COMING UP ON THE MOST DRAMATIC HUMAN EVENT IN THE HISTORY OF SUMMER HUMAN TV HISTORY EVENTS…

Basically? People give Emily advice, she stares at them SUPER blankly and then she cries. Like I mean that’s pretty much the recap.

Harrison greets us live via what looks like the old set for  the special episodes of America’s Funniest Home Videos. How great would it be to be watching AFHV right now? Pretty great is the answer, you guys.Wow, did you realize this was a 3 hour thing? Seeing as how Breaking Bad is on tonight, my current status would be properly identified as “not thrilled.” Also, Harrison is saying finale like he had a stroke or something. What’s a fuh-gnaw-lee?

Somehow, this has been dubbed the most dramatic event in summer TV. I mention that because they keep pounding this home. The Olympics means nothing evidently. Which I mean the Olympics can be kind of boring sometimes but STILL it’s better than this. Right? Anyways, onwards lets get on with it and see who wins the gold medal of love….FOR LOVE!

Emily teases her confusion and goes for a long walk in denim because I mean basically everyone knows that you do your best thinking in denim, right?

Ricki Bobita shows up because Emily is a wonderful mother. /snort of laughter.

One F Jef shows up in a very minimalist outfit like’s he’s channel Danny Zuko and I expect to see him with cigarettes rolled up in the sleeve and Emily is wearing a violet dress that looks like a gradient setting from Photoshop.

You look nice.

Haha. Theeeee best. One F is LITERALLY in jeans and a white T-shirt. It’s the baseline of clothing. Essentially, wearing that silently mocks people for dressing up and the fact that she commented on the niceness of it is just so tremendous that the world is not enough anymore.

One F sits down and meets the fam and I understand where Maynard gets her personality from. Emily’s mother leads off with the tough questions.

Are you really serious about her?

Are you sure about Little Ricki Bobita?

Guys. These are all SUCH great questions. This may be the moment where One F unravels because…wait…hold on…nevermind he blew through those questions because they were about as well-thought out as indulging in fourth meal.

One F answers every questions basically perfectly and my thought is this: One F Jef is the US hockey team from the 1980 Winter Olympics and Arie is like the USSR.

ERNIE TIME!

Ernie is Maynard’s brother which just to clarify, makes his name Ernie Maynard. I’m not trying to put neon lights on that fact BUT I MEAN ERNIE MAYNARD, guys. That’s just such a throwback name. I feel like he should own a full service rural gas station and be something of an upstart pro fisherman. Just so you know, Ernie comes from the school of enunciation where George W. Bush also came from.

Last thing: Ernie has this sense about him that makes me think that if the apocalypse descends on humanity and Ernie happened to accrue some power, influence and resources, he’d totally be some hard-edged tyrant who was feared for his maniacal tactics. I might be projecting but that’s what I get from him.

Ernie plays up the big brother role like huge style and I’m surprised he didn’t bring a shotgun and cock it or show One F a picture of a deer he killed to death with my bare hands before asking One F for some alone time.

One F asks Ernie if he thinks Emily is ready to settle down and Ernie was like EMILY AIN’T SETTLIN, SON. NO FEAR. And One F tries to explain that he mean settling in a sense of going from single to married and not like just saying yes to whatever guy asked her to marry him.

Ernie looks skeptical but after like two questions, One F has won him over.

One F pours his heart out to Emily’s dad and Emily’s dad looks at him like he should look at a guy who is about to propose to his daughter after meeting her on a game show. But he comes around because he’s ultimately a big softie.

Everything goes really well and Emily tells One F that her family loved him. But Arie’s up next and Emily hopes that her family gives him a fair shake because No one deserves fairness more than Arie.

Hahahaha. That’s so true, Maynard. No one in the entire world deserves fairness more than how Arie deserves fairness from Maynard’s family. That’s such a great statement. It should be engraved inside courtrooms across the world.

“We guarantee everyone a fair trial but just know that Arie on The Bachelorette deserves fairness more than you. ORDER IN THE COURT.” /banging sound of a gavel thumping against wood.

Back from commercial and Emily meets Arie and she’s wearing a dress that looks like it’s straight from one of those commercials for Fanta that always aired before movies. Don’t you wish you were drinking a Fanta right now and/or at the theater watching a movie instead of watching this. I DO.

