Djb's Last Bachelor Recap Ever, Suckas!

Oh, you guys. You've been so good to me. But sadly, the part of my brain that comes up with wacky nicknames for the Bachelor and the house he lives in has ruptured past its natural ability to regenerate or heal. So, following the completion of this recap, this once stout-hearted (and now husk of a) recapper will be checked into The Psychoneurotic Institute For The Very, Very Burnt Out for a period of twenty-eight days, during which time I shall (1) undertake a "journey" of self-discovery and forge a "connection" with recovery; (2) go on a series of meaningful overnight one-on-one dates...with myself; and (3) tell Sandra Bullock there's still a chance for her career, but not if goes much longer without her having made another film since this one.

I will also follow the twelve steps of reality show recapping recovery, in which I will submit myself to the Higher Power, and seek a deeper meaning in my own life among said steps:

(1) I will admit that I am powerless over The Bachelor and that it has made my life unmanageable.
(2) I will come to admit that a power greater than The Bachelor can restore my damaged psyche to sanity.
(3) I will make a decision to turn my will and life over to a Higher Power of my choosing, so long as that deity does not bear likeness to the false idol we have worshipped until now, that dark overlord M-ike Fl-iss.
(4) I will make a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself, rather than a series of baseline and fearful moral inventories of other people, even if they're over-edited caricatures masquerading as actual human beings, desperately as they may deserve it, so it's a good thing Kim will do it for me from now on. Thanks, Kim.
(5) I will admit to the Higher Power, to myself, and to another human being the exact nature of my wrong...or, I'll let the Meet Market thread continue to spin into total chaos and let you guys prove the utter wrongness of the world for me.
(6) I will make myself entirely ready to have the Higher Power remove all defects of character. Or, at least, to have them cleverly edited out in post-production.
(7) I will humbly ask the Higher Power to remove my shortcomings, including the pettiness that would ordinarily lead me to point out that Step #7 bears an almost embarrassing likeness to Step #6.
(8) I will make a list of all persons I have harmed and become willing to make amends to them all. Unless they reeeeeeeeally deserved it, like if they went on television to fall in love, in which case I won't apologize. Which really cuts down my list considerably. Which means, basically, here I go: sorry, Trista's ugly sister. Trista's sister, you didn't ask to be on TV in that dress. Not that TV had a choice in asking you, poor TV having to show such ugliness. Damn! One step back to Step #7. Someone ought to make a board game out of this! May I suggest they call it Steppin' Out? Or, I mean, whatever you guys think is best. Do I need some sort of "8b" addendum where I apologize to anyone who was hurt by my Steppin' Out joke? Sigh. Getting better is hard!

(9) I will make direct amends to such people wherever possible. Erm, okay. What's her email address, then? Tristas_ugly_sister@thebachelor.com?
(10) I will continue to take personal inventory and when I am wrong promptly admit it. Unless it's a grammar correction. In which case I'm sure you guys will just take care of pointing it out for me.
(11) I will seek through prayer and meditation to improve my conscious contact with my Higher Power, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out. If by "prayer" and "meditation," you mean "red" and "wine" and "don't skimp on the."
(12) Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, I will try to carry this message to other Bachelor recappers. Oh, very well: Kiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiim! Save yourseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelf!

Good thing I have pretty much exactly twenty-eight days until I start recapping the first season of America's Top Model. The timing! She is perfect!

"This week is my hometown week," speeches the geographically-confused Jesse "Cana-DUH" Palmer, who I really thought was playing this game as a real-life I Married Dora, in which he was playing the part of, well, Dora. But to land in Indianapolis and learn that it's "Jesse's Parents' Hometown" definitely raises more questions than it answers, primarily among them, "Huh?" No, seriously. Aren't they Canadian? I really thought they were. Maybe Fleiss set up Canadian consulate in the middle of Indiana to make Jesse and his family seem more authentically red-blooded American (or, really, American at all) and they're not allowed to leave the grounds of the house or they automatically get tagged by INS. Ooooh! Mike Fleiss is...The Hollywood Deporter. Now there's a reality-show pitch for you. And I guess so was this show, once. Seven long seasons ago in simpler times. When even the notion of winning a million dollars on television met with a response of "A million whole dollars? Surely, it would cause the Mint to empty and the national currency to collapse!" But that was a long time ago. Now, we're going through the motions, motaging through Indianapolis while no one asks since when the hell Jesse was from Indianapolis. He stands in some sort of utterly empty town square (ah, tourist season comes to Indiana), confessionalizing, "I'm at a point now where I am very confused," all the while looking confusedly up as if to ask the total lack of passersby, "You guys? Um, is this Canada?"

