Culture Wars

Clearly I need a vacation.  I've been run ragged over the last month or so, and this blog has suffered mightily.  The posts were getting later and later.  The quality progressively worse.  No two ways about it.  I have failed you, dearest readers.  But we soldier on anyway, because there is just too much ripe fodder, slightly stale though it may be, and I'm still hungry.

So let's rewind the mental TiVo and go back to hometowns.  Ah yes, the all important contrived meeting of the entitled Bachelor and all of the families he's going to lie to or politely ignore.  There's nothing more natural about some guy asking for four different womens' hands from four different dads, and them all saying "sure, why not."

If we learned nothing from Season 15:  Brad Womack Strikes Back it was that "hometowns" should be as cloying and awkward as possible.  It's fitting that Shawntel had a minor (and pathetic) cameo this season because it foreshadowed the sheer awfulness of these hometown visits.  It's really hard to believe Miss Nelson was sent packing after laying Brad out on a metal table and threatening him with impossibly large needles.  We see a continuation of that over-the-top approach with the visits this season.  You like stereotypes on overdrive?  You got it.

Kicking things off was Lindzi and her paddock of Lipizzaner stallions.  Ride in on a horse, ride out on a horse, I say.  Once it's time for Cirque de Soleil to leave town, I'm sure we'll be treated to Lindzi sobbing to a taciturn canter.  Clearly she has no other worldly interest other than horses, so naturally that's where this is headed.  This episode is already inducing audible groans, and I'm barely two minutes in.

I've actually been to Ocala, or as I like to refer to it "Gainesville's kid sister."  It is certainly known for horse breeding.  In fact, a few derby winners have come out of there.  For being kind of an armpit in North Central Florida, there's a smattering of money in Ocala.  Lindzi seems to be a woman of means, or related to it at least.  I'm sure Ben can empathize with that burden.  Neither has had a care in the world their entire lives.

So as I watch Lindzi's dad, Harry Cox (c'mon...), tell Ben about the rules of horse cart racing, it seems to me that this as close as we'll get to eavesdropping on American nobility.  Chilled chardonnay in the grassy field followed by a faithful re-enactment of Ben-Hur.  I'll bet you've never even conceived of doing something that snooty and out of touch before.  Why not fire up the plane and shuffle on down to South Beach for a mint julep by the pool after this?  I might have to watch a re-run of Jake visiting Vienna's poor ass family to cleanse my palate.  Yeesh.

This show seems to attract certain types of contestants, and one of those is the attractive sheltered girl who has had an inordinately small number of relationships equaled only by the inordinate pain and suffering apparently caused by that lone relationship.  Mom seems to gleefully recount Lindzi's days as a shut-in who never ate candy or talked to boys, but is this woman running a boarding school or raising a daughter?  Now look what you've done.  She's going to wash out of this contest an even more bitter soul.  Nice going.

Now, I may not be a fan of how that all went down with Lindzi, but it was a five star visit compared to most of these hometowns.  At least there weren't any threats of embalming or tours of the basement taxidermy shop.  It could have been worse.  Well, it got worse with Kacie, but we probably all knew that.  Kacie is fighting her own immaturity most of the time, but her family certainly didn't do her any favors, and maybe that's a good thing.  I mean, who is to say that dear ol' dad should just take one for the ABC production team and say "sure, break my kid's heart for ratings."  I'm shocked more parents don't give a little push back.  I think we're jumping ahead because I think it was over before it ever got that far.

Now, I want to think that Kacie had nothing to do with this, but part of me isn't so sure.  If you asked a random 15 year old girl what she would do to impress a boy at school, you'd probably get a response similar to what Kacie put on for Ben.  I'd be interested to know if the tea party with her dollies was edited out forever or can be found on the director's cut. 

Video analysis has allowed us to pinpoint the exact moment that Kacie lost.

Now, before I completely eviscerate Kacie, I should say that I'm actually a fan of hers.  The problem is that she had an emotional flat tire somewhere in high school and never found a way to grow up.  TV is probably the last place that a person should confront their psychological foibles, but in this case I think it might be a good thing.  Or maybe it's going to do irreparable damage to an already brittle psyche.  The difference basically boils down to a role on Bachelor Pad 3.

For those of you who haven't moved around much, you may not truly appreciate the regional differences.  One person's Bible Belt is another's Bourbon Belt.  It's all in how you look at it, and your love of Jesus.   Sonoma and Clarksville are about as similar as Keith Olbermann and Glenn Beck, but even those guys share two N's in their name.

 

Surprisingly, not Glenn Beck.

I'm sure a lot of viewers, and Kacie herself, will blame dad's skepticism and cold demeanor for her washout.  Nah.  The majorette was toast well before that meeting ever took place.  Still, it's difficult to ignore just how squeamish Ben is during his visit.  If you could construct a personal hell for a wine maker from Sonoma, it might be a dry county in Tennessee.

Kacie's dad was a tough sell, and good for him.  The show is a sham and has never been about finding love.  It's about finding inventive ways of publicly humililating and exploiting people.  Why families are so willing to allow this has been a great mystery to me, but I, for one, think Mr. Bourgeoisie (or whatever) has it right.  Screw these people, and this snooty mop top drunkard  from Sonoma, or Liverpool, or wherever he's from.

If Ben thought Kacie's mom was going to be any easier of a nut to crack, he was disabused of that notion early.  I did find it funny that she said she "watched the show a lot" and that her primary concern was co-habitation and not the myriad other ridiculous outcomes that invariably end in people losing part of their soul to the infinitely deep abyss that is this franchise.  Maybe she needs to watch again.  People living together isn't the source of their undoing.  It's actually the only sane choice that keep them from making an even worse decision later on.  Even though you know places like Clarksville exist, it's still funny to see people use "California" as a pejorative to collectively represent everything that is wrong with society.  I'll give Ben credit for keeping a straight face during her rant about single-handedly preserving societal norms amid the forces of progressive evil.  It's a just a bottle of wine, people.  At least dad didn't wheel in a chalkboard detailing how Ben is secretly connected to San Francisco uber-liberal Nancy Pelosi, Van Jones, and ACORN.  But then, Clarksville was home to Jimi Hendrix when he developed his ability to play guitar with his teeth, so it's not like they don't have blood on their hands.

