Juan Pablo #7: Are We Done, Here?

I've been a little distracted. I have to confess that nobody on The Bachelor has ever done much for me, up to and including Juan Pablo. I don't go for the types who try too hard, as you have to if you're going to get a toe in the water of the Bachelor pool. If your shirt fits too well, if you're rockin' the of-the-moment euro-cut pants...my eye is gonna stray elsewhere. No, I'm afraid my heart right now belongs to the Norwegian curling team.

Now THAT is gonna get my attention. It says "I have a playful side, and don't take myself too seriously." But there's some real goods there, too, ladies:

Okay, so Blondie is a little young for me, and that shot doesn't do justice to a very well built upper body. I can still recommend him highly to somebody else. But this one:

Ah, this one is all mine. Thomas Ulsrud. Not even the coach can tempt me:

So I found myself feeling a bit impatient with Juan Pablo the Foolish and his harem. And the whole premise of the show sticking everybody in a really foolish situation. Give me SERIOUS. Like curling.

How is it not disturbing for a man to give six girls bikinis as his welcome-to-Miami gift?

Read: I'm giving you a gift for me! And I'll be really offended if you don't give me what I want! Ew. This is not the producers' fault. JP had a chance to say, "No, I can't put my name on that. It's creepy. I'd like to give them some flowers." And he didn't. Ladies of America, you can do better. Let your love affair with Juan Pablo be over.

Sharleen looks justifiably conflicted as she's looking at Nikki's teeny bikini bottoms:

"Hmm...I appreciate the thought, but...maybe not that thought." Her ambivalence continued through the first date. The voice in that solid head on her shoulders, the one that's been nagging at her the whole time, finally started screaming, "Deadline! Deadline!" Her conflict is a million years old: "Is this guy I'm crazy attracted to actually any good for me?" A question, perhaps, she should have asked about that puzzling underarm strap in her dress:

In the normal world, dating is supposed to give you time to have that conversation rationally. But in the Bachelor world, all the pressure is placed on the heart in a deliberate effort to shut out the brain. Don't think! Just feel! But, oh, if you really DO need to think, well, we'll give you some time to gaze thoughtfully over a balcony railing when you supposedly have only ten minutes to get ready and no earthly reason to otherwise happen upon the balcony:

Note to people who want successful relationships in the normal world: This is why you want to put off the physical relationship until the conversation with the voices in your head is settled. All the candlelight and making out drowns out the conversation. And producers certainly gave us no reason to doubt what the problem was: We viewers were subjected to just as much too much messy kissing as the (un)happy couple were. I'm surrounded by a lot of arranged marriages here in Saudi Arabia, and societal norms that are very uncomfortable with any public displays of affection. Couples walk near each other, but never touch. That made especially memorable a couple I saw walking out of IKEA recently. Even under all the robes it was clear that both were overweight, with that rolling gait I've come to associate with diabetic feet, certainly in their 60s, with fingertips linked. That's a very different kind of romance than ABC is insinuating into the public consciousness, folks. And a good sight more real.

Anyway, after giving herself a day to clear her head, Sharleen decided to go home in the company of a weird gerbil sachet.

(Does it smell like cage litter? Or a gerbil? Or some perfume version of a gerbil?) Juan Pablo didn't seem inordinately grieved by the departure of someone he professed having really strong feelings for, supporting the perception that he really is just in it for the fun. Nevertheless, it wouldn't surprise me to see this nag at him as something else to chase, helping to tank whatever "relationship" does come out of the show's finale. I give a 65% chance we'll see Juan Pablo and Sharleen caught together in the tabloids six months from now.

Nikki had the next solo date, which found fresh ways to make me squirm. Please explain to me the scenario in the normal world in which a single dad shows up at his daughter's dance recital, where his parents and the daughter's mother are already seated, plops down just before curtain time with one of the girls he's been dating in a whole flurry of dating that has the whole family talking, and it isn't horrifying. I quite liked this face from the ex:

Yeah, I'm sure she's TOTALLY fine with it.

Not uncomfortable one bit. She's not going to talk about this with her girlfriends AT ALL. When she's out with them on her BIRTHDAY. Which is TOMORROW.

Plus I'm getting increasingly uncomfortable with the daughter's role in this show, and with the entire family's willing participation in her commercial use. "I'm going to surprise her," JP said upon his return to Miami. Really? With cameras already in the house for no particular reason, watching her play with her grandparents? "Hey look! It's Daddy!" Yeah, no foolin'. And I can promise you that she's going to HATE that her six-year-old dance recital was on television, preserved for anybody to call up on YouTube, when she's twelve, or fourteen, or sixteen...or anything up to about forty, without her having any power to control it.

