Sean #3: Minor Catastrophes

Exhibit A: A train wreck

I have no reasonable estimate for the number of times I've heard, "It's like a train wreck. You just can't look away." It's a cliche only because it's universally true. To the left, Exhibit A, an actual train wreck. I doubt those ladies in the white dresses are doing a lot to contribute to assistance or cleanup. Note, also, the dude leaning his shoulder against the lower left corner of the picture. They're all just really, really there to stare.

On our televisions, Exhibit B, The Bachelor. Because we've already established that everyone loves to gawp at other people's sordid misfortunes (again, refer to Exhibit A), I couldn't have been more excited to see previews for this week featuring an ambulance, a collapse on the stairs, and a neck brace, and a weeping narcissist saying "This is what they all wanted to happen!" Only one train shy of a train wreck.

But alas, it was also a few facts short of a train wreck. The neck brace was removed, the ambulance left, the accusations await another episode, and we can only hope that the story isn't finished.

HOWEVER, this blog started as a place for my remotely located daughters and I to snark about the show, and this week I finally had the opportunity to watch at least part of it with all of them in the same room. So no matter what happened, it was going to be fun. BUT THERE'S MORE! We also had the treat of introducing my mother-in-law to The Bachelor. Might I encourage everyone to watch an episode, at some point, with an 88-year-old granny, and put into words what's going on and why. She came of age in the day of soda fountains and dance cards and fraternity pins. Twelve girls in bikinis playing beach volleyball so that the winning six get the chance to spend the rest of the evening throwing themselves at the same man? This is incomprehensible. As it should be to all of us. We got a lot of this face:

Exhibit B: This face

At this point, she was reacting to the one-on-one moments at the end of the group date, and hearing Sean tell about the third girl that he REALLY felt something special with her. Her response: "So he can just say anything he wants to them?" Crazy, I know. "So that's one he picked?" she asked when Sean gave the one rose for the evening. No, that's just one of MANY that he thinks are special and wants to spend more quality six-on-one time with. "Certainly he gets tired of all this," she said as he shared his fourth lingering, meaningful kiss with a different girl. Okay, so she's been a widow for a while, but I wouldn't have told you it was that long.

Anyway, the dates:

Lesley M.'s world record date: I like Lesley. In last week's postlude we learned she knows that Hades is the place where spirits go to the underworld, not Haiti, and not Atlantis. That's awesome. Setting the record for the world's longest onscreen kiss? Not awesome. There's a reason the record is so short (3:16): It's boring television. Thus the triple-split-screen. And the camera angle behind Lesley's backside. (I don't think she'd planned on spending a significant portion of the date with her arms over her head.) Anyway, good date. I would've wished for her to have made more eye contact during their evening conversation, but the awkwardness was refreshing. I'll be pulling for Lesley. I might even take back my joke about her political consultant job. I'm even going to remember her name.

The sponsored-swimsuit volleyball date: Too bad for the girls who brought cute suits and then got stuck wearing these rather unflattering ones, then didn't know the first thing about volleyball, then had to go home with sand in their shorts. And Kacie, oh Kacie. (Notice the onscreen captions that give each girl's name and profession--hers just says "Ben's season." And I thought I was making a joke when I said her job was "professional bachelorette.") Her drama-dar picks up anything in range, and then she torpedoes herself straight into it. This perceived dispute between other girls involves her NOT AT ALL, but because it exists, she thinks it does. Imagine life with Kacie, tangled up in every bad feeling between PTA moms, or ladies in the neighborhood or--save us!--her daughters and their friends. Yikes. Credit to Sean on calling out the crazy and sending it straight home.

Ashley, previously invisible to me, came off more appealing than I expected. The date went well enough, but it turns out some things are a lot more fun with other people around. Like empty amusement parks that turn into sad places full of the ghosts of other people's childhoods. Or private concerts that are just self-conscious and embarrassing for everyone involved. I feel less sorry for the guy whose agent booked him to sing into the P.A. under the lavatory sign on Southwest 654 between Burbank and Denver (true story) now that I've seen what it's like to be a band playing to an empty amphitheater at Magic Mountain for The Bachelor. Nevertheless, I'll be pulling for Ashley, too.

At the rose ceremony, Jill made an outstanding catch. We backed it up and verified. When an ethnic girl got a rose, they sent the camera to other ethnic girls for reactions. When a blonde girl got a rose, then checked reactions on other blonde girls. Theory: Producers are very proud of introducing diversity (under legal pressure) and are acutely aware of it all the time, and therefore think we're just like them and have clumped girls together by their kind. But at least they did a good job of making me not care about the girls who went home. So farewell to the yoga instructor's boss and the model--no, FORD model. Sorry The Bachelor didn't give either of you the career boost you were hoping for.