Let's go crazy, Bay Area-style! The MontageMaker3000 feature on the AVID is seriously wheezing and smoking from overuse right now. Skyline! Fisherman's Wharf! Golden Gate Bridge. Um, baby seals? Alcatraz, where losers are always whining about their best. We land on a boat that is empty, save for the four ladies and Guiney Love, cruising around the bay or the harbor or the Quay or whatever it's called when you live your life of the sea. Despite the famed quirkiness of the San Francisco weather and the visible results of the wind, Bob's hair does not move, except of its own accord. Bob? As the old saying goes? When you don't look good, you don't look good. He's in the middle of his prepared material, standing facing the girls, who are seated politely in two rows, facing the performer. It's a wonder he doesn't carry a microphone and a plain brick wall with him wherever he goes. He asks his assembled audience, "You know what's so weird about weddings?" Why is he a George Carlin routine from 1979 right now? I can feel this sentence heading toward an end of "And in baseball...you go home!" Not a joke, George. Not your material, Bob. Anyway: "The weirdest thing's that weddings are for everyone but you." Iambic fourteen-amter! Shakespeare: 10. Guiney Love: 14. No. Contest. He adds that he doesn't want his wedding to accommodate the guests, but that he wants it to be, effectively, all about him. Well, that's the egalitarian spirit, isn't it? A rowdy audience member named, I think, Meredith, dares to interrupt the performer's flow with her own non-surprisingly non-dissenting opinion: "I'd get married at 7-11 if it was the right person." It's not the worst conversational gambit I've ever heard, as conversational gambits go, but Bob merely uses it as a jumping-off point for his own "riff" on how wacky it would be if someone actually got married at a 7-11. Matching Slurpees! Big Gulps! Hands intertwined over a bean burrito! Hey, Bob, you forgot "guests throwing Chex Mix" as you get into the limo. And you forgot "taking your honeymoon in Flavor Country." And you also forgot letting someone besides you get a word in edgewise.
Because he's not the typical Bachelor (read the press notes, people, if you're not as convinced as I now am), Guiney Love has to call attention to the fact that this is where he pulls one of the girls aside. "Here's where I do something totally uncomfortable. Brooke, I'm gonna take you back and we're gonna talk." Krazy-Eyes? Of all the people. Kelly Jo is still laughing audibly at the 7-11 material because she didn't understand ANY of it, but Meredith confessionalizes that she was "surprised" when Bob chose Krazy-Eyes to have sixteen private seconds with. Guiney Love and Krazy-Eyes make their way down a flight of stairs and then aft (I think? I want to pretend Life of Pi taught me things about boats or literature -- and I know my opinions on this are widely documented elsewhere -- but I guess it didn't), where they sit and strategize the part where she doesn't win. Bob tells her that he wanted to have some time to talk to her alone, and then tells us that he wanted some time to talk to her alone. Guiney Love confessionalizes, "Because Brooke's a little bit quieter than everyone else, I really wanted to get to know her better." And we cut back aft (port? Stern? Boatifically?) to find out that Bob actually meant "I wanted to get to know better her thoughts about how groovy I am." Krazy-Eyes opens up, "I love the way that you're close with your family." Bob tells us that he does love his family, and Krazy-Eyes tells us in confessional, "Bob's amazing. And Bob is the guy you want to be with for the rest of your life." Don't you second-person me with your hypno-eyes, you wicked sorceress. Through all this, Bob has a hand on Krazy-Eyes's leg, and his cuffs are folded back just once, allowing a silver bracelet to dangle casually at the end of his wrist. I wonder if that piece of jewelry has a secret compartment that dispenses Drakkar Noir, should he need to firm up his "South Hoboken, 1987" aesthetic that made it all the way over to central California.