Nikki gushes quite a bit about what a great dad Juan Pablo is. Note to girls everywhere: There's a lot more to judging whether a guy will be a great dad than whether he interacts well with children. A guy can be playful and still completely irresponsible, shallow, shiftless, unfaithful, abusive, undisciplined...  Easy, now. I'm not saying Juan Pablo is any of those things, but just because a guy doesn't automatically know how to clown around with a four-year old doesn't mean he won't be kind, wise, and put the child before himself. Separate skill sets. Y'all be careful out there.

The group date with the remaining four girls devolved into a solo date with Andie that assured her of a hometown date. I'm pleased to still see Andie around, but with Sharleen's departure only one other would leave, and that put Chelsie clearly in the back seat. A nice girl with a bright future--despite feeling overlooked at 24--but without the intensity each of the others seemed to have. However, I do wonder whether Juan Pablo has any idea of how demeaning of every other relationship it is for him to talk about how hard it is to decide which one to cut. Silly. Of course not. What he's saying is that what he can "no be happy" if doesn't get to have ALL of them.

Question, though:

Who stuck that glass in her hand when they shoved her into the Breakup Limousine? Is this the kind of help Bachelor producers offer?

The net result is that Juan Pablo has assembled a puzzling final four: Two high-maintenance girls and two low-maintenance girls. Unsurprisingly, the two high-maintenance girls finally blew up at each other. This time I can't put the blame squarely on Clare. Nikki's decision to just walk out of the room when she didn't like a fairly innocuous comment of Clare's (though we can't know the whole context) was as much of an attention-grab as anything prior, showier divas have pulled. Ah, but then Clare's move to FOLLOW her and CONFRONT her, because she's "not going to let her get away with it" sets up a classic Battle of the Drama Queens. Cue finger pointing. Cue eye-rolls. Cue folded arms and pointed chins. In one corner, Clare the Entitled, who came home hurt from the group date because she "deserved" the rose. In the other, Nikki Snotty, who loves to crow about all the roses she's gotten in the past and can't wait to get away from all these beneath-her girls. The outcome? A REALLY silent cocktail party, in which Juan Pablo the Cad seemed oblivious to what might cause all that tension. They ought to put magazines on the table so the girls have something to do when they're not speaking to each other.

I have reason to hope for some just desserts next week on the hometown visits. I enjoyed seeing a woman I inferred to be Clare's sister saying, "I'm not going to let you manipulate Mom." What? Clare has a known history of manipulation? And might we be seeing Andie turn on Juan Pablo? Given those teasers, and the fact that the Norwegian curling team just got knocked out of the medal round, maybe I'll be sticking around a little longer after all.

Juan Pablo #5: And the Award Goes To...

It is customary to name prizes after the person who serves as a model of the thing the award recognizes. Just this week the NFL awarded its Walter Payton award. Baseball gives us the Cy Young, Roberto Clemente, and Hank Aaron awards  (as well as the Rolaids Relief Man, asking us to never forget the qualities and accomplishments of...oh, dear). Hockey has the grandest heritage of them all, with SIXTEEN of them. (Doubt me? Check here.) For The Bachelor, I believe we need only one, however. Ladies and gentlemen, may I propose the Tierra Memorial Tiara:

I was rather shocked to discover I couldn't find a picture of her wearing an actual tiara, so the sunglasses will have to do. We can make our own additions. First it should sparkle, obviously.

(Note the desperation to be at the center of somebody's world shown by the tattoo on her ring finger.)

Second, the tiara should have a liquid reservoir to pump tears out at any necessary moment.

And finally, it should have a pinch mechanism to pull one eye up in a coy sideways glance.

(Care should be taken with the placement of the eye-pull mechanism, or you'll give the wearer a reason to claim that she can't control her eyebrows.)

Unlike the sports awards, we can't wait to give the Tierra Tiara until the end of the season because the winning moment usually comes at the midpoint. No, the Tierra Tiara is more like a prize at a flower show, in which you wait until a bloom has reached its peak of blossom before submitting the entry. For this season of The Bachelor, the time is now. And the winner is...

Clare. In a runaway.

