The Women Tell All

A busload of tourists from Cheyenne, the really pissed-off assistant to Mike Fleiss's publicist, Anne-Michelle's manager who also just happens to be her first cousin, six English-deficient Swedish backpackers (who spend the greater part of the hour under the mistaken notion that they're watching Jerry Springer preside over a Spice Girls reunion), and a crack team of professional seat fillers together make up the studio audience for "The Women Tell All" at a familiar L.A. soundstage right between Melrose and pointlessness. They clap with forced, look-at-me- I-have-headshots-too- you-know glee as the camera swoops past the paid (er, I mean "live") studio audience, around a podium on which sits two long-stemmed red roses (doubtless the result of the show's set dresser taking a trip to The Podium Depot, slapping down the Entertainment platinum card, and asking for the most shocking! Podium! Ever!), and comes to rest on the grand entrance of Chris "Hostess Ding Dong" Harrison. Chris is wearing a sky blue shirt that will help him blend, chameleon-style, against his new background when a strong gust of wind hits his overly giant collar and causes him to take flight. But don't worry about him, y'all...he's got a speech prepared: "America has been watching the newest Bachelor, Andrew Firestone, search for his one true love, the woman who will become his wife." Oh, is that what "America" has been up to? No wonder it hasn't been returning any of my calls. But wait, there's more! Chris continues on, cleverly conning me into recapping a commercial for the episode, adding, "This Sunday night, Andrew will make the most difficult decision of his life." Man, and just when he thought that nothing would ever trump his endless quandary that finally resulted in the ultimately painful resolution, "No, Jeeves, I believe I am too full to enjoy any more of this delicious foie gras. But thank you. Really." God, I envy his strength. "Tonight, we'll talk to the women who left without a rose. Please welcome...our bachelorettes!"

And back through the season we go, traveling in ascending order from the not-at-all-fake-famous to the totally-fake-famous, as we're reintroduced to the twenty-three women who forced the OED to add an eensy-teensy #2 to its definition of "fame" in the first place: Tiffany (la!), Stephanie (y'all!), Amy (who?), Rachel (der), Kerri (who?), Brooke ("I'm a man!" "Well, nobody's perfect"), Ginny (who?), Amy (again?), Angela (ew), Courtney (who?), Jennifer (who?), Shannon (run!), Tina ("I'm a man!" "Well, at least you're not Brooke"), Christina S. (who flashes a Sarandon-esque peace sign...doesn't she know the war is, like, over and stuff?), Anne-Michelle (well, she didn't have far to travel, did she?), Elizabeth (meh), Heather (zzzzzzz), Audree (I'm so out of Mormon jokes), Amber (sister, have we missed you), Liz (is she winking at me?), and Christina (kick it down a notch, pastry-fish breath). "And, of course, as we all saw last Wednesday night, the final girl to leave without a rose...Tina." And out walks TinaFab, looking poised and rested and appropriately tanned for just having flown in from Wisconsin at any point between the months of September and May. She instinctively takes the hot seat in that effortless watch-your-back-Ripa kind of way, and Chris indicates a giant screen behind them and suggests, "Let's take a look at how you went from Tina to Tina Fabulous." Never in my life have I seen a group of people so intent on repeating a played-out name over and over and over again like this. Well, at least not since a kid named Gaylord transferred to my elementary school in fourth grade. Heh. "Gaylord."

Tina's voice-over offers, "If you want advice from Tina Fabulous, it would be to chill out and look your best at all times." The usual accompanying shots of Tina are all there: Tina at the casino. Tina hurling a football. Tina juggling large pieces of citrus fruit in a black cocktail dress. Wait, what? The other girls -- Liz and some blonde I'll call Audree for the sake of linear recapping -- testify to the inarguable fabulousness of Tina. A quick shot of her intentions is made clear when we see her in the Housa Bitches, taking a big juicy bite from a strawberry and announcing, "Maybe they'll want me for, like, a berry commercial." I wonder if she could pull off that old "Summer fruits, it wouldn't be summer without them" jingle from back in the day. Heh. "Summer fruits." If memory serves, we used to sing that song to Gaylord on the last day of school.

