Des #11: The Whole Truth

Bachelor producers are a bunch of lying liars. Sure, I've given them plenty of credit before for pretending they're making a serious show, and maybe they were telling the truth when they said we'd NEVER seen a season like this before! or that this would be the most! shocking! season! finale! ever!, but when they say they're "coming to you live from L.A." they're not. They're just not. Watching from L.A. this week, I'm here to tell you we're the last to find out. In real time, Eastern and Central time zones watch at the same time, an hour later it starts in Mountain (hollah! No, seriously, HOLLAH. Maybe someday people will know we exist.), then Pacific TWO HOURS after that. The general tone of the texts I got through the evening was "Have you seen it yet?" No, was my answer. I'm in TVLand, waiting for TV.

At some point (ahem--MUCH earlier in the day) our Bachelor Nation delegates gathered in their solid-color sleevelesses in Convention Hall, which is really just an occasional reuse of the ABC Lighting Prop Warehouse.

Please, can we identify ALL the sources of light in that room? Holy b'glow-sticks, Batman! We have the votives, of course, serving as a Barrier of Flame to keep the women off Juan Pablo (oops! spoiler!), some sort of uplight behind the votives, some creepy spotlit bouquet-thingies, illuminated stair risers, sconces, spotlights, TV panels, and of course the glowing stage floor. Now I've watched enough HGTV to know that lighting is what transforms a room, but apparently somebody who picked up that same general idea also had an unlimited budget and no restraint. If you got it, Lighting Department, I want it. Chris Harrison wants ambiance!

 

I cannot identify all the light-emitting things in the background of this shot. Sure is shiny, though.

And what are those orbs? Okay, perhaps I'm getting sidetracked from the show, but I'm not alone. If there really had been two hours of content, that would have been what we saw, but instead we got about forty-five minutes of content and a whole lot of studio time. So is it my fault for being distracted if producers bore me with audience input and simultaneously throw in a bunch of shiny things? (I say no.)

When we did have something to watch, we got to see Des, freshly heartbroken from Brooks' rejection, talking about next steps with Chris Harrison:

Des: I just want to go home.

Chris: I understand. (Silence.)

Translation: You can't.

Yeah, she's stuck there, all right. Gotta deal with these other men one way or another. We've been treated to plenty of hyperbole about how high the stakes are: "Can Des find the love she deserves?" (Deserves? What does that mean? How do you break through the dividing line between those who do deserve love and those who don't?) "Or will her dream of finding love be CRUSHED FOREVER?" Forever, folks. Forever. This is her absolute last and only chance of finding companionship. Fail here, and it's straight to the kitty section of the animal shelter.

So, because she looks like a person who might have allergies, she decides to give it a go and check out the remainders one more time: Drew "One Fluid Motion" and Chris "Poetry Man." She's certainly all in, though, because she's giving herself just that one microsecond at the rose ceremony, while cameras are rolling, her mind is tumbling, and she may or may not be nauseated, to decide whether she "feels" anything. In her own words, "If I can't see a future, for me it's over."

Well, hello, kitty!

Don't worry, with enough love you can redeem anything.

But no! She's going to give the men one more chance! Open her heart to love again! Have another couple of dates, see how things shake out, and who knows? Maybe that cat will have to find another home.

First off, Drew, who has already set his own course for an animal shelter shopping trip by saying, "I'm ready to propose. I'm so in love with her that I could never walk away from her. That's just never gonna happen. I'll never leave Desiree." Look, pal, in movies, if you don't want to be killed off, don't cough, and don't look at a picture of your wife and baby before you go into a battle. In reality TV, if you don't want to get cut, don't say "I'll never" or "Nothing could go wrong" or "I'm in control of this game." We clear?

But my warning is going to hit about three months too late, and things already seemed strained as they got on some seriously pokey horses to w-a-l-k v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y to the beach.

Hey, wait a sec! As I'm searching for pictures of Pokey I see Drew actually looks kinda like Gumby:

Do you see it? Move that swoop of his over a little to the side, give Drew some mittens, give Gumby a collar and a sweater...I think we're there. Now all we need is Drew saying "Oh, no! Oh, no!" in falsetto while twisting his clay head from side to side while Des (taking a lesson from last week and speeding things up) tells him there's nothing there.

