Emily Episode 4: All's Fair in Socks and War.

Some serious shit going down in this episode, y'all. Yacht races! Cliff jumping! Race car Arie is hotter than ever. Puffy hair Ryan is douchier than ever. And to top it all off, like the cherry on this delicious sundae of DRAMA, is...dun dun dunhhhh...the dreaded two-on-one date. Which promises to be a nail-biting showdown between two dudes who names you can barely remember. Let's get to it. 

Chris greets the bleary-eyes dudes are the mansion. This week is going to be a little different, and not just because Ryan's increasingly douchey facial hair has reached previously unprecedented levels of douchiness. The dudes are going to...BERMUDA!!!!

And the first date in beautiful BERMUDA goes to...single dad Doug! Doug needs to be reminded of the rules, namely, that if he doesn't get a rose on the date, he goes home. Like, dude, Chris Harrison only tells you this stuff EVERY WEEK. Doug is sweating it. Race car Arie would like Doug to go home. Arie and Doug get into a fight over...whether Doug should be nervous about not getting a rose? Some stupid shit. The other dudes watch tepidly, chagrined that the producers have forced them to witness this crap. Emily walks into the room and senses some TENSION in the air, probably because it's 10 AM already and nobody has drinks. 

Emily and Doug walk around Bermuda and like, shop together, and she says how nice he is which is funny because we just watched him almost wring race car Arie's dainty race car neck. Emily says how this date is so NORMAL, like, when you're on vacation as a family that what's you do, just walk around and buy crap, but then she and Doug make their own perfume together (?) and watch some kids playing soccer while dressed as pinatas (??), so I think the 'normal' part of this date just went off the rails. 

Then Emily gets Doug to tell her a little more about himself. Doug wants to be the perfect dad. He wants to be the perfect dad so badly that he started a charity to prove to his son that one person can change the world. Emily is pretty impressed. She's in the middle of telling Doug how he's the perfect guy, never unhappy or short with anyone, when Doug admits to her that he had a little brouhaha with the guys earlier. The way Doug describes it, he 'schooled' them, although from my perspective it looked more like they gave him a ton of crap while he became increasingly enraged. But Emily's good opinion of Doug dies hard. She's happy he feels comfortable enough to be honest with her. Well then. 

Emily and Doug walk under a "moon gate" that is supposed to grant your love wishes. Emily wishes to not be single forever, and that all the photographs of her on the cover of US Weekly would be especially flattering. We are never told but Doug wishes, but whatever it is, I hope it works out better for him than that stupid love clock did for manic Joe. 

At dinner, Emily explains that she doesn't quite trust Doug, because he is too perfect. BRAD was perfect, or seemed perfect, and we all saw how THAT worked out, and now Emily cannot trust a man unless he is deeply flawed. 

Eager to discover his secret weakness, Emily asks Doug what his flaws are. Doug's flaws are...that he spends too much time with his son, and did not wash his ex-girlfriend's car enough. Emily, being the smart woman that she is, points out that these are not flaws. So Doug asks her: what are YOUR worst traits? Emily's greatest flaw is that she sometimes wears pajamas to the grocery store. This is not a flaw, either. Flummoxed, Emily realizes that coming up with flaws at the spur of the moment is hard. Or maybe it's just that Doug and Emily are both perfect! So she gives him the rose so they can be perfect together. 

Awwww. 

Then Doug goes on and on about how he wants to kiss Emily, but won't because his dad told him that he should wait for girls to make the first move. Crap advice, dad. Now we know that Doug's real flaw is that he's a giant weenie. 

Up next! Some dudes go on a group date with Emily, and the date is a sailboat race, because I think the theme of this episode is COMPETITION, like, these men would fight each other to the death for Emily's love, or something. Which is both romantic, and grisly, and those are really the two things I look for from the Bachelorette.

