Props to Wing and Sars.
The kicky, strummy, acoustic, just-hanging-around- my-SoCal-manse- with-my-man- and-also-fourteen- other-girls-who- think-he's-their- man-too-oh- and-also-there's- a-host-to- streamline-the- proceedings-and- also-incidentally- ten-camera-crews strains of "The Bachelor Theme Rag" kick it up on the soundtrack early this week. Man, I love it when they go acoustic. I think Fat Amy covered this song when they were on Unplugged in the Featuring Musicians Of Questionable Repute Who Should've Stuck To Entertaining Us In The Way We Were Already Used To edition, right after a solemn rendition of Eddie Murphy's "(My Girl Wants to) Party all the Time" and "Let's Go Mets," the 1986 team theme song, sung by...the New York Mets! And you know, you may once have thought it was just a dumb stadium anthem, but there's really nothing like hearing that song acoustic to bring out its full chordal texture.
Can you tell yet that nothing happened this week? I'm going on strike until they bring back Amber from last season and make her stumble around the mansion like she's doped up or dying or something.
We join the action in progress, Chris "Steven Again- With-The-Same- Exact-Spiel-Berg" Harrison standing in the living room, practicing for his Model Congress finals to no one in particular: "Ladies, welcome." Thanks, Chris. But I'm actually a guy, which sometimes comes up as a matter of debate around here, so thanks for clouding the issue even further. "As you've probably noticed, unfortunately, only fourteen of you moved in this morning." A smattering of panicked faces pass before the camera, none poutier and blanker than the vacant face of Lanah, who you can practically see telegraphing the message, "No wonder when I counted the girls in the living room, I finished usin' all my fingers, and then when I started with the toes, the little one didn't get to go wee wee wee all the way home!" That was a run-on way for me to call them all really dumb. And say, Chris, where is that fifteenth little piggy, anyway? "Antoinette fell seriously ill. She was rushed to the emergency room, and right now she's undergoing a battery of tests." The looks of the ladies become even more grave and concerned. Mary's eyes seem to ask, "Battery? You mean like the thing that made my last three boyfriends work?" But then, her grasp on English, not so much. Chris wishes Antoinette "a speedy recovery," and speaks for himself and for Entertainment's Please Don't Sue Us For Dying On The Show Department when he press conferences, "Hopefully, she'll be back with you very soon." In the spirit of continued competition and gamesmanship, the girls don't give a crap. Nothing like a little death to thin out the herd a little, am I right? ["If this were any other group of humans, Antoinette's removal from the scene would make them all eat cake. But I'm sure no one in this crowd has touched a carb since '99." -- Wing Chun]
“ While Antoinot takes her fantasy date to death's door, we're back at the house listening to Chris reading from the unabridged dictionary, under the tab of the letter 'Zzzzzzzz.' ”
The Grim Reaper ambles forward and presents Antoinette with a black rose, asking, "Antoinette, will you accept this rose...OF DEATH?" She's all, "Death, it's just a flesh wound. Even though I do feel like you and I have a connection." And off we go in a stock shot of an ambulance to a stock shot of a hospital exterior to the Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center. The music pumps up harder and deathier than before, as the sirens roar and the promise of the opening montage from the first episode lets us down with what actually happened barely two television hours later. Because the spoilers had her afflicted with everything from spider bites to rubella to alien soul occupation to the rage, it seems a bit anticlimactic when it's played out as it actually happened. Is a life lived not in montage really worth living? Whatever she's afflicted with, it makes not only Antoinette look pale and tragic; it also drains the pigment from all of the surrounding shots as well. The interior hospital shots of a "Look at me! I'm dying on the Bob show!" Antoinette are bleached to within an inch of the F-grade garage-sale Beta video this show is shot on. She's lying in a hospital bed as a doctor diagnoses her with a "kidney infection" at the end of a very long sentence I have to watch eleven times to suss out. In fact, when I first watched this, I had no idea what was wrong with her. Now I know what's wrong with her: she's in a hospital bed rather than in a hot tub. Antoinette voices over, "I don't want to be ten steps behind when it's the biggest days of my life and I'm sitting in a hospital. It really sucks." Gyp! I wanted weepy histrionics! Other girls making it all about them! A tear-streaked Bob at her bedside, later laying the last rose ON HER GRAVE! Bob and ashes, dust and Bob, I now pronounce you...man and death!
Anyway, none of that happened. Shut up, Antoinot. That's pronounced "an-twon-NOT," for anyone in phonetic straits.
