A romantic trip to Whistler, B.C., ends in heartbreak for Jillian
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Jeff Petry / ABC |
Wow, is poor Jillian ever going to catch a break? After the whole Girlfriendgate situation last week and the unexpected departure of one of her favorite suitors this week, our Bachelorette is really being put through the fake-romance wringer. The way things are going, I wouldn't be surprised if next week we find out that all of the bachelors are actually married women in disguise.
This somber episode of “The Bachelorette” opens in Jillian's hotel room in Whistler, British Columbia, where she's unpacking, second-guessing herself, and gazing pensively out the window. ''Part of me hopes so much that the guys who have girlfriends are not those guys who I've been starting to fall for,'' she says. (Wait — only part of her hopes that?) The guys arrive, and after she shows them around their suite, Jillian presents the guys with a date card, which she appears to pull out of her pants.
Finally, Michael gets a one-on-one date! Woot! But wait — why am I getting so excited? She's never going to choose him; he's too young, too nice, and too short (she likes 'em ''big'' and ''bulky,'' like Ed). Plus he screams a little too much. But Michael has no doubt that he's a contender. ''I honestly think that I kind of like her the most out of all the guys in the house right now.'' While the date card said ''Come fly with me,'' for once the outing does not involve a helicopter. Instead, the Bachelorette is taking the break dancer on a zip-line adventure. Despite the rain, Jillian and Michael seem to have a good time — though I couldn't quite hear what they were talking about because Jillian's repeated dolphin squeals punctured my left eardrum.
While Michael is definitely in his element while zipping over a snowy valley with Jillian, during dinner — held in a fancy wine cellar — he looks as uncomfortable as a teenager whose parents forced him to put on a coat and tie for a family portrait. Perhaps it's because Jillian puts him right on the spot: ''If you found somebody and fell in love, would you be ready to settle down?'' His response (''I am a cheesy-ass, like, helpless romantic, fall in love if a girl kisses me on the mouth kind of guy'') is awkward, but it's also kind of adorable. That, combined with his dorky admission that he hasn't dated ''a girl or a man'' since his breakup eight months ago, is enough to convince Jillian that Michael deserves the date rose. My happiness for him is dampened by the congratulatory hug she gives him — and by the fact that when he tries to kiss her, Jillian declines to turn toward him, leaving Michael with a mouthful of chin. If there's one thing we know by now, it's that if this girl likes you, she's gonna kiss you. A hug = future rejection.
Day two in Whistler arrives. It's group date time, and Jillian has two objectives: she's going to take Wes, Robby, Kiptyn, Tanner, Ed, Reid, and Mark snowmobiling, and she's also determined to uncover who Mr. Wrong Reasons really is. ''I am going to be looking at each guy on his own and I will be thinking to myself, 'Why is he here? Is he really here for the right reasons?' If you had a girlfriend before you came here, I want to know. If you came here because you want to be on TV, I want to know.'' Robby, who gets to ride tandem with Jillian on her snowmobile, quickly apologizes to the Bachelorette for ranting at the last rose ceremony about how he and Michael got ''screwed.'' It's just that he's a lot more ''emotionally committed'' than he thought he was. Taking the Bachelorette by the hand, he tells her, ''I'm ready to do this.'' She likes it, but Robby still gets the Hug of Inevitable Future Rejection.
Soon twitchy Tanner butts in, and while he says he wants to talk to her about his bachelor-busting bombshell, he really doesn't have anything new to say. Even after Jillian prompts him — ''You said that you would let me know who that person was'' — he refuses to deliver. ''I wasn't trying to throw anybody under the bus,'' says Tanner, ''but at the same time I wanted to let you know basically just to keep your eyes open.'' (Hey kids, can you spot the lie in that statement?) It's Wes' turn next, and the most interesting thing about their conversation is that it reveals for the first time (to us, at least) that Wes and Jillian have talked specifically about how people might think he's using the show to promote his new CD. Their chat concludes with an interrogation performed in Jillian's completely ineffective style, known in law enforcement circles as the ''Come On, Just Tell Me the Truth'' approach. For example:
Cop: Did you rob that bank?
Bank robber: No, I was in the bank for the right reasons.
Cop: Are you sure? Because we have surveillance video of you sticking a gun in the teller's face, and you're currently covered with blue ink from the exploding dye pack the teller put in the bag of stolen money.
Bank robber: Nope, wasn't me. I'm clean.
Cop: Huh. Must be our mistake. You're free to go.
Of course he didn't sign up just to be on TV, Wes assures Jillian. In fact, he didn't even sign up for the show at all — his little sister did it for him! He finishes her off with the old ''I'm totally having feelings I didn't think I was gonna have'' line, and she LOVES it. ''I love Wes,'' Jillian gushes. ''If he had a girlfriend, I'm pretty sure I would know.'' She's clearly feeling better about the whole situation, because pretty soon it's nightfall and she's dancing on the ice bar and doing whiskey shots with the guys in the snow. I'm not sure how many shots Jilli ended up doing, but during her alone time with Kiptyn she is a giggly mess. ''Feel my butt!'' she commands. (He obeys.) While Kiptyn tries to have a moment, telling Jillian he was worried she thought he was one of the guys with a girlfriend, Jillian just scrunches up her nose all adorably and goes into baby talk mode. ''I like you. [giggle] Do you like me? [giggle]'' She's not making much sense in her confessional either — first she tells us that she ''can't even process'' what Kiptyn is saying because he's so cute, but then she turns around and says it was a ''good conversation.'' Whatever. What we do know for sure is that she is hot for Kipper in a major way. After that uninterrupted 17-second shot of them kissing (complete with tongue — ewww!) it's clear he ain't going anywhere this week.
Reid's one-on-one, on the other hand, is far more awkward and stilted. They've gotten off to a good ''physical start,'' explains Jillian, but they’ve had a ''slower emotional start.'' And it's fairly obvious that their connection doesn't go much beyond the surface; Reid is far more comfortable discussing goofy things like what Jillian smells like than he is talking about anything serious, like where he sees himself in five years. He also completely chokes when Jillian asks him point blank, ''Who's the one with the girlfriend?'' After a stunned pause, he stammers, ''Wull, I mean... did you really hear that?'' (No, dumbass, she made it all up for fun.) Within seconds, he steers the conversation out of that scary, substantive territory by joking that his chief competition — Mark, Ed, Wes, Kiptyn — have ''multiple'' girlfriends, and that he has two wives. Question successfully deflected, and crisis averted!
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