Bachelorette Recap- Dolly Parton Won't Stop Singing

“Bleep”- Wolf




I uttered that exact expletive on Monday. I spent my Memorial Day drinking beer in a chair half submerged in Cazenovia Creek (pronounced ‘crick’). It was the greatest day of my life, until I realized that crap doesn’t take a holiday. It was a Bachelor recap night. Nothing destroys your good time like that sobering realization.



Emily Maynard is back for another series of pointless dates that will eventually lead to a 4-week engagement. She has 16-or-so boyfriends remaining, so there’s a lot of action to cover. There will be some building repelling in this recap. It might be a good idea to put the kids to bed if you plan to read this out loud.



Chris Harrison said something very important in the beginning of the season. He said that, “There are no rules”. And it’s true. This show has absolutely no rules. It’s like this show is Ireland and rules are snakes and Chris Harrison is Saint Patrick, only, instead of praying, he gives adulterers keys to rooms to they can have sex with their many boyfriends or girlfriends.

Emily will go on 3 dates with her boyfriends this week, just like a normal single mom. There will be a pair of 1-on-1 dates and a group date. Please keep in mind that there are no rules. Forget everything you know about an Earth with rules because this show doesn’t care about your science. I’ve had a lot of sun today.



The show begins with Emily exploiting a daughter who bears the name of a dead father on camera for 3 pointless ‘set-up’ seconds. Emily is a single Mom, by the way. Not that this means anything on a show with no rules.

She hurries over to a Charlotte mansion to pick up her boyfriend Chris for the first 1-on-1 date. I have no idea who Chris is. Emily mentions how nervous and excited she is for the date, but she can’t decide whether she’s more nervous or more excited. We’re only 2 minutes in and already there is huge drama. My wife and I shake 30 aspirin into our hands in case this pace continues.



They go for a walk down a street and stop at a building. Bachelorette producers throw down ropes so they can repel the building and eat dinner on the roof. It’s super romantic, especially how the happy couple has to stand there for an hour as some dude straps a bunch of safety equipment to their bodies.



As contractually obligated, Chris makes the comparison of climbing a building to falling in love. It starts to thunder as they climb. The music lets everyone watching know that this is serious and people might die. There are no rules. Emily talks about how comfortable she is to be climbing a building with Chris. So far, this date has done more damage to my brain than a day in the sun.



They eat on the roof because that is what people on this show do. Emily is really into Chris and Chris is really into Emily and it’s cute and annoying. She does freak out that Chris is one year younger than her. There’s nervous music and I get nervous. They eat on T.V.



When dinner is done they head back down to the street for a private concert from a Country Artist. Said Country Artist rhymes ‘boom boom’ with ‘Mmm Hmm’ and I punch a hole in some drywall. A Street in downtown Charlotte is shut down for this awkward concert. Emily and Chris make out in front of the band to make the gridlock worthwhile.



Back at the mansion, producers fabricate a plot by having the gnome guy Tony call his 5-year old son at home because he misses him. It’s a weird tangent. I didn’t know it at the time, but ABC is so starved for material that they hammer us over the head with this sidebar.



Next is the group date. A bunch of guys go to the park so they can take turns staring at Emily’s chest. Emily hands them a football and a soccer ball and then leaves for an hour. (true story. Please keep in mind that there are no rules) Emily’s friends just happened to be in the park wearing high-definition make-up and microphones. She asks them to interview the group of dudes to see if they’d be good husband-fathers-breeders.



The interviews are weird. This one blonde friend basically tries to have sex with all of Emily’s boyfriends. She tells them to take their shirts off, do push-ups and climbs all over them. I’m sure her husband will enjoy watching this back and then explaining to his kids how important this show is. The questions are all about being a father. Emily has become a horse breeder. I’m surprised she doesn’t get up to look inside of the guys' mouths.



When they’re done answering stupid questions, Emily blows a whistle and a bunch of kids come running into the park to test how well the guys interact. It’s the creepiest moment in Bachelorette history. A fricking van door actually opens up and random kids jump out to play with mic’d up strangers. Who owns these children? Who lets their little boy or girl play with random ab-ridden egomaniacs?



