Reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated. Last week was a family vacation with an overlapping itinerary and spotty internet access. BUT FEAR NOT. I have not been dissuaded by internet people calling me bad words, names and intimating that I’m the worst.

Have I had people use bible verses to tell me how  truly awful I am? Yes. Do I think criticizing a person writing a snarky recap of an awful reality show using God’s holy word was what Jesus hoped for when he was crucified? No, I don’t. I could be wrong, but I believe that there was a higher premise to that act.

Coming up on The Bachelorette

Dolphins! Love proclamations! Lots of white (which is surely done to contrast the sexy sexiness of this episode which is about sex auditions)! Arie and a SUPER greasy face! Maynard is confused! And crying! And sniffing like a lot! And it’s totally like that Coldplay song, you guys!: Tears stream / down Maynard’s face / I promise I will wish I was rewatching last season of Breaking Bad instead of this.

SUPER triumphant non-geographical music tells us nothing about location but it does tell us that happy, hopeful times are afoot. Zoom tight on a boat in the middle of some blue, BLUE blue water and it’s Maynard looking like Rose from Titanic except on a motorboat or the ancient Starbucks on the bow of a ship likes she’s some kind of siren and her song is her good looks and her evil hooks are her awful personality and I super just mixed in a ton of allusions but you get the point, yes?

Emily talks about how everything is so beautifully perfect and perfectly beautiful and everything is a whirlwind of wonderment and similarly broad emotions.

We get a montage of each guy like it’s a best of compilation like WOW: The Best of Sean Volume 1. That’s probably an inside reference that only Christian kids will get, but I can’t think of the secular Best of CDs that were on infomercials every few months. Can anyone help me out on that?

Sean only wants to get married once, Emily tells us.

Hahahahahaha. Isn’t that great? She says it like someone talks about having a friend with a cotton candy machine in their garage. She’s like isn’t that crazy? Sean doesn’t want to get married 3 or 4 times. Only once!

Also, have we touched on Sean’s serial killer stare? He blinks once every 13 minutes and his gaze looks very Dexterish, like he’s very mindful to seem normal but there’s always a crack in the foundation when you are are portraying normal because at the end of the day, normal can only be normal when someone normal is doing it and crazy people can’t be normal otherwise they wouldn’t be crazy.

Best of One F Jef now. Looking back, he started off looking like a cooler Napoleon Dynamite and now he’s actually in the mix. Like he could legitimately be flying in by helicopter to propose to Emily.

GUYS. How awesome would it be if he flew in by helicopter to propose to her, but he was hanging off of the helicopter while standing on a skateboard in mid flight? I guess the physics wouldn’t work but he could glue the skateboard onto his shoes or something. But then he would kind of look like he was hoverboarding. I don’t know. I did 98% of the work, someone do the other 2%.

Best of Arie now and who cares because  I mean it’s Arie, right? We do get a shot of Arie in tights and I hope Tyler Stanton was lying down because he probably blacked out from bliss after seeing that. Sub montage is Arie and his creeper hands. What if Arie’s hands were the next Bachelor? HASHTAG AWESOME IDEA, YOU GUYS.

Emily talks about all the implications of everything ever like she needs to extrapolate it out over 16 generations and how choosing the wrong person for a few months would bring on World War 3 and a sequel to Magic Mike in 4D or something similarly terrible and apocalyptic.

Also, in a very light touch, she draws her name with a stick and adds a question mark. ART IMITATES LIFE IMITATES THE BEACH, GUYS!

During commercial, they MUST be dragging this episode out because they show a 30 minute trailer of that movie where Tommy Lee Jones doesn’t want to have sex with Julia Child and Michael Scott tries to help them or something. I don’t know the finer details, I’m just a little confused about a movie that seems to want us to root for old people to have sex. HASHTAG TERRIBLE IDEA HOLLYWOOD.

Back from commercial and the music is still jubilant and Sean is wearing like an uber-deep V that shows off his dude cleavage with salmon (LOL pink) shorts and Emily says how purrfact he is.

OH MAN HELICHOPTER TIME! There’s been SUCH a dearth of helicopters this season. Kalon started us off with a bang and spoiled us and ever since then, there’s been NOTHING to quench America’s thirst for alternative aerial travel. This will be the summer of the helicopter famine that history classes will talk about for years and years after this I am so sure.

Sean talks about the geographical aspects of Curacao and who cares because have you ever noticed how much bigger he is than her? His head is like the head of a great dane and hers is like the head of one of those small monkeys that aren’t cute but have TONS of personality.

Turns out Maynard has lined up a private island  for Sean, which isn’t this a component of every season? And if memory serves, didn’t Brad take her to the private island during his season? That has some serious implications because it either means she’s into Sean like Brad was into her, or she hates Sean because she also hates Brad and so subconsciously she’s classifying Sean as Brad OR none of the above and I’ve totally over thought this.