Jesse continues on, "I never thought it would get to this point. I could be engaged to somebody that I spend the rest of my life with when this is all said and done." Yeah. No, you couldn't. Can't rob a bank with a telephone, can't force a plane ticket onto the fourth finger. Not even if he takes pains to point out that it's "first-class." I know. It's still, like, a hour and fifty-seven minutes away. But, still. Dick.

Jessica walks up the steps of the Indianapolis Four Corners Monument (which sits at the exact geographical crossroads of Indiana, Canada, false pretenses, and Jesse's fault line of a jaw), wearing a pink shawl that thinks it's keeping her warm because of the crisp wintertime air of Canada. Jessica and her shawl look around, confused. "Are we in Canada?" they ask. "This bullshit pashmina street-vendor fashion sample from I Love 2000 would be, like, totally 'in' in Canada. By the way, why aren't the cars driving on the other side of the street? I thought that we were in Canada!" Shut up, Jessica. Or, as she still known to the man who is about to not propose to her, "Jessica B." In Canada, the "B" stands for "Canada."

Jesse and Jessica walk hand-in-hand into a darkly-lit bar in downtown Indianapolis I'll arbitrarily call "Moe's," a musty town institution appealing to NASCAR dads with their mistresses, lost tourists who think they're in Canada, and idea-strapped reality television location scouts in lame second-tier American cities who find out they're not allowed to set a date at Hooters and have completely run out of other options. Once ensconced, Jessica wastes no time jumping right in, admitting to Jesse that "it was hurtful" when Jesse told her he was in love with her, but also falling in love with "another woman." Jesse blinks like it got really dark in the bar and he missed his wine glass on the way to his mouth and he ended up with a big eyeful of shiraz, responding with a guttural "Ungh." Man, that's Slick Jesse for you. Always charming his way out of every conflict with his silver tongue and lightning-quick wit. He's totally Canada's answer to Noel Coward, were neither of those words "Noel" or "Coward" capitalized and the word "noel" then removed. And then swap "coward" for "asshole." And, screw the Canada bit also, I guess. Jesse offers absolutely nothing in the way of reassurance, instead reminding Jessica that this process has been "difficult" for him as well. Jessica responds with words that probably include repeated uses of the words "yeah," "totally," and "tort reform," but we're instead shown her ensuing confessional, in which she confides in us, her friends: "To put my heart on the line to just Jesse would be fine. But to do it when there's also Tara is a scary, scary feeling. But I feel in the depths of my soul that we are supposed to be together." Ah, the fabled depths of Jessica's soul. Where veritable thimbles-full of squishy soul juice collect. And I'm not trying to say that she's shallow or that the expression "depths of my soul" don't indicate a vastly untapped well of emotion. What I am saying is that I blew across the top of Jessica's soul like you would across the top of a Coke bottle -- right at its depth -- and the pitch was really, really high.

But the thing Jesse hates most about segues is how damn French that word sounds, so why not just cut right to the thing and not remind him of France or Canada or the French-Canadian locale that decided it no longer spawned him: "Actually, I have a surprise." I'm a man! Well, nobody's perfect! Anyway: "You remember Jenny?" Does she remember Jenny? Does she REMEMBER Jenny? Jenny, Jesse's best friend? Jenny, posing as a Bachelorette? Jenny the Capital-S Spy? Does Jessica remember her? She lived with them in the house for, like, three weeks. Cumulatively -- and this is really just a guesstimate, as it were -- Jessica has probably spent between three to five times more of her life with Jenny than she has with Jesse. Ugh. Jenny, Jesse, Jessica. My computer feels like it's trapped on a Soupy Sales greatest hits album. It hates that feeling. Anyway, Jenny The Spy and her husband Nick enter the establishment, to probably the most shocking! Confessional! Ever! From! Jesse! And here it is. It's fantastic: "I'm excited about seeing Jenny and Nick. More so Nick." Oh, man, he hates Jenny so much for making him give up the leggy whore. If it weren't for Jenny and her heinous and numerous invectives to Jesse against Trish and her controversial t-shirts, the producers would have cut a whole different version of this show that made Trish look completely normal, and she would be sitting at that table with Jesse right now and everyone knows it. So she has to be the fall spy and take the rap for the fact that Jesse's ended up with these two identical bottle blondes while Trish will now only be able to go on a date with Russ from the Trista season at Social Pariah Hall.

