No stitch-related accidents to put me on the bench this week, sadly. And upon reading Couch Baron's recap (thanks for the timely pinch-hit), I feel doubly fortunate because I didn't witness the Muppets debasing-themselves-slash-classing-up-the-joint-depending-on-who-you-ask. Apparently Dolly Parton is going to be on tonight, and she's supposedly cool but I didn't grow up watching Dolly Parton right before I went to bed, so she can Bachelorette it up all she wants and it won't bother me. I have a friend who works for her Imagination Library program, and anyone who runs something like that is all right by me and can probably survive any Bachelorette-related grossness.
Anyway, we open with Emily's perfectly made-up mom bringing perfectly made-up Emily breakfast in bed while Ricki is outside the bedroom refusing to come in because Ricki is the only one in the House of Blondes with any kind of sense.
Over at the bachelor pad, Chris Harrison bellows for the sixteen remaining bros to come out into the courtyard so he can tell them about the three group dates, which I think was a one-on-one, a group date and maybe one of the guys will tossed into Jabba's pit to fight the rancor.
He's got the first date card, which he places on this coffee table/rock garden/fire pit/thing and then slowly backs away, like he just lowered chum into the shark tank and he wants to get clear as quickly as possible. It's a date for Chris: "Love is a steady climb," is what he says, and Chris says he's excited to get to know Emily and for her to get to know him. He says he'll be devastated if he doesn't get that rose tonight. Whenever a guy on this show says something like that, I picture all of his friends making it their ringtones.
And we're already with the couple strolling around Charlotte, somehow not being mobbed by all their fans, and she tells him she's more nervous than excited because he's so cute.
But she's going to make him work for his dinner tonight, and the "climb" thing comes into play when ropes uncoil down the side of the building so they can scale the building. Chris pops a boner over how good she looks in a harness.
And then we watch as the two of themselves ratchet themselves up the side of the building while lightning flashes ominously in the distance and Emily whimpers like a six-year-old and we're supposed to pretend that they're in any danger whatsoever. She tells us that she was really anxious, but there is no one else she'd rather have by her side than this guy she met just a couple of days ago.
They make it to the top and as usual these stupid fucking physical exertion dates prove that they're a good match, because it's like my father always said: "If you can find someone who whines and cries while she's being slowly pulled up the side of a building, MARRY HER." Anyway, then they have dinner and/or sex, I guess.
Oh, wait, we're supposed to sit through dinner now. Emily is surprised at how non-surprised Chris was at climbing the wall, and she calls him a manly man, and then she tells him she'd be too intimidated to talk to him in a bar because of how cute he is. Is he? Acceptable stubble level, no visible sores -- he passes the Bachelorette test! She seems absolutely surprised that he's only 25, which is a red flag to her, because she comes with a young daughter, and she hopes he understands that. In other words, she's worried about his stepfatherhood potential since he's only, what, six years older than she was when she had said daughter, I guess.
Speaking of parenthood, Tony the lumber trader takes a phone call from his son, and apparently the kid's future rides on him getting a date with Emily this week. And the group date card shows up, and it's Charlie, Alejandro, Stevie, Ryan, Alessandro, Sean, John, Michael, Doug, "Jef," Tony and Travis who are the sperm vying to fertilize the egg. "Let's play... Emily" is the entirety of the date card's text because not even the people who put together this show can be bothered to make an effort anymore. There is some pointless debate among the guys as to what that could mean, and the only conclusion reached is that it would be better for everyone involved if IQ tests were required for admission on this show.
And now here's Doug defending (?) his young age by saying idiotic things like "I'm a man," and he's ready to be a father and other arguments that will keep him on television having dinner with Emily. She is hilariously hung up on the two-year gap between their ages, but she gives him the rose anyway because that's just how brave she is.
They are strolling along a street and Emily talks about how he said he likes country music and apparently there's another shitty new-country act willing to be on this show to pad out the loosest two hours on a national network in history. His name is Luke Bryan, and he sings something like "Girl, you make my speakers go boom-boom" but it can't be that because HOW STUPID WOULD BE THAT BE. Also he's drunk on you and high on summertime.
The good citizens of Charlotte are not allowed to be on the street in front of the stage because Emily and Chris have to slow dance and kiss and pretend that this music is better than the sound of drowning kittens. Chris dances like he has to take a wicked dump but still has to walk home and so is clenching to save his life.
