Last week on The Bachelorette: Kiptyn, Reid, Ed, and You Know WHO joined Jillian in Spain, and after a long game of “one of these things is not like the other,” she gave the controversial cowboy the BOOT.
Tonight, a special rhyme for you, from me: Aloha means “hello” but also “goodbye.” Tonight, both meanings, Jill needs to apply. Reid, Kiptyn, or Ed: which guy to deny? Whomever’s bedroom time goes awry! Is it Reid who can’t do the deed, Kiptyn who’s not equipped-tyn, or Edward whose fortunes sour bedward? Find out tonight on The Bachelorette, where the only thing ‘real’ is your TV set!
So I wrote a rhyme. I guess sometimes I just wish promo announcers talked more in Seussical rhyme, and less in “THE MOST DRAMATIC VOICE TO EMPHASIZE HOW SUPER SERIOUS AND HEARTBREAKING THIS EPISODE IS EVER!!!” You know what I mean? The information goes down easier that way, and we all remember that this is a silly, seems-like-anything-but-reality dating show.
That, and a girl’s got to find some way to exercise her brain. And watching this show AIN’T IT. But who needs exercise? Let’s get to the schmoozing, schmooching, and schmucking! But first, some math:
J + Captain Hook = Beachtime Adventures 4EVA
Date Number 1: Kiptyn goes first. Again. He was first in Spain as well, which leads a blogger to wonder: is this date schedule a drawing of straws type of situation? Or a clever tactic designed to make Mr. Perfect, in his #1 spot for the second time in a row, seem all the more like a leader of the pack?
Jillian says, of all Kiptyn’s 2,000+ gorgeous bones, the one she’s still unsure about is the one that might lead him astray down the road. In other words, she’s afraid that, even though she’s the one on TV picking ’em, when the cameras are off, it might be Kiptyn who has HIS pick of the veritable litter, and would she really be his prize pup? In other, OTHER words: she’s afraid he’s too good for her and will deem her dump-worthy.
To find out, Jill takes Kip to a ropes course to learn about trust and adventure, or something. After each securing their pretty butterfly helmets and hooking up to some very-secure-looking ropes, Jill volunteers to cross the very-high-up bridge of terror, then chickens out and sends Kiptyn over first. He flies across with ease, and then turns to coach Ms. Spontaneous across. He thinks they compliment each other… in that he’s a whiz at this, and she would rather get down now, have a picnic, drink some chardonnay, and make out, thank you very much. What’s a Bachelorette gotta do around here to get an f’ing strawberry hand-fed to her on a white sand beach? Okay, in all seriousness, they have a lot of fun until the final challenge, “The Leap of Faith,” which is basically a telephone pole next to a trapeze bar. You climb the pole and jump a few feet to grab the bar. Kiptyn coaches Jillian up, and she really wants that make-out by this point. “Promise you’ll give me a big kiss when we get down!” she says. Yeah, okay, Jillian. She can already taste the chardonnay, so jonesing is this woman to be done with this part of the date. I can’t argue with her there. Finally, they jump. Jill doesn’t get close, while Kip catches the bar. Women across America cringe and say, “C’mon, Jill, you’re making us look bad. You weren’t even close!”
But Kiptyn ain’t care none. He was just happy she went for it at all, and they made a good team, because ‘good team’ means making men look awesome and women look scared and desperate for any sign of intimacy through physical affection. They end the afternoon with a picnic of strawberries and wine on a white sand beach. Perfect.
Now it’s dinner-time, and Jillian is wearing… a one-piece black jumpsuit. Sorry, lady, five minutes ago you proved you’re neither Catwoman nor one of Charlie’s Angels. During dinner, Kiptyn and Jill chat about their day. “I try to be too strong sometimes, and I’m really not,” says Jill. “That was deep,” says Kiptyn. (Translation: “That was not at all deep, and you’re not very good at pretending. Can I go home now?”)
It’s time to play “Find Kiptyn’s Flaws!” Kiptyn is the one who has to play. It’s a confusing game, because if you win (meaning: you find them), you lose (meaning: you get sent home). Very tricky. He says his flaws are flamenco dancing (seriously), having low patience when things go wrong (Let me translate that with my “Ace your Office Interview by Disguising your Virtues as Flaws” dictionary: “I do everything right, so I can’t stand when others mess up!”), and playing Hokey Pokey in his past relationships (“You put your right foot in, you put your right foot out, you put your right foot in and you never return her voicemails.”) Jillian: “Yeeeeah.” [Direct quote.]
She says she trusts Kiptyn the most of all the men, but she also thinks he will leave her and break her heart. “Trust.” Yes, Jill, “trust.” We should call you Dr. Trusty McSelf-Esteem, PhD, because you know so much about it. Kiptyn reassures her that he’s in it to win it, or something. Jill then pulls the magic sexy time envelope out of her napkin. It’s another fantasy suite invitation from Chris Harrison. (SURPRISE!)