Sean talks about a girl he loved but he wasn’t IN love with or something and he smolders with despair for not being able to express himself. Also, let me save you like 15 minutes of your life: Sean doesn’t talk much and Emily can’t read him well.

Back from commercial and it’s time for the night date. Maynard planned a date on the beach with pillows, food and candles. Emily calls Sean purfact and he’s like no and she’s like, No I’m serious, what isn’t perfect about you and Sean doesn’t really answer.

Sean has written Ricki Bobita a letter and WHOA YOU GUYS Sean has like the best most girliest penmanship of ever time. Maybe Sean IS perfect.

Maynard is like this is so great and it may be perfect if you actually win this thing and if not it will be empty and pointless. The rest of the date is sponsored by the Mutual Admiration Society. Each is the perfect most awesome representation of the pinnacle of purfaction and it’s all the greatest great thing of ever and always and again.

Sean talks about how in a million years, he never thought he would fall in love with a woman after going on a show with the express premise of falling in love. Also? How awful is it for the subplot of a date sequence to be the guy sacking up to say he loves the girl? It’s like the equivalent of waiting for your wife’s water to break. There’s all this anticipating that when it does happen you’re like that’s totally not how it is in the movies.

Having gotten her words of affirmation, Emily whips out Chris Harrison’s letter about the fantasy suite and I’m taken with how infinitely more girly Harrison’s handwriting is than Sean’s. Is this how guys write now? Is my handwriting just that poor? Do people actually write words with their hands anymore or is it all just typing?

Sean is like yes, let’s do the sex audition fantasy suite stuff and emily is like, I don’t know because I have an image to uphold and I need to pander to the wholesome women who like me for my drawl and simple authenticity and so they don’t because Emily doesn’t want to be overly sexualized.

That bikini she wore in the hot tub that revealed all but 1/82 of her breasts not withstanding. So to recap, Emily invites him to spend the night with her and then retracts it on the grounds that she doesn’t agree with what she’s offering. Do you see how great that is?

Sean is sad that he didn’t get time with Emily because he was looking forward to time with her with no distractions because that’s how it’s going to be if she picks me he says and HAHAHHAHAH Sean you obviously don’t have kids do you?

My wife and I got a babysitter the other night to see the new Spiderman movie and our son couldn’t sleep with a bad cough, our daughter didn’t want to sleep, we looked at the wrong movie time and we ended up sitting at a Sonic and eating Slushies in the dark and quiet night. MARRIAGE WITH KIDS IS ONE GIGANTIC DISTRACTION.

It is the Attila the Hun of distractions. Your time alone or together with your spouse is one of those super rural, medieval villages with like 11 or so men who can fight with harvesting tools and kids are like Attila and the swarm of Huns who just lay waste to every man, woman, child and aspiration of non-distraction in your life so I’m pretty much hoping Sean wins so I can watch a 3 episode miniseries about how mentally destroyed Sean is after having a kid.

Back from commercial and we see Gila monsters so I guess that means it’s time for One F? His voice overing is already hedging a bit like something may go down.

Maynard asks if One F is nervous like that’s a normal first question and he’s like yes? and Emily is like, What? Why are you nervous you (INSERT TERM OF EMASCULATION)? It’s all real confusing.

The date revolves around a boat and they talk a lot about parents and stuff. One F tells us that his parents were SUPER skeptical about him going on the show which means they are smart and discerning.

I feel like you really get me (Emily to One F)

It’s not like you’re a Dali painting, Maynard: Social climber, plastic surgery, opportunist? Does that pretty much get it?

The date continues and there’s lots of jumping and rowing and tongue touching.

During  commercial, HEY ABC. I WILL NEVER WATCH GLASS HOUSE. IT’S NOT A THING I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU SAY OR HOW MANY PROMOS YOU SHOW OR EVEN IF YOU USE PUPPIES OK? OK.

Back from commercial and One F looks dressed for a sock hop and Emily’s dress looks like a robot had sex with one of Montezuma’s daughters and the resulting progeny was Emily’s dress.

One F comes out firing with the logistical questions. He asks her why it hasn’t worked out with some of the other guys in her life and she literally answers, ” I’ve been out with other guys who were great on paper but it just…something hasn’t…things were never…does that make sense?”

Hahahaha yes, Maynard. It does make sense. Strangely, it does.

I love how One F and Sean are SUCH polar opposites. Sean is like BIG TREE FALL HARD and One F is SUPER emotive. It’s a huge contrast between physical stature vs. emotional stature.

I don’t know if other guys are similarly emotive or if they’ve just edited One F to seem more like it, but his questions certainly suggest that he’s a much more thoughtful candidate than the others.

Upon receiving the fantasy suite card, One F plays the role of demure gentlemen (which I believe is authentic) and declines the invite on the grounds of decency and respect. If you don’t like One F you are officially a terrorist. Also, this is the kind of gesture that may put him ahead of the other guys. I don’t know.

Right now is a time for us to bridle these passions.