It's kind of interesting how Ben chose women who hail from places to divergent from his own roots.  Ft. Worth?  Can you really see this guy blending in anywhere in Texas (OK, Austin... you got me).  We kind of lost track of Nicki for a while there, but I have to say, she totally redeemed herself in this episode even though the producers did everything in their power to ruin any shot she had by saturation bombing Ben with the thickest, bloodiest slab of pure Texas they could muster.

Looks totally natural.

Ben seemed like a good enough sport, but I'm sure he was counting the seconds to removing his cowboy boots in favor of some dope Airwalks.

Unlike Lindzi and Kacie, Nicki shows signs of being battle-tested, in a good way.  Yes, we know all about her divorce which she seemingly won't stop talking about, but beyond that she carries herself like a woman who has experienced the highs and lows of life and is probably a lot more adaptable than any of the other women.  "Divorce" doesn't really imply untold heaps of baggage.  For as much as Nicki has "failed" in her one try at marriage, it's probably more practical experience than the kinds of imaginations that Lindzi and Kacie have concocted in their pretty little heads.   Not to say that Ben is looking for actual marriage (in fact, one could easily argue he's not the least bit interested in it), but if he were, I can see a path here that might actually work, at least on paper.  They do strike me as very different people with totally different goals.  But that minor inconvenience aside, it could totally work, right?

The fatal flaw is that Nicki is completely in love with the idea of being in love, and Ben is just a proxy.  She would like nothing more than to change her Facebook status to "married" without much regard of who that person is.  We've seen Nicki sparingly throughout this series, especially compared to the other three, and yet she seems to be all-in on this bet for whatever reason.  I guess the lesson here, fellas, is to be a vacant, inaccessible mouth-breather who is good at nodding and delivering generic platitudes.  Women seem to eat that shit up.

I've been a Nicki fan from the early days, and my bias is obviously showing.  She'd be my pick, y'all.

Lastly, and in the minds of many, very least, we have Courtney waiting for Ben in Scottsdale.  Now, if you've done your assigned homework, you'll know that Ben is a music production graduate (we think) of the University of Arizona who obviously spent a good deal of time inebriated and wasting his parents' money before moving into the totally unrelated field of "internet advertising" (I'm thinking porn) and ultimately piggybacking on his friends' winemaking venture.  Not a bad career arc.  The rest of these hometown visits have been like traveling to Mars compared to Scottsdale.

I think there are two camps forming here, and since I don't know shit about Twilight, I can't reference it, but I do know that people either love Courtney for what she's bringing to the table (count me in), or they hate her (and generally don't understand what makes for good TV).  I speak here to the unwashed who refused to give up on the idea that this show is about love and that Courtney is somehow undermining the emotion for all mankind.

It's time to wake up, people.

You may not be on board with her shtick, but you have to, at a minimum, respect the effort.  Ben has earned this treatment.  The guy is borderline comatose and is setting a new low-bar standard of reality TV personality (with the possible exception of fellow Ashley cast-off Ames "Bot" Brown).  Why Ben deserves some genuine, amazing woman to fall madly in love with him as a matter of course is way beyond my comprehension, so I'm all for whatever Courtney is pulling.  And really, I'm not entirely sure I know what that is anymore.  Until now, I was under the impression that she was 90-95% emotion-free and running a clinic, but she is a woman, after all (sorry, ladies), and I'm seeing some cracks in the façade.  There are moments that seem to be -- it pains me to say it -- genuine from her.  My latest impression is that she is harboring a little baby crush on the guy, even though she's honed years of being a self-absorbed, entitled diva who blames everyone else for her minor misfortunes.  People like Courtney have developed a visible patina that, at first glace, seems to make them emotionally impenetrable, but I think there's a pretty gooey middle inside this Tootsie Pop.  Whether we see it is another matter entirely, and certainly Ben sure as hell doesn't have the skill to pull it off.  Whatever happens, I hope Courtney doesn't careen into a wall on the final lap.  We've all come too far to let this experiment fail now.

We're quickly trending toward Keeping Up with the Kardashians 2

It's a shame we didn't get a better juxtaposition of Courtney's skinny dipping conversation set against Kacie's mom admonishing against the horrors of indoctrination through babysitting.  It's like twin universes where all of the masses and charges of elementary particles are jumbled up.  You certainly can't blame the guy for picking four similar women.  They have nearly nothing in common with each other, although I could see Kacie's dad fancying that nifty sweater vest that Courtney's dad is sporting.  Just wild speculation on my part.

It's interesting that every other hometown visit was akin to a foreign culture immersion program sponsored by Berlitz, but Courtney got the benefit of just chilling in 'Zona.  Well, there was that bit about getting almost married, but I think that was actually less obnoxious than watching your potential mate twirl a baton, cart race, or ride a bull.  If you're thinking this thing is starting to looked a bit rigged, I agree with you.  The staff is pushing Courtney harder than a pregnant women dilated to 10 cm.

I will say that watching Kacie get the heave-ho was hard to watch, and I genuinely felt bad for her (might tweet her later, we'll see).  She was probably the one that truly convinced herself that Ben was her guy.  I'm not sure why she was so convinced of that, but I at least bought into the depth of her delusion.  Daddy raised her right because that was one hell of a tirade she unleashed at the end.  Her "this is why I don't love" seemed to ring a little hollow.  It's difficult to believe that there are many attractive 24 year old women out there who have been spurned by reality show suitors.  Besides, there's plenty of other shows out there, and even more if you widen your net to include Europe and Asia.  They'd love Kacie in Japan.