Arie, his creepy hands and his super mega greasy face meets the fam and instantly he starts talking too much and about stuff that seems pretty innate to Ernie and Mr. Maynard and it’s great because Arie has no real idea what he is talking about. His hands are probably soft like what I imagine Pete Campbell’s are like and Ernie and Mr. Maynard’s hands are craggy and rough from a life where they didn’t grow up driving race cars and going on vacations across the world. It’s just the best.

Arie is acting right now how I act when I take pain meds. One time, I talked to a counter clerk at the Post Office about dinosaurs for like 25 minutes because I was so medicated and those people would rather paper cut themselves to death than have a cordial conversation with a customer. Suffice it to say that Arie is floundering a bit.

Arie brings all the roses that Emily has given him as  token of appreciation for Emily’s family like they’re going to be like, “Thanks for bringing us these rotting roses. That was…so…thoughtful?” and my favorite part is Ernie’s reaction.

It’s obviously a gesture lost on him but he’s smart enough to realize that Arie was making some kind of gesture and he overreacts with entirely too much sincerity. It’s just the best. This is the closest thing I can find to it:

Arie talks to Mr. Maynard and explains his love for Emily like this:

I’ll try as hard as I can to get through um whatever.

CUE THEMATIC WEDDING MUSIC AM I RIGHT? There is romance. There ROMANCE and then there is Arie talking about getting through whatever stuff or whatever with Emily. The guy is like the personification of Nicholas Sparks’ essence I TELL YOU WHAT.

Ernie TIME!

Ernie sits down with Arie and is like Your words sound pretty and magical and your hair is beautiful like a bass dancing across the surface of a really still pond and all of this makes me feel weird. And Arie is like Bad weird? And Ernie is like, No City Boy. Weird in the sense of them doing something to me like making me tingly in strange places and I don’t like that, City Boy. I don’t like it one bit.

My favorite part about these segments in the finale episode is that the family has to sell indecision. And they are all the greatest actors of ever and  forever and all time.

I’ll try hard to never lose her.

Again, about as tepid and lukewarm as a statement of assurance can be.

Maynard walks Arie out and it wouldn’t be an Arie segment without a porno kiss and hand molestation.

Back from commercial and Emily is confused, you guys. She just doesn’t know and she wants her parents to tell her or Ernie to tell her what to do. Hahahaha not really, Ernie. Just keep acting like a Will Ferrell character and everything will be great.

The next 20 minutes is an intellectual sparring match about the nuances of who and how many people you can love at one time and then Emily gets pissed because her family won’t tell her who to love. Such a Maynard move. They interacted with someone for 45 minutes. How do you expect them to weigh-in more than what you feel?

Emily starts crying because things are hard in Curacao…while on an all-expense paid trip…revolving around men who fawn all over her. Reality TV show problems, right?

Harrison does a pep rally thing and gets the studio audience involved by asking who they prefer. Moderate response for Arie. Raucous response for One F and Harrison is like, “IT’S TOTALLY EQUAL IN EVERY WAY.”

One F time and time for their last date together. One F is wearing a simple gray shirt and Emily tells him that he looks amazing. This makes me wonder what she thought of when she saw Kalon. Did she black out? Did she vomit?

One F and Maynard talk circles around the Ricki Bobita thing and in general, One F just seems more “in” on being a dad conceptually, am I wrong?

One F turns the tables on Emily and inceptions her into admitting that it’s weird that he hasn’t met Ricki Bobita. Emily explains that it’s because she felt guilt about introing her to Brad and it not working out. I could write 100,000,000,000,000 words about this, but I love that THAT is what she feels guilty about in the mother/daughter sense. It’s like Godzilla feeling bad about knocking over a traffic light.

I’ve been saying from night 1 that Ricki and I are a package deal.

Hahahahahahahah I’m glad she’s been upfront about that, you guys. I could have seen a lot of guys being like, I’ll take the mom with the big fake boobs but not the kid. And then Emily is like, Naw yall we’re uh package DEEEYULLL.

I like that Emily has been so delicate about Ricki all season like she’s an atom bomb of emotion and one beach conversation and Maynard’s like, YEAH! Let’s barge in on her pool time and throw this guy in her life without any prep whatsoever.

Everything seemingly goes about as fantastic as it could have. I’m sure Arie is going to meet Ricki Bobita as a tit for tat kinda of thing, but it’s going to hard to match One F.

