I Know That I Meant It When I Said It, But....

Ok. We have so much to discuss. But I need to get something off my chest, first. Can we talk about the picture of Sasha Obama meeting Ryan Reynolds? The internet is losing their mind about it, declaring that it is #SiblingGoals and how Malia is a #WingWoman, but YOU GUYS. Malia isn't cheering her sister on, SHE'S TELLING HER SISTER WHAT A LOSER SHE IS! This picture is so incredible because we are seeing the Obama girls as humans and it's exceptional: Sasha is freaking out about meeting Ryan Reynolds, and Malia is doing what all sisters do best: reminding her that she's freaking out.

"Congrats, sis. You are a national embarrassment." 

Great opening montage, Bachelor editors. The tension! The drama! WHOM WILL HE CHOOSE?! (We fast-forwarded through the whole thing)

Fact: Mom and Dad Higgins have LOW expectations for the ladies after meeting TwEmily. (Or was it Hailey?) Lauren is as much of a snoozefest as we thought she'd be. (Let me be clear, here: I think Lauren is GOR. JUSS. I think she is so insanely beautiful. But that's about it. She's as basic and vanilla as they come, and as we all know: a basic girl is more criminal to me than a convicted felon.) In a stirring bout of nothingness, she tells his parents: "There was just something about Ben..."

Please develop a decent vocabulary. Please. 

Only nice thing she said: "I feel like I look at the world differently because of Ben..."

Still vague. Still hate it.

Ma Higgins holds Lauren's hand as she tells her, "sometimes you'll have to talk him off a ledge." Lauren thinks about it for roughly four seconds, then decided that she's ready to marry him.

This isn't a joke. This is actually what happened.

Quick sidenote: Ma Higgins seems pretty insistent that one of Ben's worst flaws is that he's "hard on himself." Um, have you ever met anyone who ISN'T hard on themselves? Because I'd like to point out that 'being hard on yourself' isn't so much the character defect as having the inability to move on from a screw-up, and not selfishly suck all the energy out of everyone while you're agonizing over your mistake. THAT is the problem with people who are hard on themselves. They can be selfish about it.

But that's just my opinion.

Question: Why don't these women have nice things to wear, to meet the parents? They're just wearing bathing suit cover ups and I NEED some Lilly Pulitzer... (But JoJo is getting there with the Stargazers in the shell, right now...)

The lilies in a shell seem to be pretty indicative of how the rest of JoJo's day with Ma and Pa Higgins goes: she knocks it out of the park. She is catnip for Ma Higgins. Amy Higgins is looking at JoJo... with the love and adoration that Ben has been looking at her with, all season.

THIS IS AN EMERGENCY.

JoJo's pure and unabashed success on the date right now is making up for the time that Kelly Jo totally mucked it up when she met Bob Guiney's family. I feel so vindicated right now. (Yes, that was in 2003. I was thirteen. This show is my life.)

On this boat date with Lauren, Ben is speaking no words. He just wants to be held like a baby. And that is what Lauren is doing. So I guess it's all good? I wish Olivia had made it to the final two. As they're sitting on the beach right now, my only thought is: "I want to see Ben and Olivia do Face Swap on Snapchat..." Is that a patch of grey hair I see on the back of Mr. Higgins' head?"

I find so much comfort and solidarity in Ben's questioning of how SMOOTH things are with Lauren. Give them SOME kind of challenge, Chris Harrison. How about that time that Ben's Mom asked Lauren if she'd experienced that part of Ben where he's super hard on himself, and Lauren basically said no... AND THEN THAT SIDE OF BEN WAS PRETTY MUCH THE FIRST THING THAT JOJO TALKED ABOUT?! Ugh.

Lauren tells Ben she's "super emotional tonight," she sheds 1.5 tears, and then Ben leaves. Cool.

On this Blue Bowl date with JoJo, Ben is up to about fifteen words an hour. Very little else. Love the "Coexist" bumper sticker on the back of that Jeep...

JOJO: Ben is my best friend.
GRACE: He is very much your ONLY friend on this journey....

Why does she keep calling him "Babe?" I'm not into it.

This conversation with Ben and JoJo on the bathroom floor right now... OY.

JOJO: I'm just so tired of having to compete with someone...
CAROLYN: Oh no... No, the Girl Babble... Someone shut her up.