Now that we're down to the final trio, we should start to think about potential Bachelorette candidates.  Emily has things locked up next time, and I'm wondering if that effectively screws this crop out of a lead role down the line, but is Kacie an option?  Nope.  Maybe on 16 and Pregnant.

Next week's episode is Switzerland, which is great timing because I just got a free Swiss Army knife in the mail.  No kidding.  Talk about kismet.

I'll be sure to blog up the next installment soon.  Give me another chance, baby.  We can make this work.

Oh yeah, you bl

Ben is so screwed

There are some episodes where I can barely contain myself thinking about all of the wonderful commentary that will unfold here, and then there are episodes like Belize that drive me to want to claw my eyes out.  Sure, there was some good stuff near the end, capped by the most hackneyed symbolism we've seen in 23 seasons, but forcing us to suffer through 90 minutes of fluff to get there hardly seems like a fair trade.  Well, I'll admit here that I don't watch the show live.  It's true.  Even with copious editing, we're looking at over an hour of cliché and repetition to get to that 20 minutes of creamy nougat.  It's in there, but it just feels like a lot of work to me. I think one obvious problem is that Ben is completely terrible at feigning interest in women he doesn't like.  Brad was great at it.  Even kicking girls off that he couldn't stand, like that uber-bore Britt, he made them feel like all that was standing in their way was unfortunate timing.  He really felt for these ladies.  Don't ever doubt it.


For as much as we complain about reality television being scripted and phony, you wouldn't think the producers would go out of their way to find a lead guy that was so uninteresting and bereft of personality.  Okay, so he runs a winery with his childhood buddies (one of which comes from the Benziger wine family, so not exactly from the ground up).  He was also embarrassed by a marginally attractive girl on national TV.  That doesn't mean we should reward him with months of paid vacation in exotic locales where hot women throw themselves at him.  The producers are slaves to their formula, and have been for years paralyzed by the fear of screwing up the franchise, and yet they screwed this up anyway.  God, I'd almost prefer that gay solar power exec Ryan to Ben, and that is saying something.  At least he was flamboyant and completely weird all the time.  I think it's time we had a clinically neurotic Bachelor.


The remaining women are a pretty good batch overall, I'll admit (save a few nuts).  It's probably close to what I would have picked if I had been in that situation (easy for me to say).  I can't really quibble with things from that perspective.  If you're a woman, though, you're of course genetically obligated to hate Courtney and post about it at length of message boards, twitter accounts, Facebook walls, and comment sections.  I suppose I get it, but at the same time, not really.  Who would be entertained by Ben coasting through this and proposing to some mousey girl like Kacie B. at the end?  That would be truly awful television, and you know it.  Everyone secretly loves Courtney for what she's doing.  How do I know this?  The ratings bear it out.  Go ahead:  try not to watch.  You can't do it.  It's the world's slowest trainwreck, and no one can look away.

I wouldn't shoot like that.  Your guns could jam.

Going into this episode, I was pretty much driving the Lindzi Express bandwagon, but I'm tapping the brakes a bit.  There are times when I'm convinced she's the best choice by far, and others (more often lately) when I think she was raised by wolves or something.  Nevermind that she and Ben don't really sell themselves as a couple (it's invariably awkward), Lindzi seems to be suffering from that curious illness that befalls many women on the show where they talk themselves into thinking the Bachelor is a finalist for Most Interesting Man in the World.  I suppose it's difficult to mentally extricate yourself from the magical journey and think things through rationally, but come on.  At the end of the day, Ben is basically an average dude who has essentially sleepwalked to being on TV for two seasons.  He ferments grapes for a living.  Still we get hyperbole like:

"Ben's all that I was hoping for in someone, and 20 times more."

Maybe you should raise the bar then, Lindz.  It's not that Ben is a bad guy or anything, it's that he's barely registering a pulse.  I've never seen someone try less hard than this guy.  Ben could quite literally be anyone, and you get the impression that Lindzi would have this reaction.  I want to believe in you, Lindzi.  I really do.  Allow me to do that again.


I'm not sure why Ben had a one-on-one with Emily this week.  We already know she's in the dog house with no hope of escape.  My only guess is phony tension with Courtney who responded by flailing around like a fish out of water over Emily's time with Ben.  It's no fun to be kept around as a plot device, but that's basically what happened.  It's a shame too because she pretty much had an LL Cool J type comeback.  When she's not rapping or whining about "vapid" models, Emily is pretty much top tier material.  Her biggest problem has been the need to be the purveyor of Bachelor truth and justice, or in other words, a giant tattle-tale.  This week, Ben and Emily had a perfectly nice time together:  they rode bikes, pretended to spontaneously hunt for lobsters, talked about not focusing on Courtney, and toasted to their future with some Bud longnecks like a couple of bros.  So maybe it could have gone better, like without ten mentions of Courtney, but Emily should have coasted to the final four.  Maybe on Bachelor Pad 3.


Ol' Fish Lips get the final one-on-one after a Ruthian called shot, which I thought was pretty impressive.  How could she know?  The paranoid among us would say the producers tipped her, since of course, she's a plant, but I think it's just pure bravado.  Courtney knows full well she's lapping the field and figured that she was next in the queue.  Ben was obligated to give her "please for the love of god don't leave" date to ensure he can add "dated a real life model" to his LinkedIn profile.


Once Emily shoves off, I think we're seeing Kacie as the next contender for biggest h8ter of Courtney.  These women just don't get it.  I think we can cut Kacie some slack since she's 15, but for the most part these ladies should know better.  It's like they never attended high school or chased after the same guy at summer camp.  While Kacie was an early favorite, her immaturity and, god help it, her cackle are sure to send her packing.  I know I'm giving advice about four months too late, but Kacie's best shot here is to just kick the ever-loving shit out of Courtney.  Not only would that be the best thing we've seen on TV this decade, but it might actually save Kacie's hide.  Absent some kind of big move, I think Curley Top is looking at a disappointing finish.  I know I'm not alone in being more than a little turned on by all of the cutesy aggression.  Let it all out, honey.

