Previously on The Bachelorette: No, seriously, wait a sec...he seriously owned a marble factory? Seriously?
We open this week on a swooping aerial shot of The Beefcake Factory, the helicopter surveillance hovering at a safe distance of a few hundred feet above pool level, approximately just above the level of Brian's (I'll tell you which one...no one cares is which one!) tallest, most potentially fuselage-puncturing mousse spike. Wait, do helicopters even have fuselages? Meh. Too bad someone sent the pilot packing. The helpful geographical notation of "Guy's House" appears on the screen and labels the sprawling complex as such. Um, "sic"? SIC! Who in the name of Mike Fleiss is "Guy," and how does he feel about sharing his quiet corner of Encino with fifteen boozers so blitzed on free liquor from Disney-owned minibars that they're practically pushing IV poles filled with Naddy Light and sucking on straws coming out of beer cans attached to visors reading "I'm Drucking Funk!" and "Retired...and Loving It!" Heh. "Guy's House." The title is so intricately clever on so many levels that one can only assume it (a) was thought up by the guys themselves, and (b) narrowly beat other such worthy frontrunners as "House For Guys," "Guys Rule," "Gizz-uys in the Hizz-ouse," "The House That Russ Built," "The Phallus Palace" (that one was Ryan's idea, natch, because of how it rhymes and all), "Name It 'The House That Russ Built' And I'll Give You Guys All A Hundred Bucks In Cash Right Now, You Guys, I Swear" and "Beer." But I'll bet the voting was close. Down on ground level, a hapless-looking Chris "But I Can't Make You Love Me" Harrison announces in a pinched voice from the living room, "Guys, if you would, come into the house, have a seat." And, in true Night of the Living Knobs fashion, bohunks slime in from each room, using their own trails of slime and assorted "wet look" gels to propel them forward into the common area. In from the pool, out from their rooms, in from the kitchen, and, in Gay Josh's case, through a set of beaded curtains through which he emerges dressed campily as a late-era Gloria Swanson, throws one half of his pashmina sarong over his shoulder using the hand not holding the Cosmo, and muttering just loud enough to be heard over the pervasive beat of the Legs Diamond soundtrack wafting gaily from his room, "The place may be garishly big, but the feng shui is just absolutely awful." Or maybe, instead of all that, he "wears a hat." Whatever.
The men situate themselves around the (sigh...) "Guy's House" living room as Chris fills them in on what happens : "From now on, the only communication you'll have with Trista is on the days we've planned for you." As opposed to last week, in which their systematic emergence from five limos and the entirety of the first rose ceremony occurred in a purely organic state, like continental drift. Explain what's new. "Right now, you'll be dating Trista in groups of five." So, um, who's going? "Who's going?" Yes, and where? "Where are you going?" Yes. "Good questions." Uh, thanks. "You'll get those answers, as Trista sends you video invitations." We pan across the room for some reaction shots of the guys -- oh, look, Marky Mark brought Charlie a black knit cap from The Past -- as Chris reaches down below the camera's gaze to a place where, Elvis-on-Ed-Sullivan-style, the producers have mercifully decided not to show us for fear that the ladies at home just might not be able to handle it. Chris's hand comes up holding a VHS cassette, which he throws to Rob in a grand gesture of she'll-never-love-you-either-sissy-boy camaraderie. Rob's tell-tale Mood Hair lies flat and curl-free against his head ("My mood hair is mad because I haven't told it how sincerely glad I am to have it on my head today") as we cut to the various levels of hulking Evolution In Action following Rob into the room. The guys watch as Rob puts the tape in, and we quick cut over what was doubtlessly forty ensuing minutes of fifteen guys offering multiple variations on, "Dude, is the television even ON right now?" and "Dude, the television has to BE ON THREE for it to work" and, in one quietly though emphatically stated case, "Oh look, it's Golden Girls!" (Josh again) while Rob preens in the reflected surface of the screen and thinks, "I am so sincere about how much I love my beauty."
Finally, Trista "Feminism Is For Lesbians And The Ugly" Rehn makes her first appearance this week, popping up on the screen like some hussied-up Max Headroom For The New Millennium and talking to the guys in a relaxed tone, safely ensconced behind the date-rape-buffering fourth wall. Trista informs them and us that the first group date will let her find out "who's a high roller and who's just bluffing," as Brian S., Russell, Josh, Brook, and Rob will be accompanying Trista to Vegas. I reflexively start a T-minus countdown until the first Swingers reference causes the U.S.S. Cheese to liftoff for its long journey to The Planet Of Insanely Outdated Cultural References. I give it four minutes.
Outside somewhere, Rob opines, "It'd be more fun to go on a trip alone with Trista." See, Rob, the phenomenon you're referring to is a common condition in society known as "actual dating," and it tends to happen to a cross-section of the population called "people not on TV" who are often have names like "Not Trista." As the men slap each other on the back and wish each other numerous non-gay tidings, a black limo pulls up to The Beefcake Factory and Trista observes, "I'm really looking forward to tonight. I think it will be a lot of fun. I mean, especially in Vegas. I mean, who doesn't have fun in Vegas?" And as much as I want to bust on Trista's self-assurance that she is The Mouthpiece For All Humans' Collective Unconscious by naming some far afield subgroup who doesn't have fun in Vegas (the poor? The Amish? The UNLV Division III Chess Team? The ever-lengthening trail of brokenhearted Mirage cocktail waitresses loved and left by a callous and capricious Siegfried?), you've got to agree with her reasoning: Vegas totally rules.
