The Bachelor: This Ain't My Fantasy

So we've arrived at the "overnight" dates, in which BB takes his Final Three for test spins in the skeazily named "Fantasy Suite." It's vile, it's dysfunctional, it's The Bachelor. The show begins with BB taking a long plane ride to Switzerland, in which he reflects on his "love journey" with each woman. It's sort of like when Dewey Cox has to remember his entire life before each performance. But since we've been there, let's move on to doing that.

The "You're not going to talk him into it" Rose: Nicki. First up to bat is the brunette dental hygienist. A helicopter (natch) drops them off on a secluded mountaintop for a picnic.

And unfortunately doesn't just leave them there.

The thing about Nicki is, she talks all the time. We (and BB) hear ad nauseum that she feels good about her decision to tell BB that she loved him last week, and that she knew it was real when he saw him with her family, and she is so touched and moved by absolutely everything and wants to shout her love from the mountaintops, but I guess the Fantasy Suite will do.

The Vulnerable Rose: Lindzi. In further evidence that BB is trying to murder her, they follow up their helicopter leap in Belize with a three-hundred-foot repel off a cliff. As for the rest of the day, any Bachelor drinking game worth its tequila requires a shot at every mention of the buzzword "vulnerable," and playing during this date would have put me under the table. Apparently, Lindzi is ready to become "vulnerable," and being on the show has made her realize how awful her last relationship was. Take a moment to ponder that, will you? Was her last boyfriend banging three other girls that she knew about rather than two? Anyway, BB is thrilled at how "vulnerable" Lindzi has become.

Though apparently BB thinks "vulnerable" just means "pantsless."

The This Show Hates You Rose: Courtneythemodel. After crying some crocodile tears about being a King Kamehameha bee-yotch for the entirety of the show, she and BB have a very boring date and an overnight in a Fantasy Suite that looks like someone refurbished the Unabomber's cabin.

Trust me: It was subpar.

But what made everything worthwhile, was that the producers are clearly NOT Team Courtneythemodel. We were treated to a montage of her most intolerable moments, and after the tasteful fade-to-black for their overnight, the first shot we saw was of a spider. You might remember Kaycie's immortal "she's a black widow I want to smush" speech. And speaking of the recently departed Kaycie . . .

The "I Want Answers" Rose: Another Bachelor foul, and another shot! Kaycie flew her ass to Switzerland because she couldn't understand why BB let her go. BB informed her, as the rest of the planet already knew, that it was because her family was nuts. She got in one last dig on Courtneythemodel, and then collapsed in the hotel hallway.

This might be another reason he let you go.

The We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Train Wreck to Show You the Face of Your New Nightmare Rose: Emily! You might remember her from Brad's season. She's the single mom whose fiance died tragically in a plane crash. You might also remember her from Ashley's season, as Slimey Bentley constantly wished she were the Bachelorette. Well Bentley, you got your wish. Emily met up with former Bachelorettes Ashley and Ali for an afternoon of shopping and advice-giving.

A Guide to Identifying Your Bachelorettes: Emily is the one in the middle.

She might want to take most of it with a grain of salt, since Ali has since broken up with Roberto, but whatever. What matters about this interlude is that the "metaphor activity" of the day was a screening of Titanic! Again I say: ! I know it's just a commercial tie-in, but do you really want that particular film to be the objective correlative for your season?

Pictured: The storybook ending every girl dreams of!

Though in many ways the choice is perfect: We all know what's going to happen, and we all know it's going to be a huge disaster.

The "Where Have You Been for the Last 100 Minutes?" Rose: The increasingly-elusive Chris Harrison. For reasons that are still unclear, BB was emotionally devastated by Kaycie's visit, and needed some tough love from CH. He got a shoulder slap and a "good luck, man." I think Chris knew what was coming, as we all did. Lindzi and, you guessed it, Courtneythemodel, are your final two.

Farewell, Nicki. BB always looked his stupidest with you.

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

Next week we have the much beloved the Bitches are Back reunion show, and then I'll meet you here in two weeks for the final horror: To Whom Will BB Present A Gaudy Neil Lane Ring???*



*Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's going to be Courtneythemodel too.

