Emily: Week 5--Typhoid Emily

Is it Groucho Time? 

Reports are appearing in the tabloids and from spoiler king Reality Steve Carbone that Groucho Roberto Martinez has swallowed some Fleiss Kool-Aide and agreed to become the next Bachelor. Might not be true, but probably is. The guy is a Star. It's a great coup for the Fleissmonster if true. Personally, I'm already beefing up my Marx Brothers photo library, writing down a bunch of cheap .5 cent cigar jokes, and scanning my thesaurus for relief pitcher ideas meaning "shelled" as in: "they put him in in the 7th inning and he got shelled!" I'll keep you updated. But first, it's recap time.

Merry Olde London:

The Bachelorette leaves the Americas this week and heads out to the Old World. This week your Captain follows the gang to the haunts and history of England, and I see I'm not the only one. Week 2 of Ricki's Free Vacation is in full stride as Emily takes her little tyke sight seeing around London to greet us. After touring Big Ben, along with Kensington and Buckingham palaces, the Maynards speed around London on a double decker bus and Emily fails to drop about a hundred mentions of Harry Potter to her daughter; proving that Exectuive Producer, Mike Fleiss, has enough money to sue Reality Steve but not enough to pay J.K. Rowling, or that since Emily is from North Carolina, little Ricki is clueless on the topic because stories about "good" witches and other witchcraft are strictly verboten. Or both. Anyway, Harrison is seen haunting Trafalgar Square as the meatheads all come running up to him. Wearing a jacket and and yet another purple accoutrement--a ridiculous-looking ascot--Harrison cheerfully informs the meatheads of the date line-up: 2, one-on-one dates and one, pitifully unfunny group date. He also tries his familiar Dark Jedi mind tricks again, "Only one of you will become Emily's husband; yeah, I said it!" as if all ten of the guys had rolled their eyes when he said it instead of the pasted on smiles we were shown. The boys all dismiss to the Mayfair Hotel to laugh their asses off in private as Harrison stomps off to the nearest public house to get rip roaring on Guinness and the ghost of Lord Horatio Nelson can be heard cursing the British Government that they allowed Chris Harrison to cheese up his triumphal square.

As the boys hit the suite, John Wolf finds a date card hiding on a table and manages to read it without cussing: "Sean, love takes no prisoners…and neither do my germs. Emily." And with that, Genetic Marvel Sean is called out to test his immune system. Seems that Emily has caught an awful-sounding bug showing Ricki around London and by the time the Marvel reaches her she is starting to sound very throaty. Before he can get to her though, we hear from the no one-on-one remainders: One-F-Jef, Alejandro the Mushroom Farmer, and Kay-Lynn, about how much they wanted those germs. Kay-Lynn, who will be a bitch the entire night, sounds grumpy from the get go, and Jef and his awful beehive hairdo lets it be known that doom awaits the dateless (cough: Alejandro). Emily greets Sean's Marvelousness in Hyde Park and they tour London on Ricki's old double decker bus. Sean demonstrates he knows absolutely nothing about London, but can cheese it up with the best of them: "London's calling, and you know what? I'm going to answer." Uh-huh. You don't know that Big Ben is a clock but you know Edward R. Murrow's tagline from during the blitz? Just show us the cue card why don't ya, Fleiss. Anyway, they ride around on the bus and Sean proves he's lost without his smartphone. Emily makes like an English Tour Guide and bores him by showing him the royal palaces where Charles and Diana's travesty began and where Kate kissed William more recently. Sean, meathead that he is, stares blankly at her and clearly wants to ask: "Who's William?" but he doesn't. He insists they get a photo of them kissing and he gets his first chance to sample the raging infection growing in her mouth. After a brief interlude where Kay-Lynn is allowed to act like an asshat to set up Emily's explosion later, we see she's taken Sean back to Hyde Park where she quizzes him on his dating history. He cops to one date four or five months ago but it never went on because "she definitely didn't have the qualities I was looking for." These qualities are never revealed naturally. Sean comes across as a milquetoast good guy but we aren't shown anything but his marvelous genetics. They then wander over to a park bench which local cranks usually frequent to predict the end of the world or the next Jewish conspiracy or whatever, and Sean climbs up and launches a boring soliloquy about love. Fleiss dubs out the part where the cranks are screaming at him "kill the Jews!" and "the end is nigh!" Thrilling.