Cut to a shot of Trista entering the house wearing a pair of mirrored sunglasses so gigantic you can hear the swell of "Whoaaaa" come from the impressed television-viewing demographic known to advertisers as "Enthusiasts of '70s biker porn." Y'know. Them. Rob is first to greet her, giving her a hug and letting the sentiment "I am sincere about how sincerely fugly I find your sungla...hey, wait, I can see myself in there" play around his own exposed eyes. In a quick interview, Brook non-contextually tells us, "I think if there's a thing called love at first sight -- which I believe there is -- Rob has it." You think there's love at first sight if Rob has it or you think Rob has what you believe to be love at first sight? Come quick, doubters of Brook's intelligence; this simple farmboy has just solved the equation of love by employing the mathematical if/then laws of syllogism. At the lavish Vegas buffet, he's clearly the pi. Hey, Brook? The rest of us are gonna get on a plane to Vegas. Why don't you stay back here a bit and try and do some work on roping the conditional. They say it's even harder than roping a steer.
The black limo pulls up to a chartered jet, and Brian S. (leave off the last "S" for...still don't know who you are) observes, "I've never done that before -- get a chance to pull up to a small private plane in a limousine, and jet away to Vegas." Is this an event so common he can't believe it's eluded him until now? Brian S. sounds so surprised that he's never once woken up and been Frank Sinatra, circa 1964. Poor Brian. That might be the last thing he ever says on this show. He's so gone. At the lavish Vegas buffet, he's clearly the toast. Or whatever would be served with a fork stuck in it. Anyway, the plane takes off and we cut to the obligatory Vegas Strip montage, where familiar shots of neon glitz are accompanied by the kind of Setzer-esque brass arrangement you can only play if your big-ass horn section is swinging back and forth in campy unison. We waste no time before cutting to the group of six inside of their limo, where they toast with champagne flutes and Trista announces, "Vegas, baby, Vegas." Well, that took about eleven seconds. The rest of the guys whoop in drunken, I-drank-something- blue-on-the-plane agreement and repeat her sentiment, each guy making a mental note to spend the night referring to numerous things as "so money."
Oh, dude, they're at The Palms, the same hotel where the cast of The Real World Las Vegas stayed. Nice to know that the hotel management is almost as whorish as the group they housed, though the producers must be bummed that they lost out on the opportunity for a wacky reality show crossover episode ("Hi! I'm Irulan and we're the cast of TV's The Real World Las Vegas! Why, what are The Simpsons doing in New Orleans?"). ["On a related note, I think The Palms must employ a team of forty-eight publicists on round-the-clock shifts. I am always reading about that hotel, or seeing it on C.S.I., or what-have-you. They have really gotten the word out. Not that I would ever actually stay there, but still: good job, forty-eight publicists!" -- Wing Chun] Gambling shots abound as a Brook voice-over tells us, "To come to Vegas is one thing, but to be able to come to Vegas with Trista is just outrageous." Having already "lost her shirt" in the least euphemistic of ways before the first penny is bet, Almost Topless Trista toasts the guys with a new drink, and the roulette begins in earnest. They hoot and holler, someone hoping for "Big Bucks" (though I believe the outcome, sadly, is "Whammies"), and Brook howls at the table in defeat and makes the eminently avoidable mistake of referring to actual money as "so money." Not cool. Meanwhile, back in the land of linear recapsville, there's another kind of drama unfolding. We spy Russ sitting to Trista at the table, and Rob letting us know, "It's like musical chairs. You try to strategically find your seat. And Russ is on the money. He's got the best seat in the house." Pause for audience endearment. "A little creepy, if you ask me." Check. We agree. As they amble drunkenly through the casino, Brian S. adds that Russ is the kind of guy who would "smother her," as opposed to himself, the kind of guy who would "disappear from her sights forever and ever." But, word. Every unctuous shot captures Russ leaning in on Trista, whispering in her ear, and generally compromising her personal space while mentally refining his airtight "yeah, but dressed like that she was asking for it, right?" rationalization he spent his college years perfecting as he explained it to various local courts of law. At the lavish Vegas buffet, Russ is clearly the coal-eyed tertiary-character- in-a-Bret-Easton- Ellis-novel sociopath who is either in league with Satan or is actually Satan. Sigh. Fine. I guess that would make him the "deviled eggs."
