This week has been nothing short of historic. You’re probably thinking I speak in reference to “the shot heard round the world” in the World Indoor Bowls Championships on Wednesday; or the Guinness World Record for most individual milkshakes on a single menu being broken; but no. I am speaking about the first time in living memory that The Bachelor, whilst on air, has not offered up the juiciest slice of relationship gossip for the week. While the claim has been debunked more times than Obama’s phantom Kenyan birth certificate, I want it to be true so badly that I’m running with it anyways in the hope that I can blog it into existence. Yes, I am of course talking about the Nicholas Cage and Ke$ha dating rumors. C’mon, can you imagine seeing the conjunction of two more titanic entertainment figures? It would relegate the Jay-Z-Beyoncé wedding to the trash-heap of history; make Harry and Megan’s nuptials seem rather small-town in comparison! Ke$ha would finally get her rich, white, straight man and Nicholas would cement his magpie-status, going after only the shiniest, most glitter-covered treasures our collective humanity has to offer. Their kids would wake up every morning feeling like P Diddy due to the enormous amount of pilfered Aztec gold that they had draped around their necks, and I’m salivating at the prospect of a National Treasure 3 soundtrack penned exclusively by Ke$ha! Oh well; a boy can dream; onward and upwards; back to The Bachelor I guess? Poor guy.

Some thoughts with an eye on Monday…

This is something that I referenced in my Week 3 recap, but it is really incredible Sydney self-identified as a rat, and then proceeded to call Alayah an elephant on prime-time national television. Calling someone an elephant is usually in reference to one of three fictional-character-derived tropes: Dumbo if the recipient of your barb has big ears, Babar if they harbor a proclivity for incestuous behavior (people forget he married his cousin), or Mr. Snuffleupagus if they are the imaginary friend of a big, fictional bird (this one is rare.) Alayah I think deserves a different elephantine characterization however. She’s more of a Horton, because WHO THE FUCK CARES what Sydney thinks about her? Sydney is correct in her zoological self-assessment; she calls out her fellow competitors with an air of moral superiority as if she legitimately cares about Peter’s feelings; she crits around talking shit about Alayah calling her “fake” and “rehearsed” before snatching the group rose and scurrying back into the sewers. All of this rat talk is rather fitting given our current year in the Chinese Zodiac Calendar; all I can hope is that Alayah comes back, and unlike her nearly namesake, can avoid a Peter plane crash (RIP) and show him she’s One in a Million!

Peter was the host of categorically the worst pool party in human history. Instead of drinking pineapple drinks, rubbing tanning oil into the backs of his cooing concubines, and bombing around doing cannon balls aiming for maximal splash radius, Pete was obviously in more of a litigious mood. The Alayah, Sydney situation deserved its time in the sun (or the shade given the truly rancid looking atmospheric conditions at the party) but it became the center piece of the entire afternoon and marked another occasion where Peter’s feelings of confusion, disappointment and general psychological malaise got in the way of more primal exploits. I get that it is difficult to assess genuine intentions on a show that is primarily a trebuchet to Instagram stardom, but Peter’s quest for the truth was about as effective as Natty Light Seltzer’s full court marketing press in rural Afghanistan! His arraignments of the various girls and subsequent cross-examinations lacked precision, were not sufficiently probing and his ultimate indecision about who to send home made him look more like Atticus Flinch rather than a truth-seeking truffle pig with his love life on the line! Maybe he needs to spend some more time with Kelley the Prosecutie?

Getting Sydney to call out Alayah in front of all her peers was really quite something… I haven’t had that kind of rush since I completed the 30-minute Cody Rigsby Lady Gaga Peloton ride for the first time… in a word, WOW! Just as Prometheus bestowed upon humankind fire from Olympus, so too has the Sydney-Alayah drama bestowed fire upon this season of the Bachelor – The only big difference is that these ladies’ livers aren’t pecked out by an eagle each day for their fire-transmission (although they appear to be putting forward their best liver-self-destruction efforts by shoveling gallons of liquor down their gullets each episode!) I wonder if Sydney will be afforded the same kind of whistleblower protections as her counterparts in Federal agencies… Gotta figure she could put together a pretty solid workplace retaliation case if she gets canned next week?

Three things to look out for:

Why is Alayah back? This could be one of those preview gimmicks a la Hannah B earlier this season where she comes back for a hot second and then leaves again, but given Peter’s legendary indecision who the hell knows? Chris Harrison did take away one rose inexplicably before Alayah got the chop, so can’t help but think that this could be significant!

This could be one of those preview gimmicks a la Hannah B earlier this season where she comes back for a hot second and then leaves again, but given Peter’s legendary indecision who the hell knows? Chris Harrison did take away one rose inexplicably before Alayah got the chop, so can’t help but think that this could be significant! Are they ever going to leave Southern California? They desperately need to get out of the United States… Nothing quite gets the people going like watching the disgusted contestants have to eat scorpions in Thailand, or survive machete-wielding Amazonians in Brazil. Get them on a plane and let’s take this shitshow international!

They desperately need to get out of the United States… Nothing quite gets the people going like watching the disgusted contestants have to eat scorpions in Thailand, or survive machete-wielding Amazonians in Brazil. Get them on a plane and let’s take this shitshow international! Which character will Peter adopt next episode? This season has been a walking talking PSA for dissociative identity disorder! Peter has played a pilot, has been seen salsa-dancing around his kitchen with his Hispanic family, and last episode sought to trumpet his country credentials with a trip to a boot barn and then a good old fashioned country hoedown. Whether this simulation had people across rural America gleefully cracking open another can of Budweiser, lighting up a couple of cowboy killers and kissing their “Hillary for Prison” tattoos is tough to tell, all we know is that Peter is a wearer of many hats and who knows where his next foray into character fantasy will take him!

Happy watching people 🙂