"There's been [sic] relationships in the past that I've had where I've been blind to certain things that Nick really picked up on, and Nick was able to kinda bring those to my attention, and a lot of times that's affected how I've viewed the relationship," Jesse mouth-poos, setting up one of the biggest non-payoffs in plot-development history. But more to come on that. Loud banter ensues around the table for a moment, and Jesse removes Nick to some upstairs bar area for a Flaming Moe. Nick asks, "How close have you gotten to these girls? You know what I mean." Yes. It means, "Have you boned 'em?," is what it means. Tell me I'm wrong. Because you can't. When Jesse non-admits that he has completed a pass (his first ever!) on the boning of them both with his response, "Pretty close," Nick asks, "Who are you gonna pick?" Jesse tells him he really has no idea whom he's going to pick, and that he needs Nick to make up Jesse's mind for him, and a huge fight suddenly ensues, where Nick gets all flail-y-armed and screams, "You want me to pick one and then you pick the other and then she hates me for the rest of my life?" Nick rants on, repeating his central thesis: "That'd be real fun hanging out on Christmas!" Whoa whoa WHOA! First of all, let's scale it down a bit. No one's making it to Christmas. To drive his point home, past home, down a boardwalk and into the ocean, Nick continues, going so far as to do a little impression of himself if he picks one person and Jesse picks another and they have Christmas together: "Hey, second choice girl!" he screams, parodying his own self-made role of bumbling friend in high comic fashion, "How you doin'?" Oh, bravo! Improv genius all the way. Now do it again, but this time pretend that you picked the right girl and be all, "Hey, first choice girl!" And set it in London. In a hospital room. At the turn of the nineteenth century. God, I love the legitimate thee-ay-ter.

Back upstairs, a lack of testosterone keeps the ladies from raising their voices at all. Jenny needs Jessica's shawl on over her linebacker shoulders. Why wear something that will do everything in its power to accentuate your worst feature? Jenny wearing something off-the-shoulder is almost as silly as if Jesse had walked in wearing something off-the-brain. We know it's a low point of your overall make-up. Seems like the classy thing to do would have been not to call attention to it. Jessica tells Jenny that she's "falling head over heels" for Jesse, but that she's scared and vulnerable about the other girl. Jenny tells us that she wanted Jessica and Tara to be the final girls, and makes it all about her by saying she's sad about either of them getting their hearts broken. Nah. I wouldn't worry too much about it. It's kind of hard to get your heart broken when it's already all over your sleeve. By which I mean you've puked it up all over your sleeve.

And...wife swap! We're back up at the bar to discover Nick and Jessica, a reality pairing which, for once, could actually be worse. Nick asks Jessica if she's come on the show to win, and Jessica is all spin when she volleys back, "I'm here to win...his heart, hopefully," which is then followed by a silent moment where she sits awkwardly, waiting to see if she's going to get away with it. Nick tells us in a confessional that Jessica has a "level head," but that he's worried her age might be a problem. Like, for instance, that his best friend will be banging a twenty-one-year-old and he won't.

This has become such a random, lame, untenable talking point for Jesse. It's like he doesn't even hear what he's saying anymore: "The one thing that confuses me right now about Jessica and also about Tara is that people struggle expressing themselves to me." Now, granted, the cut that took place between the words "that" and "people" means these two thoughts were culled from two completely different sentences and the actual sentiment could have been "The one thing that confuses me right now about Jessica and also about Tara is that their names sound so similar to me." But the problem is, he really does believe, I think, in the central theme the editing is driving home. They haven't begged enough. Jenny warns Jesse that no girl wants to "play the fool," and then grabs Jessica for one more private moment when Jessica is on her way out. Jenny warns, "Say everything you need to say." Jessica retorts that she doesn't want to "scare [Jesse]," but Jenny whispers that she just has to make some good TV by falling at his feet, wrapping her hands around his legs, and yelling, "Jesseeeeeeeeeeeeeee! I looooooooooooooooooove yoooooooooooooooooou!" Because if there's one thing he wants? It's a girl with integrity. At least in Canada her pride would have spiraled the other way down the sink.