Later that night, the group goes to a bar to get drunk. It’s amazing how the producers get every locale to look exactly the same. They all have a pool and fern-adorned gazeboes for sharing secrets. I can’t believe my computer let me get away with ‘fern-adorned gazeboes’ without a red squiggly line!



Tony spends the cocktail hour crying about the son he abandoned and calls his child in front of a camera. My bet is that Tony has figured out that he isn’t going to win so he’s going with the ‘miss my kid’ angle so he can still go out a winner and roll through some Oregon lumberjack hoochies. It’s, like, Season 18 of this show and my computer still hasn’t recognized ‘hoochies’ as a word.



Emily went through the same ordeal and demonstrates how much she understands what Tony is going through by dumping him on National Television. She politely tells him to stop being a drag on her princess party and sends him home to his son. It’s dramatic. ABC plays some touching ‘dump the sad Dad’ music. There should be a rule against dumping a Dad for being said but…sadly...... no rules....



Doug, the other Father dude who is super into being a Father, does not leave the show to go back to his kids. Emily gives the rose to a giant Christian guy named Sean who her friend previously tried to climb. On a side note, Bachelorette producers are starting to paint personal trainer Ryan guy as a villain. This show is very much like Pro Wrestling.



Arie gets the third 1-on-1 date. He’s a race car driver which is super dramatic because Emily’s dead ex used to race cars and I really need some rules to be laid down on this show because things just are sliding off of the rails. They get on a private jet to fly to Tennessee because that is what a young couple does to get to know one another. The words ‘excited’ and ‘nervous’ gets thrown around.



When they land, they head over to Dollywood because ABC must have a piece of it. Why does Dolly Parton need a theme park? Should other artists follow suit? Am I going to one day pack up the kids and head to Six Black Flags? (I wrote out 48 different park names and they were all terrible. I fell on Six Black Flags as my favorite. I also liked C-world C-world Music Factory and Bush Gardens. Please keep in mind that I am sunburned, a little delirious and that there are no rules.)



Arie and Emily have Dollywood to themselves so they play games and ride a Roller Coaster. I’m not sure if ABC had the park shut down or if it’s just a normal slow day at Dollywood. In the middle of their fun, the real Dolly Parton shows up and there is just a lot of Dolly Parton singing songs she apparently wrote for this episode of the Bachelor and there’s awkward dancing and then another song and it’s been 11 minutes and Dolly Parton is not done singing and then, when she’s finally done, she sits down alone with Emily to talk and I thought this was a date and not a commercial for Dolly Parton.



I’m man enough to admit that I learned a ton about love and life from Dolly Parton’s heartfelt conversation with Emily. I feel bad about punching a hole in that drywall. I need to learn to love more. I love everyone reading this. Holy crap, Dolly Parton is singing again and this pointless date has taken a half-hour of my life away.





When they’re done learning about life from Dolly Parton, Arie and Emily sit down for a romantic dinner in a barn. Emily is super into Arie but she pretends like she isn’t giving him a rose. It’s the first time she’s ever made a joke. It’s almost interesting. Then, they make out. Emily compares Arie to her dead boyfriend. There are no rules.



Arie says, “Emily has exceeded my expectations by 1000%”.

First off, that’s impossible. There is no such thing as 1000%. But, even if there were such thing, that would mean he expected her to be awful. If Emily were 1000% more dreadful, why would Arie have agreed to go out on a date with her? She would have to have been a Gollum to be 1000% less of a woman than the one he took to Dollywood.





The cocktail party is next. ABC first allows their planted character to show America why he’s been manufactured to absorb their hate. Kalon, the rich fake contestant, sits down with Emily for a scripted conversation. Kalon cuts Emily off a bunch of times and acts like a jerk. The same woman who just dumped a guy for missing his son does not instantly dump Kalon for action like a big jerk. This show is awful. Who falls for this?