There are certain markers in a Tierra Tiara award recipient, and these are the same markers you find in the people who wreak social havoc in your own world.  If Bachelors were wise to the markers they'd avoid a lot of emotional torment and we'd miss a lot of classic programming. (This award could very easily also be called the Michelle Money Memorial or the Courtney Cup or the Vienna Vase.) So we'll keep them to ourselves, ladies, right? You, me, and the producers are the only ones who need to know:

1. Trouble making women friends. Yeah, there's always that woman in the house that nobody else likes. This is NOT because the other women are all mean/snobby/catty or whatever she claims. No, it's because the female sense about these crazies is magnified by the company of other women. The award nominee might manipulate one person away from another in normal life, but throw her into a pool of strangers at once and she's done for. The moment when Juan Pablo told the girls on the group date to pair up and Clare couldn't manage that? Yeah. Red flag, buddy.

2. Romances marked by intense instantaneous bonding. Award recipients usually haven't been single for very long when they come on the show. Whether they've gone through one boyfriend after another or just recently ended a tortured relationship, they know how to hook a man in a flash but not how to keep him in the boat, so to speak. (Though Clare did a fine job of GETTING him in the boat and then making sure he enjoyed his stay.) But ugh--the hair touches, the head tilts, the lip purses, the little sideways looks...sickening to women. Crack cocaine to men out lookin' fer love.

3. Narcissism. This one is tougher to diagnose, given the competition. However, it usually shows up in a heightened sense of entitlement, of thinking everything about the show exists to support her. The one who sneaks off to the Bachelor's room for some time nobody else gets? Or causes scenes that require the Bachelor to take time away from everybody else to tend to her? Yup. There's your girl. Tierra to a T.

4. Altered reality. There was a beautiful moment this week where JP tried to gently tell Clare that the private get-together, where she'd snuck off to his room to invite him out for a midnight swim, was no good. "I was just trying to do what I would if there was nobody else here and no cameras," she explained. He gently pointed out that they were not in that situation. Her response was complete shock and puzzlement. The real world had priority over the one she'd constructed to justify her actions? Not possible!

Now, with the award requirements in mind, let's review this week's show and see whether you agree with my nomination.

The group traveled to Vietnam by cartoon insta-plane and gave us a good Lesson for Ladies: Be judicious in sharing your scarf-tying tips:

Thought you were mortified by the girl who showed up at prom wearing your same dress? How about the FIVE who showed up on television wearing your same prominent accessory, styled the same way?

Giving them time to change, the first solo date was with Renee. What man doesn't want to date Jennifer Anniston? This is as close as you're gonna get, JP, and this one is actually your age. These no-adventure dates (shopping, taking in the culture) are great for travel shows but tend to be kinda boring. It's a shame, because I REALLY like Renee. Him saying that he kinda sees himself when he looks at her could be bad, but if he loves himself enough, could be good. Fingers crossed that the girl whose "palms hurt" (how adorable is that?) is there at the end.

The group date was the Cultural Experience tour. Clare, as mentioned earlier, failed to come up with a friend to paddle her wee Vietnamese boat with, and wound up with JP as her partner, backed into the weeds, making out, while the other girls had super-fun dates with each other. Chelsie exposed herself as a complete sucker by thinking that JP had actually scored lunch for all them at a Vietnamese home by asking a random stranger whether they could eat somewhere nearby. Not to be outdone in the d'oh department, however, was Cassandra. On discovering this close-knit community where the people worked the fields together and shared everything they owned, she revealed herself as a communist: "We should do this in America!" Clare, obviously, drew attention to herself by not touching the strange food and sustained herself by sucking on a few green beans. But she refused to be ridiculed, and confessed to the camera that she was "not going to change who I am for them!" Gonna keep her sparkle, that one.

For the Fancy Dress portion of the date, JP and Clare slipped away first, where they wound up in swimsuits in the "hot" tub together and she complained about being cold ("I need you! Take care of me!"). How long are these evenings, anyway? There were nine girls involved, and spending that much time with one wasn't unusual? I would have LOVED seeing the girls do as Kelly suggested, just marching over to the pool and handing Clare the rose. Oh, the curse of the funny girl. If Kelly had known she was on the way out, would she have been more willing to go with a splash?

We did get a clue about group date duration, and why the girls talked about being tired, when Clare showed up at JP's door at 4:00 a.m., presumably not long after the date's end, to request a private audience. She's never swum in the ocean! Stuck her toe in, she admitted, but never more than that. Oh, brother. So off they went, got a little more than wild in the waves, and JP was left at the edge of a regret whirlpool. I was a little surprised, given Juan Pablo's history of not allowing passion to drive the important things out of his mind:

Yup, that's our man, last season, one hand still in the popcorn while getting to know Des a little better.

