Coming up on The Bachelorette

Croatia! Everyone making declarations of love! The guys acting like Real Housewives! Ryan won’t stop talking about trophies! No final rose! HASHTAG DRAMA!

Real folksy music tells us that we’re totally in Croatia. Emily misses her kid that she shipped back to Charlotte because Europe is evidently no country for young kids. Maybe she watched Hostel or something recently. OR maybe she’s tired of actually being a Mom. To be fair, Hostel is terrifying.

Croatia is the perfect place to fall in love.

I love how every place the perfect place to fall in love. If I had to create a list of best places to fall in love though, I think Croatia is situated somewhere between Macon, GA and Saginaw, MI.

Emily visits the guys for some reason. Normally this is Harrison’s job but he probably got caught up watching The Time Traveler’s Wife on HBO and couldn’t be bothered.  In terms of the guys, Ryan is just on another level in regards to facial hair and skin pigment. I think he’s one episode away from eyeliner and wearing clothes with a distinct Byzantine influence. He kind of reminds me of Xerxes from 300.

 

Emily gives Travis the date card and it’s super anticlimactic.

Travis prepares for his date and there’s a lot of close-ins on his luggage. That isn’t a great sign, right? Showing a guy’s luggage on this show is the equivalent of a heist movie where the guy talks about needing “one more big score and then I’m out.”

I thought Travis was perfect for this date because it’s not Mississippi or West Virginia.

That 24 carat, pure and uncut genius logic is tremendous. Thanks, Maynard.

UGH THIS DATE IS THE WORST. It’s the Godfather 3 of stupid dates.  They look at stupid stuff and get stupid ice cream. And it’s just a clinic in taking advantage of being in Croatia except that it’s not at all.

I was really bummed out that Travis didn’t take his shirt off.

MAYNARD. Your face just tested positive for making me hate it. When you say things like that it makes me hate you more than I already do. My hatred for this show is a gigantic nesting doll of contempt and at the center of this nesting doll is you, Maynard, and your big fake teeth.

Back at the house and Ryan’s wifebeater is a situation. Like a stage five situation where they throw the President in a box and fly him under the Rocky Mountains. It’s clearly a really expensive wifebeater, which is interesting because: it’s a wifebeater. Do you really want to sink a lot of money into an item that the margin of error is so slim that there’s a 1% chance you’re an Abercrombie model and a 99% chance that you look like you’ve had a cameo appearance on COPS? Again, Ryan is built like a marble slab, but still. The risk reward ratio is too much.

Travis and Emily eat dinner and Travis says amazing and wonderful and extraordinary a lot and he recaps the day they just spent together like it was the fondest memory from his childhood.

Emily rips on Travis for not dating in the 2 years since having his engagement broken off. SORRY EMILY, not all of us are adept at monetizing the death of a failed relationship / loved one like you are. I’m getting the feeling that Travis is not long for this world.

Back at the house, One F reads the date card and it’s something stupid about the movie Brave and Ryan gets the next one-on-one.

Sidenote: doesn’t Arie have a poor man’s Paul Rudd look to him? Like Paul’s younger brother, Saul Rudd maybe? Pete Rudd?

Emily tells Travis that he’s brought light to everything from day 1 and that’s just aggressively stupid. It’s even worse because she grabs the rose like she’s going to give it to him, but she’s an awful person so she doesn’t and Travis looks like he is going to super ugly cry in like 5 minutes while listening to Michael Bolton’s How Am I Supposed to Live Without You.

In so many ways, it was so perfect but in the biggest ways it was not.

Is she describing Travis or the last season of The Office? YOU be the judge.

It sucks with a capital S-U-C-K.

Travis is sad/pissed (pissad? sadissed?) because evidently getting rejected by a social climbing redneck is tantamount to being rejected by all of womanhood. My favorite part was that he said he had a heart this big and made a motion as wide as a car. He’s so upset he’s forgotten how wide his actual torso is.

NEW FAVORITE PART: Travis tosses his umbrella to the side (somewhat like a boss) because he’s so forlorn. That is just great. It started with an egg and it ended with Travis spiking an umbrella. KEEP ON KEEPING ON, TRAV.

Group date time and Emily is taking the guys to see Brave and Emily is wearing that black leather jacket like the ship is going down.  I think Emily and the guys think that Pixar did this movie specifically for them as they make a stupid amount of parallels to themselves because they are all fundamentally self-obsessed. And you are not going to believe this but everything is a metaphor for love and Emily’s epic journey.

After the movie, Emily tells the guys that they are going to complete in a version of the Scottish Highland Games (in Croatia mind you. Croatia. One more time, Croatia. A set of events Scottish in origin. In Croatia.) One F Jef looks terrified and Ugly Gerard Butler GUARANTEES that he will be the bravest guy there which essentially tells us that he’s going to be unrivaled in his athletic failures.

Back from commercial and to completely muddle the Scotland Highland games with their location (Croatia) Emily has the guys ride donkeys because it’s a Croatian custom? Just in general or only when you are holding an event that honors a different country while in Croatia? I don’t know. I think they should do a seventh inning stretch just to make it supremely confusing and terrible.

