The Bachelorette 2012 Review – Emily Maynard – The Men Tell All Episode Review

Reviews, Top Story

Okay, you know something’s wrong when Alessandro is the palest guy on the panel.  Last night’s spray-tanning convention – whoops – I mean ‘The Men Tell All, was sort of an ‘aha’ moment for me where I truly acknowledged the formula that is this show. 

Maybe it was the four hundred mini vases of every possible colour of roses, placed equidistant apart along every available surface in the studio.  Maybe it was the audience itself, who always seems to be fresh out of a beating from the ugly stick on this show.  I seriously don’t get it.  Have you ever noticed how on Oprah, or Dr. Phil, or even Ellen, the audience seems to be a group of well put-together, perfectly-powdered ladies and then along comes The Men (or women) Tell All or After the Final Rose, and it’s like they dragged a bunch of homeless people away from their boxes with the promise of a meal (it’s not like they don’t have any leftover food from the show that wasn’t eaten!) and then those homeless people grabbed their ugly best friend and voila – the perfect studio audience.   What’s the deal?

Maybe they purposely make the audience ugly to make the bachelorette look that much better?  You know like that friend we all have who invites people over and only serves the snacks she herself doesn’t like, so while the rest of her friends are pigging out on guilt-inducing fare, she’s watches with satisfying restraint, and is like ‘No thanks, I don’t like gummies’ while patting her flat abs.  Bitch.

Before we were even introduced to our orange friends on stools, we took a trip down memory lane with some of the season’s most memorable guys.  Clearly, the cat was let out of the bag when the word Kalen was met with such a ferocious string of boos.  No way were there not signs being held up in the audience instructing them to boo and cheer accordingly.

Let’s see, now.  Emily’s journey from zero to hero.  Ah yes.  We started with Ryan, who managed to defy gravity and finally smooth down his hair for the occasion.  Ryan who admitted that he would withhold sex from his wife if she got fat and clarified that while it may have appeared that Emily was the Bachelorette looking for love, this season was actually Ryan’s own self-imposed mini-season of the Bachelor.  Judging from the steroids making his neck pulse, I’m guessing that’s not the only thing mini about Ryan.  Despite his gross lack of awareness about his own cockiness and arrogance even as Chris Harrison tried to clarify this for him multiple times, I gotta say I found Ryan highly entertaining last night, especially as he humored Chris’s tantrum with backhanded sincerity and offered to set John up with an ex-girlfriend before he becomes famous for his role on The Bachelor:  Augusta Edition.  What a swell guy.  And on that note of swell, stand-up guys, I probably most enjoyed Kalen last night too.  What can I say?  I like my reality TV with a strong dose of mean.

Between Ryan and Kalen (whom I will no longer call Blaine for fear of confusing anyone) taking the hot seat, there were what I can only assume were supposed to be entertaining bloopers but were really more of a walk of shame.  I don’t know what was worse, Travis forcing Emily to sing ‘Shelley’ to sleep (kill me now), Chris learning how to do the running man with Emily – a great skill…if you’re trapped in the 90s…), Arie’s wanna-Beiber brothers jerking off to the sight of their own family member and Emily making out, Doug’s first/last kiss or that horrific dress from her date with Joe that was apparently her favourite of the season.  If only it had been red wine…shame.

Cut to the preview of…Bachelor Pad!  Yippee!  T-Minus Six Days! 

Though I am deeply disappointed with some of the chosen cast members (really, Tony?  How is it going to be easier to leave your son this time?) and I would not be offended if someone wanted to start a facebook page campaigning for me to hand-pick the next cast (if Betty White can host Saturday Night Live, why can’t I take the reins next time???), I am of course, SUPER-excited for next season.

Between the battle of the preps (Reid and Ed), to Blakely bawling while clutching a rose and a glass of red wine on the floor, to Jamie Jersey Turn-piking herself (all class, that girl), to the oceans of snot sweeping across every wrist in the house as grown women and men bawl their eyes out for the sake of 250K, not to mention the love triangles between Kalen, his ego and his helicopter, or heart-broken pity-party turned man-whore Chris, Blakely and Jamie (if Jamie reminds Chris of new car smell, I can only assume Blakely is slightly reminiscent of a used trailer belonging to a former smoker) or the potentially adorable love blossoming between Michael Stagliano and Rachel (though really, why is he there?) or the alarming relationship building between Lindsy and Kalen (really, girlfriend???), to Erica telling it like it is (‘I think you’re an ugly loser and I’m going to make your time here a living hell, so enjoy that’, said the girl with nine nose jobs in need of lypo to the awkward-looking super-fan)… I could go on and on and that was just a preview!  Though I am not exactly excited to wake up super early two days in a row next week to blog, I’ll do it for you because I’m just that kinda gal.