When we return, darkness has fallen and Emily leads Sean into the Tower of London where they are greeted by a Beefeater guard who looked a lot like Paul McCartney's chubby uncle. The Beefeater leads them into the Tower where instead of an ax and chopping block, a lovely dinner has been left out for them. Emily lets Sean know that Henry VIII used to lock up his wives in that Tower and even lopped a few noggins off. Sean looks terrified! No, he doesn't, but if he had any sense he'd be sitting back away from her and her funk; Emily's voice is now little more than a hoarse whisper. Proving he knows as much about Germ Theory as he does about Big Ben, Sean fearlessly dives into conversation and kissing with her. Emily manages to croak out her fears that he is a divorced scoundrel with seven kids. While Emily tries not to collapse into her plate, back at the Mayfair, the group date card has arrived. Overrated Ryan reads "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet…Emily". Hmm. Looks like being sick has magically changed Emily's handwriting. Whatever. The Shakespearean missive delivered, all the meatheads stare at each other like apes trying to use a computer and try and decode this confusing message. After concluding it has something to do with some English Queen named Shakestoor or something, Overrated Ryan reads out the names of: Bobble Head Chris, Arie the Racer, Overrated Ryan his own self, Dug the Ticking Timebomb of Fury, Alejandro not the Allesandro, Frohawk Travis, John Wolf (who promptly curses), and Kay-Lynn the disgruntled bottle of Summer's Eve. That means perpetual 8 year old, One-F-Jef, scores the last one-on-one.

Back at the Tower meanwhile, Emily decides it time to drop the bomb that she has a six year old daughter to Sean. Wow, the guy may be a meathead, but he has been around the last 5 weeks Emily. Do they have you on NyQuil; the old original Green Death flavor kind? It must be because she goes on to tell him she wants to be pregnant yesterday. She begins this first date bomb with the preamble, "I don't mean to rush things…" Hey Harrison, can't you get Fleiss to give one more production day here? Your Bachelorette must have a high fever. If a suitor had suggested such a thing, or a bachelorette talking to the Bachelor, we'd all call for the guys in white coats and butterfly nets to haul this person away. Sean, who paid no heed to her threats that they were eating in Henry the VIII's old dungeon, starts to squirm in terror. Emily presses ahead regardless, "How many children do you want?" Sean dances away, "I haven't put much thought to it." She presses for a big number and he relents, "I'm open-minded--two, six, ten." No, you haven't put much thought to it, have you Sean? Emily could care less. She grins at his amazing genetic code and tells us, "I couldn't imagine anyone being more perfect of a husband than Sean." Looks has nothing to do with it, folks. Unsurprisingly, out comes the rose and she all but staples it onto him. They hang out by London Bridge and Sean tries to prove that no damn virus is gonna' scare him by sucking her sick face off. Date over.

Stratford-Upon-Avon

We now see Emily greet the group date meatheads in Stratford-Upon-Avon and tells them that Romeo and Juliet is on the menu. The boys' faces all twist in disgust. "Don't get too scared," Emily tries to calm them. ""I did bring three Shakespeare experts." From the sound of her, she should have brought three infectious disease experts instead. Like these meatheads would care anyway. I can just imagine Overrated Ryan looking confused asking "Infec-what experts?" Nevermind. A couple of old English biddies who know all about Shakespeare come in to watch these chunkheads butcher the Bard. The focus spot is presumptive favorite, Arie the Racer, who pretty much drops a deuce at the thought of having to act. The boys all read Romeo's lines off a card and all are universally awful. Frohawk Travis hams it up with his interpretation of Romeo from Sweetwater Oklahoma. Inspiring. All the boys wallow around except for Kay-Lynn, who tries to read the lovelines of Romeo Montague but does it with so much vengeful intensity he sounds more like a gay Buford Puser. Anyway, the old birds pick Kay-Lynn, Alejandro the Mushroom Farmer, John Wolf, Overrated Ryan, and Kay-Lynn to all play Romeo. The worst two: Dug the Absent Father, and Racer Arie get picked to play nurses in drag. They ham around screeching in female voices like it's a Monty Python gag and Dug even grabs hold of another guy and kisses his cheek with his five o'clock shadow like it's a Benny Hill skit. Arie, who looked better than most drag queens in his dress came off as dense as a tire iron. "Poultice? What's a poultice?" Good lord. I thought the Dutch had a good education system. This guy has been in the States too long and we've dumbed him up. I'm guessing race driver college is the only University Arie has attended. Regardless, the final love scene commences and Overrated Ryan seems to think his ego is an adequate shield to viruses as he basically forces himself on a Emily's Juliet like she was a drunk college freshman. It will be fun to go and see this guy when he finally settles on his chosen profession of an Elvis impersonator performing at county fairs. Anyway, once the acting stops, we come to the main drama of the evening.