More clips! Andrew tells Tina that he'd be "lucky" to be with her, and she deadpans, "I know." Another blonde (Heather?) tells us that she thinks "Tina Fabulous is too fabulous for him." Kirsten adds her legendary "I'm sorry, I'm gonna be a bitch about this, but she is not that fabulous," and we get one of those boxes at the bottom right corner of the TV screen where the sign language translator should be, but instead it's of Liz giving her reaction shot to that line. As if she hasn't been home every Wednesday, obsessively watching the show and posting her opinions word by crazy word on her own personal website you guys have been nice enough to tell me about. Or, in actual fact, what she's doing is dictating those opinions to a sympathetic relative who types them in in her stead. After all, those tricky clasps in the back of the jacket they bought as her a welcome-home gift can only be undone by a licensed medical professional, and only at meal times or for reunion specials.

More clips! Clips and latches! Clips and salsa! Tina will only kiss Andrew on the cheek. Tina steals his "pimped-out" watch. Tina is falling for Andrew. Tina loses big, and we're treated to a new one of Kirsten's Katty Kwotations, as she reports after the last rose ceremony, "I can't imagine Tina feeling very fabulous right now." Wow. Was that in the actual episode? Anne-Michelle reacts in slack-jawed horror, then rushes off the set to list "slack-jawed horror reaction shots" under the "special skills" section of her rsum. Tina hits the limo and doesn't cry, instead telling us the quote we simply can't watch enough times: "I don't think that being barefoot and pregnant on a vineyard is fabulous at all." And I say, screw the times she told us she was falling for him...she saved face in the back of the limo at a pivotal time during which, the week before, Christina's entire face was running down her face. The comfort is cold, but it's comfort nonetheless. End of montage. The crowd goes fabulous.

Back in the hot seat, Tina reports that she "can't go anywhere" without people calling her "Tina Fabulous." If by "anywhere," you mean "between autograph signings at the Gen'ral Store" and "throwing out the first pitch at the Oconomowoc Rug Rats' big homecoming game." Well, that is what you mean, right? But she does add that the whole experience has been "fun." She clarifies for a wondering nation that she didn't come up with the nickname for herself, but does add that, growing up, she was prone to wearing "elaborate gowns on the first day of school." Man, the Gaylord comparisons never stop, do they? Chris turns conversation to "the cheek." Tina admits that she did give Andrew "the cheek," noting simply that she "wasn't ready to kiss him." She knew he was kissing other girls and she just didn't feel ready, and that's that. Hear that, Christina? That's some class right there. Then again, Tina was born in the '80s and Christina was born in the 18th Century, so their needs in finding a mate are, at this point, not the same. Chris asks about Kirsten's Katty Komments, and Tina keeps her cool: "Well, Kirsten doesn't always have the nicest things to say about me or anybody else. But, on the other hand, I've never sold her out and I've never said anything bad about her and never put her down." What did hurt Tina's feelings a little, though, was when Christina said that she didn't want to be around her. From the crowd, Christina leans forward and brays a simpering apology, looking sheepishly down the whole time, possibly out of a sense of embarrassment at her unmasked betrayal. Or possibly because she's looking in vain for the entire top portion of her dress, which she's clearly forgotten to wear and has got to be around here someplace. Christina claims that she didn't mean any of what she said, and that it was "the stress of that moment," ending with, "I'm so sorry, honey." Tina, never missing a beat, considers this for one second and then turns her head eeeeever so slightly away from Christina and stares out into the audience. Ouch. And, heh.

And the question from the studio audience is: "Now, looking back, do you wish you'd gotten a rose?" She responds honestly that she did have feelings for Andrew and that it was hard to be rejected. But the second, softball question saves Tina from having to experience the pedestrian concept of "human emotion," as the studio audience member continues, "Where did you learn to throw a football like that?" Chris jumps in, telling us, "Every guy I run into..." And whether that means "Every date I've been on..." or not is Chris's own business (and, in the opinion of the legal council or our parent company, Mighty Big Inc. LLC, not for me to conjecture about), but he supposes that Tina's ability to throw a football fifty yards while decked in heels has to have "done a lot for [her] dating game." Before he lets Tina go, Chris asks, "What time you got?" I've got Sight Gag O'Clock! She's wearing the "pimped-out watch," which she tells us she intends to keep. Chris polls the audience (ew, not like that) one last time, asking, "Is she fabulous?" They do believe she is.

