Props to Ryan's insane space shoes, which I can't believe I didn't find time to mention elsewhere.
Friends! Romans! Bachelors! Lend me your pride! Thus spake the master orator Chris "What About Us Brain Dead Slobs/You'll Be Given Cushy Jobs" Harrison, who kicks things off in front of the mantel that continually threatens to upstage the poor man, so vanilla-flavored are they both. "Fellas, good morning," he offers, and the low, guttural, apelike response to his call moves me to Windex the stray Y-chromosomes off of my screen so that I may continue enjoying the visual aspects of this exciting new medium called television. Chris: "I wanna introduce to you to two of Meredith's closest friends." Her first friend is not, as we naturally assumed, a Ouija Board with the word "Nana" scrawled across the top in black magic marker, as well it probably should have been. Instead, one of her "closest friends" is last season's runner-up and this season's heavily favored pick for Bachelorette, Kelly Jo, who smiles gamely like the Hooter's girl she should actively consider becoming and gazes around the room with a decided look of "Hands off the horse roper, bitchcakes, I'm roping myself a Lanny before I truck outta Malibu." Meredith's other closest friend is "TJ," who, Chris banters stiltedly, "TJ, who she's been buddies with for, what, eleven years?" TJ looks back at Chris and nods, as if there could have been any other response of the "no, actually, I've only known her for sixteen minutes, having met her on a television set where emotions are synthetically amped up to paint those around you as caricatures by which they are either your worst enemies or their so-called 'closest friends' even though you've never met her parents and don't know her middle name or her CULINARY SCHOOL AMBITIONS, as is the case here with my partner in crime, Little Mary Fameshine to me" variety.
TJ kicks it first to a confessional, because TJ is getting his first taste in front of the cameras and has actually brought a stopwatch with him on-set to ensure that he gets his full, unadulterated fifteen minutes, whereas Kelly Jo just believes her endless charming appearances on this show and Cold Pizza and Kimmel will last as long as television itself. In her mind, saying that you enjoy television is tantamount to speaking the sentence, "Me, I want to be in the Kelly Jo business, is where I want to be," so she's happy to let newbie TJ get a crack at it and see how it works out for him.
It works out baldly. TJ -- as nice a guy and as close a friend to Meredith as I'm certain he is -- has a certain pattern, and that pattern is the male medical condition typified by that word falling between "male" and "balding." He's Meredith's age, I'm guessing, and he looks like my dad. Except he's smiling. Meh. I'll save it for therapy. Anyway, his confessional explains, "My hopes for Meradee is that she finds somebody who makes her happy." As opposed to all of those closest friends who want to see their own Meredees get eaten by bears. "I know what she likes, and I can also use my judgment to really marry that up to get the best person for her," adds TJ. Meanwhile, four out of five Bachelor/ette-winning couples throw down the "BREAKUP!" cover stories of In Touch featuring photographs of themselves on the cover, scoff sourly at their TVs, and announce, "Uh-huh. 'Marry.' Yeah, good luck with that, dude." Enough with the one-man rambling thought piece, stranger. In other words: shut up, Balding Gray.
“ Chris: 'To decide who gets what dates, they have a little project for you this morning.' Shoebox diorama? Hanging mobile? White chalk drawing on black construction paper? You'd better think of something! The Spring Exhibit is right around the corner, people! ”
Chris (are you still here?) adds, "They're gonna be staying here for a while. They are also gonna decide which three of you get intimate dates this week. The rest of you: goin' on a group date." Fearless in its format, this show. Fearless. Speaking of which, last night I had a dream that Mike Fleiss paid me $10,000 for the intellectual property for my idea that five of the guys had to be eliminated on sight right after they stepped out of the limo. Because I've had some clunkers in my day, but you've got to admit that is one stellar idea. And you've got to admit that $10,000 is exactly the going rate for such cerebral heavy lifting. And you've got to admit that my email address is available right here on this very website on which such a format-shattering prospect was proposed. Fleiss, you've got a lot of things to admit. But first, don't you have an email to send?
