Episode Six - Venice, Verona and Super Deep V's

Well, it was another Monday evening, and while I should have been in bed hours ago to sleep off the effects of getting a little too aggressive during the USA-Portugal game, I was stuck watching another episode of Andi’s snooze-fest.  This week, we’re in Italy, which Andi claims is her favorite country in the world (spoiler alert: she’s lying).  Poor, sad Cody, in a cruel bit of foreshadowing is really excited for his inevitable one-on-one date.  I meant, he’s the only guy left who hasn’t had a one-on-one date, it has to be him, right?  It would just be mean if it wasn’t, right?  Anyways, it’s not him.  Instead, Andi tells the guys that Nick is getting the first date this week and is this guy awful or what?  There’s something about him that I can’t stand, but I can’t put my finger on it and the fact that Andi is so snowed by him is making me question her even more than I already was.

According to Andi, the whole point of bringing Nick on a second one-on-one date was that she had questions about why every single person in the house hates him, but naturally she didn’t bring them up until dinner.  Nick deflected Andi’s questions by expressing his upset and disgust that rest of the guys thought he was arrogant and over-confident.  Yeah, I guess people can really jump to some nasty conclusions when you tell them that you’re the front-runner and generally act like an asshole. Of course, he then totally lies about not making that comment.  That’s not a word he even likes to say!  Then he tells her that he’s definitely falling in love, which is a pretty good transition to drop on someone who needs constant reinforcement.  She’s no longer skeptical of Nick.  She’s an idiot.

Moving right along, next up is the group date in Venice.  How many pairs of brightly colored knee-length shorts did Chris bring?  It’s working for him, but not what I’d expect from a farmer from Iowa.  Sadly, there’s nothing to do in Venice, Italy, so continuing with our group date public humiliation theme, it’s time for a lie detector test.  Josh is really tripping out here, maybe a little too much.  How could he not be when faced with hard-hitting questions like “Are you here for the right reasons?”  This date did teach us that Dylan has slept with over 20 women but that his personal hygiene game could use some improvement.  Also, for those of you who didn’t make it to the scenes after the end credits, you missed out on a real treat.  In the end, this was all a huge waste because Andi never even opened up the results of the test.  Let’s be real though, she 100% had a copy of the results, right?  There’s no way she had all that information in her hands and just let it go.  It’s just lame that we don’t get to see it.  What were the lies???  Who’s not there for the right reasons???

During the evening portion of the date, Marcus turns up the heat on his status as a stage five clinger by telling Andi that he’s in love with her.  Marcus, bro, it’s not even hometowns yet!  You have got to take it down a notch!  There’s no way he wins now, right?  In other “shoot yourself in the foot” news, Josh will not let this lie detector test thing go.  In Josh’s head, the test showed that Andi doesn’t trust him, whereas in the head of literally any normal human being, the test showed that the PRODUCERS PICKED A DATE FOR THEM TO GO ON AND THEN THEY WENT ON IT.  You really think Andi was the one who decided to do that?  This guy has clearly taken one too many hits to the head during his incredibly short career as a professional athlete if he thinks that the way to win Andi’s heart is to get in a fight with her during the part of the relationship that is legitimately designed to be a fairytale.  Josh, I say this out of pure selfishness because you are my only remaining contest in this game: PLEASE CHILL OUT.  Chris finally tells Andi that he’s her secret admirer and it’s pretty masterful timing.  Chris was probably teetering on the edge of elimination and he pulled his ace in the hole that’s probably going to get him through at least another round, plus he snagged the group date rose.  Well played, Farmer Chris. 

                                                                                                                                                                                          

It’s finally time for Cody’s one-on-one date, and boy is he ready.  He spent all day preparing by sharing a relaxing steam with Nick.   Andi shows up in her finest skort and informs Macklemore that they are going to spend the day in Verona responding to letters written by sad, lonely people to Juliet, a fictional literary character.  I, of course, recognize this practice immediately from the Amanda Seyfried classic Letters to Juliet, which I’m pretty sure I saw in the theater based solely on the inclusion of Taylor Swift’s Love Story in the trailer.  Cody actually didn’t do half-bad, but I cannot take this guy seriously with that stupid haircut.

