Bachelorette Emily: “Then Get The Fuck Out!”
Ten potential suitors remain as Emily et al pull into London England, which means, realistically speaking, we’ve still got a few weeks before we can truly consider this group whittled down to contenders only. There’s still plenty of chaff to be separated out, and if anyone knows anything about that, it’s Chris Harrison, and he puts it in some seriously dire terms as he briefs the gathered contestants in Trafalgar Square.
“Only one of you will become Emily’s husband,” he promises, and in a new twist*, The Bachelorette has decided to take this and other notions of conventional marriage as seriously as they purport to. So, on each of tonight’s dates, they’ve opted to take out and dust off those hoary old wedding vows that hardly anyone pays much attention to anymore and really test these fellows’ mettle.
Lucky Sean gets the first one-on-one date. His date card says, “Love takes no prisoners,” which translates roughly into the vow that everyone always hopes they won’t ever get tested on, good ol’ in sickness and in health.
Now, normally, a fellow would be pretty stoked to find out his date with Emily will be six months long, but in this case, the first thing that happens on this one is Emily gets exposed to a near-lethal dose of radiation and then is immediately hospitalized. She loses her hair and lots of weight, she vomits constantly and has no energy, and Sean mostly just sits by her bed, reading aloud, applying fresh cold compresses, wiping away various oozings, dealing with health professionals and of course, footing the bills**.
Good guy and aspiring stalwart family man that he is, Sean excels at this date. He is excellent husband/father material. It’s going to be very sad for him when she chooses someone else.
Okay, fine, if you really must know, they actually go sightseeing. The whole nine yards – double decker bus, St. Paul’s Cathedral, a quaint British phone booth, Buckingham palace. He’s pretty sure he’s falling for her, which is just what he wanted, he tells Emily, or the camera, or someone, because, “Good girls are hard to come by.” That’s probably not what Jesus would say. He carries her bag for her, they turn up at Speaker’s Corner*** and then have dinner in the Tower of London. “Today is the best date I’ve ever had in my life,” Sean tells someone. He is excellent husband/father material. It’s going to be very sad for him when she chooses someone else.
What’s really important to know at this point, however, is that while Emily and Sean are on their date, the centrepiece for the entire episode is happening back at the hotel. The date card for the group date has arrived, enumerating the participants and offering the theme, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Someone calls out that they think that’s Shakespeare, but we all know it’s going to be for better or for worse****. Here, the Douchebag is sitting at a table with Jef and somebody else, and the Douchebag makes a joke: “Of course, whoever wins, they’ll all be group dates – you, Emily and Ricki.” It’s not bad, but it doesn’t go over well at the table. Supposedly he also makes a crack about Little Ricki (drink!) being baggage. Whoops. How do you think that’s going to turn out?*****
Everybody turns up at Stratford Upon Avon to put on a performance of Romeo and Juliet. It’s going to be crappy and everyone is uncomfortable except for the Douchebag who, when given the role of Romeo, pronounces, “I’m not surprised. I was born to play this role.”****** While he’s practicing, Emily comes to visit. He shoos her away. She’s unimpressed by that.
But if you think she’s unimpressed by THAT…
After the play, it’s off to a pub for a drink, where everyone is happy to gossip about the Douchebag and call the Douchebag out on what he said back at the hotel while Emily is off somewhere smooching with Arie or giving Ryan the wrong impression of the chance he actually stands with her on this game show, but will anyone actually go so far as to be the tattletale? D(ugh)’s gonna be the tattletale. It immediately enrages Emily that someone would call her daughter anything but a blessing, and she rushes off to confront the Douchebag, which costs D(ugh) the remaining alone time he might have had with Emily, and a smooch, and whether he recognizes it or not, this is how his moment with her on this date will be remembered. Does a person generally get a rose for being a tattletale?
Nope, tattletales cost everybody the date rose, that’s what tattletales do. The date’s over; the Douchebag gets sent away and Emily’s pretty bent out of shape by the whole thing, not only about what the Douchebag said, but what everybody else didn’t say to her about it. Is she overreacting? I think so, which is but one reason why Emily’s not marrying me. She doesn’t know the whole story*******, but if she were to stop and think about it for a minute, something she ought to know from being on this show before is there isn’t much benefit that comes to the someone who tells the Center of Attention about how no good another contestant is.
Luckily, Emily gets to spend some time with her precious little daughter in advance of her next date, and as she subtly tries to get Little Ricki (drink!) to behave like a charming, engaging child in front of the cameras, she’s reminded of what a pain in the ass her kid is. So by the time that she and Jef have cut out of their lesson on traditional afternoon tea with some British man/lady named Jean and headed to a pub for beers and fish and chips, she’s completely ready to hear not only his firsthand account of what went down with the Douchebag, but also his suggestion that if her daughter is baggage, she’s at least really nice baggage. Score! Onto the London Eye for dessert and later, some smooching!
At the cocktail party, everybody gets their time on the hot seat, either to do a certain amount of damage control pertaining to the Douchebag Problem, or to do a certain amount of sucking up pertaining to the Douchebag Problem. And then Alejandro gets sent home because five episodes or whatever into the season, who is that guy again? In the back of the limo, he tells us he’s hurt because he’s ready to find love, but he should consider the bright side: at least he doesn’t have to worry about forsaking all others in order to be with a woman with baggage.
*which isn’t really happening; I’ve dropped off to sleep due to the repetitive nature of this show and I’m currently dreaming the craziest things.
**This is what we talk about when we talk out of our ass about love.
***Yes, I am going to persist with this.
****You hardly need to guess; by now, they’ve already spoiled it in the previews. Idiots.
*****Does he know it ends with a guy who fakes his own death so well that he fools his girlfriend, who then kills herself, moving him to kill himself for real after he awakes and discovers her body? Why ask?
******Hardly anybody knows the whole story; there were only three guys at the table at the time.
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