Bachelorette Season 13, Week 5: Norway to go but up (Part 2)

We've reached the part of the show where I start to question why I still watch this show. We've already met our cast of characters, and for the most part, they are who we thought they were. There's nobody at this point in the show that is going to emerge as a new villain, and it'd be a big surprise at this point to find out one of them has a child or girlfriend or some other shocking revelation. So we've reached the point where she basically goes on dates and then acts like she has a really tough decision to make on every single guy. Shoot, once this Kenny/Lee thing plays out, we won't even have any beef amongst the fellas any more.

Kenny goes on the best censored rant in history as he calls out Lee for his behavior. His daughter must be so proud. Rachel sends Lee home, and Lee immediately tells Rachel that Kenny cussed him out, calling her "sweetheart." Kenny, unable to accept the fact that he's still in the running, leaves Rachel in the chopper to again tell Lee he's a snake and that he needs to be a better person. Such an insane miscalculation on his part. Sort of like Donald Trump winning the election then continuing to push his insane theory that he actually won the popular vote too, Kenny is unable to accept a win without claiming total domination.

Oh it's happening, sweetheart

Incredible restraint by Rachel to not leave Kenny in the Norwegian wilds with Lee.  I would've loved that move. Kenny lecturing Lee, Lee laughing his ass off as the helicopter's blades start turning, Kenny all of a sudden realizing what's going on, standing there dumbfounded as the helicopter lifts off, hovers for a second over them as Rachel drops the rose out the door and flies away. Tell me I couldn't write this show.

A little self congratulation is necessary every now and then

In the end, Kenny gets the rose after explaining himself again to Rachel. She buys it, but I'm pretty sure we still have yet to see anyone survive a two-on-one date and go on to win the rose. I may be wrong on that, but I don't think I am. Kenny then calls his daughter and she's pretty adorable and I hope he makes it to hometowns so we can see more of their interactions. Best part of the show by far.

Rose ceremony time, and Josiah keeps talking about how confident he is, and how good he feels. Kiss. Of. Death. Rachel sends him and Anthony home. I didn't even know who Anthony was. Josiah goes off on most of the Caucasian people left on the show as "poor choices" for Rachel to keep around over him, though in his defense Alex is kinda weird and Adam did bring a creepy doll. Those are legitimate things to be confused by.

Off to Denmark. Eric snags the one on one date - touring Copenhagen. Eric's on a bridge. Rachel shows up on a boat. Eric yells "hey girl! We here!" Rachel should just keep that boat moving, but unfortunately she decides to dock. Eric tries to get in the boat, Rachel gets out. Then they both get in. Just stay in the boat, Rach.

They find a public hot-tub park. Have you ever been to public park in a big city? Do you ever feel safe there? Well, now add hot tubs and alcohol. Seems totally safe. Not surprisingly, a strapping Danish bloke hops up and yells "welcome to Denmark while exposing his Danish Stick Loaf.

When someone invites you to a Danish hot tub park

At dinner, Rachel and Eric talk, and Eric says "with everything I've been through...." which leads Rachel to ask him what all he's been through. What he's been through, evidently, is not getting enough hugs from his mama. Eric always has run from love, because he didn't get it from his mom and it was so unfamiliar to him. Not with Rachel though! Now he's finally realized that love is not something to run from! Rachel says "I am bringing something out of him that he never had before." Brilliant, Eric. Talk about your past struggles, say you're ready to move on, and presto you've got a girl putty in your hands. it all seems great until Rachel says "I don't know what's going to happen....." which probably means Eric is going home as soon as his rose immunity expires.

Rachel, to Eric next week

 Group date time - Rachel makes the boys row a boat across a fjord. On the opposite side, there are two guys "fighting" with swords. Fighting is a pretty liberal term.

Today we fight like Vikings!

Viking games basically involve knocking someone out of a circle by various methods. In one version you have to hold onto a stick. In another, you can't use your hands. In one you have to take a flag outside of a circle, and in yet another, you have to hold one of your legs behind your back. In the end, Kenny and Adam go at each other with swords and shields. Kenny wins (duh) but they both end up bleeding, which is an appropriate metaphor for the show: nobody leaves without a scar.

The rest of the group date involves making out with pretty much everyone (except for Matt, whom Rachel asks "how's Kenny?) This is really not a good sign, Matthew.