The day, the group arseholes stroll up in a park to meet Emily, wearing a cleavage baring top and holding a football. The guy who calls himself "Wolf" because you're totally allowed to give yourself a nickname says she looks amazing and he's hoping for a relaxed, chill day. Ryan, the pro sports trainer, shows her how to do a stiff-arm, and she says she knows, and he asks if she practiced it last night.
Sean tells us he's not the type of guy who "aggressively approaches women," and I have to say it's refreshing to hear a guy assure us he's NOT a rapist. He wants to get to know her better.
And then Emily makes up some excuse to leave, and something seems off, of course. She's leaving to go greet her girlfriends -- once again I'm mystified by the women-specific tendency to identify their female friends as girlfriends. Not all women do it, of course, but only women do it. At any rate, Emily's girlfriends -- who I would not be surprised to find out have been hired from among the ranks of her fellow soccer moms and barely know Emily at all -- are unlike any other women's friends in that they introduce her to guys and let her know what they think of guys she dates. That's so adorable! What must it be like to have friends? One of her friends has brought this thing called a "newspaper" which features a picture of these two lunatics over the hilariously flat headline "'Bachelorette' goes on a date in uptown," fighting for your attention from the lead story, which is "How will DNC impact life in uptown? Details to come" which a) annoyingly uses "impact" instead of "affect" and b) would, as a reader, make me say, "Well, let me know when you've GOT the details, I guess."
Emily says her friends are very protective of her, but since this is the SECOND time she's done this show, it's probably best that we don't analyze their success rate. Anyway, she wants to "y'all's detective skills" to work, meaning she wants them to meet these assholes and ask them questions. It only took her five minutes to reveal this, which is great, because every commercial break they've been telling us she was going to have them do this. Emily fetches the guys, who react to the news that they're going to have to answer "questions" from her "friends" like she said she wants to check their feces for fiber content.
OK, we REALLY don't have to re-explain the concept when we come back from commercial. Not everyone watching has the memory of a goldfish, thanks. Two friends ask Tony what he thinks he has in common with Emily, and he says, "Just like taking my son to school, taking him to activities" and I think maybe someone should check Tony for sunstroke, and then they ask "Jef" if he's ever dated someone with a child, although maybe the better question would be if he's ever dated someone with a vagina, and then there's the other guy who's a dad, and then there's Ryan and then there's the guy who brought an egg and I forget his name, I think it's Moron or something, and at any rate Emily's friends are stone-cold LAUGHING IN HIS FACE because he brought an egg, and then there's the wolf being all wolfy.
Someone is popping and locking and someone is doing the worm and now there are pushups on a picnic table like WHAT IS GOING ON HERE and oh there is wacky music so this is the comic relief, only it's the kind of comic relief that leaves you feeling unsettled.
And here's Sean talking about family and faith and how his dad has taught him "to be a man" for the past 28 years, and Emily's friend Wendy drools all over him and gets him to take his shirt off, so you're starting to see how it is that Emily has twice decided to be part of this mess with such supposedly protective friends looking out for her. Then they make him do pushups and Wendy sits on his back while he does it and now we all know why Fifty Shades of Grey is doing so well.
Finally, once her friends have finished finding out the answers to such crucial father-potential-defining questions like, "How big are your pecs?" and "May I sit on you while you do pushups?" Emily blows a whistle and a bunch of children come screaming into the park and you're hoping that it's a Children of the Corn thing, but it's just a bunch of kids who have been bused here so they can play with a bunch of strange men who are there for the purpose of trying to sleep with Emily, so I'm sure that even in North Carolina the parents can be arrested for this, right?
Doug and Tony, being dads, are both obviously great with kids, and none of the other guys molested or killed any kids, at least not on camera, so it looks like it's a success all around. Then Ryan ditches the kids to come mack on Emily in front of her friends, and he, BECAUSE HE IS STUPID, says he wouldn't be OK with it if she gained weight after they got married, and then is forced to shift into damage control mode and try to pretend that he would be worried about if she got lazy or whatever the fuck. "I would still love you, I just wouldn't love on you as much," THIS IS WHAT HIS BRAIN TOLD HIS MOUTH TO SAY. Wendy tries the "more of her to love" line, which is rich coming from the understudy to Rita in Bridesmaids.
Emily tells us she's still trying to figure Ryan out. I can understand her confusion. On the one hand, he says he wouldn't be OK if she got fat and he sure wouldn't fuck her as much, but on the other hand, WHAT THE HELL, EMILY, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU THAT YOU DIDN'T TELL HIM TO PACK HIS BAGS RIGHT THERE.
