Emily week 6--The Beautiful Highlands of Scot...er, Croatia!

Vacation Calls

Greeting friends. This week the Captain joins you from the balmy coast of Florida, where the Wench Queen requested he put into port in a very low, meek voice. The meat cleaver she had in her hand had no bearing upon my decision to drop anchor either. Anyway, as part of being a good husband, we vacation together in the tropics, but that won't stop Bachelorette watching nor will it stop me from blasting it. Emily must date on, therefore I must follow her to the end of the Earth (or the Balkans anyway) to pester both her and the remaining men who vie for her hand. Notably absent will be her daughter, Ricki-tick, who is back in Charlotte minding their free house and terrorizing her free nanny.

Meanwhile, Somewhere in Central Europe

Things start this geographically challenged episode with Emily wandering around the Balkans spelling out her certainty and confusion about the men who remain. She means to figure out the ones she's unsure about. Which means she's about to chop a few heads off. She wanders the city as the boys make a harbor side entrance to pay back the Dubrovnik Chamber of Commerce for footing the bill for this weeks episode. The boys justifiably ohhhh and ahhh about the beauty of the place and One-F-Jef demonstrates that bouffant-haired skater dudes know dick about Central European geography (and much else I would assume) by staring at the fortress that guards Dubrovnik harbor and wistfully noticing that “it looks just like a castle...” You don't say? Do they need to put a giant sign on the turrets, battlements, and drawbridge that says “This be castle!” to help out nitwit Americans? Anyway, the boys have just finished whining about how they all need the one-on-one date of the week when in walks Emily. She hands Frohawk Travis the date card and hastily departs like Harrison gave her lessons. Travis calls his own name to go look for love "beyond the walls". The geniuses all furrow caveman brows and wonder what this cryptic clue could mean. Uhhh, I'm just guessing here Mensa, but I'm betting a castle might be involved since we saw hundreds of them in the intro. It also appears that the newly single Harrison must have gone on a post-divorce bender and was totally absent. I barely noticed. Hey Fleiss, save a half million year; your palooka stagehand could do the job for less and Siri could do it for free. True, true, computers are not yet cheesy enough I guess.

 

The Frohawk Gets Trimmed

 

Frohawk meets Emily by the harbor with an Mississippian bleat of his hayseed voice and the two 'necks from Mississippi/West Virginia head off into the medieval fortress city of Dubrovnik. They don't make it five feet before they wander inside a (guess?) castle. Man, I'm good. Anyway, she leads him around the city playing tour guide and Fleiss and Co. finally decide to just let her read facts from the Michelin Guide instead of trying to convince us that Emily has a doctorate in World Cultures. They happen upon some tourist trap device called “The Balancing Stone.” Emily tells him that his ability to balance up there while undressing is what will determine his fate in love. Isn't that sweet? Who knew those feisty Croatians had such a streak of romance in them? When not busy defending themselves from, or trying to kill Serbians, Bosnia Herzegovinians and god knows who else, they must be poets. Anyway, the poor dumb stone that Fleiss has created for this stunt stares up at Travis, who mounts it and promptly falls off. Emily pretty much props him up on the rock but Travis quickly bails without peeling off his checked shirt. Emily scowls, “I'm bummed. I was wondering what was under that shirt and I thought I have him the perfect set up." She did. Frohawk boy, you're a douche. Truthfully though, I think Travis has spent too much time around Overrated Ryan, Dug, and the rest of the steroid gang and was afraid to take his shirt off and show off his averageness. Now for your musical interlude for the entire evening.They wander down an ally where some dude in a red fez is sawing away on a three-stringed instrument that was somewhere in between a fiddle and a bass, but it's at this moment that I realize that something weird has been going on: as Emily and Travis wander Dubrovnik I realize I've been hearing Irish music the entire time. Huh? Did Fleiss loose his atlas? Is that dude in the fez the sum total of Croatian folk music? Just weird. And it will get weirder. But before weirdness sets in totally, Emily and Frohawk go to dinner and waste about 15 broadcast minutes that came down to one central theme: Travis is friend card material. Period. Emily hems and haws for 10 minutes to get there but she makes it. Travis shrugs it off and mans up like John Wayne. Heheh, I'm kidding. Travis sits in front of the camera and explodes like an estrogen bomb. Buzzzz! Damnit Harrison, will you get your ass out of the cocktail lounge and get these guys a guidebook? They keep blowing up and melting down and there's no balcony railings anywhere in sight. Clear violation. Anyway, Travis walks away in the rain with an umbrella and bawls...just like the Morton Salt Girl. Oh that's right. SHE wasn't crying. Puke. Date over