Anyways.  Back to the task at hand.  Ryan returns to his post on the panel and after being verbally assaulted on the spot, Kalen is invited to sit in a more comfortable chair to resume his beating.  Clearly the guys were very worked up about Kalen and even Chris and Tony, whom Kalen claimed were his good friends were too embarrassed to make eye contact and instead examined their fingernails with deep interest as Kalen singled them out.  Stevie obviously was too pre-occupied with hating Kalen to notice the suspicious-looking stain plastered to his shirt when he was getting dressed for this occasion.  Though John (Wolf) did make some valid points, it was hard for me to focus on him given that he was wearing pink pants (and this is not the first time he’s been caught rocking the coloured jeans trend that I thought was just for women this season.  No?)  As the villains often do, Kalen attempted to backpedal his way out of the accusations, claiming that no one can be their true self under the harsh conditions of reality TV, to which most of the guys strongly disagreed and pointed out that they were themselves the whole time (easy to do when you’re only there for two weeks, dudes.)  Truthfully, I could talk about Kalen all night because he delivered some real gems.  I like a man with a quick wit and his solid delivery back to Emily as she was trying to put him in his place later that evening by remarking ‘I guess I can’t count on your vote’ when she told him he should be a politician and ‘what can I say, I’m flattered that you follow me on Twitter’, were nothing short of extraordinary.  Bachelor Pad should be just the right place for him to shine.  One more thing on Kalen.  For the record, I still stand by his baggage comment.  These people need to get over themselves for just a few minutes.  I don’t care what you say, if you’re marrying someone that has a kid, I’m sorry but there is some baggage that comes with that!  I have two kids and as I’ve said, I would certainly be honoured and flattered if I met a guy who was willing to embrace them as his own and if he loved me, I would expect him to love all that comes with me, but let’s call a spade a spade here.  Step-kids?  Probably not anyone’s first choice of how to enter a marriage.  RELAX, boys.

Do I need to talk about Chris?  What’s there to say?  The poor guy is heart-broken and has some serious anger management issues.  He tries to explain himself and why he is so angry at Ryan and Kalen for basically existing and ends up defaulting to the life’s too short speech.  I’ll admit that I was intrigued by him dropping the bomb that he’s lost a couple of friends but frankly, I’m a bit done with him whining about his and Emily’s connection and when I look at him, I hear Emily’s voice in the background telling us how amazingly hot he is and I just find myself asking why?  Clearly, whatever tears he’s shedding over Emily dry up pretty damn quick, as we see him sweeping up whatever drunk, crying, sexually-confused girls he happens to trip over on the floor of the Bachelor Pad.   

And then there’s Sean.  I think you could actually hear a gust of wind as every female audience member instinctually spread her legs simultaneously when he stood up to take the ‘hot’ seat.  Of course, it was painful to look at Sean’s slightly military-chic haircut and watch him watch himself get dumped.  Because he truly is such a good guy, he said not one word of negativity to our little southern belle and instead thanked her for opening his eyes to love and romance and the possibility of it all (or as Chris would say – ‘yeah, what he said’).

As Emily comes out (no doubt in several pairs of Spanx thanks to that dress) and gets assaulted by Tony, I notice her teeth are even whiter and more prominent than usual and her cheeks look rounder.  What a surprise.  Are we going to see her on one of those ‘addicted to plastic surgery’ shows? 

The awkwardness kicks up into high gear as we watch the guys fumble all over themselves as soon as she walks into the room.  Between Doug’s wave that looked like he was trapped inside of an ultrasound, to Chris and Sean practically snuggling as they thank her for restoring their faith in all that is good in the world, it was a bit of a hot mess.  Emily’s mispronunciation of the word Prada actually made my skin crawl and was the icing on the cake.  Nothing brings out the hood-rat in someone quite like saying a designer name wrong.  And I find it interesting that she’s able to sit there judging Kalen for his passion for designer gear, as the not-so-subtle red soles of her shoes reveal a classic pair of Louboutins.

Despite this, I have to admit, at this stage of the game, I’m proud of little Em.   She has truly stuck to her guns, shown a good judge of character and has not let anyone off the hook as things got dirty.  I still think whoever she chooses will not last, but for her sake, I hope it does – at least till she gets a contract from e-Talk or Dancing with the Stars or something really impressive like that.

I am VERY excited about next week’s LIVE finale – not quite sure how that’s gonna work but you can bet your ass it’ll be awkward and you know me likey awkward!

This coming week is very important, people.  You’re coming off of a pretty solid season (no season is perfect, after all) and Bachelor Pad is just moments away.  If your man is still refusing to spend these blissful hours with you, you have exactly one week to convince him that Bachelor Pad will be different, there will be lots of boobies, and watching will even bring you closer together. 

Is this the end to Emily’s beginning or the beginning to her end?  Only time will tell!

 

Oh Sorry – what’s that?  Speak up, please…oh you wanted to know if I had a facebook page?  Why yes, yes I do!  What’s that?  Of course I wouldn’t mind if you ‘liked’ it and told all of your friends about me so one day I could actually make money writing instead of pouring out my heart and soul out of pure generosity of spirit.  You silly goose!  Here you go!  Thanks for asking ;)

https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Babefromtheburbs/196649130382234 

 

I'm a busy, working mom who loves nothing more than settling onto the couch with a glass of wine to harshly critique the unfortunate romantic relationships of happily-ever-after wanna-be's. Check out Reality Bytes