The Bachelor: Pity Roses, Tears, and the Switcharoo!!

All right!  The Bachelor is back for ninety minutes, and tonight’s episode is the one where Brad, Chad, and the crafty producers of this show decide to pull the ol’ switcharoo…This is gonna be great!  On a related note, people, please do not name your twins rhyming names.  It’s just not good for anyone.

First, a couple of thoughts:  I was happy that Brad didn’t automatically keep the clumsy girl who fell down the stairs.  I don’t know that any of the other former Bachelors were gutsy enough to do that, and so I applaud you, Brad.  However, I don’t think any of us would have thought Brad less gallant for cutting Solisa who got so-drunk, so-nude, and so-crazy.  Oh well, we can’t all bat 1.000, can we?

First group date is the circus.  The circus date included a lot of participation on the part of the women and Brad, and they even got to play with the clowns and do fun tricks like walk the tight rope (which was about 5 inches off the ground), and watch Brad wear a really fancy coat complete with sequins.  Jenni even did a round off, back handspring, back tuck, just like at a high school pep rally.  During their one on one time, Brad and Jenni relive their kiss, and she tells him how important her dance career is to her.  I can tell that ol’ Brad is really loving him some Jenni. 

Steffy took her one on one time to tell Brad how much she loved her dad and this soliloquy was complete with tears.  Get used to the tears because that will become a theme of this episode.  Scoff if you want but she ended up getting the rose from this date because “she really put herself out there.”

As for the show, the ladies and Brad are introduced to the crowd, where Brad (“the sexiest bachelor yet”) introduces the actual Ring Master.  You could tell he had prepared a speech…Hahaha.  And that is when Brad - who has seemed the most normal guy, a good guy, a guy you would want to date, and even just hang out with – that’s when he made a reference to Titanic, because getting introduced at the Barnum and Bailey Circus made him feel like the King of the World…A couple more tool comments like that and his rankings could plummet.

McCarten is pulled out of the show, and she compares her relationship with Brad to the tight rope walk.  She has learned so much on this date…Wow.

Next Date Box: “Silly Hillary,” the nurse who wants to take Brad’s vitals gets the one on one.  All the other girls at the house immediately begin the eye-rolling and back-stabbing.  Wanna know how mad at least one of them was?  She did Hillary’s hair – poorly.  Hillary looked like a girl who wandered in from a White Snake video.  The dress they provided her was just one big black sequin, and they topped it off with some very expensive, borrowed jewelry that I can honestly say was the biggest waste of diamonds since J.Lo’s engagement rings.  Of course, before the Bachelor got there to present the jewelry, Chris Harrison gathered all the other girls to sit on the couch and watch. 

My theory is that Chris has many un-aired duties when it comes to this show.  We all see some of them:  Recapping what has happened thus far voice over at the beginning of every show.  The tink-tink-tink on his champagne flute to get the Bachelor out of the clutches of the girls at the pre-rose ceremony cocktail party.  Taking us to commercial break by promising us that some women will continue on while others will end up alone, childless, and only have cats for friends.  And would anyone else know when there was only one rose left if Chris didn’t step in and inform them, “Ladies, Brad, this is the final rose this evening.”  But there is more to Chris’ role I think.  For instance, the gathering of the girls on the couch, or getting the borrowed jewelry off the neck of the lucky woman who got to borrow it for the 3 1/2 hour date, and who do you think shops for all the trinkets the girls go crazy over in the “date boxes”?  Oh, I think it’s one Mr. Chris Harrison.  Oh, yes.

Anyway, Hillary’s date.  Or as I like to call it, what would have happened in Pretty Woman if Richard Gere had picked up Kit instead of Vivian.  Of course, the date itself was straight out of the movie, private plane, borrowed jewelry, a night on the town, etc.  Only instead of relaxing and enjoying themselves over dinner, Hillary cried the whole time.  She would give up the jewelry if she could just fall “Crazy in Love.”  I kept waiting on Beyonce to come flying into the room in a gold dress.  After dinner, Brad continued in his role as “Hillary’s Tear-Wiper” as she continued to cry about how much she wanted to fall in love with him.  Of course, the girls at the house are all talking about how they hope Brad kicks Hillary and her jewelry to the curb on their date because more roses for them…Who says that they can’t do math?  As we return to what is quickly turning into a Kleenex commercial, Brad is handing her the rose.  Definitely a pity rose, but it made me wonder whether he would have had to ride back on the same plane with her after he dumped her…Maybe it was just him trying to avoid another uncomfortable situation.