Josh tells us that the item of business was dancing at Ghost Bar, because he just loves kickin' it on the dance floor and blah blah blah he'd be the fruit salad. Right. So that joke's over, thank god. My friend Potes posited a lengthy and brilliant theory by which Trashelle would shimmy up to one of the guys and steal him away from Trista before ratings-enhancing catfights ensued. But at this early juncture, this show is still hellbent on its current Trista As The Only Woman On Earth trajectory, so it's business as usual at Ghost Bar as we learn from Russ, "I'm gonna go for it." I just never imagined that the series of actions "it" modified would be so damned prosecutable. Cut to a telling but ignored shot of Russ advancing on Trista in a period of juuuust-before- she-asked-what- was-that- pill-like- thing-dissolving- in-her-drink lucidity that shows her pushing him forcefully away and walking in the general direction of wherever he is not. Trista then succumbs to whatever alternate reality Russ's Vulcan mind power takes her to ("I dreamt that I wasn't in some way involved in a dating reality show. It was awful! And you were there! And you were there! And you were there!"), and we rejoin the two of them on the outdoor balcony of Ghost Bar. An interview finds Trista admitting, "Things are sparking. I feel like when I'm to him, there's fireworks going off, compared to the other guys." It's a trick of the lighting, folks...she never says his name in the interview, so we don't actually have the vaguest clue as to who she's talking about here. But Russ makes his feelings abundantly, drunkenly clear out on that balcony, confiding loudly in Trista, "Things that you say, like, I. You could say a sentence and I could finish...Or could say whatever, and I just sit there, like..." Whatever. I'd point out that finishing other people's sentences with panache, you must first acquire the verbal capacity to finish one of your own, but to make such a base comment insults the reader and makes my four years of commitment to this site look like a sham. Everything Russ does devalues my existence in its sheer, Russ-drenched totality. But Trista totally gets where he's coming from. Or something: "That's why I keep telling you to shut up." Drunk talk. Sweet, beautiful drunk talk. And then, creepy kissing.
Back inside Ghost Bar, the other four goobers wander aimlessly around the desert like they're waiting to be photographed for the cover of The Joshua Tree. Brian S. notes that he feels the rest of the guys were given "the shaft" (a line I'm not touching with a ten-foot shaft, y'all), as Trista and Russ travel back to the hotel suite and Russ interviews, "My gut feeling is that I will be the last man standing." I guess "gut" is the cumulative set of values that informs one's decision-making process when the "soul" has been lost during the painful process of "spawning."
Back at The Beefcake Factory, Ryan hears a knock on the door and walks to the front door to find a lone VHS tape sitting on the patio. Heh. The Little Videocassette That Could crawled all the way from postproduction and prostrated itself on the front lawn while its intended courier sits alone in his trailer, shirking his contractual responsibilities and writing various permutations of "Mr. and Mrs. Chris and Trista Harrison" on the front of his Trista Rehn-themed Trapper Keeper. Mr. and Mrs. Christa Harrison. Dr. and Mrs. Chris Rehn-Harrison. Reverend and...well, you get the picture. Ryan picks up the tape and announces, "New tape!" And for a show that puts fifteen deadbeats together in a mansion at a sizable expense to both the network and Guy himself (homeowners insurance skyrockets when virtually every sentence spoken in that place fits in the template of, "It's not Ping-Pong, it's Beer-Pong" or "It's not Pool, it's Beer Pool," or "It's not Pin The Dart On The Priceless Art Collection, it's...zzzzzz"), why can't they at least get this VHS tape a cover with the Bachelorette logo on it? It's all sitting there, naked, like the crappy old tape I use to record this show that reads "Seinfeld, season six" along the spine even though all it has on it is the first five minutes of nine old episodes of Roswell. Ryan puts the tape in the VCR, and the remaining ten guys can't disguise their overwhelming inebriation as Trista appears on the television screen decked in the "Come And Knock On Our Door" hair and bathing suit home kit, announcing, "Bob, Jamie, Jack, Ryan, and Brian C., if you've never been to a spa before, that's all about to change. But don't think girly-girl pamper day; think manly-man fun pool party." Wait. I understand those words. Just not quite in that order. Why is she talking in code? Is that a poem of some kind? I heard from Ryan that sometimes they don't even have to rhyme. Bob notes in an interview that "she said my name first, so obviously she was gearing everything towards me." Heh. Bob then laughs much, much harder at his joke than I originally intended to tell you that I had.
Back in Vegas at The House That Bunim-Murray Built, Russ and Trista sit on a couch in the suite and Russ drones, "I truly do not feel you're gonna meet another guy you're gonna click or connect with on every single level that you do with me." Trista gives a quick look at the floor as if she's suddenly felt the embers of Hell cease burning since there's currently no one there to stoke them, but loses perspective on the situation when she looks him in the eye again (no, Trista! Hands at the level of your eyes! It's the only chance you've got!) and actually responds in baby talk, "You mean a lot, okay?" She was just one "Boop-oop-ee-doop" away from becoming an actual cartoon character. More smacky kissing ensues, until mercifully the door opens and the rest of the guys come in, all, "The hell?" Rob is again kind of sickened by Russ's sick display of -- what's that word again? ah, yes, "winning" -- and he clarifies his strategy as such: "Where I come from, it's called chiseling. I use the absolute opposite strategy, because if she wants your face time, she'll come and get it." And so she does, and Rob tells her that he doesn't want to be with the girl "who will fall for the slick guy." Trista nods in eye-crossingly bored college-discussion-section agreement as if he decided to use his time alone with her to explain America's response to the gold standard during the Rutherford B. Hayes administration. His heart says, "I sincerely love you," but his conversational skills say, "And if you let me stick around one more week, I'll even teach you a way to remember the proper spelling of 'Tippecanoe'!" Do something puppy-like, little boy. You're losing her, and fast.