The final solo date went to Nikki, much to Andi's disappointment (though previews for next week suggest she's going to end up just fine about it). Where he and Renee went ordinary, he and Nikki went extreme, rappelling down a chute into a cavern referred to and decorated as "Hell." Nikki was afraid to dance last week, and was now afraid to descend. Unfortunately, though probably not unassisted, she got stuck stating the Metaphor from Hell as she resisted stepping out over the darkness: "This is a lot like falling in love, trusting the other person, and also having very little control." What she failed to do, however, was see the metaphor all the way through to its end: "Slowly descending beyond all hope of rescue, becoming acclimated to more and more discomfort, and eventually ending up in hell, with your entire self and soul consumed."

She made up for it, though, by giving me what might be my favorite takeaway from this otherwise inarguably worthless show. In explaining why she's a pediatric nurse, she said "There's hope that comes with sick kids." No matter what else she does or where she ends up, that one insight has earned her my admiration. But then she put things back in their proper place by describing the way she feels around JP as being as if she's stuck her finger in a light socket. Clearly she's never stuck her finger in a light socket. I hope she doesn't end up caring for a kid who has, or she might not hit the right note of empathy. ("Oh, you must feel WONDERFUL!")

Finally, the cocktail party delivered the promised drama by giving us JP expressing his regret about their rendezvous to Clare, who had just slyly toasted "Finding love, falling in love, and making love" in front of the whole group. Oops! Here's where the Tierra Tiara is won.

• Trouble making women friends? Check. Everybody comments on her crying without doing anything to comfort her.
• Intense romantic bonding? Check. Let's remember this is still the same woman who got mauled by him immediately after saying she'd thrown up in her mouth.
• Narcissism? Check. That "making love" part of the toast was downright creepy.
• Altered reality? This is the moment where she gives us that utter, shattered-world bewilderment at being told that they're not, actually, alone together on this little adventure.

We have our winner! With her rose already in hand (granted BEFORE the wild-waves adventure), three others took the fall tonight. I will miss Kelly's wisecracks, but the funny girl never makes it to the end. Her dog and her job (one and the same, one must conclude) will be glad to have her back. Danielle, of the No Camera Time and Nothing to Say, stated the obvious when she said she could tell there wasn't a connection there. Alli, however, threw me, perhaps because I didn't know she and Andi were different people:

(Sorry, Andi, for the awkward moment I caught.) Yeah, the two of them showed up next to each other in the rose lineup and I thought, "That's Andi on the right and...Li'l Andi?" I like Andi, and hope JP likes her, too, so I'll hope her chances go up with the elimination of any identity confusion.

Previews for next week promise Clare parading her Tierra Tiara in all its glory. Juan Pablo and the human carnage all around may suffer, but I, for one, can't wait.

Juan Pablo #3: The Children's Hour

I had dinner with a couple of little boys Monday night. Ages eight and nine, to be precise. I mean, they're children. They're actually really good company, especially if you're into this certain app that lets you add special effects to videos you take with your phone, like dropping a piano on your brother or blowing him up. If you're not, though, I can see how a night would seem to pass kinda slowly. I can see how someone might be concerned that the Object of Her Affection would be, say, a titch bored in the company of somebody who's too young.

Eight-year-old: You know what kind of animal I would be? A hippo-horse! A hippo-horse-dog-zebra-monkey-bear-lion-giraffe-table-floor-chicken-spoon-plate-everythingthereis! Bahahahaha!

Forget about my sheep pig (which is real). Now THERE'S some raw conversational material. I mean, check out the results I get for a search on "animal mashups":

And it goes on for pages. But I'll admit the topic does have its limitations, and after you've gone a few rounds you're pretty much done.

Cassandra, former NBA dancer: Oh my gosh! Hahahaha!

That kind of conversation, on the other hand, it much more open-ended, and when you have the body of a teenager because you're, well, just barely beyond being a teenager, apparently that's enough to make a relationship really start going somewhere. And high time one did for this poor girl! Did you know it's been THREE YEARS since she last had a first date? THREE YEARS! How could anyone survive a drought like that! What hardship! What sacrifice! I mean, she hasn't been on a first date since she was EIGHTEEN! That's ages! That's, like...

Okay. She's 21.

But in her eyes, she's washed up. Career over, a worn-out single mom, ready to start shopping for cotton underwear. She hardly knows what to do on a first date. Juan Pablo, for his part, knew what he was getting into: "She seems kinda shy." Given his limited English, I'm going to fill in the word he must have meant to use: "vapid." However, he said he was having "a blast" as they jetted around the harbor in the auto/speedboat. What he didn't say was whether it was any more of "a blast" than he had when he took the thing out for the first time by himself and learned how to drive it the day before.

