Monday, February 18, 2013

Bachelor - Your Family Will Ruin Your Fantasy

Welcome to the most highly anticipated episode of the Bachelor since....well since Tierra said she couldn't control her face.  I'm super excited to see this confrontation between Sean and Desiree's brother, but knowing ABC, they've shown us the tensest parts and it'll end with Sean earning the brother's acceptance.

AshLee gets the first date, and she's brought her teacup puppy!  His name is Bailey, but I'm willing to guess she spells it BayLee.  God I hate little dogs.  The dog is exhausted and AshLee needs to carry him - if she has a stroller for him, I'll lose it.  AshLee keeps calling Sean "this man" which is just awful.  She also says that she has fallen into love with him.  Then she says that she wants a person as amazing as her dad....which to me is just a creepy statement.  Sean gave some answer that was apparently the most perfect answer in the history of the world.  AshLee says it's the exact answer her dad would've given, and the creepy factor is off the charts.  She then gives a fist pump and kind of whisper-shouts "yayy!!! Let's meet my family."  Apparently you can't yell at the top of your lungs in a city of five million people like Houston.  Much easier on a deserted island where your exhausted dog is the only person that can hear you, eh honey?  Let's meet these foster parents already!

AshLee's been dreaming of the day she brings home a guy since she was 5 years old?  I'm super confused.  AshLee's dad is apparently the coach of the Kansas City Chiefs.  He looks EXACTLY like Andy Reid.






AshLee recaps the polar bear plunge and then proceeds to tell her parents that there was "a lot of romance" as they rolled around on the beach.  Her mama, who looks like a no-nonsense kinda lady, is not impressed.  I personally hope my daughter never tells me about her romps on the beach with men.  The mom then goes straight into the "what are your intentions for AshLee...do you plan on breaking her heart?"  Easiest question in the world to answer.  Not exactly the way to get at what you want to know AshLee's mom.

The Dad conversation goes pretty well.  I'm pretty impressed that Sean goes right into the "why did you let your daughter get married at 17?"  The dad's answer is a good one.  He said at the time he felt that AshLee might have made some even worse decisions if he'd said no, so he signed off on it.  Looking back, he would've done things differently.  I can respect that, even though my initial reaction was "you mean like NOT LETTING A HIGH SCHOOL JUNIOR GET MARRIED, ANDY REID?"  That was a worse decision than signing Michael Vick, buddy.  Dad starts crying talking about how much he loves AshLee and that makes her start crying.  It's kinda touching....I really respect foster/adoptive parents that care for their children as if they were their own flesh and blood.  That being said, I still think they raised a crazy woman whose outlook on life is such that she thinks dating a guy with three other girlfriends qualifies as "pixie dust sprinkled over everything."  Tinkerbell would kick your delusional ass, girl.

Off to Seattle for Catherine's date.  Apparently she's recovered from the shock of her girlfriend Lesley being voted off the island.  Their date starts at Pike Street Market - as all dates in Seattle start.  They'll probably end up at the original Starbucks and the Space Needle too.  We get to catch some fish - props to Catherine for one handing a fish!  That was impressive.  Maybe the best impression she's made on me thus far.  She's also straddled a giant piggy bank and danced a jig to a street vendor....she is a super fun person.  I want to be her friend.  Plus I want to hear more about the tree crushing a girl in front of her.

Catherine preps Sean to meet her family, including Graham Cracker, her Philippino Grandmother.  Apparently Sean's supposed to put her hand to his head as a sign of respect.  Sean's asks if she's going to give him her hand, and Catherine says "oh of course she will."  I get the sense that Graham Cracker got some coaching as well.

There's a lot of women in the room with Sean right now.  Three generations of women grilling him.  I can't imagine this is going to be super fun.  Catherine's impressed that he cooked with her mom and talked to her Grandma.....as if he was going to decline anything on this date.  I hate it when someone gets credit for something that obviously they're going to do.  It'd be like saying "he's so sweet, can you believe he walks his dog after working all day?"  If you're going to have a dog, you better f'ing walk it. But don't walk it til it's exhausted like AshLee.  That's too much.

Catherine's sisters remind me of the Siamese cats from Lady and the Tramp.  They just seem like they're out to ruin everyone's fun.  All they've done is crap on Catherine's feelings for Sean and then they kind of criticize Catherine's bad habits to Sean.  Not exactly the best wingmen.





 I get the sense they're almost jealous of the attention she's getting.  Mom also kinda rains on the parade when her mom says "we'll see" when he asks for a blessing.  I always love the parents of the women on the hometowns.  The guy always asks for a blessing, and they all basically say "if you love her, sure, but if you don't you need to cut her loose."  It's always such a hollow endorsement.  I can't blame the families...they've all watched the show, they know the bachelor is always "crazy" about umpteen women and that he's having the same conversations with three other girls families.  It always cracks me up...like what is Sean expecting to hear from these parents?  He seems disappointed and says that Catherine's sisters gave him information that makes him "question their relationship."  All they showed was the sisters saying she was kinda messy.  If leaving clothes on the floor was such a deal-breaker for Sean, don't you think he'd have brought this up with the ladies in the cocktail party on the first night?  I feel like there's an easy plan you can lay out for your time as the bachelor.  It goes something like this:

Step One - Identify absolute hard and fast limits.  If you hate smokers, ask them if they smoke on the first night.  If you can't handle someone who likes the movie Dirty Dancing, work it into a conversation the first night.  Then send them home.

