Finally got around to watching this week's installment of Fear Factor: Bachelor-Style. Forget Chris Harrison; Joe Rogan should host this thing. Without further ado, my random thoughts forthwith:
* Crazy Michelle 2.0 thinks Chantal is really aggressive, really over-confident and egotistical. As the great Mel Brooks as the 2000 Year Old Man once said, "We mock the things we are to be."* The one-on-one date with Chantal is at the longest zip line in the world. I think they said it was half a mile, but that can't be right. Brad said he'd never zip-lined before. Does anyone remember what he did on his dates the first time through? He had never rappelled down the side of a building before, either. Was he on before the advent of fear-based dating? Did he go on actual real-life dates?
* I know it never rains in southern California. Is that true for Austin, Texas, too? Brad sure seems helpless with a little bit of precipitation. It started to pour at the zip line and he was practically beside himself: "I don't know what to do now." Then later he expressed the same near-panic at the wet stuff (I forget when and my chicken scratchings don't show it). I was kind of hoping for rain when he and Alli set out on the ponies.
* After getting all wet on his date with Chantal, they go to the only dry place they can find – a bedroom. And of course Chantal has to get out of her wet clothes. It's odd that every other date in the history of the show has the contestants bringing along several changes of clothing, but not this time. Poor Chantal is forced to don Brad's oversize work shirt. She was ready for the Fantasy Suite™ in record time.
* On the group date, the girls rappelled down a cliff beside a waterfall. Crazy Michelle 2.0 was pissed because she and Brad made a pact never to rappel down anything with anybody else. Or so that's how she interpreted it in her crazy stalker-like mind.* Brad says, marveling at how well the women did, "I put these women to the test." Yeah, why is that? Why do dates need to be physically challenged to prove their worthiness?
* In conversation, sweet Emily tells Brad she's "starting to like" him. Oh, that's good. But don't hurry your pretty little self. Take your time.
* When Emily says she often finds herself sabotaging relationships, Brad is taken aback: "It makes me worried I may get hurt." Ha! Wouldn't that suck, Brad? I mean, who'd want to be hurt on national TV like that? That would like, oh, I don't know, leading two women on then picking neither of them. I mean, that's just a crazy example off the top of my head. Nobody would be that big a jerk.* I called it. To myself, that is. As soon as he took off with Alli on their one-on-one date, I said she wouldn't get the rose.
* They go into a cave filled with spiders and bats (Alli, coincidentally, is terrified of bugs and isn't too fond of bats, either, for that matter). Brad says the cave is 40 million years old. That sound you heard was all the TVs shutting off in the red states.* They show some forced small talk between Brad and Alli. But what did you expect? It was their first one-on-one date so of course she's going to be in the getting-to-know-him stage. Unfair, I say.
* Interesting editing. While they're sitting chatting about nothing in the cave, Brad's voice-over tells us his reservations about Alli, how he doesn't know if he can see her at the altar. Cut-to: dinner conversation. Alli tells Brad she broke up with her most serious boyfriend because she couldn't see herself at the altar with him. Obviously, Brad's voice-over came after the conversation. So it looks as if Alli supplied Brad with the out. She was the author of her own demise.
* After Crazy Michelle 2.0 is confronted by Brad, saying he doesn't like the direction they're heading, she brings on the tears. It's the first sign of fake vulnerability from the future D-list actress. All she can offer is, "I know I'm supposed to be here." And of course she knows. It says so right in her contract. The producers won't let Brad send her home. So instead poor Jackie is sent packing. Even though it should have been Crazy Michelle 2.0, he probably made the right choice because Jackie was unlike any of the other girls. Or, really, unlike any of the other girls in the history of the franchise. She just didn't belong.
* I think Britt must be the furthest along (final six) of any anonymous contestant in Bachelor history. Usually by this point, we know each of the women pretty well. But I'm not sure I'd recognize Britt if she knocked on my door right now.* I loved the reaction they gave when Brad said they'd be going to Anguilla. "Oh my God!", they shrieked. Like they'd ever heard of it before.
That's it. Gotta run. Someone's at the door.