Later on, Cody wears a fucking v-neck under his jacket at dinner.  Jesus, he needs an Interveention.  You’re 28 years old, Cody.  Time to stop shaving your chest and buy a shirt that doesn’t expose your nips.  However, his shirt is only the second most embarrassing part of the evening for Cody, who proceeds to go into a long speech about how into Andi he is and how hard she’s going to fall for him and, oh...oh no...Andi is very clearly about to dump him.  The fact that Cody’s elimination is a foregone conclusion is a shock to nobody except Cody himself.  I still can’t believe he made it further than Patrick.  At least he got a free trip to Italy, right?

The cocktail party starts strong as Nick, who already has a rose, takes Andi away immediately.  Kind of a dick move, but she’s very into it.  According to Andi, “That is a man right there.”  Yuck.  As is Andi’s wont, she pretty much just made out with him for a while.  She sure does like to kiss, doesn’t she?  Brian read her a poem that I pretty sure was a rip-off of this classic?  Why do these guys insist on writing poems?  It’s embarrassing for everyone involved.  Yeesh.

As the rose ceremony began, I figured it was going to be down to Josh and Dylan, so I was pretty surprised to see Dylan get the first rose.  He’s been a non-entity for weeks and he doesn’t even wash his hands after he pees!  Finally, it comes down to JJ and Josh.  JJ, apparently sensing that the end was near, had already stopped shaving in preparation for his upcoming depression, and his wish was granted as Andi told him to go pound sand.  And with that Dickson wins the Regina Colantonio “First Out of the Running” award for this season.  Congrats, buddy!

Next week is in Brussels, which is apparently the last week before hometowns.  Does that mean she’s getting rid of two guys?  Are we finally going to get our long-awaited 2-on-1 date?  Also, is Nick going for the Courtney Robertson late night room visit?  Intrigue!

Points:

Chris – 5 pts (group date rose)

Marcus – 8 pts (first “I love you”, bonus points for pre-hometown)

Episode Five - Race Wars!

First off, many apologies for the late arrival of the recap of this week’s episode.  Unfortunately, I sometimes have to do the job that actually pays my bills, much as I would rather devote all of my time to focusing on reality television.  Now, onto the action.

This week brought us to Marseille which, as with every single other location ever visited in the Bachelor franchise, is the perfect place to fall in love.  To Chris Harrison’s glee, this episode started with a sit-down between Chris and Andi (who appeared to be wearing a skirt made of trash bags).  Andi supposedly took French in high school, though her current level of skill is on par with Kevin McCallister.  Chris asked Andi if she was falling in love, and she responded with three of the only words in her vocabulary (“Stop! Shut up!”).  Good talk.

First date this week was a one-on-one with Josh.  Andi is concerned that her connection with Josh is purely physical, and she probably has a point there.  That guy is not the sharpest crayon in the box.  He had some pretty good lines about quitting sports so that he could have a family, though its clearly untrue.  If Josh was going to be successful at baseball, he’d still be playing instead of settling for being the second best athlete in the family.  Josh’s athletic prowess is a very big topic of conversation because Andi believes that all athletes are cheaters.  But not, Josh, no way.  One time, his college girlfriend kissed another guy, so he would never do that to somebody.  Either Andi bought his story or she really wanted to get to that Ben Fields concert, because Josh got his rose and it was time for another private show!  Do you think ABC flew this guy to France, or was he already there?  What kind of private concert budget does this show have?   Do they save so much money by never playing songs anyone knows that it all evens out?  I have a lot of questions.

Meanwhile, back at the house, things are happening.  The group date invitation comes and holy shit, is Cody wearing the deepest V-neck ever made?  I’m not sure there’s any point of wearing an actual shirt if you’re going to expose your chest to your navel?  Never mind that, though, we have a race war in the house!  JJ the snitch decided that his blood feud with Andrew would continue this week and told Marquel, the only remaining “ethnic” contestant that at the first rose ceremony, Andrew said “She gave it to the two blackies.”  First of all, who under the age of 80 would ever use the word “blackies”?  I don’t necessarily disbelieve that Andrew said something, but I have a hard time believing those were his words.  Regardless, Marquel is really upset, which he should be, though his level of emotion indicates that he’s never seen this show before.  Let’s just say that the Bachelor franchise has been historically unkind to persons of color, and Marquel is no exception (though I’d say he’s put himself in a pretty good position to become our first Bachelor of color).  But enough about institutional racism, there’s a miming lesson to get to!

