Tuesday, June 21, 2016

The Bachelorette: Obviously My Personality is Shit.

You know how in every story ever told the villain is defeated in the middle of the second act leaving the remaining heroes to just stand around and talk?

Take Star Wars for example. After blowing up the Death Star Han, Luke, and Leia famously travel to Endor and spend the remainder of the movie talking about what a bad guy Darth Vader was and tickling Ewoks. Or Die Hard when, after killing Hans Gruber, John McClane fills out paperwork for 45 minutes. What about in Wolf of Wall Street when, after Leonardo DiCaprio kills the wolf that was terrorizing the stock exchange, he closes out the movie by helping custodial services clean up the mess he caused? Ok, I may not have seen that last one but you get my point.

What’s that you say? That’s not actually the case? Most stories wait until the end to dispatch their villain? How interesting. Too bad no one told The Bachelor

For those who missed it, the last episode of everyone’s guilty pleasure ended with resident bad guy and human who forgot how doors work, Chad, being sent home. Chad was, of course, the show’s villain, so his departure midway through the season leaves a massive void for the producers to fill. Who will be the prime villain moving forward? It could be Jordan, Derek, Alex, or even my own hubris which perpetuates this stupid blog.

Come on, can you get more evil than fighting children's toys?

Not one to go gentle into that good night, Chad walks through the Pennsylvania wilderness in order to pick a fight with Alex. Of course, no sooner does he arrive than he realizes that Alex isn’t at the house, he’s still on the date with JoJo. Instead of admitting his fuck up (a cardinal sin of alpha masculinity),Chad makes small talk with Daniel and says the date went “really good.” You know what, Chad? I’m glad you’re gone. No amount of entertainment can offset your delusion.

Sensing his final chance for relevance, Evan again demands money for his ripped shirt. In case anyone was interested, there is currently a Kickstarter accepting donations to buy Evan a new shirt. I’m not suggesting anyone donate to it, in fact if you can find a way to remove money from a Kickstarter account I would actively recommend you do that. As Chad succinctly said, Evan is a “dick doctor”; he can afford his own shirts.

He's not even a dick doctor... that's a urologist.

After Chad’s final departure, Wells leads the guys in a memorial service for Chad where they scatter his remaining creatine powder into the wind. Say what you will about the average contestant on this show, but I love Wells. He gives clever little dudes like me hope of humiliating bullies on national TV. You do you, Wells.

Once Alex returned home and the celebration died down, it was time for the rose ceremony. Most of this was spent watching Evan complain that the other guys were mean because he was too timid to talk to JoJo. If anyone can suss out that logic I will award 50 points to your respective Hogwarts house.

During the rose ceremony, JoJo sent James F and Daniel home. I could not care less about James F, as all I know about him is that he owns a boxing gym and looks like grown up Eddie Munster. Seeing Daniel leave was bittersweet in the way that watching Jeb Bush run for president was. You know he’s not going to win, but it’s so much fun to watch him struggle you can’t help but cheer for him.

"Please clap."

After the ceremony, JoJo announces that the show will be moving to Uruguay for the coming weeks. None of the guys have any idea where Uruguay is beyond “south,” but then again no one calls it “You’re-A-Gay” so I’ll call that a win for humankind.

By the way, in case you were worried that the collective stupidity stopped once the show left the states, it didn’t. Once the guys arrived at their hotel room and looked out the window at their ocean front view, Jordan proclaimed “We have a 360 degree view of the ocean!” Yeah, he said that. With a straight face. While looking through a 180 degree surface. A 360 degree view of the ocean is basically only possible on a boat. As a former football player who escaped the NFL without CTE, this is unforgivably stupid.

Speaking of our geometrically challenged little buddy, Jordan is gifted the first one on one date of the evening. While he is ecstatic, the rest of the guys are suddenly suspicious. They un-ironically accuse him of playing a game (which is all The Bachelorette really is) and say that JoJo is only into him because he played in the NFL. I understand their jealousy, but these guys need to remember that Jordan “played” the same amount of time in the NFL that they did, zero minutes. If that impresses JoJo, her standards have fallen below anywhere I could have previously imagined.

