Sprained Ankles and Broken Hearts (Bachelor 10 review)

"After Bevin Powers discovered that this was the way to Andy's heart, the producers had to stop the other ladies from buying all the sledge hammers in Los Angeles"

For the most part, southerners dominate reality television. I have no idea why that is, but consider the two shows I follow. Of the 5 American Idol winners, the northernmost winner was Carrie Underwood from Oklahoma. Here are some of the “winners” on the Bachelor lately, Sarah from Texas (Charley) , Sarah from Tennessee (Travis) , Jennifer from Florida (Lorenzo) , Mary from Florida (Byron). That said, imagine my surprise when Lt. Andy cut all three ladies from South Carolina and kept all three from California last night. Could this be Bachelor history in the making ? :}

A second break from form with this installment is that on the mating shows, the candidates who aren’t the same race as the Decider generally don’t make it past the second week and if they get kissed it’s more or less the kind you’d give your grandmother. Andy has kept both Tessa Horst and Tina Wu. Despite the name, Horst appears to be at least half-Chinese with one side of the family from Hong Kong. Judging from my hit reports, the Middlebury grad who also lived in Jackson, Wyoming at one point appears to be the favorite to get the final rose. She scored major points with reality fans last night when she found a graceful way to tell Andy that too many of the other ladies were already smitten with the idea of being Mrs. Doctor-Officer-Triathlete. She, on the other hand, still needed to decide for herself about things. In other words, the other triathlete in the mix has the sense to make Andy do a little chasing here.

On the bad side and it could be the edit, Tessa’s conversation is repeatedly about the like “process”, like “connections”, like “feelings” and other staples of Bachelor journey clichédom. Sometimes it sounds like she’s spent the last year only talking to Chris Harrison. I honestly don’t think Andy is a conversationalist or that his “heart” even works that way. Tessa appears to understand this well enough. As the best skier on the Heavenly Valley date, she clearly scored major points with him by having him hop on the back of her skis. They looked like, well, a pair of matched muffins who weren't necessarily talking as much as they were doing something else. I have no idea if running over Tina was part of the plan btw.

Way back when Tina Wu was singing the National Anthem, I was reasonably convinced that she was going to get the “crazy” edit. When during the mud bath date, she went into “Get your hands off the man I’m going to marry”, I was sure of it. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised to see her get the kind of alone time that would actually work in real life. Instead of talking about connections, the show, the other ladies, Dr. Wu asked Andy questions and forced him into a conversation about what sort of person he was etc. Although there appeared to be virtually no physical chemistry between the two (she may be the only one of the last six he hasn’t kissed), I was more than a little relieved to see her come off as a sane yet charming individual, new ground as well for super-achieving women on this show. Unfortunately or maybe fortunately for Dr. Wu, Dr. Andy appears to have a thing for the drama queens, something Tina does not appear to be. To be more accurate, Dr. Andy likes the drama queens who don’t rat out the other ladies.

Does this make the Hawaii-stationed Doctor Andy a rice fetishist of some kind? Instead of “Officer and a Gentleman” is ABC going to start calling it “Yellow Fever?” Will this one end like Madame Butterfly? It would truly be fun if Fleiss would go there. Could you see a home visit where say Tina’s parents refuse to meet the white devil or Tessa’s dad starts quizzing Andy about what he really did on his humanitarian mission in Cambodia. Better yet, maybe one of them could have a brother who insists on saying something like “Dude, how come they never have Asian guys kissing white women on tv? Isn’t this the ultimate extension of colonialism?”

After trashing Dr. Andy last week, I do have to give him major props for dumping the ladies who appeared to be troublemakers this time around. I’m not sure why so many of the ladies were out to get Amber. There’s been nothing about the edit thus far to suggest that she was any of the things that Kate Brockhouse and Strapless Stephanie were claiming. I have no idea where the “Tina said Amber almost had sex with Andy on their date” came from with Kate. It almost looked like she gave up on the possibility of winning on the show, so just decided to create a little rose-tinged mayhem.

I honestly don’t know what to say about Stephanie T. other than she seemed to have confused her strategy for how to sell lap dances with how to get a rose. If she is an organ transplant coordinator, it must be the only such clinic in the world with a brass firepole, thousand watt per channel sound system, and champagne room in the back. After rubbing up against the muscular bachelor more than a dog in heat, Stephanie finally talks to him and basically spends her on screen talk time trashing Amber et. al. then blames her exit on jealousy, which according to Steph T. is a big lake near the Oregon-California border.