"Maybe if I stare hard enough, she'll drop dead."

Courtney, being the Shaq of her reality TV generation, demonstrates that she's basically immune to the normal rules of engagement.  Whereas Emily writes her own pink slip by kvetching about Courtney, said model flips the entire concept on its ear and bemoans Ben's time with Emily.  Response?

"If anything, I respect it more that you tell me these kinds of things.  I do."

I'm almost crying with laughter.  At this point Courtney could probably tell Ben to eat his own poop and expect his full and eager compliance. Way to keep this one under control, Ben.  The show might as well be called The Bachelorette now or maybe The Dog Whisperer the way that Courtney has Ben trained to beg on command.  It's so pathetic, but fitting to see him embarrass himself like this.  And you didn't think he could reach a lower point than Ashley dumping him on one knee.  Shame on you.


I'm no body language expert, but anyone that's seeing chemistry here, or even a slight interest of Courtney in Ben, is deluding themselves.  This girl is running "game" straight out of Neil Strauss' how-to guide of the same name.  This is pretty much textbook maneuvering, but I've never actually seen a woman do it, under the scrutiny of a national TV audience no less.  It's kind of like seeing a fish walk or something equally preposterous, and I, for one, welcome our game-running model overlords.

Communication:  the key to a lasting relationship

Any scene with Rachel is borderline unwatchable, so of course this whole "let's send Rachel off to swim with sharks" bit was pretty much as insufferable as expected.  The highlight was Kacie getting a rose and watching the other two have to choke on it.  Somehow that devolved even further into three concerned mother hens worried for little Ben's future with Courtney.  I'm surprised they aired this footage, honestly.  You could see complete resignation from Nicki who spoke like she gave up on this whole thing about a week ago.  It's one thing to hear Emily chirping in your ear about the evil model, but when three other women say exactly the same thing, you might want to at least look into the possibility that you're being duped.  Or you could just carry on and pretend that everything's going exactly according to plan.

I feel like we've been deprived of these for six long weeks.

Ben knows exactly what he wants to do, so he calls off the cocktail party and rushes into the rose ceremony, but only so that he can interrupt it to talk to Courtney.  Makes sense.  He had hours to do it on his own time, but why not do it when everyone is ready to hear the verdict?  Can we at least be a little more subtle with the producer-dictated drama?  Oh, so now that they had a few minutes to hash it out, it's been addressed and the ladies can calm down.  Seems reasonable.  It's moments like these when you almost believe that Ben and Courtney are both in on it.  The latter actually might be.  Him?  Nah.  He's truly awful at this.  I believe every terrible decision he makes is his own.  Part of me thinks they'll reveal this season was all a carefully crafted hoax like The Hills, but then how would they get all of the genuinely dopey reactions from Ben?

"Bar called.  They're out of rum."

Good riddance, Rachel.  You're terrible.  As for Emily, the girl looked genuinely disappointed, and Ben looked like he couldn't have cared less.  That bastard.  How many rapping epidemiologists are there in the world?  Maybe two or three?  I'll bet they don't look as good in a bikini, though.  Congrats, dummy, you dumped a good egg.  That's doctor good egg to you.


Next week is hometowns.  Let's just avoid embalming tables this season, okay?

At Least There's a Bikini Pic

Oh, there you are.

So, unlike you, I didn't watch the Super Bowl.  Well, I did see some of it.  Like that Mario Manningham catch.  I also watched enough to know that a game where a guy tries not to score a touchdown is, generally speaking, pretty stupid.

Unfortuntaely, I haven't been immune to the "is Eli better than Peyton?" crazy talk.  I know this is a blog about a dating show that is watched by 70% women, so most of you couldn't care less if you were offered cash to do so, but let me just air this publicly.  No, Eli is not better than Peyton.  He's never been better than Peyton.  He can't even shit on a toilet better than Peyton.  A guy with a career 82 passer rating isn't an all-time great at anything.

Okay, I feel a bit better.  Let's head to Panama City (yes, the real one, not the shithole in Florida).

I honestly didn't know neo-birther Donald J. Trump owned commercial property in Central America, and in Panama no less.  Interestingly, Panama is the birth place of John McCain who is about as latino as the Mexico-born George Romney.  Some might question the decision to build a $400 million luxury high rise during a global recession in a country with an average per capita GDP of of $11,700, but not Trump.  Of course the bonds they used to finance this bad boy were recently downgraded because it turns out that, wouldn't you know it, Panamanians generally can't afford to live in ornate luxury high rises.  Still, the architecture is stunning in that it looks like every weird building that's been built in Dubai over the past decade.  Actually, I think it's supposed to look like a sail, but it mostly looks like a huge vagina.

Hmm...

I hope you weren't thrown off by Ben stepping in for Chris Harrison with the first date card.  I had to do a double take myself.  I was thinking, "this is what passes for fresh script writing on this show?"  Can you just imagine the production meeting that day?  "Get this:  Let's have Ben give out the date card!"  Holy shit that was an monumental change of pace.  I hope you were buckled in for it.

You often hear about "the edit" people get (well, I do... industry talk and all), and there is some truth to that.  The producers can mold the perception of some people by stringing together unflattering moments.  Usually, "the edit" is used for evil, as in the case of Courtney who has been portrayed as the meanest mean girl in the cheer squad.  However, I've always maintained that they can only use what you give them, so if "the edit" shows you calling girls "bitches," then you probably called girls bitches.  More interesting is to decipher how much of each girls' comments is played up for effect and how much of it is real.  We've already established that Courtney has a nice blend of shtick going, but there's assuredly some sincerity buried in there somewhere, and she's hardly worth anyone's ire.  It's been sad to see her run unopposed for a while now.  A contestant like Courtney needs a competent foil.  A Rafa to her Federer.  There's nothing like that here.  Rather, we're getting a lot of Jo-Wilfried Tsongas who spray wild backhands all over the court.

