, desolate Midwest. I can't believe this show is actually making me go to Cleveland. Oh, sorry. A SUBURB of Cleveland. Andy meets Jen at some empty, depressing Bob's Big Boy somewhere at the base of a main highway, sitting with her in a booth and small-talking over the idling eighteen-wheelers just outside. They chat boringly about Andy's other dates, which he of course feels reticent to discuss. They discuss instead Andy's main reservation with choosing Jen: worrying that her entire life is in Ohio. Jen tell us that she would move to California for Andrew. Wow. Where's your state pride now, sister? Score one for Michigan.
In the limo now, Jen points out some structural changes that have taken place in the neighborhood since last she was there, like, three weeks ago. She notes a "dog park," and Andy remembers that she's not into dogs. Which brings up a totally retarded compatibility issue: "What if we get a bulldog? What if you had to take if for walks and pick up its poo?" What are you, seven? Oh, wait. You're totally seven. Andy actually likens picking up dog crap to changing the diaper of one's own child, solidifying my opinion that he's...
Oh, look, we're at the house. A jubilant reception greets Jen and Andy at the door, where we meet Jen's parents, her brother, and her friend Michelle. And let me tell you something about Jen's friend Michelle. Michelle knows that Michelle is on television. And she's gonna use it, is what she's gonna do. She quizzes Andrew about the fact that there is such a short period of time since Andy has met these girls, and that three weeks might not be enough time to decide if he wants to get engaged to someone. Jen expresses thankfulness that someone asked the tough questions and that it wasn't she. At dinner, Michelle asks what Jen thinks about the other three girls, and Andy goes back to that old saw about Kirsten (whose name is never mentioned) being the only girl in the house who didn't know how to play nice with others. Andy excuses himself from the table and leaves the family to chat about his good greatness, their only concern, of course, being that he's dating three other women at the moment and is dating them on television. After dinner, the limo skids all over the frozen tundra as Jen and Andy talk about how well the dinner went. Andy is "falling for her" too. And, well, I don't give a damn. In a truly great interview, Jen tells us, "I don't want to be that girl that's in the limo crying at the end of all this, asking why he didn't pick me." I'm in meta-love with that observation. But I'm from Ohio. And when she wins this whole thing, she won't be. Anymore.
Chris "Why Am I Only In One Scene" Harrison shows up in the nick of time, else who would have sat in the other chair? He and Andrew sit in the Room Of Reckoning, Andy telling Chris that this was "an amazing week." He says he's really gotten to know a lot more about Jen and Christina, and that all of the four trips went well. Andy says that it will be "very difficult" to let one of the women go, but that he doesn't ever say that he doesn't know which woman it will be. He's pretty sure, it seems to me. But we have to watch the video messages anyway. Kirsten looks forward to seeing the future. Christina wants Andrew to make her "Mrs. Firestone." Jen is nice. Tina is...man, we haven't seen her in a while. And she mentions the painting again, which can't be a good strategy move. Downstairs, Chris has to open the door for Kirsten as Andy says that he's falling for her. He has "emotions" toward Christina, but he has to figure out "what those emotions mean." Jen is nice. Tina was the one whose visit he found "pleasantly surprising." Like one person, alive or dead, doesn't know where this is going.
Chris. Blah. Speech. Andrew. Blee. Following his heart. Christina. Bleh. She just turned sixty.
And here we go:
Kirsten, will you accept this rose? Well, not if Bill offers her an even prettier, redder one first. Where he is.
Tina, will you accept this rose? A kiss on the cheek says it's the last time she'll have a chance either way. Which is kind of too bad.
Jen, will you accept this rose? Sure. Nothing's blooming up by her house anyway.
Christina hugs the other girls and walks outside with Andy. She does certainly seem to be in shock. They sit in front of the house, Andy saying, "There was just something that was missing that I was trying so hard to find. I think that maybe you felt it a little." Christina shakes her head forcefully: "I had no clue." Ouch. She then finds the strength to nod and tells him, "You're making a big mistake." Oh, aren't they all? He puts her in the limo and great TV ensues when she loses it, telling us, "He's making the biggest mistake of his life. That's for sure. He's probably just afraid of me." That's totally it. That and the crappy pastry. ["Christina, sweetie, this isn't Survivor. The Bachelor doesn't vote out the girl he thinks is the 'biggest threat.'" -- Wing Chun] Inside, the three remaining "ladies" toast somberly, as Christina goes off on a search for the man who will love her before she is old and...oh, well. Time's up.
I'm not around week. Be good to the sub, don't act up, and bring a sharpened pencil because you WILL BE LEARNING. See you in two weeks.