The Bachelor S05E10

Oh, here he is now. Ryan "Baaaaaaaaaah" Sutter sits in his own makeshift confessional space, reminding us immediately why the producers of The Bachelorette were able to pull his shorn wool over our eyes and actually surprise us with the big surprise ending of that captivating season: he just doesn't do it front of the camera. He comes off as stilted and uncomfortable and impatient and afraid, a simple country fireman given to rare piques of fancy in which "Shamu" is a viable rhyming couplet for anything. He sits alone, looking tired but somehow more attractive than he did when he was first being introduced to America. He tells us that his life has been "a crazy whirlwind" (an expression that no self-respecting fireman should ever be forced to say, but one which a similarly non-self-respecting poet could rhyme with "but I sure do love my girlfriend," should the situation call for a quick verse) since the end of the series, what with the balancing of "the fire job" with "everything that comes up in Los Angeles." As he says this, the screen splits itself into four boxes, each of Ryan in another of his life's capacities: one of the Vail firehouse, another of what looks like Trista at a photo shoot, a third of Trista and Ryan canoodling (that's a tabloid word I would never ordinarily use, but is this whole thing really any more than a tabloid?), and a fourth that looks like family and friends just chillin', all together in some whacked-out Brady Bunch Opening Credits Of The Damned sequence that would make me reference Time Code if I hadn't already done so in every recap I've ever written. So, again: Figgis? You're welcome.

Finally! Some quiet moments alone for the happy couple, with merely one camera crew in attendance, and they're just there to shoot b-roll. Almost just like real solitude, except for the part where it's nationally televised. As Trista and Ryan walk along some kind of oceanfront property, Trista voices over, "I've found my dream man." Sure she has, but should she really be talking about her unholy alliance with Mike Fleiss right in front of her fianc? She continues on: "We're having this amazing, dream-come-true wedding, and getting to meet all these people that I have dreamt about meeting." Suddenly Ted Casablanca is someone people "dream about meeting"? Trista wraps up her cobbled-from-fourteen- different-confessionals confessional, telling us that she feels "extremely, extremely blessed." The couple kisses in silhouette at sundown and all is right with the whole wide universe.

The end.

Yeah. RIGHT.

Oh, that Ryan. You mean Sideshow Bob. For some reason, I thought Trista chose that one guy, Johnny Anyman, and that's who she decided to marry. We're in what I'll guess is Trista and Ryan's Los Angeles domicile, a cluttered (well, all those cameras, in and out, all the time) apartment that looks like it's east of Hollywood and north of everything, allowing them to lie their way into saying they live in the Hills when they're talking to people who have never been to California. Entirely in baby voice, Trista and Ryan banter about a peanut butter sandwich, culminating in Trista's asking if Ryan's ready to meet Mindy. Ryan retorts, "I will be after I eat this sandwich." Right. Johnny Anyman will be ready in a Jif.

"There's a lot of irony in the whole wedding thing," Ryan tells us. Let's continue on and see exactly what Ryan's perception of "irony" is: "It's this great union, but at the same time, planning it all is a real test of each other's compatibility." Hey, that's not bad! Here boy, have some peanut butter. Put some on his nose and watch him lick it off. Awwww, cute! Good boy.

Some extremely indeterminate time later in an ambiguous locale we'll just call "Wedding Plans Heaven," Trista and Ryan meet with Mindy. She's wearing a peenk top, which she wore on purpose, I'll bet (I'm sure we'll learn for sure during the four-part special, The Making of Trista & Ryan's Wedding, coming to ABC in exactly three weeks), and Trista takes the bait and notes that Mindy is wearing Trista's "favorite color." Ryan gives her an overly familiar "SAVE ME, PLEASE" hug, and we cut to Mindy in a confessional, telling us that she's set up "this incredible team of designers" to guide the couple through the whole process. Mindy tells them, "Everything you've heard about wedding planning..." before discarding the finalizing clause and going with the more egalitarian, "We're going to have so much fun." I've never heard anything about professional wedding planning, so I'm not sure what she was going to say. And I'm sure it's true that planning a wedding is hard. Unless you have unfettered access to exactly one trillion dollars of Disney's corporate coffers. Then? It's as easy as making a peanut-butter sandwich, though the producers are still going out of their way to convince us that it's as hard as correctly pronouncing the word "pink." Soft "I." Not hard "E." Look to the schwa, Trista. Look to the schwa.

We're at a place the awnings tell us is called "Mark's Garden." Trista tells us that she's expecting to be "blown away" by the arrangements, and indeed they are rather fetching, in a peenk kind of way. We meet the Mark, and Mindy confessionalizes that Mark has been part of some lavish celebrity weddings, from (please don't please don't please don't) Charlie Sheen and Denise Richards to Adam Sandler. Good god, man. When did the name "Adam Sandler" become synonymous with the apex of celebrity elegance? I would stop to ponder this question further, but just then there's a massive earthquake in Los Angeles as a result of the fault lines buckling under the pressure of all these names dropping from such an extreme height.

Trista critiques some of the arrangements, and Mark notes, "I think you like the stuff that's really romantic." Trista knee-jerks, "I do," before grabbing Ryan's arm and correcting herself, "We do." Ryan snarks, "I'm here too, Mark," and Mark endears himself to just about nobody, responding, "I forgot." Way to give everyone a voice, Mark. ["Dude, they're looking at flower arrangements. Straight men don't care. I don't even care." -- Wing Chun] Over at another table completely bedecked in pink flowers, Mark notes, "This is the pink table." See, this is why we leave it to the professionals, people. Mark asks if it's "too pink," and Ryan pipes up to note that probably not every table should be that pink. In a confessional, Ryan reminds us of Trista's love for peenk, but adds that he won't "allow this pink, flowery, girly, Strawberry Shortcake wedding." Why, did Mindy do the Shortcake wedding also? The, um, Sandler-Shortcake wedding?

