Taking Things in Stride (Bachelor 12 Round of 9)

I’m getting the feeling that Matt Grant is starting to figure things out. During the tennis date, he compliments Ashley Williss on her strokes and her capacity to “take things in stride”. She does her weird pirouette of giddy triumph about her tennis game then looks at him blankly. Matt chalks it up to being a possible Anglicism. I know I’m older than Ashlee Williss, but most Americans who made it past ninth grade know a phrase like “take things in stride.” Matt sits her down and he talks about how attracted he is to her when she’s singing, but the talking is a bit of a problem. Like Duh!

Ashlee doesn’t exactly dispel the doubts. They wind up kissing for a bit and the camera cuts to the other Bachelorettes sneaking peaks, gossiping, and telling one another how much they hate Robin Canfield.

Ashlee gets a second run with Matt during the cocktail party and this time he asks her, “What if you come to London and your music career just doesn’t take off?”

She gives him another blank look then shrugs and says “We can work it out, you can just follow me to other places.”

Matt does well to hide his horror at Ashlee’s how shall we say it “one note” approach to romance. After all, he does have a job and a career of his own tied to wealthy English people. I don’t think he came on the Bachelor to turn himself into a male groupie. Throughout their encounters Ashlee keeps making up new lyrics for songs and half-heartedly singing them. She even tries one after Matt doesn’t give her a rose in the end. Actually there’s a whole movie about this called Music and Lyrics with Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore. I’d say that Ashlee sings about as well as Drew. No, I haven’t checked but my guess is that her run on the show didn’t help her sales on Itunes much.

Basically most of last night wasn’t so much about Matt breaking romantic ground with any of the ladies with the possible exception of Amanda Rantuccio, it was more about his recognizing that some of his choices just wouldn’t work out. My guess is that Kelly somehow managed to confuse being in the round of twelve on the show with her twelve step program. Yes, her pulling open her blouse to show Matt her two best reasons for staying on the show was entertaining in its way, but no Bachelor with half a brain would keep the woman on the show. Well Kim on Charlie’s season made it all the way to the final four, but she just took her clothes off a lot, she didn’t appear to be drunk. My guess is that when Matt asked Kelly to give him some reason to give her a rose, she figured “Might as well do something that gets me some minutes on the ladies show all show”.

I think a lot of people were surprised that Marshana Ritchie got a rose over Holly Durst, but imo it had little to nothing to do with Marshana’s considerable kitchen utensil throwing charm (I imagine he didn’t know about it) and prowess as a neo-Indian fashion goddess. Matt is lying next to Holly and he says “Ask me a difficult question. I love difficult questions.”

Holly doesn’t have one. He also mentions that he has a boring side where he follows financial markets and worries about whether Britain should adopt the Euro. Instead of chiming in with talk about the Dalai Lama, the American boycott of the 1980 Olympics, and the history of relations between China and Britain, Holly says “That’s okay, I have a boring side too I like to sit around and watch movies.”

This is an Anglicism. Matt doesn’t really think the financial markets are boring, he wanted Holly to show him that she’s interested in the “serious” world as well. Geez, all she needs to do is watch some movie with Helen Mirren or James Cromwell. I kind of liked the Girl in the Café with Bill Nighy and Kelly Mcdonald.

Matt probably went, “Hey wait a minute. What do we do when we’re not talking about children’s stories or Justin Guarini? This one doesn’t even sing.”

I definitely wanted a glimpse of Holly’s tanning machine being carried out of the house. Actually, I wanted to see Shayne Lamas wrestling the Bachelor bellboys to keep the machine in the house. I did instead get to see Shayne Lamas assume the role of defender of Bachelorette honor with Robin Canfield.

After Robin exploits her unconscious British qualities by saying things like “Pass the jam please,” and mentioning that her parents have tea maker instead of a coffee maker in their home, she drags the Bachelor away for yet more one on one time to discuss marmite, crumpets, and her cousin Boy George. Matt appears oblivious to the possibility that Robin has upset the other ladies. Still, he does not give her a rose.

After Robin’s return, Shayne pulls her aside to tell her you have to respect the other ladies need for National TV time in front of the camera. We all want our share. Robin begins to cry and in Bachelor math this makes up for Shayne being a whiny, shallow, emotional mess for those other three or four extended segments. In case, this wasn’t quite enough to redeem her, Shayne does handstands and backsprings for Matt while he’s supposed to be watching the other ladies play tennis (mmm….nice that she took her own advice). While no one’s thinking Beijing Olympics, the camera does show Matt enjoying the way Shayne’s wrong-sized tennis skirt falls over her ears.

I’m pretty sure that Marshana Ritchie’s gotten further than any black woman or man on the history of the show. She’s also the first one to have “won” one of those two on one dates. I didn’t get the whole meltdown thing. They do all know that this is a reality tv show? Was she auditioning for something? She hears the news that she has the two on one date and Holly who has already kissed Matt is her competition. She states her worries, has a tantrum, then starts throwing kitchen utensils to the floor in front of the other ladies. Maybe the show is taking on a drug company with a mood enhancing product as a sponsor? She does actually kiss Matt, so that makes her the Bachelor version of Diahann Carroll. In the same year that Obama might be president, it’s now officially okay for a rich English guy to kiss a crazy black woman.

Okay, if you happen to watch the show for actual romance you have to wonder why they cut Amanda Rantuccio’s Fonzi date with Matt so short? She actually does banter with him over dinner. Even though they don’t discuss the relationship between Britain and her former colonies in Africa or say the Irish problem, there was a sense that Amanda actually could maintain a conversation with the guy. Btw. No, I didn’t think she looked like the slut from Grease at all. I guess she didn’t make like Sandy either. Matt begs her to take a rose. They cuddle on the ferris wheel. More tellingly, after more or less bravely informing him that he’s a terrible dancer, they show this great outtake at the end of the show of Amanda giving him back her rose (with Chelsea) because he’s such an awful dancer. You want the possibility of romance? This actually looked like it. So why are they cutting this so short in favor of an extended audition for Shayne Lamas for some prime time soap opera? Honestly, I’m puzzled.

Other:

Noelle Drake: She seemed surprised to get a rose after she didn’t have much to say when he asked her to argue for one. I guess he figured that was a better response than opening up her shirt.

Chelsea Wanstrath: Matt seemed quite taken with her during the tennis date, but they never exactly have conversations. btw, how many Bachelor contestants have been pharmaceutical representatives?

Chris Harrison: He’s not getting much to do this season and where’s the guitar player this season for the romantic clenches?

It’s been very hard to get a fix on this season. It’s not quite a farce. If there is a romance with Shayne Lamas, they’re not showing it in a way that makes you root for it to happen. If it’s someone else, we just haven’t seen them a lot. Robin and Marshana can’t stay too much longer, they’ve established too many negatives especially with the previews of Marshana going off even more next week. Do we even have story lines with Chelsea and Noelle yet?
Excuse me, I feel a hiccough coming on if I don't take this in stride.

postscript:
Yikes, Andy Baldwin appears to be involved with Marla Maples in a sort of reality show mixed-marriage. I'd love to know what Tessa Horst thinks of this. There was some talk about Andy, behind the scenes, being very interested in being a celebrity. Wonder if they'll bring this up on the next Bachelor Where are They Now?

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