The syrupy sweet Kacie seemed to be a slight victim of the dreaded "edit" this week during her re-enactment of Cast Away with Ben on an island that is safely within swimming distance from downtown Panama.  I'd noticed it earlier this season during their fabled Sonoma dinner date, but Kacie might have the most grating laugh ever recorded.  You could chalk this up to her being just a sweet southern belle who just loves the hell out of life, but it comes across as almost defensive... like she's compensating.  People who smile at everything and laugh incessantly give me the creeps.  I imagine the producers made sure to give us a generous helping of that hideous cackle just to hammer home the point.  Well, mission accomplished, gents.  Everyone has their little pet thing they do, but that laugh would probably break me after about a week, Alex DeLarge style.

With hometowns just around the corner, or rather two agonizing weeks away, things are starting to get real.  Kacie shares with Ben that she used to barf to look even more waifish than she already does, and Ben reciprocated by sharing that he heard her say that.  He never says anything remotely interesting, this guy.  Kacie divulges a substantial moment from her life, although eerily like a badge of honor, and Ben essentially shrugs.  How can we expect to take Ben's epic journey seriously if he won't even share his favorite varietal?  He likes red and white?  Good grief.  Yes, and I'm a fan of an entire athletic conference.  At least tell us that you had an extra toe removed at birth or that your sister is actually a man.  Something.  It's like talking to a wall that politely nods every few seconds.  It was kind of cute to see Kacie open up to Ben and for her to gush about how "easy" he made that for her.  The bar is so god damned low I question whether there is a bar at all.  In real life, Kacie wouldn't give a guy like Ben a second look.  On this show, she can't be any more obsequious.  I'm sure he can't wait for you to run and get those groceries, honey.  Take the Prius.

Kacie can't survive long term, "edit" victim or not, and this is a little disappointing since there aren't a lot of viable options left, so it makes you wonder just how this show is going to sustain viewer interest.  I'm getting worried.  Courtney will have to start fighting with herself.

If the vagina building wasn't your cup of tea, maybe Ben's penis boat was more your thing.  Constructed from a hollowed out remnant from the local rain forest, it could comfortably seat 10 when fully erect.  Don't think we aren't paying attention, ABC.  The FCC went after M.I.A. for recently flipping off the world.  Don't think that your crude sexual innuendos are safe from the scrutiny of a government agency that inexplicably avoided Rick Perry's shit list.  Now, thankfully Ben's boat got nowhere near the gaping waterfront hotel, but they did manage to allegedly discover the last forgotten tribe of the isthmus.  These people are known for goading women into removing their tops and, of course, henna tattoos.  All I could wonder is how you arrange for something like this.  Is there a lost civilizations tour group you can book with?  

"We'll just be over here masturbating."

Courtney is right:  none of the other girls seem to care about making a move.  It's sad to see all of this potential being derailed by a total lack of competition.  The last big hope was maybe Blakeley to stick around for a while, hone her craft, and potentially lash out in a drug-addled rage, but even that dream is dead now.  What are we going to be left with?  Emily crying at Courtney to be her friend as she packs up to leave?  It's pathetic.  I think we can conclude that there aren't many women here who give enough of a shit.  When Ben did his little Chris Harrison impression, he was almost too good at it.  It's not easy to perfectly mimic his patented brand of asexual blandness.

This is the second week of stalled momentum, and I blame Ben's "go with the flow" mentality.  It's rubbing off on everyone and lubricating much needed friction.  Ben declared Lindzi to be "drama-free" which is about the highest form of praise he can bestow upon a female.  Why he keeps talking himself into this idea that the remaining girls are "easy going" is beyond me.  For as many women (other than that hussy Jamie) that he's claimed to have kissed, he doesn't seem to be very familiar with how estrogen works.

I've never dated a model, but I'm guessing they aren't usually drama-phobic.  That's just the general impression I get from watching shows that feature Tyra.  Courtney is just a shade below putting a leash on Ben and parading him around for show.  How that fits with the "flow-going" he talks so much about, I'm not sure.  She basically got his blessing to bitch it up out there in the field, most notably around Emily who is the least capable of handling it.  I think Ben actually likes Emily, but she's got a weak disposition in the face of female aggression, and we all know how crucial it is that the wife of a Northern California wine maker to be willing to mix it up.  She's got a lot going for her, but there's a perfect storm of self-destruction and inferiority complex that will probably sack her chances.  Kissing Courtney's ass was strange and showed obvious weakness.  If she really wanted to resurrect her prospects, she should have thrown her in the pool for a wet cat fight.  Bold, but necessary at this stage.  And don't worry, the water is chlorinated.

Jamie is basically Emily's pathetic twin.  She's just as meek and desperate to stick around, but having done nothing to earn it.  I'm not sure there's been two minutes of more uncomfortable television in the last five years than what she pulled.  It was like watching a dog walk for a mile on its hind legs.  I actually like Jamie, and maybe it was the competitive format that threw her off, but at least get a few drinks in you before you pull a stunt like that.  Courtney has a glass of Merlot permanently glued to her hand.  Just a thought.  If six weeks in you're like "screw it, I'm going to kiss him," maybe you'd be better off as a Jeopardy! contestant.

I'm warming up to this idea.

I can't remember any of the show's two-on-one dates ever being interesting.  Usually you have some dead weight clogging the system, and that can be safely said of Rachel (who?) and Blakeley.  I don't know why they insist on having Ben dance, but we've had more than our fill of it this season.  Blakeley looked like she had done something like that before.  I don't think they call it "salsa" where she's from since it usually involves a pole and small bills.  She put on a decent show, though.  Even Rachel was a fan:  "I think she really uses her sexuality with Ben a lot, and I don't understand why."  I don't want to sound like some kind of arrogant know-it-all, but I think I know why.