Trista tells us in an interview, "Tonight, I've enjoyed everyone's company but..." But who? But Brook? But that other weird guy with the face and the hair and the return ticket home with the non-negotiable date stamp, "The moment tonight's credits roll"? But the makers of bras and other undergarment finery? Let's hear it according to Brook: "She picked the guys she wanted to have time with. There might have been something that she liked about them that I didn't have." And, after all, Cowboy, who but you offers the extra incentive of leprechauns searching for the pot of gold at the far ends of your perfectly bell-curve-shaped hair? No one. What did they have that you didn't? Nothing. You, sir, are perfect.
Back at The Scansion Mansion (Ryan gets a double-word score for naming it that because it not only rhymes but it is also about poetry), there's a-hootin' and a-hollerin' coming from the inside, and Bob brings us up to speed: "We decided to basically just live it up, y'know." And you've gotta give all parties credit for leaving this footage in, because this scene is hilarious in such a cliché frat-party way I'm expecting Belushi to wander into the room in a toga and incite someone to naughty behavior with his scandalous mid-'70s use of the word "tits." That Keanu-ish guy who once sang really loudly with his car window open as he drove on the Interstate loop around the outskirts of Nashville finally treats us to a bit of the old pickin' and strummin'. Jamie jams behind him in an exaggerated air guitar so incorrectly postured that he may have accidentally lapsed into jamming on the air lute. Jack, meanwhile, is a stumbling mess, his wasted ramblings far more innocent than others whose alcohol consumption habits, say, make them prone to hooking up with Russ. The scene culminates with the rest of the guys carrying his bed out on the front lawn while he's completely passed out, and Brian H. observes from the couch, "I really hope Jack gets offered a rose at the ceremony. But his chances don't look good, considering he's on the front lawn" before giggling helplessly and practically pitching himself off the couch and onto the floor. Oh, just make out already, all of you. But still. Brilliant telelvision. And, Trista who?
L.A. montage! Walk of Fame! The Whiskey! The tony Hollywood Hills! Meanwhile, forty miles away and separated from L.A. by a mountain, several congressional voting districts, and an area code, Guy's House (I guess "Mann's Chinese" was already taken, forty miles away and separated from where they are by a mountain, several congressional voting districts, and an area code) is graced by a little womanly gentility. The jiggling, hungover mess of a prize stumbles out of a giant coach bus and through the front door, Bob noting in an interview, "I thought it was Journey pulling up, so I was fired up." Heh. "But then I was obviously even more fired up when it was Trista." Boo hoo, Bob. You had me again and then you lost me. Again. And you know who doesn't need any more kicks while they're down? Journey. On the bus now, Trista reminds us where we're going and who we're going with, as Bob interviews, "I don't think Trista needs to know what went on last night. Y'know, I'm not gonna bring it up unless Jack gives me the go-ahead. That's his story to tell." Cleverly edited back onto the bus, however, Bob does justice to the verb infinitive "to sell one up the river" when he casually asks Trista, "Did you hear about what happened with Jack last night?" Wanting to hear more, Trista pulls the string on the "Frat Party Talking Ken Doll" she brought with her on the trip, and Jamie stands at the front of the bus announcing, "We pick up his bed, put it outside, and..." before the string runs out and Jamie collapses into two, returning to his resting state. Gyp! Trista momentarily wishes she had instead gone with the Commemorative Basketball Jamie Bobble-Head Doll, but remembers that the shipping costs from the Eastern Bloc nation called "Disputed Zone" in which Jamie made his professional basketball career would be prohibitively expensive, and she just didn't have that kind of devalued litai lying around. So the current Jamie 1.0 model will have to do. Anyway, Trista responds in an overly-edited manner, tut-tutting such boyish hijinks with a roll of the eyes and a judgmental cluck of the very tongue that spent the identical period of time last night so far down a perfect stranger's throat she accidentally fished out an old boot. Jamie notes in an interview that he thinks Jack's antics "put the nail in the coffin with Trista." And it was kind of the producers to hastily splice together a shred of evidence that Trista's riddance of the token minority was entirely racially blind, but you just can just see the conflict in her eyes that leads her to quietly ask herself, "I don't want to give Jack a whole rose. Can I maybe compromise and give him three-fifths of one?"
Self-deprecating Bob builds hotels on the Boardwalk and Park Place of conversation, cracking Trista up with his observation that all of the other bachelors are a bit more, um, evolved physically than he is. The rest of the guys laugh because they just don't have any other choice, and Trista tells us in interview, "I think that I would rather be with a person who makes me laugh than a person who is good at lifting weights." More clips of the bus rolling in laughter at every pearl of hilarity that escapes Bob's lips, Ryan particularly amused at his every word and guffawing uproariously because it's a form of poetry to him that "har" rhymes with "dee har har." Brian C. notes in an interview that he's "more reserved" (read: less funny) than Bob, and "if she happens to like the more reserved guy, I guess I have a better chance." Trista accidentally glances once in Brian C.'s general direction and sees an empty black suit with a roseless lapel where a twenty-eight-year-old mortgage broker from Dallas once sat. He's disappearing from her radar like Marty's siblings from the family photograph during the Back to the Future thunderstorm sequence. You have a Brian's chance in hell, Brian, is the kind of chance you have.