Being Human "The Ties That Blind

Josh and Aidan’s worlds collided a lot this week.  Sally was left to her own devices, as per usual.  In fact, when I went to find official screencaps I couldn’t find any.  Apparently the show doesn’t care about Sally.  Anywhoodle…

Aidan and Other Amish Vampire are being chased through the woods by 4 wolves.  I wonder how they got in this situation.  Then we see Josh and Nora wake up naked and dirty in the grass.  I wonder how they got in this situation.  Then we get a “24 hours earlier” card and we’re at the house, which is being haunted by a ghost other than Sally.  The guys task her with finding out why the word WHORE was written on the bathroom mirror and the kitchen furniture was rearranged vertically.  Then they leave her.

Aidan’s side of things: Other Amish Vamp wants answers about what happened to Original Amish Vampire and who killed him, which was a leap but a correct one.  Aidan gets on Josh’s case for going to vamp cop Cecilia (about blaming and killing the twins on his own without Aidan’s intervening.  All this is going to reflect badly on Aidan and he’s not happy.  The twins are watching Aidan on his break and they’re really starting to creep me out.  They call him and have Cecilia as a hostage.  He can get her back if he meets them out in the woods.  That’ll go well.  Aidan wrangles “Other Amish Vampire” to go with him and dude thinks they’ll have complete control of the showdown with the purebreds. 

Josh’s side of things: Josh sees Nora in the hospital’s cafeteria and she reveals she’s been gone for 16 days.  He’s upset that she killed her ex (even though he may have done it if pushed slightly).  She’s kinda snippy with him but mostly because she didn’t know if he’d want to see her again.  Uh, didn’t all his phone messages from last week clue you in on that?  Anywhoodle, the twins visit Nora and tell her they knew about Josh’s plan to get rid of them via Vamp Cop Cecilia.  Later Josh and Nora get into a fight at the storage place and she leaves to shift with the twins at the shed in the woods. 

Aidan, Josh, Nora, and the twins are all at the shack with Other Amish Vamp and Cecilia out in the woods somewhere.  The twins are blaming Aidan for the blame that was put on them and want to hunt him and Cecilia for sport…like in the old days.  Fun.  Aidan takes off, finds Other Amish Vamp who, when he hears the news there are more than two wolves, takes off for home, leaving Aidan all alone in the woods.  He finds Cecilia and all four wolves find them.  Cecilia’s been badly beaten and would slow him down anyway so she gives him permission to leave her…to the wolves.  So that’s where the saying comes from.  Cut to the next morning when Nora Josh are waking up.  They have a conversation about how he wants to be normal/human and she’s thrilled to be a wolf and break things off.  The four wolves all join up again at the shack and Aidan totally shoots boy twin.  Whoa.  Girl twin is devastated and Nora consoles her.  Josh and Aidan leave, Aidan with boy twin’s wolfie body.  He gives the body to Other Amish vamp and tells him to do whatever he wants with it. 

And how about Sally?  Well she figures out that the ghost haunting her and the house is Danny who was killed in prison.  She went to Aidan who said he’d help but not until his shift was over (he even suggested she go watch a 90210 marathon with a girl who just had her appendix removed).  Danny materializes in his prison orange jumpsuit, they square off and just when it looks like he might get the best of her he’s vaporized by the creepy smoke guy.  Then creepy smoke guy, Reaper, materializes and he’s not bad looking.  Apparently Sally’s existence perplexes some people and he must remove her from the earth.  He gives her times to say her goodbyes to the Aidan and Josh but they really can’t be bothered, what with the night they had.  So Sally sits alone on the stairs and utters that she’s ready.  Heart. Breaking. 

HIMYM and 2BG - Didja watch?

Didja watch How I Met Your Mother "Karma?"

- Ted and Barney are commiserating at the strip club.  Ted's bummed because Robin moved out (he's turned her room into a place to smoke meats, a woodshop and finally a pottery workshop).  Barney is bummed because he felt a real connection with Quinn (Becki Newton) from a couple of episodes ago.  He sees her everywhere he goes in the city, even on the pole in the strip club.  Small world.