Not looking good, bro

Kenny then has the "my daughter needs to know if I'm gonna marry you, so tell me now if I'm going to marry you" conversation. As it always happens, Rachel says right now she can't commit to that, so she has to let him go home to his child. I'm not a big fan of using the kid as a reason to blame this relationship for not moving forward excuse. If Rachel didn't want to become an instant mom, she shouldn't allow dudes with kids on the show. I would think she has that sort of veto power. Or is it the sort of thing where ABC tells her "yeah, you don't have to pick him, but we gotta put a single dad on the show because America loves single dads. You can just tell him he needs to go home to be with his kid week 5 though." Being a kid of a cast member on a Bachelor Nation show has to be tough. You gotta go to school and hear people say "yo, saw your dad got dumped last night because his tv girlfriend didn't want to meet you." That can't be fun.

Why would you go on this show, Dad? WHY?!?!?

Will gets a date, and it basically involves a trip to Sweden and  ABSOLUTELY NO TOUCHING OF ANY KIND. Will smiles a few times, Rachel doesn't. Will tries to charm her, Rachel actually rolls her eyes a little at one point, and he's going home. At least you got to go to Sweden, right dude?

So, if you're keeping track: On this episode we've now said goodbye to five dudes. Let's make it a six pack, shall we? Time for a rose ceremony at the end of an episode.....a rarity these days. Rachel then says that being in Denmark reminded her of the Shakespeare quote from Hamlet "to thine own self be true." Do we really think that Rachel pulled this information from her memory banks? I'm guessing she saw it in the gift shop at the castle when they walked by. She has to excuse herself because this decision is so hard on her, then dumps Alex. Wasn't really that tough, was it? She didn't really have any chemistry with Alex that I saw.

Mercifully, this two day saga has come to an end, and we can get back to only wasting two hours of our lives a week again in July. See y'all then!

Bachelorette Season 13, Week 5: Norway to go but up (part one)

This episode was very boring, let's just get that out of the way. It's hard to write about boring material, so I'm going to supplement this with a buttload of gifs. Enjoy!

Kenny doesn't seem to understand how aggression works. Him whispering "you're a little bitch" and "I'm going to end you," is pretty damn aggressive. I mean, which is more scary: someone very angry yelling crazy stuff, or a person who is very calm and in control whispering threats of your impending death?

Worse than that was Lee saying "I don't like confrontation." This is akin to the Pillsbury Doughboy saying he doesn't like being poked in the belly.

Does he look like he dislikes this?

Jack Stone was then sent home on a one-on-one. The only thing I could see that Rachel and Jack had in common is that they'd both probably be better off dating another man on the cast.

I wasn't sure about that joke either.

Tickle Monster went home, and we're off to Norway.

Brian gets a date, they rappel of a ski jump, Rachel decides he's so perfect he must be lying about something and there has to be some sort of a catch. Turns out the "catch" is that Brian was "too skinny" in high school and the girls didn't pay him any attention. Boo freakin hoo Brian, it must suck to be an attractive skinny man. You get no sympathy points for having acne either, because what teenager doesn't deal with bad skin? He then tells her he loves her, and she gives him props for being so vulnerable and putting himself "all the way out there."

Heard that before........

There's a group date coming that involves playing team handball in spandex that we're going to have to sit through before we get to the main event of Kenny vs. Lee in a two on one date. Lee says "I don't think I've ever seen a two on one date where both guys have come home before.

Have you ever even watched this show, bro?

 I'm pretty excited for this team handball group date, as handball is my favorite sport American's have no clue how to play at the Summer Olympics. It's basically on par with curling for me. I mean...look at this:

That's pretty cool, right? Unfortunately, the guys don't play like that. They play more like this

Ok maybe not, but it's awkward and funny like them playing

Will tries to make the most of his time with Rachel, saying that he needs to let her know who he really is. He says something about knowing Nick hurt her, and around the same time, he got hurt by someone he loved "very much." That person picked someone else, and he says "for a while" he didn't think he would ever put himself out there again. So what was that "for a while?" It couldn't have been more than a month tops. Since everything moves at light speed on this show, I'll allow it.

And what the hell is going on with Josiah? He goes into a story about his dad telling his mom on their second date that the Lord put it in his heart that they were going to marry, and now he would be remiss if he didn't tell Rachel that she was the woman of his dreams. He says this as he strokes her shoulder. Rachel doesn't buy it for a second and says that he never asks questions about her or anything that he didn't read on the internet about her. Josiah, without missing a beat, says "that is an excellent point, you're very perceptive and I love that about you."

Did Josiah even hear what she said?

Josiah continues his string of confusing statements, criticizing Lee for being from the South, when he himself is from Florida. Off they go into the Norwegian wilderness.....or as Lee calls it "the land of the vikings." Lee's objective is to kill Kenny with kindness, Kenny's is to "focus on Rachel." Here's thinking they both fail.