While Antoinot takes her fantasy date to death's door, we're back at the house listening to Chris reading from the unabridged dictionary, under the tab of the letter "Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz." Onward he goes: "Be ready for some changes. Don't assume anything. For now, like always, you'll be dating in groups of five. But on at least one of these dates, five of you will leave, but only four of you will return." So those are the changes that they had to be ready for, then. And they can assume that that'll be it. And you know they're only going to have one of those dates out of the three, especially with one of the girls currently fulfilling her nubile-skin-showing quotient through a gaping hole in the back of a flimsy hospital gown. Anyway, rank looks of dingo-ate-my-baby shock and horror ricochet around the room. But it gets better. Kind of awesomely better: "So, if I show up on your date, you'll know it's an elimination date." First, I love that the expression for this date has been pre-coined for the lazy viewer's convenience: "the elimination date." Actually, seeing as it has been immediately elevated to the level of things that could one day be considered the Most! Shocking! Ever!, perhaps it should be properly capitalized to the Elimination Date. ["And if any of those bachelorettes slip up and call it the 'elimidate,' they are so booted." -- Wing Chun] Second, though, and much more importantly, I love that the tip-off that the date has gone horribly, horribly wrong is...the appearance of Chris Harrison. He's been incorporated into the narrative arc of the show as "Guy Who Makes Things Shitty." I love it, and I would actually love it more only if it happened during bad dates that I was on, i.e. "I thought was on the worst date ever, and then -- oh, you'll never even guess -- Chris Harrison just showed up out of freakin' nowhere. And he didn't even pay for his drink. And he wouldn't stop making me look at framed pictures of everyone else I'd ever gone on a date with and asking me if I felt this date was an important part of the 'journey.'" Aw, crap. Did I just write me some Bachelor fanfic?
“ Look! That sentence is even in iambic pentameter! Except with an extra two syllables at the end! Which is, like, two BETTER than Shakespeare. Let's name his classic book before it even hits the stands in November. I nominate the title One Hundred Years of Bobitude. ”
We learn that the first Date Box has already arrived, and Chris sends Kelly-Jo out to get it. Why he specifies her for the trip is anyone's guess, but I sincerely hope it's because (1) there's a bucket of acid sitting on top of the front door that will fall onto Kelly-Jo's head when she opens said door, causing the bucket to fall onto her head as she stumbles around for our amusement, at least until she completely disintegrates; or (2) the Date Box is, in fact, a flaming bag of poop. Either way, Kelly-Jo returns inside moments later carrying a yellow suitcase with black trim that she rests on The Biggest Ottoman Ever. Chris bids the women a cryptic and malevolent farewell: "Enjoy this house. Enjoy the dates. And I'll see most of you at the Rose Ceremony." Mwah ha ha ha ha ha. Chris takes off with a "so long," and the girls begin applauding. Whether it's for the thing that's square, interchangeable, and lifeless or whether it's for the suitcase is anyone's guess. But before Chris is even out the door, fourteen girls -- minus one little piggy -- are crowded around the Date Box like it's glowing with the meaning of life. One of the Lindsays (I think) snatches an envelope from the inside the box and reads off the participants of the first date: Krazy-Eyes Brooke, No Distinguishing Physical Characteristics Meredith, Karin, Antoinette, and Kelly-Jo. Hey, Mr. Producer? I don't want to freak anybody out, but Antoinette is actually...ah, never mind. Oh, and there's a handwritten note from Bob! Here's what it says: "Let's take our hearts to San Francisco for the day." No wonder they let him write a whole book. His story editors write the way people talk! There's actually an audible "aaaaaw" from the girls. It's true: if this prose is any indication, that book he wrote is going to be amazing. Look! That sentence is even in iambic pentameter! Except with an extra two syllables at the end! Which is, like, two BETTER than Shakespeare. Let's name his classic book before it even hits the stands in November. I nominate the title One Hundred Years of Bobitude.
And, in the spirit of healthy competition, girls wishing for the death of...each other. Take us there, Meredith: "Antoinette is not able to go on the date to San Francisco. I feel bad that she can't go..." Stop right there and don't say any more! "...but it gives all of us a certain point of advantage. It's one less person that we have to worry about." She doesn't realize that's tantamount to wishing someone dead, does she? Or maybe she does. I wonder in Shakespearean cadence: is Antoinette the girl who soon will die? Oh, look! This iambic pentameter thing is easier than it looks! Except I forgot the extra two beats: is Antoinette the girl who soon will die today? Sigh. If there's anything more beautiful than Shakesperean verse, it's iambic bobtameter.
Kelly Jo (didn't her name use to have a hyphen?) somehow manages to look and sound simultaneously like all of the designing women as she confessionalizes, "Bob picked us up for our date." A private jet lands in San Fran, and a first shot of Bob "Dippity Don't" Guiney ensues, as he helps the girls climb down from the plane. Wow. Nothing happened on that flight at all, people. Kelly-NoMoreHypen-Jo keeps on, "It's a dream to be with the guy that you really want to be with. Granted, there's other girls with ya, but what can you do?" I'll make a list for you later.