Emily blows the horn, and the boat race commences. There are two teams, the red and the yellow, and they both tack and winch and heave ho, or however you do, with all their might, but it is the YELLOW team (increasingly douchey puffy hair Ryan, dainty race car Arie, Anthony Michael Jef, the so-called "Kalon") that wins the day. The RED team goes home, in defeat and grinding shame, but not before they tell us like 4,000 times how disappointed they are not to be spending time with Emily. Like OKAY WE GET IT. The real kicker is when we see the red team on a van, on the way back to the hotel, and head injury Charlie is crying like someone just stole his lunch money. You just want to give him a hug. 

We cut to the beach, where the four lucky winners are basking in Emily's blonde radiance and their own aura of superiority. Emily has some alone time with race car Arie, and he tells her for a while how wonderful she is, and then they make out. Then it's Anthony Michael Jef's turn, and he also tells her how wonderful she is, but they do not make out, which is disappointing. Both of these assignations (well, I guess the experience with AMJ is best described as a non-assignation) take place under what looks like the hide of an especially clean sheep. Only it's also an especially tiny sheep, so Emily and the race car have to get super close. Clever producers. 

Now it's time for puffy hair Ryan to make a complete ass of himself, and he does not disappoint. Ryan has some 'concerns' about how Emily's been acting. "As the Bachelorette, she's been given a great responsibility, and I want to see her do a lot with it." Ryan, she's the Bachelorette, not a Nobel prize nominee. Have we been watching the same program?

What follows is sort of unintelligible, in the grand tradition of Tricky Editing on This Show, but here is the jist: Emily wants to know if it's okay with Ryan if she puts on a few pounds. If she like, started chasing after their kids and stopped going to the gym. Ryan's response: "God designed you to be a beautiful woman. So be a beautiful woman. You know what I mean?"

Good one, dude. 

So my feelings about Ryan are mixed. It's hard to tell if he's being serious about the "I'm not okay with you getting fat" thing, and I know he doesn't always say the right thing, but I like that he's willing to give Emily a little bit of crap. I know we all think Ryan is a giant douche, but you've got to give him some credit. He seems to be the only guy here who's bothering to actually flirt with Emily, instead of just telling her over and over again how awesome she is. And there's a reason people flirt. It's because flirting is fun. 

But then Ryan messes that all up by telling Emily he's disappointed that she's not using the show to set an example to other young women of how they should behave around men. Granted, I'm not sure making out with 4 different dudes (are there four? clearly I can't tell these guys apart) is really that great of an example, but then again, this is a show where the female lead dates 25 men at once. Emily is, relatively speaking, super chaste! Also, it's hard to tell if Ryan is upset about Emily's supposed sluttiness, or just the fact that she's making out with dainty Arie and not him. 

And the date rose goes to...Anthony Michael Jef! Race car Arie is jealous. Ryan thinks that Emily gave the date rose to Jef, and not to Arie, because she knows that giving the rose to Arie would've made Ryan super upset. Emily is DEEP, Ryan opines. What they have is super DEEP. Deeper even than the depths of Ryan's puffy hair. Okay, Sherlock. But then why didn't she give the rose to YOU?

This is never explained, because now it is time for the dreaded TWO ON ONE DATE. One man will get a rose, and the other...will DIE. 

No, he will just go home IMMEDIATELY, and lose his chance at love, and D-list celebrity, forever. Which, if you think about it, is a kind of death. 

Who is going on the 2-on-1 date? It is our old friend John WOLF, and...some other guy! Other guy's name is Nate. He is wearing a pink shirt, and I have never heard him talk before, so I am fairly sure he is toast. 

The departure of John WOLF and the other guy is a great opportunity for Doug and Chris to get into a fight over some stupid shit. This time, they're fighting over whether being 30 means you are more mature than if you are 25. (Chris is 25. Doug is...33?) Look, let me chime in here...I'm sure your average 30-year-old is more mature than your average 25-year-old. But this is without taking into consideration two important things. 1. many men are imbeciles, and 2. your appearance on this show indicates you are all giant man-children. 