Step Two - After the first night, you should have a fairly good idea of girls you really are interested in and girls you probably aren't.  Take girls you probably aren't interested in on solo dates in the first few weeks to confirm initial reactions.

Step Three - For the sake of television, identify one girl that you know the audience loves and one girl you know the audience hates.  Even though you have no intention of marrying either girl, keep them around long enough that you can put them on a two on one date and then kick off the sweet girl.  Watch mayhem ensue amongst the ladies and imagine what the reaction is going to be like on Twitter.  Keep crazy girl around as long as you can without killing her.  Ask ABC if they're willing to shoot you an extra $250K if you propose to her.

Step Four - Act like you're having a really tough time making a decision.  ABC basically set up this show so that you can be extremely vague about your true feelings to a bunch of attractive women, then let their minds run wild.  You can say something like "I always smile when I see you" and the woman will interpret that to mean you're in love with her because technically you can't tell her you're in love with her per ABC's rules.  So now you basically get to lead a bunch of attractive women on and make out with them while you actually have a relationship with the one or two girls you identified as marriage material on the first night.  Remind me again why any single guy wouldn't want to be the bachelor?  It's like getting a free pass to make out with a bunch of hot women in front of your girlfriend for "research purposes."

Step Five - Meet families, say the same thing to all of them, then break up with a girl.  Say you're just too different.  Girl blames her family because, well you just met them so they MUST be the reason.  Feel bad for a second, but hey, you've still got three smoking hot ladies to take to fantasy suites.  Feel better immediately.

Step Six - If you haven't already made a decision of who to propose to, do it now.  Introduce girls to your family.  Encourage one family member to be super hard on the girls (I'm looking at you, Grant.)  Tell your family which one you really like, then let them be the bad guys.  Break up with another girl.

Step Seven - Propose to one girl, even if you're not sure you want to marry either one.  If she says yes (and she will because she doesn't want to look like a cold hearted ice princess on national television) give it a shot.  If it works out, you got yourself a pretty attractive lady and probably some endorsement deals and appearance fees to collect.  If it doesn't work out, parlay that into a spin on Bachelor Pad where you get to make out with even more emotionally unstable attractive women with no repercussions.  Plus, you still get those appearance fees.  It's really a no lose situation.

Off to Major General Lindsey's house in small town Missouri.  Her town apparently thinks it's still WWII, because there's cannons and American flags everywhere.  There's even a jukebox in a tiny bar that I'm betting Lindsey has never set foot in before.  After a cute conversation about what to call Lindsey's dad (General? Mister?  Mark?  Hey you?) Sean gets the always comforting "I've never brought a guy I like home to my dad who has combat training, so good luck." Now it's time for Lindsey to take Sean to the cutest boot camp ever.  While I'm sure it was totally staged and directed by ABC, she made it pretty fun.  I'd pick Lindsey if I were Sean.  I realize she got a little tipsy the first night and went big with the wedding dress thing, but it was fun.  There's something to be said for fun drunk girls.  I love my wife.  She's fun all the time.  But she's like SUPER fun when she's drinking.  Can't knock a girl for getting a little goofy when she gets into the wine!

Apparently being a two star general is a big deal.  I have no clue how many two star generals there are in the Army....I know the more stars you have, the higher your rank.  But it's like saying you're a third degree black belt.  Do you know how many degrees of blackness there are in belts?  I don't.  I know it means you're good at karate, but I have no frame of reference for how good you really are.  Are you like one of the best in the world?

Lindsey's family seems pretty cool off the bat.  Her mom seems like she's the "best friend" mom.  All the other army girls probably loved going to sleepovers at Lindsey's house.  She probably was making the popcorn and leading games of "I never" while braiding the girls hair.  Mom approves, even applauding Sean for giving a non answer like "I can't comment on if I love your daughter or not."  Again Sean gets credit for being vague.  Gotta love being the Bachelor.

Now it's time to be interrogated by General Dad.  I love that Dad stands while Sean sits at the bar.  Let's just play up the "her dad's important" angle.  Sean asks for his blessing, and he gives the ABC mandated answer of "I'm going to act like I don't really understand the question so I'm going to repeat it, then talk in circles for about 45 seconds so that you think that I'm going to say no, but then I'm going to smile and shake your hand and say "of course you can marry my daughter!  See I'm not scary, military people can be cool too!"  Based on hometowns, Lindsey is definitely winning this episode.  And looking at the teasers for Sean vs. Desiree's brother, she's got this locked up.

Wait...there's a Sean special tomorrow?  There goes my hope of catching up on the DVR tomorrow night.  Damn you ABC....I was really hoping to finally watch "Sexting in Suburbia" which is in my top five lifetime movies based on name alone.

