Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Bachelorette Recap: Exhibit A in Nick's Stalking Trial



Sorry this recap is coming late.  I’ve been very busy basking in the glory of my victory and imagining all of the Bachelor swag I’m going to purchase with my winnings while fending off Jamie’s pathetic attempts to up his score.

It’s been a long road this season, and there have been so many ups and downs.  It was entirely unclear who Andi was going to pick until approximately 30 seconds into the finale episode, when Chris Harrison mentioned that the loser was stalking Andi.  I mean, come on.  Which of these two guys would be creepy enough to follow Andi to Mexico and try to confront her at The Men Tell All?  No question that only Nick would do that.  He’s the worst.

Despite being 99% certain that Josh had this in the bag, we were still forced to sit through two hours of filler and Suave commercials, starting with the ceremonial meeting of the parents.  We of course remember from last season that Hy Dorfman was not so into our pal Juany Pabs and was not quite prepared to “essept” JP into his daughter’s life.  Looks like someone got a little talking-to in the off-season though, because he was way more on board this time around.  Has there even been a dad that hasn’t given his blessing to the final two?  Is that not super weird that he spends like three hours with each guy and then at the end tells both of them that they can propose to his daughter?  Anyways...

Nick had the first meeting with the parents, and he was strangely awkward and nervous pretty much the entire time.  You’d think a guy with at least 10 brothers and sisters knows how to be around a family, but either this guy is completely socially inept, or he’s a sociopath who thinks that’s how you’re supposed to react when meeting your girlfriend’s parents.  From what I could tell, he spent most of the day never referring to Andi by her name, but instead just calling her “your daughter” with an affectation that really annoyed me for some reason.  Still, he clearly studied his game tapes and had a highly rehearsed speech for her dad.  Someone should let Nick know that it comes off as slightly disingenuous when you use the same words verbatim to a number of different people.  We get it, you love her in ways that you didn’t know you could love someone. 

Luckily, Nick’s day with the family was short and we moved right along to Josh.  Do you think Andi told her dad about the Aaron Murray connection?  She must have, right?  That might explain why Hy was much more good natured when Josh came around.  Even though he was also a little nervous and jumpy, he acted much more like a non-robot human being.  Hy was definitely on Team Josh.  Also, let’s go back for a moment to talk about when they mentioned that Josh went back to college.  I think we should be clear that Josh didn’t go back to college because his baseball career was over (you know, because he wanted to find a wife instead) and he wanted to get an education.  He went “back to college” to play football on the same team with his brother WHEN HE WAS 26 YEARS OLD.  Obviously the reason that Josh’s job title on the show is “Former Baseball Player” is because he is currently a Professional Sibling and nothing else.  Hope that Dancing With the Stars invite shows up soon. 

After his day with the parents, Josh also gets a final one-on-one date with Andi, who shows up wearing a caftan that I’m pretty sure used to belong to my grandmother.  They spent the day on a yacht, where Andi basically forced Josh to tell her that he asked for father’s blessing.  Even though he did, Andi was still forced to ask “Is this too good to be true?”  And in case you missed it the first time she said that, she literally said it four more times.  Which part of this, exactly, is too good to be true?  I’m not sure Josh actually has a job, so I don’t know if he’s as great of a catch as Andi seems to think he is.  Later on, Andi comes over to Josh’s hotel room so they can snuggle and make out some more in between the times when Andi wonders whether Josh is too good to be true.  He wrote her a letter to express his feelings, and oddly read it out loud while Andi read along silently.  So that was kind of weird.  He also gave her a personalized baseball card, which was very cute and almost certainly not his idea, though I suppose it is possible that Josh took a picture of Andi and then found a shop in the Dominican Republic that prints up baseball cards and had a litany of endearing personal facts about her on the back, so maybe I’m just being cynical.