 

The Croatian Highlands!

 

Emily meets her groups daters--Genetic Marvel Sean, John Wolf, Bobble Head Chris, Dug!, Arie the Racer, and One-F-Jef--to do a product placement for a new Pixar movie called Brave; as in Pixar owned by Disney who owns ABC. In other words a commercial disguised as a date. Anyway, some Pixar-generated Scotsgirl decides to win an archery contest so she can marry herself or whatever. Very inspiring. And since it's a movie about Scottish self-love, Emily tells the turds at the conclusion of the movie that they will be competing in Highland Games, just like in Scotland. Except they're in Croatia. Which makes sense. Unless it doesn't. Whatever, the boys all dress in kilts and sleeveless black shirts and march out to bagpipe music. Emily insists its got Croatian flavor anyway because Croats ride into battle on donkeys so the boys get to climb aboard a burro in their kilts and get a donkey spine rammed up their sphincters. Damn, I'll bet the Dubrovnik Chamber of Commerce is pissed--forward brave men of Croatia; once more into battle in your kilts and having your rectum wrecked by a donkey spine while a Scot plays Bonnie Scotland on his bagpipe! I think this is known as culture rape, Disney style. Anyway, they finally dismount and hobble around like they've just been sodomized by a herd of bull elephants. Once the pains in their rectums subside, let the games begin! It begins with Bobble Head Chris predicting his own greatness at being a faux Scotsman. Naturally, this means he will be laughable, and he is. They begin with archery and editing makes everyone look like Robin Hood except Chris--who poses, draws and releases like Maid Marion. On a bad day. The arrow arcs about ten feet and misses the target. The others all laugh at him. Up next is some kind of log toss. Chris, after his pathetic effort on archery, volunteers to lead things off and he hefts the log about 5 feet. All the other guys toss it fairly well except 110 pound, One-F-Jef, who staggered around and looked like the log would fall on top of him and crush him. That led to Genetic Marvel Sean, who fired the log so far that it broke on impact. Emily almost lost her breath, "I admit, that was damned impressive." and so it was. Up next was a contest where the men sit facing each other, foot to foot, with a stick between them and each tries to pull the other toward them or the stick out of their hand. Emily draws Chris first and he picks Dug! Dug quickly yanks Chris airborne with minimal effort. The contest ends when Sean yanked Dug up and almost over his head. As a reward, Emily hands out the Bravery Cup to...Chris? It's an award for being a spaz? Maybe I need to look up the word “bravery” again. Anyway, now that every guy gets to see that Emily will faint if they try and sign their son up for football or anything that's icky competitive, or they actually keep score, or where there's no “almost winners”, darkness falls.

 

As the sun sets, they all head to a beautiful place on the edge of the water so she can take her favorites aside, starting with Sean. She reassures him a hundred times over what a genetic marvel he is, but the kisses between these two seem tepid. Next up is Race car Arie and there is nothing tepid going on here. This guy face rapes her every time he's near her and she certainly puts up no fights. Later, he will take a producer prompt and go spend time alone with her after she finishes off Overrated Ryan. No question, this guy is a front runner. While Arie is ramming his tongue into Emily's stomach, back at the resort, Overrated Ryan sits all alone with just enough room in the suite for his body and ego and gets his own date card. Predicting he will be the golden boy of the universe as usual, Ryan goes and cuts some douchy carvings into his douchy beard, to be ready. While Ryan is busy loving on himself, we switch back to the party where Emily decides to award the date rose to Bobble Head Chris to go with Spastic Performance Cup or whatever it was. Chris purses his chick mouth, grins in a self-satisfied and slightly gay manner, and giggles so hard I'm waiting for his bobble head to fall off his unathletic shoulders. We didn't see Sean and Arie look at each other and smirk, but we could have. With the numbers dwindling, Chris is now verging on suit-filler territory here. Date over.

