Within the first few minutes of the episode tonight

Normally, once I wrap up my cozy two hours on the couch with my vino, my lap top and my bachelor or bachelorette, I shut ‘er down for the night, go to sleep and wake up at an ungodly hour to release all my judgmental thoughts that have simmered in my slumber to you.

But, that ain’t the case tonight.  Nope.  An early meeting tomorrow means I gotta put this puppy out now, so I’ll give you what I got, but just know that I’m tired and my bed is calling, calling, calling me…

Within the first few minutes of the episode tonight, I had mixed emotions.   On the one hand, how ridiculous is this show that a girl can be in love with three guys one day and two weeks later be fully confident in marrying one of them?  It just doesn’t make sense.  On the other hand, God dammit I love this show.  I am giddy with excitement for what’s to come and for the first time, I felt that tonight’s episode, and the whole season for that matter, could really go in any of these three directions.

Once we were finished sitting through at least ten full minutes of watching Emily stare out to sea from various angles on land and water, complete with an ‘I’m the king of the world!’ moment at the edge of the boat, trying to detangle her breezy hair from her freshly plumped, over-glossed lips (could there be anything more annoying than the combo of wind, hair and lip gloss?), we were ready to start the dates.

We of course, also had to endure the recap of her relationships with the final three, which was basically the same footage from last week’s intro, but I think at this point, it’s fair to say these are necessary.  After all, there are very few roses left to hand out and we only have a couple more episodes to determine which ones have thorns.  We take this job as hypercritical viewers very seriously.  I mean, really, it’s all about us, right?

So we start off with Sean and I have to admit that though I am still traumatized by the repulsive mouth to mouth action we bore witness to last week, there is no denying he’s still pretty easy on the eyes.  I think it’s the smile that really gets me, because I do find blonde eyebrows sort of weird, now that I think about it.  We review the moment when Sean reveals that he is unequivocally, undeniably ready to be a dad and a husband and raise Ricki as his own.  However, upon closer examination of that scene, I realize it may not be Emily and Ricki who are ‘the girls’ he’s referring to, since it’s painfully clear that he can’t pry his eyes away from the girls on her chest the whole time he’s talking to her.  Things that make you go Hmm…

We jump on over to Jef.  I think I can speak on behalf of most of my readers, if not all fans in general, and say that his mastery of the marionettes was truly a turning point for all of our relationships.  Raise your hand if you did not develop a secret mini crush on Jef after watching him act out his nerves with puppets.  See?  Told you.  Friggin adorable.  Hopefully tonight will bring Jef the closure he’s looking for as his missing letter gets busy getting his ‘F’ on with Emily.  Of the final three, if I were a kid, I would choose Jef as my dad for sure, and not just because I could use his hair as a skate ramp.

But then, Emily starts talking about Arie and while it’s pretty clear that there was a whole lotta liquid seeping from her throughout her time with him tonight, I didn’t expect tears right at the beginning of the episode.  There she is though, imagining her life with Arie and crying herself a little river.

I’m not going to call out the whole writing her name in the sand and then having the wave wash away just the right part and wonder if the camera guy made her redo it over and over again to get the perfect spot in the sand.  Too obvious.  Whoops.

Okay, date #1.  Sean.  Not so into his matchy matchy deep V and shoes, but he certainly can rock a t-shirt, now can’t he.  If Emily were standing next to me as I type this, she’d be saying ‘I know, right?’

Emily and Sean head off to an isolated island where he basically proceeds to put the nails in the coffin of his relationship with his ex girlfriend.  Bet she feels like a big winner watching right now.  Nothing quite like finding out your boyfriend never loved you on national TV.  Hopefully her girlfriends are surrounding her on the couch, supporting her with a chorus of ‘Oh no he Di-Int’!!!’s.

Once Sean finishes ripping his past relationship to shreds, it’s Emily’s turn to make the viewers feel like shit by prancing around in her bikini.  Really?  Is it even possible to be this hot?  I mean, I get it.  She paid good money for 89% of her body – a number which seems to be fluctuating from scene to scene as I swear there are moments where she’s a nice perfect little C cup and then you blink your eyes and it’s like, oh hello DD32, how ya been?  Seriously?  Anyone else out there totally confused by the constant changing state of her body and face?  One thing I will not miss about this show is watching my self-esteem plummet every time Little Miss I Don’t Work Out dons another eeny weeny bikini.

So they have a great day on the beach, Sean wonders if he should drop the L word and off they go to the evening portion where quelle surprise, two ginormous steaks are waiting for them when they arrive, way past the resting point, so they can be ignored.

As soon as Sean said he wrote a letter to Ricki, I started to cry.  Yup.  Full tears.  How thoughtful, Sean!  What a sweetheart.  Points for you, big boy!  Then I saw ‘his’ handwriting.  Seriously?  There might as well have been hearts instead of dots on the i’s.  That’s about as believable as ‘Chris Harrison’s über-feminine hand writing on the fantasy date cards.   At this point I’m thinking to myself, okay I get that Sean’s a super-rugged, manly athlete, but I’m starting to wonder if perhaps this boy may be a catcher and not so much a pitcher…just sayin.

Clearly Emily didn’t seem to mind because it was really all she needed to hear – oh, that and the fact that Sean loves her.  He says those three magic words and leans in for another one of his specialty kisses, complete with a thigh grab that looks so awkward it reminds me of a blind man putting his arms out at a crosswalk just waiting for the birds to start chirping so he can safely cross the street.