Props and thanks to Hillary Dickulous.
We're California soundstage dreamin' on such a loser's day, as we join Chris "Okay, But I Don't Want Anyone Thinking We're Robosexuals" Harrison, standing in front of a studio audience comprised entirely of the unemployed, the financially compensated, the middle-aged, and the damned. Hoodwinked tourists from Des Moines stare suspiciously around at the studio, wondering just when the hell Sajak is going to show up already like that guy on the street told them he would, while contractually obligated former bachelorettes gleefully applaud the death of culture. "Hi," a chipper Chris tells them all, his entirely black ensemble belying his outward glee and subversively mourning the death of culture, "Welcome to The Bachelor: 'The Women Tell All.'" Welcome to Recapping The Recap Day at Television Without Pity, folks, in which I attempt to tell the story of them telling the story of this season, all without plunging off the precipice of meta-dom and falling through a recapping wormhole, ending up back in time to find myself recapping My Mother The Car for Mighty Big Dumont Network or something. What? It could happen. Well, it could. Stop looking at me like that.
Chris continues: "America embraced Bachelor Bob on his quest to find true love and the woman who could eventually become his wife." Oh, now, is that just what America did, Chris? Because from here it looked like the only people embracing Bob were the twenty-five unlucky ladies who had to go through him in an attempt to snag a correspondent position onExtra, and the only thing the home audience was hugging were our knees, while rocking back and forth in our padded rooms, foaming at the mouth while trying to formulate the sentence, "Just...make...him... stop...laughing... can't...hear...laugh...again... mmmmmrgzmsga." And I really mean it. But I mean "mmmmrgzmsga" slightly more than I mean the rest of it. Chris continues to wow us with his televisual parlor tricks, including The Feats Of Math ("Twenty-five women started and now only two remain!") and The Coif That Shall Not Budge, segueing into a brief commercial for week's two- (kill) hour (me) finale and coming to rest on the sentiment, "Tonight, we'll talk to the women who left without a rose." Known to freedom-lovers all over as "The Emancipated." Take it away, Chris: "Please welcome...our bachelorettes!" He does that sweeping, left-handed "Behind Curtain #2...Fame Whorishness!" arm swoop practiced and perfected by years of talentless TV puppets before him, as we back up through time and catch up with the rose-less and the lonely. Because it's like I told you...only the lonely can play:
- Darla - Who?
- Leona - Back from the Overlook Hotel, she still just wants to play with us, Danny
- Samentha - It could just be because my four-year-old niece has that name except she spells it correctly, but seriously? Buy a vowel, Samentha. Now buy a different one. Now we're getting there.
- Stacey - Yeah, um, who?
- Lindsay D. - She looks soooooort of familiar...was she on television once, or something?
- Shelli - Oh, great. Another perfectly-timed cameo from Elka 2.0.
- Heather - Hey, Heather, babe? Don't mean to bug you, but you've got something on your...no, right there, to your...oh, never mind.
- Shea - The Lioness In Winter finally gets the season right.
- Lauren - And you are...?
- Christine - I'm sorry, but I don't see your name on this list here. But seriously, nice hair.
- Julie - Oh, great. Another perfectly-timed cameo from Token 2.0.
- Jenn - Hey, that's just Antoinette with one more X-chromosome pasted on!
- Lanah - Shut up, Lanah.
- Kristi - All together now: Awwwwwwwwwwwwwww!
- Antoinette - Nice to see you again, sir.
- Karin - Oh, she gets a big, big cheer.
- Lindsay K. - Oh, she does not.
- Jenny - Um, Jenny, if I wanted you to wave, I would have said "JENNY."
- Brooke - No, seriously. Stop looking at me like that.
- Misty - Who?
- Lee-Ann - You were pretty bad, but Kirsten still sucked more.
- Meredith - Hi, Unfrozen Caveman Bachelorette. What happened to your hair?
- Mary - Who let you out of the house wearing that outfit? And, more importantly, when is the estate of Jennifer Beals coming to get it the hell back?
At some point during the hastily edited introductions, Chris has made his way over to a comfy chair on a small stage in front of the ladies. I love me a little Inside the Bachelor's Studio, so Chris get things kicking in the "Hot Seat" to him by calling down the his first interviewee: "At thirty-five, she's our oldest bachelorette ever [emphasis his, entirely]. Mary, come join me in the Hot Seat." She's first! Just like how they let children traveling unaccompanied or "people just needing a little more time" board an airplane before everybody else.