UGH let’s get on with it. Stop taking pictures on the stairs and let’s go to this prom of masculinity already.

Speaking of which, doesn’t Sean HAVE to have the edge in this? Odds of us getting a reference from him of his football playing days; 100% times infinity to the power of infinity.

We see a montage of the guys shooting arrows and it HAS to be fake because everyone is hitting the center. Arie even shoots one and is like Crap but they show it as him hitting 2 inches left of center. If we get a slow motion look at someone splitting another person’s bullseyed arrow with their own arrow, I’ll light my face on fire.

I’ve only shot one arrow in my life and I lost it. I still can’t find it.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA Ugly Gerard Butler! Why are you still looking for it? How long has this been going on? Is this like a Saturday morning thing for you? Do you wander your archery grounds with a metal detector? You’re like Gosling from The Notebook except your McAdams is your lost arrow.

Ugly Gerard Butler shoots and if there was a sound effect to be made, it would be between a balloon being deflated of air. He misses BADLY and the guy’s reaction is TREMENDOUS. Wolf John reacts like a Pentecostal which is my favorite part of the episode thus far.

Ugly Gerard Butler wants to redeem himself so he volunteers to go first in the log throw, but he tempers it by saying “We don’t do much of that in Chicago.”

Hahahahahahahah. UGB, you are on fire tonight. I hope he lives in a world where he thinks all of America is log-throwing but somehow Chicago is the last bastion of non-logthrowers.

UGB throws it like a Streisand and gets disqualified as does One F Jef for being too dainty.

Sean breaks the stick or something and it is a HUGE turn on for Emily or something.

I’m not going to lie; it was impressive.

Why would you preface it with not lying? Are we to now assume that 50% of what you tell us in these confession cutaways is true?

UGB selects Just Doug to square off against in their stick fight and Just Doug dominates him all the while making a weird, bowel movement-y Doug-face. It was a definitive domination but UGB is like GUYS HE GOT ME as though America wasn’t acutely aware of just how much Just Doug emasculated UGB.

It works though because Maynard picks UGB as the bravest even though she gushed about everyone else’s masculinity and hotness and UGB performed like a predominately indoor kid trying to navigate a ropes course.

Sean kind of has a Will Ferrell impersonating George W. Bush sound to him, right? Like I bet he calls America ‘Merica.’ And I had more chemistry with my pork chops tonight than UGB and Emily have during their alone time. To be fair, the pork chops were really good.

Back from commercial and UGB is still talking about how brave he is despite being just the worst. Sammi Sweetheart and Ronnie are to harmonious love what UGB is to being athletic.

The group date is boring. Dinner, blah blah, wine, blah blah.

Maynard takes some time with Arie and goes for a walk.

Emily: Those dolls are kind of creepy.

Arie: Speaking of creepy, let me push you up against the aforementioned creepy doll window and molest you with my creepy Arie hands while trying to get your mouth pregnant with my tongue.

Ryan talks about how awesome he is and we see a sneak peek into the making of that majestic NwO beard of his. It was two seconds in the “Making of Ryan’s Beard” but it was a majestic two seconds.

You give me the type of feelings that people write novels about.

ONE F JEF PLEASE UNTETHER MY BRAIN FROM THIS EXTREME FEELING OF DISAPPOINTMENT IN YOU.

UGB tries to make a move by telling her he might maybe possibly love her in theory but it comes across like he’s trying to sell her some steaks out of his van.

Maynard PLEASE tell me you aren’t going to give UGB the rose. How do you structure a competition behind physical skill and then reward the person who is the WORST at those things? It would be like having a creepy hands competition and not giving first prize to Arie. UGB gets it though and

Back from commercial and everyone is wearing their hoodies on their heads and UGB is talking about finger hair or something.

Y’all hoping that today is pretty good for me?

I love Ryan. He’s like a more likable version of a person personified with the spirit of Cobra Kai.

He gabs with Emily in front of all the guys and everyone hates him.

Everyone is pissed and it looks like Arie either called him a duck or something else.  I can’t be sure because they blurred his mouth, but I’m pretty sure it was duck. OR maybe a duckhead.

I enjoy Ryan and Maynard together because there are lots of Mmhmmms and twangy colloquialisms. Also, evidently Ryan is a terrible Croatian driver. Emily complains about the date SHE planned and Ryan yells at her to SWALLOW IT, “it” being the metaphor for true love and happiness, but in a literal sense “it” is the nasty looking oyster.

Some old man yells at them about a picture and Ryan loves it or something. Literally 20 seconds later Ryan is talking about what a great date it was. To recap, it was Emily dry-heaving about oysters and an old man screaming at Ryan in Croatian.

Ryan drops the trophy wife thing again and I wonder if Ryan is just heat checking to see how much he can get away with.

Emily acts REALLY pissed about the trophy wife thing which is fantastic because within this show, she’s literally presented herself as the trophy to be won. Like there couldn’t be a more perfect or complete parallel to her actually being a trophy than this show.

