Greek Gods (SNL)

As a workaholic, one of the few indulgences I allow myself is ABC’s The Bachelor, because nothing makes my paranormal romance novels seem more realistic than comparing them to the inane antics of reality television. That said, on to the re-cap.

After giving Mad Michelle the boot last week, our bachelor had narrowed the field to four seemingly sane young ladies. (Then again, how sane can you be to pursue true love on a game show?) Brad’s fab four include sexy but sensitive Chantal, perky Ashley the dentist, quirky Shantal the mortician, and beautiful widowed Emily with an emotional baggage train a mile long.

First up was Chantal O.

I’ve always liked our curvy brunette in spite of my suspicion that she’s a spoiled brat. The designer cats and the adorable little dog in the darling little sweater didn’t alleviate that suspicion, but I liked that she told Brad he’d have to put up with her animals. In fact, the power dynamic between our bachelor and this bachelorette shifted dramatically–especially when Brad walked in the massive doors of Chantal’s family mansion. Dollar signs started going ka-ching in Brad’s eyes and he seemed more in love with Chantal’s father than he did with the girl himself. The two ’self-made’ guys spent a few minutes congratulating themselves on their decision to be born handsome white men in America and Brad seemed to have found himself a new daddy!

Next date involved monstrous lobsters in Maine with Ashley the dentist, who was so thrilled to have Brad to herself that she transformed into giggling teeny-bopper. (Or maybe she just wanted to show off her teeth.) Ashley has dreams beyond being Mrs. Brad Womack and that seemed to count against her. She makes Brad uncomfortable by feeding him faux french food, and going to school, and wanting a career, and being unwilling to slobber over him about how in love she is after a few dates. Brad liked her family–and who wouldn’t? They crack open shellfish, wear a lot of plaid, dog-pile each other on the sofa, and seem like tons of fun. But my guess is that Brad isn’t man enough for Ashley.

Brad’s next hometown date would be much more awkward than artery clogging poutine. Oh, the horror show that was Brad’s date with Shawntelle, which began in a funeral home. Now, don’t get me wrong. Shawntelle is one cool chick. I would totally hang with her. She doesn’t flinch from draining dead bodies of their fluids or comforting grieving families, and isn’t afraid to assert herself. Of course, there are down sides to all this. Shawntelle might love her job, but Brad was clearly creeped the hell out. Yet, it wasn’t the crematorium that was the death knell for this date; it was the awkward family dinner during which Shawntelle announced her intention to abandon the family business if she married Brad. The family didn’t take this at all well–all their retirement plans were in smoldering ruins! Worse, Shawntelle didn’t win any points with Brad by asserting her right to live her own life. Not sure he likes a girl with those kind of stones.

The last date of the night was with Saint Emily of Charlotte and her orphaned daughter, who Brad set out to charm with a butterfly kite. Dude clearly has no idea what little girls like, but bonus points that he wrapped it in pink and put ribbons on it. Brad endured an awkward family picnic, followed by board games in a beautiful southern house, and some quiet time with Emily on the couch during which she made it very clear that she wanted him to kiss her, but for some reason, our bachelor wouldn’t do it.

Now, watching Brad on this last date was hilarious, because as Emily presses him for a kiss, he all but has a panic attack. He stammers, sweats, itches, and gets lost while trying to flee for the door…behavior that either means that Brad has fallen head-over-heels in love with this woman or the idea of a ready-made family has put him into a tailspin. To her credit, the soft-spoken Emily has a little more spirit than she usually lets the cameras see. She thinks Brad is being ridiculous and forces a kiss on him before he can leave–at which point he seems to melt in her hands.

At the rose ceremony, Shawntelle seems to know she’s going to the funeral of her own relationship and dresses in black. Brad throws her over and Shawntelle manages to be a class act all the way to the car. We think she’d make a great bachelorette!

As a workaholic, one of the few indulgences I allow myself is ABC’s The Bachelor, because nothing makes my paranormal romance novels seem more realistic than comparing them to the inane antics of reality television. That said, on to the re-cap.

This episode begins with Michelle the Mad predicting that Chantal O. won’t come back from her one-on-one date with Brad. This is a reasonable prediction because in the last episode, Brad’s behavior towards Chantal bordered on the abusive after she mistakenly dropped the L word, then stammered with embarrassment and eventually dissolved into tears of jealousy.

(Brad likes to tell these ladies that it’s safe to let their emotions all hang out, then dumps them because he doesn’t want the drama. Because of this, I initially rooted for the velvet voiced psychopath. Sure Michelle seems to have some sort of narcissistic disorder, but I got a kick out of it when she knocked Brad into a chair, straddled him, and forbade him from speaking. Clearly, Brad’s inner subby boy appreciated it too. Recall that his meeting with Chantal began with her slapping him across the face–a move that seems to have sparked instant attraction. He’s also drawn to Shawntel, the mortician who sexually devoured him while he was tied to a post.)