Liz approaches the hot seat to thunder-free applause. In the crowd, Amber claps along gamely, all the while wearing an expression that tells us she's not entirely sure who it is that's approaching the seat at the front of room, but she thinks it's possible she once saw her on television. Chris tells us by way of introduction that Liz "seemed to have the hardest time dealing with the pressure of sharing a man." He tells us to sit back and take a look at Liz's "emotional ride." It's a ride, all right. It's an F-ticket emotional roller coaster not appropriate for children under twelve, pregnant women, people with high blood pressure, the lactose intolerant, those with an allergy to gluten, or anyone with a yin for sanity. And for those of you who think you're fine now? Consult a physician in advance. You'll be walking out of here with Lyme Disease from the facial tics.

Shockingly -- even for those of us (read: all of us) who knew her indicator light read "unbalanced load" for the duration of her time on the show -- Liz somehow makes us believe that the editing of the show protected her somehow and made her look more normal than she really is. Which, wow. Because here, truly, she appears unhinged. But first, clips! She meets Andrew and tells us on what I think is the first night that she has feelings for him. Then they're sitting down together outside, and she blathers on, "You're so articulate and intelligent and it comes across and you're so interesting and your life is so interesting and diverse and there are so many things that I feel like I could talk about it for days." Ack! Grammar police, arrest that woman! Jeez, Liz, buy a comma, wouldja? Andrew tells us that Liz's energy is "consuming." Some girl calls her "clingy." Christina calls her "gaga." The normally princess Jen calls Liz "delusional about the situation." Cut from the word "delusional" to Liz standing in the kitchen screeching out a song that goes, "I'm loving you with all of my heart now, baby. I'm loving you with all of my heart" as Kirsten puts her hands over her stomach and stares on in a horror that makes me take her side for the first and only time ever. Amber calls Liz "the most emotional person in the house," Kirsten tells us that Liz can "go from one mood to another really fast," Andrew tells us that she worries that she "can't keep an even head through this," and then feeds her lamb at the Moroccan restaurant. Afterward, Christina smiling tells us, "It was really cute that she had lamb for the first time with Andrew" before pausing for a second and sticking out her tongue in horror. Down at the tennis courts, Liz asks whether she thinks Andrew would ever want to kiss her or if he thought of her as more of a friend. Andrew stares back at her in that way that asks, "How do you say 'neither' in the language of Crazy?" Moments after she tells us that she thinks she's not getting a rose tonight, we find her interview telling us that she thought the last rose was for her. We watch her not getting a rose. We find out that her infamous "you want to see a girl that's crushed, you got her" nugget was preceded by a twenty-minute logic proof that contains the word "maybe," by my count, fifteen times in fifteen seconds. That's gotta be a record. Maybe. End of montage. The crowd goes silent.

Honestly. The studio audience averts its collective eyes, seven people "awww," and the applause redefines the word "smattering" for a new generation. Chris deems the whole thing "uncomfortable to watch." You ain't seen nothing yet, sister. Chris asks her what was going on that final night, and Liz looks around the studio and asks, confusingly, "Where's Andrew?" Everyone cracks up because they desperately need something, anything, to laugh at, even if it doesn't make that much sense and secretly she's not kidding. She tells us that she was sad to leave that experience never really having gotten to know Andrew, which is an interesting counterpoint to the whole "falling for him" thing. In one run, she tells us that she "falls for guys very quickly" and that she is "very picky about guys." In another, she tells us that it's okay to feel something for someone in this "safe environment," undercutting that immediately with her observation that "everyone is laughing at me now." She tells us that, despite the embarrassment, it was fun. Anyway, we'll be right back.

Christina is called to the hot seat, and she throws her arms upwards in celebration of herself like she's wearing a giant name tag and is on her way down to underbid some housewife by a dollar in telling Bob Barker how much she thinks is fair market value for a brand-new Maytag washer/dryer system. The price is wrong, Christina. She hits the hot seat, and we learn straightaway from Chris, "For quite some time, you were convinced that you were destined to become Mrs. Firestone." Who loves clips? We cut in on Christina in the limo on that very first night, telling the four other girls sequestered with her, "I'm gonna meet my husband today." And while that fact is relatively more true that it was for the rest of the girls in the limo (Blondie, Blondie II, Brooke, and, er, Other), when you're fourth, you don't even get a ribbon. Blah blah Christina. She's competitive. She's mad she's on so many group dates. She's grilling Andrew with clips I've already recapped. Although I do really like the clip where they're in the limo and Christina is all over him, and she's all, "This feels really good" and he just stares off in horror and she actually resorts to making a hand puppet to respond, "Really? Me too!" That. Is unhinged. Seeing this latest development, I'm actually kind of surprised she didn't build herself a ventriloquist dummy of Andrew named "Li'l Drew" and bring it with her on the reunion special so we could watch it tell her that it loved her after all and that not picking her was the biggest mistake of her life. Maybe she did and they wouldn't let her bring it on the plane. Or maybe she didn't punch enough holes in the carrier and it didn't survive the trip in the cargo bay. Whatever it is, I think Christina would benefit from a little prop work. End of montage. The crowd goes home.