“ We're back up in the frozen north to find Bob and his four ladies poised on the brink of sixteen Rice-a- Roni jokes that Bob stops me from making by making one himself. ”
Back on the main level (now THAT is a technical seafaring term if ever I've heard one) of the boat, Bob has long since reappeared, crying, "I've never been so cold in my life, actually." Someone suggests that they all "huddle," and Bob's harem closes in on him accommodatingly. Back before the date, Kelly Jo confessionalizes, "There's supposed to be five girls on this date with Bob, and, unfortunately, Antoinette did get ill and she wasn't able to join us. She's missing out on something that's pretty big." We know who the date was with. Why does everyone insist on saying Bob's name over and over again? And why does he feel the need to match them, equaling every instance of them saying "Bob" with him saying "I"? And why was Antoinot chosen to go on the first date when she would be capable of going on any other date besides that one, balancing out the five-on-each-date principle so pivotal to the show's existence? And, most importantly, what do you think of the title of Bob's upcoming bestselling book The Devil Wears Bob? Or his postmodern tome The Crying of Bob 49? Or his slim volume of poetry, The Bob Not Taken? Or his play, Bob? Y'know, instead of Hamlet?
Limo stock footage. "Today," Antoinot tells us, "I'm going into the house for the first time because I just got back from the hospital." She worries that she's an "outsider" coming in, and you can see from Estella's -- I think -- high-pitched "Hiiiiii-eeee!" that it's going to be one mighty big pain in the ass for them all to revise the Vegas odds back up to "out of 15." Mary comes running down the hall and gives Antoinot a giant bear hug, osteoporosis-ridden limbs crunching from a long lifetime of general use, and then she pinches Antoinot's cheeks and cries "I haven't seen you since you were THIS BIG!" before offering Antoinot some hard candies from her purse and telling her, "Put on a sweater, I'm freezing just looking at you." Because those are all things old people do. Antoinot is temporarily feeling the warm embrace of those who save face by pretending to love her, but the remaining girls waste no time before telling her, "Your date was today" and "You should be in San Fran right now." Zouch. Way to make her feel at home, people. Antoinot tells us, "I'm kind of bummed out that, y'know, I didn't get my date. I want to be in San Francisco with Bob right now." Why don't we go for you and tell you how it is?
We're back. It sucked.
Oh, very well. We'll stay.
Kicking it on a cable car because that's what you do in San Francisco, we're back up in the frozen north to find Bob, his four ladies, and one absent diseased pair of kidneys (still in L.A.) poised on the brink of sixteen Rice-a-Roni jokes that Bob stops me from making by making one himself. Onto the cable car steps a jolly old man who the subtitle tells us is, "Willie L. Brown, Jr.," Mayor of San Francisco. The girls SQUEEEEE like he's, I don't know, Bob Guiney or something, and Bob asks, "Is that Mr. Mayor?" This is so odd. The salty old mayor makes a quick, weird cameo, climbing aboard and opening with a joke, "Boy, I'd like to switch spots with you!" It's just occurred to me that I've never heard anyone say that to me before. Anyone? Djb For A Day? Sigh. Bob deems the whole thing "a perfect San Francisco treat. And I do love Rice-a-Roni, by the way." Ew. Someone who must have eschewed the carbs some months back has a big box of free on its way to his Michigan home right now. The Mayor finishes off his don't-recall-me-too campaign with a pitch for his town: "Have a good time at the Top of the Mark. You really haven't lived until you drink up there." And with that sales pitch for high-altitude alcoholism (not seen since Andrew's aged mother drank her family back into the tire business and yelled "Born in Cleveland!" in the hills of Napa on last season's finale), Mayor Kool is gone from the cable car to hop back in his MayorMobile for afternoon appearances on So I Married An Axe Murderer, girls club, and, if he can find a syndication wormhole in time, whichever of Too Close for Comfort or One Day at a Time was the one that took place in San Francisco.
