Bachelorette Recap- Inches Away from the Ceiling of Hell

My friend Kevin Carlin has a joke about emergency rooms. They ask you to gauge your pain from 1-to-10 but it’s impossible to do. If you’re on fire, that’s a ‘10’ right? But what if a Wolverine bites you while you’re on fire? There’s always room for more pain. That’s what the Bachelorette is. It’s an emergency room full of immeasurable pain. This show has consistently hit rock bottom, yet ABC will get out the pick axes and shovels and dig a new bottom. Monday night, we found a bottom that has to be inches away from the ceiling of hell. There cannot be much further to go.




Emily has 6 boyfriends remaining. She has clearly chosen her new 6-month fiancé in Arie, yet advertisements have been sold for the entire season, so they’re going to drag this out to the bitter end. It’s a big week for the Game Show contestants as the word ‘love’ is being thrown around like panties at a Burt Baccarat concert (I have no idea if this is a thing but it seemed like a thing) and ABC has dipped into volumes 8-thru-15 of their dramatic music CD collection.



Emily takes her 6 boyfriends to Prague. Prague is in the Czech Republic. We get really rare and candid shots of Emily walking around and leaning on fences, looking off into the distance to think. This girl thinks so much. She’s like Confucius, if Confucius only once threatened to put a West Virginia Hood-Rat stomp on someone. There will be three 1-on-1 dates and a group date. Only 6 guys are left, so we’re making Prague-ress. (Sorry, I thought of that last week and had to force it in somewhere.)



No one says that Prague is the perfect place to fall in love. Prague must be awful because these fake people have been to every corner of this Earth and every other place but Prague has been the perfect place to fall in love. Chris Harrison does drop a ‘seriousness’ bomb on the crew at the beginning of the episode.



“You are the 6 men that Emily definitely sees a future with”



The guys check out their hotel room and make a noise. I wonder if a producer stops them at the door and instructs them to make an excited ‘Oh!’ sound in unison like a Price is Right audience. Emily shows up and grabs Arie for the first 1-on-1 date. They go out into Prague-town and buy hot wine from a hot wine shack. My wife determines that the hot wine merchant is a drug dealer because ABC blurred out his face. I don’t have time to dig into it. The show is about to take an awful turn.



Arie is the eventual winner of the show. Because it’s obvious that Emily is crazy about him, the producers dig up a stupid back story about Arie dating a producer on the show. Arie dated this producer girl years ago and, because Emily has just learned this, she thinks Arie is hiding it.



Chris Harrison comes out and explains the pointless back story. Then, they show the producer interviewing Emily about the secret relationship that was never a secret.



On a side note, how the hell did Arie date a Bachelorette producer years before coming on the Bachelorette? What are the odds? Is he obsessed with the show? Are there only 3 people in Hollywood? Who the hell names their son Arie? He’s a race car driver. Race car drivers are named Dick Trickle, not Arie! See! Exclamation points! I tried not to use them but this show is so stupid!



Anyways, Emily is mad. She grills Arie to unveil anything he might be hiding. It’s ridiculous. It’s so ridiculous that ABC doesn’t even show the entire discussion. They come back from commercial and Chris Harrison explains that Arie and Emily cleared everything up when the cameras were off and they’re back to being happy and in love. So, if you’re keeping score at home, ABC will keep the cameras rolling in your child’s bedroom after you’ve tucked her in and turned off the lights, but they will not roll on footage of conversations integral to the plot. That’s awful television.



Arie and Emily find the time to eat dinner in a Prague castle and make out like two babysitters angling to get their grope-fest on before the parents get back home. There is slurping. I am, once again, uncomfortable.



Back at the hotel, Wolf finds out he’s getting the next 1-on-1 date. A psychopath named Chris obsesses over his frustrations with his girlfriend dating 5 other guys. He is turning into a serial killer on National Television.



We’re back to Emily and Arie’s castle slurp-fest and Arie tells Emily that he fell in love with her in Croatia (SEE!) and they make out some more and Emily basically tells him he’s won the Game Show and then… wait for it… there are fireworks. Seriously, tons of fireworks, just for them. It’s amazing. I wish you guys could have seen the fireworks. I did not see it coming. Arie even says, “That is so cool” and I yell, “Damn straight, Arie!” and then I get sad because I wanted to high-five Arie but he was in Prague and I’m in Wheatfield and it’s not even being shown to me in real time and, for all I know, Arie could be dead right now and he’ll never know how cool I thought those fireworks were.



The next day, Wolf gets a 1-on-1 date. It’s a friend date. They’re friends. No date on this show can be taken seriously now that Emily and Arie basically got engaged under a fireworks display. The other 5 guys are now fighting for 2nd place… or to become the next Bachelor.



