Tongue Repressor (Bachelor 12 Round of 3)

For the sleuthers. This closeup from the last episode of the show is being studied by Kristy Katzmann.

Chris Harrison and Matt Grant are sitting in the airport as Matt waits to go through security for his flight to Barbados. Chris hands Matt his three fantasy suite invites, shakes the Bachelor’s hand and offers him a bit of advice,“Good luck there big guy. You know the last Bachelor went three for three and he didn’t give a ring to any of them. After getting to spend the night with them, he turned around and told the final two that he was just too sincere to give anyone a ring.”

“Brilliant. How many of the ladies did this guy kiss before that?”

“Uh, Matt….this guy wasn’t a very good Bachelor. After telling Ellen Degeneres that he wasn’t even having coffee with any woman until he got his head straight, he was spotted with his former girlfriend in Las Vegas.”

“Does Ellen use her tongue when she kisses?”

“Don’t know….I don’t think I’m Ellen’s type and I doubt that you’re her type either….By the way, we’re you supposed to be the classy Bachelor, the one who wanted to marry before your father died?”

“Bollocks….I forgot about that part.”

“We need you to bring the romance back to the show. You do a good job of it with one Amanda, Chelsea, or Shayne and in a few months you could be swapping spit with Marla Maples too or some other ex-wife of Donald Trump.”

“Brilliant, will they exchange tongues with me at movie premieres? Maybe the Donald will let me be the Brit on the Apprentice? I just love Hollywood, California. Don’t you Chris? This place is so brilliant.”

“I suppose you think Shayne Lamas is brilliant too?”

“Exactly, I’m looking forward to exploring her serious side this week. Btw thanks to the show for editing out that bit where I asked her mum to pass the collagen please at the dinner table.”

“Good luck there Matt. Btw You might want to rehearse the fantasy suite speech a little. You know it’s not that easy to proposition three different women in three nights.”

“No worries Chris. I’ve got that one worked out. I’ll have to fargoe your little rehearsal.”

“Okay, well see you at the Women Tell All maybe. You know that’s my big moment every season. My wife still laughs about my skywriting ad lib with Hillary Reisinger last season.”

Matt shakes hands, gets in line for security, and runs into Chikezie from American Idol. After Matt makes it clear that he doesn’t know Simon Cowell and admits that he maybe misjudged Marshana Ritchie, he’s allowed to board the plane.

Sometimes I’m glad we don’t have a large screen HDTV. When Chelsea Wanstrath was um dressing down for the fantasy part of her date with Matt Grant, I could have sworn that she had “Matt” written in glitter on the back of her panties. At least the camera didn’t do a close up. Instead they just showed her putting on a slinky black nightgown and removing her underwear before returning to the awaiting horny guy with British accent. I say so much for plausible deniability on that fantasy date. Naturally Chelsea got her rose, the trip to England,an offer to pose for a major men’s magazine, and a phone call from a former governor of New York.

In the meantime, I’m not sure what Chris Harrison would have made of that bit where it appeared that Matt was going to get it on with a sea turtle just because Chelsea wasn’t being worshipful enough during the daytime part of their date. How does anyone reconcile not wanting to hold hands with putting some guy’s name on your underwear and doing whatever seemed to follow? Also Chelsea was the one saying that the bit with the other women made her shut down that day, but did Matt say or do anything at all to change her mind that um spectacularly?

After Shayne Lamas convinced the Bachelor that she could talk about politics and stuff by telling him, “Yes, I can talk about politics and stuff like that,” Fleiss et. al. don’t seem to be leaving a whole lot of doubt about how this one ends. He even gives Shayne the villa and relegates the other two ladies to suites at the Hilton, probably paid for with frequent flyer miles.