After he leaves, Emily asks her friends who they'd pick for her. The answers: "Sean." "Doug or Ryan." Her super-protective friend says she'd pick a guy who not thirty seconds ago warned her not to get fat. "Doug." "Sean or Doug." Emily says her friends did an unbelievable job. I agree with her, in the strictest dictionary definition sense of the word "unbelievable."
Then she dismisses her friends because it's time to see for herself who else might say something romantic like "Don't get fat and lazy," and Ryan says he's confident he's getting a rose. Wendy jokes about having to go back to their boring mom lives. Hey, Emily's just like you guys! She's just on television all the time. Think about how hard it must be to put her career planning children's hospital events on hold!
It's off for dinner at a place called "Butter," where Emily tells them it was great to get to know them all better and how wonderful they all are. And now it's time to get to know them EVEN MORE BETTER, I guess. She tells us that Sean and Doug stood out the most, so she's excited to spend time with them.
We watch her sit down with Sean first, and they talk about how selective/picky he is, which he explains as how he won't settle for anything but the best. He says his dad is still in love with his mom, which Emily deems "so cute" like Sean's parents' marriage is an adorable puppy. She seems distracted, but it could be that she's having difficulty making eye contact, due to the glare shining off his unusually sweaty face.
Then Doug tells her that her friends reminded him of his buddies' wives, and it was great to see her "real side," whatever that means. Then he tells her about his parents: his dad has epilepsy, and he married the first girl he ever dated, but she wasn't a very good person. Since he tells us that, I was a little surprised to find out, as he continues, that it's his mom he's talking about. Seems she left Doug's dad after Doug and his sister were born, and his dad raised them both -- until he died, having eschewing medical care in favor of groceries. He and his sister were raised in foster homes. I'm not so much of a cynic to think he's exploiting this for sympathy -- if that's his childhood, it was what it was, and he stops her from getting too pity-party on him. It's tough for Emily when she can't describe something as "so cute," I imagine.
She said talking to Doug made her feel so blessed about her own life, which is more than a little self-centered. "I just see him as such an awesome dad, and an awesome human being," she says.
Meanwhile, Ryan is raggin' on Tony for playing with kids? All day? Oh, it's because the kids reminded Tony of his own son. Completely understandable feelings, as is doubting whether he should even be there. Ryan probably thinks Tony's worried that his son is getting fat and lazy while he's away.
Meanwhile, back at the bachelor house, Kalon is hoping that he gets the third date card, but it goes to Arie, who is happy because he's used to things going very fast (he's a race car driver, you know) but things have been going slow with Emily. "Hopefully tomorrow, it revs things up." The date card says, "Love is a wild ride!" with the strange ellipses being ditched in favor of an exclamation mark. Kalon's a little putted out that people who are not him are spending time with Emily.
Speaking of Emily, she's sitting down with Tony, who tells her that it was a little tough talking to his son, who wants to know when he's coming home from "Nerf Caroline." Emily assures Tony, who is getting choked up, that it's worse for him that it is for his son. Emily would know. We go to a commercial with an implied cliffhanger that Tony may just freak out and start murdering people.
Commercial break, then more drinking and hugging and chatting and sweating. Heavy lights on the guys during the one-on-one chats, huh? Doug and Tony have a dad-to-dad chat in an alley. Doug asks if he's considering going home, and Tony says he has, but then came to the conclusion that if he's looking for a wife, what better place than a television show with a 25-to-1 man-woman ratio and an abysmal rate of actual marriages? Maybe that's part of why the guilt is weighing on him.
He calls his kid, and holds it together whilst on the phone, talking about Batman and Joker, but gets bummed out again afterwards. The kid sounds fine, though. Tony is a wreck, and I will absolutely not make fun of the guy for missing his kid, although maybe he could stand to toughen up a little on camera.
Someone has apparently alerted Emily to Tony blubbering away in the alley, so she comes to check on him. She tells us she knows exactly how he feels and she wishes there were something she could do to make him feel better. Uh, I have an idea or two, but Emily probably wouldn't appreciate them.
She talks about missing her daughter and then, rather confusingly, says if Brad knew that Emily wasn't "his girl" she would have wanted him to send her home that minute. What the hell? That makes no sense, except as her seizing the opportunity to try to make herself seem like a saint for sending him home. Which is what happens. She hugs him goodbye, and he goes off in a van and talks about how getting back to his son is the No. 1 thing in his life. Better than continuing to make an ass of yourself on television with the rest of these guys? CAN'T be true!
