Bachelor faces a tough trim

So we waited around all weekend to watch The Bachelor Monday night, and we missed half the damn show. I thought it always started at 9:00!!! Am I really so out of it that I can't remember the time of one of my favorite shows?

Anyway, we turned the TV on at 9:00, and Jason was already making pretty good time with Melissa-- she was nearly naked in a hot tub. My prediction for this episode was for the big fella to get what he still could from her and get the heck out! Kinda like robbing a museum or something. Seemed no way he'd ever reconcile his intense disappointment from last week... after all, it was the "Jason meets their parents" episode and Melissa's parents didn't show up. They ended up hanging out with her lame friends instead (playing pool, cuddling with pets, etc.). I thought the closest Melissa's gonna get to Seattle is a rerun of Frazier.

You know what? Things kinda heated up! You know, like past just having sex and stuff. He took her up to this "private" room for their dinner, which resembled a seance in a wax museum. Even with the horrible ambience, Melissa spilled out a little "I love you" and I swear some of it might have stained the side of his khakis! Jason might be hooked on the Dallas mall girl.

We don't know how things went with Molly and Jillian because we were dicking around in the kitchen for an hour while the show started without us! Lucky for us, the show's pretty good about reminding viewers about things that already happened, often things from the same episode. We learned that he had "the most romantic helicopter ride I've ever been on" with Jillian, and that he bungee jumped with Molly. As far as I was concerned, I saw absolutely no electricity between J and Molly whatsoever. Unless he's convinced that her family really are Michigan billionnaires, he's kicking the debutante to the curb.

That's what happens when you miss half of a show as emotionally complex as The Bachelor-- you lose all bearings on the ways of the human heart. You also lose all bearings on time itself. I was shuttling between two theories at this point: (1) we missed some sort of new clock change on Saturday night, or (2) this was actually a three-hour episode, and we weren't even halfway done yet!

Then we saw the final plate of roses. He didn't pick Jillian, which might be the biggest mistake of his life. He already admitted it was the hardest thing he'd ever done in his life, but could it also be the stupidest? We'll see.

It's also possible that two months of drinking gallons and gallons of wine are finally beginning to erode Jason's decision-making abilities. I honestly can't recall a network TV show where more alcohol is consumed (or portrayed to be consumed) in plain view of the cameras (so Hollywood Squares doesn't count).

Looks like next week's kind of a bloopers, reunion, behind-the-scenes type episode, which should tide us over until the big show in two weeks. Even though I bad-mouthed her for weeks on end, I'm going with Melissa for the ring.