And, drinking again. If any of y'all didn't become acquainted with the expression "The Shampoo Effect" while you were in college, you're watching it now in its manifold glory. The bus pulls up to the spa in Palm Springs, and it appears from a quick shot of the hotel's front that ABC has put the guys up at a La Quinta. Okay, someone needs to tell the production staff of this show that they're not allowed to book the group dates through Priceline anymore. Out by the pool, a splashy banner affixed to a shoddy vinyl tablecloth hanging from a cheap card table reads, "Trista's Spa & Pool Party." Everyone coos in banner appreciation. Well, if you like the work you see before you, you won't believe the added features of the brand-new Print Shop Companion. And it's compatible with both Commodore 64 and 128 interfaces. Trista notes that she's looking forward to "spending time with Ryan" and seeing if "his really sensitive side" is accompanied by "even more facets to his personality." Oh, there's no question in my mind. Inside the house now, Rhymin' and Trista sit at a table, Trista gesturing emphatically with her one free hand. Poor, compromised Trista. Let us mourn the tragic tale of Edward Drinkyhands, whose hands were made of sixteen-ounce plastic cups filled with judgment-altering gins and rums and tonics and small, festive umbrellas. With such useless appendages, how is she ever supposed to find true love? Nevertheless, she fields questions from Rhymin', who asks first off, "So, are you ready to be married?" Why, has the rich butcher Lazar Wolf asked for her hand and offered a dowry? So stiff and formal, he is. Trista reminds us all again that she has "traditional values," and that she knows "who [she is] as a person" now and what she wants out of life. Ryan cranks the dial to "existential," volleying back, "What do you want out of life?" If Trista's answer to that question is, "What I want out of life more than anything is to spend it with a live-action version of the book If," Ryan is clearly a sure bet for the rose. He tells us in an interview taped that day, "Every time I spend time with Trista -- especially the alone times -- my feelings sort of take another step." Awwww. Then they walk out of the room and through a courtyard in which they see three weddings taking place. Trista takes it as a sign that someone was saying, "Okay, he's the one." He's not the one. And thus comes to an end the tale of Edward Drinkyhands. Whatever. That book sucked unless you were on a car trip anyway.
Chez Guy. Another brave videocassette has completed its journey to the Valley and collapsed naked at the front door ("Pamie on Beat the Geeks" is scratched off the side of this one) waiting to be clothed and fed. Brian H. (leave off the last "H" for "Hoo"?) kicks it into the VCR, and we are greeted by the GamsCam shot from last week's opening montage. The guys actually hoot in appreciation, Russ stuffing a few spare hundreds into the VCRs tape slot and asking if it's free for dinner at, say, "Twelve, twelve, twelve." He'll hit on anything. Trista flirts, "By my outfit, you can probably tell what we're gonna be doing tomorrow." Oh, fun! We're going to Modells! Or, we're going to a photo shoot for the Monster Truck Rally Magazine swimsuit issue. Either way, Gnarly's sentence is the most disgusting one ever spoken in the history of post-Babel linguistic development: "All of a sudden, you see that little silhouette between her legs, and you're like, 'Whoa!'" Oh, is that what we were all like? The remaining burn-off -- Jeff, Brian H., Charlie, Mike, and Greg -- are invited to "a day with the Chargers." Jeff also purports to speak for the totality of all human existence, letting us know, "That's everybody's dream, y'know? Go to a football game with a hot chick!" That is. Everybody's dream. Even Gandhi? Yes. His dream too.
Meanwhile, back at La Quinta (Spanish for "Sloppy Thirds" on the great Group Date Hierarchy,) Trista joins the guys in a hot tub, and as they toast the continuing unconstitutionality of the Eighteenth Amendment, we learn, "Trista basically said she was going to let us make the decision of who was going to get a massage with her." Bob ups the maturity ante: "We decided to square off in a little Rocks/Paper/Scissors." Ah. Just like the menfolk did to prove their valor and bravery in Olden Times. A fabled recreation of how the Europeans won Manhattan Island from the ignorant Indians (though historians note the game was, back then, known to New Amsterdam's residents as "Rocks/Unrefined Papyrus/Business End Of A White Man's Musket") ensues, with Jamie and Bob emerging as the two finalists. Jamie takes the prize (it so sucks we don't get to see what won), and Bob notes in an interview, "I gotta tell you, I know he cheated." You don't think he's funny? C'mon! The guy's funny! That is funny. Jamie notes in an interview the importance of having "alone time with Trista" and his strategy of "creating intimacy" by talking to her one on one. Oh, and naked. Cut to inside the La Quinta massage room, where Trista and Jamie lie on their stomachs, covered from the waist down, as two massage therapists tend to each of them, hiding their faces from the camera and thinking, "I may be shaming my whole profession right now, but at least I don't have to touch Bob Hope's wrinkly ass for one day out of the year. God, I hate Palm Springs." Trista touches on what Jamie decided last week the two of them have "in common" and asks about Jamie's illustrious basketball career. Jamie explains, "I only played for two or three months, in Sweden." This story gets more and more bizarre with each factually suspect iteration. In an interview, we learn that...wait, who the hell is that? Trista, looking about fourteen, is wearing a pink t-shirt thing and her hair is stick straight and she generally looks like she's joined the Witness Protection Program on a corporate underwriting grant from the fine folks at Laura Ashley LLC. She tells us that she doesn't doubt Jamie's intentions in being there because he passed up the opportunity to "go to Germany and play basketball." Jamie admits that during the massage he was "nervous," and we cut to the two of them hosing off afterwards in a shower, Jamie thinking "dead rats, dead rats" because he "didn't want to get too excited." He thinks he could have made a move, but Trista heads him off at the interview, noting that things between them sometimes seem "forced." But Trista notes at the end of the night that the five guys have forced her to reassess her feelings for the night's guys: "The feelings I was having for Russ are looking superficial to me right now." Good! Right! Use that! Just do not look him in the eye. Or all will be lost. "Dead rats"?
