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Recap: ‘The Bachelor’ week 10, March 7
Wow.
That just confirmed my worst fears about how groups of women behave when they are alone together.
With Chris Harrison.
And a studio audience.
On national television.
If last week was “Wild Kingdom,” Monday’s episode was a National Geographic special featuring a pride of jungle cats (although, seriously, did y’all see any pride last night?) circling the wagons around a spider named Michelle.
“The Bachelor’s” rejects, almost none of whom I remembered (or recognized … what happened to Ashley H.?) returned to discuss their experiences on the show and hash out their feuds, but mostly to tear into this season’s villain with relish.
Mmmmmm … relish (sorry — the season recap was so boring that I started daydreaming about those new hot dogs they showed on the Sonic commercial).
Can spiders shed crocodile tears? Because Michelle had the waterworks cranked up to a degree that could put the rest of this week’s ABC shows under a watering ban. Revenge is indeed a dish best served cold and I guess when that coldness mixes with the “hot seat,” it creates rain … from Michelle’s eyes.
Especially vicious was Lea Michelle/Rachel Berry impersonator Jackie. She didn’t use relish in her attacks but ripped into Michelle with glee (do you see what I did there … Lea Michelle plays the character Rachel Berry on “Gl — oh, never mind). There were so many claims that Michelle was a ‘bad mother” that I think the show is being sued for copyright infringement by the guy who wrote the theme from “Shaft.”
Anyway, Harrison practically had to shelter Michelle under his arm and brandish a lit torch with his free hand, thrusting it toward her angry throng of villagers — er, competitors — and forcing them to back off.
For her part, Michelle insisted that the other women merely didn’t get her sense of humor. And I think she has a point. Because nothing says funny quite like an outing to the local two-drink-minimum Chuckle Hut to watch a scary comic onstage trash other women for an hour every week and, you know, walk out into the audience and straddle your husband and tell him to dump you and stuff. And then, if her set doesn’t go well, she sits at a table in the corner weeping while the subsequent comedians try to perform.
Still, Michelle could have a successful comedy career. Do you remember her knock-knock joke — you know, when she snuck into Austinite Bachelor Brad Womack’s room in the middle of the night that one time and creepily instructed him on the order in which he should send her competitors home?
Laff riot.
Later, some brunette woman who claimed to be most recent reject Ashley H. was put on the hot seat and was as aloof and guarded as she was during the competition. Host Harrison was having none of it and stopped just short of Gitmo-approved enhanced interrogation techniques (although Michelle was standing by with a flood of ready tears in case waterboarding was necessary) to get her to admit that she had been in love with Brad.
When Ashley said she might have been falling for Brad, Harrison repeated “you WERE in love with him” so often that it began to sound like a post-hypnotic suggestion — like “you WILL stop smoking” or “you WILL dye your hair a really unflattering shade of brown”). Ashley said what she and Brad shared was something unspoken, but Harrison was determined to not let it remain so.
Brad himself fared better on the hot seat (side note: can any seat next to Harrison’s accurately be described as hot? Perhaps we should call it the “hot-by-comparison seat”). He defended the spider Michelle, and now I’m thinking it would have been funny if when he sent her home he’d have coaxed her into a giant water glass or coffee mug — or grabbed her with a gigantic piece of wadded up tissue — and ran through the house, terrified, holding her at arm’s length and releasing her tumbling onto the lawn instead of just walking her to a limousine. Hey, it’s more humane than flushing her down the toilet.
Brad had a nice reunion with Ashley H. too, although, as he said he’d been instructed by either Emily or Chantal (whichever game show contestant he eventually chose to spend every day of the rest of his life with) not “too” nice.
We got to see a blooper reel that was more entertaining than anything that made the actual show. Brad actually seemed comfortable, relaxed and unguarded during some of those moments, which is truly a side of him we’ve never seen.
Next week, I guess, we find out which woman won Brad and which was sent home with some lovely parting gifts and a copy of the show’s home game. My consolation prize? I’ll never have to watch this show again.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment Categories: Entertainment, Random thoughts, Reality TV
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By sam
March 8, 2011 9:19 PM | Link to this
The absolute best thing about Tuesdays. I am looking forward to the next season of the Bachelor, not really to watch the show, but to read your blog on it!
By Donna Brown
March 8, 2011 12:28 PM | Link to this
Dale, it was soooo great to read your recap. I got to miss all the crying and cat fighting and instead, got to LMAO. I am sorry I missed Brad relaxed...that would have been a sight to behold. He was on 94.7 the other morning and sounded exactly the same...scripted and too nice...ugh.