Back from commercial and Emily wears a dress made of wrapping paper and Ryan is wearing turquoise crocs.

UH OH GUYS, RYAN IS WRITING AGAIN.

Ryan’s 12 Things About Everything He Wants In a Woman Ever

I get Ryan’s list but it wasn’t overly Emily-centric which history has shown is a huge error because everything and everyone everywhere needs to be about Emily.

Emily again picks up the rose which is clearly her tell. Like if we were playing poker against each other, I would totally put a plate of roses by her spot and I bet that every time she was going to bluff, she would pick up a rose and I would know and I would take all her money.

Emily gives Ryan the boot because his list of things he is looking for in a wife didn’t include “a loving family”? A loving family? Wait. So his list of characteristics should have included a detail that would have been fundamentally non-sensical to include?  That’s like asking a person to talk about three ways their spouse makes them happy and saying that one of the answers should have been, “big red train.”

Emily gives him the official news and Ryan gives a sad sniff, long pause and says That is very shocking as though he was a field anthropologist and his hypothesis was proven wrong. Ryan tries to tell Emily that she’s wrong and it doesn’t look great because groveling doesn’t look great on anyone. HASHTAG AWKWARD.

Ryan rallies though and makes a push to hang around as Maynard starts to second guess herself.

Back from commercial, and UGB talks about a bag of bad goods and Arie looks like he’s going to cry.

Back at the dinner Ryan continues trying to sell himself and Emily rejects him in finality by hiding the rose behind her fajitas. Ryan gracefully exits , but dramatically enough so that he can possibly be the next Bachelor.

Back at the house, the guys pop champagne and celebrate and love each other because down goes Ryan.

Ryan is still talking and I don’t know a ton of what he’s saying. He’s a little rambly at this point because he’s articulating how he wants to be portrayed on the show or in life or something?

Back from commercial and the guys are celebrating Ryan’s vanquishing and Arie is making not-awesome jokes but totally cracking up at himself because that’s the kind of guy he is. The kind that makes terrible jokes and then overly laughs at his own mediocre humor.

Speaking of which, Arie thinks it would be a great idea to go see Emily and check on her? C’MON ARIE. This is kind of a standard Bachelor/ette move, but you need a big sexy hook with it. Last season, Courtney pulled this on Ben F. with the intent of doing sex to him, but Arie just wants to talk feelings and play Trivial Pursuit or something.

Arie gets a rose or maybe he doesn’t? I’m not sure because Chris Harrison isn’t here to explain the rules governing this situation. THE ONE TIME WE NEED HIM TO EXPLAIN A NUANCE and he’s not around. But you know who IS here? Arie’s creepy hands all over Emily’s stupid face. Question is Emily’s face stupider than Arie’s hands are creepy? Also, I don’t know how I feel about how every kiss Arie has is like a slow motion, pornographic tongue kiss. Even with the polite Euro kisses, he’s tonguing the outside of her cheek.

The roses at this point are extremely important.

GUYS. THE ROSES ARE ALWAYS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT AS THEY PERTAIN TO YOUR CONTINUED EXISTENCE ON THE SHOW.

What does it say about me that all I can think of when I see Emily’s dress is Oreo Freakout? Probably nothing good.

Maynard literally tells us that she wants to send Wolf John home. This means that something is amiss, but we also know this because they basically teased the entire episode for us in each of the commercial breaks so it’s completely robbed of its impact.

We find out that 9 years ago TO THE DAY, Wolf John’s grandfather died from a heart attack, meaning that even Emily, as arbitrarily idiotic as she is, can’t possibly reject him on the anniversary of his Grandfather’s death.

Emily spends time with Just Doug and it’s SUPER awkward because I mean it’s Just Doug. Dougs are just more awkward than the rest of us. I don’t think that’s being mean natured. It’s just a fact.

Emily tells us that JustDoug, beyond being Just Doug from two episodes ago, is also Humble Doug. But she wants Confident Doug? So we have Just Humble Doug who Emily wants to transform into Confident Doug?

Harrison shows up finally and Just Humble Doug is now Emotionally Unstable Doug and talks exclusively in a sort of sobby falsetto that exiles my dog from the couch next to me to the corner where he goes when he’s scared because of lightning or yelling. It’s his panic room I guess. My dog. Not Just Humble / Emotionally Unstable Doug.

Time for the rose ceremony. I always love this part because Emily makes an impromptu speech that starts out strong because she’s somewhat scripted it out and then devolves into wordy madness because she’s just not that great at talking.

First rose, Sean.

Second rose, One F.

Third rose, Arie.

Fourth rose, and Emily just walks out because the drama is too much or something.

She walks outside to find Harrison who is chain-smoking with a producer and talking about that time he and Carson Daly started a Fight Club for effeminate men just outside Pasadena.

Emily wants to know if she can change the rules and Harrison is like FIRST RULE OF LOVE IS THAT THERE ARE NO RULES OF LOVE.

Emily returns and tells John and Doug that she can’t hand out the final rose and she says it like they need to be killed now or something. But LOL she was totally kidding because Harrison brings her an extra rose and alls well that ends well.