 

Ryan Goes From Overrated to Vastly Overrated

 

Next up, Emily decides it's time to dump the last remaining douche on the show: Overrated Ryan. Frankly I'm too exhausted from watching this hydrogen head tell me how wonderful and blessed he is so I'm not re-watching it just to write this. Suffice it to say that Ryan ambled around looking like an Elvis Impersonator like he always does and presented Emily with a list of demands he requires in a wife and kept calling her a “trophy wife”. True, Emily came out for dinner in a gold dress and when you combine that with her blonde hair, veneered teeth, spray-tanned bod and surgically enhanced bust,she did look like Hugh Hefner's bowling trophy, but the label was stupid, arrogant and uncalled for, just like Ryan. Finally, she dumps him. This is where things got interesting. Ryan, in total disbelief that anyone would dump him, practically bullied her into changing her mind. Kudos to Emily for holding firm. In the van ride of shame, Ryan even has the stones to ask the film crew to edit him fairly and not like an arrogant douche. Yeah, right. You might as well stand out on the beach, hold your arms up and beg the tide not to come in. Date, and my sour stomach from watching this arrogant wad, over.

 

Delaying the Inevitable.

 

At the cocktail party, Emily predicts doom for John Wolf and Dug. That was different. They rarely how us the leads thoughts before the roses come. But actually there's a reason: both guys survive. With John Wolf, it just takes dropping his wall a bit, managing not to cuss, and pulling out the funeral cards of his dead grandparents. Wow, good thing Emily didn't require seeing the bodies. Wolf gets all deep and morbid, and then he chokes up and bawls, proving he's more emotional (if not more interesting) than a bag of brick mortar. True, no balcony railing in sight but he gets a free pass on the buzzer for talking about dead relatives. Dug, the hot-tempered absent father, won't be so lucky. After spending weeks presenting Emily the perfect front while barely concealing his explosive temper with the men, Emily finally corners him and all but demands he start making some moves on her. Dug looks ready to pass out with fear. He's spent 6 weeks avoiding her like he's gay, but with enough pushing, he finally mans up and stops acting like a virgin. Feeling more secure, he goes off to talk to the camera and explodes like another estrogen bomb, presumably about the kid he's ignoring to be here trying to ignore Emily. Buzz! No free pass for you, Nancy. No balcony, no balls, no personality. Harrison finally makes an appearance and puts cheese knife to champagne glass calling off the party in Croatia. I was expecting him to come in playing the bagpipes. Shame.

 

Roses:

 

Already safe: Bobble Head Chris.

 

Flowers:

1) Sean the Genetic Marvel--will you please do something--anything-but smile confidently? Who are you anyway?

2) One-F-Jef--"Jef, can I see your ID before I give you this rose?" A true boy among men, but who knows?

3) Race Car Arie--doesn't mouth rape her--amazing

Harrison smirks his way into the room, counts one, and departs.

Emily now shows how bad an actress she is. After stewing around in badly performed false angst, she turns and wordlessly leaves the room. She hunts down Harrison, who is busy in a back alley trying to pick up some chick, and we see a highly planned, poorly edited, and abysmally acted scene where Harrison gets to make like my pet parrot: “Caw-- There are no rules--caw!" After trying to bait us (and the two remaining bozos) Emily tells the men that she can't hand out the last rose. Harrison then smarms his way into the room with two more roses and she flowers both guys, delaying their executions for one more week. Damn good thing Dug doesn't miss his kid too much.

 

Next week: Arie gets caught for screwing a producer in the past or something. See ya then!