This week’s adventure takes us to Portugal’s Madeira Island, which is actually off the coast of Africa, and as usual the beauty of the setting is in stark contrast to the tawdry and petty reality show that has washed up on its shores. I wait with bated breath to discover whether this is the perfect place to fall in love. Until then we have to listen to the guys say their typically inane things like, “Look at this fish in the water!” like WHERE ELSE WOULD THE FISH BE and Desiree explains there are three one-on-one dates and one two-on-one, but someone won’t be eliminated on the two-on-one, and she seems to think everyone, like her, is happy that there will be no pressure on the dates, and she is severely underestimating just how much the audience holds on to the hope of elimination during every single date.
As usual, we get this far into the season and two hours doesn’t stretch very far with just a handful of suitors left, so we need some padding, in the form of Desiree bringing back some of her “girlfriends” from last season to help her decide. Sure! I mean, they haven’t met the guys or seen Desiree interact with them, so why shouldn’t they help her make such a momentous decision? I always really resent these kinds of segments, because once these idiots have ended their run on a current season, I think it’s only fair they stay forgotten. Instead, we see Catherine and Jackie and Lesley squeal when they see Desiree and instead of speaking like adults who say things like, “Let’s make a toast!” they say, “Let’s do a cheers!”
Desiree gives them the rundown on the remaining assholes, and perpetuates her contractually obligated myth that she’s falling in love with all of them, and after just a few minutes the men just happen to come out to hang by the pool, and Catherine doesn’t know how to use binoculars but does observe that “Brooks really likes to do the basketball.” And naturally a moment ago the women all wanted to pretend not to be shallow while discussing Desiree’s prospects, and looks were not mentioned at all, but as soon as the men come out the women all pick the most suitable Bachelor completely on looks. And then the women grill Desiree on who is the best kisser, most athletic, most successful, and apparently one of them asked who has the biggest dick.
At some point after I black out, it ends, and thing I know Brooks and Desiree are going out on a date, which involves a coastal drive — and therefore endless extreme closeup overlit shots of the two of them in the car.
They park and venture awfully close to the edge of a cliff but there are no sudden gusts of wind that could have ended this series a little earlier. Brooks is trying to figure out where their “relationship is at” and the two of them are discussing where they are between “like” and “love,” a range of emotions that doesn’t have a place for the hate I feel for both of them.
They park and venture awfully close to the edge of a cliff but there are no sudden gusts of wind that could have ended this series a little earlier. Brooks is trying to figure out where their "relationship is at" and the two of them are discussing where they are between "like" and "love," a range of emotions that doesn't have a place for the hate I feel for both of them.
On and on they drive, up into the mountains, and somehow this is a metaphor for Brooks. He's "up in the clouds," trying to figure out his feelings for Desiree. Then he babbles about putting together puzzle pieces. She says things between the two of them seem very natural, which is belied by their stilted, awkward conversations. Then they make out, and Brooks says whatever happens, they figured out that they both want to be in love with someone. Well, with dazzling insights like that, they're a match made in heaven! Then they say "cloud nine!" about a hundred times, and Desiree tells us this is the fairytale she signed up for.
Back at the bachelors' place, the only tension is whether the card is a one-on-one date or a two-on-one. It's one-on-one for Chris: "Let's 'sea' if we can find love here," the card says, and Chris says he wants to jump up and give a fist-pump, "Tiger Woods style," and if I may offer one humble piece of dating advice to Chris it's that he might not want to share his admiration for Tiger Woods' style with Desiree. He's no longer sweating Brooks being on a second one-on-one date, since Chris thinks he and Desiree have a unique connection.
Desiree tells us that never in her wildest dreams did she imagine she'd ever find herself in Madeira with someone she cares about so much. I believe her, in the sense that I'm sure she'd never heard of Madeira before two days ago. She and Brooks are at dinner right know, and again using "cheers" when they should say "toast," and now Brooks is saying "cloud nine" again. And now he's talking about how attached his family has become to his girlfriends, which sounds promising for Desiree. He looks awfully sweaty as he tells Desiree that whoever his wife is will be "absorbed" into his family which sounds pretty fucking scary but Desiree makes approving noises, and they get back to the "adjectives" they tasked each other with coming up to describe the stages between "like" and "love."
Do you want to know the "adjectives" they came up with? Ahem: "Stepping." "Skipping." "Running." And "finish line." So asked to come up with adjectives, Desiree comes up with a noun and three fucking gerunds like CRACK A BOOK SOMETIME and Brooks says meaningless things like Desiree saying "running" is "an honest calculation of where she's at" whatever that means and then he says "cloud nine" and then they go up to the roof of wherever the hell they are, and start talking about meeting Brooks' family, and Desiree asks if he wants her to meet his family, and Brooks won't win any points for quickness because it kinda took a while for him to say "yeah."
