You know, I could have sworn that I planned my vacation so that The Bachelorette would be over by the time I got back. I'll have to make sure to get that right on that for time.
But this surely is the season finale, right? Thank god. I can't wait for this show to be over. Wait, what's that say? "The Men Tell All"? Oh, god. Oh, GOD. What do you suppose the over/under is for how many times Jillian says "him and I" tonight? It's gotta be around 200.
Chris Harrison comes out to raucous applause and says this is a "special edition" of The Men Tell All. He talks about the "vivacious" Jillian and all the shocking twists and turns the story has taken. He mentions "the country singer," which draws some boos from the audience, this crowd who normally applauds everything.
So then we go right to a canned interview with Jillian in which it looks like she's going to rehash the entire season. They talk about Tanner P, and Jillian claims to have known about the foot fetish right away, and says she didn't care. "I adore him, and I will fight for him to the bitter end," she says. Given that she booted him off the show weeks ago, what does that even mean?
Then we revisit drunk, rageaholic David, and Jillian says he was really disrespectful and she hopes he sees that and learns from it. I'll start holding my breath now. She says she's almost thirty and has seen a lot of behavior like that in her life, like maybe Jillian's love life is even sadder than we thought.
And then she babbles about Ed leaving, and then coming back, and how she couldn't focus on him, and part of her wanted to reject him, but she just wanted to curl up on his lap and kiss him. She says she knew she should have "made it harder" on him, and there is so much about her relationship with Ed so far that should have been harder, if you know what I mean, and I think that you do.
Oh, and Kiptyn won a big piece of her heart after the rope date, which was lucky, given that he was in the final three at the time.
Chris asks her why Wes stayed around so long, and asks what she saw in him that no one else did. She makes herself like an idiot when she babbles about how she always loves the country singer with tattoos who sits around the fire and drinks beer. "There were so many red flags," says Chris, who acknowledges that the audience got to see more than she did. "I fell for his song, OK? I'm sorry," she says. You really should be, given such a corny cliche-ridden song it is. She mentions how she always wanted to marry the "honky-tonk" singer, like I don't think I know anyone who has ever used the word "honky-tonk" ever.
And then she is crying about letting Reid go last week, and she says it was the "hardest let-go" she's ever had to do.
After a commercial break, Harrison tells us there's a lot we didn't "get" to see, and I think he means a lot we didn't "have" to see. Like during the Harlem Globetrotters date, in which "Special K" gave her some relationship advice. He points out that Kiptyn "cheated" during the game, which means he might cheat on her. Cheating? Um, you're a Harlem Globetrotter. Does Kiptyn supposedly cheating mean he didn't pull someone's shorts down during the game? Special K says Mark (who he calls the pizza guy) isn't a team player, and Jillian should see if Mike will cut his hair for her. Man, this is awesome that we're getting to see this stuff about guys that Jillian booted weeks ago. Special K calls Juan a good guy, but the competition is about eliminating guys, and Juan invited the Globetrotters back to the house. Then Special K calls David a "good guy," and I think we've had just about enough of the character assessment from Mr. Harlem Globetrotter.
Harrison tells Jillian that his favorite "non-sober" moment was when Jillian ran into Ed and wanted to talk to him and it didn't go so well, and then we see a clip of Jillian babbling at Ed's face about feelings and whatnot, and Ed slowly slurring that this is "a lot of words" that she's throwing at him. And then he is denying that he's drunk, even though he clearly is, and he gives her a big hug and lifts her up such that she's worried about her short dress riding up and, I guess, necessitating some cooter pixelation. I wonder if David is watching this, confused because Ed is drunk and manages not to suggest that Jillian haul her tits out.
Then there is a snowball fight that I think is supposed to seem playful, and Jillian says Mark threw a snowball that "literally" knocked her on her ass, when what we see is Mark pegging her and then later Jillian just falling on her ass on her own, and the boringness is threatening to overwhelm me.
So what else do we have? Harrison says saying goodbye to Robby was especially awkward, because of the way it took place on the train. Harrison says what happened was the train missed the stop. Jillian tells us the train went backwards. Chris inanely says that it's not easy to back up a train because it's not like backing up a car. I would think that backing up a train is many times easier than backing up a car because IT'S ON A TRACK after all. But anyway, somehow this had Jillian ready to have an "emotional breakdown" because the whole thing took an hour and a half.