Moving on! It's the two-on-one date, and...it is awkward, y'all. Super awkward, I know that going on a date with two dudes at once sounds kind of sexy and exciting, but imagine if they were both unfailingly polite and kinda boring. There's a yacht, and there's jumping off cliffs, and there's dinner in a cave, and it is dullsville. Emily pulls Nate aside for some alone time, and he tells her how much he misses his family, or something, and she tells him about 15 times how sweet he is, which is pretty much the kiss of death. Sure enough...in about five seconds Emily is walking Nate out of the cave. To his DEATH. 

And now John WOLF has a rose, and now it's time for the cocktail party, because everyone has embarrassed themselves sufficiently and it's time to wrap this shit up. Everyone gets a last-minute chance to plead their case, but I am not really paying attention because all I can look at, or think about, is Anthony Michael Jef's catholic schoolgirl socks. Which, now that I think about it, are kind of sexy. Or are they? I feel upset. And confused. 

Some of the guys, especially race car, think puffy hair Ryan may be going home, but I don't really care because: socks. Socks socks socks SOCKS. I can't un-see them. Big blue SOCKS. I'm blaming my strange attraction to the socks on my scottish heritage. It's in my blood. Don't judge. 

I just realized that there is still HALF AN HOUR left in this show, which is completely absurd, and also plenty of time for Ryan to be a giant douche. Oh, and does he ever. He wants Emily to prove to him that she is worthy of him and his puffy hair and giant neck, and she's only just beginning to make her argument when race car Arie comes to steal her, which Ryan says is fine, but there is MURDER in his eyes. 

Ryan takes this opportunity to skulk off and tell floppy hair Michael how awesome he is. How awesome Ryan is, that is. Even if Emily does not choose him, Ryan says, he is already in talks with the media about The Bachelor: Puffy Hair Ryan. Ryan seems a little unclear on the concept. You do realize this is a TV show, right? And that everything you say can be on TV? Look, I know every single other dude on this show is thinking exactly the same thing. But you don't SAY that. Because people can hear you. 

It starts raining. Pink Sean starts looking pinker. He pulls Emily aside, and they talk about Ricki and are beautiful and blonde and boring together, and then they kiss some, but I don't see any tongue so I'm not convinced. 

I guess nobody else has anything to do, because then drunkeye Chris gets into a fight with single dad Doug because he thinks Doug acts like he's the better man for Emily, just because he's older. Doug denies this, but then Chris picks a fight with him anyway, because what the hell else is he going to do, and also Chris is drunk. It is dumb, and I am drinking heavily to numb the pain when finally Chris Harrison comes to rescue me. Everyone is like OH CHRIS HI THANK YOU SWEET HEAVENS, and Chris and Emily and Emily's fakity fake hair extensions (don't think I didn't notice!) go off and have a serious Chat. 

Emily and Chris discuss the dudes like two commentators on sportscenter. Arie is a hot kisser, Anthony Michael Jef is a disappointing non-kisser, Doug picks fights, and Ryan is full of shit. Having 12 boyfriends, y'all, is not all it's cracked up to be. 

Rose ceremony time! Single dad Doug, Anthony Michael Jef, and John WOLF already have roses. The others go to:

pink Sean

race car Arie

Travis formerly of the egg

drunkeye Chris

puffy hair Ryan

"Kalon" 

FINAL ROSE TONIGHT. Thanks, Chris. 

And the FINAL ROSE goes to...Alejandro. 

That means head injury Charlie (aww) and floppy hair Michael are going home. Goodbye, Charlie! I give you a big hug. Goodbye, Michael! Get a haircut. 

Next week...we are in LONDON! Everyone on the show is suitably impressed. Everyone in London is suitably embarrassed. I am suitably inebriated. This show is bad for my liver. Until next week!