Nugs (Bachelorette 4 final 2)

Wow, was I wrong! A lot of us were.



A few minutes after they aired After the Final Rose (without the usual promo for the next Bachelor), I called the police.

CL: I’d like to report a missing person.

P: What’s the name?

CL: Deanna Pappas

P: Wow, you’re not the first one who’s called looking for her. How do you know she’s missing?

CL: She was supposed to turn up with Jason Mesnick and his son in Seattle.

P: And how are you related to Ms. Pappas?

CL: She’s a friend. She’s been in my living room for something like thirteen weeks. She’s America’s sweetheart. She’s the Bachelorette who knew what she wanted only to have Brad Womack let her down. She then got a second chance to find her soulmate. That Mike Fleiss is just so romantic.

P: Usually, it’s only the next of kin or close family who can report a missing person, but you’re clearly very invested in this.

CL: You’re damn right, I was the one who said for weeks that she was going to be at Jason Mesnick’s house this week playing miniature golf with his son Ty. To be honest, officer, I think there may be foul play involved.

P: What makes you say that?

CL: The Deanna Pappas I knew said three things over and over. We got like 15 hours worth of…. 1) I know what I want 2) I’m not going to be like Brad and lead anyone on 3) I want to start my family immediately and to be passionately in love with the man I marry because family is so important to me.

P: So, lots of reality show contestants say things like that.

CL: But, Deanna was more persuasive about it than most reality show contestants because she was so sure of herself. One day she’s crying about a little boy and talking about her heart melting then a week later she’s giving everyone nugs and talking all about fun, adventure, and Jesse maybe getting a gig as a commentator for the X Games.

Another weird thing, she also kept saying how much her family meant to her, then she ignored her father and grandmother’s advice.

P: What about the sister in law though?

CL: Yeah, that was pretty interesting. The sister in law says “You might be less ready for this kind of commitment than you think. You’re a free spirit. What’s more free spirited than a professional snowboarder?”

P: See, she did listen to her family.

CL: No, that whole home visit was like “Let’s flip a coin to decide this” they flip the coin, Deanna looks at the result, then she says “Okay, how about three out of five?” In the meantime, Jason is Mister Salesman, saying all the right things, giving the Dad free chipping and putting lessons, playing up to the grandparents. Jesse’s in the living room doing the sequel to Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.

P: There’s also the whole matter of how could someone say this is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do like four times in two weeks?

CL: Doesn’t that just break your heart?

P: That whole Jeremy comes back thing was pretty damn gratuitous, like they were sending the poor guy to Bachelor Guantanomo. You do realize that this woman who knew exactly what she wanted claimed to have serious feelings for Brad Womack, Jeremy Anderson, Graham Bunn, Jason Mesnick, and Jesse Csincsak all in the course of how many weeks?
She’s either falling in love or in love with each of those guys. Now she announces that she knows what she wants? She told Graham, “You were the one I was falling in love with.” What is it two weeks later and she’s proclaiming that Jesse is her soulmate?

CL: Maybe this isn’t a missing persons case. Maybe it’s more like fraud.

P: Are you saying that Deanna was a fraud? It is okay to find out that you didn’t know yourself as well as you thought.

CL: She’d never heard of the space needle. Might be a clue about her actual prospects of being a lawyer’s wife in Dallas with Jeremy. She did like Ty, but she did seem more than a little awkward with the kid. Come to think of it, she lived with someone once before and supposedly was in love with Brad Womack yet she never talked to those guys about her mother’s death. Jason comes along and she opens up about it and we’re supposed to go “Wow….she finally found the right guy.” Looking back, it’s more like a warning sign that she’s never sought real emotional intimacy.

P: Think about the Graham thing. If you look at their encounters, he was sort of saying he was interested but was cautious about the fact that she was kissing other guys. As in how real is this with me if you can do that?

CL: You’re probably right. Deanna was just one of those people who insists that she knows herself and what she wants, then they reveal that she really doesn’t. TV can do that and it’s what reality tv is supposed to do best. If it’s a fraud, maybe the fraud is Fleiss’s edit.

P: You might have overestimated the guy.