Wolf has run out of funny quotes and now just prattles on about his family and how he wants to open up. There were some good lines on their date:



“We had a serious conversation in Croatia…”



“During Communism, music was censored here…”



“This is where people bring their locks…”



“You’re getting pretty deep on me today…”



I’m not going to tell you who said what or what any of these words mean because you don’t even care enough to know. Just be thankful you didn’t have to watch Wolf’s date with Emily because it was boring and stupid. Wolf is a Data Deconstruction specialist and you know how those folks roll. They go to a Prague dungeon to eat on T.V. Wolf tells a story about being dumped by his ex, which is always a good way to present yourself to a woman dating 5 other guys. Then, they make out.



Wolf takes Emily home and returns to their Prague hotel. Big religious guy Sean sneaks out of the hotel room to run through the streets of Prague to find Emily to make out. Cameras rush behind him as he scours the streets shouting ‘Emily’. I checked out Wikipedia and found that there are about 2 million people in Prague and roughly 73,000 Hotel rooms. Sean finds Emily in 6 seconds. She was walking alone down a Prague alley… because girls who look like Emily often wander strange streets alone, in full make-up and mic’d for Network broadcast. I hate this show.



Sean and Emily make out more in this segment than my wife and I have ever made out. Fillings have to be missing. It’s… uncomfortable. They go into a random ‘perfectly lit for television’ restaurant room to make out more. Then, they go back outside to make out more. Ricki is always in the back of Emily’s mind. Sean isn’t winning the Bachelorette but, he’s ‘making-out’ his way into becoming a future Bachelor.



Back at the Prague hotel, Psycho Chris finds out that he is a part of the group date and not the 1-on-1 date so he cries on camera and tries not to punch a hole in something.



Chris buries his anger for the next day’s group date. It’s Chris, his rage, big religious guy Sean the make-out king, and Doug the Dad. Emily picks them up in a horse drawn carriage big enough for 3 small people. They go to a castle to walk around and talk about how awesome it is. Doug the Dad thanks Emily for showing him the Prague castle as if she were responsible for taking him on vacation.



Emily pulls Doug the Dad aside to dump him. He’s super shy and doesn’t molest Emily and she hates that. She’s giving him a ‘I’m dumping you’ speech and Doug tries to make out with her in the middle of it. It’s awkward. It’s super awkward. On an awkward scale of 1-to-10, it’s a ‘10’. Emily completes the dumping and pushes Doug the Dad into a Prague cab.



There’s a camera in the Prague cab and Doug the Dad cries. He cries a lot. It’s uncomfortable. He talks about wanting to fall in love and his face contorts and there is a lot of crying and I long for the make-out footage. It’s… yeah, you get the point.



Emily goes back to her other boyfriends who she hasn’t dumped yet. They’re super comfortable too. Emily pulls them into separate rooms to make out with them. I say to my wife, “How can she make out with a guy 10 seconds after making out with a guy?” My wife says, “It’s not hard”. I kind of make a mental note.



Emily gives giant religious Sean guy a rose and psycho Chris uses all of his restraint to not punch Emily. His face is crimson. He’s pissed. I feel bad for the dry wall in his hotel room because it is getting punched tonight.



Jef with 1 ‘f’ gets the final 1-on-1 date. He and Emily buy super creepy Prague puppets from a creepy Prague puppet maker. The puppets steal my soul. Jef buys a creepy puppet for Ricki, the little girl he’ll never meet. Jef with 1 ‘f’ and Emily take the puppets to a Prague library to act out scenes from this season’s Bachelorette dates. (I swear to God I’m telling the truth.) By the way, I used one paragraph to describe 18-minutes of horrendous T.V. and I hope you can appreciate the pain I’ve spared you.



Jef with 1 ‘f’ tells Emily that he loves her. This is a serious show. When they’re done with the puppet show, they lie down on the floor of the library to make out and people must not read much in Prague because that library is empty. Emily and Jef with 1 ‘f’ talk about meeting his family next week. Jef with 1 ‘f’ says that his parents won’t be home because “they’re committed to something for a year”. I’m thinking it’s either prison or a Fox reality show. Jef with 1 ‘f’ tells Emily that he’d dump her if his parents didn’t like her.



We’re done with the dates and we don’t get a cocktail party because Emily cancels it to go straight to the Rose ceremony. Psycho Chris fumes because he wanted to take that time to apologize to Emily for turning into a volcano. Psycho Chris cries a lot while telling the camera how mad he is about not having a chance to explain himself. I’m guessing Psycho Chris will hate watching this episode back.



Psycho Chris shakes through the rose ceremony. He looks like the dude from ‘Scanners’. Before Emily hands out the final rose, Psycho Chris panics and pulls her into the other room to beg to stay. They go back to the rose ceremony and Emily dumps Wolf. (Boom!)



Wolf takes the dumping well. He hides his anger better than Psycho Chris. You need to shine in the ‘dump’ moment to have a chance at being the Bachelor. They’re not bringing you back if you throw chairs.



So, Emily is now down to 4 guys. Next week, she goes to the hometowns of her 4 boyfriends to meet their families so they can spaz out and act like they’re the coolest, zaniest families around and it’s embarrassing.