At any rate, having secured the much-coveted one-on-one date, Chantal realizes that this is her last chance to snag Brad and she isn’t about to be fooled twice. She recognizes that it was a mistake to tell Brad about her insecurities, so she puts on a happy face and the two of them go zip-lining.

Brad’s body language is hostile. He doesn’t hug or kiss Chantal before letting her fly off into the sky for the first time and he seems pretty pissed when god has the temerity to let it rain. Brad says he’s having fun with Chantal with about as much enthusiasm as one praises a trip to the dentist. But Chantal pretends not to notice his sour puss. This is her final chance to impress him, so she keeps smiling and talking about how great this date is as if she can convince him he’s having fun with the sheer force of her personality alone. It keeps raining. Chantal keeps smiling.

And then she gets her miracle.

Fleeing the downpour, Brad lets her dry off and gives her one of his white button down shirts. When she comes out of the bathroom wearing nothing but, Brad forgets all about how he was going to dump her. She’s so sexy he can’t seem to form coherent speech and Chantal presses her advantage. She tells him to forget all about her silly jealousy from before; she’s over it. Can’t he see how much she likes him?

All Brad can see is the gap between the buttons in the shirt that he wants to rip off her, so he gives her the rose.

Next is the group date in which the ladies will all rappel down a waterfall. Since we know from a previous episode that Brad doesn’t actually enjoy this kind of thing, we can only conclude that the activity was chosen by the producers of the show with the express intention of making Michelle furious. You see, Brad had pledged that he’d never rappel down a building with anyone but Michelle…but that little technicality clearly isn’t cutting it with our resident sociopath. (Worse, we think Michelle is right to be annoyed by this as it seems to have been engineered just to get under her skin.)

Michelle watches all the other girls go over the falls as if eagerly anticipating their bloody deaths on the rocks below. We don’t mind because none of the other girls have the chutzpah to be angry with Brad. Before Brad can explain that he is going to repel down the falls only with Michelle, so as to keep his promise to her, she pummels him. Which, of course, he finds to be a total turn on.

Later though, when they’re all in the hot tub and Brad is making his obligatory rounds of cuddling and smooching all the ladies, Michelle tells him these other women aren’t the ones for him. For the first time, the Bachelor starts to clue in that Michelle might be more trouble than even her considerable sex-appeal can justify.

Freshly annoyed by Michelle, he witnesses the inevitable tension that arises when five women are all vying for the same man, and he decides to punish them all by not giving any of them a rose. Usually when one of the bachelorettes displays an ugly side, Brad jovially praises their emotional honesty then jettisons them from the game. It amuses us that Michelle has somehow needled him beyond his fake nice-guy routine to the point of peevishness.

The next day, Brad comes to fetch Alli on horseback. We are treated to darling baby horses and lovely landscapes, so we think that romance will be the order of the day. Instead, Brad takes poor Alli–who is phobic of creepy crawlies–into a cave. Note, emotionally blackmailing young women to trek through filthy water into dark places where bats fly overhead has to be the worst date idea in the history of the bachelor.

Once they reach the altar stone in the cave, Brad puts down a pathetic little blanket which is immediately soaked through, and forces Alli to sit on it with him where he intends to picnic amongst bat excrement.

We think that the reason Alli doesn’t throw her drink in his face is because she’s afraid that the insensitive jackass who planned this outing will leave her there in the cave to die. If so, she’s not far from the mark. Later, Brad takes her to dinner on some kind of floating dinner table in a swamp. “We’re sinking,” he notices as the water threatens to swallow up their banquet, but Alli doesn’t take the hint. Brad finds her insufficiently entertaining but she figures that she’s braved spiders and winged rodents for this man so she deserves a happy ending. She confides in him how she just wasn’t into her last boyfriend and Brad uses this personal revelation to explain that he feels exactly the same way about her.

For some reason, Alli doesn’t shove him into the swamp. Instead, she thanks him for all the good times. We think this must be in her contract, or else she’s been told that this is one of the best ways to become the next bachelorette, because Brad hasn’t done anything deserving of thanks. But off Alli goes.

It’s probably her dignified exit that puzzles Brad. Alli wept only a few sweet tears before riding off into the good night and Brad begins to wonder whether or not he should have let her go. He muses aloud that he needs time alone to think…

Cue the knock at the door. It’s Michelle the Mad like some ghostly specter from the foggy night for an unauthorized visit. He lets her inside and says that he’s glad to see her, but we can see that he’s wondering whether or not he can really handle Michelle. Soon, she starts kissing him and turning on the charm and Brad melts in her hands. We think that he’s keeping her around for the opportunity of having a night alone with her in the fantasy suite because once she gets physical, he no longer cares that she’s got stalker stamped on her forehead.