Next, some guy who has an egg (how has this not made my recaps yet???) breaks his egg to show that his egg is not his identity. I’m so tired. I have no idea what just happened. They smashed an egg. What the hell do you want from me? The egg’s name was ‘Shelly’. If you read this far down, I love you. I didn’t need Dolly Parton to show me that.

Wolf didn’t talk a lot this season and it’s disappointing. Wolf has been a quote machine so far this season. He’s like a modern day slutty Walt Whitman.



Emily talks with some guy named Alessandro and he straight up tells her how hassled he’d be by kids. Emily cries and dumps him, pre-Rose Ceremony. She’s a dumping machine. Then, she cries some more and makes out with two different guys. Some of the other guys talk about how they’re not comfortable watching her make out with other guys. They must not have heard the Dolly Parton speech.



The super-built Chris guy all but tells Emily that he loves her and loves her daughter who he hasn’t met and he’s been on one date with her and I hate this show.



The Rose Ceremony is next. I swear to God that they brought it three more contestants and snuck them on the set for the Rose Ceremony. I feel like I haven’t seen half of these guys. With the previous dumpings, there’s only one guy going home. It’s Party MC Stevie. I’m sad to see him go. He was gonna punch Kalon.



After the Rose Ceremony, Dolly Parton comes out and sings 8 more songs and solves all of my problems with her wisdom.

Bachelorette Recap- Please Help Support the Muppets

In case you haven’t figured it out, this is going to be a long season of the Bachelorette. If you’re watching the show, you know what I’m talking about. If you’re just sifting through my recaps and looking for swear words, you’re in for a disappointing couple of months. ABC chose a very beautiful woman to be their Game Show Prize. Unfortunately, she will never do or say anything interesting. She is a desert.




I did a word search on past Bachelor/Bachelorette blogs involving Emily Maynard to see how many times I’ve used the word ‘vapid’. It turns out that I’ve used that word to describe her 17 times. I have to be better than that so, what I’ve done is, I opened a Thesaurus and I’ve typed a bunch of words with similar meaning as ‘vapid’ and I will paste it to each recap. This way, I can just copy one into my text and keep rolling:

insipid, uninspired, colorless, uninteresting, feeble, flat, dull, boring, tedious, tired, unexciting, hot (slipped that one in there to see who was paying attention), lifeless, vacuous, bland, trite, jejune (probably will never use jejune in a sentence).



Feel free to cut and paste that onto your desktop in case you ever find yourself dating Emily.



These recaps already kind of sucked because I’m recapping filth. Now, with Emily, they will suck more. She makes me miss Ashley H. I can’t believe anyone on Earth could make me miss Ashley H.



When we last left Emily she narrowed her second search for televised true love down to 15 men. These men have been mathematically grouped by personality tests to disagree and argue. Normally, I would complain but I need the content.



Emily will go on three dates this week; two 1-on-1 dates and a group date with Muppets.

The first date belongs to Ryan, the personal trainer. He’s a World Champion Turd. I’m convinced this guy didn’t come from a Mother. He was spawned and farmed like Matrix Babies in a giant Electromagnetic farm on the post-apocalyptic Earth. No human being with feelings and a soul could have created this beast of hair and beer commercial clichés.



To show how down to Earth this uninteresting woman is, ABC had Emily and Joe bake cookies for her daughter and talk about nothing because neither of them has ever had a single meaningful life experience to draw upon. After that, they get dressed up for an awkward 2-person concert from an artist I am not familiar with. Ryan got a rose. Unfortunately, a thorn did not prick his skin so we could not see if blood flowed through his veins or a viscous saline chemical that lubricates the gears responsible for operating his robot frame.



The group date is next because Disney owns ABC and the Muppets and Muppet DVD sales are down so the Bachelorette is going to talk to Muppets and I fast forwarded through the whole thing.



Joe gets the next 1-on-1 date. Emily is excited and nervous. She tells you that. She says, “I’m excited and nervous”. Go ahead and watch the episode on-line if you don’t believe me. I’ll wait here. This woman will just say whatever is on the top of her mind with no fear of repercussion. She’s a powder keg of controversy. She’s like John Lennon.