“ Misty is first into the pool with Bob, but... wait, she can't swim! I know this because of the sickeningly unsubtle way in which she swims right over to Bob and into his arms, as if she's jumped into some kind of shark- infested, I don't know, 'dehumistyfier'? ”
Guiney Love shows up at Catty On A Hot Tin Roof, voicing over all the while that he'll be leaving momentarily on his second group date with Kristi Kute Cheeks, Estella (and, woe be it to the weight requirements of the plane, an enormous Pepsi machine that almost boots her out of the frame), Jen, Lindsay, and Misty. Hmmm. The middle date. The correct number of women. A Chris-free first date. My breath is held tightly, lest a sigh of resignation escape, hurtling that soda machine right on top of the one person I actually kind of like. A limo (in which, I guess, NOTHING happened) cruises them to a helicopter pad, and they soar over smoggy, not-that-interesting- from-the-air Los Angeles. One of the girls shows everyone else where her apartment is, and my crappy joke thunder ("I can see my house from here!") is stolen on the second group date even more egregiously than it was on the first ("Something about Rice-a-Roni!"). Her apartment gets a round of applause, and hundreds of thousands of square miles of sprawl below is all, "Thank you very much. I have so many people to thank." After the helicopter ride (on which, I guess, NOTHING else happened), we're off to the W Hotel. They have the whole pool to themselves, and Bob swims around by himself actually yelling "You go, girl!" as they strip off their wares and prepare to look good in a hot tub or a tub of any other kind. Misty is first into the pool with Bob, but...wait, she can't swim! I know this because of the sickeningly unsubtle way in which she swims right over to Bob and into his arms, as if she's jumped into some kind of shark-infested, I don't know, "dehumistyfier"? Estella tells us that Misty is "outgoing" in a bad way, and that she knows how to "grab a guy's attention," and we cut away before we splice in the end of Estella's sentence, which could have been taped at any point ever, talking about anyone at all: "She's my biggest competition." Over at the bar, Kristi Kute Cheeks makes a throaty cat noise at the sight of a robed Misty and Bob carrying their drinks into some kind of pool house. Lindsay worries that Misty is a "Size One," and tells us that's she's going to "stay away from her." Why, because Misty won't be visiting any of the West Coast's finer international airports in the couple of hours? Oh, um, spoiler.
Dumber than a ventriloquist dummy at a Dumb Convention in the month of Dumbuary, Misty sits facing Bob on a couch, sipping a margarita with a dumbed rim, asking in her perkiest blond voice, "So who do you feel like right now you're gonna get rid of?" Bob flinches ever so slightly, so Misty makes sure to qualify, "I mean, if Chris shows up." Well, that makes this utter violation of tact and decorum acceptable, when she changes the question from "Who are going to get rid of the time you have to boot someone?" to, well, "Who are going to get rid of the time you have to boot someone?" The differences are subtle in that they are none. And Bob, for some reason, strikes me as the kind of guy who might have seen this show once or twice, so he should really know that the only appropriate answer is something in the "let's just live in the moment, baby" family. Instead, he actually gives the binding answer that she's looking for, clumsily volleying back, "I wouldn't want to get rid of you, I know that." Guiney Love then rears his giant alter ego head, and smacky kissing ensues. Misty tells us in confessional that she doesn't think she's getting booted at all. Few people know this, but the first sentence in Herman Melville's Mo-Bob Dick is actually "Call me Bob."
“ Bob regurgitates, 'You grew up with a deaf father.' What? 'You grew up with a deaf father.' What? 'You grew up with a deaf father.' WHAT? See, now that one was my fault, too. ”
Bob takes Estella away for some alone (and masseuse makes three!) time, and we're finally seeing another one of those staggering changes on this show we've been hearing so much about: during the spa massages this season, the guy and the girl face each other! What will they think of ? Candlelight dinners at fancy getaways that feature pinot noir instead of a merlot? Because this is really thinking outside the box here. Anyway, Estella (faces Bob and!) tells him that everyone thought her deaf dad rocked. Seriously. "All my friends loved my father. They thought he was so cool. He was deaf, but everybody understood him." Yeah, but they made fun of him the second they left your house. Hey, get those flaming torches out of here! I'm just the messenger, the deaf-imitator. Kids just do that shit. I'm sure he was a great guy and all, but as soon as his back was turned...oh now, see, that one was totally my fault.
Bob employs a lot of repeat-the-last- thing-your-companion- just-said-to-you- to-show- you're-listening TherapySpeak in this segment, which seems to mean he actually likes her quite a bit. He regurgitates, "You grew up with a deaf father." What? "You grew up with a deaf father." What? "You grew up with a deaf father." WHAT? See, now that one was my fault, too. Bob continues, "You basically grew up with two languages." That's true. My aunt was a therapist for the deaf for a long time, and so I know the alphabet. And how to say "asshole." And also, to say my favorite thing, "flying asshole." There's actually a way to say that in sign language. It's kind of hard to explain, but I'm doing it right now at my desk.
Estella backstory flibbity.