This portion of the recap requires special instructions: Let’s play our own game. Decode ABC prime-time euphemistic double-speak by inserting the words “SOME BONING” anywhere I use “quotation marks.” When I want you to do this again later on, I will simply say: WELCOME TO THE BONE ZONE! Got it? Okay, let’s go:
Kiptyn says he was itching in Spain for “the chance to go to the fantasy suite,” and he’s still down with “spending more quality time together” now. Jillian agrees that this is a great opportunity for “them to connect.” Neither can wait to get “their night” started, so they kiss before finally closing the doors on the fantasy suite and engaging in “a night of delicate romance and interpersonal connection.”
Date Number 2: Jillian greets Reid with a beach ball in her hand. Whatever the symbolism, it is lost on me. And not just me: neither she nor Reid seem to understand what it’s for, nor does it ever come into play. It’s literally just a prop that makes for more interesting shots, since people who are constantly kissing seem to (so annoyingly) hide their faces from the camera. Give me something to look at while you make me second-hand embarrassed about your (not at all) intimate moment!
Perfect. Thanks.
Jillian is concerned about Reid’s ability to communicate with her, so she puts him in headphones and shoves him into a screaming, high-velocity helicopter for the afternoon. They look at each other a lot. The pilot makes things awkward by telling them he’s ordained, so they could just get married RIGHT NOW! Reid: “Part of me thinks we should just do it!” (Translation: “I would sooner jump to my death than do something as rushed and corny as that. Who am I, that guy who proposed with song and dance at Disneyland last week?”) The copter lands, and it’s picnic time again. So many picnics! At a certain point (and I’m thinking it’s “when you’re doing it on every date”) it’s less of a “picnic” each time, and more of some overall “weird thing you have about eating on the ground,” Jillian.
Reid tells Jillian that the talk of marriage didn’t freak him out, but he 1) does feel rushed by the 9-week filming schedule time-frame of this relationship, and 2) does feel concerned that he is supposed to be contemplating marriage when it is highly possible she will dump him tomorrow like yesterday’s picnic scraps. He also has a hard time expressing his emotions [on national TV for a woman he has been on basically four dates with and who continues to see other people], and this concerns Jillian, because she wants to hear that he loves her and that he wants to put on a ring on it.
Then there’s a long shot of them making out.
Time for dinner, brought to you by two freaky totem poles who seem to say without sound, “There is no such thing as love”:
Reid is the guy she “can relate to the most,” says Jillian, although she has a really hard time communicating with him. Oh no, Dr. Trusty, we’re running out of space in your office for all these degrees you have in NOT UNDERSTANDING WHAT WORDS MEAN. They talk about where they would live if they got married. Jillian: “Wherever, I’m easy!” Reid: “Sounds good.” She asks if he would be ready to propose in a week, and he says “Maybe, it’s possible.” (Translation: “Of course not. I am an adult, and this is television.”) It’s uncomfortable. Reid can’t find the right words to say how he feels, but Jillian knows it’s they are in there somewhere, and she intends to find them. With a strip search.
WELCOME TO THE BONE ZONE (Remember the rules? Page 1, people!):
Jillian brings out the envelope offering “the fantasy suite,” and Reid reads it. He admits he is scared, because last time this happened he was denied of “their alone time in the fantasy suite” and he’s afraid it will happen again. Jill sits for a minute and considers if she feels up to “taking their relationship to the next level.” She decides it’s the right time for “it.” They lay down in the suite, and he knows she is waiting for “the L word,” but he doesn’t like to throw it around carelessly, you know? He likes to bring it out slowly and meaningfully. They share a champagne bubble bath before spending all night investigating “each other’s souls.”
Date Number 3: It’s Ed. And all episode, we’ve been dealing with teasers about someone not being able to get up in the Bone Zone, so now the obligatory E.D. jokes begin as well. As well as ABC’s euphemistic foreshadowing, which I will spell out for you using my CAPS LOCK key. You’re welcome.
Jillian says she is looking for a HUGE SIGN from Ed that he’s the right guy for her. They board a boat, and Ed is wearing a tank top. Weird. Jillian oozes about what a SEXY man Ed is, and Ed drools over what a SEXY woman Jillian is. He tells her that he doesn’t think about work anymore, only about being with her. She says she wishes she could have met his family, and he admits they used to call him “RICHIE” when he was a kid because of how well-endowed… they needed to distinguish him from his dad. They go for a swim, and Jill gushes about how much she loves to WRAP HER LEGS AROUND HIM. Ed is wearing this green, sort of European short-shorts thing. His wardrobe went from weird to concerning. He then reveals that he’s flown out his parents to Hawaii to meet Jillian, and she’s thrilled. You can always tell when Jillian’s thrilled, because the squeals become deafening.
