Bachelorette Emily: Dudes…Or Duds?
“Go home, crybaby.”
Might as well be honest. I’m not enjoying blogging this season of The Bachelorette as much as I’ve enjoyed others. It’s still way too early in the proceedings to rush to any sort of judgment on the whole season, that’s just an acknowledgement of my feelings, which I feel. And as long as I’m feeling feelings, I might as well try to get to the bottom of them so as to enliven and enrich your viewing experience of a show that is generally so devoid of real human feeling or experience.
It’s not Emily, or not exactly. In fact, at the time she was announced as this season’s Central Object, it was hard to imagine her being anything other than ultramega boring, but Emily’s done better than that. She tells jokes and frequently comes across as a genuine person who actually exists on this planet*, while rocking this enigmatic nature that is very likely to make some dudes cry** before the end of the season.
So what is it that I’m not enjoying***? Could it be the sheer number of dinks roaming around this big, borrowed North Carolina mansion, waiting their turn to try and make the stranger love them? Sort of, yeah. The dudes, for the large part, are duds.
Take Chris the corporate sales director (please)****. They might show him smearing on way too much aftershave before his first date with Emily, but they keep hidden his viewing of the six hour Emily Highlight Reel***** from which he emerges calm and refreshed enough to don a harness and climb to dinner with her up the side of a building, offering the warmest of high fives once they reach the top. “I didn’t think it was the right time to kiss her right then,” he explains, and considering the giant ‘This would be an excellent time for you to kiss me’ smile she was giving him at that exact moment, it would seem that I am totally right. Again. About everything.
But if that’s not enough proof for you, how about when shit-country nobody Brian Singer puts on a concert for the two of them and any yokels loitering nearby, Chris finally does kiss her and then says, “Kissing Emily is like the greatest thing that I’ve ever experienced in my life.” This, just after he’s finished telling her about how he left home when he was 17 to go to school and get experience? He loves her too much for no reason. Many of them love her too much for no reason. And all who do are idiots.
I swear, if it wasn’t for the simmering love affair between Stevie “Party Stevie” the Party MC and Kalon “Luxury Brand Consultant” the Douchebag, there’d be nothing of interest going on in that house at all. Oh, you missed that? Yeah well, hear me out. Surely you haven’t missed how Party Stevie needs – wait a sec, everybody needs – how Party Stevie NEEEEEEDS? It’s there in his eyes? In every single close-up? He needs love and attention and validation, probably he needs a place to live, and definitely he needs someone to tell him the truth about a lot of things, complete him, to complement whatever it is that he brings to the world besides that little beard and his pop ‘n’ lock. And while his mouth, as he struggles to remain ‘proper’, may say Emily is that person, the way he spent all last episode glowering at Kalon? It’s a thin line between love and hate, baby.
And as for Kalon****** and his 26 year old, collagen injected lips and his manners and his need to project cool and control himself and others, Emily’s not for him. He just wants to win her because he likes to win things*******. He thinks no one can see the seething anger and his need to dominate, but we can. And Party Stevie can, too. Party Stevie could be so good for the Douchebag.
Nobody blames you for wanting to take a moment to mull that one over, but I’ve got to move on. There’s a lameass group date in the park which I’ve got to cursorily cover. The duds all arrive, walking like they’re airing out their armpits, until they find out that they’re actually walking into the shittiest date ever, getting interviewed and objectified by Emily’s posse of bidd- er, girlfriends, then proving their suitability for stepfatherhood via the chasing of a bunch of kids – orphans, presumably, or otherwise unwanted******** – around a playground.
It winds up being all too much for Tony, who finds that leaving his son behind for weeks and weeks is enough to make him weep (and weep and weep) until finally Emily has to send him away for being a crybaby. Hmmm, this was the first major test of her ability as a Central Object, to keep potential strays in line, to give them the ‘have patience, try to understand’ line like Brad was so adept with. By letting him go home instead of pressuring him to succumb to the nonexistent luuuuuv, Emily kind of fails at that part, but who cares? Tony was too earnest for anyone’s good. Date rose to Sean.
So, how’s it coming with that Stevie/Kalon thing? Pretty good? Good, because you’re just in time to rejoin the show as Chris spanks racecar stoner Arie on the ass as he leaves for his own solo date with Emily. Right after that, Chris has another go with a line that he tried last week, that he finds it hard to believe that anyone could have the same connection with Emily that he does. It sounds every bit as stupid this time around.
Emily takes Arie to Dollywood, which he never knew existed until now. They go on a rollercoaster. She fears this, but holding hands with Arie makes it better. Then, as they find themselves on a darkened stage with blank paper and directions to write a love song, a sparkly animatronic Dolly Parton appears. Oh! It’s really Dolly! She sings songs for them, has some girl talk with Emily about how vague the feeling of falling in love can be. I wish Dolly Parton would have been one of Emily’s friends in the park.
Does Arie get the date rose? You bet he does, but not before Emily playfully gives him the gears********* a little bit. Then it’s time for the merry go round, where they kiss (and kiss and kiss) and snuggle together tightly so as to prove Chris right, but not in a way he’d be happy with.
What’s more, Arie and Emily continue with the smooching back at Penis Manor, but this is different smooching, meant to console after she and Allessandro come to an understanding about the nature of compromise, meaning that he’s going to have to leave. Immediately. Which makes her upset, though not as upset as it makes Ryan to see her and Arie smooching.
The worst thing about any of this is that it means that only one person will get singled out for eviction at the rose ceremony, and the worst thing about that, whether Kalon the Douchebag knows it or not, is that Party Stevie is the one who winds up in the limo. I’d pour one out for lost love, but I’m at work right now and they don’t like it when I spill booze on the carpet. But don’t let that stop you. This is some sad shit, yo.
*Ashley is ordering another round of Underachiever cocktails as you read this.
**Tony cried tonight, but it seemed a little forced. And he’s not a dude. And it wasn’t exactly Emily that caused it.
***Besides the show itself, which isn’t news.
****Is this the right time to wonder how much makeup it takes to hide his Romulan brow?
***** “Reminiscing about old times,” they call it.
******Who does he remind you of? Jog your memory?
*******And remember she told Ryan last week she’s not down with that?
********In this day and age, who volunteers their kid to be babysat by a group of complete stranger guys?
*********See what I did there?
68comeback special 
Maybe it’s time to kill the Bachelorette. Not literally, but… you know… the show. It seems like the real drama is a house full of emotional women. The men they get are just so…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
I am going to make you so jealous right now. Get ready for it. I haven’t watched a single second of this season and I don’t miss it. In fact, my Mondays seem a lot more pleasant. But I still love knowing that I’m not missing anything significant. But I will be sad if ever one of the guys goes on a cocaine psychosis and starts eating another guy’s face, though maybe not.
The guy most likely to experience a cocaine psychosis just went home, so you’re unlikely to have any regrets. You’ve disappointed me deeply by resisting this garbage, though. I’m shaking my head sadly right now.
Cocaine psychosis, no. There’s still hope for ‘roid rage, though.
I too remember when Karen was less obstinate about this sort of thing, Rachel. But she’s still turning up here, isn’t she? She can’t totally resist the ick.
She can’t resist the siren song of your blog, that’s all. It’s got very little to do with the program. Oh, hey, and I had a thought last night that I wanted to ask you about. If Dolly Parton tells you that you “deserve” something, does that hold any weight? I tend to want to believe things that Dolly says, but I’m torn, what with your clearly correct assertion that “no one deserves anything, ever.”