"And to decide who gets what dates, they have a little project for you this morning," Chris continues. A project! Shoebox diorama? Hanging mobile? White chalk drawing on black construction paper? You'd better think of something! The Spring Exhibit is right around the corner, people! "I know you've noticed the seven portfolios in front of you." In fact, I had not. But lo, right on the coffee table in front of them lay seven leather-bound black portfolio folders. Man, when the P.A. who had to buy those ran into Staples, the manager on duty was like, "Score. We never sell the pricy shit here. But, I mean, 'yeah...we got that.'" Chris plugs away: "Inside, pen and paper." So, then, the person who gets the one-on-one date is the first person who can successfully become a corporate lawyer? Or at least impersonate one? Wouldn't that take a long time, and don't they have to clear out the house to shoot the fourteen seasons of this show in the eleven days? "You're gonna write a letter explaining why you are the right man for Meredith." And they'll be reading them out loud to TJ and KJ, and even though I think it would be awesome if they also had to read them out loud in front of all of the other guys as well, I'm not going to say that out loud because I am still waiting for a very important check to come my way, so until then, the idea vault is closed. The guys all throw their heads back in shocked expressions of "but surely the art of writing is only for the trained aesthetes of our beloved city-state!" and take off to separate corners of the house at Chris's recommendation for an hour of thinky-write-y time. Were there only some explicating footage of the guys constructing these letters so that we could better understand what this art of "writing" is. Ah, here we go now.
Besides Angels in America and all scripted television that isn't sitcoms on UPN, I simply can't think of more interesting television this year than a series of shots of men scribbling longhand. The curlicues of the script so like the hairpin turns of a rollercoaster! The popping brow sweat as they consider whether the word is "'infer' or 'imply,' 'infer' or 'imply,' 'INFER' OR 'IMPLY,' dammit!" The death-defying bobs of the head as the men consider the proper usage of difficult Elephant Words! The utter, unceasing, scratching pen-liness of it all!
“ 'Meredith has impressed me in ways I never thought possible,' SquareHead begins. Not a letter. A mandate? Perhaps. A mission statement? Entirely possible. A nutrition facts label off of a can of cheap beer? If you're Lanny, almost definitely. ”
Whoa. No, I'm fine. I fell, but I'm fine. Just a little dizzy, is all. Men writing. Always does it to me. Good thing, then, that it's broken up by some calming confessionals, the first of which finds SpongeBob SquareHead reporting from his pineapple under the sea: "When Chris Harrison announced that we'd be writing a letter and then also reading it to two of Meredith's best friends, that was definitely uncomfortable." Sean sits on the couch having not moved one inch, even though Chris told them they had the whole house to go lie back and get comfortable. Sean's searching for a quiet spot to wait for the muse to hit is a bit like playing hide-and-seek with a four-year-old; give them their first real opportunity in their entire life to get the hell away from you, and they noisily walk three steps and hide behind the cat. We get an extreme close-up of him writing the words "exact same," so his letter is clearly to the production staff, registering his own annoyance at the similarity between this and every other season of this show. Hands off my Fleiss letter, buddy. Lanny, meanwhile, has moved to a sunny outdoor spot, where his letter features thousands of cross-outs as he wonders why this cattle-prod-shaped instrument he's been handed doesn't have a flaming tip at the end for cow branding. "What good is it?" he wonders, and he is relieved by the fact that the oral tradition is available to pass down his state's history in the absence of any other communication tools. Nevertheless, he tells us that his letter features his thoughts on connections and one-on-one time. Brad appears to have retired to the sauna, Ian is apparently in his bedroom, and Chad sits poolside, telling us, "When I wrote the letter, I actually wrote it directly to Meredith." Right. Because it's a letter. Which, as the conventions of the epistolary structure dictate, must be addressed to somebody and signed from somebody else. Dear Meredith. To whom it may concern. To the president of the Kirk Cameron fan club. Signed, Chad. Best regards, Mr. Smith. Show me that smile again, Dan.
And you'd had a letter, and you'd had a letter, and you'd had a letter, and you'd...get on with it! Back in the living room, Brad is sent first to meet KJ and TJ by the pool. He begins his letter, "When I look in Meredith's eyes." Buzz! No. Not a letter. You fail. No connection for you, one year. ! "Meredith has impressed me in ways I never thought possible," SquareHead begins. Nothing in the "to" field. Not a letter. A mandate? Perhaps. A mission statement? Entirely possible. A nutrition facts label off of a can of cheap beer? If you're Lanny, almost definitely. But a bona fide correspondence, as the assignment insisted? Not so much. Not yet.