I just...I don't know. I know it's too late to just start bemoaning it now, but wouldn't this show just be an overall success more frequently if we actually, y'know, liked the Bachelor? Because, I mean, we don't, right? And didn't we like Bob Guiney once, before he became the Bachelor? And didn't we like Meredith a lot more before she was the Bachelorette? Is it something about the inherent narcissism they develop while living in the wonky sociological biosphere of twenty-five people fighting over them that makes them start emitting a pheromone that makes them seem evil? Or -- OR -- are we just a minority of hyper-sensitive obsessives who can't believe that the rest of the viewing public isn't recognizing the fact that this formula isn't working anymore. Unless we're the only people who notice. Which means it totally IS still working and we're the ones on the wrong side of history. Oh, I refuse to believe it. I mean, look how red and splotchy Jesse's face is! He's the worst!

In through the front door of a big-ass, two-story house walks Jesse, which immediately finds him yelling upon his arrival, "Who are you guys?" Well, I...nah, too easy. He tells us he's happy to have some time with his family before Jessica arrives, including his mother (whose name is "Mom"), his father (whose name is "Dad"), and his two young brothers, Billy and Christian. The middle one has a jaw that kills bunnies dead. Jesse kicks things off by asking his family how they feel about this Bachelor Comes Home scenario he's dragged them into, and Jesse's mom assures him, "After having an opportunity to watch The Bachelorette, to be honest with you, we really did see Meredith and Ian fall in love. And so it made us realize you might fall in love, too. Like, really fall in love." Ah, yes. The age-old trope of fake life imitating fake life. What a fantastic method of informing our own behavior. Man, those tapes had messengered over last night really helped advance this show's argument for...itself. Jesse's mother -- the pearl-wearing, pearl-clutching, pantsuit-wearer of the family -- tells us in a confessional, "Maw faw faw faw, maw-haw." It's hard to hear her with her jaw wired shut. Back in the living room, Jesse repeats to his parents that he is "confused" about his decision, and that he wants them to ask Jessica questions, but quickly adds, "You don't have to drill her." Yeah, that was for Jesse to do in the Bahamas! Oooooh! Zing! He then jokes hilariously, "The torture chamber downstairs doesn't need to be used." A shot of Jesse's youngest brother laughing is here spliced in to imply subtly that Jesse is respected by the Palmer youth. This show is writing checks the editing can't afford to cash.

Ding-dong, Jessica! Also, the doorbell rings. Zing!

Jesse quickly opens the door and screams, "We don't want any!" closing it in a hurry. He's doing prop work now? Also considered were the alternate sentiments, "I gave at the office!" and "I never learned in charm school that it's rude to slam the door in a girl's face right before she meets your family for the first time. I must be Satan." After the usual meet-and-greets, we're toasting in the kitchen, Jessica explaining that she has two younger brothers, the ages of "eighteen and fifteen." For some reason, this makes the whole assemblage go, "Oooooh!" Why? Are they William and Harry? Who cares? The Stache (for that was Jesse's father's name when we first met him, and I find it still holds true today) asks Jessica how old she is, and Jessica shoots back, "I'm twenty-one. But I will be twenty-two in exactly one month." Which is exactly the kind of thing you say when you want people to think you're too young for a committed relationship, like if she'd been all, "Nuh-uh! I'm not twenty-one! I'm totally twenty-one and seven-eighths!" But this kicks it to an immediate confessional, one that features The Stache telling us that Jessica's too young. Because he understands the temporal relationship between all things necessary to keep a balance in the universe. Father Time wears a stache, ladies and gentlemen.