I can only imagine the dilemma of cutting loose someone that should have left three weeks ago.  Blakeley was so confident she was staying that she pulled the ol' "arts and crafts" angle that has been the ruin of many a poor soul.  Attention future contestants:  you cannot save yourself with construction paper and some crayons.  It cannot be done.  Once you find yourself clipping random words from magazines and using child-safe paste, you might as well salvage some dignity and walk off the set.  I still remember Chantal O'Brien's homemade map.  If she couldn't make that angle work, no one can.

Nice. Is that comic sans?

Yes, we're all going to miss Blakeley a lot and remember her for her unshakeable decorum she exuded throughout this season.  Don't worry, folks, I think we'll be seeing plenty more of Blakeley in coming seasons of Bachelor Pad.  Notice I said seasons.  There's about zero chance that doesn't happen.

Looking forward to Blakeley hooking up with Jake Pavelka soon.

I'm not sure there's been a contestant more mentally checked-out than Casey.  They finally had to give her the hook purely out of principle as she wasn't even getting enough camera time to justify her per diem.  From what I've been able to gather, Casey is a part-time model which explains why she follows full-time model Courtney around like she's her summer intern.  I feel like devoting more space to her will somehow result in her receiving residuals, so suffice to say that it was a welcome exit even if she was nice to look at.  The problem was that she was boring as all fuck and never said a word.  The only remotely interesting thing she ever did was pretend to be devastated about not finding a husband.  I've said it before, but if hot 26 year old models can't find love on a highly rated television show, what hope is there for the rest of us?

"How do I quiet the voices in my head, Chris?"

Ben played the "you've cost deserving women their time with me" card as if he really wanted to keep any of the garbage he's already sent home, but we could easily play the "you have to be an idiot not to know that Casey can't stand you" card, or the "don't give me that you dirty hippie, we all know the producers are manipulating this" card or the "maybe if you were more interesting, women would want to talk to you" card.  As you can see, it's a pretty big deck.  In addition to a copy of the home game, Casey gets sent home in style via a '98 Ford Windstar.  I really hope they make her pay taxes on these trips.  What we lost can never be fully recovered, but every little bit helps the healing.

I'd post some fresh rankings for Week 6, but honestly, I don't really see the point.  Courtney looks like Ahmad Bradshaw falling against his will into the end zone.  I still like Lindzi the best, but we've hardly seen her in the last two weeks.  I have a feeling Chris Harrison is going to visit next week to tell the girls Kacie was sent home for being underage.  Let's hope the show gets its mojo back rather than resorting to black censor bars as cheap gimmicks.  Courtney needs a tango partner, and I need better material.

La Isla del Encanto y Chica Desnuda

You'd think an episode that features Courtney getting totally nude would be a high point in the season, but it sure didn't feel that way to me.  I think we're getting some fatigue due to the large number of women who have no business still being there.  The downside to 25 women is that it takes an eternity to get rid of them all once we tire of them.  The tribe needs to speak more quickly because Ben is incapable of feigning interest in even three of these women.  I'm starting to pay more attention to Ben's temperamental hair again, and that can't be a good sign.

I think by now we've come to expect the gratuitous product placements and commercial sponsorship that occurs during a show (Seinfeld used to feature a new Mac every season), but there no way to yell out a gravely-throated "PUERTO RICO DOES IT BETTER" and have it sound in any way natural.  Stick with the lingering shots of "W Spa & Resort" and fleets of Honda RAV-4's instead.  If I'm visiting PR, it's for the sun and fun, not the awkward plug.  Just for that, I'm going to the Dominican Republic instead.


Not to say that Nicki made the best decisions in getting ready for her date (she probably could have done without the weeks-old chipped yellow nail polish), but she put a lot more effort into things than Ben did.  Sure, he knew he'd be picking up some plantation era duds in Old San Juan after that fake rainstorm, but the hot pink bacon necked t-shirt and gray Old Navy bargain bin shorts short said "I dare you to make me care about how I look."  I'm honestly sad to report this, but the more I see of Nicki, the less I like her.  Not because she's a bad person or anything, but it's just a shame to see those good looks wasted with such a one-dimensional personality and a brain that doesn't seem to have sufficient internal wiring.  There are times when I wonder how she can successfully feed herself.

Voted "best dressed," under $10 division.

Nicki is probably the most desperate of all of these women to find a husband, and she makes it very clear that it almost doesn't matter who the guy is as long as she can sign her name with "Mrs." again.  She seems to wear the "divorced" tag like it's a scarlet letter that she can't wait to rid herself of.  Still, I paused for a moment when she said she'd be "bummed" to go home after her one-on-one date with Ben.  Bummed?  For as overwrought as she gets at times, I was expecting something more like "suicidal."

The success or failure of the show doesn't rest on Ben's shoulders, and thank god for that because he's working intently to make this show extremely difficult to watch.  My least favorite moments are the segments where he tries to convince us just how much potential he sees in certain women.  With Nicki, he feels like a "kid" and thinks this day is going to go "extremely WELL" with special inflection on the "well," for whatever reason.  By now, you've taken stock of Ben's odd mannerisms, and if we give him a pass on the dancing for a moment, he has this strange tendency to put emphasis on words that don't require it.  He also gets this confused look on his face as if to say, "I can't believe I just said that I would have a great day with this woman."  In many instances, Ben acts like something of an entitled dick.  He's acquired a large head throughout this process, and some of the girls have been dutifully put in their place for thinking this is your usual relationship dynamic.  Well, it's not.  It's one-way traffic, as Martin Tyler would say.  Know your role, Emily.  We'll let you know when we need a case study on cholera outbreaks in sub-Saharan Africa.