Oh, man, Ryan's so miserable it could just about kill you. In another confessional at a wholly other time with exactly the same sentiment, Ryan reiterates that he's excited about the day that they're heading for, but "getting to that day is a real effort, a real process, and a real challenge." Sitting between Mindy and Trista in the back of a limo, Ryan practically looks into the camera and begs us to take him anywhere but here. From an enormous bag, Mindy takes out a bag that she tells him is "Ryan's Wedding Survival Kit." He deadpans, "What is this, a whole bunch of morphine?" No, it's Superman, and he's going to fly really fast around the world backwards to take us back in time to Ryan misspelling his name on his Bachelorette application and making none of this ever have happened. Thank you, Superman! Actually, it's a Game Boy of some kind. And also a piece of paper on which is hilariously written, "Suggested Answers to Trista's Wedding Questions," which I wouldn't recap if you...oh, fine. Honestly, I must live for you people:

1. Oh, that looks terrific.
2. Whatever you think, Trista.
3. Do you think that might be just a little too much pink?
4. I can't wait!
5. To Die For!
6. Let me think about that one for a minute...

Oh, the man-hating, castrating hilarity!

Below that is another list entitled "Acceptable 'one word' answers," but on the basis of the words "one word" being quoted for emphasis (an egregious error) and the completely unnecessary capitalization of the words "To Die For," I'm calling a two-minute grammatical penalty and skipping ahead.

Or, we can just make up our own:

1. Shut
2. Up
3. Trista
4. This
5. Is
6. Such
7. A
8. Waste
9. Of
10. Our
11. Nation's
12. Time
13. And
14. Limited
15. Resources
16. Please
17. Please
18. Please
19. Stop
20. The
21. Lambs
22. From
23. Screaming
24. Love
25. Djb

Flatware! Flatware! Flatware! Wait, they're DESIGINING their own wedding china? Like. Wow. I mean, y'all know I swim in the shallow end of the pool and I'm not typically one to be all tithe for the poor! tithe for the poor! but I do find this opulence to be kind of embarrassing. Mindy doesn't agree, and she's damn near simulating the energy level of an actual animated, alive person when she tells us, "They get to design china from the same place that designs for the White House and Royal Families." Sitting with a china designer (I didn't even know such people existed) at Lenox, the couple claims total ignorance on the matter of designing china. But I'll give you a hint. Ryan doesn't want pink china. Trista wouldn't mind pink china. And the word "leitmotif" leaps out of the dictionary to its untimely death, leaving in its place an ugly black ink scar, below which is hastily scrawled the words "Pink at Trista and Ryan's Wedding: see instead 'heavy motif.'"

"This wedding is not about me," Trista says, a set of parentheses automatically settling themselves around that sentiment and a squiggly "not" line positioning itself in front of the open parentheses to indicate that whatever Trista just said, she in fact means the opposite. Here, like this:

~ (This wedding is not about me)

Trista's disingenuousness can now be proven mathematically. Trista? Why do you insist on turning this wedding into a Theorem Of Lies?

Trista is on the phone with her father, whom we'll remember from his appearances on this show by his Native-American name, "He Runs With Enormous Glasses." I would like to be the first to point out that, since this christening, those glasses have gotten A LOT smaller. Trista tells us that her dad is feeling "disconnected" from the wedding planning. In a confessional, HRWEG tells us that he's missing out on everything from invitations to flowers, all of which are things that "close families share during the wedding process." That is true. Close families do often have input into matters such as these. But that is because it is often those close families who PAY for the wedding, and said families can therefore chime in however and whenever they want on what the arrangements are or are not. But with Daddy Eisner signing the checks, HRWEG can fall in line and prance around in his wedding invitation tutu, for all I care. And if, the day before the ceremony, Trista and Ryan decide to get married in the Rehn's back yard and get the whole thing catered by White Castle, they'll be sure to let you know first, m'kay? Trista, magically, turns things right around on HRWEG, telling him that if he wants to know something, all he has to do is ask. "Yeah, we're busy," she reminds us all, but HRWEG can always call her or, even more personally, "shoot [them] an email" if he's that curious about what's going on. Trista tells us that, since the wedding is being planned by "someone else" -- NAME THE CORPORATE DEMIGODS WHO ENSLAVE YOU INSIDE A PINK PRISON OF YOUR OWN MAKING, TRISTA! NAAAAAAME THEM!!! -- her parents feel like their "thunder" (not to mention their enormous glasses) is being stolen.

Time to location-scout. Trista tells us that the place she's looking for is somewhere she (oops..."they") can have the ceremony outside, and then go inside and have a big party. Mindy, wearing a screaming red dress from her ironic "Death, I Mock You" label ("You should have seen the wedding between Death and, um, Mrs. Death, dah-link!") walks them around a poolside locale with an adjacent gazebo. Trista repeats again that being at a real location where the wedding "might" take place (don't kid yourselves...this is where it's going to be) makes this whole thing "more real." Inside a chandelier-ific ballroom, the three sit down, and Trista tells Mindy to try to make sure the families stay involved in the process: "In my family, we haven't planned a wedding. Neither has his." She adds that a phone call would suffice, continuing, "or even an email." Ouch. Or a smoke signal from base camp. Or Trista, Ryan, Mindy, and good friend Michael can stand outside the Rehn's St. Louis home spelling out "Help!" in semaphore flags. Well, it wouldn't be the first time it happened.