"The way that I love Ben is that he's the only one for me.... and he can't say that about me..." Ben tries to tell her that he knows what she's going through. She says he doesn't. YOU DON'T, BENJAMIN.

Let's just address something real intense right now: what a sign of the times that WORDS are now officially speaking louder than ACTIONS. (Buckle up, cause I'm about to GO THERE) JoJo feels like a "naive idiot" because Ben told her he loves her, but he also he said it to another girl. Let's get real for a second: he has been inside of both of these women (three women, on this season alone) and there is NO talk of that. None. GRANTED: I throw "I love you" around kind of a lot. I'm pretty sure I say it to the mailman regularly - this is pretty much my life:



I'm ok with it. I'm ok with freely doling out my words over my actions. Cause you know what I DON'T dole out? Well... You know. But come on. How crazy is that? He sleeps with three women and America doesn't bat an eye. He says "I love you" to two and they FREAK OUT. Don't get me wrong: go sleep with whomever you need to sleep. But let's not pretend for ONE SECOND that those three words hold a FRACTION of the weight of penetration. I'm sorry, call me a grandma, but I think that's insane and Im'ma call BachelorNation out about it. Humans of America: STAND FOR MORE. And WHILE I'm on my Grandma Soapbox, let me address another glaring problem: what did Lauren do, to articulate her love to Ben? She used a quote... From Grey's Anatomy. Don't get me wrong: Carolyn and I have 100% said this to each other when we're in a near-coma on the couch, licking ponzu from the plate and watching a 90th episode of Nathan For You, half-laughing, half-crying because we're worried we'll both be doing the same thing when we're forty and still single (and yes: our resemblance to Grey and Yang is FAR closer than Blauren's)

You're welcome

But to the alleged man of her dreams, all that Lauren can say is "You're my PERSON?" How about a solid Captain Wentworth "Ben, you pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope." (Don't worry about it: I have that on a t-shirt) Or how about a sufficient declaration from the Bard: "Ben, I AM UNDONE." (Seriously, that would be a go-to, for me) Or how about she rolls out a keyboard and sings Ben Folds' "The Luckiest" to him? STOP LETTING SHONDA RHIMES TELL YOUR LOVE STORY. (Let her tell your murder story. Please.)

Um, also: where's the cheesy gift from each woman, on the final date? The dried rose petals? The blurry pictures of them at places? Clearly the production assistant was too emotionally overwrought to remember to bring his stickers to Jamaica to throw something together...

This is how we feel about Chris Harrison's CONTINUED announcement of the presence of Ben's pastor, on the live show...

PASTOR DENNY IS UNDER THE ROSE TRELIS, WAITING! 

JoJo's summary of the evening is pretty spot on and pretty sufficient: "I was getting my heart broken, and I still didn't want to see him cry..." (Don't get me started on that light pink dress choice)

Fact: Ben is a terrible actor. He is reading from a script at his feet, to BOTH women and it's pretty lame. Almost as bad as the time that Josh Murray was sweaty and reading from cue cards behind Andi, right before he proposed to her - THAT one was pretty canned, too...

As Carolyn and I sighed and looked at the ring, I turned to her and said, "If you ever have to take a man ring shopping for me... Like, when I'm getting engaged around age 55... I don't want a huge ring."
CAROLYN: Fair. I gotchu, girl.
GRACE: I have kind of small hands. A big ring would be too much. (showed her my fingers)
CAROLYN: So you have some little Trump hands...
GRACE:

Finally... How I feel about the new Bachelorette:

Yaaaaasssssss

But like... Poor Caila? Anybody know Caila's status? Cause I'm feeling like she probably just got a mega shaft? Was she in on it? But the justification of this choice makes up for the time I wanted Lesley from Sean's season to be The Bachelorette and it was friggen DEZ.

Also feeling MEGA stoked that we will be graced with the presence of JoJo's EXCEEDINGLY charming and good-looking step-brother, Ben Patton.

And who knows? Maybe there will be more of this:

Yaaaaasss kweeeeeen, go GET what you WANT. 

Till May 23rd: If you're a bird, I'm a bird...

Closing thought: how many men do you think are going to get out of the limo in a unicorn mask at the premiere? Yuk Yuk Yuk....