Back at the house, the final date box arrived, and each of the girls going acted surprised when her name was called.  Really?  There are three dates total, 2 of which have already taken place.  So if you haven’t been on one - this date box (which was lovingly put together by Chris Harrison’s own two hands) – is for you.  The note just says “Come sail away with Me – Brad.  It was now that my brother’s girlfriend pointed out that for two weeks in a row, Solisa the stripper has been on a date where bathing suits play an integral part.  I bet Chris Harrison picks who goes on which dates too.  Good television, Chris.  Keep up the good work!

So they hopped aboard a pirate ship for a day of fun, liquor, and the rest of the girls.  Kristy is steering the boat during her alone time and it reminded me of the “Booze Cruise” episode of The Office where Dwight is out on the front of the boat steering with a fake wheel.  But I digress.  Kristy obviously impressed Brad because she eventually gets the rose from the date.

 But not before Solisa gave Brad a lap dance.  That girl just puts it right out there, doesn’t she?  I bet the congregation at her church has put her on permanent prayer list status, don’t you think?  Sheena took a different tact: possible disfigurement by Sea-Doo.  They even got pulled over by the Coast Guard.  And ol’ Bettina finally managed to get up the courage to tell Brad about her divorce.  She was afraid of how he would take it since Brad “doesn’t believe in divorce.”  Who does “believe in divorce?”  Maybe at Solisa’s church.

Back at the house, Hillary asks the rest of the girls which ones didn’t want her to come back (y’know, by a show of hands).  Of course, the two girls that dared raise their hands and tell her the truth, she calls “Straight up witches.”  What answer did she expect?

And now the Switcharoo!!  Whee!  So the plan is for Chad, the brother, to attend the cocktail party as Brad.  Brad is hoping that Chad can help him out and tell him which of the girls is genuine.  Brad is also hoping that the girls notice that it’s not him in the party.  You know why?  Because the two of them look remarkably different.  Sure, they tried to make them look more alike – their hair is combed the same way, Brad tells his brother little tidbits about the ladies, and of course Chris Harrison dressed them in matching suits and ties, but I don’t think Chad spends nearly as much time in the gym as his brother does, and there are all kinds of differences that you can spot.  But, let’s face it, the ladies in the house are not rocket scientists – they are acupuncutrists and estheticians and Phoenix Suns Dancers, so I could see where you could get away with it.  And on this show, you could put a suit on a monkey and these girls would fight over a rose.

I would like to go on the record that I thouroughly enjoyed the switcharoo twist.  But Chad was on the show for about the last half hour, and in that time, there were a couple of staged conversations that just killed me.  The worst offender had to be the one where they were having a beer, and Brad posed the idea of Chad being him for the cocktail party as if Chad didn’t know what he was there to do…Please!  You showed up at the house dressed in the exact same outfit as your brother!  It just lets you know how stupid ABC must think we are…Stop setting up these conversations and show me more crazy girls!!  That’s why we tune in…Phew.  I feel better.

So the cocktail party was Chad running the gauntlet of ladies who have been placed around the house, I would guess so that the camera crew could tell him the girl’s name before he got there.  The first few didn’t know it was an imposter.  McCarten and Lindsey had no clue.   Sheena was the first one to notice and said that Chad didn’t have the weird patch of hair on his ear…Points for noticing it wasn’t Brad.  Points off for telling me more about Brad’s hair patterns that I ever wanted to know.  Also points off for crying…more damn crying.  Kristy also nailed it right off the bat.  Steffy could tell by the teeth, or she was really drunk…she wasn’t sure.  Sarah had no clue, other than to say that her alone time today was “different.”  Ya think?  Tell me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think I saw Jenni the whole cocktail party…why was that?

Anyway, onto the rose ceremony.  The 3 ladies who went home weren’t hard to see coming necessarily.  Sheena, McCarten, Jenni, Jade, DeAnna, and Bettina joined Steffy, Kristy, and Hillary as the proud owners of thorny flowers.  Lindsey, Sarah, and So-Long Solisa hit the road this episode.  Solisa cried, saying that she wears her special parts on the outside and he just didn’t see what he wanted.  Note to Solisa: Your “special parts” aren’t supposed to be on the outside, please put your top back on.

Lindsey tells the camera she wasn’t gonna cry.  And then she walked off camera to cry.  Hmmm.  She then did the rest of the interview from the side, whilst crying.  Next week: one on one showdown between Jade and DeAnna.  Only one can get the rose.  The claws come out, and it promises to be some excellent reality television.  WHEEE!!