Bachelorette: Episode 6

Last night’s episode was monumental, as we saw the (brief) return of cro-magnon con man Bentley, the voluntary exit of a great guy, and a whole lot of tears.

The crew relocated from Thailand to Hong Kong, China and set up shop in a nice hotel. When the episode opens, Chris “Part Time Therapist” Harrison is trying to give Ashley some tough love about Bentley. She STILL can’t shake him (ugh), even though he is named after an overpriced and ostentatious type of car, he has been gone for three weeks AND she’s been in three different locations since he left. Ashley insists that she’ll gain some “closure” by speaking with him again, which is moronic. As my wise older sister Laurel taught me (both of my big sisters are wise and wonderful, but Laurel was the one who taught me this), when you reach out to a guy and claim it’s for “closure,” it really isn’t and you’re actually hoping to restart things. Get real with yourself (to quote Dr. Phil.) If you want closure, you have to give it to yourself by moving forward and deciding that you’re DONE with this situation. Ashley should adopt the strategy of Don Draper (circa Mad Men season 1) and be like a train rolling down the tracks in ONE direction, never looking back. (I know that trains can’t look backward, but you get what I mean). Chris Harrison dutifully orchestrates a meet-up between Bentley and Ashley and encourages her to say what she needs to say and be done with it. I’m convinced that the producers must have shown her Bentley’s outtakes (when he says that he doesn’t like Ashley, he wishes the bacehlorette were Emily, etc) because she had a QUICK change of heart while she was talking to Bentley. Whatever she did to gain some self-respect, I’m just glad she did. They had a talk, said goodbye, and the Bentley era is over (much like the era when Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck used to cruise around Los Angeles IN a Bentley- heyo! Bentley jokes, people!)

Lucas got the first 1:1 date and to refresh your memory, he’s the TX oil guy who plays golf, seems like a little uptight, and wears a big ring. I’m not averse to dudes in rings, but Lucas cannot pull off this look. I bet that ring is inscribed with something like, “Never Forget the Alamo.” They explore Hong Kong and have dinner on a boat, which gives us lots of shots of their heads bobbing up and down along the horizon. Who knew that you could feel sea sick while sitting on your own couch and chugging white wine? (Everyone.) Lucas talks about his first marriage and they kiss. A pretty forgetable date, but Lucas scored a rose from it.

Up next is a group date which is Dragon Boat Racing with Ames (big head Yale/Harvard guy), Ryan (guy with an annoyingly positive attitude), Blake (bland dentist), Mickey (spiked hair hottie) and the Monkey Twins: Constantine and Ben. The guys divide up into pairs and have to recruit locals to help them row. The Monkey Twins find this task extremely difficult, but perhaps because they both resemble unshowered, overgrown primates. Nobody else has a problem recruiting rowers—not even Ames, whose eyes are so far apart that he almost resembles a fish. Ames and Mickey win the race and the “prize” is a sense of personal accomplishment, it seems. The crew goes to a roof deck for the dragon boat race after party, where Ames finally does something cool for once in his life, and makes out with Ashley (HARD) in the elevator. I bet they don’t teach that maneuver at Yale, so how’d he learn it? Ashley gives Ryan the rose on this date, and Ryan becomes the Vienna of this season of The Bachelorette. For the uninitiated, when Jake (the pilot/super cheeseball) was the bachelor a few seasons back, that season was called The Bachelor: On The Wings of Love (barf, I know) and Vienna was the most divisive girl in the house. She was pretty “Dub Tee” as we might say (white trash) and every other girl thought that if Jake wanted a girl like Vienna, they didn’t even want to compete. Ryan is getting the same treatment right now and I kinda feel bad for the guy, but MAN he seems annoying.

Up next is a 1:1 with sweetheart construction manager J.P. Ashley appears to be wearing a silk nightgown over black jeans which highlights the fact that she’s completely bo-legged. How did I miss this before? J.P. and Ashley eat dinner, flirt, and make out in a weird train. Over dinner, Ashley tells J.P. about the recent Bentley news and he handles it gracefully. If I were J.P., probably would have been like, “Why are you telling me this!? It’s NOT necessary! Sometimes honesty is NOT the best policy! There are some things that simply do NOT need to be shared!” which is what I was screaming at my television. J.P. got a rose and those two lovebirds are going to be puking into one another’s mouths (BIRD STYLE) in no time. (Yes, I just quoted a piece of my own standup. If you want to see more, come to Luca Lounge (Ave B between 13/14) Wednesday night at 7pm!)

Time for a cocktail party/rose ceremony and Ashley’s silver dress is 90% gorgeous The spaghetti straps in back are NOT the best, but everything else about the dress is perfect. I’m something of an anti-spaghetti strap activist, though. (I’m also pro-choice and a democrat with libertarian tendencies, but my anti-spaghetti strap activism comes before anything else.) First off, straps named after a type of pasta weird me out. Second, that type of strap is so thin that it tends to make the wearer look really broad-shouldered and linebacker-y, no matter what her size. Just don’t do it. But I digress. Ashley informs ALL of the guys about the recent Bentley visit and many of them are, understandably, pretty pissed. She basically just told them that for 3 weeks she has been pining over a jerk and she’s FINALLY over him now and ready for this sweet batch of second bananas. Mickey’s offended and decides to leave, taking his spiky hair, nice tan, and sweet jaw line back to Cali. Ashley starts crying and pleads with the guys to stick with this process. I hate to be a hater, but her speech felt a little bit needy and sad. Meh.

Who got the boot? Bland fellow dentist Blake. It was pretty harsh because he reacted to the Bentley news pretty badly, then when he saw Ashley crying “his heart melted” (his words, not mine!), then he got negged in the face nonetheless. Ahh well, thems the breaks.