Props to Jerry Bruckheimer. Someone needs to love him this week, and he's currently without his favorite wubby. His security blanket. The one he calls "world domination."
Bob "'E' My Name Is Eugene" Guiney sits poolside at Chez Go Away, staring aimlessly off into his own blank, desolate, childless, overexposed, fame-in-the-sixteenth-minute future. He puts his hand over his mouth in a reasonable emotional facsimile of "Gosh, this is the all-too-human face of the conflicted soul," but I'm more inclined to believe that his hand is there as a substitute for any of the women of this show, seeing as Eugene has gone almost fourteen seconds without ramming his tongue into something and his mouth is probably starting to get bored. Wearing a red button-down we've seen him in before but the collar of which somehow seems a lot more Star Trek-villain-y than it has in fashion incarnations, Eugene stares into the camera and has secretly already booted Mary in his mind. I mean, come on. But he's willing to play along for the hour, because protracted heartbreak is for ratings and actual emotional investment is for suckers and he'll forget all about the pain he's caused, because he's got an In Touch photo shoot coming up he needs to think about, I'm sure.
Owing to the fortuitous advent of the picture tube this past week, television was just invented and so Eugene takes this opportunity to re-explain the rules the show we're in the seventh episode of the fifth season of watching: "I'm about to go on three overnight dates with three very stunning, very wonderful women." But then, what has he done about the three bachelorettes who are left on the show now, hardy har blee? Whatever, that was a cheap shot. The three women left really are pretty much fine, such as they are. It's only their "connection" with Captain James Tiberius Jerk of the U.S.S. Used To Be Fat But Now He Is Skinny that brings down their property value ever so. And, speaking of what, at this point, feels like the never-ending middle of their five-year mission (or "five-year journey," as they'd probably call it on this show), Eugene outlines for us the course they'll be charting this week: "First, I'm going to Alaska with Kelly Jo. From there, I'll go to Jackson Hole, Wyoming with Mary. And finally, to beautiful Belize in Central America with Estella." Hey, check out Globo-Bob, kickin' it with the geography! He knows where it's at! Jackson Hole in Wyoming. Belize in Central America. As opposed to the Belize in Hoboken, New Jersey and the Jackson Hole on Neptune. Maybe the publishing world should consider changing the atlas team to Rand-Guiney for Eugene's second publishing effort. And then, turning the tables, McNally could be the Bachelor! Eh, never mind. McNally actually has a huge ass. But what if -- and follow me, here -- he goes from being fat...to being skinny! I know. Radical. But I've seen it work before, somewhere.
“ Bob's black sweatshirt is unzipped and showing us the skintight blue shirt replete with stomach rolls and echoes of the manboobs that were. By the way? I'm totally writing a slim volume of extremely pretentious poetry and entitling it Echoes of the Manoobs That Were. ”
Travelogue completed and stardate logged, Eugene cops to being "nervous" about the experience of the coming week: "I'm feeling feelings for these ladies, and I know they're feeling feelings for me." Is that that song by Milhouse's dad? ["It could be. By the way, can I have the keys to the car, lover? I feel like changing wigs." -- Wing Chun] Also, honorable mention to the word "feelings," which has just charged ahead into fourth on the list of most frequently used words on this season of The Bachelor, moving up six notches ahead of former challengers "death," "dead," "father," "fairy tale," "lobster claw hand," "Cuba," and "visor," but still ranking significantly below perennial winners such as "journey," "connection," and -- sing it with me if you know the words -- "Nana." But anyway, Eugene's nervous: "It becomes more and more challenging to figure out what the right thing to do is, possibly for our future." Now he's responsible for the entire future? I join him in his previously expressed nervousness.