Btw, one of the odd things about the show is that they seem perfectly comfortable implying that some young woman who barely knows the Bachelor had sex with the guy the night before he dumps her for two other women he just spent the night with (it’s all about romance after all), but if anything remotely controversial comes up they either edit it or act like it doesn’t exist. It would have been fascinating in any number of ways for Shayne to have expounded for a minute or two about the 2008 Presidential election.

They could have talked about Hillary’s shoes, Obama’s pastor’s tanning machine, or John McCain’s plan to stay in Iraq for another hundred years with no way to pay for it. Shayne could have talked about the price of gas, political activism in Hollywood, or even the writer’s strike and it might have been genuinely interesting. Instead, we were treated to a Hollywood kissing lesson during which Matt got to pretend to be Brad Pitt, a star who hasn’t interested Shayne since she was sixteen. Apparently, the key to on screen kissing is not to use your tongue, though Matt has trouble taking direction. Can we say too much information there?

In the meantime, Matt says “I’m falling in love with Shayne” half a dozen times and Shayne confesses that she’s falling in love with Matt. We also get Matt laughing uproariously at Shayne’s “Do they have palm trees in London and I’ve been blonde since I’ve been 12.” That saucy little minx…she’s just so clever and deep.

I was rooting for Amanda to slug Matt after she didn’t get her rose or at least to hire an impostor to do it for her. Way back when, I remember how Alex Michel more or less promised Trista Rehn that he’d pick her if…. and then Trista ordered the cameras out of the bedroom. Amanda didn’t exactly give the most articulate speech, but it did seem to be to the effect that she wasn’t going to “open up” unless she felt safe. After 12 seasons of the Bachelor, I’ve figured out that when you get to the fantasy suite episode “open up” really means “put out”. Again Matt doesn’t say much and the kissing that ensues certainly implied a bunch then naturally he dumps her what twelve hours later? Why don’t they just call this show the Hound Dog? So Amanda does, “I haven’t felt this way about many guys, but I have special feelings for you.” Matt responds by saying, “Yes yes, let’s go there.” Two weeks from now, he’s going to insist that the only woman he ever wanted on the show was Shayne Lamas (or maybe Chelsea Wanstrath, but if they went back to Las Vegas you could get great odds for that one). The producers will then be telling you how romantic this whole journey was as Matt does the bended knee routine. How stupid are we supposed to be? The Fantasy Date episode is the world’s greatest Bachelor party without any actual wedding to deal with. You just say you’ve fallen in love and then months later you start turning up at parties with Miss Iran and Marla Maples. You never actually have to marry anyone.


And how stupid are the women? Do you really want to marry some guy who does it on national tv with three different women in three nights? Yeah, I know the participants always deny it afterwards and insist that they did nothing more than talk in some closet about the differences between rugby and soccer. I’m sure that’s true once in a while. I tend to believe that Sadie really did escape the Fantasy Suite with Lorenzo with her honor intact, but that’s probably because she fell asleep from being around the guy for more than a few minutes away from tv cameras. It’s also not the way they edit the cutaways from the fantasy suite. Nine times out of ten, it’s like that train tunnel scene in North by Northwest followed by an Enzyte commercial.

I do have one small problem though: I love watching these episodes. It really does take a sinister reality tv genius to sandwich this male fantasy between meeting everyone’s mom and dad where the Bachelor swears, “I’d never dream of hurting your daughter oh shotgun bearing father,” or as the ever eloquent Matt put it, “I’d never screw with her emotions,” and an episode culminating with the Bachelor offering a ring and saying “You’re the only one I love on this show at least until the cameras stop rolling.”

My only small suggestion is that they maybe add a segment to the “Women Tell All” called “Room Service Tells All.” Can you imagine the ratings? In the meantime, I am looking forward to the reality show sequel to this installment where Matt moves in with the Lamas family in preparation for the wedding. Maybe they can get Chris Knight (My Fair Brady) to make a guest appearance as Peter Brady, though meeting a real celebrity like that might get Matt too excited and he’ll start trying to make out with Marcia or something.

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