Secret Bachelor Tuesday, Week Five. Or Maybe Six, Who Even Cares Anymore? They're All The Bloody Same.

When I picked Sean up from the airport this morning, after his five days in Tahoe, the first thing I saw was the hospital bracelet around his wrist. Then I looked down and saw that the boy was WEARING SLIPPERS. In an airport! I immediately searched around in case he was dragging an IV behind him or leaning on a pair of crutches, but there was no further evidence that he'd suffered a life-endangering snowboard accident. And, uh, that's because he hadn't. Do you want to know why he'd been to the hospital? BECAUSE HE HAD BLISTERS ON HIS FEET! Apparently they were really horrible, terrible, infected, bleeding, pustulating, PAINFUL blisters, and he could barely walk, but please! This is a guy who has been snowboarding for more than ten years! If he's going to go hurling himself down a mountain with a board strapped to his feet, don't you think a broken leg or a twisted ankle would have been a more rock n'roll sporting injury than one caused merely by WEARING NEW BOOTS?

Anyway, I only told you that story to distract you from the fact that I have LET YOU ALL DOWN. You see, apparently, my need to have toothpaste and mini bottles of Perrier is way more important than your need to know what's going on in The Bachelor this week, and I have to confess that I was in Target---the Happiest Place on Earth! Who did I steal that from? Was it you, Mir?---at 9pm when yesterday's episode started. Wait, did you catch that? Yesterday's episode started at 9pm! Not 10pm, like it usually does! Which is why I was at Target instead of diligently working on week five of Secret Bachelor Tuesday. I only turned on the television at 9:55pm, just in time to catch Stoned Canadian Sarah and Travis cuddling on a bed, while the former whispered "do you believe that we make our own destiny?" and the latter just looked pointy and annoying.

So I'm sorry! I'm a useless recapper! I missed the hometown dates of both Controversial Moana and Stoned Canadian Sarah! I bet you hope I have an unfortunate hot-tubbing accident, don't you? But no-one told me it was going to start at 9pm this week, otherwise YOU KNOW I would have timed my Target visit so it didn't collide with a major televisual event. (Actually, Target was more of an afterthought; before that, I'd been in TJ Maxx, looking for something snazzy and sparkly to wear on my birthday tomorrow. I ended up with two black tops, pretty much variations of each other, neither of which I'm sure really suit me. But I did get toothpaste! And Perrier!)

So where I come into the show, Travis and Puff Daddy Sarah from Tennessee are about to start their hometown date in Nashville. Travis keeps talking about his dog, and I can't get a handle on what its (his? her?) name is. Is it Nola? Nawla? Gnawler? I'm not sure. (Note to Bachelor producers: PLEASE SPELL THINGS OUT FOR PEOPLE LIKE ME. I thought Sarah's mother was called Granita until it came up on the screen as Vernita.) So the two Nashville residents go to a park and have a conversation about how shitty Paris was because no-one ever waved to Travis when he was cycling around town. (Um, Travis? Bread? Cheese? Wine? Chocolate croissants? Culture? History? Never mind, I can see I'm wasting my time. Gee, I'm sorry no-one ever WAVED TO YOU WHEN YOU WERE RIDING YOUR BIKE.) Some children from Puff Daddy Sarah's class show up and Travis goes on and on again about how great it is that she's a kindergarten teacher, because---get a container ready, one you don't mind vomiting into, so not your purse or anything---"when you think about getting married, you want to be with a woman who's passionate about kids and good with them, and not all women are." Did you hear that? "AND NOT ALL WOMEN ARE." Sanctimonious bastard. Should I stick my fist through the television and punch him, or would you like to?

We go back to Travis' house, which is okay in a bachelor pad sort of way---which, you know, is maybe the most authentic part of the show since he is, after all, The Bachelor---and we're told that Puff Daddy Sarah's parents are coming over for dinner. Then follows several AGONIZING moments of television, wherein Sarah and her mother and aunt chat in the living room---girl talk! about manicures! and rainbows! and flowers! I'm suprised they're not giving each other mini-facials and playing a few rounds of MASH!---while Travis and Sarah's father do a little male bonding over the grill. The conversation is scintillating. It goes like this:

Travis: So! What's ... what's your favorite cut of steak?
Sarah's father: (silence, silence, silence, then some muttering) Uh ... I like ribeye, I guess.
Awkward silence, awkward silence, awkard silence. Holly cringes, Holly cringes, Holly cringes.
Travis: So....
Sarah's father: Uh.... I think the burgers are cooking a little faster than the chicken.

Meanwhile, Sarah's mother and aunt are kind of being bitches, trying to convince Sarah that it might be hard for her to be married to an ER doctor, what with him being busy at work saving lives all the time. "And have you thought about the nurses? All those cute nurses?" coos Sarah's mother, elbowing her. Awesome! Just what you want: your mother to insinuate that your future husband is going to cheat on you! You know, I don't think Puff Daddy Sarah's family really likes her very much, actually. They're awfully horrid to her. At the dinner table, her aunt makes some comment like, "we want you to be happy, because when Sarah's not happy, no-one's happy!" which I suppose she meant to be cute and supportive, but really kind of comes across as a little on the snide side. And the abuse continues! Oh, you will not believe this! You know how in sitcoms, the mother always think it's really funny to show her daughter's prom date the embarassing baby pictures? WELL, SARAH'S FAMILY GOES ONE BETTER! They screen a home video from 1993, which features Sarah in a spangly silver vest and top hat, performing a song-and-dance routine that involves prancing around on a staircase and---I can't quite verify this because I blacked out from humiliation, but let's just assume---some cane-twirling. THERE IS A SPOTLIGHT THAT FOLLOWS HER DOWN THE STAIRS. WHAT IS THIS FAMILY'S PROBLEM? And also, please remember that they are at Travis' house! So they would have had to have BROUGHT this video with them! For the express purpose of embarassing their daughter! In front of not only her potential husband BUT ALSO THE WHOLE OF AMERICA! Or at least those of us who watch this piece of trash. Which obviously is none of you.