Mary -- wearing an off-both-shoulders sports jersey of some kind (I guess we can at least be thankful that she didn't end up getting chosen for the "Skins" team) -- winces visibly at the Oldest! Bachelorette! Ever! moniker, but somehow ambles her creaking self down to the Hot Seat. Suppressing her urge to tell Chris, "I may be in the Hot Seat, but you should be wearing a sweater" (because that's what old people say), she smiles gamely as Chris introduces a clip package of Mary's time on the show. Mary and Bob meet. She speaks Spanish. She tells us, "I'm just an average girl. I'm not a desperate girl." But then, Moose runs out on stage and tells us that this is just the introduction to the Opposite Sketch, and all is understood. Mary, don't encourage her!
The rest of the clip package we've pretty much seen every single shot of before. If I recapped it again, it would be considered double jeopardy and I'd actually be in violation of applicable laws. I could go to jail! Suffice it to say that Bob's shirt on his Fantasy Date is the Gayest! Shirt! Ever! It doesn't want to have any babies with Mary. It wants to go out, grab a few Cosmos, dance all night to "Lady Marmalade" and find a nice booty shake to bring home (tm Potes). His shirt is really gay. It could have babies with the shirt Mary is wearing tonight. Or adopt them. After getting married. In Hawaii or Vermont.
Back in the Hot Seat, Chris tells Mary, "It is very apparent you were head over heels in love with Bob." Mary responds that she thought Bob was a "special guy." I agree that he is somewhat "special." Chris asks Mary if it still "hurts" to be her, and she speaks to the masses in conjecturing, "I'm sure everybody in life has gone through a heartbreak." Probably one too many definite articles to describe the situation adequately, but I see where she's going with it, honestly. She continues, "I've been through heartbreaks and heartaches before." And she's, what, turning into a Patsy Cline cover band to prove it? She also cops to having been a party to two broken engagements, telling Chris, "This one hurt just as much, if not more." Consistently rocky sailing on the U.S.S. Ovary, eh, Mary? Chris asks Mary if she still has feelings for Bob, and she delivers this treatise: "I believe that you don't stop loving a person, but that your level of love changes." Well, at least we can take cold, cold comfort in the fact that Mary may love Bob, but at least she now loves him a lot, lot less. Me, I'm feeling better already.
In a carefully orchestrated moment of well-planned spontaneity, Chris throws the ball to the assemblage of bachelorettes and asks if they have any questions. One does! It's Lanah! "Why did you go into detail about the children?" she asks. She expounds that it's better to wait until you have the man "wrapped around your finger," a comment which elicits uproarious laughter from the studio audience, and is, indeed, an excellent tactic in any relationship, provided that said relationship plans on existing entirely inside of the song "Marry the Man Today" from Guys & Dolls. I know that sounds like an arcane, far afield reference for absolutely no reason, but seriously. Look it up. You'll be on my side in no time.
The world's most inexplicable shot ever of Karin and Lindsay K. giggling ridiculously non-sequiturs us back in from commercial. You care to share with the rest of Des Moines, ladies?
"Meredith and Bob," Chris says by way of introducing The Winning Couple That Wasn't: "They hit it off immediately, but the rest of the ride wasn't so smooth." And it's true that Meredith really was the early favorite, and she even possessed each of the wedding-day requirements of something old (Nana), something new (fresh grief), something borrowed (stories about dead relatives), and something blue (again, Nana). But it wasn't to be, and ABC Networks in conjunction with Entertainment has decided that we want to know why. So, to a standing ovation, a gesture once reserved for the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team or the Beatles at Shea or any other merit-based activity that actually qualifies as, y'know, DOING STUFF, Meredith strides forth and makes her way to the Hot Seat. She's wearing...what is she wearing, anyway? It's a black dress, also with no shoulders, but it has sleeves. Why does it have sleeves? And a belt buckle so big and black it will kill you in your dreams.
Chris reminds Meredith that we were all right there with her when she found out about the death of her poor, overexposed grandmother. And what better way to raise the dead than through television's séance substitute of...the solemnly-scored montage. Meredith meets Bob. Meredith feels comfortable with Bob. Meredith is voted most compatible with Bob. Meredith gets a one-on-one date, but Meredith's mom calls an hour before her date with "a little bit of bad news." What's wrong, mom? "Um, Nannie passed away." No starting sentences with "um," Mom! It's rude on the forums and doesn't pay sufficient homage to Nana (or "Nannie," as The Past seems so intent on calling her). And yet, she still goes on the date, during which Bob actually notes, "It kills me." Because (1) this tragedy is totally about him, and (2) there's never been a better time for the colloquial evocation of death. Bob tells Meredith, "Tonight caught me way off-guard. So I hope you're okay." So, again I'll point out, he's basically saying, "I am not emotionally equipped to deal with this grieving human shell of a girl I just wanted to make out with." Nana really did pull the attention away from Bob, and I don't think he was entirely okay with that. Nevertheless, Bob had to be sweating before this episode aired, thinking he was going to come off as callous and clueless and he doubtlessly felt. I still can't believe they let him off so easily. Oh, then Meredith takes Bob to Nana's gravesite (yet another "something new," perhaps?) and gets booted for her gooey, humanist take on gooey humanity.