Ten pissed-off football lovers stand forlornly at the doorway of The Dude Ranch watching Jeff, Brian H., Charlie, Mike, and Greg trying to tell each other apart as they leave with Trista for San Diego. This time we're in a southbound Winnebago of some kind, Gnarly Charlie telling us as an aside, "She's a beautiful girl. Very petite figure. Once she showed up, I think everybody's energy level spiked." And, for those of you with access to our site's forums, I concur that it was impossible to distinguish whether he said "showed up" or "shut up." Something tells me at this early stage that a physical presence and a verbal absence are of equal import to Charlie when it comes to dating, so let's just call it a push and move on, okay? But what I will say, in his defense, is that the all-important "location location location" strategy that the Vegas guys insisted gave Russ the edge has absolutely no bearing here, as Charlie sits at Trista's opposite exterior angle and co-opts the conversation entirely. Meanwhile, the plum spot to Trista is occupied by Jeff, who sits silently several inches outside the valence of her personal space, staring longingly and unceasingly into a drink featuring an emasculating stalk of celery and thinking, "Trista won't look at me, so I'm cheating on her with this roughage." You show her, big guy. Charlie regales Trista with a story beginning "My dad shot me with a twelve-gauge," and I wonder briefly if he's recounting a personal anecdote or assuming the first-person voice to act out a short play he's written about the life and death of Marvin Gaye, 'cause you know how much Trista likes those artsy types. They laugh about the possibility that Charlie could set off an airport metal detector because of a spike or plate or something in his arm, and Jeff attempts to hitch onto the back end of the laugh by making a beeping, metal detector-y sound because...well, look what a chick magnet that funny sound-effects guy in Police Academy IV was. That's totally Jeff's favorite movie of all time. Though I hear from the gossip rags that Roughage prefers the follow-up Citizens on Patrol effort. But really, what relationship is perfect? Hey, onomatopoeia dude? What's the sound of one Jeff losing?
Or, not! Suddenly, a box of nails just coincidentally purchased at The Mike Fleiss Conveniently Plot-Enhancing Hardware Emporium spills itself all over I-405, right in front of the Winnebago! The vehicle shudders and stops, and the guys are informed that they have a flat. Trista responds calmly because of the part where she knew all along that this was coming. Charlie muses that one of them had to be "the chivalrous one" and "save the day." But an old war injury that ended his "What's Going On" days will preclude him from playing hero, and in seconds Jeff looks at the shredded tire and reenters the Man Van, his shirt uncontextually off ("Oh, look. Matthew's naked in the office again") and his pecs glinting, asking, "Is the jack in here?" That Keanu Nashville guy (y'all, "Keanu Nashville" is totally my porn name) turns to him and "jokes," "Let's see, I've got Beam, I'm got vodka, I'm outta Jack." Trista howls with laughter, and Keanu Nashville leans in toward her, all, "We are currently sharing in a moment of my endless hilarity." Keanu Nashville is clearly up to Step Nine in his alcohol-abuse recovery program, where he apologizes to everyone he knows for how that joke has hurt them individually. Trista, for her part, didn't even hear him, and we discover that the source of her amusement is naked Jeff, the sight of whom causes her to burst out laughing and howl, "You have your shirt off! I didn't even realize that." She didn't? Is this a visual affliction Keanu Nashville would term, in his pun-filled hilarity, "Pecs-Ray Vision"? I hope so. Because it certainly would keep me from having to make that joke myself. Anyway, Jeff fixes the tire and notes, "Chop chop, guys, we gotta get to the game." Someone should have told him he was two mere "chops" away from a rose-free night at Guy's House.
To San Diego we go, now, to a "Let's go to the videotape" collection of video clips of actual, non-Swedish athletes engaging in legitimate sport. I hum a few bars of the Sportscenter theme, which I discover quickly is actually the Baseball Tonight theme, and stuff my useless Y-chromosome back into its genetic hiding place so I can go back to making fun of Trista's outfits without being unduly distracted by her cleavage. She shows up on the big TV screen and the fans go wild. She sits in the Bachelorette Box with Greg, who is telling her that he wants to play her "the blues song [he] wrote for [her]." Trista responds -- with the unbridled enthusiasm one might bring to bear in offering that response to the kid your girlfriend babysits for telling you she wants to read you a poem she's written about trees -- that she really wants to hear it. Greg notes in an interview that he hopes to get a rose and "continue the relationship" they've started. Then they go on the field and meet some players. Drew Brees admits to watching The Bachelor. On the way back, Trista spends some alone time with Charlie in the back of the Man Van and tells him she was most attracted to him straightaway. And you've got to give him credit, he gives her some space when she asks for it and gets out of her way. In contrast, back in Encino, Russ cleverly purchases a Tiffany Crisper and steals from Jeff the only roughage who he'd ever really loved.