Yes, that’s right, this week’s group date was a “lesson in communication” involving little to no communication.  Andi’s reign of terror and public humiliation continued at mime school and I am not on board.  Apparently neither were the Parisians accosted by a bunch of unenthusiastic and untalented American mimes.  Marquel made a baby cry, and that was after he took off his ridiculous tropical themed t-shirt!  Luckily that segment finally ended because Andi needed her wine.  JJ, fresh off his mission to create chaos in the house, whisked Andi away for a ride on a ferris wheel.  Now, this ride seemed to otherwise be shut down so, much like Nick’s mysterious flower delivery a couple weeks ago, I’m starting to question what these producers are doing behind the scenes to boost certain contestants along.  How dare they manipulate the natural and organic process of finding love on national television!  Speaking of Nick, he is quickly emerging as this season’s Tierra.  He is NOT here to make friends.  When someone asks whether he thinks he’s the front-runner, he responds “Yeah, probably.” Oh boy.  Cody, who is inexplicably still in the running, is especially offended by Nick, particularly since he made fun of Cody at some point in the fake episode last week that nobody watched.  Andi can tell that the guys are pissed off and is pressing hard on these guys to share the gossip.  At least twice, she said something to the effect of “If I was your wife, would you tell me?”  I think my favorite part of this entire episode was the point when she said to Farmer Chris “I get it, you don’t give up your bros before...” and then realized what the last part of that sentence should be (it’s “hoes”, the last part of the sentence is “hoes”).  Classic.  So then Nick strolls in for his private time, and despite sulking all day long, starts off by saying “Today was so much fun!”  What a tool.  He also read some sort of poem or letter to Andi, which was utterly forgettable until he finished and went on to read his name at the bottom of the page.  Umm, you don’t have to say “Nick” at the end if you’re reading it to her in person, she already knows it’s you.  In the background, Marquel decides that a group date setting is the perfect time to confront Andrew, who naturally denies saying anything, so that conversation goes nowhere, except that then Andrew tells Andi that he thinks maybe he should leave.  Andi’s response is basically “okay, if that’s what you want.”  Andrew is a douche, and nobody cares if he leaves.  The group date rose eventually goes to JJ, and Nick is in shock that being a whiny baby for 85% of the date didn’t solidify his place in Andi’s heart.

Next up is another one-on-one date with Brian.  I swear that I spent most of the episode thinking this guy’s name was Craig.  He looks like a Craig, doesn’t he?  So their date was allegedly dinner and a movie, but was more like a 30 minute commercial for the movie “The Hundred Foot Journey.”  Like, they legitimately showed multiple full scenes of this movie.  The only reason I’ve even heard of The Hundred Foot Journey is because there are commercials for it playing non-stop in NYC cabs at the moment and even though I probably saw the ad for the movie 10 times, I still never remembered the name.  Of course, the tie-in fell flat when the post-movie cooking turned into an absolute disaster.  It was so awkward and painful to watch.  Brian/Craig was really not enjoying himself.  They finally gave up on their home-cooked dinner and went to a restaurant where Andi basically begged him to kiss her.  For some reason, Brian/Craig closed out the date by dragging Andi into the restaurant’s kitchen to make out some more, which was pretty weird.

After a very dramatic gate opening, Chris Harrison made his triumphant return to inform the fellas that there would be no cocktail party tonight!  Andi was ready to trim the fat, and she wasn’t going to mess around.  We get right down to business, and Andi starts handing out roses, pausing between each to pick up the rose and bring it to chest level, holding it with two hands like a softball pitcher preparing for an important pitch.  In the end, Andi sent Andrew, Patrick and Marquel packing and while that was not necessarily surprising, I am personally flabbergasted that Cody is still there.  How does he keep sneaking by, especially with that hair?   I was rooting for Patrick until his farewell was essentially “I don’t get it, everyone tells me I’m so awesome, and not just girls!”  See you on Bachelor Pad, Patrick!  Speaking of which, I don’t think I’m wrong in stating unequivocally that the most exciting part of this episode was the commercial for Bachelor in Paradise.  I cannot wait for a gathering of the most unstable and narcissistic contestants that the Bachelor has to offer, and I am VERY curious to see how the girl with one arm performs in the physical challenges.

