Fans of Andi’s singular insights on life, love, and hot guys with six-packs will be intrigued that she is authoring a blog for People magazine. Discussing her first kiss with Nick, she describes the experience as “passionate and romantic,” the terms generated by thesaurus.com when she entered “yowza!” and “squeee!” She also provides a nuanced analysis of her perceptions of events at the cocktail party, which I have modified to suggest how she might compose a jury summation:
There were some really felonious and illegal moments during the crime, too. The defendant murdering the victim was mean, unexpected and yet so lawless. I think it showed how wrong the defendant was in this process. What I mean by that is, the defendant made an effort to make this process feel more like the victim was being bludgeoned with a blunt object back in Chicago. The state really prohibits that, and as a prosecutor, that’s definitely why I want to you to convict.
After many weeks observing Andi, we have learned that she stinks at dancing, snowboarding, singing, and managing her career path in a way that might inspire confidence in her intellectual capabilities. Now we also know she’s a terrible writer. Eric must have been wondering if there’s anything she’s good at.
The second part of this dramatic two-part show starts right now, in exotic Connecticut. Did they blow the international airfare budget on Juan-Pablo’s season? Andi thinks New England is romantic because it has boats and picket fences. Those were what made everyone swoon during Wuthering Heights, too.
They all arrive at Mohegan Sun. It’s the nicest hotel Chris the farmer has stayed in since that time he rode the ponytrap to town to see to the accounts, and slept at Mrs. Grady’s rooming house twixt the saloon and the dry goods store.
The guys crowd into an empty bathtub fully dressed, suggesting the director is really bored and/or enjoys homoerotica. Dylan gets the first one-on-one date. Andrew is responsible for the initial use of the term “comfort zone” in this episode.
Andi and Dylan will take an old-timey steam train along the Connecticut River. Old-timey things are romantic, too, like unpasteurized milk and getting STDs before the invention of penicillin. The train chugs off into the pastoral scenery as they sip champagne and gaze at the view while triumphant music swells.
Dylan longs to talk about all the drug addicts in his family. He’s a regular Cary Grant on a first date. Andi’s longest relationship was about three years, but she ended it, possibly because he didn’t take her snowboarding and to dress up as old people all the time. Piano music tinkles mournfully as Dylan mentions his brother, who died the day before his ex-girlfriend got engaged. Andi doesn’t seem too jazzed to marry a character from a Strindberg play. His reality is getting in the way of her enjoying her reality show.
The group date card arrives at the room. Josh is disappointed because he’s among the crowd listed, which means he won’t get a one-on-one. First world problems.
The two daters go to dinner as Dylan agonizes over telling her more about his Russian novel-like past. Their food sits uneaten as he starts to break down, mopping his tears with a lovely linen napkin. Andi looks as interested as she might if he were discussing fluctuations in the Dow. “Crazy,” she murmurs sensitively as he relates the part about his grandfather dying.”I don’t want you to feel bad for me,” Dylan insists manfully, although that’s clearly what the producers want.
In her talking head, Andi wipes away tears, preserving her eye make-up with impressive deft. She describes feeling bad for him, and how she’s worried that she made him remember it all, as if he’d forgotten that grim death has cut a massive swathe through his extended family until he looked into her soulful eyes.
“This is not a pity rose,” she insists as she presents him with it. They still haven’t progressed past the salad course, but they leave the table. Think of all the starving prep school students in New England.
The group date is a sports challenge. They meet Andi at a basketball court, and the balls start flying, including the ones that are aimed at the hoop. Then Andi goes out and reappears with a bunch of WNBA players, although Andi’s shorts are not all long and baggy like theirs. The ladies destroy the guys in a game, but Andi loves watching the bromance as they play together.
They’re then divided into two teams; the winning one will go out with Andi. There’s a joke in there about the kind of girl who dates the entire football team. The guys start strategizing on a white-board. Later, they use the same board to draw dirty pictures. It’s the Rosebuds vs. the Five of Hearts, although why the former have professionally printed jerseys while the latter had to draw their names on their shirt fronts with a Sharpie, we don’t know.
At half-time, it’s a tie. Naturally. Can we get to the interesting part where Andi rages about how this is real to her? Brian the basketball coach is supposed to be the secret weapon for his team, but so was Bradley the opera singer in the singing challenge. The Rosebuds do prevail, although Andi is heartbroken to see the losers’ faces. Maybe they’ll get a booby prize which is real boobies. They retire to the locker room to lick their wounds. Athletic world problems. The winners go into the shower room and shake up soda bottles so they spray everywhere. Oh, go on wit’ ya, producers.
On their date, Andi wears only enough fabric to upholster an ottoman. She goes off with Eric. He wants some things to be different, he asserts. He thinks things are too formal, despite the fact that she’s dressed like a Goth go-go dancer, and they’re not moving forward. He probably just wants to get naked already. She retorts that she feels like he’s holding back. Holding back, moving forward–they could use that white board about now. Eric tells her how gave up his religion, an emotional, life-changing event that required deep introspection. But Andi gave up her personal dignity only moments after seeing the dollar signs on the show contract.
