Monday, June 18, 2012

Bachelorette Recap- America Exports Sluttiness



There are only a couple more weeks until Arie wins the Bachelorette. You are used to reading things like this but I sincerely mean it, last week’s episode of the Bachelorette was the worst I’ve seen. The recap was terrible. This week, we’re ready to get back to good times because Emily has brought her boyfriends to Croatia and ‘Croatia’ is the Croatian word for ‘fun’. There will be two 1-on-1 dates and a group date.




I feel bad for these exotic, far away countries that have to host the Bachelor/Bachelorette. Why should their ancient shops and castles be subjected to our freaky, 6-on-1 courtship techniques? America is exporting sluttiness. My computer does not recognize ‘sluttiness’ as a word. Of course it doesn’t. My computer was not made in America. I fear the Bachelor franchise might be unsuccessful in their attempt to infiltrate the globe with smut.

Not only is it time for a return of fun, it’s also time for the guys to start throwing around the word ‘love’. ‘Love’ is the Bachelorette word for ‘I want to remain a contestant on this Game Show’. Things are getting serious. Emily says the word ‘daggone’ twice this week. TWICE! I had to look up the correct spelling and found this definition for ‘daggone’ at the Urban dictionary:

A polite way of saying "G****mn"

I stepped in the dog’s daggone poop.



I hurried up and bookmarked that webpage so I can always look at it. Now it’s like a picture of a loved one I keep in a pocket watch.



We kick off this week’s episode with footage of Emily thinking in front of a castle while we listen to her talk about love. Emily shipped her daughter back to Carolina which will leave producers scrambling to fill in the 4-minute hole of exploitative footage.

Jef with 1 ‘f’ gives us the perfect quote to set the mood:

“Croatia is the perfect place to fall in love”.

It should be noted that ABC producers instruct at least one contestant to say this sentence about every city ever visited. It’s like Arnold Schwarzenegger saying, “I’ll be back”.



Travis gets the first 1-on-1 date. Travis talks about possibly finding his wife while cameras capture footage of him changing his shirt. They go for a Croatian walk and find a Croatian balance stone and Emily says that, if men can balance on the stone while taking their shirt off, they’ll be lucky in love. Travis balances but keeps his shirt on. Emily says ”I’m really bummed out that Travis didn’t take off his shirt because I’ve been wondering, what’s underneath that shirt”. I told you things are getting serious. Then, they dance to Croatian fiddle music.

Travis says, “As far as dates go, this is a ‘10’… on a scale of ‘8’”. Travis fell out of the predetermined scale when trying to measure the wealth of his date with Emily. It’s a shame because it seemed like such an easy scale to stay on. You would think, when laying down your own parameters, you would be able to stay within them. On a scale of 1-to-10, Travis is a ‘1’ at judging date value. Thank you for reading down this far.

After some more pointless wandering around Croatia, they eat on television. Travis tells Emily she’s “an amazing lady”. Is that a good thing to tell a girl? Should I have been using that line? Can I go back? Curse marriage!

After sitting down to a dinner they don’t eat, they hug. Emily gushes about how much fun she’s had and Travis talks about how he can see himself with her forever and then she dumps him. Travis doesn’t get a rose. It was obvious that he was not winning this Game Show. Emily has made it clear that she seeks male baby-making chemicals and abdominals. Guys, if you have abs, make excuses to show them. Tell them you have an itch. Pretend like a spider crept up your shirt. Scream that invisible Nascar flames have engulfed your torso and rip the shirt off. Be creative.



Travis says, “Rejection sucks. It sucks with a capital S-U-C-K”. See, I still don’t think you guys are seeing how serious things have gotten. Travis cries about being dumped and then walks off into the Croatian rain. In, perhaps, the greatest moment in television history, Travis tosses away his umbrella to let the Croatian rain wash away his sadness. I laugh hard enough to move an end table. The end table was across the room.



Back at the Hotel, the men hang out on couches to give Ryan a chance to act like a villain. With Kalon gone, Ryan has the evil spotlight and plays the role to a ‘T’. The group date card comes and Ryan finds out that he has the other 1-on-1 date. He handles the information with smugness. The rest of the guys brood. It’s dramatic.



Emily greets her group-date group by saying she’s excited 4 times in 5 sentences. The group date starts with a 4-minute infomercial for a Disney movie that I won’t give further publicity to. It’s pathetic, even by Bachelorette standards. An entire segment of the show is burned on a commercial. Luckily for me, there is still 90 minutes of show remaining.



When they’re done servicing Mickey Mouse, the guys put on kilts to compete in Highland games. That’s tree-throwing and bow-and-arrowing. I’m pretty sure, even know they’re in Croatia, everything that comes next is Scottish, including the accents of the Highland game referees, but I’m not going to waste a lot of time thinking about it. Chris proves to be less manly than the rest of the group and fails miserably at Highland games.

Chris serves up a gem of a quote “If that’s what it takes for me… to have to throw a log to find love….”

Emily admires him for trying hard and gives Chris a courage trophy. Then, they make out. I immediately open another window to see if this courage trophy is available on Ebay.