Clips of Jillian and Reid hula dancing in Maui. Reid is ridiculously awful. Jillian said it was cute because at least he was trying. He looks much like the Humping Robot on Robot Chicken, actually. Then we learn about Kiptyn's charity which is "Stand Up for Kids" and hopefully prepares them for life by giving them all the skills necessary to avoid winding up on a show like The Bachelorette. She says it was remarkably to see how important Kiptyn was to these kids and it made her fall for him a little bit more.
Oh, god, we're going to commercial break and then friggin Jason and Molly are going to be on to tell us how awesome and happy they are, although I assume it's more about trying to make the two of them seem less selfish, and make ABC seem less of a lurid relationship-destroying soulless network. Good luck with that!
First we have to suffer through a brief reminder of the whole mess, which Harrison says it shocked television viewers around the globe. Then Jason and Molly come out, and all the life-needing members of the audience clap. Harrison asks what the immediate aftermath was like. "How much time do you have?" asks Molly. I'd say somewhat less than fifteen minutes, Molly. She talks about how tough it was to be "ripped to shreds" in the tabloids and on the Internet. "It was definitely tough on me," says Molly. Not "us"? Jason says he didn't think there would be such a backlash, but if that was his only chance to be with Molly, he'd do it again. See, but that's the thing. Dumping Melissa on the show like that was not your "only chance" to be with Molly, you moron. You self-absorbed, narcissistic moron. Molly says her family has been amazing, and they have each other, and Jason calls them the "M and M" team, or maybe it was actually the "Eminem" team, but probably not.
We watch some video of Jason asking Molly if he could have her back. Oh, and Molly is a brunette now, presumably so there's less chance of her getting pelted with rocks when she walks down the street. There is much footage of the happy couple fooling around, as if anyone actually gives a shit. I feel ill just watching this. Molly says she's still in Milwaukee, but they get to see each other every other weekend, and "for sure" there's going to be a wedding, although neither of them says there's an actual proposal. And Jason's started up some website that's a resource for single parents or something, and then Jason says they're stronger for having gone through what they've gone through, and Molly says that since Melissa is doing great and she's happy (but notably absent from this little love-in, it's worth pointing out), and the two of them are happy, she's surprised that people are still upset about it. Well, how about you resist the urge to put your phony selves back on television one more time and get on with your lives and plan your "for sure" wedding? "If people had to point their fingers at me and it caused happiness in the end? I'll take the blame," says Jason, self-righteously. What an asshole. Listen, Jason (and this is true of breakups in general): if Melissa is happy now, it's not because you dumped her. It's despite you dumping her (on national television, remember).
Afterwards, out come Matthew, Sasha, Mike Steinberg, Tanner P, Michael Stagliano, Tanner F, Mark, David, Brian, Robby, Juan, Jesse (big cheer) and Jake (big cheer). Harrison tells us Reid had a prior engagement and couldn't be here. As for Wes? We can probably figure out why Wes isn't here, Harrison says. Maybe Wes is actually smarter than the rest of these guys, who should really move on.
Harrison asks Tanner P what it was like in the house. "Dude, guys are absolutely disgusting," he says. They sneeze and fart and don't take care of their feet, he says. And then Tanner F says that whenever he introduces himself to someone, they ask, "Are you the foot guy?" Mike Stagliano says he underestimated how much fun it was, and he underestimated how much he liked Jillian. The audience goes "awww." Mike says he fell hard for Jillian. Jake calls Jillian a "dollface."
Then we watch a montage of clips of the guys competing for Jillian's affections. Jake gets called the most uptight guy in the house. Robby always had the first beer, we're told. A concerned-looking Jake says he doesn't think Jillian knows how much Robby drinks.
We watch a rehash of the Wes thing, Ed calling him a "country-singing turd," Tanner P hinting at a guy with a girlfriend, and Jake complaining that Tanner didn't go far enough down that road. Tanner calls David an "awful human" and we see David in the studio with a big grin over that. Then we revisit Juan-David, including, awesomely, David telling him to "stop being a cheese-ass" and also telling us that Juan should "drown himself."