Back from commercial and it’s evening date time. They rehash the day and reminisce in general and BORING but does anyone seriously know what One F’s arm tattoo says?

They talk more and One F gives her a photo book and Emily seems super faded on champagne or something.

She leaves and there’s this SUPER melodramatic shot of One F looking wistfully at Emily while standing in the rain like it’s Casablanca or something.

Back from commercial and Chris Harrison reveals he is from Texas and the state issues a state of emergency to deal with that revelation.

Emily tells us that she has peace and invites Harrison over because of his track record as host of the show I guess? As though he had some insight to share, which would be fine if there was a track record of success but hahahahahahahah there’s kind of not.

Emily seems super needy in the sense of needing other people’s affirmation in everything she does.

They round into the conclusion that Emily has boarded the SS One F and now she just needs to figure out how to get Arie to walk the plank (End nautical theme.)

Has Emily ever broken up with anyone before? She’s acting like this is the emotional equivalent of stealing the Declaration of Independence. I wish Harrison would be have been like, I don’t know, just act like he’s Brad Womack or something. WAS THIS ALL YOU WANTED?”

I SWEAR if this is all prelude to some switcheroo, I’m going to be PISSED.

I always feel bad for the guy once it’s revealed it’s out because everything is set up to show how brutal the rejection is going to be like a total dead man walking thing. Oh, hahahaha did I mention that we spend 10 minutes with Arie literally making a love potion? This is one of those moments that don’t inherently make me laugh, but there’s such a deep and resonant sense of laughter in my heart about it that I want to just make myself laugh so as to appropriately address the situation.

OK GUYS LET’S TALK: Is Arie going to be stoic or is he going to sob? I’m firmly on TEAM SOB.

Emily gets out of her vehicle super melancholily, like if Melancholistan was a country, she’d be like a 6-term president.

She approaches and she’s like hey and he’s like HEY HAHAHA HEY WHAT’S UP I’M SO HAPPY.

Emily asks for him to sit and talk and she starts crying and I don’t know if Arie knows and Emily is like deep breathing and I think it begins setting into Arie’s mind that he’s literally going to be dumped after making a love potion with some witch doctoress.

Emily comes in soft on the landing because she’s like, I’m not sure it’s supposed to maybe be me and you possibly, i’m wondering maybe.

Arie gets it though and he’s PISSED because his hands smell like doodoo water or something from that potion. Now he’s Black Swan Arie. OH man does he get petulant about things. We’re talking eyerolls and snarky huffs of annoyance. He attempts to storm off and Emily prolongs it by hoping to get the response she wanted but naturally she didn’t and he hugs her like he’s seriously considering trying to squeeze her so hard that her ribs break. They say goodbye and Arie slams the door and stares vengefully off in the distance like he’s contemplating becoming a super villain or something.

Arie does the thing where he feels entitled because he’s so giving and perfect and everything like the possibility of him not being The One didn’t even exist. This is what we call True Arie and not the Arie we’ve been seeing all season. At this point, I think we know that the soft porn kisses, greasy face and creeper hands have all been subconscious tells that Arie is basically the worst of all time.

Back from commercial and we get the segment where the show pretends that people still journal their thoughts. So good. It’s the equivalent of also having a milk man deliver a couple jars of milk each morning on Emily’s porch.

The next 10 minutes are basically setup for the all-important proposal. First, everything is great, then Emily isn’t sure, then she teases the idea of not saying yes if One F proposes? I don’t know.

One F shows up and Emily kind of takes the momentum out of the moment by telling One F how much of a punk Arie was when he went out and how he’s the only one left. He says to her that he’s found his everything and stuff and he asks her to marry him and Emily takes a super long pause and looks at the ring and thinks about taking it slow and then looks back at the ring and is like YES.

And then…OMG ARE YOU SERIOUS? It’s glory of love from Karate Kid?!?!? As One F walks away with Maynard and  Ricki Bobita, that song is totally playing them out and the only way this gets any better is if someone tosses him a skateboard and they all jump to high five and FREEZE FRAME!

But even though they don’t, it’s still pretty much the most baller thing ever. I used to blow OUT this song when I was kid. I think I might need to retire from these recaps because it doesn’t get better than One F and the Karate Kid.

Thanks to everyone who read and commented this season. I appreciate all of your encouragement and enthusiasm and comments that are more clever than anything I’ve ever written.