Emily sits down with the remaining victims and explains the Tony situation, and she knows how that feels, and she knows Doug does too -- Doug gives a head nod that says, "Sure, but I can still handle my shit." She urges them all to come talk to her whenever they need to. "Jef" says it's sad to see Tony go. Told you! On the other hand, though, it's one fewer guy competing to pretend to date Emily for a little while.
Time for the rose. Emily says so many of them were so wonderful with the kids, but one of them was wonderful and built like a Greek statue, which means the rose goes to Sean. Ryan still feels confident that he's going to be there for the long haul.
Emily shows up to the bachelor holding pen to pick Arie up, and they take a plane to Pigeon Forge, Tenn., where they head to Dollywood, which apparently Arie hasn't heard of? Emily tells us Arie is out of his element but was a good sport about everything, like IT'S AN AMUSEMENT PARK.
Then they wander into the theatre where Dolly Parton performs, and there are two microphones on the stage and a piece of paper with "Write a love song" printed on it. Thank God we don't get to that, because the curtains part to reveal Dolly herself standing there with a guitar, and Emily is surprised as hell to see Dolly Parton in the Dolly Parton theatre at Dollywood, and keeps talking about how she could die right now. Dolly has apparently taken five minutes to write some song about how bachelors and bachelorettes are all the same and are looking for love, and Arie and Emily dance awkwardly on the stage.
Emily admires Dolly Parton because she speaks her mind (fair enough) and wears cool costumes every day (what?). Dolly hauls Emily over for some "girl talk," and Dolly busts on her a little bit for being surprised to find Dolly Parton at Dollywood. Emily is thrilled that Dolly Parton knows she exists on this planet. Emily is remarkably skilled at framing other people's accomplishments and circumstances according to how they relate to Emily, isn't she? Parton then sings a song she wrote for her husband, to whom she's been married for forty-five years, which is a few decades more of marriage than this show will ever produce, and I mean all seasons combined.
Now it's time for dinner, where Emily wants to know more about Arie's having dated a woman with two kids. He says he was in love with her, and super attached to the two kids. He was ready to have more kids, but she said she didn't want any more, plus he reminded her too much of her ex-husband, "because of racing."
There is talk of Brad, which is beyond boring and pointless. Also, we pan from the rose on the table over to the couple a million times, and after a few minutes of small talk that's numbing EVEN FOR THIS SHOW, she picks up the rose and then half-assedly pretends he might not get it, or something. I don't even know what's going on by this point in the show. "This rose symbolizes the start of something great," Arie tells us, and then we watch them go for a ride on the carousel, and Arie tells us he can imagine going down on one knee. Pal, your oral sex techniques are YOUR business.
And now Emily's daughter is helping her get ready for the cocktail party and learning important skills like perfume selection and application. As for the men, Ryan's facial hair is growing increasingly douchey by the minute, so you know he'll be anxious to secure his rose quickly.
She tells the crowd that this rose ceremony is a little different, because she's starting to develop a few crushes. And with that she whisks Kalon aside. She tells us he's a real guy, and my counter to that is a) His name is "Kalon" and b) his job is "luxury brands consultant" which I'd argue is as far away from "Marlboro Man" on the masculinity scale as I can imagine.
He's wearing glasses, which she says she likes, and he, sounding bitchily passive-aggressive, says that thanks to her, he had a lot of time to hang around the house this week. He says he took it personally that he didn't get a date this week. He moves into smoother territory when he congratulates her on her surely-Nobel-worthy move of sending Tony back to be with his child, and falters again when he sounds less than thrilled of his first parenting responsibility being a child who isn't his own. Having spoken over her for the first few minutes, he then chides HER for interrupting. "I love it when you talk, but I wish you'd let me finish," he says. Probably not the best thing for someone who didn't get a date to say. He may have just ensured a rose-less evening.
Anyway, what he would have said if that uppity broad hadn't interrupted, is that you can't control everything, or something. Emily tells us that she thinks Kalon is a gentleman. After he basically told her to shut up while he's talking, I'm going to put "Kalon is a gentleman" right there with "Ryan always says the right thing" in my Sentences That Have No Basis in Reality file. At least she tells us that she didn't love it when he told her not to talk, but then she blows it when she says she wonders if it's because he hasn't spent enough time with her. How much time do you need to spend with a person before you know it's rude to tell her to shut up, Emily? "I do like tall, skinny and funny, but I don't like tall, skinny and condescending," she says. I guess maybe we're getting an idea why Ryan's "don't get fat" advice didn't earn him an immediate exit.
