Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Another Bachelor recap

Sorry I didn’t recap last week, lovelies. I live-tweeted it, then got lazy. But this week the Bachelor and his (increasingly blonde) harem traveled to one of my favorite cities, so I gotta report.

Chris Harrison kicked off the show by informing the ladies that they’d be traveling to a location FOUR HOURS AWAY: LAS VEGAS! The girls shrieked and squealed, but I secretly hope that the actual journey from L.A. to L.V. was like in “Swingers” when they start off all fired up, and then just end up tired and bored.

The ladies arrive in Vegas and they’re staying at Aria, a new hotel on the Strip that is just down from the Bellagio, if my memory serves. They will be living in the penthouse and it’s absolutely gorgeous. Brad meets the women at the hotel, presumably after he traveled to Vegas in an isolation pod so that no off-camera flirting would go down. We learn that during their week in Vegas, there will be a 1:1 date, a group date, and the dreaded 2:1 date. Note to newbies: the 2:1 date includes one rose and one fat Heisman to the face. So somebody is going on the date and never coming back. Yikes. But ya never know what will go down on these things, dear reader. Remember when Jake “Pilot Nerd” Pavelka was the bachelor and he kinda freaked out during his 2:1 and sent them BOTH home!? There could be curve balls, people. Keep your eyes open and your mouth closed (huh?).

The 1:1 date goes to lucky Shawntel, whose parents obviously wanted a son and wouldn’t budge on the name. She’s a sexy mortician (note to self: remember that for Halloween costume next year) and we hear an awful lot about embalming and draining of veins. Yes, she almost quoted “Roadhouse” with her comment about draining the main vein. Blind guitarist Jeff Healy would be proud, Shawntel! First Brad & Shawntel go on a shopping spree, which idiotic Ashley H. refers to as a “perfect Pretty Woman moment.” Umm… have people forgotten that in “Pretty Woman,” Julia Roberts is a woman whose JOB IS SEX and who keeps what little cash she has in a plastic soap dish INSIDE her toilet. Brad and Shawntel then eat dinner on the roof of the hotel and as they walked out there, I thought they were going to somehow reenact “The Hangover.” Terrible sunburns, lost bachelors, and a cameo by Mike Tyson!? I wish. All we got was a death-chat dinner, fireworks, and smooches.

The group date is to the Las Vegas Track, as in the workplace of Emily’s dead fiancée/baby daddy. So for those keeping track at home, NBC has put Emily on a plane (how her fiancée died) AND at a NASCAR race track (his workplace). What’s next, a group date at a Medium who claims she can access the spirit world!? Will there be booze!? This date is pretty boring—everyone wears ugly driver suits and big, round hats (they’re called helmets, I know, but isn’t it more fun to call them hats?); they do some slow-mo walking through smoke on the track (wish I were joking about that one); booze and tears abound; girls wear bikinis. Standard.

So that leaves the 2:1, which will be Ashley S. vs. Ashley H., or as Brad calls them “the Ashleys” which only reifies the fact that this is a harem freak show. They watch a rehearsal of the Elvis extravaganza show on the strip and I must admit, it looked awesome. They even played my favorite Elvis song, “Suspicious Minds.” Brad and the Ashleys learn a few dance routines and even dangle over the seats in ropes and harnesses. It’s Elvis plus Cirque Du Soleil, so the use of harnesses and dangling bodies is actually pretty neat, not freaky or bondage-y. The threesome then eat dinner together and Brad sends home Ashley S. (who you may remember from the “Kiss From a Rose” date). As they show footage of her crying in the limo, talking about how she has so much trouble with love and relationships, we hear the sounds of Elvis’s “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” and then cut to shots of Ashley H. and Brad having a blast. Pretty harsh stuff.

Finally, it’s time for a rose ceremony in the Aria hotel suite. Shawntel, Emily, and Ashley H. have roses already, so they are safe. Michelle tries to lure in Brad using a strategy that resembles a prisoner-of-war interrogation room-- SEXY! Marissa appears to be wearing a tiara and hands Brad a card of what she calls “texts I would send, if we had cell phones.” How did we, as a society, become so addicted to texting that we can’t see that texting is a modern form of (very short) letter writing? Are we so modernized that we can’t simply revert to letter writing, but rather we have to phrase it as texts you have transcribed!? Just write a frigging letter, weirdo. That letter can’t save Marissa, though, and she gets sent home. Also eliminated is Lisa M, who never had a 1:1 with Brad and seemed lucky to make it this far. She had on a cute dress for her final rose ceremony, though. Chantal received the final rose of the night and I think that her drunken use of the “L word” may have been a bit too much for Brad, even with his trips to “intensive therapy.”

What’s coming up? A trip to Costa Rica and some hometown visits within the next few episodes.

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