Monday, May 21, 2012

The Bachelorette jumps the pig

Kermit and Miss Emily
Wow. Really? Puppets? Oh, sure, spell them with an 'm' instead of a 'p', but that's all they are. Green and pink felt puppets. You can't have a real interaction with a puppet. I'm as big a fan of the Muppets as the guys who were selected to perform in a variety show with them, but let's not pretend they're real people. Let's not pretend Miss Piggy is really jealous of Kermit's fake relationship with Miss Emily. This was, without a doubt, the low point in a history of low points for the reality show we all hate to love.

But I won't harp on it. Each season gets a mulligan. That was it. Let's just pretend it never happened.

Oh, before I move on, though, the puppetmaster for Kermit had him saying at one point that, "Miss Piggy and I have been together for a very long time." Was this news to anyone else? Granted, I haven't seen the movies, but I always thought it was more of an unrequited love, a one-way street. I didn't realize it was a full-fledged inter-species affair.

In the comments section last week I was asked to tally the "sweet"s uttered by Miss Emily. Apparently she used up her quota last week because I heard only one this week, and she paired it with 'girl' to form "sweet girl". Did I just miss the others? For a while I thought "awesome" might be the phrase to listen for, but it proved to be a false alarm. Mind you, I didn't count all the times the southern belle said "y'all". But I noticed it.

The episode started off with Miss Emily sitting around with her fellow soccer moms. Apparently the heavily made-up and worked-on Miss Emily is a real soccer mom. And yes, she's slightly out of place amongst the others but to be fair to them, she'd be slightly out of place amongst any type of mom group.

Even though she's the star of her very own weekly two-hour prime time network series filming in her home town, Miss Emily couldn't get out of snack duty. So she enlisted Football Ryan to help bake cookies. What happened to store-bought granola bars or Wagon Wheels and some sliced oranges? The other moms already feel awful about themselves being around her, does she really need to rub it in by making home-made cookies?

So Ryan dutifully carts her groceries into her house for her, dons a lady's apron and gets his hands dirty. "I think it's too early to tell how he'd treat me in a marriage," she said, "but he passed the cookie test." Really? Too early? You've known him a whole day already and you're midway through your first date and it's too early? No wonder she's single.

At night, Miss Emily picks up the former minor leaguer in one of her many luxury vehicles and takes him to dinner. In trying to make up for lost time and get to know the guy a bit better, she asks how many ex-girlfriends he has. He's one handsome dude, afterall. He replies that there have only been two. Oh, he must not be a playah afterall. Clarification: Only two that have meant anything to him. Ah! Maybe the better question would have been, "How many women would claim they were your ex-girlfriend?"

But I'll grant him this: He was very good on the date. Seemed real. I could see him winning the whole thing. Make note. I know Racer Arie is the front-runner, but don't count Football Ryan out. I have no idea what Miss Emily's religious views are, but she's a good ole southern gal so I bet she has a healthy fear of God. And Ryan does, too. He mentioned his pastor then later on in the night signed off a 7-page (!) letter to her with, "Love in Christ." She might just go for that hooey.

He also said he'd "never experienced being in the presence of someone so beautiful" before. This just proves the former professional football player had to be in the arena league rather than the NFL, otherwise he'd have his pick of beautiful bimbos.

After dinner, Miss Emily led Ryan outside where a throng of iPhone paparazzi were waiting to watch the couple dance awkwardly to a live band nobody's heard of. Despite her look-at-me appearance, Miss Emily strikes me as shy. Surely this couldn't have been her idea, especially on a mean-nothing first date.

Next up was the Muppet date, of which the less said the better. But it's worth noting that Charlie Hustle, he of the 15-storey balcony fall, had the sweats when told he had to perform standup comedy. He eloquently explained that he has speech problems and finds it difficult to talk. Miss Emily wouldn't have known it, and neither would any of us. In fact, after watching Kyle and John try their hand at stand-up riddles, one might have assumed it was them with the brain injuries. Miss Emily was gracious as ever and allowed Charlie to sing. Or dance. Not sure, as we didn't see him do any of that.

