Accept This Rose

Episode 3 begins in
Emily’s bedroom, where she’s eating breakfast in bed with her mom and talking
about how hard her life is. Yes, must be hard being The Bachelorette living in
her mansion with a free wardrobe and 25 suitors. And with a built-in babysitter
included.

I’m starting to notice
that we spend a lot of time in Emily’s bedroom or bathroom, during which her
mom usually comes out of nowhere for her scheduled 5 minutes of fame. Ricki,
however, pulled an admirable diva move and refused to come within 15 feet of
the ABC cameras.

Date #1: Chris

To the mansion — the
first date card has arrived! And the first date this week goes to……………Chris,
who flashes us his usual I’m-going-to-kill-you look in his
interview and I can’t even look at the TV screen.

Emily takes Chris to
the secured “dinner location” which ends up being just a tall building in
downtown Charlotte. She tells him that they will be climbing the wall to get to
dinner tonight. Perfect – we all knew we were due for a Fear Factor date any
episode now.

Because he is weak,
Chris admits that he is terrified of this task but Emily looks super hot in a
harness, so OK he’ll do it.

This makes us wonder
why kind of sick sexual preferences Chris has behind his Tib Tebow image.

So midway up the wall,
someone at ABC decides that the terror factor isn’t high enough on this
challenge and orders in some lightening. Like literally, why did the lighting
start and stop AS they were climbing that wall for 10 minutes? This causes
Emily to panic mid-task and pathetically whimper on cue as she dangled in the
air.

Instead of seizing the
moment to kiss Emily (traditional Bachelor style) to calm her fears – Chris
instead opts for the high-five route because “the timing wasn’t right.” NOT
HOT.

Meanwhile, half of
Charlotte has arrived down below to gawk at this clearly unsafe and foolish
spectacle that is going on:

We made it!

Some wannabe shouts “I
LOVE YOU EMILY” from the crowd below, and this is enough to finally push them
to the top of the wall. When they get there, Chris again acts super awkward for
30 seconds as he decides if it would be too bold to kiss Emily. The usual piped
in dramatic ABC music isn’t even playing — we just get to watch Chris make this
decision in dead silence. High five again.

Suddenly, the storm
that was “just rolling in” has now instantly disappeared and it is ok for the
two of them to eat dinner on top of the building. During dinner, Chris tells
Emily that he recently broke up with his long term girlfirend from high school
and Emily halts her thought process to immediately question how old he is.
Chris tells her that he is 25, and she is horrified. Obviously someone who
graduated high school only 1 year after Emily is not fit to be her husband or
Ricki’s father.

Seriously. These
facial expressions might be a deal breaker for Chris.

(PS: Remember that
“must make $250,000/year qualifier Emily put on her must-have list for each
Bachelor? How has Chris made that much money by 25?)

But regardless,
Chris’s speech about “being a man” wins Emily over in the end and he gets a
rose. Emily tells us he feels SO much older than her…..like, almost Brad Womack
old.

After dinner, Emily
leads Chris to a live country performance (surprise!) by Luke Bryan in the
middle of an empty street in downtown Charlotte. ABC has again pulled in anyone
within a 5 block radius of the stage to make this look like a normal occurrence
in the daily lives of these residents.

The rest of this scene
is like an eighth grade dance: awkward slow dancing, flirty looks, Chris ASKING
Emily if he could kiss her at the end of the song (again, not hot), and
eventually the locals join in the dancing too. Luke Bryan is basically
oblivious to the entire crowd as he envisions his spike in iTunes downloads the
next week.

I did enjoy capturing
several Charlotte residents that were enjoying their 2 minutes of national TV
fame a little too much……..

Date #2 (Group Date)

It’s a new day and
Emily is ready for the group date in some disappearing cut-off shorts and an
oversized tunic with extra boobs.

The guys are excited
as they arrive and see Emily with a football (Ryan’s testosterone meter is
going on high) — but little do the know, they’re in for a day of
who-wants-to-be-Ricki’s-daddy-auditions.

The girls gather
around with spiked drinks and notebooks to evaluate all the men as they
interact with the kids. Alright Emily, we get it, you want a guy who’s willing
to be a dad immediately, but the daddy & kid stuff is going a bit overboard
this season.

Back on the
playground, Doug sees this as the ultimate competition to prove his superior
dad skills, Ryan immediately begins assembling a competitive baseball team with
the most athletic looking kids, Stevie runs around looking like a totally
dangerous creep, and Jef plays by himself on the slide.

I’m not even sure the
girls were watching them.

After a solid game of
little league baseball, Ryan starts to feel attention starved and decides to
wander into the danger zone of women. It is here that he tells Emily in front
of her friends that she’d better not ever get fat and if she did, “I’d still
love you, I just might not love ON you as much.” Good one, Ryan. Your attempt
to show off in front of her friends totally BOMBED.