Chris asks Christina whether she thought Andew led her on, and Christina answers in no uncertain terms, "I definitely feel that Andrew led me on. I had many conversations with him, and he told me he would always be honest with me, that I'd never be surprised as to whether I got a rose or didn't get a rose. And I was surprised." Chris asks her if she was shocked the night she didn't get a rose, and Christina, lacking perspective, volleys back, "Honestly, I'm still pretty shocked." And yes, not to stand on the soapbox in town square and do another reading from Don't Go Breakin' My...Oh, Too Late: A History of Djb's Dating Foibles, but I have to agree that nothing sucks more than misjudging a situation so badly that you're blindsided when you discover you were the only one feeling what you were pretty convinced that both of you were feeling. But. It's not like he was cheating on her with the four other girls he was contractually obligated to go out on dates with. When they weren't together, she didn't have to wonder if he was stepping out with other girls behind her back. She knew where he was. In this context, an incredulous "like you saw, we kissed" isn't really as airtight an argument as it might otherwise be. Which is why the reaction shot of Heather (?) blatantly rolling her eyes is slightly more genuine than Liz's look around to see if anyone saw her look like she was going to start crying. No one sees her face crumbling, so she gives up the expression for neutral. From the back of the peanut gallery, one of the ousted contestants has a question. I think it's Rachel. She asks Christina, "What do you feel that you have that the other girls didn't that made you better?" Christina, for the first time I've ever actually seen it, "recoils, as if slapped." Shut up, stranger. I don't think Christina was any more right for Andrew than anyone else does, but it seems a little weird for her to be piping up from the back asking how Christina ranks her loveability on a points system. And fifteen minutes is fifteen minutes and yours are over, so shut it. Heather. If that's your real name. Christina repeats that she's "thirty years old." So then, the feature that puts her above all of the other girls is her catalog-esque knowledge of the music, lyrics, and airdates to every School House Rock cartoon? That just seems like something everyone who's thirty just kind of automatically knows, y'know? Tiffany, smelling the blood in the water, piles on, "We watched him sitting in the limo with you, and he was like..." Then she makes a gross face intended to convey Andrew's boredom with Christina. But for the girls in the exalted final five or so slots, they'll recognize that face as the one Andrew usually gives when he's about to kiss you and then keeps through the entire course of the awkward face-suckage, so Christina probably thought it was a pretty encouraging face, after all.

For no good reason, Chris throws it to Audree, asking her, "Do you think America got a true sense of who these girls are on the show?" Audree responds that, though the cameras aren't going to make up "stuff that didn't happen," she thinks that the bachelorettes can't all be reduced to five minutes of screen time. She bravely cries out to probably the loudest applause this house sees, "If America judges you for five minutes on TV, that's their problem, not yours." That's right, sister! Sing it for all of the other oppressed, enslaved women, forced against their wills to appear on television at the will of the government, forced into dating like chattel and contriving fake relationships with a man who promises to love them. Cry out your plea for liberation from this abominable system! Woohoo! Future Center Squares are doin' it for themselves!

Oh, hello, Amber. Some clips? Why, I believe I will! She's wasted. She's puking. She's talking Olive Garden. Andrew likens the date to "pulling teeth." Back the house, Amber eats and drinks to excess, telling us, "I'm going to be the fat girl on the reunion show." Amber tells us that she doesn't have a drinking problem which she of course does not. Shannon narrows her eyes. Some chick I think is named Amy asks, "But after you hit that point?" Chris turns things to the date that went so wrong, Amber worrying, "I could not loosen up because all the cameras were on me." Chris volleys, "But, you knew you were coming on a TV show, right?" Audience laughter. He continues, "So, what's up with the Olive Garden?" She barks out loud and proud, "I like the Olive Garden! I eat there, like, once a week." I'll give it six weeks before we see her as their new commercial spokesperson. Okay, five. Okay, during this break.