Sean: "In getting to know Meredith, it's not about finding out her favorite color or movie or cereal." Her favorite cereal? Is that what he just said? Is Kelly Jo trying really hard not to laugh? If not, shouldn't she be? Hey, you guys? I have eaten Cheerios literally every single morning. But secretly, I freakin' love me some Cinnamon Toast Crunch. There. Now, will you marry me?
“ Ryan M.: 'In our past dates at times, I have rambled on,' and the viewing public wishes the language would expand to allow an accepted written version of the word 'sh-yah,' the 'no duh' of onomatopoetic non- written communication. ”
Lanny keeps way too much eye contact with TJ and KJ, which is not a good quality when you're supposed to be READING A LETTER. Ryan M. notes, "In our past dates at times, I have rambled on," and the viewing public wishes the language would expand to allow an accepted written version of the word "sh-yah," the "no duh" of onomatopoetic non-written communication. Ian, meanwhile, makes unfailing eye contact as well, which is not a good quality when you're supposed to be READING A LETTER, but you can afford a few quotes out of context when you're the Lord of the Rings favorite in the Meredith Oscar race.
Dear Meredith. Ah? Chad addresses his letter in the grammatically appropriate second person, setting himself apart with phrases like "the way I feel I'm with you" and "how comfortable I am around you," the strict adherence to the spirit of the assignment cleverly masking the fact that the letter also includes observations such as, "It was kinda weird, but before I came out to this experience, I went out and bought some new clothes." Well, isn't that something. And then, god love 'em, the beef-headed monster actually chokes up at his own Harlequin writing, ending with, "I do want the best for you and I can't wait to see you again. It's just the beginning." Crying? Clothes shopping? Surely this powder-puff wouldn't be men enough for the likes of -- but what's this? -- "Chad." It's signed! Like a letter should be! P.S. You're a shoo-in. In what I think you just told us were new shoes.
An inexplicable amount of non-time later, we're back in the living room, in the same clothes, with the same light, in the same places. KJ and TJ have made their decisions, and the men will find out what those decisions are as the video invitations arrive. And here's the first one...for Chad! Proving that it's not what you say, but the whether or not you remember the extra four digits at the end of the zip code because that's the proper way to send A LETTER, which is actually what Chad wrote. So I say give 'im the date. He pops in his tape during a confessional, in which he tells us, "I was definitely ecstatic that I was able to write Meredith a letter -- which is something I'm usually not good at -- and that her friends saw the sincerity in it." Yeah, well, girly girly girl tears will do that to a person. Meredith shows up on the screen leaning against a silvery sports car in a belle chapeau that she won in Seattle's annual Win A Date With A Phillip Pirrup Impersonator contest, telling Chad, "Let's shift things into high gear and make this an evening to remember. Hope you have your license." Oh, man. What if he didn't have his license?
“ Chad kisses Meredith under a bridge because the sovereign nation of Italy told them that they had to, which I'm going to start using on dates from now until forever. Hey, can you pick up the check? Italy said you would. Dude. Italy. ”
If there's one thing I think about Meredith -- and there is, quite literally, only one thought I've had about Meredith, what with her static brand of negative television energy -- it's that she mumbles. It's a habit my grandmother hates, and we know how far out of her way Meredith will go to please a grandmother. When we rejoin her in the process of acting out the scripts of the last three seasons of this show, what I think is "Chad is going on the date with me today. My friends thought his was the best love letter" sounds a lot like "Chad is going on the date with me today. My friends thought he was the best love butter." Mmmm, delicious love butter. But me, I've started to switch over to non-stick "Love Pam" for all my love baking needs. It works much better than the plastic-tasting Love Margarine, and I simply won't each food that comes in sentence form like I Can't Believe It's Not Love Butter. Off she shoots in a silver Maserati, in which, we learn, she'll be picking Chad up and driving to dinner down in Newport Beach. Meredith picks Chad up at the house, and he hops in the driver's seat, pumping that thing up to an almost delirious thirty-five in a quickie shot of the dashboard. Surely no man can drive so fast without breaking the sound barrier or at least going back...to the future! Chad and Meredith drive along the ocean and park at a marina, where they meet a man in a straw hat with a red bow tied around it, a black-and-white striped shirt, and black pants. He shakes Meredith's and Chad's hands and escorts them to a nearby boat, where we learn they'll be taking a ride on a gondola. Or, as Meredith so appropriately calls it, "A gon-DO-la ride." Well, la di da. Look who majored in "Twee Boat Pronunciation" at The Prissy Institute Of European Seafaring. She thinks it's "pretty cute" that Chad had never been on a gon-DO-la, which is a concept totally foreign to her because gon-DO-la rides are actually the primary form of transportation in Portland, Oregon (for those of you who have never been there).