Commercial break: New ABC show! Glass House! You guys, ‘Glass House’ is like a total metaphor come to life! They LIVE IN A GLASS HOUSE!!!!!SCREAMM!!!!!!1111!!!!ELEVENTY!!!!11111!!!

The group date continues at a Croatian night club. Emily takes 10 minutes to make out with each of the men individually. She makes out with giant religious Sean. Arie, the eventual winner of the show, drags her into an alley to do some serious face-sucking. It’s… uncomfortable. It’s a solid 3 minutes. The Disney commercial was shorter.

Back at the hotel, Ryan talks to himself and shaves on camera. I long for the uncomfortable face-slurping.



We’re back at the Croatian night club (KEEP UP!) and Emily is now making out with Jef with 1 ‘f’. I wonder if these guys can taste each other. I mean, they’re minutes away from making out with the other contestants. Jef with 1 ‘f’ comes close to proposing marriage. Emily unleashes the first ‘daggone’ of the night. It takes my daggone breath away.

Geeky under-athletic Chris guy acts like a dork and shakes his head from side to side like Harry Carey while telling Emily how much he likes her. She gives him a rose. The official raises his hands above his head. Chris is in the friend zone. (Sports quota filled)



The next day, they show Ryan shaving for the second time in 12 hours and he still has a full beard. Ryan said this week that he’s played Professional Football. I opened another window to check his credentials. He played defensive back for the Orlando Predators in the Arena Football League. I watched 43 seconds of his Youtube highlight package; anything to not be watching the Bachelorette.

Ryan acts like a jerk the entire date. I’m thinking Emily can’t dump him because she already dumped someone and there’s still 73 minutes left and they need to have a rose ceremony. I’m thinking producers are yelling at Emily, telling her she has to give Ryan a rose. It’s clear she does not like him.

They sit down to dinner and Emily dumps him. That’s the Bauch version of what happens. ABC managed to break it up with a commercial and made it last 18 minutes.

We did get two quality quotes from Ryan during the date:



“I’m a very safe driver... you may not FEEL safe…”

“That is very shocking because I did not see that coming.”

Ryan is very sad in the limo. He doesn’t mention Emily. He asks very nicely for the producers to edit the footage to make him look good. I did not make that last part up.



There’s a ton of time left and there is no content remaining. ABC tells the eventual winner of the show, Arie, to sneak off to Emily’s hotel to make out with her. Arie decides to sneak off to Emily’s hotel to make out with her. We open the scene with Emily getting home from dumping Ryan. Three separate cameras are there to capture a knock at the door. Emily acts surprised. The cameras show her opening the door to see who it is. A separate camera, placed behind Arie in full high definition make-up and mic’d up properly, captures Emily’s stunned reaction to this chance meeting from a different angle. It’s really quite a surprise. Emily can’t believe Arie snuck away to make out with her.



Three cameras follow Emily and Arie up to the bedroom to make out. It’s filmed at three different angles. They get close up and far away angles of the tonsil hockey. There is much slurping. It makes their Croatian alley make-out session looks like a cousin-hug. It’s endless. Holy cow, there’s just so much close-up making out and it’s so uncomfortable and how the hell can these people do this with 3 sweaty teamsters pointing cameras at them. Also, Emily’s daughter Ricki is always in the back of her mind.



Emily gives Arie a secret rose that is not recognized by Bachelorette officials as a round-qualifying rose.



At the cocktail party, Emily says she’s either going to send Wolf or Doug the Dad home. She pulls them each aside to talk. Wolf cries about his dead grandparents in a desperate attempt to remain on the show. He pulls out his grandparents’ prayer card for further effect.

“I didn’t think he’d be the type of guy to carry around his grandparents’ funeral cards”.- self explanatory.

They make out while Wolf holds his grandparents’ withered funeral cards in his hand.



Emily talks to Doug the Dad next and he acts like he’s never talked to a woman before. Then, Doug cries to the camera about the son he’s abandoned in order to show America his abs. Luckily for Doug the Dad, Emily already kicked two guys off the show already, so she can’t send anyone else home.



They pretend like there’s going to be a rose ceremony and they pretend like one guy isn’t getting a rose. Emily gives away all but one rose and then pauses like she’s ready to cry. Chris Harrison, who just got done telling the room that there was only one rose remaining, is somehow magically three football fields away. Emily comes running after him to ask if she can keep both Wolf and Doug the Dad. Harrison is scheduled to step back in that room 2 milliseconds after she gives away her final rose, but we’re to believe that Harrison is hanging out in front of the castle with a producer, completely oblivious to this planned sham of an ending. It’s insulting. It’s a worse stunt than the Disney commercial and the Arie sneak-away make-out session combined. ABC also used fake preview footage throughout the night to make it look like Emily had a heroic stand and demanded to know what the guys are saying behind her back. I’m betrayed. America is betrayed. I thought Croatia was better than this.



So, no one else goes home. Tonight’s episode was super awesome. Next week, Emily is bringing her boyfriends to Prague. Poor Prague.


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