Props and thanks to Hillary Dickulous.
We're California soundstage dreamin' on such a loser's day, as we join Chris "Okay, But I Don't Want Anyone Thinking We're Robosexuals" Harrison, standing in front of a studio audience comprised entirely of the unemployed, the financially compensated, the middle-aged, and the damned. Hoodwinked tourists from Des Moines stare suspiciously around at the studio, wondering just when the hell Sajak is going to show up already like that guy on the street told them he would, while contractually obligated former bachelorettes gleefully applaud the death of culture. "Hi," a chipper Chris tells them all, his entirely black ensemble belying his outward glee and subversively mourning the death of culture, "Welcome to The Bachelor: 'The Women Tell All.'" Welcome to Recapping The Recap Day at Television Without Pity, folks, in which I attempt to tell the story of them telling the story of this season, all without plunging off the precipice of meta-dom and falling through a recapping wormhole, ending up back in time to find myself recapping My Mother The Car for Mighty Big Dumont Network or something. What? It could happen. Well, it could. Stop looking at me like that.
Chris continues: "America embraced Bachelor Bob on his quest to find true love and the woman who could eventually become his wife." Oh, now, is that just what America did, Chris? Because from here it looked like the only people embracing Bob were the twenty-five unlucky ladies who had to go through him in an attempt to snag a correspondent position onExtra, and the only thing the home audience was hugging were our knees, while rocking back and forth in our padded rooms, foaming at the mouth while trying to formulate the sentence, "Just...make...him... stop...laughing... can't...hear...laugh...again... mmmmmrgzmsga." And I really mean it. But I mean "mmmmrgzmsga" slightly more than I mean the rest of it. Chris continues to wow us with his televisual parlor tricks, including The Feats Of Math ("Twenty-five women started and now only two remain!") and The Coif That Shall Not Budge, segueing into a brief commercial for week's two- (kill) hour (me) finale and coming to rest on the sentiment, "Tonight, we'll talk to the women who left without a rose." Known to freedom-lovers all over as "The Emancipated." Take it away, Chris: "Please welcome...our bachelorettes!" He does that sweeping, left-handed "Behind Curtain #2...Fame Whorishness!" arm swoop practiced and perfected by years of talentless TV puppets before him, as we back up through time and catch up with the rose-less and the lonely. Because it's like I told you...only the lonely can play:
“ Meredith's wearing... what is she wearing, anyway? It's a black dress, also with no shoulders, but it has sleeves. Why does it have sleeves? And a belt buckle so big and black it will kill you in your dreams. ”
The world's most inexplicable shot ever of Karin and Lindsay K. giggling ridiculously non-sequiturs us back in from commercial. You care to share with the rest of Des Moines, ladies?
"Meredith and Bob," Chris says by way of introducing The Winning Couple That Wasn't: "They hit it off immediately, but the rest of the ride wasn't so smooth." And it's true that Meredith really was the early favorite, and she even possessed each of the wedding-day requirements of something old (Nana), something new (fresh grief), something borrowed (stories about dead relatives), and something blue (again, Nana). But it wasn't to be, and ABC Networks in conjunction with Entertainment has decided that we want to know why. So, to a standing ovation, a gesture once reserved for the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team or the Beatles at Shea or any other merit-based activity that actually qualifies as, y'know, DOING STUFF, Meredith strides forth and makes her way to the Hot Seat. She's wearing...what is she wearing, anyway? It's a black dress, also with no shoulders, but it has sleeves. Why does it have sleeves? And a belt buckle so big and black it will kill you in your dreams.
Chris reminds Meredith that we were all right there with her when she found out about the death of her poor, overexposed grandmother. And what better way to raise the dead than through television's sance substitute of...the solemnly-scored montage. Meredith meets Bob. Meredith feels comfortable with Bob. Meredith is voted most compatible with Bob. Meredith gets a one-on-one date, but Meredith's mom calls an hour before her date with "a little bit of bad news." What's wrong, mom? "Um, Nannie passed away." No starting sentences with "um," Mom! It's rude on the forums and doesn't pay sufficient homage to Nana (or "Nannie," as The Past seems so intent on calling her). And yet, she still goes on the date, during which Bob actually notes, "It kills me." Because (1) this tragedy is totally about him, and (2) there's never been a better time for the colloquial evocation of death. Bob tells Meredith, "Tonight caught me way off-guard. So I hope you're okay." So, again I'll point out, he's basically saying, "I am not emotionally equipped to deal with this grieving human shell of a girl I just wanted to make out with." Nana really did pull the attention away from Bob, and I don't think he was entirely okay with that. Nevertheless, Bob had to be sweating before this episode aired, thinking he was going to come off as callous and clueless and he doubtlessly felt. I still can't believe they let him off so easily. Oh, then Meredith takes Bob to Nana's gravesite (yet another "something new," perhaps?) and gets booted for her gooey, humanist take on gooey humanity.