Emily Goes All West Virginia Hillbilly on Kay-Lynn.

Once Emily gets the boys to the restaurant, the men all start grousing about comments we are told Kay-Lynn made about Ricki being "baggage." I smelled a rat at once because we never saw Kalon make the comments, but when confronted by Dug, he does indeed admit to the comments and won't apologize. Dug sees his chance and goes and plays Rat and tattles on Kalon. Emily comes to a fast boil and even with her voice 90% gone, she shows off her West Virginia roots: "I want to rip his limbs off and beat him bloody with them!" She marches into the common room and confronts him. Ar first Kalon admits the comments and then lamely tries to defend himself. Emily finally blows up and orders him to get the fuck out. As Kalon exits and continues to wonder at his own marvelousness, Emily storms around and heads out for a walk. She returns and then hammers the boys for not telling her about the comments sooner. Frankly, this had me confused. First of all, it's a proven fact on this show that any contestant who attempts to rat out another is instantly dismissed for focusing on other people and not the lead, and secondly, when were they supposed to tell her? I was waiting for Dug to object when she refused to hand out the rose. "Hey, I ratted the guy out to you!" But no dice. Even presumptive favorite Arie now thinks he's a goner for not lynching Kalon. The bigger question: Is Ricki baggage? From some points of view, of course she is, but that term is loaded with negative connotations and Kalon certainly should have known better. But that's not important for two reasons: one, Kalon frequently used loaded code words in a variety of contexts these past five weeks and this was undoubtedly why he was brought on, and second: Kay-Lynn is a Ko-Lynn, so who cares? Anyway, Emily stays pissed, withdraws the rose, and vows to go home and make her daughter sick instead. Date over.

One-F-Jef Makes His Move…Finally!

Emily, despite her disappointment, goes on the next day to meet One-F-Jef in a park. After watching her lock up with Overrated Ryan, Gentic Marvel Sean, and Arie, Jef looks like an 8 year old boy whose mother cuts his hair. Bizarre. But Emily sure seems to dig the guy. They start out with a fake, forced interlude with some uppity English etiquette specialist named Jean. Jean is a highly scripted pain in the ass. The whole scene was a highly scripted pain in the ass as well. They act like Jean needs to visit the shitter and then these two slip out the second she leaves. They slip away to a local pub to sip beer and eat fish and chips and let Jef insist to Emily that he was the one Kay-Lynn made the Ricki comments to. Jef goes on and on assuring her how he stood up for her and basically told Kalon to take a hike. Jef comes across like he's been taking Mr. Perfect lessons from Dug, but Jef sells it to Emily and it's obvious how into this guy she is. Weird, but it seems real anyway. They go and eat on the London Eye and float above the city while he butters her up pretty good. He fluffs her but waits until the Eye is landing before he moves in for a kiss. She roses him as they land and he finally moves in outside the Eye besides the Thames and gets his share of germs. This guy might be a dark horse; we'll see. Date over.

Cocktail Quickie

Emily arrives at the party and spends her time plastering guys for not ratting Kay-Lynn out quick enough. The guys all retreat and get nervous as she presses to find out why they didn't stand up for her. Arie gets slapped down for it and thinks he's really in trouble. Overrated Ryan gets his moment to ham it up and starts to slither under Emily's skin, despite the fact that she knows better. Portents for the future? Sean, who was on the one-on-one when the Kalon incident happened, gets to butter her up and make out with her. This guy is a major player, no doubt.

Harrison wanders in with the cheeseknife and champagne glass and calls it off.

Dump 'Em Hillbilly!

Roses:
Already Safe: One-F-Jef, Sean the Genetic Marvel.

1) Dug the Rat--Rewarded for tattling. That's a first for this show.
2) Overrated Ryan--future Elvis Impersonator
3) Bobble Head Chris--quiet week.
4) John Wolf--manages not to cuss and sent a shout out to my man Ames by wearing some embarrassing red drawers.
5) Frohawk Travis--Oklahoma's finest Shakespearean actor--not!

Harrison wanders in "Gentleman, Emily; it's the final rose tonight. Excuse me while I go and find something purple for next week…when you're ready."

6) Arie the Racer--so much for drama. Arie versus Alejandro the Mushroom Farmer? Try harder, Fleiss.

Next week: It looked like Emily was storming up to Harrison to demand the behind the scenes info on these guys. Ha Ha! Seriously Emily? On to Croatia.