Before they leave, Emily says, "There's a good chance we're going to have fun". Emily takes Joe and his hair on a plane ride to West Virginia, her hometown. Nothing says ‘romantic evening’ like a plane ride to the most terrifying state in the Union. The happy couple switches from a personal plane to a Rolls Royce and then hops out to take in a Hotel that Emily and her family used to frequent. It’s luxurious and has a 100-year old pool and super disgusting wall paper and carpets. I didn’t get up close to the television but I’m certain I would have detected the smell of old people.



Emily and Joe talk about how excited they are to be there and how great it is to have a chance to get to know each other. Then, they jump into a pool with over one hundred years of urine particles fused to the tiles. It gives us a chance to see Emily in a bikini. It’s the only club in this season’s bag and they are going to play the crap out of it. It’ll be like Roy McAvoy qualifying for the U.S. Open with his 7-iron. (Fictitious Sports Quota filled) When they’re done with useless swimming they sit down for a useless dinner. They get up from dinner to stuff notes into a clock. I did not make that up. Emily talks to the camera and I hear nothing. Listening to this bland woman talk is like listening to a child hit the same piano key, over and over. Emily asks Joe if he wants kids and he doesn’t scream ‘yes’ so she dumps him. You get one chance on the Bachelorette and this guy blew it. In real life, you might have a walk to the car to try and redeem yourself but the cameras are rolling and, if you really want to find true love, you had better be perfect in every way at all moments.



One blip of encouragement on the radar could be this whole dumping thing. No Bachelor or Bachelorette really did this without guilt (except Brad Womack) but Emily is a knot of nerves when she has to dump. There is great potential for melt downs. I’m excited for the first time. Joe thanked Emily for dumping him. There is a fireworks show after the dumping. I guess ABC paid for the fireworks and those puppies were going off whether Joe got a rose or not.



Back at the mansion, Kalon and Doug have a verbal jabfest. Kalon mentions Doug’s 6 kids and how he’s here and not raising them and Doug flips out and yells at Kalon. Doug keeps asking Kalon threatening questions and then, when Kalon tries to answer them to explain, Doug tells him to shut up. It was a pointless encounter and probably replaced a really nice memory I had of a family vacation.



ABC jumps back to Emily’s gigantic house to exploit her daughter for ratings. Emily, Ricky and Emily’s Mom are in the bathroom doing hair or something and they probably could have just aired a Papa John’s commercial instead and no one would have complained.



The day after dumping a guy, the group gets together to dress up, drink and collect roses. Party MC Stevie gives Rich Guy Kalon dirty looks and outwardly tells Kalon that he doesn’t like him. Party MC Stevie does not punch Kalon despite the significant amount of alcohol running through his veins. There has to be a bunch of producers watching their interaction in the next room saying, “I don’t get it. Why isn’t anyone punching Kalon? We went through great lengths to plant this super-villain of awful and no one is punching him. Didn’t we pay him to be smarmier? I thought he’d be smarmier. People are going to start flipping over to American Ninja Warrior right now. We need, at the very least, some shoving!”



Everyone hates Kalon. Wolf talks about him and, for the second straight week, the quote of the week goes to Wolf:



"I have a rule. If you have Louis Vuitton luggage, and you're a guy, you're a BLEEP!"



It's a good rule. I'm pretty sure that's one of the commandments. I have my own rule. If you know who Louis Vuitton is, you're not allowed to ever say anything bad to another person about their 'Louis Vuitton' related qualities.



Ryan, my new leader in the hate department, steals away Emily to spend some more time with her and hand her a 24-page love note. Some gnomely dude (‘GNOMELY’ IS A WORD STUPID COMPUTER!!!) named Tony tries to barge in on their conversation but gets caught having to stand there with a glass of wine in his hand and listen to the entire 4-hour reading of this note by Emily who couldn’t just say, “I’ll read it later”. I guess it was worth it because Gnomely got a rose. Most of them did.