"It's like a buffet for a host. Where do I start?" says Harrison, who then boringly goes to Jake to ask if he was surprised about what was said, and Jake is all, "What, about being a nice guy?" and somehow thinks he was called "perfect," which really calls into question what he said about how his old girlfriends complained about him being too perfect. And Tanner F has to be the one to point out, "Uh, no one said 'perfect.'" And Jesse says America got a different impression of him than they did, because he came off as phony when he says things like he would die to make Jillian's dreams come true. And then Mark tells him that an airline pilot can't possibly be the black sheep of the family, and then something about how he took a long time to untuck his shirt during a rose ceremony, and that he should watch an R-rated movie so he can come on to the same level as the rest of them, and then he does call Jake "too perfect." And then Tanner F accuses him of "pulling a Mesnick," which is leaning over a railing and crying. Hee! Mesnick himself is a ten on the Mesnick scale, Tanner tells us, and Jake's right there with him.
And then Sasha launches into a diatribe about Jake being really canned and sounding like a soap opera character when he talks about other girlfriends looking for something to fix in him and freaking out when they can't find anything, and he earns a sixty-percent good-natured "fuck you, Sasha," from Jake, adding, "How perfect is that?" And the audience seems at first to be confused about whether they should be applauding this or not. Answer: you should not be applauding. You should be covering your faces in shame for being there. Michael Stag then stands up for Jake by pointing out that Jake doesn't ever have a bad word to say about anything, and that's really boring so that must be why we're going to a commercial break now.
So David, your thoughts on Juan? "I always felt he was being fake in front of the camera and Jillian," he says, adding that he didn't hang out with the guys, but when the cameras were around he would change into his jeans and grab a beer and then start hanging out. And then David says "man code," and Harrison asks about the man code which David ironically calls an "unspoken" code of conduct that involves not sleeping with a friend's ex-girlfriend. What does that have to do with Juan? Thank god Harrison points out that the show itself is a violation of the man code, then, "because you're all fishing in the same pool." And then David talks about being from different part of the country.
Harrison asks Juan about it, and he says his man code is about being a gentleman, which doesn't include getting drunk and being belligerent and tugging at Jillian. Mike Steinberg sticks up for Juan by pointing out that all the rest of them were jocks who hung out in frat-houses and whatever, and Juan didn't. And then the drinking thing comes up again, the whole faking of the shot, and the guys seem to think that Juan should have just said he wasn't a big drinker. Juan says he drank half of the shot in question (David rolls his eyes), but didn't want to get all sloppy drunk. And one of the dudes is all, "then just explain that!" and Harrison, who is being mostly awesome tonight, exasperatedly says, "Why would he have to explain it? Who gives a crap?"
Robby says he was the only one who stood by David when he called Juan out, like that's something to be proud of, and he says all the other guys talked crap about Juan but are saying nice things about him now, which I don't imagine is actually true, and it goes on for a long time, and Harrison points out that David threatened violence. David says when he says he wants to beat someone's ass, that doesn't mean he actually wants to kill him or anything. Well, that's a relief. Juan says he was prepared to come on the show, prepared to try to win Jillian's heart, but he wasn't prepared to have some of the guys focus on him so much in a negative way.
And just when you think we're done with the man code nonsense, Harrison unfortunately asks David if anyone else broke the man code, and David says Tanner P did for telling Jillian that someone had a girlfriend. He didn't expect that from Tanner. Juan says, "You thought it was me," but David says he actually thought it was Jake.
Tanner babbles on about Wes revealing to him that he's got a girl back home, and David thought that Wes meant he had an ex-girlfriend back home, and David does point out that Tanner wussed out by not identifying who it was who had the girlfriend (but wouldn't that have violated your precious man code even more) and also by not immediately stepping up and confessing to being the one who told Jillian (Tanner agrees), and Robby whines again about how it cost him one-on-one time with Jillian, and says Tanner should just have outed Wes and saved them all a lot of trouble.
And then Jake panders to the audience by complaining about all the alpha-male banter: "Where's Jillian in all this?" What does that mean? He's like Mrs. Lovejoy wailing, "Won't someone please think of the children!" Oh, he's so perfect.
So after the commercial break, David goes up to sit in the hot seat across from Harrison, who shows him a montage that goes from him winning the first impression rose, being all tongue-tied, to being drunk and gross. And he agrees with Jillian's assessment that he was "too raw" without understanding that Jillian is just reluctant to call him a "raging douchebag" and then he denies that he made Jillian "very uncomfortable," and Harrison's all "she used the words 'very uncomfortable'" and then he says that after a month he figures it's OK to compliment a woman's ass, and the audience is all "nooooo" and he can't believe they don't like it when a man says "nice ass" to them, and eventually he concedes that just maybe he went about it the wrong way. Harrison asks him where in the "man code" is the "respect for women," and David says a whole lot of nothing. I think he's genuinely puzzled. He seems to think, "Respect? I told her she had a nice ass! That's the most respectful thing you can say!" And the rest of the guys don't buy his explanation that it was because he was cooped up with a bunch of guys. Harrison says if Jillian comes out and tells him he made her really uncomfortable, what would he say. David says he'd say he's incredibly sorry, and that he'd never do that (except for the part where he did, I suppose).