Being a fresh divorcée, the producers promote the idea that Nicki is a deeply flawed woman who can only be fulfilled by marrying again.  And boy, has she ever come to the wrong show to fill that void.  Though we have a rich history of forced moments to sift through with this franchise, seeing these two sit to watch a wedding from across the street actually stands out as painfully forced.  Why would anyone want to do this in real life?  You might walk by and say, "oh, hey look... a wedding" and move on.  But no, we see these two intentionally walk to see this thing and ponder what it all means and hit us over the head with Nicki's past and supposed motivations for being on the show.  If I buy what they're selling and let myself get a little too carried away, I start to find symbolism in these images, something akin to, say, Hopper's 1925 House by the Railroad which depicts a Victorian mansion isolated by vast space and partially, yet intentionally, obscured by a lonely set of railroad tracks running perpendicular to our view.  Is marriage an elusive if antiquated notion?  Has modernity eviscerated our traditions and values?  Is monogamy rad enough to be viable?  Did someone give Courtney that "Be Nice" t-shirt?

Hopper, Edward: House by the Railroad (1925), oil on canvas (24 x 29 in)

"Nicki's been MARRIED."


Oh god, Ben, keep your pants on.  I don't know if I'm alone here, but I find it odd and maybe humorous that someone who has never been married, and gets visibly uncomfortable with the very idea of marriage, judges someone so thoroughly and harshly about their divorce.  You'd think his disdain would be for someone who stayed married, but yet he seems to treat Nicki like she's patient zero of a leper colony.  But now we're getting into Emily's area of expertise.


Any time you can pit the women against each other in teams, I think that's a good thing.  Who knew strippers VIP cocktail waitresses could play baseball?  Not Courtney.  I've seen fairly athletic dudes look like inept idiots trying to hit a baseball, so I was surprised that most of them held their own.  Yeah, it had a bit of an MTV Rock N' Jock feel to it (back in the era when they played music), but overall it was entertaining.  And these ladies were going all out too.  Even Casey S., who couldn't care less because of her boyfriend back home, seemed to be going a good 60% in this one.  I think I even heard Kacie B. call the girls "bitches" at some point.  That's pretty serious stuff.  It was an effort that Roberto Clemente would have approved of.  I would have liked more power in this game, though.  No one seemed capable of taking that noodle arm Ben deep, and he was serving up junk the whole game.  What was that fence at, 150 feet?  This is the problem with having a gaggle of 110 pound women play baseball.  And yes, there is crying in baseball.  Lots of crying.  Pitiful sobbing, really.

Maybe they used cricket scoring.

I still don't know what was up with the score.  The game was supposed to go two innings, but it was tied 6-6.  This should have been a Blue Team victory at the end of the third, but instead they went two more innings until Red pulled ahead and blanked them in the bottom of the fifth.  Win by two in the third?  Multiply by π?  Carry the three?  Fourier transform?  I'm lost here.  I'm assuming there was some reason for this and not just lousy math, although the latter seems entirely plausible to me.


Kacie actually gets Ben to admit that his previous relationships have been "INTERESTING" but largely unrequited.  He doesn't want to talk about them voluntarily, but it doesn't seem to be a sore subject or anything, just that he's already declared himself king of reality TV and doesn't care for the scrutiny.  My guess is that Ben is treating this with exactly as much seriousness as it deserves and prefers not to bare his soul lest he ruin future hook up possibilities with the other potential Jennifer Love Hewitts out there, i.e., Hollywood types who are fans of the show and will drunk tweet for attention.


Courtney is exactly correct that Kacie does come across like a little girl, baton twirling or not, and I think that's probably going to wear thin on Ben and the audience alike.  Still, Courtney seems to think four extra years of seasoning and a penchant for public nudity is winning game plan.  Could be.  It is a stark contrast, I'll give her that.  The best part of all of this is how the model can turn the gooey-sweet Kacie into a foul-mouthed sailor with almost no effort.  Courtney has this evil villain thing down pat by now.  I've read people comparing her with Vienna and claiming they're basically the same person.  Courtney isn't Vienna, folks.  Vienna was trashy, sunken-eyed, and stunningly stupid.  Yes, she made the other women angry, but mostly because of Jake's cluelessness (great how that relationship ended up).  Courtney is much more tactical and deliberate.  She's playing a game of chess, if chess was actually a much easier game to play than it is.  Chess just makes it sound important.  Most importantly for evil bitch status, she knows how to prey on womens' insecurities, having studied her own for years.  It's not easy to do what she's doing.  In fact, it's really never been done to this effect before.  Michelle tried, bless her heart, but didn't have the chops or emotional stability to make it happen.  Let's see how version 2.0 fares.  Part of it depends on how willing Ben is to play along, and he seems almost deathly afraid of a woman like Courtney.  If that's not entertaining TV, you might as well stop watching now.  "Waaa, Ben is boring."  Suck it up.  This is important television.


Elyse, who may as well have been invisible to this point, is just as young as Kacie.  She's also just as naïve, but with 95% less Kewpie Doll.  Maybe that's because she's accomplished everything she ever wanted to at 24.  It is a rockin' tan, I'll give her that.  Ben says that he "likes what he's seen" so far, and it's difficult to take issue there.  Unfortunately, that's about all Elyse brings to the table.  You know you're in trouble when Ben tells you that he's getting close to being in a serious relationship and you've yet to talk to the guy.  Pretty good chance you're not in those plans.  But we push on anyway knowing full well that Ben is going to pull a page out of the Brad Womack Official Bachelor Handbook and dump Elyse by the side of the road.  Or the moor of the dock.  Or however you want to align these analogies.  She's this season's Britt, but with a better body and an allegedly superior résumé.

"Oh that little thing we're towing?  It's your ride home."

There are worse women still hanging around than Elyse.  Way worse.  Take your pick:  Blakeley, Rachel (took me a second to jog the memory), and Casey S. are all beyond their sell-by date.  There's also Jamie about whom Ben has had nary a thought in five weeks, so she's expendable too.  There wasn't much perceivable chemistry with Elyse, and she spent an inordinate amount of time talking about getting married as soon as possible irrespective of whether she met someone interesting, so that might have been it.  Still, why throw potentially useful equipment overboard when there's tons of jetsam you could dump instead.  I mean, Rachel?  Ew.

