Smilers Wear a Crown; Losers Wear A Frown...

        Hare opened tonight's episode with my favorite game of “Obvious Observations with Hare,” when he informed the men: “You are obviously the thirteen that Dez sees a future with.”

Thank you, Hare. THANK YOU.

        Of all the places for a “first stop on an international tour of love,” they picked… the Armpit of the Nation. Nothing against Jersey, particularly - I'm sure it's lovely, but how on earth does a place get a nickname like that?

        Oh and Snooki. Snooki is from New Jersey. Did the Bachelorette Intern mean to book tickets to Atlantis, instead of Atlantic City, perhaps? I guess we'll never know...

        Also I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge how that roller coaster Crazy Mouse was in the opening montage of Atlantic City.

        I hate that roller coaster. If I were on a date and someone asked me about my pet peeves like Dez asked Brad, I’d say “The Crazy Mouse rollercoaster.”

        This picture is from my most recent ride on a Crazy Mouse. It was in Shanghai. Even halfway around the world, it’s still the same terrifying ride where you feel like you’re going to fly off the rails at every turn:

MOVING ON. To whom it may concern: I mean no harm. I have no doubt that all these men are delightful, but if you voluntarily subject yourself to the editors of national television, you’re subjecting yourself to Grace’s commentary. And pretty much anything that's funny on here can be credited to a one Lincee Ray, my Bachelor Blogging Idol. (Yes I did just say those three words and no, I will not be taking them back...)


OPENING MONTAGE: 

OBSERVATIONS:
  …Well clearly the men aren’t flying out of LAX on Southwest. Looks like the Intern got SOMETHING right.

- Ok these cops saying hi to Dez on this boardwalk right now... Just stop. Please. PLEASE.

- WHY IS DEZ SO BAD AT LOOKING FAKE CONTEMPLATIVE. (I can't even dignify this idea with a question mark) I'm gonna need a slow-clap for Ashley Herbert - even though she was often prancing around in strange outfits, she had perfected the art of looking conflicted/torn/troubled/whatever other words the Intern was throwing out at her while they were filming her walking down a beach...

- There are a whole lotta towels in that hotel suite. Are the guys sharing a single bathroom?

ONE ON ONE DATE WITH BRAD:

OBSERVATIONS:

- Dez’s pursuit of chocolate on this date JUST might be the most interesting thing she's done all season. 

- Well you know the date can’t be going well if they’re showing them eat, during the dinner portion; they seriously never do that on this show... Yikesbikes. 

MEMORABLE QUOTES:

Zak: Brad doesn’t reveal a lot…

Carolyn: Like the fact that he’s been to prison.

Grace: He didn't go to prison, he was just accused of domestic violence...

 Zak then came short of pulling a Kalon and calling Brad’s kid “baggage.”

- “Every decision she makes comes down to connection, one-hundred percent.” THANK YOU, DREW. And this whole time I thought it had to do with how much chocolate on which she could get her hands. 

QUESTIONS I HAVE: 

- About getting to know Brad better, Dez said:“I need to make sure it’s not just qualities but a connection.” There are so many cliches and oblique terms in that sentence that I don't even know what to make of it. 

GROUP DATE:

OBSERVATIONS

- Dez tells the guys she has something exciting planned for them at Boardwalk Hall. Dez has nothing planned for the guys. The producers do. In addition to the Crazy Mouse, this is another huge pet peeve of mine: Bachelors and Bachelorettes taking credit for events in which they had ZERO hand in planning. Even the Intern should get more credit for this than Dez. 

- Brooks is 100% still pounding the vicoden right now. Not judging, just observing. 

- I’m sorry. Wait. Mikey “doesn’t want to be seen as a meathead,” yet comes out onstage, takes his shirt off and- Ok Chris just took the words out of my mouth. The approval meter is climbing higher and higher for my buddy Chris... 

- Watching the guys crack up backstage was so much more interesting than their answers to these questions. But still not as interesting as Miss Utah's answer was, last night. Anyone else see that? 

- Zak… your singing, right now… My shoulders are too tense to allow me to write any commentary on it.

- I was REALLY hoping they’d bring out Victor Melling to be the pageant instructor. 

- I’m pretty sure Dez doesn’t actually “go to coffee shops and write poetry too,” she just said that because Chris caught her laughing at him and she needed something to say. Ohhh the Approval Meter is soaring right now, as Chris reads poetry that doesn't rhyme. Give him a rose now. 

- So glad Zak had his lyrics in front of him when he finished his song for Dez. So grateful for that. Also grateful that he had a guitar. Maybe things would have gone better for Kasey if he’d had a guitar. But then again, that wouldn’t have stopped the tattoo he got. Guard and protect, Kasey. GUARD AND PROTECT. 