Kenny starts his alone time talking about how he's looking for a woman his daughter can look up to and emulate...this is good! Then he goes on to say "the only thing I'm going to say about this is that Lee is a snake and I called him a snake and I yelled at him." Did Kenny accomplish his objective?

 

Lee decides to go on the offensive, telling Kenny called him a bitch, said he would sh*t in his boots, and forcibly yanked him out of a van. Nothing about Rachel, no kindness at all towards Kenny....this is clearly going well. Objective accomplished?

The episode ends with Kenny laughing like one of the hyenas in Lion King and saying that Lee is going to get "washed under in a tide of realness that is Kenny." 

This is a good place to say "to be continued" because I'm going to need a while to unpack that sentence....see you tomorrow!

Bachelorette Season 13, Week 4: Race to the Bottom

The good thing about a week off from the Bachelorette is that I get a week off from getting worked up about a bunch of guys I shouldn't care about.  The bad thing is that I forget about the cliffhanger drama and just assume it's all over and done with.

But no, here we are talking about Lee and Eric.....still. Lee is an idiot. Lee has to explain that his grandfather getting cancer was sad. Nobody has to explain cancer is sad. Lee uses a knife that his grandfather carried with him to carve the word "enchanting" in a piece of wood that looks pretty much like the handwriting Andy used when putting his name on Buzz and Woody's feet. Lee sucks. Eric is pretentious and annoying, but Lee truly sucks.

Bryan and Rachel have a conversation that includes all the hottest buzzwords: vulnerable, future, drama, charming, 100% real....we've got #bachelorettebingo! There's no 50/50 pot at this bingo game, so they settle for aggressive kissing.

Lee continues to patronize every guy in the house. Kenny's pissed off because Lee interrupted him. Lee decides that the best way to deal with an angry person is to laugh at them, which sounds like a great way to get punched. Rachel is having a hard time talking to Bryce, whom I will henceforth refer to as Poor Man's Wolverine.

One of my favorite things about this season has been the fact that nobody has mentioned race, despite this being the most racially diverse cast ever. It hadn't been mentioned, that is...until now. Rachel somehow thinks that the guys arguing means that people are going to blame her race for the drama. I honestly don't get this line of thinking. There has been much bigger drama on this show between an all white cast. I'm guessing she thinks that people will not just see it as "drama," but as "black person drama." She said that she's getting pressure from all sides....about what? Who is pressuring her? I don't think I've seen one negative thing about her online yet. People (and by people, I mean fans of the show) generally love her and see her as one of the "best" bachelorettes in the show's history. She's straight forward, she commands the room, and she's not just sitting around waiting for the guys to fight over her. Just frustrating to me.

Now we've got a rose ceremony that nobody really cares about. They already 86'ed the kooky dude, so you know the only other villain they have (Lee) is safe. Anyone who they've invested any time in showing on TV is also safe. In the end, it's Diggy and Poor Man's Wolverine who leave. I don't get sending Diggy home, he seemed like a pretty chill dude.

Rachel then toasts the remaining guys, saying that she hopes they can move forward with no drama and negativity. This coming from someone who kept Lee around. The Bachelor franchise is just a giant manifestation of that girl in high school who would get drunk and make out with her best friend's boyfriend at a party and then cry about how she's "so sick of drama" when people get mad at her for it.

Time for the show to leave LA (but not the drama) behind, and head to South Carolina. Dean, a life-sized, animatronic Ken doll, gets the first date. They park a jeep in a field and drink champagne on the hood before a blimp appears on the horizon. You'll never believe this, but Dean is afraid of heights. Conveniently for ABC producers, a blimp crashed and burst into flames at the US Open which you gotta admit is some pretty convenient timing for them. Miraculously, Dean is able to overcome his fear of heights to pilot the blimp and make Rachel feel like she was the one to give him the courage to ride in a goddamn blimp. The blimp cockpit is basically a glass bubble that made me nervous watching it on TV from my couch, so I have a hard time believing anyone with a true phobia of heights would be calm at all in an actual blimp.

Of course, the blimp does a fly-by of the resort the guys are staying at, and of course they're all out on the balcony as it comes into view. The side of the blimp says "Dean and Rachel are in here," and this pisses Eric off to no end. "I can tell they're having a good time," he moans, as he plots a way to get that blimp on the ground.

Anyone seen Eric?