So then, thank god, it's off to Durham, North Carolina, to meet Beautiful Susan, who is looking just impossibly beautiful as she stands on a bridge waiting for Travis. I swear, she's getting more and more beautiful. They also have a picnic in the park, except they drink wine from mugs! Ew. Didn't the Bachelor budget extend to, maybe, stemless wineglasses? Susan looks pensive and complicated and says "for me, being in a relationship is..." and then trails off for about ten years, during which one assumes she's going to say something terribly profound and deep, but which turns out only to be "wonderful." She may be beautiful, but I don't think she's particularly bright. Then she tries to explain some long complicated analogy her mother has about glasses of water being full and empty and then full again and then empty again, and apparently it has something to do with relationships, but I've sort of lost the thread a little bit, and all I can think about is that scene in Anchorman where the waiter, Tino, says to Will Ferrell, "We have a saying in my country: the coyote of the desert likes to eat the heart of the young, and the blood drips down to his children for breakfast, lunch and dinner."

Then Travis says "Wanna throw the football?" and Interior Susan says "oh, shit," and Exterior Susan puts on a brave face and giggles and says "sure!" and then proceeds to simultaneously insult the whole fairer sex and set the feminist movement back by fifty years, by saying "I throw like a girl!" Which, I mean....what? Are you kidding me? Then she starts talking about how she and Travis have an intellectual connection. Wait, intellectual? They have an intellectual connection? Did I miss something? Oh, I know what must have happened! The part where they were poring over Kafka together and translating Baudelaire from the original French must have been shown while I was in Target!

We meet Beautiful Susan's parents, with the nice colored dining room---hmm, it's sort of the color of my bedroom, though my bedroom is more cranberry and the paint color is called "Red, Red Wine," which I'll admit to you is sort of why we chose it, though I actually prefer to drink white, feel free to pour me a glass---and Susan's mother is AWESOME. She's very skeptical about the concept of being able to find love on reality television, and she drops a bombshell in front of Travis---Susan just broke up with her fiance!---and makes Susan so pissed at her that she has to drag her into the kitchen for some furtive whispering. Ooh, I like the color of the kitchen too. Then Susan's mother tries to discourage Travis, saying "when you say there's no acting going on, how do you know?" We cut to Susan's father, asking her if she thinks her relationship with Travis will advance her acting career. Excellent editing! Do you see what they did there? Then Susan's mom says "There's a part of me that think that's Susan is just...uh...acting." Whoa! Et tu, Mother!

Back in Travis' hotel room, there's some kissing going on. And I'm sort of confused by the logistics of it, frankly, because Travis and Beautiful Susan both have such prominent cheekbones, and HOW DO THESE CHEEKBONES NOT GET IN THE WAY? Think about it: if they moved their faces together to kiss, wouldn't their cheekbones touch and nothing else? Like, wouldn't they not be able to reach each others' mouths? Hmm. I guess the producers must have intervened. Perhaps a special apparatus was constructed. Perhaps it was tested first on Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis.

And---hey, that was an excellent segue, Holly, since Vanessa Paradis is French---we're back in Paris! For the most dramatic/romantic/ridiculous/cringe-worthy/delete as appropriate rose ceremony yet! Travis is bitching about how tiring it is to travel back and forth between France and America all time---Travis, I told you! FOCUS ON THE CHEESE! And if you don't care about it, could you at least please bring me back a nice Saint Andre?---and then he finally stops complaining enough to watch a video message from each girl. The best is from Moana, who has apparently turned into a crazy person while I was at Target, and spends the whole time crying and hyperventilating and gasping and blathering about how obsessively in love with Travis she is. God, Moana has turned out to be such a disappointment. I really thought she was different, you know? Man.

The girls arrive---ooh, nice dress, Moana! Now that's the kind of dress I wanted to find for my birthday! Why couldn't I find a dress like that? (Maybe because I was shopping in Target?) Stoned Canadian Sarah arrives next and WHOA, WHERE DID THE BOOBS COME FROM? She's really pulling out all the stops tonight; I guess the hometown date didn't go very well after all, and it's time to Bewitch Him With the Tatas. The girls assemble in front of Travis, who demonstrates that he has still not really grasped the concept of the show, by saying "I wish I could give everyone a rose tonight." Then he gives one to Beautiful Susan, one to Melodramatic Moana, and one to Puff Daddy Sarah from Tennessee!

Poor Stoned Canadian Sarah! What a waste of a Wonderbra. He walks her out to the limo, explains it was because of the age difference, and says "we just met too soon." Tell me, is there something wrong with me that I'm crying at this? It's the most devastatingly romantic thing I've ever heard! Wow, come on, I've got to stop watching this---it's sucking me in and turning my cynical coal-black little heart rosy and pink! If you live in the greater Charleston area, be on the lookout for me handing out roses at intersections and in grocery stores. And stop me, please, would you? Just do it gently. I'm very fragile at the moment.