Back at The Man-na From Heaven, Trista confides, "This decision is much harder than I imagined it would be." Greg misjudges things terribly with the sentiment that "everybody really does want the rose," and we cut to a series of datelettes several seconds in length, all of which are helpfully designed to help Trista with the decision of whom she's going to spend the rest of her life with:
Jeff wants to know if his age is a factor. (He's twenty-five.) Trista tells him, "You're basically the perfect guy. You're intelligent. You're funny. You're got a great, beautiful look about you." You nimbly operate that giant Q-tip thing to knock Jazz and the other gladiators right off of the high beam on '80s Fox late night. Just perfect enough to pass over. Ain't that always the way with perfection?
Brian H. couldn't seem less interested. He tells us in an interview I'm pretty sure takes place after the rose ceremony that he thinks they "didn't have a lot of chemistry." For instance, his high levels of the periodic chart element known on this show as "Brianium" was way too high. Go home, Bush Leaguer.
Brian S. "can't tell which guys have an advantage." Let me narrow it down for you. If you can see a guy near you without the help of a reflective aid such as a mirror or a spoon, he has a better chance than you do.
Rhymin' thinks that "everyone has this hope to end up with Trista," and they sit together on the couch as Trista tells him more about his "layers." He tells us that it's easy for him to talk to her, and that he could potentially fall in love with her. Sing it with me if you know the words: Awwwwwww.
RusSatan inspires no such warm fuzzies, but his going home empty-handed tonight is still as likely a prospect as a snowball's chance in the town where he makes his home. The town of Hell. He whispers creepily to Trista that he "doesn't want to be cocky," but that he feels like "it's there." Trista tells him that she knows that alcohol was involved, but that he can't be so aggressive. Sing it with me if you know the words: Gaaaaaaaaah.
A quick quorum outside finds Rob, Brook, Bob (hey, those Bachelorette collector's cards are a really helpful study aid! And the gum is so tasty!) and (oh, crap) some guy named maybe Brian asking what they think everyone's chances will be tonight. Brook notes that his fate reminds him of his favorite song, "Happy Trails." Oh, clearly everyone knows that your favorite song is "Friends in Low Places." And judging by what happens , Brook certainly could have copped to it, since the ensuing sequence certainly shows him (a) blaming it all on his roots (b) showing up in boots and (c) ruining Trista's black-tie affair. He tells us, "I found out that Trista was allergic to most animals. I feel like I have more strikes right now than a baseball game against me." My Y-chromosome comes running into the room, Baseball Tonight theme at the ready, but really, it's too late now. Sitting down at a table inside together, Trista laughingly tries to tell Brook, "My biggest concern with you was the horse thing." But you can see the days of pent-up ignored-in-Vegas rage looking for an outlet, and clearly Brook has already decided that he's going to be passed over. So people, he lays into her: "You're telling me the consideration is horses. That's shallow." Trista asks him to put himself in her shoes, and defends herself that she needs to find somebody "most compatible to me," and Brook can only respond, "That's your choice." Unless he literally did put himself in her shoes, which would allow him to stuff Trista in a closet and pass himself off as her for the remaining four weeks of this show. Back downstairs, Bob cracks Trista up again in that I-can't-wait- to-call-Bob-up- and-tell-him- all-about-how- things-are-going- with-whatever- guy-I-pick- instead-of-him kind of way we've come to love so much. But just then, My Guardian Game Show Host comes halfway down the steps (oh, look! This show has a host now!) and clangs hard on his champagne flute (heh. "Clangs hard on his champagne flute" is what Chris does whenever he thinks of Trista, if you know what I mean and I think you do) to the point of nearly shattering it. He tells the rest of the guys, "Gentlemen, I need to borrow Trista for a moment." Many of them wave goodbye to her back as she walks up the stairs and out of their steely male gaze.