And if Michelle had been able to restrain herself, she may well have secured a rose for herself. Instead, out comes the crazy, and she starts talking crap about the other women. All the other women are unworthy, in her opinion. Or maybe simply too young. (Which might be true, as our bachelor is old enough to have fathered some of them.) Before Michelle makes her exit, we see something register behind Brad’s eyes. Is it possible he is waking up to the scent of Psycho?

At the cocktail party, he’s tense and irritable. He confronts Michelle and tells her that she’s starting to really scare him. (Really? It took this long?) But there’s one thing about this chick that we respect. She has Brad’s number. She tells him that she may have overstepped in talking about all the other girls, but he asked her to tell him. In this case, we’re not sure he did, but Brad so often asks the women manipulative questions that we’re willing to let it slide. We like that there’s at least one woman in the bunch who is willing to call Brad on his bullshit. Too bad she’s a lunatic.

Meanwhile, Shawntelle seems to have clued into the fact that Brad wants sparkles and rainbows, so she goes into girlish mode to relax him. Even emotionally reserved Emily falls all over herself to reassure Brad that he shouldn’t worry his pretty little head about her previous confession about how she sabotages relationships. She will be nothing but sunshine and light from now on. However, Emily is some kind of strange cross between Malibu Barbie and a martyred saint, so Brad has the decency not to brush this aside and he assures her that he won’t let her pull away from him. We like Emily but we don’t root for her because she’s too good for him.

It’s at this point that Chantal proves that she’s either the best choice for Brad or the shrewdest manipulator in the bunch. She informs Brad that she has something to tell him, and since she already has a rose, he will know that it’s genuine. She’s falling in love with him, she says, and she knows that he can’t say it back but she doesn’t care. Brad is dubious right alongside the rest of America because, let’s face it, she barely knows him.

But Chantal makes a persuasive argument about how her heart has changed. Brad is entirely flattered. He thinks he’s exactly the kind of guy that gorgeous girls should fall head over heels with, so he all but compliments her on her good taste in men. Now Brad is beaming. Chantal has ended the evening on a high note for him and we’re sure that Michelle is about to get the boot in the rose ceremony.

Instead, it’s the classy Jackie who is sent packing. Overcoming her fear of heights during the waterfall date wasn’t enough to impress him. Or perhaps her downfall was the way she made him squirm when she pointed out that it might have been nice for him to have repelled down the waterfall with her instead of reserving it for Michelle. Jackie’s rebuke was gentle, but it wasn’t accompanied by over-the-top seduction, so it was bound to fail.

No Limo Ride of Shame for Jackie though. She holds it together as she drives off and all America secretly celebrates that we will be treated to yet another episode of Michelle the Mad.

Cross posted from Thoughts in Progress Blog

Like a book, a television show tells a story, but it is a story more easily shared. My mother always told me that the tube would rot my brain, and maybe she’s right, but I thought I’d list a few of my favorites:

Supernatural. When it comes to dark, twisted, paranormal pleasures, you can’t beat this show. Clever writing and fantastic acting have carried a brilliant storyline that has spanned five seasons. Demons, angels, and monsters of every variety are a constant, but it’s really a story about two brothers and their love for one another. It doesn’t hurt that there’s lots of eye-candy. I might be more of a Dean girl than a Sam girl, but they each have a special place in my heart. Ultimately, what made me fall in love with this show is the guts it has. It tackles the hard issues and goes where you wouldn’t predict!

The Tudors. Okay, so I know what happened with King Henry VIII and his wives. I’ve read a bunch of books about the Tudor court and you probably have done the same. And yet, they remain fascinating. Especially when brought into super-sexy focus in Showtime’s series. I love the costume and pageantry, even when the history is a little off. I don’t mind that Jonathan Rhys-Meyers is a skinny King Henry. Somehow, in spite of his crazy coked-up eyes, the whole show works.

Big Bang Theory. So this sit-com might be the worst-acted show on TV, but I don’t care, because the writing is hilarious. The show is centered on two physicists, their geeky friends, and the pretty girl who lives across the hall. The main draw for me is Sheldon, a self-absorbed brilliant uber-nerd whose Obsessive Compulsive behavior is out of control! Still, I love him. What does that say about me?

General Hospital. This daytime drama is my guiltiest pleasure of all because I’ve been watching it since I was about ten years old. It was the one show that all my grandmothers watched, and even all these years later, I still chat to my Nana about her “stories.” This particular soap opera has had some classic moments and some brave storylines and innovative writing, but it also has the power to enrage its fans by masquerading as a low-rent version of the Sopranos. There’s been more than a few moments when I’ve told myself that I’ll never watch it again…but then the next day, I get sucked in again.