One down, only one to go. Not giving herself a lot of options, is she? Is Des starting to feel that little kitty tongue licking her face in the morning to wake her up? Apparently so, because she says before her date with Chris, "This is the last chance for me." Last, folks. The last.

(It's important to keep your options in mind.)

So to avoid ending up with Pirate Kitty, Des announces that she would "like for today to go perfect." Well, gosh. I'd like today to go perfect, too. Here's my perfect: Wake up perfectly rested. Go for a walk. Meet a puppy. Pick up croissants for breakfast. Write the blog in ten minutes. Get a good watermelon. Save a child's life by stopping a stroller from rolling into the street. Have a stranger tell me I look great. Tarte flambe for dinner. I don't think either Des or I are asking too much.

But in her case it works! And I honestly really like what happens here. Des pulls the covers off the way The Bachelor goes about failing at helping couples find each other, and they let her. The problem, she can see, is that she went for the wrong guy in Brooks, got swept into romance by romantic settings and acting out old patterns of falling for guys who just never quite loved her back. "You do like the chase," she admits. All the unnatural constraints of the show made it hard to see the plainly solid, good guy that was exactly NOT what all her past mistakes were. For that reason--that the first choice got cleared out of the way so that she could see the better choice--I think these two actually have a chance. The honest truth.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Mustn't give short shrift to my favorite bizarre twist of the whole process: The ring "shopping." I dearly wish I knew more about the arrangements, here. Is this ring on loan? Is Chris on the line for the full price if the wedding goes through? For sure he ain't buyin' it on the spot. Chris refers to it as "a commitment I will provide for her." Note: With a ring that has been provided for you. Weird. Every time.

As for the proposal, I think we could all read exactly what Chris was thinking and feeling when, after he poured out his heart and was about to drop onto one knee for the proposal, Des said to wait, that she had something to tell him. Ack! The knife! I'm not sure when or how he fully processed that she wasn't about to send him home, but it took a while, and the poor guy was feeling that knife twist back and forth a number of times.

Phew! Another season done! The wishes of many were granted in seeing Juan Pablo emerge as next season's Bachelor, which I will be watching from across an incomprehensible cultural divide. (I'm pretty sure there's a Saudi Arabian Idol, and equally sure there's not a Saudi Arabian Bachelor.) For more on what I find between now and January as I start living in said exotic locale, keep an eye on Foreign-Girl.blogspot.com. I have exactly one actual post there now. Making progress.

I'll see you in January! And I'll let you know if this guy turns up anywhere:

Des #10: The Long Goodbye

A little context: I watched this week's show in the morning. Full, straight, beautiful summer morning sitting in front of the TV watching a reality romance show. In my nightgown. Not jammies, mind you, which are cute and say "sexy baby." No, a nightgown, which says "Do you need some soup?" Over yoga pants. With milk dribbles on my chin. Surely the fantasy suite dates are meant to allow a beautiful young couple to experience the morning realities and find the confidence to say "Yes, I can do that!" Don't you agree?

I have a valid excuse for the morning TV-watching and dire dress. I have spent the last four months reducing a home and thirty years of family life to this:

There's a reason people don't follow through with that lovely, hazy idea of "simplifying." It's bone-breakingly hard. Take a minute to look around your house and think, "Every item I see is a decision. Every item is something to handle and put somewhere else." Box? Shelf? Give away? Throw away? I'm lucky enough to have a basement to store everything I do decide to keep while we rent out the house and I join my husband who's working in Saudi Arabia, but no one would put as many reps into a stairclimber as I have into those stairs. Monday I finally finished, shoved the last random but necessary loose item into the car, and became homeless for the next three weeks. (I hope. Visa permitting.) I drove nine hours to my daughter's house and collapsed at midnight. Then went to sleep smiling at the prospect of sitting on the sofa with the milk dribbles and the chicken soup nightgown and daytime television. So in the interest of full disclosure, perhaps I'm not in the best place today to feel like The Dilemma of Desiree is that big of a deal.

(I'm also in a poor place to pour a lot of energy into getting and pasting pictures. Sorry.)