And then fireworks go off, and yet again the idiots on this show can't seem to comprehend that the fireworks going off are not their own personal fireworks but are available to anyone who has functioning eyeballs in the area. Then they don't even watch them, because they're making out, all the better to employ kisses-as-fireworks' metaphors. "I can definitely see him as the one. I can see Brooks down on his knee. And it's exciting," says Desiree. For whom?
The day, Desiree shows up for Chris, and they stroll off down a dock because they're taking a boat out onto the ocean, and Chris is supremely stoked to be "chillin', boat-style." By law, they are required to stand at the prow for awhile, before they get down to the bathing suits and rub sunscreen on each other, and then they talk about the physical attraction they have for each other, which Chris weirdly describes as "pretty legit."
Back at the hotel, Michael is pleased to finally get a one-on-one date card. Finally, he can unleash the power of his weird eyes without Desiree having anyone else to look at!
I think by this point we've heard from every guy on just how important it is to them for Desiree to meet his family, as though it's not just the step on this elimination game, kinda like saying, "Getting a rose is really important if I'm going to continue on this journey." They pull up towards an island which Chris says has "beautiful colors and ridges" (?) that he can't compare to anything in the States.
They stroll around for a picnic and then talk about how their friends see them, and finding someone to share their lives with. "It's really a perfect moment," says Chris, adding that it's a memory that only he and Desiree will have. Except for the camera crew, I guess.
Ugh, and now these two idiots are writing a poem together that they're going to put in a bottle and throw into the ocean. Can you imagine finding this bottle washed up on a beach, excitedly opening it and reading, "Experiences we share together/keep the memories close to heart/so that with time/our love never parts"? As they throw the bottle into the ocean, Chris talks about how skeptical he was coming into this, but now he can see Des being the one. As usual, late in the season, contestants talk about how skeptical they were at first. Go back to the first episode of any season, and you will never hear any of them speak of anything other than their unshakeable hope in finding love on this stupid show.
Night falls, and Chris and Desiree are strolling through the town before heading for dinner at a winery. Chris says he's falling in love, which is not a word he uses lightly. Well, you're on The Bachelorette, where the word "love" has pretty much zero meaning!
There is family talk. Desiree wonders if they'll like her. What the hell would Chris say to that? Desiree is talking about how independent she has been (?) and her family only met her high school boyfriend. [And they met Sean, but she's conveniently blocking that. - Angel] Chris is nervous because he's trying to figure out a good time to tell her he loves her. He should have given it a shot before he pointed out to her how sweaty he is.
OH GOD HE HAS A POEM AND HE'S GOING TO READ IT AND THE POEM IS CALLED "INDIVIDUALLY DEFINED"
"The strongest word with so much meaning/hard to say without a stammer./But when expressed with true feeling/sincere, for no other word can mean so much more." And you're thinking, "Oh, he's not even bothering to at least force some shitty rhymes into it," but then there's this: "Feelings had changed and were oh so real/Meant to be is how I feel."
Here's the thing about Chris's poetry: I doubt that someone intentionally trying to write shitty poetry could come up with something as awful as this. Like the cuisine equivalent is like if you said, "Here's some macaroni and cheese I cooked, only instead of milk I used urine." So Chris does tell Desiree he loves her, and because she's dating four other guys the best she can muster is being all, "Aw, that's super!" and they make out and Chris is practically ready to propose, as soon as she gets rid of her other boyfriends.
Speaking of her other boyfriends, it's the day and Michael meets Desiree in town for one of those dates where the couple patronizingly samples the local culture. Michael confusingly says that if you were on a scavenger hunt for a woman with forty-seven qualities, Desiree would have forty-eight. I don't know what it means either. Sitting down for a drink on a patio, they chat blandly about journey and then start making out, which I'm sure is appreciated by the other customers.
Then they do some sort of street toboggan thing, which Desiree calls "cool," an adjective she also uses to describe the artwork they see and Michael's confidence that he was meant to go on with this journey. Everything's cool. Also, pretty much every observation made by a bachelor she responds to with, "Right?" or "I know, right?" like when is THAT going to go away? For Michael, love is a "wild ride" or whatever, shut up, Michael.
They sit down for dinner in an alley under the lights, with Michael wasting his first one-on-one date by talking about how excited he was to finally get a one-on-one date, and then talks about how his father left them, so he was raised by his mom with help from his grandparents. And relationships are important to him, as he doesn't want his tombstone to read "World's Greatest Prosecutor" or anything, but "Loving husband and father."
Back at the hotel, the two-on-one date care arrives, but it's not like there's a mystery, given that the only two who haven't been on dates yet are Zak and Drew. Desiree, per the card, is looking for the man who can make her heart race.
