Props to not this show.
On another day at another mansion in another zip code in Southern California with another crop of beefsticks trying to out-dude their Bachelorette's suitor Bob Guiney (mission: already accomplished. Are we free to go?), Chris "Host Of Treats As Well As A Treat Of A Host" Harrison all but slips into his own rapidly encroaching self-parody when he walks (again) (again) to (again) a pool (again) on a finely appointed lanai (aGAIN) and kicks it off, directly addressing us and sneering, "Good evening, and welcome to The Bachelorette!" The despondent audience of me looks around thunderstruck, certain that I accidentally threw in the tape from any other season of this show, before sighing the leaves off a tree just outside my apartment (for so gusty is my sense of resignation) and settling into that feeling like it's the first day of school again and that the kids around me are mostly new but I keep having the same teacher over and over again. With a surly roll of the eyes and the private assertion that the tallest kid in class is going to be in my gym class and pick me last for flag football, I drone the reply, "Good evening, Mr. Harrison," and another season of The Bachelor(ette) has begun.
"In just a few minutes, one special woman will meet twenty-five men from all across the country who have one thing in common." You could ace a Geometry AP using their perfectly square heads as a protractor? "They're all ready to get married!" Oh. That was my third guess, after protractor and "they're all secretly gay." Actually, move gay up to #1.
"Last time, we had a fairy-tale ending for our Bachelorette." Nice to know the copywriters of The Bachelor(ette) have included the queasy and jarring horror stories of Poe and The Brothers Grimm into the canon of fairy tales. Remember that "fairy-tale" wedding of Trista and Ryan that all but ended with the barely poised bride collapsing on the altar and screaming at the top of her lungs, "Dissemble no more! I admit the deed! Tear up the planks! Here, here! It is the churning of the hideous paparazzi helicopters!" Yeah, that wedding was the stuff dreams are made of. But let us speak no more of it, for "now they're married and living happily ever after." Just like all sham marriages! As if that closes the storybook on Trista with a curlicued "The End" while cartoon birds chirp merrily from high trees, Chris puts juuuuuuuust too fine a point on it: "See, this really can work!" Jeez, Chris. No need to get all defensive about it. It's true if In Touch says it's true. We get it. ["Plus, one marriage in five couples? I do not care for those odds." -- Wing Chun]
“ I'm going out to see the Northwest, drive through the mountains, complain about the rain, visit Nana's gravesite (what's wrong? The way this show made it look was that it was Oregon state law that you had to make a pilgrimage to Nana's resting spot as soon as you crossed the border... besides, she's taken on a real Jim Morrison- like quality for me). ”
Portland! I've never been there, but two of my very best friends in the universe are marrying each other in Oregon this summer, so I'm going out early to see the Northwest, drive through the mountains, complain about the rain, visit Nana's gravesite (what's wrong? The way this show made it look was that it was Oregon state law that you had to make a pilgrimage to Nana's resting spot as soon as you crossed the border...besides, she's taken on a real Jim Morrison-like quality for me, so there's that). Meanwhile, Meredith stares purposefully at things in Portland, thinking, "It looks like I'm thinking really hard, doesn't it?" We learn that she grew up in Portland, where "she wasn't always...." A brunette? Look at how blonde that woman is. Meredith's mom, Sandy, adds, "She used to be unbelievably...." Blonde? "Shy." Awww, look at how cute she was! Her brother was a pretty cute kid too, so that should strike fear into any of you parents out there who have cute kids so you think you're home free when they grow up. Sorry. Fear on, Mom and Dad. The spin-lovers in the copywriting department throw in the fact that Meredith attended modeling school as a way "to get over her shyness," which possesses the same inherent logic as taxing Paxil to become a better model. That is to say, none. In any case, the phone book wouldn't find a place to balance on her head, as Meredith's coifs quickly descended into that my-sister-at- the-junior-prom hairstyle you saw so much of in '80s fashion. Meredith's father, Edd (seriously, we get it with one "D," Edd) tells us how popular she was in junior high, which is pretty much the kiss of death later on, personality-wise. If there's nothing to toughen you up in the early goings, you become soft. And kind-hearted in that way where "kind-hearted" means "boring." You become, in essence, Meredith. Shot of Meredith graduating from high school. Shot of Meredith being popular. Shot of Meredith with her albatross of a brother. Shot of tequila for me please, waiter.
After college, we learn for the first time ever, Meredith wasn't just a makeup artist (her stated vocation when we met her on The Bachelor), but a model as well. See, and she must have modeled for perfume ads, because that eau de shameless opportunism is wafting off her more effortlessly than ever now. All I'm saying is that no one goes on this show just to meet a mate. There's always an ulterior motive, and Meredith has certainly seen hers realized. Prove me wrong, people. Because I swear that I am right.
Back on a park bench wearing a Pensive Scarf here in the present day, Meredith voices over that she's ready to find someone who is ready for what she is ready for: "Love." And also attending culinary school. Wait, what?
Chris is allowed to use the front steps of the house, which he comes bounding down and tells us that we're going to meet the Bachelorette, "Meredith Phillips." Show of hands from people who knew that was her last name. Yeah, me neither. A limo pulls up the big, circular driveway of the house, and out pops our Bachelorette. She and Chris shake hands and exchange pleasantries, Chris promising, "You'll be seeing some big smiles on some men's faces tonight." Is he doing a callback to my Jaws joke? Well done, Chris. He and Meredith retire inside and sit on two plush couches, where Meredith launches in, telling Chris that she's excited, she's nervous, she's "every emotion that a woman can possibly imagine." Because men can't be excited and nervous? Or because Meredith's also "excited enough to menstruate" or "pregnant with anticipation" or "an hysteric, according to its literal Latin roots"? Which of those do you think she is? Chris, all the while, nods in an almost comical, Barbara Walters way. Meredith evokes Trista's name and barks too loudly that "this obviously works!" I'm sorry, but did the expression "the exception that proves the rule" win diplomatic immunity and get shipped off to a safehouse somewhere? What's wrong with you people?