"Something pretty rare is that you actually blamed yourself on [sic] not getting a rose," Chris chides Meredith. She agrees that it's true: "I cared just as much as the other women did about Bob, and I didn't open up enough. I couldn't do it, for some reason." She knew her feelings, she says, but the only person who didn't know her feelings was Bob. Chris laughs a low, slow, singular "huh" that has a pitch and a timbre and a number of chromosomes missing, poor special guy. Chris asks if Nana's death did bring Meredith and Bob together faster than they otherwise might have, and Meredith agrees that this is the truth. Whoa, the claws are really out now! Except, not. What kind of Hollywood Shiva Call is this, anyway? I feel so bad that I didn't bring over any cookies or maybe a brisket. Meredith adds that she "went through bawling" in front of Bob, which is "not really normal" for a first date. It's not? Man, I have GOT to stop going on dates arranged through Friendster. Especially with people who put "crying uncontrollably on the first date" in their "likes" field. Just kidding. I got the hell away from that time-sucking game of Social Tetris a loooooooong time ago. And since not much of anything is going on here in this reunion special, let me suggest you do the same. Friendster! For suckers! Chris asks Meredith whether watching herself on the show is going to change her dating methods in the future, and she tells him that she's "never going to find anyone" if she acts the way she did on the show. This brings a rousing guffaw of "don't we KNOW it!" from the studio audience, and I have to say, I really have no idea why. I mean, besides dragging her not-boyfriend to the newly-dug grave of her recently deceased grandmother, did she really technically do anything wrong?
But this isn't about me, and other people have questions, too -- people like Misty, who tells Meredith that she had pegged her for victory, and asks what went wrong. Meredith repeats that she didn't open up to Bob, so he never really knew how she felt about him. "It was my fault," she says, "and there was no one to blame but myself." And the fact that, by the time she got back to Portland and located her magic belt, it was already too late.
And now, the moment we've been waiting for, with breaths bated and plans cancelled, for monthzzzzzzzzzzz. Chris: "One of the most talked-about ladies this season was, of course, Lee-Ann." Now, if you'll think back to last season, we didn't have the fun of seeing the crazy villainous bitch in the reunion special because she was in the final two and therefore kicking it in Napa and telling Andrew's parents that she "lives for the weekend," but if you'll think back in time to when Russ and Trista had some tense words on The Bachelorettereunion special, you'll remember that this episode, by its inherent nature, doesn't completely have to suck. But this sucks. Chris tries to trump up her role by calling Lee-Ann's time on The Bachelor "a prime-time soap opera." And, true as that may be, it doesn't stop this hour from being the rehashed, retread, three-week-old issue of Soap Opera Digest on the floor of your doctor's office's bathroom. Who's ready for another prepackaged journey?
The crowd cackles with knowing glee as an early, previously unaired Lee-Ann confessional tells us that she sees herself as "smart, witty, cute, has a good head on her shoulders, well-rounded, and down-to-earth." A few shots of Bob spinning Lee-Ann around (which we haven't seen yet either) somehow confirms Lee-Ann's role as the over-aggressive trollop. Everything else, we've seen, except for one shot of Meredith whispering to Kelly Jo, "She choked her own neck," and Kelly Jo responding with the international sign for "Noose, noose, I'm medieval and dying via a noose."
It's over without any applause, and we're back in the Hot Seat. Lee-Ann reiterates that she was "really hurt" by the way she was treated, and Chris volleys back that she may have brought some of that on herself by saying that she wasn't there to make friends, "which is great for being honest, but...." Chris asks whether Lee-Ann thinks the other girls' hatred -- HATRED -- of her was borne of envy, and she as-diplomatically- as-she-can says that she was jealous of other people, so maybe some people were jealous of her. Not impossible, I'm just saying. Meredith interrupts with a "not to interrupt," saying she wasn't jealous of Lee-Ann, just that she saw "two different Lee-Anns." Misty piles on, telling us that Lee-Ann begged Bob's mom to help her be more aggressive, but then was the most aggressive girl in the world. Lee-Ann's playing defense again: "I don't think I was that aggressive," and the crowd reacts like Lee-Ann stood up at that moment, screamed, "Nazis, Nazis, Nazis! Jews taste like chicken!" as the screen behind the Hot Seat started unspooling footage from a Leni Riefenstahl film festival. I know you guys hate her. But I'm still not sure she's that bad. And a story without a convincing villain is not really that compelling to me. So, 'night.