So that’s where we are now.  Next week, we head to Venice and continue to dig into the mystery of the anonymous love note that we’ve all already forgotten about.

Points
JJ – 5 (Group date rose – sorry, no points for inciting a race riot)

Episode Four - The Eric Hill Memorial Episode

The second episode of our Bachelorette double-header found us in, uhh, Connecticut.  It’s no South Korea, but it is the home of Mohegan Sun.  I’m a big fan, but I’m also have a pretty crippling gambling addiction.  If I were Andi, I would have probably conducted all of my dates at a craps table.  One of the many, many reasons why I am not the Bachelorette.

The first one-on-one date tonight went to Dylan.  This was perfect for him, as he was very anxious to tell about his dead relatives.  Like, literally, that was all he wanted to do.  Dylan spent every minute of the beginning of that date looking for an opening.  He somehow managed to work it in during a conversation about past relationships (“My ex got engaged, and that was okay except that she got engaged the day after my brother’s funeral.” “Oh, okay.”).  He finally finds just the right segue, and goes into an admittedly sad story about losing both his brother and his sister to drugs.  Not to be insensitive, but this story would have had a much greater impact had we not heard in verbatim the night before when he told it to Chris.  Also lessening the impact was that Dylan made sure to point out to Andi how open he was being and how quickly his walls were coming down.  Of course, after that story, Andi pretty much had no choice but to give him a rose and despite her protestations, that was most definitely a pity rose.  Now, I like Dylan, so I’m hoping he finds a new topic of conversation because he is way too depressing at this point. And keep in mind the timing here – he points out how important it was that he be there for his mother, who was just crippled by these deaths.  This happened in NOVEMBER.  If this was airing in live time, which it is not, we’re talking 6 months later.  Really, he probably up and left like 2 months afterward.

The rest of the guys (other than Marcus) were up for a group date.  Was it just me, or was Tasos genuinely excited to be sent on the date with 11 other guys.  Wonder what that’s about.  Turns out the guys were going to hoop it up, as I like to call it.  When a bunch of very scary ladies appear on the court, Josh “recognizes” some of the them from their careers in the WNBA.  Yeah, okay.  Right.  I’m sure Josh is very familiar with WNBA players, much like the rest of the country.  Still, the women absolutely crush the guys in a game.  The final score was something like 50 to 12.  After that embarrassment, it’s time for the guys to play each other.  They change into tank tops, and, cool tribal tattoo, Patrick.  Obviously, Brian is very into this.  He is now going full coach.  Everyone apparently is now calling him Coach, which I don’t like.  There’s only one Coach, and y’all better recognize.

This game seems like they’ve been going for a while and I think we saw like 15 baskets, and yet the halftime score is 6-6.  What?  The red team crushes the hopes and dreams of the white team (but only after the producers showed a clip of every single dude on the white team telling us that there was no way they were going to lose), who then goes back to the locker room and cries like a bunch of bitches.  It’s not like your brother and sister both died of tragic overdoses, you lost two hours hanging out in the Mohegan Sun casino. Life goes on (not for you, Eric). Surprisingly, the producers seem to have cut the scene where Tasos tried to break the tension by encouraging everyone to hop in the group shower.

The winning team gets to go sit on couches somewhere in the vicinity of the casino with Andi, and I hope that the producers at least gave them a couple of bucks to gamble with (that might be my addiction talking).  Eric and Andi share a moment that does not go well after she tells him that he’s not opening up enough.  He complains about how structured their interactions are and I question whether he understands that he is on a television show.  He tells Andi about how he grew up a Mormon and left the church and I was pretty bummed that it didn’t turn into an exposé of secret Mormon rituals but apparently Andi and I do not share common interests because she did not immediately ask him about them.  Brian, whose mysterious black eye seems to finally be healing, brought Andi back to the basketball court and made a pretty solid half-court shot.  The combination of that shot and Brian’s khaki pants, argyle sweater and pools of sweat drove Andi wild, but instead of going in for the kiss, Brian went with a classically romantic high-five.  Nice job, buddy!  He does, however, manage to beat out a very handsy Nick for the group date rose.