- Lily and Marshall have taken Robin in for a while.  Lily encourages Robin to journal because it will help her sort through things.  Cleverly Robin turns it into anthropologist's observation of life in Long Island.  After a couple of days Robin realizes that Lily and Marshall are keeping her captive because they're so lonely out in Long Island.

- Barney is thrilled to have reconnected with Quinn, aka Karma, and gets over his hesitation about dating a stripper.  She is thrilled to have someone new to bilk.  Barney pays her lots and lots of money and is totally convinced they are in a real relationship and not a stripper/customer relationship. Ted goes along with Barney to prove she's just a swindler.  Barney sees her using her same schtick with another guy and finally gets wise to her game.  They run into each other at a coffee shop and he actually charms her for real.  Awww.

- Oh and Ted totally moves out of the apartment and leaves a note for Marshall and Lily telling them to move back in.  That was quick.  This show can be so uneven.  It's taking YEARS to meet this mother character but Ted can totally move out of an apartment in like 15 minutes.  Sure.


Didja watch 2 Broke Girls "And the One-Night Stand?"
 - It's Caroline's birthday so there's one thing she and I have in common.  Han encourages Max to throw her a party but Max hates parties and actually has no idea when her own birthday is (her mom gave her a 2-week window in June).

- Caroline thinks the webmaster they hired to design their cupcake site is cute and that's something else we have in common.  Max encourages her to hook up with him and suggests Caroline let him "browse" her "yahoo."  However, Caroline isn't interested in a relationship right now and also isn't a one-night stand kind of girl.  Turns out Webmaster (he has a name but I like Webmaster better) is into her too and Sophie watches them make out.  It's creepy but kind of funny too.  Caroline does the walk of shame home the next morning and runs into Oleg who is leaving Sophie's apartment. Ooooo!

- The party for Caroline is terrible and all sorts of stuff gets spilled between everyone.  Caroline chooses this time and place to have Max get rid of him.  So she is a one-night stand kind of girl after all.  Sophie compares the party to the Donner party but bemoans that even they had food.  Heh.

- Really all Caroline wanted was to see her dad so Max gets them on the 'bang bus' to the prison.  On the way they pass a Carvel and Max says the only memories she has of birthdays is getting a Fudgie the Whale cake and this is yet another thing I have in common with this show.  At the prison they run into a one-nighter from Max's past but she doesn't remember him.  He, "Irish," remembers her and even has a tattoo of her on his abdomen.  Wow!  A riot ensues and they get kicked out before Caroline can talk to her dad.  She did get to see him for a second though so that's good enough for now.  To make it up to everyone on the 'bang bus' they stop at Carvel and get a cake.  Yay!!!

Dancing with the "Stars" Novitiates Announced

So here's another of my dirty little secrets: I have recently become obsessed with Dancing with the Stars, mainly due to a little blonde number. More on him later. We'll leave the question of whether this is more or less embarrassing than my Bachelor/ette problem to a later date. In a ceremony rivaling Bella's wedding in over-the-topness, the current crop of D-listers lining up to humiliate themselves in the ballroom was announced this morning. So you didn't have to, I watched the whole damn thing.

Ladies first:

Gladys Knight sans Pips. The sixty-seven-year-old music legend will be tarnishing her legacy with wickedly cute Irishman Tristan McManus.





Melissa Gilbert whom I could have sworn was already on this show. The former LH on the P star has the (mis)fortune of being paired with Wax, um, Maks Chmerkovskiy.




Katherine Jenkins, an opera singer giving truth to the diva stereotype by not showing up for the cattle call. She'll be partnered by Mark Ballas, aka, Derek's BFF.





Maria Menounos is apparently an "actress" and "best-selling author." She is also currently my favorite, as she will be dancing with Derek Hough, my age-inappropriate Mormon boyfriend, who stole the ceremony by thrusting out his right leg in a pitch-perfect display of "Jolie-ing."





Martina Navratilova is a tennis goddess, who will probably eat her partner, Tony Dovolani (aka Dancing Mark Ruffalo) for breakfast.

Sherri Sheperd from "The View" has already distinguished herself as "the sassy one." She'll be dancing with Val Chmerkovskiy, aka, Wax Jr.





Now the gentlemen: 

Jack Wagner, former star of soaps both daytime and night, and perpetual crush object of my mother. He'll be getting in the way of Anna Trebunskaya.