Back out on a hot tin pool, the rest of the girls are engaged in a discussion that goes, "He's gotta be kissing some girls." Misty very quietly says something to the effect that she kissed him, and Kristi grabs her face and screams a high-pitched, fake, "Yay!" Misty recoils, "Not yay!" And Kristi Kute Cheeks instantly endears herself to me, because she gets to the bottom of Misty's "not yay" in one country second, and knows that what the patronizing bitch means is, "What I meant is, 'Yay for me, not for you.'" So Kristi rounds on Misty and is all, "So, wait, you didn't or you did?" leaving Misty to stammer and look stupid and plant the national flag of Dumbland in the ground to claim it proudly as her own.
Kelly Jo is inside the refrigerator deciding which flavor of Pepsi Vanilla to choose when a new Date Box arrives at the NoManner House. The remaining six girls -- Lindsay, Lee-Ann, Mary, Jenny, Lanah, and a late-breaking Antoinot -- "look out Hollywood, here we come!" Several gigantic feathered boas come streaming out of the box, and unless this where we learn that "be ready for some changes" and "don't assume anything" means that these chicks are all drag queens and that they're about to break into a boozy six-part rendition of "The Ladies Who Lunch," this season and I have always entirely had it with each other.
“ Lee-Ann says she'll wake up tomorrow 'with the rose right beside' her. And thorns sticking out of her hair and bloody gashes all over her face. It's almost worth keeping her around for. ”
In the limo, Lindsay cries and tells us, "I really think Misty should be in this limo. I do. I do. I don't think she's right for Bob. I don't." She has her last ever word in subtitles, as I can't understand her through the racking sobs as she tells us, "It sucks. It really sucks." Whatever. This show was a full Lindsay over its "Lindsay Quota" anyway.
Awwwww, ABC still thinks The Practice is on! That is ADORABLE!
Okay, as if there was going to be more than one Elimination Date. C'mon, people. Lee-Ann tells tells us that word snuck back that "Lindsay from California did not come back." Lee-Ann tells us, "I want to go home." Lee-Ann shares that in common with only Lee-Ann. About her going home. Not about other people wanting to go home. About...oh, forget it.
Off we go to downtown Hollywood (ew). Bob and his concubines pull up in front of Grauman's and are greeted by literally six million screaming fans who must have been told that Poopsie Carmichael was coming to do a special appearance or something. The women step out of the car and do a slow-mo Reservoir Fame Hogs walk. The seven of them put their hands in concrete and Bob signs his name. Did he just get a star? Fame is for suckers.
And, Hollywood Montage Of The Drive From My Gym To Pam's House! Cinerama! Formosa! King King Club! Wait, what the fuck is the King King Club? A burlesque show ensues, with the sexy dancers getting no seconds of screen time before Bob's dancers move in for a show of their own. Seriously, this is the flesh trade at its worst. Mary shakes her ass right in Bob's face. A lot. Seriously, it's disgusting. Lee-Ann steals Bob away to some creepy-ass back room with red walls and a mysteriously-stained mattress. They make out. A lot.
Pre-Rose Ceremony gloom sets in downstairs as Chris and Bob retire to the Room of Reckoning. Bob tells Chris that it's been "impossibly difficult" for him. Chris asks if Bob's still so "guarded," and Bob admits that he already has feelings for the girls beyond what he ever thought possible. He doesn't find it out of the realm that he would fall in love with one of the women. Chris takes the roses and retires back downstairs, and Lanah tells us she'd marry Bob if he asked, and The Last Lindsay proclaims herself "the all-around package." Lee-Ann says she'll wake up tomorrow "with the rose right beside" her. And thorns sticking out of her hair and bloody gashes all over her face. It's almost worth keeping her around for.
Chris morbidly returns downstairs, stares across the giant expanse of the rug, and The Department Of Inessential Tasks files its quarterly report now that he's already proctored the Elimination Date and therefore has no more useful purpose in this episode or ever: "Bob only has ten long-stemmed roses to hand out, which means four of you will be going home tonight." Once again, Chris reminds the ladies of their own "power" to "decline his invitation." Krazy-Eyes scans Bob as he makes his way into the room, hoping to hypnotize him into making the wrong decision. Bob sets himself at his mark, and because he's not like the other Bachelors, he has "laughed at every Bachelor coming up here, complaining what a difficult decision this can be." But now it's a hard decision. Because there are no more distracting sets of extraneous twins.