"This was by far the most competitive group of bachelorettes we've ever had," Chris tells us, making no indication that the bachelorettes gave one tat about the actual prize they were fighting over. Clips and dip? Sounds delicious! Back on the first night, a group watches Andrew romance Kirsten; Tennessina tells us that people are different around each other than they are around Andrew; Amber mystifyingly tells Liz that she's different in front of the cameras; one Tina snipes at the other; everyone bitches out TinaFab; Liz tells us that she's "done done done with these girls being petty." She's "done done done." She's "done." Back at the studio, Tina once again attests that she never said anything bad about anyone, admitting that she thought it was "a little bit hurtful" the way people talked about her, but "I don't think it's ladylike to gossip or hurt anybody's feelings intentionally." Niiiiice. Heather, I think, notes that she thinks the claws came out because they were jealous of Tina's self-confidence. Christina insists that it wasn't about jealousy at all, apologizing again. Tiffany screams out again from the back, saying that, though she's an outsider, she noticed that Christina was the most immature person there, despite the fact that she was the oldest and should be expected to "set the matronly example." Tennessina reports that she was in a limo with someone who was all, "Oh, he's totally not my type," but then changed her tune as soon as she found out he was a Firestone. Tennessina was in the same limo as Christina. And that's all I'm going to say about that. Liz and Amber are called upon to explain their fight, and they don't. I'm so mystified about what really went on between those two. Let's make sure we never find out together! An audience question indicates that Christina is "old in age, but not in maturity." The double-edged insult of calling someone old and unbearable at the same time is a real linguistic feat that everyone in that room just seems to have mastered simultaneously.

"Tonight," Chris teases, "we have a surprise for you ladies." Twenty-three Ace bandages poise themselves at the end of pharmacy shelves, waiting to be purchased as a result of the neck strain the "ladies" experience crazing their heads toward the entrance to the stage to see Andrew walk in. Maybe Christina could help hook them all up at a discount. But Chris continues on, "No, The Bachelor isn't here. That wouldn't be a surprise." And it wouldn't be the most shocking rose ceremony ever, but that hasn't stopped you people before. Instead, the big surprise is that "Jen and Kirsten have each left one last private video message. The surprise is: they left it for you guys." That. Is a totally huge surprise. And what follows is like the shooting script to the live-action version to the all-girl series of Spy vs. Spy, coming this fall on ABC. There's so obviously one good and one evil, the nuances of their personalities nicely shaved off for your viewing convenience. First, Jen's message tells the other bachelorettes, "I miss you all and wish that I was there with you. I want to thank you for the best experience that I've ever had." She hopes that Andrew knows that she "fell in love with him." Kirsten, on the other hand, tells them, "I came on the show for the same reason that you did. To find love. And I did just that." Meh? "And although some of the comments I've heard have been sort of shocking to me, I do understand the circumstances and the situation that we were in." And that most of the comments were coming from her. On the Kirsten topic, the only thing people will say is that they love Jen. Audree thinks Kirsten got an unfair start because they knew that Andrew liked her right from the beginning. Chris asks Tina and Christina who Andrew should choose and who he will choose. Tina would pair him with Jen and doesn't answer the other question, so Christina falls into the trap of editing and predicts, "I think he's gonna pick Kirsten. Just by watching the show, it seems like he's liked her from the beginning."

Oh my god, it's, like, over. But that was so boring. And stuff. Chris tells us that "for the four days, America will be speculating about who Andrew should choose: Jen or Kirsten." We take a look back on the two of them, starting with Jen. She meets Andrew coming out of the limo. They fall in love in slow motion over a noodling acoustic guitar. They cuddle in a limo. At a bowling alley. At a spa. In a hot tub. In robes. Jen hopes that in the end, she and Andrew are together. Kirsten hopes the same thing, but with the word "like" spliced in six hundred and ninety times. In a convertible. At the drive-in. On a yacht. In a house. With a mouse. If this show has done one thing right all season, it's that I genuinely switch who I think is going to win every six seconds. But secretly, it's going to be Kirsten. Totally, totally Kirsten.

No, Jen.

Kirsten.

Crap.

It will totally be Clay Aiken.