After the embarrassment of the Muppets, the fellas got to unwind with the girl of their collective wet dreams. Creepy Chris really wanted the lone rose so he sidled up to Miss Emily and we were all gob-smacked when she told him how good-looking he is. This calls into question her judgment on everything. In what kind of Bizarro world is Creepy Chris attractive? I guess he has the rugged inbred good looks they go for down south.

The usual cut-ins caused the usual drama. Stevie, the Party MC who looks like Jon Cryer, was dancing to imaginary music with Miss Emily when Ames Wannabe Kalon cut in. Moments later, Aaron interrupts. I know they're trying to paint Kalon as the pretentious villain, but I thought he handled it well. He understood Aaron's desire, but said he had only just sat down with Miss Emily so requested just two more minutes. Aaron would have none of it, so Kalon, not wanting to put Miss Emily in a predicament, obligingly walked away.

One-F Jef then had his audience with Miss Emily, and the demure one was the aggressor. She told him she had been eying him all day and he never responded. He claimed he never noticed. You'd think that would be enough of a sign to turf the loser, but she gave him the rose. Creepy Chris couldn't believe it. He thought his conversation with her was unlike any other guy's talk. Points, though, for not saying they "had a connection," but that's what he meant.

The next one-on-one date went to Crazy Hair Joe. She flew him to her home state of West Virginia. Blue Ridge Mountains, Shanendoah River and all that. (I learn everything from pop songs.) It was such a big date for Joe he broke open the Unibrow-B-Gone cream.

Again, Miss Emily shocks us with her lack of knowledge about these guys: "I feel like there's so much about you I don't know," she told Joe. Honestly, woman, if you don't know it's because you don't want to know. There's no excuse after almost 48 hours with 19 guys not to know everything about all of them.

But it was not to be. Miss Emily let Hairy Joe go. And it was tough. Imagine how hard it'll be for her when she actually knows a bit more about the guy. Joe didn't seem too pleased but he left her so she could watch the romantic fireworks on her balcony alone.

Back at the house, everyone was hating on Kalon. Daddy Doug took exception to a little slip by Chopper Boy, who said Doug was putting being a dad on hold while he did the show. Again, not to rush to the defense of Kalon, but he was just using the handy-dandy guidebook on acceptable Bachelor/ette phrases. In fact, fast-forward to the exit interviews with the losers and we heard Kyle say he put his life on hold to be there. But Doug didn't get the memo. I guess haters gotta hate.

At the cocktail party, Football Ryan, who already had a rose, took the opportunity for some alone time with Miss Emily. And you know nobody took kindly to that. People with roses need not take valuable time away from people without. Right? Whatever. So Tony, who looks remarkably like Steve Carell, marched in there to steal her away. Ryan was gentlemanly and understood. He was just about to give Emily something, though. Would Tony Carell mind waiting? Miss Emily unrolled the aforementioned 7-page handwritten letter and proceeded to read the whole thing. I have no idea what it said. The guy went on one date with her, GOT THE ROSE, and still felt the need to pen seven pages of dreck for her. Why not save that for a week when you don't already have a rose. That might be the impetus to keep you around for another week.

Anyway, 15 minutes later, Emily finishes reading and has time for Tony, who was standing by the whole time. The big news he had to get across was that he has a 5-year-old son. Miss Emily couldn't have looked less interested if she had tried. Her precious angel is the only child that counts.

With Crazy Hair Joe gone, two more would follow suit, leaving Football Ryan, One-F Jef and 14 others with roses. As mentioned, Kyle put his life on hold for nothing, and 4-Eyes Aaron will head back to the biology lab where he'll no doubt become a super villain and concoct a deadly virus that will threaten to put an end to all life. I've seen the movies. I know how these things end.

Moving on were Capt. Kalon, Racer Arie, Pony Boy Michael, Anonymous Nate, Blond Sean, Creepy Chris, Daddy Doug, somebody named Travis, Wolf in John's Clothing, Head Banger Charlie, Party Nerd Stevie, and the two latin hombres, Alessandro and Alejandro. Can't tell them apart? Alejandro has matching earrings.

So that's that. Questions? Comments? Nasty remarks?

See you next week.

1 comment:

Rachel said...

Excellent recap, razor sharp wit.

I think she referred to Joe as "such a sweet guy" several times both before and after she showed him the door.