Off to LA for Sean vs. Desiree's family.  It starts with a hike in some god awful highlighter colored clothes (she's sporting a standard electric yellow tank top, He's wearing some 3/4 length bright pink board shorts.  LA fashion is weird.)  We're ending the solo date time early, so you know the family stuff is going to be good.  Des is talking stuff up, Sean's talking stuff up....and why is this the first time ever that family hasn't been at the house?  Oh.....it's because an ex-boyfriend has just showed up.  This boyfriend is the worst actor ever.  You can see him hyperventilating as he tries to act angry.  I'm still trying to figure out if ABC actually expects us to believe that this guy didn't know that Des had gone on The Bachelor and that he just happened to show up at her house the first night she's been back in five weeks.  Or maybe he's been driving by her house every night for five weeks waiting for her to come back, in which case I'd say there's a 50% chance he's got a chloroform soaked rag and some duct tape in his back pocket.  Oh wait Des is punking Sean!  Gotta admit, I fell for it, sort of.  A much better prank than the Art Gallery disaster he tried to pull on her on their first one on one date.  Des is thrilled that Sean was so protective of her.  Although if some guy walked in an put his hands on me, I'd probably get pretty testy too.  Sean's a good sport about the pranking, and says "this sets us up for a great night."  Famous last words....

Mom loves him, Dad loves him, Brother does not.  She says "he makes me happy."  Bro says "psssht.  Lots of guys could make you happy."  I love that he's got his sleeves rolled up to show off his completely random tattoos.  I love how he says "can I holla at you for a minute?" and Sean responds "yeah buddy!" These two aren't really acting like they don't like each other.  I'm convinced that they would hate each other under any circumstances.  They could be leads in some dance movie involving a girl either moving in or out of the inner city and falling for a guy from the wrong side of the tracks.

Des' brother tries to use big words like "reciprocation" to illustrate his displeasure.  He's like the definition of a "bro."  Sean calmly tries to explain his feelings, but then tells her brother "she loves all the affection I show her."  Not exactly what I'd want to hear some guy say about my sister.  "Actually dude, I'm all over her all the time, so there!"  Sean then says "my character and my integrity are number one to me."  Again, if you're the bro, don't you want to hear "your sister is number one to me?"  I'm really surprised Bro Nate didn't jump all over him on that one.  Now we're back to the awkward full family sit down.  Bro clearly runs the family.  He's used to popping off and not getting called on it.  The family tries to scold him, but it comes off as "Nate, you know you shouldn't have done that.  Would you like another piece of cake for dessert?"  Bro says he sees it ending badly for Des if she doesn't get picked.  Ya think, bro?  He clearly doesn't grasp that he's going to come out the villain in this scenario if Des doesn't make it out of this week.  He thinks it'll justify his actions.

Time for a deliberation with Chris Harrison and his fancy clothes that he designs.  Sean breaks it down right away, and guess what - the two girls he's torn between sending home are the two whose siblings weren't fully on board with the whole Bachelor love thing.  Catherine and Des will both end up blaming their families (see Step Five above).  Time for the roses.  Lindsey is wearing something that looks like a cross between a dinner dress and a Sports Illustrated swimsuit circa 1993.  She must be feeling confident to wear that baby.  Sean starts giving the girls his song and dance, but I don't even think he believes the words that are coming out of his mouth.

Des interrupts the deliberations to apologize for her brother and the tears start flowing.  Strong move by her.  He's shown preference for girls that have struggled emotionally throughout this process.  Takes a special kind of guy to tell a girl "it's alright, you have nothing to apologize for, everything's good" and then send her packing five minutes later.  Catherine's gripping, and she probably should be.  Sean's got his character and integrity to uphold after all.

After issuing roses to AshLee and Lindsey, Sean takes a lengthy pause, then puts the rose down and runs away like a scared little puppy.  He heads back into his little shrine room to stare at their pictures, because that's easier than looking the girls in the face.  What a punk move.  Chris Harrison comes in and commands him to "take as much time as he needs to get this right."  Which in Bachelor-speak means "we've only got about two more hours before the sun comes up, so hurry up or we're going to lose the lighting we need for this shot."  I love the idea that the answer is just going to come to him in the next few hours without spending any more time with either of the girls.  What's going to change...what is going to provide him with the clarity he apparently craves?  After staring into the pictures for a few more seconds, he admits that he was going to send Des home, and now he's having second thoughts because of her teary apology.  It was a good move, but Sean countered with a good move of taking a few extra moments to make it look like he was having a really tough time deciding, before doing what he was planning on doing all along despite Chris Harrison's speech to the girls about Sean having "no idea" what he was going to do.

Sean then walks her out and offers the WORST breakup speech ever.  "You have every quality I'm looking for, and I think I'm going to wake up tomorrow and realize I made a huge mistake." This is worse than when Emily sent him home and then asked him what he was thinking and started crying and made him console her.  Des tells him he's right, he is making a mistake and then cries her butt off.  In the limo, she actually says "I don't know what I'm going to do with my life" and "all I want to do is make someone else happy."  That's a byproduct of a good relationship, not a reason for a good relationship.  I'll bet she regretted saying that when she saw it on film.  At least I hope she did.

Alright we get more Tierra tomorrow night.  See y'all then!


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