Back in the Saddle Again...

Hey everyone! Thanks for bearing with me while I was gone for a couple of weeks. I got some much-needed family fun time in two of the “Happiest Places on Earth” – Disneyland AND Disney World. When we made the reservations, I had no idea that they would conflict with not only The Men Tell All, but also the finale! Such a crime! But I had to make do with fun in the sun (and heat and humidity) with my family, and managed to have a most excellent time despite missing all the drama on Monday nights.

So I guess the biggest news to report here is that the spoiler sites were all wrong about the outcome here, right? They said that Ali ended up alone at the end with neither Roberto nor Chris. I love reading the spoilers so I can see how the producers manipulate the show throughout the season, but I love it even more when the spoiler sites are wrong. This was a nice twist at the end, and they must have gone to great lengths to keep it all under wraps.

I have to say that I am happy for Ali and Roberto. They were super cute on the After the Final Rose special and looked legitimately in love. Let’s see if that can last through one of them being on the next season of Dancing with the Stars, right?

Since I have a life (and mountains of laundry to do after vacation), I won’t do a detail-by-detail description of both shows this time around. Sorry to anyone who was hoping for that. I just don’t have the time, and to be honest, the show has been done now for almost a week. I think pretty much everything has been said about it that needs to be said.

So, instead of the play-by-play, I’ll just put down some of my thoughts about each show:

The Men Tell All:

1. I always laugh at the montages they do of outtakes and flubs, and this show was no exception. We got to see Roberto almost take out Ali’s eye with a champagne cork, Ali forgetting that she put on a space helmet in a desperate attempt to have Chris Harrison rescue her from Kreepy Kasey, and peacock howls interrupting the romantic tension between Ali and Roberto. I wonder why they don’t just include scenes like these on the original show instead of the same, repetitive lines we get. But at least we get to watch them all here. Very funny stuff.

2. My whole impression of the Justin “Rated-R” drama is that, yes, he was probably in the wrong and told some lies, but that the show blew it all way more out of proportion than the whole event really was. So much of this show was, “He didn’t show up, so let’s rake him over the coals.” If you’ve read other interviews with Justin, he purposely didn’t show up to the taping of this show because he knew that the producers could edit his comments any way they saw fit. It’s not a live show and he saw how Rozlyn got treated last season and made a wise choice to just keep his words as far away from the producers as possible.

Yes, he probably was there for the wrong reasons, but both sides (Justin and the producers) are guilty here, and I got tired of everyone beating up on him at every opportunity. Chris Harrison’s pompousness about it all REALLY got under my skin. He sat there all high and mighty, nodding his head knowingly whenever one of the guys or Ali would vent a criticism of Justin. Enough already….

3. It never fails that in every Men Tell All episode they have to pull out some way over-eager fan who is drooling at the opportunity to let the guys know that she is single and totally into them. This episode was no exception as they hauled out some young lovely to tell Craig that she wants him to wrestle Justin in the olive oil and that she’ll “cheer him on”. Big sigh here. These women verge on pathetic as they realize it’s their only opportunity to interact with any of these guys since none of the guys would even give them the time of day outside of the studio and the cameras.

4. And speaking of Craig, wow…how did he end up getting the most airtime without even getting a one-on-one interview on the couch? Chris Harrison seemed to throw to Craig every minute or two for his opinion about almost everything. And Craig served it out in spades. He got bleeped a bunch and kept on and on about how much he disliked Justin. I liked Craig while he was on the show, but this episode made me dislike him a bit more – especially after he agreed to roll around in the olive oil with Justin. Ew.

5. OK…something must be said here about Ali’s appearance on this show. Apparently her gays were all out having a fabulous dinner that night because girlfriend looked horrible. She had on a stripe-y, spangly dress that did nothing flattering for her. And her hair looked like 14 different stylists had all done one different thing to it. It was swept up, falling back, falling forwards, wavy, curly, straight – you name it. Nothing was working about her look on the show.

6. Was it just me, or was Kasey’s new song way less awkward? Was it because he had time to rehearse? Was it because it was funny and he actually had time to think about the lyrics? Whatever the reason, I laughed instead of reaching for the remote like last time.

7. I loved the montage of funny moments at the end too: Roberto’s balls hurt getting into his harness, dogs won’t stop barking behind Ty during his interviews so he tries to speak “dog” to them, Ali jumps up and screams during an interview when a mouse goes by, and Craig speaks Spanish thinking no one else will understand him, but, to his dismay, Weather Guy does. All of those shots should have been in the original show!

So after all of this, it’s down to Roberto and Chris. The spoiler sites all say that she ends up with no one, so we’re eager to see how it all goes down…

The Finale and After the Final Rose Special

1. My first impression as the finale starts is that Roberto’s teeth have all of a sudden become blindingly supersonic white. Why do people on TV do this so much? It’s almost as bad as the fake spray tans. It’s not natural. No one looks like that in real life. It’s never a good thing when people stare at your teeth the whole time you’re talking.