Later that night…..

Emily takes all the
guys to a private party (sadly, no hot tub included) and something is
immediately up with Tony. Emily finds him crying in an alleyway and knows that
this is too much for him, especially after spending a day with a bunch of kids
that weren’t his.

In what seemed like a
matter of 30 seconds, Tony is being sent home in a cab and Jef is excited about
the fact that there’s one less guy in the competition now.

It’s really too bad
for Tony’s kid Taylor — who was probably living it up @ Grandma’s with
unlimited candy and tv.

During the party Doug
also delivers a pretty somber story about his past, and Emily cries on cue. We
like Doug but he’s a pretty serious, intense guy.

Sean also swoops in
with a ridiculously burnt face and ends up winning the rose for impressing both
Emily AND her friends today. Score.

Date #3: Arie

At last, Emily gets
some one on one time with her front runner, the feminine race car driver from Arizona/Holland.

Poor Arie really
didn’t know what he was in for, as Emily took him to one of the creepiest
places in Americana existence: Dollywood. Wtf is this place, and who goes here?
Sorry, but the place seemed totally creepy and I’m not making it a priority in
any of my future road trips to Tennessee.

Emily went to some
weird, back-hills places as a child.

Arie is a good sport
though, and spends the day walking around looking both amused and confused the
entire time.

Emily suspiciously
lures Arie into a large auditorium during the date, and during their love song
writing session DOLLY PARTON herself magically appears on stage. Is anyone
surprised here?

Emily reacts with the
fakest surprise act ever – and says “I could dahhhh” about 50 times. Arie
quickly comes to his grips and fakes surprise as well, even though he still has
no idea who Dolly Parton is. Dolly ends up singing an obviously thrown-together
song for the two of them and then requests some girl time alone with Emily. We
are all bored and starting to get annoyed with the pattern of cheesy pop-up
performances on this season so far.

Later that night, Arie
and Emily have dinner and Arie broaches the race car driver situation. Emily
tells him she loves the fact he’s a racecar driver….and I was a little
confused. Why wouldn’t she be a little cautious of that?

Emily tries to pull a
joke on Arie but not giving him the rose but that is a total fail — duh. He’s
obviously in no danger of going home. No more jokes Emily, you’re not cut out
for them.

After dinner, Emily
and Arie hang out on the empty carousal ride and make out like middle
schoolers. She tells us that Arie reminded her of Ricky (her ex-fiance) which
is an obvious way of saying, “He’s my favorite.” FRONTRUNNER ALERT.

Rose Ceremony

And finally, rose
ceremony time! Here are some highlights from the cocktail party:

Emily’s boobilicious
gold keyhole dress w/minimal support

Kalon telling Emily to
shut up. “I like it when you talk, but I wish you’d let me finish.” Emily
somehow still calls him a “gentleman” but seems annoyed. No one steals her
thunder. Kalon is also wear luxurious leather driving moccasins with no socks
-wonderful.

Travis & The Egg:
The producers have finally allowed Travis to get rid of the egg they made him
carry around — surprisingly, he doesn’t want to be known as the “Egg Guy”
anymore. To make Shelly’s demise as dramatic as possible, Travis allows Emily
to full-force smash the egg into the mansion patio, leaving an enormous mess
for the crew to clean up. The rest of the guys cheers to the end of Shelley
(lol) and we’re left wondering if this is the same egg Travis promised to care
for just like he would care for Emily and Ricki. Hmmm..

Alessandro the GYPSY:
Admits to Emily’s face that accepting Ricki and ditching his “gypsy lifestyle”
would be a compromise for him. And no, he doesn’t have a language barrier. How
did the FRIENDS no weed out this guy already?? I really wish I would’ve seen
his full interview with them. Emily is so turned off she sends him home
immediately.

Arie’s Moment: Arie
sees this moment as his chance, and steals Emily away to an
almost-hidden-but-not-quite hallway where he bestows compliments and kisses on
her, and reassures her that Ricki is NOT a comprise. The producers point this
out to the other guys so that they can watch with jealously from afar.

Sean’s Moment: Sean
also seizes Emily’s emotional vulnerability and takes her to the fireplace,
where he again delivers his “I would be a good dad because my dad was a good
dad” speech — which Emily loves and wins him a long fireside kiss. Basically,
if you haven’t kissed her yet you’d better do so soon – people are stepping up
their game here.

With Tony and
Alessandro already out, we’re down to only 1 rose loser this time around, and
Stevie gets the ax. I think we’re all glad to see him go – we’ve seen one too
many dance moves and creepy grins out of him.

On to Episode 4 in
BERMUDA!