How come they never let the kids talk? Oh, wait. Jessica. They already did. The Stache wants to dispense some dinnertime wisdom: "There's something that's really important to understand aboot [sorry, but he did] this business of professional athletics. And I was in it. And Susan had a career in professional modeling." Not a sport. Nice try, though! It's the lip service that counts. "The thing is that when you're playing professional sports, you can have a career that lasts ten years, you can have a career that lasts three years, it can last a week." Why? Who plays professional sports in that room? Jessica walks right into it, replying that she's not with Jesse for the sports (and neither were the Giants! Zing!), saying she doesn't see him as "Jesse the football player." She nobly notes that she would still think Jesse was groovy even "if he was [sic] a janitor," which inspires a facial expression from Susan that seems to say, "What on earth is that?" But Susan still feels Jessica represented herself well, and she stops her in the kitchen to make sure "Mr. Palmer" (as she refers to him) wasn't giving Jessica "the one over." Whatever that is. Back in the living room, Jesse asks his brothers what they think, and the younger one rubs his eyes and is all, "I don't know," because he just wants to go upstairs and play videogames and we just want to go with him. The middle one adds, "She's not ugly, I tell you that much." All right. You're not invited to play videogames.

And now, real men. Jesse sits on a couch somewhere with The Stache, who is thinking that in another year or so he's going to need to add The Stache to the combover, which is going to be tricky, but he's totally the man for the job, y'all. The Stache asks Jesse, "What do you feel compelled to do at the end of this effort?" What does he "feel compelled to do at the end of this effort"? For heaven's sake! Speak like people, people! Jesse swallows hard and responds that he doesn't know, and The Stache reminds Jesse that a good relationship is still good a year from now. "Be true to yourself," The Stache fortune-cookies. Jesse knows that his father is worried that Jesse will propose, because, according to Jesse, "that's what the Bachelor does." I love when it hits this point in the season and since they're the ones in love they feel like they've risen above the show itself. What that is? Is a load of crap. But there's no time to think about it, because it's the end of the talk and Jesse kisses his father full on the mouth. He does. It's paused. I'm looking right at it. It's disgusting. Made barely less so by the fact that, from this angle, it kind of looks like Jesse has boobies, so you can maybe understand why The Stache might have gotten confused.

Jesse walks Jessica outside at the end of dinner. Jessica launches in that she really is falling in love with Jesse and sees a future, but it all just seems so perfunctory. He thanks her for "putting up with" his crazy family. Don't you love how everyone thinks his or her family is the craaaaaaaaaaziest? Back in the living room, Susan shares that she thinks Jessica is "ideal." The Stache, however, finds her "devoid of experience" and "too young to take this seriously." Jesse wraps up for us that his parents had different opinions on Jessica because, otherwise, we'd have chaos.

It's been a long time since The Gap used a song in one of its commercials that made me feel, well, just mad about saffron. But I have something to say to you all at this time, and it is this: "Summer breeze makes me feel fiiiiiiiine. Goin' through the jasmine in my mi-i-i-ind." Oh, childhood memories. You weren't really all bad, after all.

Jesse and Tara met at the Indianapolis Zoo? I don't even remember that from when I first watched this. They sip red whine out of plastic cups in the middle of the animals looking like they're about to have The Picnic Of The Crazy, and Tara launches right in with the most pragmatic love talk ever: "What are your reservations about me?" Romance. Not dead. But, lucky for fans of repetitive rhetoric, Jesse has an answer at the ready: "My biggest reservation is, y'know, you being able to express yourself to me verbally." Tara really is confused, asking Jesse how many different ways she has to say it, and she makes a facial expression that says, "Really, I think this is fake and you suck." Because it really doesn't make any sense. "At this point, I'm not sold on everybody," he continues. Everybody? What is he talking about. What's going on? Let's bring out Nick and Jenny. Tara is thrilled to see Jenny, but...well, it's about not to go well. They embark on a walk right away, Tara telling Jenny, "I really want to marry him...There is not one bad thing about him." Jenny leaps on that, telling Tara, "Well, that's not true." Good point. Unless it's just the introduction to the opposite sketch. Back at the table, Jesse tries again with Nick: "Who do you see with me?" Nick starts to get all riled up again, and Jesse continues to some ambiguous purpose, "You've known them for fifteen minutes," stopping before his follow-up thought, "And I for sixteen." How would Nick feel, Jesse asks, if he found out Tara has been engaged before? Jesse shouldn't care. He doesn't. Nick likes both of them, but tells us in a confessional that Jesse is concerned that -- wait for it -- Tara hasn't expressed herself to him: "I think it'll be Jessica." But wait. Isn't she too young? I don't understand this show if the conflicts can't be reduced to one sentence each.