So what else are we rehashing? Jake, the pilot with Southern charm and perfect smile. He goes and sits to Harrison, and the women cheer, and I hate to tell them that he's not going to be marrying them either, and we watch a Jake montage with an overload of smarminess, e.g. "What do you say to an angel?" How do you hold her close to where you are? The word "perfect" is said many times, by Jillian and Jake. We watch the rose ceremony rejection, and then the triumphant return of Jake the protector, out to save the innocent Jillian from being caught in a lie. The recap goes on forever. And we watch him "pulling a Mesnick." Thanks, Tanner F!
Jake tells Harrison that he was falling in love with Jillian, and says his first impression of her was that he was excited she was the bachelorette, and she was here "for the right reason." Oh, shut up, Jake. So where did it all go wrong? The boat in Vancouver, says Jake, who says all of sudden things seemed cold and awkward. Harrison asks if he thought about telling Jillian about Wes when he was let go in Banff. Jake says he thought about in the days after the rejection, and tells us he was having trouble sleeping at night, because he knew Jillian lost her job to be on the show, and was looking for love, and Wes was "getting in the way of that." So he called a producer. Harrison asks if he ever worried about crossing the man code line. "Hell no. I would do it all over again. It was the right move," says Jake, because Jillian needed to know that Wes's heart wasn't available. So did it upset him that she continued on with Wes's hometown date. Jake said he said his piece, so he was fine.
Harrison asks the guys if it was the right move, and Jesse says it wasn't, because Jillian's a smart girl who can figure things out for herself. David accuses Jake of "crying like a little girl" over someone he'd spent a few days total with, and the audience boos him down. Harrison asks if any of the guys agree with what Jake did, and a handful of them put up their hands, including Robby, which surprises Harrison, who I guess forgot about Robby's gripe about losing one-on-one time. "Why come on the show with a damn girlfriend? Period," says Tanner P.
Oh, god, audience questions. This is always death. "Jake, your campaign has all the momentum of a runaway train. To what do you attribute your popularity?" Oh, wait, she asks if he still has feelings for Jillian. She asks this like it actually matters to her. Sadly, it probably does. "I always will," says Jake. Awwww, says the audience. Another woman asks if he'd be the bachelor if the show asked him. Quit planting focus-group questions in the audience, ABC! The crowd cheers. Jake chuckles, and then says it would be flattering, but it would be a decision that he'd have to make if it ever came. Well, yeah. He says it would be an honor, though. Well, no.
So let's talk about Wes. Harrison says the question remains: was Wes here looking for love? "Or a two-timer looking for a music career?" I don't know if Harrison knows what "the question remains" means.
We watch a Wes montage, and the audience manages to hold its smattering of boos until the end. I don't know why they're even bothering asking the guys about Wes's true intentions, since it seems clear why he was there. I mean, I know they edit the show funny, but I don't think they're yet putting words in people's mouths, so when Wes has explicitly said that he has a girlfriend and was just there to sell CDs, what is there left to discuss here? Especially given that he had the good sense to not come on tonight's show. Weirdly, Tanner P mentions Jake calling him and saying he was 100 percent sure that Wes has a girlfriend, even though earlier tonight he says Wes told him. Tanner F says Wes told him that he had a bunch of songs that he wrote for a girl back home. Sasha sticks up for Wes like Wes is his dad or something, saying it makes no sense that Wes would write a song about falling in love quickly for someone he's been with for six years. Because songs are always one hundred percent literally true, Sasha. John Lennon was actually a walrus, Sasha.
A couple of the guys stick up for Wes, saying it's fine for a musician to bring his guitar on the show, and one of the guys says he said exactly how he felt. "But not to Jillian," points out Harrison, which is confusing to the pinheads who come on this show and expect the other bachelors to live the "bros before hos" philosophy. David says from the beginning Wes said he wasn't sure if he was going to fall in love but thought it would be good to promote his career, but after a little while says it became real for him. Yeah, Dave, he was lying. He admitted to it. What is this debate?