But despite the few words that made it past her ventriloquist lips (did anyone ever see her pronounce a consonant?), and the way she reached to touch the edge of the pan when they were cooking, Juan Pablo seemed satisfied enough at her qualifications to mother his own child that he gave her a red-petaled pass to the next round. Date One, Done.

Group Date: The soccer game failed to deliver the emergency room trip that would have resulted from a field full of bachelors (girls be dratted). Sharleen the Opera Singer probably came closest, and maybe we can blame a soccer ball to the face for the really difficult-to-watch kissing they attempted later. And in the wake of so many stolen kisses in and around the stadium and all the attendant jealousy, I was gratified to see the evening's rose go to Nikki, who settled for a hug. I was also pleased that no one talked about how relationships are like headers or that she'd be sure to score her goal of ending up with Juan Pablo.

The final solo date went to Chelsie, rather than Elise, who'd been complaining to anyone who would listen about girls--particularly Chelsie, her rival for a date card--who were too young. Juan Pablo, she was sure, was looking for a mother for his daughter, not another child to raise.

Some other girl: How old do you think Chelsie is?
Elise: I don't know.
Some other girl: Maybe 25 or 26, I think.
Elise: Really?
Some other girl: And you're...
Elise: 27.

Chelsie scored the requisite Intense Premature Bonding Over Shared Danger date, which involved bungee jumping in this case. After much dread and indecision and reassurance that it didn't matter, that she could do whatever she wanted, she decided to go for it, and she did it WITHOUT ONE WORD about relationships being "like a freefall" or that they require you to "take a leap of faith." Bravo! And at dinner they seemed to hit it off way more naturally than the Premature Bonding would have me expect. Shockingly, she actually knew the band playing for their (surprise!) private concert, though I did not. (The musical product placement clearly failed when "Billy Grngdn" was the best I could capture for my notes. Currington, it turns out, so I had it about right unless you're a mightily insulted country music fan. Sorry.) Her singing and dancing along made this the first private concert that didn't seem acutely uncomfortable. I like this couple.

Finally, in lieu of a cocktail party, Juan Pablo showed up at Bachelor Mansion with breakfast fixins' to surprise the girls in the early morning. Not terribly early, it seemed. The sun was fully up and the rooms were completely bright when the li'l angel darlings smelled meat and pulled off their sleep masks. Top marks go to Renee the Kindly House Mother, who didn't fuss with her hair or makeup (or even brush her teeth) before going to the kitchen. And still looked like Jennifer Aniston. This fact did not escape Juan Pablo's notice: "The girls look great in piyamas," he said.

The obvious next step? A pooparty! he declares. A small cadre of girls did not completely understand this expression, and thought it was still a cocktail party. I'm not sure of the source of the confusion. The words don't sound anything alike. Nevertheless, while Juan Pablo, his chest, and a bevy of beauties took to the pool, Cassandra, Sharleen, Kelly the dog lover, and some blonde girl we later identified as Christy stood at the side of the pool in full makeup and curled hair, holding stemware and recoiling from the water. And complaining about Kat "throwing herself" on Juan Pablo by, I dunno, playing in the poo at a pooparty.

In the end, Christy ("Sparkle Shorts") and Lucy ("Free Spirit") went home. Christy regretted that she hadn't opened up more. If she opened up to the camera about as much as she opened up to Juan Pablo, I see the problem. Lucy, who certainly made the most of her camera time while she had it last week, graciously wished the best to everyone else. She wiped her tears with a hand adorned with her $7000 Cartier love bracelet (thank you for the spot, Kathleen) and walked out barefoot, carrying her $700 Christian Louboutin shoes (thank you, Cheryl). Someone, somewhere, has been keeping an adding machine tape running on the price of everything the professional free spirit ("unemployed princess child of rich parents") from Santa Barbara has worn in her brief stay in Bachelor mansion. I'd love to have it, and I'd love to know what else we'll never see from her suitcase.

So there we are. Two children gone, a play house still full of other children, a really pretty Fairy Goodmother, and a few grumpy alcoholic nannies. Perhaps it's time they all grew up, eh?

(Shameless grandchild promotion.) Many thanks again to my rescuers last week, who filled in spectacularly while I took care of my own mother (in law). I've had great stay, but it's time to head home. Back to the sandbox!