There were points where I was sure that both Kate and Stephanie had determined that their best option on this show is to get major screen time for the Ladies Tell All portion. I don’t think Stephanie is headed for Erica Rose minutes this year, but she’s likely getting major alone time in the chair next to Chris Harrison that night.

Nicole appeared to be less of that ilk, it’s more that I don’t remember her saying anything or getting significant alone time with the officer and a doctor. She was one of several of the nine ladies who caught some pretty harsh camera angles in this episode.

I have to say that the editing is really interesting this year. They’re showing Andy having some serious physical chemistry with Bevin Powers, enough so that she’s the other favorite, along with Tessa Horst, to get the ring. At the same time, the University of Washington grad is getting a piercingly whiny edit. She moans that she can’t look good for her group date with Andy because of her ankle. Fascinatingly enough, it’s Tessa who ventures into the bathroom to console Bevin. The rest of the competition jumps to and gets her ready for the ball. Bevin moans some more, acts miserable to get Andy’s attention, steals time from the others, then complains some more about her plight. They went gambling not skiing. Did they show her thanking anyone? Instead, she uses the bulk of her alone time to play tonsil hockey, a sport you can apparently play with a bad ankle, with the object of everyone’s desire.

Of all the ladies, Bevin seems to be the one who suffers from the whims of the camera the most. Most people do have good and bad camera angles and Bevin goes from looking sporty to forty at any given moment. At the same time, they seem to keep making a point of showing that tattoo on her upper right shoulder. There’ve been some references to Bevin having been “on her own” and “experienced”, it may be foreshadowing a big reveal. Some of the more studious types claim to have uncovered a Texas marriage and divorce for the psych lab assistant. If true, it could make for better television than Jehan’s green card husband. What a wuss that Travis was on that one!
In the meantime, I wonder about Bevin’s psychology background (she works at Stanford and is a grad student at San Jose State in the field), sometimes it looks like she profiled Andy somehow and figured out how to press his “protective” button. Isn’t that scene where Richard Gere carries Deborah Winger out of the factory at the end not the middle of the movie? It also certainly wasn’t in some Lake Tahoe hotel corridor.

Amber- So why did Kate and Stephanie T. go to 4 alarm Mean Girl mode with the “too young” meme and Amber. The only thing I saw was that Amber won the triathlon and the ladies spotted Andy and Amber sitting together on the swings afterwards. And that date! Did they talk about anything other than the show or their maybe sort of generalized feelings? Why not just color code the ladies the way Homeland Security does? Today is Orange, that means I’m ready for a relationship. Today is Green, I’m still open to it. Today is Erica Rose, I’m just trying to get face time on national television.

As a guy watching Dr. Andy take his top off, I’m sort of understanding how regular women feel about Pamela Anderson. I do have to say that Amber looked good in her hot tub wear, but it's probably a bit outside the normal Bachelor demographic for me to expound on this.

Stephanie Willhite- She did the near naked back rub and stayed on the mechanical bull….This Bachelor’s not dumb, he’s thinking fantasy suite time. Right now, she’s getting the nice girl edit, but I’d expect to see some chemistry between the two real soon or it’s back to Kansas without a rose.

Danielle- She actually made it through a whole show without mentioning the dead boyfriend. In the meantime, she seems to spend the entire show changing her hairstyle three times a day.

Other stuff- A right wing blogger did send me a confidential e-mail claiming to have proof that both Andy’s car and yacht were actually requisitioned by Nancy Pelosi. And why does the car change values from half a million to a million mid-show? At one point, Andy points out that he just has a lieutenant’s salary and normally drives a jeep. I’m not buying it, I’m thinking coalition provisional authority or his sister is dating Paul Wolfowitz. Also what’s up with the million dollar jewelry promo the last two shows? Did Zales sign up as a sponsor? I don’t see anything all that exciting about wearing them for a couple hours and having to give them back. I still say, the lady should be given a choice, keep the diamonds or dump Andy. Put the rose on the other foot for a change.

In the meantime, on with the journey!


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