Gavin DeGraw is a singer who got memorably beat up earlier this year. After this career decision, I'm sure that will never happen again. He's paired with last season's champ, Karina Smirnoff.





Donald Driver is apparently a football player, and it looks like he's got some moves. The awesomely named Peta Murgatroyd will show us for sure.








Roshon Fegan is the obligatory Disney Channel star.  He'll be dancing with Chelsie Hightower, whom I love.





William Levy is too sexy for this ceremony. He also didn't show, leaving his partner, Cheryl Burke, standing awkwardly in the middle of the stage with Derek's BFF.





Jaleel White to whom I wish the best of luck not being referred to as "Urkel" for the rest of his natural life, no matter how buff he's gotten (which is pretty buff). He'll be dancing with Kym Johnson.

 See you on Monday, March 19th for the two-hour premiere!

The Walking Dead - The Day After

"18 Miles Out"

We get our previouslies and see that pretty much everything was sucky last week and Lori, as my two English professor friends pointed out, turned into Lady MacBeth for a few minutes at the end.

We're at a school and Rick, Shane and a bound Randall are trying to get away from a herd of walkers.  We then cut to Shane and Rick in a car and on a quiet road.  They stop and Rick wants to talk.  He does get Shane to admit that he sacrificed Otis to save Carl.  Of course Shane still thinks it was a decision Rick couldn't have made. Around the back of the car and we see that they have Randall bound and blindfolded in the trunk.  Ok, so he's all fixed up and being taken away from the farm.  Now I'm caught up.

At Hershel's farm, Lori and Maggie are talking in the kitchen.  They seem to get along pretty well and that's nice.  Lori offers to take a tray of food to a less catatonic Beth who inquires as to how Lori could get pregnant.  Is she asking because she doesn't know how that works or why Lori would let it happen?  I'm guessing it's the latter.  Lori talks to her about how difficult it is to lose parents but Beth isn't hearing it.  When Lori takes her tray away she notices that the knife is missing so she goes back to Beth's room and gets it from her. 

Rick goes further than the 18 miles and winds up at a gated school.  He and Shane take a look around and decide to hone their knife skills on walkers they attract with their blood.  Rick seems to enjoy plunging his knife into their skulls which is effective and tends not to draw attention like gunshots do.  They take Randall out of the trunk and set him up to be left behind at this place.  As Rick and Shane are walking away Randall is giving it his best shot and shouting reasons why they shouldn't ditch him.  The one that gets their attention is that he remembers Maggie from school.  She wouldn't know him but he remembers her.  This upsets Rick and Shane because Randall must know where Maggie lives.  Uh, I went to a very small high school and have/had no idea where most of my schoolmates lived but whatever.  This of course prompts Shane and Rick to quarrel over what to do with Randall.  They brawl a bit and Shane even throws an effing wrench at Rick.  Their ruckus gets the attention of the walkers inside the building.  That's just great.

Maggie tries to talk some sense into Beth about not giving up, etc.  Meanwhile Andrea criticizes Lori for taking away the knife.  She goes on about if she wants to die she'll find a way, etc.  While I agree with her I don't think that equates to them handing over all their possible instruments of death. They get in each other's faces and while I see both sides to the argument I think Andrea is being a pain in the arse about it.  I could go on and on about this but I will spare you guys.  Andrea offers to sit with Beth to allow Maggie to get some rest.  Andrea's idea of helping is to open the door to the bathroom and leave Beth alone.  Before she leaves she says, "The pain doesn't go away.  You just make room for it."  True but not really helpful.

Poor Rick ends up under a walker pileup and has to shoot through a twice-dead walker to get to the once dead walker on top trying to bite his hands.  He gets free and finds Randall who has broken loose of his restraints and shot (multiple times) a lady-walker who could have been trouble.  Shane has managed to get himself stuck on a bus with a hoard of walkers at the front doors.  He can't lock the door in place and make it to the back in time so his only option is to open the doors slightly, rub some blood from a self-inflicted wound on his hand (from a knife he just used on a walker) onto the bus, and as they try to lick the blood, use the opportunity to work on his knife-to-skull skills. Rick and Randall get a look at Shane's situation AND. TOTALLY. LEAVE.  Wow.