Meanwhile, Michael is bringing down the date by talking about how he found out his girlfriend was seeing another guy, or something. Fortunately, Des is so amazing that he's ready to have sex again! "When I'm around you, it makes me so happy, because you give me hope," he says. And as usual, Desiree is pleased by a bachelor's offerings of woes and personal trials. Michael says he knew it would take the one he was going to marry to make him feel like he could love again, which kinda seems like a tautology to me.
Now it's time for the ultra-low-stakes two-on-one date. A rose will be given out on the date, but the guy who doesn't get the rose isn't eliminated. Zak and Drew head out to a go-kart track, with Desiree explaining that this will be a fun date with no pressure.
She wants to see Drew let go, which he apparently doesn't do very often. And Zak doesn't "seem himself" in group settings, she tells us. Shouldn't you have taken him on a one-on-one date, then?
So they race around the track for a while, then they stop and talk about how they vroom vroomed really fast. And now she wants Zak and Drew to race for a "special surprise," by which I presume she means a handy. And we watch the two of them race, and it's not exactly Fast and Furious here. And Drew versus Zak is kinda like Alien vs. Predator: Whoever wins, we lose. And the winner is Zak? I guess? I must have missed the special surprise. I suppose I could rewind, but ... I mean, it's so late. [The big surprise was that he got to talk to her alone first. - AC]
They sit down for a picnic off to the side of the track, like how pleasant that must be. "What a life we live," observes Zak, and Desiree says, "I know, right?" See?
The three of them guzzle wine for a while, and then apparently Zak's big reward for winning the go-kart race is that he's first for alone time with Desiree, like what a rip that is.
Anyway, he seems to have made a scrapbook of their time together using his crappy drawing skills, and the first picture is of a man's naked torso. He claims it's of him, from his first night in the mansion. Then he walks her through the rest of his splotches, all, "Remember when we were in Germany? That was awesome" and then they kiss. He says he's not going to say "I love you" today because Drew's there and he and Drew have respect for each other, or some weird made-up chivalrous bullshit that wouldn't even come up outside the insanely artificial Bachelorette world anyway.
And now Drew gets to sit down with Desiree and open up about how he doesn't open up very much, and how excited he is for his family to meet Desiree. Desiree -- as she has with all the men -- is less concerned with finding out what the family is like as she is with finding out if the family will like her.
Well, Zak would be very interested to know that Drew isn't abiding by the code of Not Telling Some Broad You Love Her If You're Both On A Date With Her At The Same Time, because he tells Desiree that he's falling for her, and then they make out.
Then she gives the rose to Drew, because she's a hundred per cent certain she wants to meet his family. "I may have lost at go-karts, but I think I'm winning in the romance department right now," Drew tells us, prompting massive eye-rolling.
The sun sets on Madeira Island while the men pack -- Chris appears to have a pair of oversized novelty sunglasses in his suitcase -- and get ready for the cocktail party.
Desiree is excited. "Feelings have formed!" and "I feel good about the five!" she says, because this show is nothing if not incessantly romantic.
Then she sits down with Chris Harrison, for the ultimate time-waster: the Bachelorette babbling inanely about how she's feeling. Fortunately, he manages not to ask who she thinks has the biggest dong. Notably, she seems to be all but admitting that Brooks is far and away the front-runner, which isn't in keeping with this show's general MO of trying to convince us the Bachelorette is in various stages of love with everyone remaining. But she's digging Brooks. Harrison asks, "Is this over?" And Desiree half-heartedly says she's falling in love a little bit with Chris. So is that our final two right there?
Rose Ceremony. Desiree rambles on about how this isn't about "qualities" because of course they all have great "qualities," but about the growth of their relationships. She gives a rose to Brooks, then to Chris, then finally to Zak, leaving Michael out in the cold.
He says his goodbyes, and Desiree comes to take her to the car, but she's doing that thing where the dumper wants to make sure that the dumpee can't even have the dignity of being pissed off. She tells him she thinks the world of him and they have a great foundation of friendship and this is very hard because he has everything. He says he knows she would have loved his family, but all things considered, he's glad he got dumped before the hometown date instead of after. He says it'll be hard to date after this, because no "girl" is going to measure up to her. That seems to hit her hard.
He drives off, and says he feels like his heart just exploded in his chest, and whines about how it sucks to put everything on the line and be rejected. He cries, or fake cries, and I couldn't care less about Michael. He actually calls his mom on the car ride to tell her she's not going to meet Desiree. "Here we go again," says Michael's mom, which was fairly awesome. Michael opts for a decent bit of drama queening but suggesting that maybe he's not meant to get married. Generally speaking, I'm cool with Bachelor/ette folks getting married. It's their reproducing that I tend to have reservations about.
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. You know how movie sequels often shift too much focus to a bit player fan favorite from the original movie, who loses much of his charm when given too much screen time? Well, Desiree's brother is back week. Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel@gmail.com.