But even the Devil has her advocates, and Kristi (who? Well, whatever) pipes up then to note that it must have been somewhat difficult for Lee-Ann to keep living in the house even after nine other girls voted her as being "least compatible" with Bob. And while that's kind of true, the only reason Kristi Cute Cheeks even knows anything about this is because she watched it at the same time we did, on the same network. So how come we're not sitting up there as experts? Spice it up, people! Kristi even does a little quick skit with Lanah, understudying for the role of Lee-Ann After She Finds Out She's The Least Compatible: "It would be really very hard for me to turn around and be like, 'Hey, you wanna go lay out, let's go get some lunch, you want a sandwich?'" The thing about Kristi, you guys? Is that she really makes you think. About why she's so orange, for example. Just kidding. Secretly, I think she's the prettiest one of them.
Lee-Ann softly agrees with Kristi's little passion play, saying, "You don't have to like me." And Lindsay (which one? Who cares!) doesn't, adding that she really got caught up in the moment, and only later was able to muse, "All the nice girls got sent home!" Oooh, that's no good. Chris notes that that's the kind of comment that people might take personally. Lee-Ann asks what she did that was so aggressive, and Lindsay reminds her of a group date on which Lee-Ann allegedly said, "I have to have all the attention, Bobby!" Lee-Ann spits back that she was joking when she said it, and that everyone knows she was joking. We never got to see this footage. Hmmm. Too bad there isn't some way we could, say, go back in time or something -- I don't know, I'm just thinking out loud here -- and watch that interaction on some sort of device that record moving images in real time. Seriously, if it's some kind of "You Make The Call" thing where we can be the judge of whether Lee-Ann was clawing Bob in jest or in heat, let us be the judge! If you can't hear me, it's because I'm over here, thinking outside the box. Just saying. Chris wants to tie this segment up nicely, asking Lee-Ann if she has any regrets. "Yes," Lee-Ann levels. "I wish that I would have [sic] not worn the cream dress on that Rose Ceremony." Ha! Not bad. Bob thanks Lee-Ann for having the "bravery" in coming, even though the still-dripping red blood of her signature glistening against the contract to appear on this show insists that all of the bachelorettes come to the reunion special.
"They say age is just a number," Chris says, introducing a series of clips intended to show the difference between the older women and the younger women in the house. Kelly Jo -- her hair understudying for the role of every hair style in Dirty Dancing -- tells us early on, "There's a difference in the house, with the girls of the different ages." Karin and Mary are seen as being at a disadvantage, Kristi Cute Cheeks tells us, because they really want to settle down. Which is usually what happens after a suitor gets down on his knee during the final episode and ASKS YOU TO MARRY HIM, which has not failed to happen on one occasion, right? Lindsay tells a disbelieving Estella how much she loves Britney Spears and how many times she's seen her in concert and then she does some funky, Britney dance moves on the table. And let me tell you something, people. This behavior is not a product of age. This behavior is a product of idiocy. Just as Mary practically bent herself into a Spanish pretzel to get Bob to notice her at the karaoke bar, which is the same level of base stupidity that can come at any age. Lindsay just looks better doing it.
Lindsay now sucks. She and Misty break into a series of cheerleading routines that are judged harshly and with great anger by Meredith ("Something I can't relate to") and Estella ("I don't do pyramids"). Out in a field somewhere, Misty creates an ad hoc cheer that goes, "Bob, Bob, he's our guy, I really hope he doesn't pass me by. Go, Bob!" Heh. I mean, BOOOO! I know I'm supposed to be finding them criminally annoying right now, but I've got to say it's a little amusing, what with the not having been there and never actually having to meet them ever. And because I never went to a football game in high school, so it was always kind of fun to make up what I thought the cheers sounded like, wondering how our brave pixie-esque blondes were able to fight their way through the wilds of words like, "M! A-S! M-A-S-S-A-P-E-Q-U-A!" I always thought that would be kind of fun to see. How it makes for compelling television for longer than nine seconds still remains to be seen. Somewhere in a confessional, Kelly Jo notes that Meredith's own attempts at cheerleading (briefly depicted in a -- wait for it -- hot tub) are "comic." Dear "-al" suffix...will you accept this rose?
Back out of Montage Land, Chris -- or the guy at who writes his clever copy -- endears us to him forever when he reports to Meredith, "You got the spirit stick at the house. You were our top cheerleader at camp this season."