CL: As in why would anyone bring a little kid on a show like this, introduce the kid to Deanna, then let her dump dad in the finals no less?

P: But I don’t think letting poor Jason get on one knee to propose was a Fleiss thing.

CL: The whole edit was a bit strange. Jesse gives the woman this photo book that he couldn’t possibly have made himself. The angles for the final rose ceremony are all strange. But what was up with building up this whole Jason story? There certainly was stuff there to see the Jesse attraction coming through and it could have been an interesting story on its own.

P: Yes, Jesse’s story was like a good installment of Average Joe with the right ending. You’ve got all these dark-haired male model types and the short guy Jesse wins by making friends with her and focusing on her completely, more or less every nerd’s dream. They were both competitive. Jesse won the pushup and the singing contest and Deanna outdrove the guys. They both love speed and they both had a tendency to be socially inappropriate. I mean she kept a guy who talked about farting in front of the cameras. Anyway, why hide the romance?

CL: It wasn’t so much that, it’s more like they hid the real Deanna.

P: The real Deanna was all there. It’s just that everyone was so intent on seeing the “serious” Deanna, they overlooked so much. She was bartending, had gone to Hollywood once before, and after all that talk about family maybe she had some rebellion issues as well. I mean her mom and dad may have gotten divorced while the mother had cancer and three little kids. How are you really going to feel about that?

CL: At least his means we’ll not have to hear Brad Womack’s name anymore.

P: You think maybe something’s wrong when they hit the final episode and she’s still talking about the guy, her family’s talking about the guy, and she’s on After the Final Rose and still talking about the guy?

CL: The trouble with the edit is that this was Bobby Ewing in the shower all over again on Dallas. People want to trust the show. It shouldn’t be like an extended April Fool’s Day prank.

P: You still want to press charges against Fleiss for fraud.

CL: Nah, that’s just who he is. Deanna’s just who she is. She was pretending to be deep and mature when she’s not. How many twenty six year olds can see the romance in hooking up with an insurance salesman and his three year old son? That really only happens in Meg Ryan movies. You saw the Maserati. Deanna’s probably actually closer to Paris Hilton. When Jesse did the wheelies on the ATV, that was her idea of romance.

P: I hear the next Bachelor is Paula Abdul’s ex-boyfriend JT Torregiani.

CL: Now there’s a reason to watch. Maybe they’ll have Paula judge the fantasy dates. “First I want to say, you looked really beautiful tonight, but that wasn’t your best performance.”

P: You think this show has jumped the shark?

CL: They sure had enough of them swimming around Jason and Deanna.

P: So you still want to file a missing person’s report?

CL: Naw….I hope Jesse and Deanna do get forever together. I hope Jason improves his ability to match the women he falls for to the kind of life he wants. If you remember, the first wife wound up in a rock video. I wish Jeremy and Graham well too. You know, there were an awful lot of nice guys in that group….Before I say this, I have to say that I like Jesse and don’t think the romance is “fake”, but it’s like they took Deanna to the finest restaurant in the city and she wound up ordering a hamburger.

P: Nugs all around then. See you next season?

CL: I’m not sure. You remember the New England Patriots last year? They had the best season ever going, then they got to the Super Bowl. Or did they start with Sleepless in Seattle and wind up with Something about Mary? Or….I guess I might be done. Time to go back to my regular writing.


little bits:
1) did anyone catch her story about going home to Jesse after the Men Tell All? I take it they're living in Los Angeles somewhere. That's really different from no in person contact until ATFR. It also suggests that they're just going to set up in LA a la Matt and Shayne. Didn't Matt have a job at one time?

2) the Jesse ending was leaked over the weekend at Fansofrealitytv.com by Cape who has a pretty remarkable record with getting the inside info on this stuff. It remains one of the great pleasures of following the show, but it's a pain that some of them are always right :}

3) There are also various consipiracy theories about pink flowers vs. white flowers at the 2 final rose ceremonies. You'd think that Fleiss was importing yellow cake uranium from Niger, the way some of these folks analyze this stuff. I'd be very worried if Reality TV acquires weapons of mass destruction to go with its weapons of mass deception.



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