The Bachelorette Ep. 3 and 4: In memoriam (of Tasos)

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• SO MUCH TESTOSTERONE FLOWING AROUND

Things people might do with four hours of their lives:
• Crochet a hat
• Write the first few chapters of a debut YA novel
• Learn all there is to know about volcano rabbits, a Mexican species that’s facing extinction due to habitat encroachment
• Watch perennial favorite Gone With the Wind
• Score some heroin, shoot up, take a nap

Or, if you hate yourself, you could spend two hours on Sunday and two more on Monday watching two episodes of The Bachelorette! That’s what I did, not because I hate myself, but because I hate you guys. What? I don’t know. I didn’t take notes during Sunday’s episode, but I think that’s pretty much OK because the whole thing was devoted to dressing up like old people for no reason other than Bad Grandpa was a movie that people saw, and then to making an asshole out of Bradley and making us hate a song by a 90s R&B group we hadn’t thought about in seven to ten years. Personally, I don’t have any use for Boyz II Men now that the cool guy with the cane picked up his sticks (literally). The good news: he’s not dead. I got afraid that maybe he was dead. But he does suffer from severe back pain due to scoliosis, so that’s kind of sad.

Anyway, Bradley went home and never got to prove that he was a person who could actually sing, which is what he so desperately wanted to do. And if you watched the program with the closed captions on it was only made worse by the fact that his singing was always subtitled “vocalizing.” Almost singing. Singing-type noises. At least he had a good cry before he left.

And then Monday night happened! You know, this season’s been a little slow so far, what with the long one-on-one dates and the sending home of the only people who are any fucking fun whatsoever (besides Marquel - I love Marquel), so they’re like alright, let’s shake things up and take this show on the road to . . . CONNECTICUT! The finance and insurance capital of America! This is gonna be too much fun.

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Hey listen. You know how people are born gay, they don’t, like, become gay? I think this season’s cast might be the lone exception to that rule. Man are these guys becoming more and more into each other. They storm into their new suite and collapse onto beds and leap onto couches and into each other’s laps. It’s all very sweet and I think it’s time someone rethinks the direction of this entire show.

The first one-on-one date is with Dylan, he who is forever wet-haired and perpetually morose. Andi hopes that if they go on a train ride together maybe they’ll “pick up some steam.” They’re just shamelessly stealing one-liners from the Arnold Schwarzenegger canon at this point:

Well, steam is made of water and so are tears and they definitely picked up lots of those!

As per usual, emotional accessibility is equated with the relaying of sob stories, and Dylan has a doozie about his sister AND his brother dying, and his ex-girlfriend getting engaged to some other guy the day after his brother’s funeral. Woof. Dylan turns on the waterworks and Andi, in turn, attempts to massage some crocodile tears out of her barely damp ducts. (Either that or she had pink eye and they’re itchy?) Finally, she gets her acting muscle lubed up enough to squirt out some salty stuff for the cameras. She just feels so bad that anyone went through that. You know? She just felt bad that someone went through that. It makes her feel bad, you know? DO YOU KNOW?

An aside: Am I the only lady who thinks these Suave commercials are the best part of this entire season? Des was in the first one and I made the joke that she has to use Suave because she’s poor, but then it was more like Suave sought out women who were really bad actresses. Catherine really outdid herself.

Another aside: Close your eyes when you listen to Cody talk and you know what you’ll hear? Seth Green playing a wanna-be thug in the 90s teen hit Can’t Hardly Wait. It’s uncanny.

Then it’s time for a basketball date. These dates are very important because we’re for serious dealing with women who judge men based on their athletic prowess. Pantsepreneur J.J. is wearing a shirt that says J.J., which I really appreciate. Until we get down to the more manageable final four, all of these guys should be required to wear shirts with their names on them.

“There’s a lot of energy and a lot of testosterone flowing around,” says Andrew of the basketball playing, adding, “Which is why I’ve been hard for the past 90 minutes.”

Blah, blah basketball. Ultimately, the Rosebuds beat the Five of Hearts in whatever dorky ten-minute version of basketball they played, and only the former team gets to hang around for the nighttime part of the date, and the other guys have to “go back to the hotel and eat some cereal or whatever it is that losers eat,” says Marquel (I love Marquel). A quick rundown of the shots from the Rosebud’s locker room victory scene:
- Rosebuds hugging, jumping up and down whilst embracing
- Cut to Rosebuds in the shower area, shaking up bottles of champagne and spraying them everywhere
- Cut to Rosebuds nude and sweaty on locker room floor kissing and blowing one another

During the nighttime part of the date, Eric opens up to Andi about how he used to be a Mormon and it’s like, yeah, who cares BUT IT’S VERY IMPORTANT LATER. Also Brian gets a half-court shot on his first try, which I discovered I also think is sexy. But instead of kissing him, Andi goes back inside to lick the inside of Nick V.’s mouth for a little while. No one ever said life was fair, Bri Guy.

“Descartes said ‘the sky’s the limit,’” according to Marcus. Actually Marcus said “date card said the sky’s the limit” and I misheard him. He and Andi are going to rappel off the side of a building and she’s afraid of heiggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg FUCK sorry. I fell asleep on the keyboard. They rappel off a building. Hooray. Then they go to a John Party Pardy Pardi concert and Marcus tells Andi he’s falling in love with her, which is a thing to say when you’re groovin’ to the sweet country sounds of the Pardi Monster, as I like to call him.

Welp, the pre-Rose Ceremony cocktail hour was going so well - Marquel taught her how to strangle people; love Marquel - then Eric came up and was like, “I’ve been thinking, and I don’t like you that much.” OK, he didn’t say that, he said, he thinks he’s caught glimpses of the REAL Andi and he likes that version of her, but not the phony TV version he sees of her the rest of the time. So it was more like, “MOST of the time, I don’t like you that much.” Andi lost her cool pretty quick and, I gotta say, I sort of don’t blame her. A stranger explaining who the real you is and who the not-real you is, and telling you that you should be one over the other. Nope, no thanks. But he was also right because, well, she is sort of being a TV phony because she’s on TV. It’s kinda part of the job, no? Anyway, they really both seemed to think it was best that he not be part of the man-harem anymore and that was that. It all seemed pretty rational.

Then everything becomes irrational again in no time. Our regularly scheduled Rose Ceremony is interrupted by Chris Harrison, who says it’s been decided that airing the rest of the episode would be disrespectful to Eric, considering he recently and tragically passed away, so instead he and Andi will sit and talk about Eric. Because it’s MUCH more respectful for two people who knew the deceased for literally one month to have a discussion about his life, his death, and how it affects them. These people are fucking nuts.

Chris mentions in passing that Tasos was sent home. If he dies young you guys are gonna feel soooooooooooo bad about giving him short shrift.