JoJo and Jordan’s date was supposed to involve swimming with seals, though it mostly consisted of Jordan pointing and yelling “Seals!” Between this and his inability to understand how oceans work, Jordan has gone full Buster Bluth.

"Well obviously the blue is land..." - Jordan

Meanwhile at the house, the guys have discovered a tabloid magazine which alleges that JoJo not only was dating her ex during the last season of The Bachelor, but was still dating said ex now. As this is not a group inclined towards critical thinking (it’s literally impossible to be dating someone who currently is your ex), the guys begin to panic and wonder if JoJo was there just to promote herself. You would think that the guys asked these questions while being filmed for The Bachelor would be the answer to their question.

While the guys question JoJo’s motives, JoJo is busy questioning Jordan’s. As she explains it, JoJo was contacted by one of Jordan’s exes who claimed that he was “not a great guy” and that they were “off and on.” JoJo treats this as if it was a serious accusation and not just a thing that guys in their 20’s do. Jordan, as I also did, stared at JoJo waiting for her to say something actually incriminating. After realizing she was done speaking, Jordan pulled two classic guy lines when he said “I dunno” followed by “I’m falling in love with you.” Obviously JoJo accepted this as an answer because this is The Bachelor and Jordan is good looking.

JoJo returns to the house ecstatic from her date with Jordan. Sensing joy and the need to snuff it out, the producers immediately hand JoJo a copy of the tabloid the guys were reading earlier. She immediately breaks into tears because having an ex talk shit about you to the nation is a humiliating situation. Well done producers, you’ve destroyed this young woman for another week.

Upset beyond measure, JoJo goes to talk to the guys who immediately backtrack their concerns about her and dive into consolation mode. They each take turns talking about what an asshole her ex is and how she is the most special person they have ever known for only three weeks. For a group of guys who can’t stop talking about the importance of honesty and machismo, they don’t seem to know how to employ either.

M'lady

After a hectic night of JoJo’s crying, the show traveled to some nearby dunes for what should have been a fun day of sand surfing. Instead, the guys spent the entire day reminding JoJo how terrible her ex was and how they disapprove of her terribleness. Seriously? I came here to watch Evan get swallowed by quick sand not eight guys shit talk a total stranger.

The JoJo pity party continues through the cocktail portion of the group date as well. Each guy takes his turn sitting down with our bachelorette and reminding her that they aren’t a piece of shit like her ex, they are an entirely different piece of shit. Sorry, I should have more to say about this date, but I can only watch so much white knighting before even I check out.

During the date, Derek gets a rose because he expressed concerns about his relationship with JoJo. For this moment of emotional honesty and openness, Derek was rewarded with not only a rose, but the ridicule of Alex, who apparently thought the rose was given out based on lack of height and not romantic interest. It’s ok lil munchkin, you’ll get ‘em next week.

Widdle Awex welling at big mean Dewek,

The final group date of the evening was Robby’s. JoJo suggested they go cliff diving, while Robby suggested she listen to a story about how his best friend died.  They were disparate levels of fun but the show gave equal time to both segments so they must have been equally important.

Honestly, the rest of the episode was pretty uninteresting. JoJo cancelled the cocktail party, which made several guys rightfully nervous. Derek confronted Jordan, Alex, and Chase about their cliquey nature that excluded others in the house. In the end, Evan, Vinny, and Grant were all sent home, to the surprise of no one.

If nothing else, this episode reiterated the fact that good stories cannot thrive without a villain.  The Bachelorette without Chad is like Star Wars without Darth Vader, Die Hard without Hans Gruber, or Wolf of Wall Street without the wolf. The guys in the house needed something to fight against, and grow in spite of. Instead, Chad self-destructed within a few weeks and left an existential crisis in his wake. I hate to say it, but Evan was right when he said, “Everyone is turning into mini-Chads.”

If only this were the case. I hate Chad. I can’t stand Chad. I want Chad back on the show now more than ever.


XOXO


Gossip Squirrel

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