How about a question from the audience? A girl asks the Lindsay who got eliminated at the Elimination Date how it felt. She says it felt bad. And, speaking of which, Misty then turns around and follows up with a question. I can't quote what Misty asks because the words aren't technically the dialect of the English language known in most of this country as "words that make sense," but I'll try to translate: I think she wants to know why she and Lindsay were so close in the house, but then in her final confessional, Lindsay said that Misty was the one Bob should have ditched. They both laugh and giggle through nonsensical replies, Misty saying that nobody understand what it feels like until you're there. Lanah agrees. Lanah agrees? Lanah, dear, you were about fifteen seconds more "there" than I was. Another audience member asks Mary whom she would have picked, and, after copping an egalitarian stance for a moment, she busts out, "I kind of thought he wanted me!" Yeah, well, he didn't. Titties resistentes, como decimos en la vecindad. Can we go home soon? (For those of you lunging for the Alta Vista translator, that's supposed to be "tough titties," rather than "titties resistant." And "hood" became "vicinity," which I might actually use regularly from now on.)
Kissing montage. No, I won't even discuss it. Except that Kelly Jo's grandmother, Bubka, tells us in a confessional I can't believe they didn't use on the show proper, "When he kissed me. And hugged me. It made me feel young." And Kelly Jo, who asks the incorrectly suddenly non-rhetorical question, "Who wouldn't want to make out with Bob?" A million human hands raising in the air creates a million-mile-an-hour wind that throws the planet off its axis and knocks Earth into Jupiter and Bob ruins humanity again, the thieving bastard. And then he rapes Estella's mom.
There's nothing surprising about the appearance of Bob at this point, and no one even bothers pretending to be shocked in any way. To another standing ovation, Bob comes out to the Hot Seat. Mary tells him, "You still make me wring my hands." She tells him that he's a great person and that she hopes he found happiness. Tellingly, he says nothing. "But I do love you," she follows up. Boo hoo, Mary, you had me and then you lost me. He tells her he loves her too. Which he does not. Bob asks if he can talk, and then tells Meredith how "floored" and "devastated" he was when he found out about Nana. Chris asks Bob if he would do the show again, and he says that he would because he's really excited about how things turned out. He then says he also wouldn't, because of how difficult it was to choose. He knows he's not going to garner much sympathy, he continues, but really, really, really, it was hard. Meh. It's hard being me, too, and I keep coming back and doing it again. With nary a kiss from anyone to cajole me to return.
Yes. That really was a proposal. I'm just that pitiable. And, I mean, I'm practically dateless since I got the hell off Friendster.
Questions from the bachelorettes abound (well, one), with Darla (that is who that is, right?) calls out from the waaaaaaaay back, "What do you have against blondes?" Bob inelegantly segues away from answering the question, responding that that's just one of the things he's taken heat for since the show hit the air. Chris wants to know what else makes people's lists of complaints. Ooooh, I'll make a list for you later. Nah, screw it. I'll make a list for you now, Feud-yle (but without the creepy Richard Dawson vibe):
- The hair
- The laugh
- The book
- The laugh
- The overwhelming, unrelenting Bob-liness of it all
"Kissing," Bob replies. Ooooh, sorry. Top five answers on the board only.
How about another question from the crowd? Some beefcake-y, bohunky guy who looks a lot like past Bachelor Aaron in a way, asks, "Can you set me up with anybody here?" Shut up, beefcake. Especially with the question, from some girl, coming right behind: "Since we all know you like kissing a lot, if you wanted to get intimate with any of the girls, did the show allow you? And did you?" See, now, THAT is an excellent question. And while I understand that this show is kind of like a long, elaborate magic tricks and that discovering its mechanisms might make it less enjoyable, I think we've figured out enough of its tenets and tropes over the seasons and still come back for more. In fact, I think a The Bachelor: The Drugs We Put In The Water That Keep You Coming Back special would be quite a bit more engaging that this hour-long clip show I've somehow managed to wring ten pages (or so) out of. But still, we have no specific details on what happens behind those closed doors, and Chris nicely defuses the situation with a rather chirpy "When was the last time you were intimate with a man?" She doesn't respond. Why, Chris -- when was the last time you were intimate with a man?
Yeah, I thought so.
Bob doesn't The Dance Of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, muttering something about how that's left "to the couple." Yeah, he banged 'em all.
And, finally, we're prepped for week with a recap of Estella's and Kelly Jo's "journeys" (sigh) leading up to the big finale. It's nothing more than a commercial. And I usually recap commercials in one line. Oh, look. Like I just did now.