And then there's Travis, who has finally realized that carrying the stupid egg around makes him look stupid, so he takes Emily outside and explains -- I'll paraphrase -- that her friends laughing at his goddamn egg has convinced him it's time to get rid of it. I think permanent damage to his chances has already been done, but Emily takes the egg in both heads and smashes it on the front walk. Right now I'd like to point out that in every case tonight where they teased the smashing of the egg, it was edited to look like it was done out of anger, which turns out to have not been the case. A couple of the other guys come to the door to mourn the loss of Shelly, and then inside the guys all toast the death of the egg.
Emily sits down with some guy who needs a haircut (can't remember his name) and asks how he'd feel about being a dad, and he stammers out an incoherent jumble of words and concepts, the goal of which is to be utterly noncommittal but still appearing up for it. He uses the word "compromise," which Emily seizes on, even though nothing he's saying makes any kind of sense. Example: "The compromise would be me as a dad, as achieved in a family." I defy anyone to make sense of it, but Emily wonders why he wouldn't see it as an honor. He talks about marriage as a compromise, and as he talks -- and GOD, Emily, English clearly isn't his first language -- it seems clear to me that he means it in the sense of sacrifice, as a selfless concept. He even brings up the language barrier, but then appears to say he's confident he's expressing himself correctly.
Emily says her conversation with Alessandro (THERE we go) was one of the most bizarre conversations she's had. Despite his honesty, she says, she's not sure she can see herself spending the rest of her life with him. So, to sum up: You can tell Emily not to get fat, you can tell her to keep quiet while you're talking. Just don't dare tell her marriage involves compromise. Because people only want honesty when you're saying something they agree with. I am suddenly dreading the rose ceremony tonight.
And, sure enough, when we come back from commercial, Emily leads Alessandro out the door to waiting vehicle. He seems sanguine about his exit, and seems a little nonplussed that Emily doesn't understand how his giving up his "gypsy king" lifestyle isn't a compromise, but he still feels like it sucks.
Emily is still going on about how disrespectful it was for Alessandro not to be groveling at her feet for the chance to raise Ricki with her. She consoles herself in a hug and a makeout session with Arie, which surprises Ryan and his studiously windblown hair. Then she moves on to Sean and orders her to flatter her for a moment. To be fair, not everyone tonight has sufficiently made her feel the sun shines out of her ass. Sean steps up and, while wisely explaining he doesn't want to get ahead of himself, says if they were to get married, Ricki would be his daughter. This is exactly what Emily wants to hear, so she starts sucking face with Sean too. Again I am struck by the cognitive dissonance required to see behavior that would end any normal relationship (e.g. making out with more than one person at a cocktail party) is treated as romantic on this show.
Chris Harrison shows up to take Emily away for some decision-making. How many more guys are going to be eliminated? We've already lost one because he had his own son on his mind more than Emily, and one because he doesn't speak English well enough. Fun times tonight.
So let's get this over with. Harrison lies to us for a few moments about what a great week of dates it has been, and then it's on to the ceremony. Chris, Sean and Arie already have roses, and there's only going to be one more person eliminated. So you're thinking that she has to keep either the "don't get fat" or the "shut up when I talk" guy. She comes out and says she knows that tonight was especially hard. Huh? It seems that the only person tonight was hard for was Alessandro, and booting him made everyone's chances that much better.
Listing the names of the guys who get roses tonight is too depressing because that list includes both Kalon and Ryan, and the only person eliminated is utter non-entity Stevie. I mean, there are a bunch of names and faces here I still don't recognize, but we've got to drag this out for a few more weeks, right? It comes down to Stevie or Nate, and Nate is taller. So Nate it is.
Stevie tells us it sucks and it hurts, and we can only hope that he's not going to be too bummed to get back to his party emceeing. "Coming up: another song from the Cure's Disintegration!"
Ryan is now boasting about his connection with Emily and how he and Arie are very different, because Arie is a very dainty man, while he's more of a physical guy, so I guess he hasn't realized that when a guy feels the need to talk about what a stud he is versus how girly another man is -- well, it often means he has feelings that he finds confusing and terrifying. It does take some self-unawareness to call someone else dainty while display such high levels of hair arranging and facial hair sculpting, I will say that. He sees Arie as a threat. We don't hear Arie's position on things. Arie's job is to drive fast cars, not put his hands on half-naked athletes, so I don't get the sense he needs to talk about what a manly man he is.
week: Bermuda! Also, hopefully, more drama than this week.
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. The danger of ever considering The Bachelorette a viable option is as good a reason as any to stay married forever. Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel@gmail.com.