And after all the promos, all the hype, all the promises that this was like NO SEASON EVER BEFORE, what is there, really, to talk about? Despite being told at the beginning that we were about to embark on "the television event of the summer," I found the whole thing pretty slow. Kudos to producers on encouraging Des to wear the blue top with the loose waistline that would flutter picturesquely in the breeze while she cried at the end of the dock over the turquoise Antigua water. And in telling her to go there for her cry, rather than into her pillow in the dark.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Des went through the motions (all the motions, as far as I could see) with the other two men, enjoying a drive-to-the-beach vacation day with Drew, then a helicopter date with Chris, both of which ended in invitations to the fantasy suite. Of course, Des got captured on tape at the beginning of the show talking about heading for her "fairytale ending," which is basically the same as somebody saying "I don't see how anything could ruin this date." WARNING to future contestants: If producers are egging you into saying how great you think things are going to turn out, be assured they know something you don't know. Let's remember that they have already accompanied Brooks to Boise for his cold-feet conversation with his mother and sister. They know full well that trouble's a-comin'. And you can be sure those same producers high-fived each other when they got Des to actually say "fairytale ending."

Because yes, between the airing of the other two dates, we got to see that producers arranged for and accompanied Brooks on a trip from Salt Lake to Boise to meet his mother and sister and talk through his doubts. I did love the clarity with which he realized that "the idea of proposing at the end of this makes me uncomfortable." This is actually a sane reaction. It does seem that Brooks is being sold as a terrible guy, because surely no one could fail to love Des, but come on. I'm a little puzzled by his sister confirming his concerns by telling him that "At this point you should know." At what point does she think he is? He's spent private time with this woman...four times? All artificial, all chaperoned by a camera crew. Why can't he just say "I'd like to keep dating her because she seems like a fun girl so far"? Wait--no. Mustn't break the illusion that these dates are Serious and Very Important.

We get a nice snapshot, here, though, of what leads one person into staying with a different wrong person: the idea of breaking up is just too hard. I remember seeing a book author talking about rough starts to marriage, and citing some stunning statistic about the percentage of people married to someone they couldn't bring themselves to break up with. I get it. Most people struggle with short-term pain for long-term gain. I certainly do. My husband, on the other hand, will pour salt on a canker sore, break open a blister, drain an infection. Of course, he never had to do a breakup like this because--ta-da!--he wound up with me, complete with milk dribble and chicken soup nightgown. Lucky man. So after the one stumble, the sister gets it right, advising him that through all the pain and difficulty of a breakup he needs to keep his singular focus on "what's best for her, what's best for you." Drain that wound, buddy. Do it quick.

Unfortunately for us, "do it quick" is where the show failed. The breakup conversation was messy and took a long time, the way real ones do, but I wanted a television breakup. Quick and dramatic. Get out those editing scissors. Instead, we got lots of labored apologies and repetitions about how great Des was and how Brooks wished he could feel more. She, in fact, is better than he is, which she pshaws, but that doesn't seem to convince him to change his mind. ("Wait, you're not better than I am? You're just normal? Well, great then!") My son-in-law Kory, with the wisdom of dudes, identified the tone of the breakup: He's saying all the right things to build her up and make it about some missing magic because he knows he needs to date her friends, which is Des's case is the entire female population of the United States. So be careful how you go about this.

(I hope you noticed that although Brooks felt sure enough about his decision to end the relationship that he didn't want to go on the date, he felt UNSURE enough that he DID need to accept the trip to Antigua. I'm just sayin'.)

Cue a good dock-cry. Brooks, it seems, is the one who has her heart, which is now broken. And we still have TWO HOURS to fill next week. I'm not optimistic, either for Des's prospects or for my desire for high entertainment. I saw an onscreen tweet along the lines that Brooks is Des's Harvard, Drew a solid Ivy-League school, and Chris is her safety school. Does she take one of the backups, or decide to skip school altogether and go join the Peace Corps and stop shaving her legs for a couple of years? And what, oh what, will happen with the visit with her family? Will they encourage her to oh, just pick one and be done with it? Will her brother call up a posse and hunt down Brooks? Hmm. Perhaps there are some possibilities here after all. I'll have my nightgown laid out and ready.