Next it’s Brian’s turn. They go back to the basketball court. He’s smitten, he says, and the relationship is getting stronger. What relationship? Is he counting talking to her picture with a flashlight under the covers? She is turned on by the fact that he makes a shot from half-court. Guys, please note that the majority of women only react in this way to jewelry, large appliances, and luxury vacations.
After Brian, Nick feels up her leg. “Awesome, awesome” is how he describes their encounters so far. He’s ready to spend the rest of his life manhandling her other limbs.
“You guys continue to impress me,” she tells the rest of them, despite their not having demonstrated the ability to sink a ball into a hoop from a distance of 50 feet. Brian has earned the evening’s rose. He’ll go home now and practice aiming something else at a round opening.
Now comes the one-on-one with Marcus. He’s excited to see where the relationship goes, while the rest of us are wondering where it started. For their date, they are going to rappel down the side of the hotel because Andi is afraid of heights, which any psychologist knows is an indication of her lack of sexual adventurousness. It turns out Marcus is also deeply afraid of heights, so he probably keeps the lights off, too. The wind is whipping on the roof of the 30-story building as they suit up. You have to feel for the poor shnooks in their hotel rooms below, casually glancing out the window as they walk naked from the bathroom to see Andi and Marcus strolling down the glass.
Marcus is going to man up, he claims, and not show fear. Going first down the side, he encourages Andi gently and warmly. The other guys are watching from indoors, whooping and hollering as we wonder why they are all hanging out together in one room. Andi and Marcus try to calm themselves by making small talk as they move down the building–unsurprisingly, we learn that Andi’s mom plays Mah Jong– then pause to smooch. The poor camera guy has to document all this as he hangs perilously nearby.
At dinner later, the two make a toast to conquering their fears and having someone else pick up the bill. A nervous Marcus covers the rose with a napkin. Andi thinks there’s not a single bad thing about him! Perhaps she hasn’t Googled sufficiently. He explains that he hasn’t dated in a long time after a relationship ended badly. There’s talk of opening up, being oneself, and other comments you last came upon in a Young Romance comic word balloon. She pulls the napkin off the rose and gives it to him–the rose, not the napkin. Then they’re off to the Casino in the Sky, where some guitar-playing country dude is performing, but not just for them. Mohegan Sun probably has an exclusive contract with him. Andi and Marcus dance and kiss in front of all the drunken gamblers, a breathlessly romantic ending to a perfect evening recorded in HD.
Next morning, Andi sucks back a giant cup of coffee as she considers all the feelings she’s feeling. A letter arrives. The author describes how he loves her, she is his soulmate, she has everything! We see a montage of his pen moving across the paper, but alas, his identity remains a secret. It’s probably Chris Harrison trying to steer the narrative since we’re lacking for real drama this season.
At the cocktail party, Tasos steps up to ask to go off with her. Andi admires that. “It’s not about the gimmicks,” she remarks, tragically overlooking the exquisite irony in her statement. Next she kisses Brian, who has wanted to suck face with her for some time. Then Marquel has his turn to share the Sofa of Serious Sentiments. He cracks her up, she reports, but he does not get kissed.
Finally, things get exciting. Eric hoves in, complaining he needs feedback. He accuses her of not being herself with him, that she’s “a TV actress,” and not who he came here to meet. All those back flips off of camels’ humps have not dulled Eric’s perceptive powers. In fact, she has poker face, he tells her.
Boy, is she angry. She wasn’t hired to throw gang members in jail for nothing. She respects his openness, she hisses, but she is taken aback by this accusation. a poker face? her? Botox isn’t in the cards until she’s turned 30, at least. And she’s exhausted! Being paid to send away attractive men who lust for her is so hard! She is offended and insulted. Tears roll. From afar, the other guys prick up their ears.
“This is so far past healthy,” she says, indicating too much time spent watching Dr. Phil. Apparently, Eric manages relationships as well as he operates a paraglider. Andi declares that she can’t fight for somebody who doesn’t believe in her. Fight? Believe? When did this become a documentary about the civil rights movement?
She throws Eric and his refreshing insight out onto the street. He feels sad that he brought her to tears, but his reason to live is to find love. Oh, dear. I hope Andi feels like crap watching this now.
Andi then approaches the other guys and, suddenly affecting a Southern accent that has never appeared before, cries out that if anyone else thinks she’s a big phony, they should leave now. The other phonies are okay with sticking around. This reality show is the real thing.
At this point, Chris appears in subdued lighting to remind us about Eric’s death following his dramatic departure from the show. Under the circumstances, to feature the Rose Ceremony tonight would be tasteless, insensitive, exploitative, crude, tactless. . .um, anyway, instead, the show will do the respectful thing and have Andi do some brand preservation following her emotional confrontation with Eric. Would she have handled that scene differently now, Chris asks, meaning if Eric were not dead, would she not mind being called a big faker. He also wants to know how learning about Eric’s death affected her, since having known him casually for a total of three weeks, he must have made a significant impact on her Q score. She tearfully replies that his loss changed her in so many ways involving, it appears, feelings. “People don’t understand that we’re a family on the show,” she explains. So, incest?
In closing the show, Chris quickly explains that Tasos left that night. He repeats somberly that Eric will be greatly missed. Nobody cares what happened to Tasos.