Upstairs, Chris bids Trista to "have a seat," telling her she doesn't seem like her normal, "jovial" self. He again asserts his all-men-are- bad-if-those- men-are-not- named-me platform, reminding her that "Brook called you out on the carpet." Trista tells us that she wants to be with someone forever, and laments without a trace of irony that it would be hard to be allergic to horses "when I'm thinking of dating a cowboy." It's true. That makes sense, and is not shallow. Keeping Russ in the dating mix because it would be easy to be allergic to poverty when she's thinking of dating a guy who likes bribery? Shallow. This? This right here is just good business. Chris asks if she still believes that the man of her dreams is in the house, and she begins to tear up all over again and nods. She repeats that all of the guys are amazing, and says she can picture being with them "in a restaurant or laying on the couch on a Sunday watching football." Watching football on a Sunday? Seriously, ABC...was Trista engineered in a lab based on market research data about what straight guys like to hear women say? If any company would be capable of making an organically believable Trista Bot, it would definitely be the dreammakers over at Disney. ["They prefer to be called 'imagineers.'" -- Wing Chun] Chris rips Trista back to the present, leaving her to watch some "video messages" and telling her she needs to narrow the pool down to eight people tonight:
Brook offers to give up his horses, move to the city, and stay away from horse manure. Bob thanks her for the boutonniere he has not yet received. Jack is toast. Ditto Mike, and several of the Brians. Russ holds the rose Trista pinned on him last time, a move so overtly stalkerish and creepy he practically promises her that if she picks him, he'll let her put the lotion in the basket all by herself. Jamie sends his message via satellite linkup from a country with an -istan suffix and no running water. Must be game night! Rob sincerely enjoyed talking to Trista "and hearing the answers to some of the really important questions that I had for you." Greg again promises to play her a song he wrote for her. That'd better be some song. Jeff holds up the tire he changed as a visual cue for her to be reminded of what page she's on in The Bachelorette's Guide To Obvious Elimination reading, "Figure 1-1: My comic-book physique scaring the living shit out of you." Charlie calls Trista "sweetheart" and tells her to "feel the vibration" in his Marky Mark hat. Jeff waves gaily and begs, "Pick me!" Not to be outdone by some other dude's memorable hat, there's Rhymin'! And he looks like Blossom! He recites a poem that ends with the line, "I saw you standing there" (because she was just seventeen, if you know what I mean), and Trista voices over that it's all about "finding her prince." She stands on an upstairs balcony and overlooks the pool by which all of the guys stand, knowing in her heart of hearts that no matter who stays and who goes, one thing is for certain: they're all totally, totally wasted right now.
My Guardian Game Show Host walks the roses to the side table, looks for Rorschach patterns in the carpet depicting Trista giving love to him and his long-suffering champagne flute, and finally deigns to address the guys, "Good evening." They respond in a low, growly, authority-asserting unison, clearly having all lifted their glasses and taken a shot of unrefined testosterone harvested from Jeff's seemingly endless supply. Chris reminds us that seven are on the skids tonight, and also reasserts the fact that if someone's just not in the game, he should reject the rose. Trista comes down the stairs and bids them all hello, telling them, "Tonight, I'm going with my gut." And so is Brian H., I guess, who steps out of the fold and approaches Trista before the ceremony begins, announcing, "Please don't perceive this as disrespectful...but it would be an injustice for me to stay here." And then, I think, he gives her a rose. And leaves. Now, was that a rose from another time? Did he borrow it from Russ's video and use the boutonniere pin for its best purpose yet and jam Russ's prying eyes out with it? Perhaps we shall never know. Because if she had given him a rose during this ceremony, wouldn't the best dramatic approach for the show to have been having Brian refuse it when she asks the obligatory question about accepting it? Why? Why do I even bother? Perhaps I love them all too much. Anyway, Chris comes forward to enact some extremely low-key damage control, and the whole thing is over in seconds. Backstory, please? Anyone?
Anyway, here's what happens to the people whose names we can sometimes remember:
Charlie, will you accept this rose? Fine. Just don't choose Russ, he's Satan.
Bob, will you accept this rose? Fine. Just don't choose Russ, he's Satan.
Greg, will you accept this rose? Fine. Just don't choose Russ, he's Satan.
Ryan, will you accept this rose? Fine. Just don't choose Russ, he's Satan.
Mike, will you accept this rose? WHAT? I honestly don't think she chose him the first time I watched this episode on Wednesday night. Does anyone have the time-space continuum handy so I can check that out and get back to you? Thanks. Oh, and blah Russ blah blah blee Satan.
Rob, will you accept this rose? Don't. Choose. Russ. As. He. Is. Satan.
Jamie, will you accept this rose? Diablo!
Chris steps forward because only those schooled in the subtle art of Game Show Hostery have the university-taught skill of "counting to one," telling Trista that it's "her final rose of the night." Sure nuff, professah!
Russ, will you accept this rose? As Trista pins the flower on his lapel, fire and brimstone rain down over Encino, the heavens turn black as coal, and the true, unhidden face of Our Dark Father spreads across the heavens, announcing, "Now my progeny will take human form and destroy all of humanity" before bursting into flames and taking a better part of nearby Glendale with it. The petals of Russ's rose turn black and scatter to the floor as he cocks his head back against the sky and breathes flames onto the remaining unlit candles, engulfing the hand-sewn rung in flames and causing a recently-ousted Josh to exclaim, "Finally, a single opportunity to before I disappear into television obscurity forever to note something even more flaming than I am!"
And still, no image fabricated above could compare to the disturbing sight of being able to count the individual pores on his tongue over fifty television minutes ago.
Jeff shakes Trista's hand graciously, and tells us that "that's life." Brook tells Trista to "take care," and tells us, "I don't know what she's looking for." He doesn't seem that upset, frankly. Honey, they may be through. But you'll never hear him complain. 'Cause he's got friends in low places. Where the whiskey drowns. And the beer chases. His blues away. And he'll be okay. He's not big on social graces. Think he'll step on down to the oasis. 'Cause he's got friends. In low places.
"The end result," Trista reminds us, "is for me to fall in love." The remaining guys toast Trista and Guy lays out some fresh towels.