Finally, it’s time for a one-on-one with Marcus, who kind of looks like the German villain from a Die Hard movie.  This was a classic “overcoming your fears date” rappelling down a hotel and Andi is TRIPPING OUT.  Why is she requesting dates to overcome her own fears?  That’s not what this show is about.  She’s not supposed to be the one who looks dumb.  It was a pretty cool moment for feminism when she needed Marcus to save her and talk her through it.  Strangely enough, their rappelling adventure takes them past the window to the guys’ suite who bang on the window but also mock Marcus for crying, which was pretty funny.  Marcus is rewarded for his bravery with a concert with a guy whose name is apparently Jon Pardi!  I had to look this guy up online and it wasn’t easy, and yet Marcus allegedly knows the words?  I really don’t get the patented raised stage in the middle of a concert that the bachelor does.  It is so, so awkward.  Overcome by the sweet dulcet tones of Jon Pardi, Marcus tells Andi that he’s falling in love with her.  Are we not like 8 days in?  Seems a little premature, it’s not even hometowns yet!  Can’t possibly go wrong.

The cocktail party is where things start getting a little nutty, and this season finally gets interesting.  Before we even get to the Eric debacle, I would be remiss to not give credit to Andi for how “urban” she gets around Marquel.  First, she said he has “swag”, then she told him her favorite color is black, now she wanted to come up with a nickname for him and went with Marquel Fresh.  I respect the effort, but for someone from the ATL, this is a pretty weak showing.  You can do better, Andi.  She then proceeds to choke him out.  Really.  I hope they don’t end up taking a trip to Thailand this season because things could get weird.

Then the fireworks started.  Eric pulled our dear Andi aside for a chat where he starts by informing Andi how open he has been with her, but that she hasn’t been open with him.  He also does this charming thing where he tells her that she’s not being herself (because he knows her so well) and that he “came on this to meet a person, not a TV actress”.   I suppose you could say that she didn’t take this well.  In fact, Andi is pissed which leaves Eric smugly satisfied (“This is the real Andi I was talking about”).  Fucking Eric.  At least he recognizes he’s done and gets the hell out of there.  Andi comes back in and has a minor freak-out which sadly did not turn into this.

Instead of a rose ceremony, however, we got a very special Chris Harrison moment for yet another segment on Eric’s terrible horrible no-good very bad paragliding excursion.  According to Chris, it didn’t seem important who did or didn’t get a rose.  Umm, maybe not to you.  The rest of us have a game to win.  The timing is particularly interesting as a tribute to Eric since he was such a dick in his last scene.  We do find out that Tasos was sent home.  We didn’t even get to say goodbye!  We didn’t even get to discuss that he’s a wedding planner!  Life isn’t fair!

No episode next week, so it looks like we’re going to have to wait a pretty long time to find out who Andi’s secret admirer is!

Episode Three - Sunday Night Spectacular

Sunday night’s episode was a real dream for me.  It brought together two of my favorite things in the world:  Santa Barbara and Boyz II Men.  I mean, what a dream for me.  The city where I spent four years in an alcohol-induced haze (go Gauchos!) combined with probably the greatest band ever.  I hope you were as excited about it as I was.

Before we could get to the main event, though, first we had to sit through Andi’s one-on-one date with Nick.  Nick is apparently a skeptic of the Bachelorette process?!  I don’t quite know how you can have any doubt in a process that has spawned four happy couples over 30 seasons, but to each his own, I suppose.  There was a lot of negativity floating around, and I was truly hoping that Nick would become the new Bentley, but apparently the producers are just setting us up for when he becomes a believer.  Boring!  After a hike, Andi and Nick went for dinner at a courthouse and yes, Andi, we do remember that you’re a lawyer.   But it is an awesome courthouse, that’s just how we roll in SB.  Andi is clearly very into Nick, so he gets his rose.