Emily sent home a Biology teacher with hipster glasses and a dude I had not yet noticed existed. We’ll call him Roy. Two hours and we only got rid of three people. This is the worst summer ever. It’s like the summer I got a ‘12’ on my Course 1 Algebra test and had to go to summer school. There was a park outside the window and I had to watch kids play baseball. I have yet to use Course 1 Algebra in my career as an AM radio board op. On the bright side, those baseball kids are probably all addicted to drugs by now.



Side note on the bizarreness of the Rose Ceremony: You will often notice certain guys getting a rose and then their friends pat them on the back and celebrate the fact that they’re staying for another week. These guys high-five other guys who are dating their girlfriend, “Hey, Chazem of whatever the hell your name is, I’m so glad you’re still here to put your hands all over my woman! Let’s fist bump!”



During the credits, Kermit and Emily sold more DVD’s and Blu Rays by talking. I wonder if the puppeteer was tempted to fake like Kermit had to sneeze and then jam his hand forward for a ‘leaner’.

Bachelorette Recap- Welcome Back to Hell

“All of my good friends call me Wolf”- Wolf


We’ve waited a long time for the return of the Bachelorette. Some prisoners wait a long time to be put to death. I’ll bet it’s a similar feeling. I don’t know what I did to deserve a 90-minute series premiere but I’ll obviously pay for it somewhere down the line. ABC never rolls out 90-minute premieres. It’s a miracle. IT’S A BACHELORETTE MIRACLE!!!!



Emily Maynard won the hearts of America by being pretty and failing to say or do anything substantial during Brad Womack’s Bachelor Season. She was the final Game Show contestant standing and earned a 3-month relationship with a man haunted by severe emotional problems. Now, she gets to choose from an impressive variety of abs.



Maynard originally turned down an offer to be the Bachelorette and later changed her mind after praying… ‘cause… you know… never mind. Host Chris Harrison says that we will have a completely different show from what Bachelor viewers are used to. I’m guessing that means the worst people on Earth won’t show up to pretend like they’re in love in an attempt to further their careers so they get picked to smile for Protein Shake advertisements in Men’s Health. That’s a long sentence, but I know you didn’t come here for grammar. Buckle up, Bachelor fans! Let’s recap another season and hope something big falls on us!

We start out with voiced-over shots of Emily playing with her daughter Ricky, annoying ducks with balloons and reading alone in her living room. ABC didn’t feel like waiting more than 2 minutes to exploit the kid for ratings. Hopefully the money Emily earns as the Bachelorette can be spent on a good therapist who can soothe Ricky’s emotional scarring form constant camera monitoring.



We then relive the pointless journey Emily took with Brad. Then Emily goes to various places to sit and stare off into nothing while blathering on about Ricky and nothing because she’s completely uninteresting. There’s a point in the show where Emily sits on a fountain. I didn’t think she was serious about finding love until she sat on that fountain.



Chris Harrison comes out to tell America, for the 4,000,000th time, that Emily lost her first fiancé in a plane crash. Did you guys know that? Did you know that Emily lost her first fiancé in a plane crash?

When we’re done with Harrison’s dramatic revelation, ABC roles out their featured contestants. The field can be described in one word but I’ll use several. I spent 20 minutes going through their pictures and bios to decide who I wanted to get a head start on hating. I needed a Tums when I was done. We’ve got a guy who can’t spell ‘Jeff’. We have a mushroom farmer, a grain merchant, a party MC, a lumber jack and, of course, a race car driver. For those of you who are new to the show, Emily’s former boyfriend was a race car driver who died in a plane crash. ABC made her both ride in a plane and race a race car two years ago. ABC loves emotional subplots.

David the Singer/Songwriter uses the phrase ‘Disparate facets’ in a sentence. I hope he goes home soon. Not only is David eager to find a wife, he also stands on balconies to stare off into the distance to think about how much he wants to find a wife.