Maggie checks on Beth who breaks the mirror and is assumed to be using the broken glass to cut herself.  Lori helps her break into the bathroom and they get to Beth in time.  It's noticed that Beth's cut didn't go too deep so she must have made the decision that she wanted to live.  Andrea takes this opportunity to be smug but Maggie's not having it and banishes her from the house.  In a slightly surprising turn, Lori agrees with Andrea about Beth choosing life but Andrea didn't hear that.  I'm guessing there will still be tons of animosity.

Back at the school Rick and Randall have happened back upon the two dead cops they noticed earlier (I think I forgot to mention these two).  Something flickers in Rick (perhaps memories of when he and Shane were cop buddies?) and he grabs their guns and ammo and goes back to get Shane.  They're successful but poor Randall ends up blindfolded and back in the trunk again.  Heh.  Shane and Rick have one last conversation where Rick urges Shane to drop the crazy, follow Rick's lead and trust him again.  I very much doubt Shane will be towing that line.

Interestingly we focused on very small groups tonight.  We kind of heard Hershel but didn't see him.  We had no Dale, Glenn, Darryl, Carl or Carol at all.  It was different but cool.  BTW, the actor who plays Hershel was on Talking Dead and shared that prior to getting the job on the show he and his 97 year old mother were big fans.  I LOVE THAT!  I hope I'm still watching zombie stuff when I'm old.  Of course that all depends on the zombie apocalypse not actually happening before then.

The Morning After Alt-Oscars

So as we emerge from a blurry champagne-drenched night, we all doubtlessly have our opinions well-formed about The Artist and The Meryl and The Bridesmaids. But now it's time to hand out e-Oscars to those who particularly distinguished themselves, for good or ill, at the ceremony itself. It's a Meta-tastic Alt-Oscar Monday!

Best Abstract Emotional State: Nostalgia. A plurality of Best Pic nominees (including Le Winner) were consumed with the past, and the ceremony was no exception. Billy Crystal, who hasn't hosted since Million Dollar Baby won in 2004, was back, and wearing his best Billy Crystal mask and hairpiece.

NOT the Best Achievement in Make-up.

Best Accent: Christian Bale.

And that's how you do a black-on-black tux, Jonah.

Thought I was going to go French, didn't you? Perhaps Best Actor winner Jean Desjardin's "Dooglas Fairbonks"? Too easy. Plus, the Welshman was rightly dubbed by Best Supporting Actress Winner Octavia Spencer as "the hottest guy in the room." Clooney got docked for showing up with a human Oscarette.

Ugh.

Best Achievement in Facial Hair that Makes You Look Like You Must Stay 100 Yards Away From School Playgrounds: Bradley Cooper.

Behold: The Pedo-Stache

Cooper, even my memories of your French fluency can't overcome that look.

Best Presenter:  Mr. Robert Downey, Jr.

Love this man.

His pseudo-micro-doc gag was Tony Starkian in its "can't resist him" arrogance. But what gave him the edge over Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis's white tuxedos and cymbals?

Which was by all accounts quite rad.

 Two words:

He Tebowed.

Best Achievement in Racism: Billy Crystal, thrice. He made two race jokes and performed a skit in  in blackface.

I get that he's done the Sammy Davis thing for eons, but still.

If you ain't Gervais, you ain't pulling off edgy at an awards show.

Best Drinking Game Participants: Rose Byrne and Melissa McCarthy, who chugged from Vodka mini-bottles at the word "Scorsese."

Tell me you don't want to party with these chicks.

Best Achievement in Preaching to the Choir: The multiple talking-head montages that extolled, um, movies. Though I appreciate seeing artfully shot sepia footage of Werner Herzog, Edward Norton, and an un-Dictatored Sacha Baron Cohen doing just about anything, if you've got an audience that has entered hour two of a broadcast celebrating films, most of which have yet to go into wide release, we're probably already on board, re: movies are good to watch.

Best Accessory: Though Clooney made it a tight race, the clear winner is Uggie the Dog.

Bow-tie. Bone. Win.

Check out Alisa's liveblog of the red carpet for more snarky goodness!