North, Miss Tessmacher! North! The Stock Footage Film Festival shows its culty fan fave of Private Plane Taking Off You're Supposed To Believe Eugene Is On (I loved the original, but Gus Van Sant's pointless Private Plane Taking Off You're Supposed To Believe Anne Heche Is On remake was so unnecessary and self-indulgent), and in mere montage-y moments, we're helicoptering over the icy ice of Iceland. Though they say Iceland is green and Greenland is icy, just as you park in a driveway and drive in a...holy crap, when did I become my mother's "Email forwards to drive my kids crazy" Outlook folder? Was it after I knew that Lincoln had a secretary named Kennedy and that Kennedy had a secretary named Lincoln, or before? Anyway, a slo-mo helicopter that looks like I imagine would be something ripped from the opening credits of M*A*S*H (I never watched that show growing up...it was way too brown) flies over water lapping up onto a huge shelf of ice that's either a glacier or The Fortress Of Solitude. We arrive at a skyline of what Cleveland would look like if propped up against the background of a Blue Mountain Arts card you'd send your hippie daughter on Earth Day. And there, in this distant, desolate wasteland, we find Eugene (wow, there really is no getting away from him, is there?) waiting on the aforementioned ice shelf and telling us, "We've arrived in the vast cornfields of Canada!" Just kidding. What he actually says is, "I'm in Alaska today in the middle of a glacier. I'm waiting for Kelly Jo." We stumble upon Eugene to find...wow. I'm sorry I have to be the one to say it, but that outfit is just not flattering. At all. It's a good thing we're distracted by the vast desert of blinding snow that surrounds him, or else we'd be awfully put off by the insanely mirrored, cop-in-a-'70s-porno sunglasses (hey, I can see my house in there!) and the black sweatshirt unzipped and showing us the skintight blue shirt replete with stomach rolls and echoes of the manboobs that were. By the way? I'm totally writing a slim volume of extremely pretentious poetry and entitling it Echoes of the Manoobs That Were. Please buy it. It'll be good. I promise. I'll rhyme "Nana" with "Copa Cabana."
“ KellyJo wants to know the game plan for their date. Let's see. This is Alaska, right? So: snowball fight, snowball fight, snow angels, curling competition, Coors Light commercial, snowball fight, skiing downhill with Lloyd Dobler, snowball fight, snowball fight. And then back inside for cartoons and Sunny D. ”
Eugene watches Kelly Jo copter in from the great icy beyond, waving at her during descent and confessionalizing everything they have in common: "We share a common sense of humor. We have very similar family lives." We both like soup. What he really wants to spend the day figuring out is, "How compatible are we in a relationship sense?" Oh, come off it, Barfcissus. She's you in silk panties. Of course you like being around her. But it won't last. You'll get as tired of you as we all have.
Certain problematic production decisions make us all go a little Estella's dad, as Eugene lengthily meets Kelly Jo at the still churning helicopter. They kiss (natch) hello as she climbs out of the vehicle, all the while confessionalizing that she wants this date to leave a "lasting impression." If you mean "convince Eugene that he should be yours forever," Kelly Jo, you're wrong. If you mean "leaving a bad taste in our mouths," you're right. If you mean "leaving a bad taste in your mouth, but for an entirely different reason far too gross ever to explain fully here," you're also right. Kelly Jo admits to us that she wants Eugene to be her husband, as the two of them hold hands while walking away from the chopper, into the never-setting sunset.
KellyJo wants to know the game plan for their date. Let's see. This is Alaska, right? So: snowball fight, snowball fight, snow angels, curling competition, Coors Light commercial, snowball fight, skiing downhill with Lloyd Dobler, snowball fight, snowball fight. And then back inside for cartoons and Sunny D. Or, actually, Eugene gestures toward a nearby conveniently-located dogsled, also featuring actual dogs, and tells Kelly Jo that they're going to be "taking it up the glacier." Ick. That's just not safe in this day and age, and, besides, I've read that it hurts like hell. People say I have intimacy issues, but I just think that you just need to wait until you're with someone you really trust. Anyway, they hop on and montage up the hill, Kelly Jo sitting down on the sled and Eugene standing behind her (I guess she's a pro at this whole "taking it up the glacier" thing, to hazard it in that position). The dogs run and run. Eugene seems concerned with the direction the dogs are taking them in, so he heee-lariously undertakes some hand signals like he's just come from a visit to Safety Town. Cuba Gooding Jr. got $10 million for doing what they just did. Except he got his dogs to talk, people. Meanwhile, Miss Tessmacher got herself nothing more than a pair of chapped hands and Gene Hackman making her take it up...oh, never mind.
Kelly Jo confessionalizes that the whole day has just been "fun," and that she's sure it's going to get "better and better." Uh-oh. It doesn't take much parsing to read that that's what optimists say in the middle of a bad time. The two of them wrestle in snow, and then fall down (whoops!) in what looks like a choreographed musical-theater number where people fall in love over the course of one song. ["Djb, I would gladly pay a penny for your thoughts." -- Wing Chun] Brief smacky kissing (no, really) ensues among the drifts, but before Frosty has a chance to go thumpity-thump-thump with his corncob pipe if you know what I mean and I think you do, the helicopter from the first act goes off in the third, and Eugene and Kelly Jo are interrupted by its deromanticizing roar. They seem bummed, obviously not having been briefed about the cartoons and Sunny D. that are now certain to follow.