I suspect ABC and possibly the entire boatload of media thinks you and I are just burned-out, nihilistic lunkheads with rampant sensory overload. If this is not the case then pray tell why does every single Bachelor program require host Chris Harrison to forecast the climactic Rose Ceremony as “the most shocking Rose Ceremony ever!” or “the most dramatic Rose Ceremony ever!”
Why else do these network nabobs believe that the only way a viewer will stay through an hours worth of reality-based programming and frantic, witless commercials, is if someone drumbeats its sundry components as some sort of “shocking” event---whatever that may mean. I think I could presume that most people would classify a “shocking” occurrence as something like two jetliners slicing through two skyscrapers killing thousands; not, I would ponder, some schmuck handing out roses to spinsters on a reality television show---no matter how insolent some of the catty gazes may seem.
Yet this is what is hawked every week. The word “ever” only further decimates the literal meaning of the words bandied about. Of course, assuming that the “most shocking ever” Rose Ceremony happened way back in episode one or two in the very first Bachelor, simple common sense would dictate that by now the multiplied “shocking” Ceremonies that always out-shocked the previous would mean that Bob Guiney would presently be conducting his vote-offs using a crossbow or immolation. That, in reality, these Rose Ceremonies are not substantially different from each other, week after week, merely further erodes the meaning of these recycled blurbs---another treasure for our current dumb-downed American vocabulary. “Shocking” now means simply a new sequence of the same old same old: we take a spin in a revolving door and every time we return to the entrance portal... this is “shocking.”
Putting that aside, there are a few Chris Harrison teasers that are just plain silly, but interesting to note. When the men were up for possible eviction in The Bachelorette it meant that their “egos” were subject to getting “shattered.” Conversely, the women facing elimination are always getting their “hearts broken.” In this last episode Chris used the term “and the claws come out” when describing a possible squabble among the females. I guess this fit in quite nicely with Meredith’s ruminations about constant “cat fights.” Egos vs. Hearts, Mars vs. Venus, Cats vs. Men. Ah, some things never change.
So, James the fretful Bachelorette Bachelor, and Bob’s business partner, Greg, and his wife Katina, show up at the Pad assigned to screening the six remaining women. They are to give out passes to three exclusive one-on-one dates---which, unshockingly, went to the three women who admitted to being “tigers” in the bedroom (it’s a safe bet that Bob needs a “tiger”)---and one group date which included two of three women who did not ascribe to the “tiger” zeitgeist. Meredith said she was a “pussycat” and a “tiger”; Brooke is a virgin so she has no idea what animal she will be emulating when push comes to shove; Lee-Ann, well, she did say she was a “tiger” in bed but probably tripped Katina’s crazy-bitch meter.
The first one-on-one date went to Mary, the 35 year old Cuban princess who has wisely dropped the sprinklings of spanish patter after Bob seemed ho-hum about it all; each succeeding linguistic message from Mary’s heart turned into mere fodder for a chuckle from Bob. The third and final such date went to Kelly-Jo, Bob’s female counterpart and soul mate... and I believe these two women will be the two still standing at the Bachelor finals, with Kelly-Jo being offered the rose. Both interludes went well, both women are intractably smitten with Bob but without the psychotic looniness that has attended such luminaries as the just ejected Lee-Ann, or Estella, who dashed off with Mr. Guiney to Las Vegas for one-on-one date number two.
Besides finally stammering out that she was in actuality a “tiger” in the sack, I can’t think what vibrations Bob’s friends picked up from Estella that drove them to award her the Las Vegas junket. Since the start I sensed recessed anxieties knocking about her head---her face is in a constant contort with that perplexed look of someone chained to inner turmoil. In other words, she doesn’t look peaceful. I can’t be the only one whose toes curl whenever Estella’s name is yipped out by Bob during the Rose Ceremony. She instantly becomes the silly little girl whose eyes start blinking in downcast worshipful subservience; grinning ear-to-ear she starts taking baby-step shuffles towards Bob as if in the audience of some butcherous potentate. Estella takes the rose and peeps out praise and thank-yous in that little girl elocution that belies troublesome, shifty characteristics in a 28-year-old woman. One priceless example of this is a pre-date clip of Estella saying, “My greatest hope is that Bob and I get so drunk that we run straight to the chapel and get married, and we don’t come back to the show.” Gosh, you can’t get more romantic than that.
And, without fail, Estella becomes unglued in Las Vegas. During some serious gabbing with Bob in a sumptuous $2,000-a-day hotel suite, Estella bolts into a tizzy because “things” are suddenly becoming “too real,” realizing Bob is dating her “friends.” “I don’t want you to think of anyone else but me,” she whispers, only further sealing her fate as a certified dingaling. “I’m just so scared... It’s really hard... I’m not used to this.” (Blah, blah, blah). She then tells Bob that, “I’m not feeling that good. Can I go to the bathroom, please?” While, I assume, upchucking into the toilet, Estella breathlessly calls out to Bob---who is poking his head through the bathroom doors---“I just want to be like normal... I just want to meet you in a normal situation.” Bob calls this a “bump in the road.” I call it a sign from God.
Kelly-Jo, at 24 the youngest of the favored one-on-one trio, conducts herself in the most pleasant, unassuming manner during her time with Bob. There are no hysterics or vomiting. With a driven knack she provides Bob with an ample partner in having, shall we say simply, a fun time while also sharing intimate bits of personal history and loss, topping it off with passionate gestures of devotion. It was quite well done and by far the most compelling of any date so far. Mary’s amusement park foray with Bob went fairly well but also highlighted some troublesome aspects of Mary’s age issue---and let’s not pretend, in Bob’s mind it certainly is some kind of footnote. While rolling to the park in a limo and clinking champagne glasses, Mary exhorts them both to be “kids,” “let’s be twelve!” Fair enough, yet Mary then pauses and unblinkingly says, “You’re thirteen because you’re older than me.” A bizarre gaffe considering Mary is three years senior to the 32-year-old Bob. However you explain it away---you could write an entire chapter in a psychiatry book about this---Bob can never be thirteen to Mary’s twelve, and obviously Mary has some wish that he was. Me thinks the real estate agent and mortgage loan executive will not be printing joint business cards any time soon. And besides, Bob will be taking his Florida winter escapes from Detroit with Kelly-Jo.
Meredith, sadly, seems to be dimly withering away into the background though still has enough of a pulse to merit a walk into the final four. I still enjoy her gravitas. I suspect selfishly she will breeze into the final three. Estella was given a rose? Egads. I guess weirdos win out over virgins; and judging from the edited spooked looks and gasping silences over Brooke during the three-panel interviews, virgins are apparently the new weirdos.
Thank our stars Lee-Ann was finally given the heave-ho. She didn’t, thankfully, thrust a kitchen knife into Bob’s gut, but in classic Lee-Ann fashion went on a rant about every conceivable reason she was not given a rose, gullibly sidestepping her rash ultimatums and fickle volatility. “I don’t know what happened!?” she snorted, and in a flash---after sobbing apologies for her mischief hours before--- placed blame squarely at the foot of the other women and Bob: “Something happened that I don’t know about... if one of the girls told Bob something about me then, yuk!... grow a freakin’ backbone and make your own decisions!”
Our lucid Kelly-Jo once again pegged Lee-Ann squarely between the eyes. She remarked about “a couple of Lee-Anns that I know,” called her “Sybil,” and yearned for the day when Lee-Ann would “pick one” personality and “go with it.” Not only is Kelly-Jo perky, cute and a “tiger,” she’s a straight-shootin’ gal. Red Alert to parents: grab your second-graders and run.
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