Guy's Guys (Bachelorette 4 Deanna Pappas Round of 12)

Ron Mayer has to be one of the scarier characters to appear on the Bachelor franchise. Some of those looks he aimed at Jeremy Anderson in the name of Bachelor equity or whatever it was would have made you think that Jeremy had been the guy who broke up Ron’s marriage or that he’d spat on the flag or something. The only thing I could figure out was that Jeremy kept asking for time with Deanna when other guys hadn’t had as much personal time with her. When Deanna asks him to “Tell me something fun about yourself, Ron?”, he goes all Captain Queeg, “Hell, I’m a fun guy, a real fun guy, yep who stole my strawberries, Jeremy’s stealing my strawberries.”

I started thinking about a few things and it dawned on me that Ron owns a high-end barber shop, in other words a real Guys’ place. So, you really want this fellow standing over you with a razor blade in hand and a hot towel wrapped around your face? Think the opening scene of Eastern Promises….Think Sweeney Todd… If Jeremy Anderson ever goes to Kansas City to get his hair cut then disappears, just don’t eat the the mincemeat pies served at Ron’s barber shop. See ya sweetie, we all want the best for you there Ron.

In Deanna’s terms though, Ron was one of these guy who just couldn’t “open up” with or without his case of the Deannas. “Opening up” seems to be her mantra for this show. Doesn’t matter if you’re funny looking (Jesse), all the guys hate you (Jeremy), positively drip with cheesy pick up lines (Robert), or just don’t seem to have anything in common with you (Fred) if you open up to Deanna, you get your rose. Actually, I think that’s a good thing. My only qualm is that there’s some major transference going on here.

Deanna’s issue is that she’s actually the one who can’t open up easily. She said so herself. She tends to keep everything in and wants to be in control. It’s her reaction to having to deal with her mother’s cancer at such a young age and being the one who then felt responsible for her sister. Jason Mesnick confesses about Ty, the infant that he dragged across the putting green, and somehow that turned him into some sort of emotional can opener. He says, “Tell me about your mom…” and the freaking dam breaks. After trying to get various guys to open up for three weeks (okay if this is what she wanted I don’t understand the Brad Womack thing at all), Deanna has always been the one who’s said relatively little about herself in response. This time though, it’s Oprah city (sorry Ellen).

At the cocktail party, Deanna then indulges in one of the most romantic exchanges in Bachelor/ette history. “Here’s a certificate Jason, I had them name a star for your son. You get to look at the star every other weekend and on Monday, Wednesday, Friday.”

I’m trying to remember, didn’t they do something similar in the movie Roxanne? (no kid though) I’ve written that the key to the Bachelor is that the audience has to love the Bachelor or Bachelorette before they start rooting for him/her to find the perfect match. Bob Guiney seemed perfect because Oprah/Bachelor fans across America already loved the guy. It just turned out that he had this rare disease, generally found only in frat houses, where he had this compulsion to stick his tongue down the throat of every woman he met whether he intended to give her a rose or not. Jesse Palmer, Lorenzo Borghese, Travis Stork, Matt Grant, and most spectacular of all Jen all foundered on the fact that viewers quickly fell out of love with them. The bought you a star episode bought Deanna major Bachelor street cred. So much of the show is “yes, I want a connection, I feel a connection, I’m want to be there for you.” This was one of those gestures speak louder than words things. Deanna found a way to say “I’m okay with the kid thing there Jason” with a level of style that was beyond your average romance movie.

Not only did she tell Jason,”You’re the first guy I’ve ever dated who I told about my mother.” (if you watch Romance movies, this is basically the point in the script where the audience knows that it’s over. Here on in it’s just a question of what or who might get in the way of the inevitable and how the screenwriter solves it), Deanna buys the kid the star which Jason no doubt sends to poor Ty for that tear jerker of a home visit when she finds it posted in his room or he starts referring to her as the “Wish upon a star lady”.

Btw I’m waiting for two other things. We’re going to learn that Jason’s first wife’s change of direction was to become a friend of Ellen. We’re then set up for the ultimate Bachelorette with the highest male viewership ever. Second, knowing Fleiss if there’s a a proposal in the works look for signs that the show flew Deanna’s dad out to California or wherever the final rose ceremony is going to be. Remember that was the first big tip that Brad Womack was basically a sleaze. Not only did he sleep with all the ladies on the fantasy dates, he let them fly Deanna’s dad out, then claimed that he just didn’t feel that way about any of the women. Anyway if you happen to be a sleuther or knows someone who admits to it, I’d say follow Deanna’s dad’s whereabouts. If the guy say has been anywhere near Seattle or Los Angeles in the last couple months, it’s a done deal.