After the blimp lands (safely), Dean and Rachel talk about their upbringings.  Rachel's parents are still married, which leads Dean to say "that's really rare these days." A great conversation to have with a woman you want to marry (in theory, at least). He then divulges the sad story of his mom dying of breast cancer 11 years ago, and that apparently this is the first time he's talked about it. IN ELEVEN YEARS. If you go eleven years holding your feelings about your mom's death inside...there is no way you're a functioning member of society. You need therapy, Dean!

Group date time! They take a yacht. "Feel free to take your shirts off," Rachel croons, as she makes no attempt to shed any clothing herself. (#doublestandard) The date includes "competitions like limbo, pushups, and a rap battle. This concludes with a spelling bee. I'm already annoyed. Spelling is not something that's hard...if you do things like, oh, I don't know, READ. You read a book, it's got words, you see the words, and pretty soon, they look familiar, and damnit, then you know how to spell them.

I have to give credit though, they didn't give the guys simple words. I was anticipating guys going out on words like "utility" or "phony," not "boutonniere." Seriously, how many people have ever seen the word boutonniere written before? You hear the word two or three times in high school, and that's about it. Tough break for the guy who got that word. Josiah ends up winning, spelling the word "polyamorous."

Now, let's talk about Iggy. Last time we saw Iggy, he was talking about Eric to Rachel. I gave him props for following up that conversation by sitting Eric down and letting him know about that conversation. Iggy now has an issue with Josiah, for being kind of arrogant about winning the spelling bee. I think this had more to do with Josiah being a cocky drunk than anything else. Iggy started to get annoyed because Josiah was drunk and he wasn't. Iggy, dog, I've been there. But don't go trying to make it out to be something it's not. Now he's trying to act all high and mighty again, telling Josiah that he told Rachel he's causing tension in the house. This leads to Josiah, being the cocky drunk he is, blabbing to America about Iggy "shooting steroids in his nuts." Weird comeback, Josiah, but we'll allow it. So much for leaving the drama in Los Angeles.

Now back to our other beef: Lee vs. Kenny. Lee tells Rachel that Kenny was acting aggressive. Rachel asks Kenny if he was aggressive. Kenny says yes, but not to the level Lee made it appear. Rachel doesn't seem to buy Kenny's response, so now he feels he needs to pull Lee aside and get aggressive with him again. 

Nope.

To be continued.....

Bachelorette Season 13, Episode 3: Keep my Name OUT YO' MOUTH!

DeMario's back to try and angle for a spot on Bachelor Pad everyone...but really all I want to talk about is the fact that Rachel dated KEVIN DURANT.

So fellas, you think you're more interesting than me?

I mean, how do you handle that situation? You're competing with twenty or so dudes for Rachel's heart, but you also have to stack up to Kevin Freaking Durant? That's a lot of pressure. Too much for me, I know that. I would 100% be the guy that was always saying things like "yeah, but did Kevin Durant ever make you laugh like this?" or "how often did you have to just sit in the bleachers and wait for Kevin while he shot free throws after practice?" or "are you still on good enough terms with him to get us tickets?" I'd be gone in about thirty minutes.

DeMario tries to regain himself by saying things like "I told my Uber driver I was coming to get the girl of my dreams. And he told me to not take no for an answer." Well if your Uber driver said it.....seriously, are Uber drivers the new bartenders? People with absolutely no context on the situation that nonetheless are constantly solicited for affirmation and advice? Rachel shuts him down pretty hard, saying "you're a boy, I got me some men, good luck on your journey." Honestly, I hope that's the end of it. I guess congratulations are in order for Rachel for not dragging out this situation any longer than it needed to be.

The guys are effusive in their praise for Rachel's handling of the situation, with Adam saying that "she's not a fool, you can't pull the wool over her eyes..." except DeMario absolutely was pulling the wool over her eyes until his girlfriend blew up his spot.  I mean....that's not exactly what pulling the wool over someone's eyes means. (Later in the episode, Rachel will refer to DeMario as a wolf in sheep's clothing, which seems like she thought the wool was pulled over her own eyes.)

The Tickle-Monster has some comically large fake hands that work as a great conversation starter, but I feel like an easy Donald Trump joke was missed in there.

And now we're back to Blake vs. Whaboom. We're all still in agreement that neither of these guys are going to win right? So why are we investing any time in either of these goofballs. Rachel asks Whaboom why Blake is all mad at him, and Whaboom goes into some story about Blake licking a banana seductively over Lucas' bed while he sleeps. It seemed blatantly obvious to me that Lucas was making this story up to try and be funny, but everyone seemed to take it seriously, which....that guy is never serious. Why would we choose this story to be engaged in?