They interrupt the ab-fest for a 1-on-1 interview between Harrison and Emily. Harrison lets the 4 people in America who weren’t sure about how many fiancés Emily used to have in on her story. Emily’s been engaged before. Emily says, “This could be the night I meet my husband.” Normal single people think things like that when they walk into Wilson Farms for Schlitz Tall Boys. Every night is the night you can meet your husband. Emily says she doesn’t want to talk about her tragic past anymore. That means we’ll only get 6 gazillion more references to it.

We’re back to meeting all of Emily’s boyfriends. It’s a great season for guys using gimmicks to make a first impression. A lumberjack gives Emily a glass slipper on a pillow. Jackson, a fitness model, got on his knees to quote the movie ‘Hitch’. I’m not sure who is guiltier in this situation, the fitness model for quoting ‘Hitch’ or the recapper for immediately noticing which movie he quoted. Some dude dressed up as a grandmother. Alejandro decided that being a douche would be a good approach. Jef can’t spell his name and rode in on a skateboard. Jef has the same haircut as the Big Boy Burger guy. It’s hard to determine this early into the season, but I think I hate Jef the most. I’m really going to get sick of my computer underlining Jef all season. My computer is saying, “Hey! You’re spelling ‘Jeff’ wrong!” and I’m like, “I know computer! That’s how he spells it! You should see his hair!”

One guy was credited with the quote of the night, “All of my good friends call me Wolf”. If your good friends call you ‘Wolf’ then you don’t have any good friends.



Kalon is a rich guy who wants desperately to be hated by America. He arrived in his own personal helicopter. He has been planted by the Network to stir up drama this season. I wonder if one person watching this show doesn’t realize this. Of course, I said this about a certain Bachelor contestant named Courtney last season and she ended up winning it all.



After arriving in limos and helicopters, the guys head inside to drink, fight and lay the groundwork for regret. One guy had bobblehead dolls made of himself and Emily. That broke a Bachelor franchise record for Rapiest behavior. A single father forged a note from his 12-year old son to hand to Emily to gain points. That approached Bachelor franchise records for exploitative behavior.



We’re an hour in and the only thing Emily has said is that she is excited and nervous. She never says anything that is the least bit amusing, engaging or informative. There is absolutely nothing more to this woman than looks. (Except a tortured past that we’re done talking about)



The Bachelors are sitting around on couches hating on the Helicopter guy. They’ve nicknamed him ‘Helicopter Guy’. I’ll admit that I can’t do any better. Helicopter Guy pulls Emily aside to talk. He doesn’t have to make much of an impression because he’ll be pushed through several rounds by the Producers to make people angry. The Party MC guy initiates an argument with Helicopter Guy to give the producers a chance to use their dramatic ‘fight’ music. It gets tense. The ‘fight’ music gets louder. I hid behind my couch in case punches were thrown.

More people talk about nothing and some time goes by. This show is awful. Emily gives her first impression rose to Doug the single Dad guy who gave her a fake note from his 12-year old son.



The Rose Ceremony is next. The only thing I missed about this show was the ‘Rose Ceremony’ music. It’s the type of music I want played if I ever fall into the Lions’ Den at the Zoo. The roses are handed out at break-neck speed. ABC had to cut some corners somewhere with an abbreviated premiere. I couldn’t even keep up.

I know the black guy didn’t get a rose. The black guy never gets a rose. The 41-year old didn’t get a rose either but it had more to do with his facial hair than his age or six kids. He had a patch of hair underneath his chin. Who would think that’s a good look? 41-year old cries on T.V. because a woman didn’t give him a rose after spending 11 minutes in his presence.



ABC rolls out some preview footage of the upcoming season. It’s totally going to be different. There’s a butt-ton of conflict, drama and, of course, love, because love is what it’s all about. There’s even a little Dolly Parton pep talk footage thrown in there for good measure.

During the credits, one of the jilted Bachelors takes his shirt off to show America the abs that Emily will never get to do laundry on. I feel bad for the guy. He’s obviously never eaten a chicken wing.