The next day, then, was the final date with Nick the Creep.  The date involved off-roading, which is an interesting choice for a last date where you’re trying to learn as much about the other person as possible before deciding whether to marry them.  I’d think you’d want to do something a little more conducive to, I don’t know, talking?  It was for the best though, because Nick mumbled incoherently for most of the day and gave a rambling nonsensical toast in the evening.  You can really tell that Andi is loving this position of power.  When Nick gets tongue-tied around her, she is so into it.  Throughout the course of this episode, Nick went from annoyingly cocky about his position to being annoyingly insecure.  Of course, then Andi kept telling him “It’s gonna be all right” (which, spoiler alert, it was not).  Since the guys apparently had to give Andi a gift on this date, Nick gave her a necklace he made in first grade carrying sand from the beach where he first told her he loved her.  Pretty lame gift, Nick.  I’d dump you for that too.

The next morning, it was finally the last day.  Andi welcomed the day by walking outside in a skimpy nightgown that I am sure she wore to go to sleep along the night before.  Nick and Josh both opened their curtains to expose their bare torsos to the sound of live audience members cheering, which is a cool reaction for adult women to have.  After about 30 minutes of various shots of pensive moments, it was time for the moment we’ve all been waiting for.  NEIL F*CKING LANE, PEOPLE.  That’s right, Hollywood’s Premier Jewelry Designer, Neil Lane, whose exclusive collection of wedding rings can be purchased at such upscale boutiques as the Kay Jewelers in your local shopping mall, is there to help the men pick out a ring for Andi.

After Josh picked out the free ring to give to his future wife, we returned to Nick, who was ready for his own visit with Neil Lane, but he opened the door to Andi instead.  She told him she just wanted to chat, but you could tell by Nick’s labored breathing and oncoming panic attack that he knew this visit was bad news.  And it was.  You all know what happened by now.  Andi dumped Nick, citing the fact that he overanalyzed the relationship too much.  Surely, that’s not a problem for Josh, who probably can’t even spell the word “overanalyze.”  The next few minutes involved some awkward defensive backlash from Nick, who accused Andi of leading him on and taking it too far and maybe she did, but at least she didn’t let him propose before telling him to hit the road.  Although Nick’s a douche, so I wouldn’t have minded that.  He did make a big show of throwing out all of his roses before packing his suitcase (he only brought a carry-on for the three weeks or whatever they’ve been in the Dominican Republic?) and entering the limo of shame.  In case you’re wondering how his plane ride home was, here is video of him whining and simultaneously providing spoilers for Reality Steve.

With Nick out of the way and this season’s money already firmly in my pocket, there was only one thing left to happen.  Josh started off his final speech / proposal by talking about his “first love, baseball.”  Oh my god, Josh, you have to stop this.  Your baseball career was over before it ever began.  MOVE ON.  The speech was pretty good otherwise, though Andi received it with a stone face and responded with the typical Bachelor fake-out move, making it seem like she was about to dump him before being all “j/k I love you too!”  She actually said that she loved him since the moment she saw him, which is probably not something you want to say to something that you just strung along for 9 weeks while hooking up with other guys.  Josh proposes, she says yes, they make out.  Did anyone else notice how disgustingly sweaty Josh was that whole time?  Like dripping buckets of sweat.  It was gross.  Also gross?  The number of times they said “I love you” and kissed for the next five minutes.  Get a room, you guys. 

After the Final Rose, went pretty much as expected.  Nick couldn’t let it go and acted like a psychotic creep after the show.  The most interesting part of the evening was when Nick, in front of a live studio audience on live television, asked Andi, “If you didn’t love me, why would you make love with me?”  I have a problem with this for two reasons:  Number 1, he almost definitely only said that to make her look bad and Number 2, who says “make love with me?”  So yeah, Nick came off as a bigger asshole that he already had.  Continuing on the “I’m banging Andi” tour, Josh made sure to mention that he’s trying to get her pregnant.  Her parents must be so proud.  No next Bachelor announcement, but my sources (the internet, generally) tell me that it’s between Farmer Chris and Arie from Emily’s season who gave Courtney Robertson the best sex of her life.

And much like Andi’s frown session with Grumpy Cat, we’ve come to an end.  This has been a terrible, boring season and has only made me even more excited for Bachelor in Paradise, starting next Monday, only on ABC.  I look forward to discussing with you all (no recaps!).


No comments:

Post a Comment