They go to meet Ed’s parents, Judy and Rick. Jill tells them all the reasons she likes Ed while Ed sits there some juicy leg to the camera in his Nair-commercial shorts. I mean… Barf-commercial shorts. Oops!
Judy takes Jill for some 1on 1 time, and Rick asks Ed, (literally) “what the hell is going on here?” Ed convinces his dad that he’s doing the right thing by screwing over his workplace for maybe-love. Dad tells Jillian he likes her, but you crazy kids need to take it slow and make the right decisions. Sorry, Pop, we’ve got a filming schedule to keep and ring to buy! Ever heard that expression that goes: “if a tree falls in the forest, and nobody is around to hear it, did it make a sound”? Well, in this case it’s “if the engagement doesn’t happen on TV, and nobody gives a crap anymore, why are we paying to produce this TV show?”
But dear Ed, ABC golden boy, comeback kid, and tank-top aficionado, knows this. He says he would get engaged if Jill picked him, and he “doesn’t take marriage lightly.” Ed and Jill go and sit on the beach, and she gives him the the fantasy suite envelope. Now Jillian wants to [still spelling out all these hints for you!] FOCUS ON THE ROMANCE with Ed, and they enter to find a bed covered in ROSE PETALS. (All together now: “Bow-chicka-wow-BARF.”)
Ed tells Jillian that he loves her, and she gets as bubbly and giggly as a butterfly drunk on champagne. (Which, incidentally, she is. The second part, anyway.) As the world’s most uncomfortable camera man zooms in on their only-slightly-covered nether regions, scantily clad Ed and Jillian RUB HOT OILS ONTO EACH OTHER’S THIGHS.
My goodness. Does ABC stand for “Awkward and Baselessly Carnal”? NSFL:
But uh oh, NOT SO FAST, soft-core porn hopefuls. The light in the suite comes on. Something’s wrong. They were “sunburnt and exhausted,” says Jillian, and the “I want my hands to be all over you” feeling just wasn’t there. Instead, they both wanted to go to sleep. Which they did, apparently. So: no “Bone Zone” for Drop Dead Ed, whom ABC desperately wants us to believe is the one who made the romance “drop dead,” so to speak. But really, it looks like the thread-bare dramatic climax of this episode is the limpest thing here.
After a 20-minute chat with Chris Harrison in which she recaps the three dates that we just saw, Jill has a tough decision to make, especially given Ed’s apparent failure to launch. Either the chemistry isn’t there, or the pressure of the situation got to him. But WHICH?
The men have left Jillian video messages to express their final thoughts. Kiptyn’s is a sort of “Right on! Let’s do this!” pep talk, while Reid’s is more of a “Pretty please, keep your Honey Bear [true story!]” plea for survival. Ed drops the L word a couple more times for good measure, and even a P word (proposal) to seal the deal.
It’s Rose Ceremony time:
Jillian tells the men she is falling in love with all of them. (What all guys want to hear, yes?) She asks Ed if she can talk to him for a second. She asks about their “incident.” He says he was having a hard time adjusting, external influences, yadda yadda yadda, so please trust him and believe him that he’s got the goods to get the wood.
Jillian returns, and gives roses to: Kiptyn and Ed.
Reid has been eliminated. Poor Chanandeler Bong, he really was my favorite. But some non-televised, sane woman is sure to make him happy very soon. After a confused, tearful goodbye with Jillian, poor Reid blames himself for not saying what she wanted to hear. He thinks he was too careful, skeptical and protective of his feelings. I’m guessing by now he’s got a bit of a different perspective on things, and probably a lot of phone numbers from women who wash their vegetables and dig guys who wear glasses. Go Reid!
Next week: The “Men Tell All” special, in which Wes either shows up and gets vilified, or stays home and gets vilified. And an update about Jason Mesnick and Molly Malaney, because America was just dying to know what happened with those two. We can’t get enough of them! Then, in two weeks, Ed and Kiptyn join Jillian on the Big Island of Hawaii, and Ed continues to wear tank tops. Oh yeah, an someone proposes. See you then!
Senior Writer, BuddyTV
Meghan hails from Walla Walla, WA, the proud home of the world’s best sweet onions and Adam West, the original Batman. An avid grammarian and over-analyzer, you can usually find her thinking too hard about plot devices in favorites like The Office, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and How I Met Your Mother. In her spare time, Meghan enjoys drawing, shopping, trying to be funny (and often failing), and not understanding the whole Twilight thing. She’s got a BA in English and Studio Art from Whitman College, which makes her a professional arguer, daydreamer, and doodler.