When Rachel asks Blake why Lucas is saying he stands over him while he sleeps and eats bananas, Blake says "well, that's clearly not true, I don't eat carbs." Yes, please refute the less creepy of the two accusations. Mercifully we get to a rose ceremony that will hopefully remove one or both of these guys from the equation and banana-gate will end here and now.

THEY'RE BOTH GONE!

 Oh wait no. We're going to get four minutes of them yelling at each other about they are ruining each other's lives in the driveway.  Neither of them really do themselves any favors, though I did laugh at Blake's "wakka wakka unhh unhh fart joke" blast....albeit mostly because I just felt sad for him.

Group date number one is a trip to see Ellen DeGeneres....which then turns into guys without shirts dancing for dollars with the Ellen Show crowd. WHY? WHY ARE WE DOING THIS? This does not give anyone any insight into who would make the best husband....and can you imagine if the Bachelor took his ladies to the Howard Stern show or something and had them dance in bikinis while a bunch of men shoved dollar bills in their pants? I mean, I get that the fact that these people are attractive and are in great shape is a key component of this show, but c'mon.

They then play "Never Have I Ever" with Ellen, which goes about how you think it would, except for the fact that Fred is awesome. Fred is sick and tired of being told that he "was a bad kid," which I totally get. I mean, when I was a kid, I was....well nevermind, I'm exactly the same. But the point is that Fred hasn't done anything since he's been on the show to give anyone the impression he's an attention hog or interested in causing a ruckus. Give the man the benefit of the doubt, Rach!

....And then we get a montage of Fred saying how anxious and impatient he is to kiss her, and I'm dreading this is going to go horribly wrong.  Fred than asks if he can kiss her, and she's not feeling it. Fred gets super excited about it, and Rachel has nothing to say about it...until she calls him to the side and kicks him off. Adding insult to injury, Rachel says that "it was like a little boy kissing me." Holy crap I feel terrible for Fred. He generally seems like a good dude. A little harsh of Rachel to hold the rose the whole time she's kicking him off the show.

Fred says "I can honestly say that I was falling in love with her." HOW? I mean, at what point did she give him any impression she was interested in him? I guess it depends on what "falling in love" means. I suppose the older you are, the easier it is to determine what love is. In 3rd Grade, I think I convinced myself that I was in love with the girl who knew exactly when to say "Stop! Hammertime" in MC Hammer's "U Can't Touch This." However, I think even at that young age, I knew that she didn't feel my ability to sing along with Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" was nearly as cool, and as such I admired her from a non-creepy distance (at least I think it was non-creepy.) I think my final answer is that love is not a one-sided emotion, but I'd be curious to see what other people think about this.

What is love?

Meanwhile, Rachel went on a whole date with Anthony that involved riding horses down Rodeo Drive. They rode them into stores, fed the horses cupcakes, and one of the horses pooped. Anthony got the rose. This date was super boring.

Group date involves other girls that were dumped by Nick (Raven, Alexis, Corinne, Jasmine) getting some more screen time, and random women at a country bar screaming things like "show me your junk" and "let me see that butt," while the men mud wrestle. Raven is all over finding out who the other guys don't think is right for Rachel, which is a good question to ask other women, but when you ask a guy, they're going to hear "which dude do you not get along with?" Eric seems to rub the guys the wrong way, and Lee and Bryce both jump at the chance to throw him under the bus.

Rachel, of course, is all too willing to let Eric know exactly which guys talked behind his back. Add this to the growing list of things I don't like about Rachel:

• Use of the term "keeping it 100."
• Talking to the camera about how the guys need to step it up because of the accelerated journey, then telling them that she's "not about to rush things with any of them."\

Ok, so it's a short list so far, but it seems to get longer with every episode.

Lee has a very condescending conversation with Eric, where he continues to tell Eric how much he loves him while simultaneously questioning everything that comes out of his mouth. Lee is annoying, but I get why Eric rubs everyone the wrong way. He's one of those people that is just so serious it seems like he can't actually be that serious and is just acting serious.

Iggy apparently also has an issue with Eric, and uses his time with Rachel to tell her about their argument, which I think had something to do with Eric wondering how seriously Rachel was taking this process. Now, props to Iggy for immediately searching out Eric and giving him the heads up.

Rachel then goes after Eric, and tells him that she believes him, but she also has to take into account what the other people are saying so she's "got her antenna up."

Amazingly, Eric disregards this warning from Rachel altogether and immediately calls a group meeting to start yelling at people. All he's gotta do is lay low, shrug it off and wait to get a little more one-on-one time with Rachel.  Instead, he starts yelling.  Unbelievable. He's gonna be the first person to get a rose yanked, and I can't really say that he'd have anyone to blame but himself.

TO BE CONTINUED