Original Post 2.21.11
This week on The Bachelor I was thankful for hometown dates because they meant I didn’t have to hear Brad pronounce the word “Anguilla” anymore. Chantelle O. was even more thankful for hometown dates because now Brad knows her family’s home has more pillars than the Parthenon! Is it bad that I like her better now that I have seen her parents house? If Brad doesn’t marry Chantelle O., I will, just so I can hang out at that place. The pillars! The wine! The Botox! Some moron divorced this…family?! I loved it all. AND, Chantelle O. passed the “Mom Test”, the most important test of all. If Chantelle ages like her mother, or visits the same surgeon, Brad is in for a long life with a good-lookin lady! Dad wasn’t so shabby either. Of course it would all have to be this wonderful in order to live with a sweater-sporting Pomeranian 4 streets away from the in-laws. In the end, the visit secured Chantelle O.’s spot as a front-runner.
The next hometown date went to Ashley, from the Northernmost point in Maine, who seemed to make up a language of her own on her return home. She referred to cheese fries with gravy as some sort of regional cuisine and whatever she said to the camera in the solo clip of her seemed neither French nor Canadian nor American. Brad was equally as confused by her regional quirks, as I had to smile as he said “Si!” to the waitress in place of “Oui”. Ashley managed to pat herself on the back for being such an “open book” with her emotions, but when it comes down to it and Brad has to endlessly reassure her that he isn’t feeling “disconnected” from her everyday of his life, he would probably prefer a little less open book and a little more Kindle running out of batteries. Although, someone must have managed to endlessly reassure her that she is a dentist, because her father kept saying she was in school, yet the whole season her profession at the bottom of the screen during clips of her says “Dentist” as her profession. Unfortunately, there was not much else to note during this visit, except how impressed I was by how many tattoos her sister was rocking.
But really, the big houses and cheese fries all went out the window when Shawntel N. took Brad to her hometown. First stop, the funeral home. During this romantic adventure, she showed Brad his potential place of rest and laid him on an embalming table for a simulated embalming. I was squirming and cringing on my warm, leather couch. She looked hot in her short dress, but this would have worked better if her given profession was a teacher, as THE tried and true sexy school teacher mantra is far less frightening than sexy funeral director! This whole fiasco is what I imagine Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob Thornton’s courting period must have been like.
Just when I started to think that was the most awkward thing I had ever seen, we escaped from the funeral home and moved on to Brad meeting Shawntel’s family. On the ride over, for a second, I thought they were in a hearse. Thankfully, the camera panned out, and it was just a black SUV. The family visit seemed okay after Uncle Fester didn’t answer the door and when at first glance they seemed to be the blondest, most well-adjusted version of the Adams Family to ever exist, laughing jovially about the comedic funeral director lifestyle. But then things took a turn for the worse when Shawntel awkwardly brought up not being heiress to the family business. You would have thought this was a conversation at the Hilton Family dinner table with the way her dad reacted. I am pretty sure her high school teacher was THRILLED that the father used her son’s death to guilt his daughter on television. Classy. The moment that issue was thrown on the table Brad may as well have gotten the hell out of dodge or Chico or The Twilight Zone or wherever they were. That romance was closed casket from that point on (sorry….).
HOWEVER, just when I started to think THAT was the most awkward thing I had ever seen, I had a brief, inadvertent DVR re-wind and THOUGHT I saw Shawntel N. in a commercial. This couldn’t be right. Intentional rewind…It was Shawntel N. in a commercial…hawking funeral services at the one and only Newton Bracewell funeral home! I have to believe that her pops, The Donald of funeral home directors, was behind this one.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOHClrbe-kI&feature=related]
And then, Emily’s date. It was fairly uneventful, aside from a lot of slllooowww discourse between the 2 present adults ( I did read in US Weekly that his accent even annoys Brad himself….), and I was rooting for Brad. I wanted him to win Ricky-tik over, primarily because I knew Emily hadn’t introduced her to any other men, and I don’t want these two to go through more than they already have. The date seemed to go pretty well, but I think Brad realized that immediately inheriting a 5-year-old is a commitment much larger than marriage. I also felt bad for Emily, mentioning that she sits alone in that house (THAT gorgeous house) most nights alone. I was also left wondering where the rest of her family is (parents, siblings etc.) There is definitely a sadness about her, but she manages to not spend her whole life whining about it. If Brad thinks Chantelle O. is TOO emotional, then you would think Emily would be his girl. But that would make too much sense.
Truth be told, I was missing Michelle this week. Her hometown visit would have been some good television. I would LOVE to see where she resides, and what her daughter is like. The twisted part is that I actually started to like her last week, which I am quite ashamed of. Her eye-blinking limo exit left me a bit frightened, but I actually had started to think she was actually kind of funny! This also could be why I sometimes do not have luck choosing female friends. Here is a link to a brief interview following her elimination http://blog.zap2it.com/frominsidethebox/2011/02/the-bachelors-michelle-money-i-didnt-watch-the-show-i-was-very-upset.html, although I am guessing this won’t be the last we hear of her.
In an unsurprising elimination, Shawntel N. was sent home. I think Brad finally realized that he couldn’t just keep her around to prove that he was capable of liking someone regardless of their background and interesting quirks. She seemed like a nice, normal girl (even with the death thing), and I felt bad as she left because she was real enough to show the world what she was without being ashamed or fake. Although, I did wonder if the embalming fumes had gotten to her when she kept thanking Brad for treating her like a princess. She should have been thanking ABC for treating her like a princess, because Brad certainly was not footing the bill for their dream dates. Also, she may want to note that it has taken Brad THIRTY EIGHT YEARS and THREE YEARS OF THERAPY to get to this point. She may not want to set her standards so high…Finding a man that is so comfortable with death may take some time and he may come equipped with OPI Onyx black nail polish and guy-liner. Oh well, at least she could go home and cry in her pile of designer clothes she acquired in Vegas and watch herself on You Tube.
And now there are 3, and for the first time, none of the contestants have the same name. Stay tuned for next week, when the crew heads to South Africa where Brad will pick two lucky ladies to move on and feed the other one to a tiger.
