You can’t unscramble an egg. That egg, set in turbulent motion by mother Sandy, might well have remained uncracked and whole if more sober wills had persisted---as we wonder how wise was the decision to call Meredith in the midst of production to inform her of her Grandmother’s death.
I am obviously not privy to how close Meredy and her Grandmother were, though I think it is safe to say that they weren’t strangers. Yet if both were even extremely close one would have to weigh the positives and negatives in spreading this kind of grisly news to someone so intricately involved in a monumental life project. The telephone call proved calamitous for Meredith on many levels in her quest for Bob Guiney. Her mother, hopefully, would have given full consideration to the option of withholding the bleak report for a few weeks until the whole spectacle was fait accompli, or Meredith was suitably disposed with. I, myself, cannot think of many reasons where a delay would have necessarily been a bad thing, especially when she was pooh-poohed from attending the quickie funeral anyway.
Yet her mother fatefully opted to divulge the dirgeful news. One may consider that this was done with the full intention of thwarting the process for selfish personal grounds; thinking, for example, that this Bachelor TV thing was immoral or ludicrous---’not my daughter, you bastards!’ Farfetched, perhaps, but not impossible. If there was any advantage that was gained by alerting Meredith to this death, at that time, I fail to see it.
A death experience can bring a host of onrushing thoughts and feelings that would certainly not be coterminous with having a lighthearted romp through a Bachelor television production---or even a not-so-lighthearted romp. Having to jumble emotions tripped by dreamy intrigue and poetic nuances with obtuse distractions fostered by death’s dreary hand would be a bundle many of us would be ill equipped to carry. Thoughts would naturally gravitate to melancholy doubts about life itself amidst sudden, irreversible loss---about, possibly, our very existence on earth---and yet here you have our zany Bob spitting water in your face in your pool. How do you deal with this type of mundane goofiness and also the abundant pull of a puzzling eternity elsewhere?
When all is said and done I believe Meredith handled the juggling act well. I just wonder, and we will never know, how Meredith could have faired without her Grandmother’s death hanging around her soul like a clanking soda can tied with a string. It may possibly have been an ice-breaker and conversation-starter when there may have been not much else to ignite internal fires. It may well have been a crutch, used by both parties, to either start or end phases of their evolving relationship. My personal feeling is that without this lurking chimera Meredith would have grown increasingly bored with Bob and his antics, instead of what appeared to be the reverse.
We do know, however, that Bob was aware of this specter of death, floating along with them in the ether. He may have used it as an excuse to bow out from Meredith just as she was pushing the envelope of her “love”; or as Bob annoyingly, witlessly said, “ultimately I didn’t think she and I were right for each other, as a couple, you know, for the future,” without saying much of anything, really. It would have been interesting for him to tell us why. Hello. The fact that he dismissed such a wonderful soul with such a frivolous, unweighted wave of the hand surely tells us something about Bob.
Meredith did have shortcomings in which she was acutely aware, gratefully, such as in being unable to express to Bob fully her true impressions of her attraction. This may have been because she had these other winds storming about--- supplied by mother Sandy, thank you---but I have to say that her recitation of this unfortunate quirk was simply lovely. For one moment it seemed she would utter the same egoistical retort of other scorned ladies. But at the very end she turned on her heels and made me proud to have been a Meredith fan: “I’m pissed... I should be in that house... I know for a fact that, uh, what Bob is looking for is not in that house. He actually put her in the limo and let her drive away... and he doesn’t know that because I didn’t let him know that.” And she said this with a hazy grin, looking off into the night, still steadfastly grounded---insightful as to her total complicity. She is now gone, with Bob the worse off.
The two front runners of the Guiney escapade are surely Mary and Kelly-Jo. That Estella is still among us---especially in the light that she has stayed where Meredith has departed---is queer. She is a curious person in whom I hope to give some objective benefit of doubt in taking to task her shrillness; but I cannot come up with any discernible characteristic of hers that would lend credence to her gamely attractiveness to Bob as a potential wife.
Estella is somewhat pretty (Demi Moore mixed with Shannon Dougherty) but I have yet to talk with one person who thinks she is in fact the 28-year-old she claims. Most opinions stretch her years to a more reasonable---at least from a physical yardstick---mid-to-late thirties. I have spoken at length about Estella’s unseemly emotional roller-coaster much of which transposes itself from her inner turmoil to her facial features which appear in constant flux, disfigured by worry and pain (not to mention her bugged-out eyes). In this most recent episode, where Bob rides into Beverly Hills in a massive black SUV (its automaker blurred for lack of promo money?) to visit Estella’s family, we have several new revelations that only further dampen any hope that Estella is not an oddity.
For example, we come to learn from Estella herself that, “I’ve been on my own since I was 15.” And whatever you may say about our “progressive” American culture, a family whose kid runs off at age 15---a girl, no less---is a family screwed-up. It must have certainly made for some kinks in her character, whether no fault of her own, and this is basically the antithesis of Bob and his own maturation. This solemn clue may be the link to Estella’s wincing face, her lugubrious brooding, and her little-girl patter. And it may be the signpost as to why---at age “28”---she has only her mother, not visited in quite awhile, to trot out before Bob. No relatives, no friends, no co-workers, no neighbors, no paid informants to round out her extended family? I can only say that, again, this isn’t Bob Country, yet here she stays. I am completely mystified.
Mary stays also, but for a fleeting moment I thought she may have been the one dumped. This is due to Bob’s now repeated concerns about Mary’s hardcore rush to have children: “She’s certainly at a different stage than a lot of these women... looking for something a little more firm, a little more solid...” At age 35 this is very understandable for Mary to harp---it is in her bones. At 32, Bob is still preening like a teenager and raising children is probably not on his radar. He rarely brings the subject up, as did the ironically younger Mr. Firestone. He needs to “make sure it’s right for me” in regards to Mary and her biological clock needs to be given serious pause. It would be unfair to Mary to discount it or ignore it. The fact that Mary’s parents speak little english may also give him a thoughtful interlude.
Kelly-Jo is, as described at the show’s beginning, Bob’s female counterpart. She has everything Bob could want in a female companion, and possible wife, at this point in his life. She has looks, a bubbly, gregarious family (her mother is a peach!), an effervescent personality bordering on Bob-like foolishness, and she is at an age, 24, where a family could comfortably be delayed while Bob flushes out his rollicking sybarite self. He should look no further.
Except, maybe, looking back at Meredith. I can’t recall a more gracious nor stellar “exit interview” as what Meredith shared with Bob, and us, at the bench “hot seat” outside the Pad after getting whacked. “It meant the world to me too and... I want to be with somebody who wants to be with me and I want that for you too... and you have three great ladies in there and if it doesn’t work out... I’m here...” Meredith then cast her eyes downward, wiltingly, and let a few of life’s lapidary moments tick by, “I don’t know... I’m sad.”
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