Super Gay Mario rows Chad and Meredith gently down the stream as they sip champagne and speak of Chad's great, big, throbbing...heart. Meredith tells him that word is he has the biggest heart. Man, I guess the time when a dude crying at the thought of his lover made him the world's biggest something else entirely are loooooooong gone. "There's an old Italian tradition you have to kiss under every bridge," Super Gay Mario tells Meredith and Chad from the rowing place at the back, and so Chad kisses Meredith under a bridge because the sovereign nation of Italy told them that they had to, which I'm going to start using on dates from now until forever. Hey, can you pick up the check? Italy said you would. Dude. Italy.
Meanwhile, back at the ManSion, a square head inside my square television creates a geometric wormhole back through time and allows me to view my own birth. Then it tells us, "Lanny noticed that there was a box out on the post on the porch." And, sure as shootin', we cut to an exterior shot of Lanny foraging for nuts and berries and coming across a plain box just kinda sitting there. Whereas any single other context on earth would have the bomb squad surrounding the premises and carbon testing the steps for white powder, here in girly dream land it's a box full of lady. Inside the second date box, Meredith invites Matthew to take their relationship to "new heights." Kelly Jo credits Matthew's dimples as his reason for having a "connection" with Meredith or some such thing, and Matthew smiles and tells us in a confessional, "Honestly, when Meredith said my name, I didn't hear or see anything else." Which is too bad, because the rest of the video message actually said, "...even though Ian is going to win." So, don't walk out of the play if you want to know the ending.
“ '[Chad] makes me laugh and I have no idea why,' Meredith observes in a confessional, having spent way too much on the pronunciation key of gon-DO-la to have looked up the word 'condescending.' ”
Brad, meanwhile, is not pleased not to have a one-on-one, telling us, "I feel sad. I'm sad, but I'm also upset, too." And with linguistic precision so subtle that he can parse the difference between "sad" and "upset," it's a wonder his letter didn't make more of an impression with the judges. Better get working on those letter-accentuating dimples, Alice Dimpless.
Meanwhile, the gon-DO-la takes Meredith and Chad to two floating pods in the middle of the water, which are decked out with flowers and dinner and the fuuuuuuuture. They enjoy a sushi dinner, and Chad cops to not knowing how to use chopsticks, celebrating the fact that Meredith helps him learn. Which I guess is okay and all, but if Meredith is so well-heeled that she can't even entertain the notion of someone never having been on a gon-DO-la, the last thing I imagine she'd want to do is teach someone to use eating utensils. ["Whatever. Just ask for a fork, dude; that's what I do." -- Wing Chun] Chad takes several flailing bites, and Meredith laughs right at him, causing an awkward Chad to observe, "You have such an infectious laugh. You really do. That's great," while totally not laughing. "He makes me laugh and I have no idea why," Meredith observes in a confessional, having spent way too much on the pronunciation key of gon-DO-la to have looked up the word "condescending." If he's still hungry due to lack of aptitude with the chopsticks, perhaps Chad would like to take a bite out of his own meat head.