With Elyse gone, that's one more "incredible, incredible woman" that is sent home by dinghy.  David Gray's "This Year's Love" is starting to sound like a funeral dirge.


As far as I'm aware, there are no "rules" to the show that say you have to sit on your hands and wait for the next thing to happen, so Courtney storming the beach with her nude assault has to be considered a rare act of honest individualism and, I want to say "outside the box" thinking, but it may have been firmly inside the box.  Eventually, Brad figured out Michelle.  Ben isn't figuring out Courtney yet.  He's barely able to keep up and even looks nervous around her.  I don't really care if these two have a connection or not.  What really matters is how things play out in the hen house, and my guess is that it won't go over well.  Is there no one that can trip Courtney up on the way to the end zone?  She's practically high stepping all the way down the field.  It's getting ridiculous at this point.  I'm trying to figure out which of these women can throw a wrench in this plan, and I'm coming up empty.  All of the strong-ish personalities are gone for various reasons (perceived lesbianism, etc.), and all you have left are needy crybabies.  I think the only thing that can stop this train is Courtney pulling a Michelle and unleashing the real crazy, or Ben deciding for himself that her mouth really is as weird as it seems.  I've conjectured that Ben is taking this show about 30% seriously, so there's a path for Courtney to win.  A very real path.

"Those other girls?"

Blakeley got a little more camera time this episode and spent it begging to stick around through the trip to Panama.  She pulled out all of the stops, even calling Ben "charismatic."  He even had to have smirked at that.


I feel a little stupid, and maybe even used, by endorsing Emily early on in this blog.  That was severely short-sighted by me, and it was probably fueled in part by hubris after essentially calling J.P. as the winner in week 1 of The Bachelorette last summer.  Of course, guys are like a Golden Book compared to women who are more like a Joyce novel, but nonetheless, I should have seen the vulnerability and telltale weakness in Emily's game.  I guess I was drawn in by remnants of normality, but didn't consider that she hadn't been battled tested yet.  I hated her rap shtick on night one, and that memory should have stuck with me longer than it did.  We've rarely seen someone self-destruct more thoroughly than Emily is right now.  She's a slow-motion trainwreck with about 50 box cars coming off the tracks one by one into a giant burning pile.  It's difficult to watch, mostly because it's completely avoidable.

Speaking of which, in late January of 1986, NASA called up the engineers at Morton Thiokol for a quick chat:

"Hey guys, NASA here.  Say, quick Q for you.  Have y'all tested those super important SRB O-rings at temperatures below 30 degrees?  You know, the ones that prevent crazy hot gasses from leaking out and blowing up the space shuttle?"  

When informed that they hadn't collected sufficient data even below 53 degrees, NASA pulled the equivalent of "fuck it" even though prescient guys like Roger Boisjoly practically begged them not to.  You know the rest.

Good thing Emily gets another shot to fix what she screwed up the first time, right?  I mean, how often do you get a second chance like that.  Phew!  Just Emily and Ben from here on out.  No distractions, no Courtney bashing.  Good.  That's settled.  So now that we've totally moved on, let's talk about what a vile skank Courtney is.


Whether Ben actually likes Courtney or "gets" her is really immaterial to me.  More interesting at this moment is how he tells Emily to "drop it and tread lightly, be careful."  I've seen probably ten full seasons of this franchise (okay, it's more) and that's got to be the most out of touch line I've ever heard from a principal.   Tread lightly?  Or what?  Is this an episode of Dexter?  Hard to find a body in the ocean, is it?  Good grief.  Ease up there, Don Corleone.


So naturally, Emily transitions into her super attractive self-loathing state which is getting to be a tired thing to watch.  Do none of these women (other than Courtney) prep for this show?  This sort of thing comes up all the damn time.  If you want to alert Ben about something, at least have the sense to do it anonymously, and certainly don't pull that same stunt twice.  Whatever part of the brain spawned this idea was probably also responsible for generating that horrid rap.

With Elyse on a pontoon back to the states, there's only one to discard.  We're still not down to any difficult calls yet, so it almost doesn't matter what he does.  Stay tuned for more bad acting and strange insistence that everyone is still in the running.

Blakeley was nearly about to hyperventilate until she got her rose.  Or at least it appeared that way.  Crisis (sadly) averted.


Casey S. keeps treading water as Courtney's personal assistant and adoring fan.  These people need staff too.


We still know nothing about Jamie.


The general consensus seems to be that Jennifer was a surprise exit, but I don't think it's all that shocking.  Ben's body language with her was always pretty lackluster, and all he could muster as a compliment was that she was a good kisser.  That never evolved into anything more substantial.  Jennifer just has a crazy look about her, and he was probably smart to cut that off early.  She was more like his stalker than anything else.  That hiccup-cry deal proved it was the correct call.


This really should have been a four-girls-go-home show.  There's still nine left?  Dear god.

Only chicas with a shot in hades of winning this thing:

• Kacie B. - Showed some sassiness and a total lack of decorum.  To quote Ben:  "It kind of turned me on."
• Courtney - Running a clinic at this point.  Will probably have to pull a hammy to lose.
• Nicki - Texas and NorCal don't really mix.  Did you know she's divorced?
• Lindzi - Disappeared on us this week.  Still digging the dimple.  Best strategy would be to challenge Courtney to a fist fight soon.

In purgatory:

• Emily - Might need some self-help books on introspection and things you can control.

Play them off, Keyboard Cat:

• Blakeley - Enough.
• Casey S. - Can only suckle at the teat of Courtney for so long.  The free vacation is about over.
• Rachel - Time to rest those awful vocal chords.
• Jamie - Total head-scratcher.  Seems lovely enough, but Ben pretty much ignores her completely.