QUESTIONS I HAVE:

- Am I hallucinating or have we seen Brooks wear THIS EXACT outfit, with the red and white stripes and denim button-down before? 

- Man Lovin’ Mike has “dreamed, since he was a little kid, of being Mr. America.” I am NOT making that up; it is straight from the horse's mouth, just now. 

- Can someone set up Juan Pablo and his baton with Kasey B, please? 

- I don’t know that I’m actually interested in the answer to this, but ...how did they decide who wore what swimsuit? 

- Um…Did we know Juan Pablo had a kid? Before right this second? Is anyone going to address his casual mention of a daughter, just now? I'm not so much concerned with the daughter as I am his casual mention of her, given that this is the Season of the Offspring and everything... 

MEMORABLE QUOTES:  

- Brooks just called Dez a unicorn. That is all.
- The flurrry of activity that was the men getting ready for the evening was described as, “Devil’s brigade. A hodgepodge of tom foolery.” Thank you, Vocabulary Drew
- Brooks would “BE A LION. NO HESITATION” when asked about his preference of jungle animal. Can't fault him for quickly committing to his answer...



One-on-One Date with James

OBSERVATIONS:

 …Well this is one romantic helicopter ride. 

- James has a hangnail on his thumb. And here I thought the helicopter ride couldn't get any less romantic. I hope the Intern has a pair of nail clippers. 

- I find myself more interested in watching Manny and Jan’s date than James and Dez’s. Clearly the Intern had to scramble to clear out this hole-in-the-wall bar for them… Oh wait, there are people in the background. Well clearly the Intern brought his family in and made them pose as extras. 

- I'm loving the fact that a pair of reading glasses are making an appearance in the same shot as a champagne glass, for the first time in the ten years of this show. Way to go, Jan. 

- This is the first time we’ve seen Dez talk about her family to one of the guys. I’m not really sure what this means. Other than the fact that based on James’ expression, he clearly didn’t see Dez on Sean’s season. Otherwise he would have said, “Yeah I know: you grew up in a teepee and fell in love in a tent, I know.”

- I have no qualms about confessing that I was legitimately weeping, watching Manny and Jan look at their wedding album. THERE, I SAID IT.

QUESTIONS I HAVE:

- The whole hotel room montage, of James getting his chocolate-covered strawberry on, in the bathtub - what I really want to know: does he or does he not have a granite rock in his calf? Can we talk about this? 

- Is he sporting some grey streaks in his hair, or is it the natural light?

Cocktail Party

OBSERVATIONS: 
- I think Dez is wearing tights. And I just can't decide if I respect her for it, or judge her.
- Michael presenting these acronymic cards to Dez is giving me: child giving copious pieces of artwork to their parents and the parent having to react to every one of them. And when I say "pieces of artwork," you KNOW I'm talking about the kind of thing where the kid has shredded a receipt and is giving it to their parent, piece by piece, like it's The Last Supper.

- Obviously this goes without saying, but we all know what I was hoping Mike would tell Dez that the "G" stood for, and then show himself out.
- Not that I wanted to re-watch the No Friends Zone Kiss with Chris, but I played it back to make my roommate look at the straight-up PAW that Chris had on her back, during the whole thing. IT WAS A PAW.
- Bryden is sporting a classic case of First Date Syndrome right now. That, and cabin fever, to the point that the producers talked him into attempting to stir up some kind of drama tonight. Seeing that he has made a career out of fighting to defend this country, it's safe to say there's not a single bone in his body that ISN'T genuine. Which made his whole attempt at drama tonight just a waste of space. I would REALLY like to see him set up with Katie, the curly-haired yoga instructor from Sean’s season. Anyone? 

- I’ve decided that the dramatic symphony of rose ceremony music is going to be my wedding processional. Big Daddy, I’m gonna need you to start familiarizing yourself with this music ASAP. And by “ASAP,” I obviously mean “in sixty years.”
- Hey Mikey, I didn’t want to hear you tell Dez, “you make me sweat.” You should NEVER say that again.

- I will limit myself to just one Arrested Development reference in this post, in regards to Zac not getting a rose:

....Her?

I mean we seriously didn't hear him speak in four episodes. Which is a shockingly low number, if you consider my all-time favorite mute contestant EVER, David:

He seriously made it to about the final five of Ali's season, without saying a single word, before he got sent home.

- I think this may be the first time we've seen an escalator on this show. 

- Make that three – FOUR escalators! Four of them, in this long walk of departure for Zac. 

Besides an egregious number of sentences that were ended with prepositions this week, (if I hear Dez musing about "where they guys are at," one more time...) we had a GREAT, very solid verbal faux pas from good ole Ben: “When you're a dad, looking for love… it’s not always the funnest thing to do.”

If you're a bird, I'm a bird,