Wearing a brown scarf and her Pip hat, Meredith makes her way up to a house I can only guess from her fashion cues belongs to the old jilted bride Miss Havisham. No, wait. It's just SpongeBob SquareHead at the ManSion. Never mind. They climb in a limo together and pull up in front of one of those scary Wright Brothers-looking planes, at which they're met by a guy in a green flight suit (we'll call him "Iceman," though I secretly suspect he's more "Goose") underneath which, considering the looks of that relic, is a t-shirt reading "Ask me about my Lindbergh Baby." Oh, man. They're taking flight. Matthew is going to have to use a lunchbox as his helmet. Up, up, and away they go, Meredith confessionalizing how "comfy" and "safe" Matthew makes her feel. They touch down and walk away with wobbly legs, and I guess we're up in wine country because they're suddenly chilling in a vineyard in a way I half-expect to end with, "Look, everyone! It's TV's Andrew Firestone! What are the Simpsons doing in New Orleans?" Meredith teases her one-on-one partner, telling him, "I feel like you and I have been girlfriend/boyfriend forever," and Matthew immediately tells us that that comment "made [him] feel really good." Perhaps they should try some Firestone Wine. When good simply isn't good enough.
Ryan (is he not Ryan M. now that he's just the default Ryan?) grabs the date box, and we find out who will be going on the group date, and by process of elimination, who will be going on the last one-on-one date. Meredith on tape: "Ian, Ryan M., Brad, and Sean, this date is your opportunity to get into the swing of things and make the cut. I'll be keeping score, so no cheating, and we'll find out who's up to par." Are we five? Who's writing this copy, my pediatrician? I guess we'll know for sure if the video begins, "What time is it when you go to the dentist? Tooth-hurty!"
“ Brad and Ian are similarly decked out in those fashion staples of Floridian grandparents, while Sean wears no visor because he's muuuuuch farther along in his packing than some of these other guys, as well he should be. ”
Matthew and Meredith are eating in the empty winery. "I wanted to be here with you and no one else," he tells her. They banter cutely about something I don't understand at all ("What else?" "We'll have to find out. I don't know!"), and Meredith tells us how genuine Matthew is about the whole thing. They retire to a back corner of the room and speak of Texas, Meredith's Venus flytrap turtleneck climbing higher on her neck as she nods forward toward a conversationally-appropriate REM sleep. She hazards a sexy sexy "It's getting a little hot over here," and Matthew doesn't get it, asking if she wants to move away from the fire. In a confessional, she expresses confusion about why he hasn't kissed her yet, and we cut back to the winery and her saying, "I have been waiting for you to kiss me for so long!" Yes, yes. The mad building passion of four hours' knowing one another. It's like Cold Mountain in there, but, y'know, much, much more entertaining. And with much less of that horrible, horrible music.
Group date! Group date! Group date! Now sponsored by the men who wear visors! Brad and Ian are similarly decked out in those fashion staples of Floridian grandparents, while Sean wears no visor because he's muuuuuch farther along in his packing than some of these other guys, as well he should be. A glass of champagne is handed Meredith's way, and it seems as if the whole day might be just another fantastic paean to sloth, luxury, and the complacent trappings of a tabloid nation gone woefully astray, but no! For Ryan wants some alone time with Meredith, and he wants to talk about ugly issues. They walk from the front of their bus to a loud, clanging cargo-hold area, where Ryan tells her that he doesn't feel like he's getting a rose, which is a total turnaround from how he felt at the last Rose Ceremony. "I was really, like, tensed out and, like, angry," Ryan filibusters. "Not angry. Sad, angry, confused." Meredith says she didn't meant to make him feel that way (WHAT WAY, you driveling FREAK?), and Ryan shoots back the self-sabotaging, rose-wilting, just plain silly, "I really, really, really, really, really want to believe you, but I kind of don't." She takes us to a confessional, where she says that her alone time with Ryan was "intense," and that she couldn't a word in edgewise. Check out the number of times you see the two of them together at any point on this date. Many few than the glasses of champagne they continue to enjoy, this I can plainly tell you.
Golf montage! Which, after the writing montage, is more than my delicate constitution can handle. Ian is not taking the group date well, and is concerned that Meredith has something else going on with someone in the house. Sean, meanwhile, tells Meredith that she's such a dynamic character that he woke up thinking he wouldn't accept a rose if one were offered to him, but now he's changed his mind. I'm sure she'll be thrilled.