Okay, now that that’s out of the way, it’s time for the main event...Boyz II Men!!!  When the guys find out that the date involves singing, Bradley the opera singer gets realllllll cocky.  An interesting attitude for a guy that apparently only owns pink shirts.  Andi introduces the band as “my friends, Boyz II Men” and I am instantly insanely jealous, even though I know that can’t possibly be true.  Also, where is the fourth Boy II Man?  Who is doing the mid-song talking interludes if the guy with the deep voice isn’t there?  I’m going to have to do some serious research on this.  It turns out that the guys are going to be grouping up to sing the classic song “I’ll Make Love to You” which, incidentally, is the song that has resulted in me being banned from the privilege of requesting songs at friends’ weddings.  Those friends all have terrible taste and I should probably drop them immediately.  Anyways, after some truly painful rehearsal sessions, we’re told that the guys are going to perform at a Boyz II Men show, which was so exciting for Marcus that it got his adrelanin pumping.  This “show”, however, is actually a free concert in the middle of an outdoor mall in downtown Santa Barbara.  Where was this when I was in college??  The coolest thing that happened on that street when I lived there was that my friend saw Andrea Zuckerman from 90210 one time (which, to be fair, is also very cool).  When the guys finally go up to sing, I am supremely disappointed in their performance, particularly Josh and Marcus, who FORGOT THE WORDS TO THE ONE SENTENCE THEY WERE TASKED TO SING.  Singing “I forgot the words” is not a cute way to make up for this.  And Marquel, in spite of your promise to “serenade the shit out of her,” you clearly think you are a gifted singer.  You are not.  Also, at one point there was a shot from behind and I thought to myself “who is that dweeb with that terrible haircut?” and that’s when I realized that Brett the hairstylist was on this date.  I think that was his only appearance.  And then this happened.

During the evening portion of the date, Andi spent most of the time fishing for compliments and she was richly rewarded.  At one point, Marquel asked Andi what her favorite color and her responses was “Is black a color?”  DAMN.  Even Marquel wasn’t sure what to do with that.  At the end of the night, even though Marcus and Bradley both thought they had this in the bag, my boy Josh walked away with the group rose because he really opened up to Andi.  Yeah, opened up his mouth so we got to see his tongue for about 60 full seconds (*high fives all around*).

So yeah, next there was a date with JJ and his stupid looking pants.  For some reason, this date involved them dressing up like old people, complete with age spots and all.  My notes from this date read “WHY?  What’s with the hunch?  Why the voices?” and I couldn’t even focus on anything else because that was way too distracting.  Was this meant to be a remake of Johnny Knoxville’s terrible movie “Bad Grandpa”?  My other question is, why is JJ always so shiny?  Later, JJ explains that he didn’t fit in as a kid and his parents had to put him into private school because he had no friends.  I’m not sure how much I believe his sob story.  I suspect this is just his ploy for sympathy or some kind of hook.  People who have trouble fitting in are not usually 7-foot tall preppies wearing brightly patterned pants.  Andi eats that shit up though, and JJ gets a rose but then brings back that weird old-person voice.  Not okay.

While all of this was going on, there were a couple of interesting developments.  First, Jamie sealed up the “furthest ethnic person” points when Ron had to leave the house after the death of a close friend.  In an odd bit of foreshadowing, Josh said “This could happen to any of us.”  I don’t think they showed Eric at that point, but I wouldn’t put it past the producers to let that happen.  Also, Dylan took a moment away from spitting hot fire and not washing his hair to explain that he NEEDS to tell Andi his story.  His story?  Dead siblings.  Weird that he is desperate to tell her about this, but it is a surefire way to prove that he is opening up.  Be careful, Dylan, we all saw this backfire on Kat and her alcoholic dad.

So the rose ceremony comes around, and the first thing that happens is that Eric gets cockblocked hard by Nick, who somehow managed to send flowers to Andi at the house.  How is this something they can do and how has nobody ever done this before?  Who signed for them?  Who decided to deliver them to her when she was talking to another guy?  How did he even pull this off?  This was a super smooth move.  I don’t like Nick much, but I have to hand it to him, he killed it with his explanation that he was just doing the things he would do if this was real life.  But we all quickly forgot about the flowers when a scandal rocked the house!  Andrew, you see, had gotten a girl’s number at a dinner!  How did we find out?  Well, JJ explained the entire story in detail to Josh in the middle of the cocktail party.  Josh took this very personally.  He pulled Andrew aside and asked him if he was there for the right reasons.  THE RIGHT REASONS!  If only Soulja Boy was around to add a new verse to the greatest rap ever written (sorry Kanye, you’ve been beaten).  Andrew handled the accusations like an adult, in that he immediately ran upstairs and locked himself in a room.  I don’t know you guys, I think he’s innocent?  Despite all the guys who were so angry about Andrew’s game, none of them tell Andi because Bros before hoes.  In a rose ceremony that shocked absolutely nobody, Andi told Bradley the bad opera singer and Brett the ambiguously gay mulleted hairstylist to hit the road.