2. Ali’s family seems nice, but I have a few questions: Aren’t her folks divorced? Didn’t she bond over divorced parents with Kirk a few episodes back? If so, then why were they presented to us here as one happy family? It was never mentioned that they were divorced. Is this her stepdad? (By the way…how creepy was HE?! And how bummed is that kid that he inherited his dad’s eyebrows?) Were those siblings her stepbrother and stepsister? If those are her actual parents, then aren’t they remarried? Where were the new spouses? When she went home to Kirk’s hometown, the producers managed to have Ali meet both sides without inciting a riot. Why not here in Bora Bora? Enquiring minds want to know…

3. Ali and Roberto go Jet-Skiing as part of their date. At one point, they jump into the ocean to frolic with a bunch of what Roberto calls “stingrays”. I’m calling BS on this. There is no way those were stingrays. They were rays, sure. My daughter has pet those types of rays at the aquarium, but they don’t sting. There’s no way the producers would have let these two jump into an actual pool of real, live stingrays. Can you just imagine? At the finale Ali and Roberto would have been covered head to toe in red, angry welts.

4. This finale broke new ground as Ali dumped Chris even before their final date began. This spared him the humiliation of getting down on one knee to propose the next day only to get rejected. Did you notice that as they cut to a commercial before Ali’s date with Chris, we got no preview shots of it? That’s because it never happened and they couldn’t ruin the surprise dumping for the audience.

Yes, I felt bad for Chris, but he was all wrong for Ali. Even when he’s being animated and smiley, there’s something sad and heavy about him. He’s not over his issues with his mom yet, and it shows. Ali needs someone with more life to him, someone who genuinely is feeling emotions. The only reason Chris was crying after Ali dumped him was because he wasn’t going to be married like his brothers, plain and simple. Ali was his ticket out of the “I’m the oldest and still not married so I must find someone NOW” illusion that so many people have that controls their lives and drives their relationships into the ground.

He seems like a nice guy, and I’m sure he’s a frontrunner to be the next Bachelor. He definitely has the “Awww…” sympathy factor. He’s very like Meredith. She was a sad sack on her season too since her grandmother had just died. She got dumped by the Bachelor, but came back and was the Bachelorette the next season. Chris may do the same thing, but I hope not. I think it would be more interesting to have lawyer Craig on there or Ty or tall, tattooed, handsome Jesse (Did you guys do a double-take too when you saw his shaved head? Can’t wait to see him strut his stuff on Bachelor Pad. One word – awesome!). Those guys are WAY more animated and more fun to watch than constantly seeing Chris talk out of the side of his mouth.

5. I think the rainbow imagery was a bit much after Chris got dumped. My first thought was that it was totally faked, but after hearing Ali talk about it during the last hour, I guess it was real. I’m glad it made Chris feel better during a hard time, but I didn’t like how the producers hit us over the head with it for so long.

6. The funniest line of the night came from Roberto, as he’s getting dressed in his fancy duds and preparing to propose to Ali: “I have never done this much thinking in my life!” I’ll just let that line speak for itself…

7. I haven’t heard anyone else talking about this, but I think it’s notable here that a person of color won The Bachelorette this time around. Every season, it seems they throw in a token minority who gets cut within the first episode or two. Remember Channy and her landing strip with Jake last season? Ye gods! But Roberto finally broke the curse and won in the end.

8. What was notable to me about the After the Final Rose show was that there was no studio audience. Again, since the producers knew the spoiler sites were wrong, they couldn’t let the secret out that Ali and Roberto actually DID end up together. Since this special is filmed a week before the finale airs, the secret would have been out before the finale even aired. So there was no audience, which really changed the feeling of the show. It felt much more boring and dragging. The fact that Frank canceled at the last minute didn’t help things either. That was the big drama they had built up on the previous show, and it fizzled into nothing fast. I think Frank probably saw what was happening to Justin everywhere and did the smart thing by staying away. Who knows how he would have been edited? People already don’t like him for what he did to Ali. Why would he add potential fuel to the fire?

9. Lastly, they put Ali in yet another unflattering dress for the after show. Could her boobs have been any more pressed down? It actually looked painful at some points. I don’t have breasts, but even I started tugging uncomfortably at the front of my shirt imagining how packed in and down she was. Set ‘em free, Ali!

All in all, I liked these last two episodes. I wish Frank and Justin would have come back, but I get why they didn’t. I liked that we all thought Roberto was going to dump Ali after she had just dumped Chris, but in the end it all turned out to be a happy ending. Ali and Roberto are moving to San Diego together to be closer to the Dancing with the Stars studios Roberto’s business, and I wish them all the best.

I will most definitely be blogging about Bachelor Pad starting next week, so come back and dish along with me! And don’t forget to “Like” After the Rose on Facebook for more links and funny stuff. See you next week. It’s great to be back!