Hahahahaha I just love this sentence and that One F said it with a straight face.

Back from commercial and it’s time for a 2 on 1 with Emily, Arie and his Creeper McSkeeverson hands.

They get on a sailboat and Arie and his hands begin doing that thing where they get creepy basically all the time.

Evidently, Curacao has cornered the market on swimming with dolphins in the middle of the ocean. Like we’re led to believe that the dolphins won’t go in the middle of the ocean anywhere else BUT Curacao.

Arie isn’t scared of dolphins so evidently this means he’s fearless ergo he would be a good dad? It’s just an avalanche of flawed logical conclusions.

Emily talks about how much she and Arie kiss and isn’t watching Arie kiss like watching a dog trying to hump a leg? Like how they won’t be dissuaded even when you have to push them off and they contort their bodies to keep humping even when space and time don’t cooperate and their faces look all super intense? That’s Arie.

There’s a huge element of dog humpishness to him, right? Surely I’m not the only one getting that Hump a Leg Vibe, right? UGH, I wish I had spotted this earlier because I could have been calling Arie, Arie Hump-A-Leg all this time. HASHTAG REGRET.

Back from commercial and it’s night date time and we have to hear more about how physical their chemistry is and if they continue this or if Arie and his hands try to have another tonsil threesome with Emily I’m going to vomit myself into unconsciousness.

Also, not related to anything, Arie is wearing a watch with a face as big as Adele. DOUBLE also, Arie’s face is shinier than Edward Cullen’s body that time when he took his shirt off and tried to kill himself or something. HASHTAG EMBARRASSING TWILIGHT REFERENCE.

Arie intimates that he’s still a racer which published reports have rebutted and he refers to “the shop” which some magazines have established as an insolvent race car track. TRIPLE ALSO, he wakes up at 9am. GUH, right? I couldn’t sleep until 9am if I was hit with an elephant tranquilizer.

Arie goes into complex parenting theory of which his thesis is that you have to be cool and best friends with the kid and Emily is like Arie gets it more than I gave him credit for which is to say that she must have assumed Arie knew NOTHING about raising kids because his argument about kids represents 0.08 intelligence.

Again, Emily asserts her chaste purity by offering a fantasy suite but then revoking it. I thought there were no rules but evidently the one hard and fast rule us that you HAVE to offer the sex audition. You don’t have to honor it in practice, but you at least have to offer it? So confusing. In this sense, Emily is like Comcast HASHTAG AWFUL CABLE COMPANIES.

Back from commercial and I hope we don’t have 30+ minutes of Emily anguishing and crying about sending someone home. I’d rather eat a jolly rancher made of the Ebola virus than sit through that.

Emily walks to meet Harrison and Harrison is standing there ready to meet her but he’s still like, (SCOOBY DOO NOISE OF SHOCK) Emily??? Wow. What are the odds? Let’s go talk for the segment we scheduled.”

Also, I’m not ready to talk about the watch Harrison is wearing yet. I may not be for a while.

They do an interview that accomplishes nothing and then Harrison says 658 times how “This is it. THIS is it. THIS. IS. IT.” so he can drive home the point that this is it.

Harrison talks about how each guy has a video message for Emily and then he leaves her to cry and contemplate the vast abyss that is her reality and consequently her soul.

Emily watches Sean’s clip and registers ZERO emotion.

She watches One F’s tape and reacts like she’s watching a documentary on cauliflower but she does shed one tear or it could have been the roof leaking.

She watches Arie’s tape and looks like she may die from boredom.

Also, for someone from Tennessee, it’s tremendously fantastic that Arie references Dollywood. It would be like God referencing Kid Rock when he talks about all of the great music made on earth.

Almost time for the rose ceremony and doesn’t Sean look dressed like a Sous Chef? The next 10 minutes are spent listening to Emily sniff and sob as a way to contextualize and convey all the super emotional and important stakes.

Harrison talks and it looks like his hair plugs have a toupee on top of them.

Prediction: I think Sean or One F goes. I was surprised with how gushy she was about One F this episode, otherwise I would say One F is gone. Either way, I think Arie is in.

First rose, One F. WHOA-OWZERS. I’m kind of stunned. I never saw him getting this far even though I literally just typed that I thought he might make it.

Second rose, Arie Hump-A-Leg

Sean is a little thunderstruck I think. He’s so flummoxed that he blinks twice in a span of 8 minutes. He looks like he neesd to find a panic room or somethinig.

Is there any chance he cries? There’s no way, right?  He NEVER shows emotion so if he did now, it would be like seeing a Snowman talk.

Emily cries a little harder and Sean looks at her like Hey, you dumped me. You know that right?

Sean’s despair is drug out a little too long as Emily sits on a bench and regrets or reconsiders her decision? I don’t know it’s all a little painful to watch, but some bird will NOT stop chirping for all the outdoor shots. Aren’t birds  the worst? They never know when to shut up for a truly deep and resonant moment.