Oh, god. More audience questions. Well, comments. Some dingbat says Wes was on for the wrong reasons and Jake did the right thing. And then Harrison wants to hear from a "dude," and I can't believe any self-respecting man would even be in the audie -- oh, there's one. He says Wes was a joke from the "git-go" and he also thinks Jake did the right thing, if his motives were right. Someone else says Wes used the show to advance his own career. Harrison asks for any Wes supporters. There are none. Yeah, great debate. Harrison allows one more comment, which is really four comments too many, especially when this woman says, "If it walks like a snake, and it talks like a snake, chances are it's not the kind of guy that most women would want to date." I hope she mangled that idiom on purpose. I'll give her the benefit of the doubt.
Then we are forced to sit through a musical montage set to Wes's "Love Don't Come Eeeeeeeasy" song, featuring Wes talking about his No. 1 song in Chihuahua, and his "hidden agenda." Regrettably, it does not include him drunkenly yelling at his limo driver to stop driving in circles. Fortunately, it does include him telling the other guys at the rose ceremony that he was going to be having lots of sex when he gets home.
After the commercial break, out comes Jillian herself, to a standing ovation from all the guys she dumped. God, grow some balls, you guys. She jokes that it's like sitting there with all your ex-boyfriends staring at you. That's because that's what it is, Jillian, albeit without Reid, Wes or Mesnick. "I miss all these faces," she says, adding that when she watches the show, she's all "happy and proud," for some reason.
She says it broke her heart to see all the drama Juan had to go through, and she was proud of him for acting like a gentleman. As for David, she did feel "really uncomfortable." She tells him she wishes he hadn't said some things, and she also wishes that she'd spoken up at the time and told him it wasn't cool. David says he's "sincerely sorry" although he adds the "if I put you in that situation," when he ought to know by now that he did, and Jillian forgives him.
Harrison asks her if there was a particular rose ceremony that was really tough on her. She says Mike Steinberg, and Mike Stagliano, and also Reid. With Reid, she says she was "heartbroken," and wondering if she made the right choice, but then looked at the other guys and knows that she would have had a hard time saying goodbye to them too.
Anything you want to say, Jake? He says it was tough to say goodbye, especially since they had such a great date, and it wasn't Martina McBride, or the dancing: "It was the girl." You know, she's almost thirty, Jake. He also wanted a hometown date so bad. Jillian says a hometown date would have been great, but then she says a lot of babbly things about feelings that I think just amounts to she just wasn't that into Jake.
Then Harrison asks about Wes, and asks if she handled the situation correctly. She says she had to follow her heart, but she is a smart girl and a good judge of character (demonstrably not true!) and she made the right decision "in the end." Well, yeah. That kind of dodges Harrison's question about whether she should have let Wes go earlier. I mean, the answer to that is, obviously, yes. Did she get played? Jillian says yes, and then she does say that she should have let Wes go sooner, but she needed to figure that out for herself.
Mike Stagliano tells her that he's OK and he's really thankful that he met her and he learned a lot about love and I couldn't hear the rest because I was gagging too much. Thank you, St. Jillian! Juan says instead of overshadowing what Mike said, he's going to agree with Tanner P and point out that her feet are really hot. And she points out that she's wearing mango mango, and in that instant I think Tanner P accomplishes what Ed could not last week.
Then we get a wacky hijinx blooper montage, of people knocking over basketball hoops, and the lights going out, and Tanner F waving at a bee. "These guys keep getting harder and harder," Freudian slips Jillian (obviously filmed before last week's episode). Since we see a couple clips of Jillian corrects herself, it boggles the mind that the finished product we get to see, of Jillian's incoherent ramblings, are the best takes. There is a bunch of farting, including Harrison getting off a "pull my finger" on Jillian. As always, the inclusion of these clips on the actual corresponding shows would go a long way to making the show a lot less of a chore to watch.
Is this the final segment? I think it is! Harrison keeps a straight face when he talks about how week will be the moment that America has been waiting for, when we find out whether it will be Kiptyn or Ed who gets down on one knee and offers an equivocal qualified proposal of a marriage that will never actually come to pass. We watch some clips of the two of them, even though the only one anyone cares about is the one from Hawaii last week where Ed couldn't, um, hoist the mainsail.
week, the moment everyone has been waiting for: the end of the season!