I think the other interesting sleuther development is that there are signs that the Ty footage used at the beginning of the show may have been shot in May or after the completion of filming.

On the other hand, Mike Fleiss for a guy who produces a romance show has an amazingly clumsy feel for actual romance. VH1 had Bachelor reruns on over the weekend and they were showing the last couple episodes of Alex Michel. My wife caught me watching and she started screaming at me that she wasn’t going to permit to watch that sleaze. She’s still upset and insists that the guy was the ultimate combination of sleaze and momma’s boy at the same time which is sort of scary because she accuses me of that sometimes :}. Anyway, there was the bit where Alex pressures Shannon about the fantasy suite and it was also clear that he really didn’t like her dog (the dogs always know btw), there was the part where he tricks Trista Rehn into sleeping with him by telling her that he wants to pick her, and then there was this great bit where Amanda Marsh’s parents ask him where he went to college and Alex says “Harvard” and they look at him totally blankly either “we’ve never heard of the place” or “How did our previously married, damaged goods daughter, turn up some guy from Harvard?”. First time I ever saw that happen with the “H” bomb. Harvard folk always tell strangers that they went to college near Boston because they’re so afraid of the devastating impact of the “H” bomb. Arguably, that’s been the template for the show ever since.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure that they think they’ve got Trista-Ryan version 2 on their hands here. Can you say Big Fat Greek Televised wedding with everyone in pink?

Richard Mathy: What was with the copycat date? Didn’t Jade and Deanna have a two on one date atop a tall building in Los Angeles with good old Brad? And the Cinderella carriage was used in one of the dates on Age of Love. Poor Richard, they don’t give the science teacher the Mount Wilson Observatory date even after his own most romantic moment was exactly that? Worse yet, he was a total goner as soon as he confessed to Deanna that he’d never brought a woman home to the family even the woman from his romantic moment.
Am I the only one who noticed? Deanna’s speech to Richard was amazingly similar to Brad Womack’s let down speech to her all the way to details like “I can’t return those feelings and I’m going to have to say goodbye to you here.” They should have showed her circling the Cinderella carriage with the rose in her hand. I thought the “I can tell Richard’s falling for me” thing a bit presumptuous on her part, but whatever.

Jeremy Anderson: He’s a Deanna favorite, but he’s subtly losing steam. He did rescue her from Ron, something Deanna thanked him for, but the actual talk between the two of them didn’t really move forward substantively. Jeremy’s “I’m in it emotionally not just for the right reasons” was sort of a weird non sequitur.

Btw , there was a little running joke with the Ron vs. Jeremy thing. As in they kept making a repeated oblique reference to the guy who’s starred in 850 movies that have never been on network television. I think I did see part of Orgazmo on cable once though. Also the random shots of the bulges during the Ellen Boxer’s sequence suggests to me that a couple of the Bachelor camera men moonlight in Chatsworth, AKA Porn Valley. Maybe Fleiss doesn’t pay all that well.

Paul Brosseau: He seemed very happy to get to take his pants down for Ellen. He even threw his arms up. This guy took the whole idea of national tv exposure a bit too literally. I’m thinking set him up with the Nanny from Brad’s season who jumped in the pool in a bikini at the opening cocktail party.

Robert Fair: If you can’t feel your fingertips, you may be having a stroke. They stole this plot line from Mostly Martha (the German movie not the remake with Catherine Zeta Jones), but he’s not right for the part. He’s supposed to be loosening Deanna up and it’s just not happening.


Jesse Csinack: Deanna fakes the injury on the mechanical bull, straight from the Tessa Horst playbook btw, and Jesse is the first guy to lay hands on her. He then tells her that he “farts” in bed. Way too much information there. I confess, he’s a very entertaining character who seems to be there to show America how open-minded Deanna is about love.

Graham Bunn: I said it last week. This is Brad 2.0 though this guy did admit to the pain of seeing Deanna date other guys.

Fred: Okay, he makes a closing argument for himself in front of Ellen and he does get some time at the dude ranch, but does anyone think this guy has any kind of chance?

Sean Ramey: Was he actually on the show this week?

Brian: I loved Deanna’s complaint that he keeps talking about the other guys. They do shower together, so who knows.

Blaine Twilley: Can you be more annoying than this guy? Deanna worried to Ellen that the guy was too over the top for her. You think? He’s too over the top for Bette Midler concerts.

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