Wombat Part Finale: The End

Babies, after 10 years, we would like to announce that this is the End of the Road, for both the Wombat and This Viewer. This blog started as an email to a few friends, and grew to 143 blog posts, 200-250 steady readers, and many mini-bottles of the Sutter Wine. We have enjoyed it so much, but think that it is time to move our pen in another direction, and to get more sleep on Monday nights. Thank you so very much for reading. Drop a comment below this post, if you would like to tell me where you're from.

Without further ado, but with some sadness, we begin The Wombat: Part Finale. As the Wombat recaps the women and the difficult choice he is about to make, we are interrupted by “HEY-OH!!” Oh “African Choir singing in African Language,” we and Closed Captioning have missed you. The Wombat, gazing over his balcony at the part of Cape Town, announces that he is “looking out at what seems to be the whole world.” Ah, this must be Sarah Palin’s Cape Town.

After flashbacks of his insipid conversations with the women (“Let’s just say that he and Dolly Pemily aren’t going to win at charades,” says KMu), the Wombat is ready, babies, to introduce Chantally Lace and Dolly Pemily to his family. It is a “truly necessary step.” How fortunate for him, as his family suddenly is there, hiking through the brush towards him. And then there is crying, and scrawny sisters in law named “Dillon” and “Prima” (she was somebody’s cousin), and a mother in too much makeup. And the Wombat’s twin brother. Says ABe, “Wow, Chad is way hotter than the Wombat.”

After some tears evoked by family togetherness, the doorbell rings. “Hang tight, I need some time with my woman,” says the Wombat. WTF. Oh, it is just Chantally Lace, with the most burned chest we have ever seen. As she chatters on and on about “what really made me knew that I loved Brad . . .” was running through the rain with a wine glass (because that was so much like real life) we once again feel the death of grammar in America. Then Chad the Hot Brother is talking again, and we don’t hear anything except waves of hotness. “He really is 10,000 times hotter than his brother,” marvels ABe.

So blah blah, there is a lovefest between Chantally Lace and the Mom:
“You’re precious!”
“So are you!”
“You’re fabulous!”
“So are you!”
And off goes Chantally Lace into the sunset after a little smooch. Boy howdy, does this viewer think Chantally Lace kisses like crap, but the Wombat is undeterred: “If everything works out, I will marry her.”

The next day, it’s Dolly Pemily’s turn for the big family visit. She shows up with flowers all wrapped up, and for a moment we think it is a baby in the swaddling clothes. Oops. Before they go inside, the Wombat feels that he needs to coach Dolly Pemily: “You aren’t shy, you are just private.” We fight down our annoyance.

This time, brother Wes (not the hot one) ends up stepping in it when he asks Dolly Pemily how Ricki’s father would feel about her moving to Austin. The Wombat freaks out: “This ah . . ok. . . um not a good time . . but . . ah . . . maybe later.” Dolly Pemily shows more grace as she tells her story about her fiancee’s death, though she still can’t say “he was killed.” But it is enough. Prima has folded herself around one pointy clavicle, crying heavily.

The Wombat’s brothers quiz him about whether he is ready to be a dad, he insists he is ready, and the Wombat’s mother, Pamela, declares that she feels like she’s meeting his future wife. Babies, the most meaningful part of the whole day was when the Dolly Pemily told Pamela that the Wombat is her “angel.” Pamela gets choked up again telling it. The sisters-in-law also approve, because “as a mom, she would fit into our world.” WTF. But it is Chad the Hot Brother who saves the day from insipidity again, observing that there is a “huge difference between a wallflower and someone with poise. And Dolly Pemily is just extremely poised.” We heart Chad the Hot Brother.

We can all see where this is going.

But first, we must watch a final date with Chantally Lace, on a party boat in Cape Town. This viewer once took a party boat sightseeing trip in Mexico. Alcohol, waves, thirty people, and two toilets don’t mix, gentle readers.

But Chantally Lace isn’t thinking about the perils of party boating, as she is simply thrilled to have forgotten her pants one last time for the Bachelor. We conclude this is a wise move, as the Wombat announces that they are going to swim with the sharks in a little cage off the side of the boat. As we would completely pee our wetsuit, Chantally’s pantslessness suddenly makes sense. Except when she comes out of the dressing room, she seems to have forgotten her top. We cannot get past this, and apparently neither can her wetsuit zipper, which just stays open for the next 20 minutes despite the absence of top.

Since they survived the shark situation, Chantally Lace and the Wombat move on to a short visit at her place that night. Oh look, she has given him a message in a bottle! It is a map of the world, tracing all of their significant relationship steps, such as where she slapped him for the first time . . . . and the last time . . . . She has also included a personal note, on register tape. He unrolls it and reads, “blah blah fell in love. Blah blah, I choose you, please choose me.” It is actually a nice note, but we must deduct points from Chantally Lace for writing something that would inevitably be read in its entirety to the television viewing audience.

Off we go on final date #2 with Dolly Pemily, the next day. And we suddenly retract all that we said about Chantally Lace’s pantslessness, for DP is wearing a button down shirt cut up to where her future saddlebags will be, and boots. And it is windy. We are suddenly terrified, as Dolly Pemily attempts to hold down the fort in both front and back while walking towards a helicopter, up a mountain, and sitting in the wind on said mountain.

While they sit down and scream at each other over the wind about what it means to have children and be a father, Dolly Pemily has one hand scraping her hair out of her face and one hand holding down her “dress.” “I wish I had a hat for her,” says ABe. “A hat and pants.”

That night, the Wombat heads over to Dolly Pemily’s place to have what he believes is the “most important conversation” with her. He confesses that, “Ever since the Cape. The Windy Windy Cape,” he has been thinking about how ready he is to be a father, and he asks Dolly Pemily to open her life to him so that he can do that. And it all goes downhill. Dolly Pemily pushes him on whether he knows how hard and “not always fun” it will be. And the Wombat, viewing this as questioning his sincerity and trying to sabotage the relationship, gets mad. In a nutshell, he feels “defeated.”

Babies, we are in the badlands of the Wombat’s limited emotional range/understanding. And it does not look good for Dolly Pemily.

The very next day, however, is the Final Rose Ceremony. Suddenly, we are in the part of the book where each chapter is written by a different person, as we ping-pong between the Wombat, Dolly Pemily, and Chantally Lace’s views of the world while they get ready to find out who the Wombat has chosen. We hate Chantally Lace’s dress, for which she killed and denuded a small black bird. But, we love Dolly Pemily’s dress, even though we realize with a shock (as she steps out of the limo and into direct sunlight) that it is completely see-through.

Let’s just get it out of the way: He picks Dolly Pemily. Now this viewer owes DLei a dollar. And while the proposal is sweet and tender, we are actually more mesmerized by the engagement happening on the Fancy Feast commercial during the break. Over ABe’s wails of never getting those minutes back, KMu revokes our remote control privileges.

But here is the thing: we are suddenly whisked into the After the Final Rose episode, which is historically the following week. And we don’t know what to say, because the Wombat is there proclaiming his love for Dolly Pemily, while simultaneously stating that they broke up for awhile, and that he doesn’t know they are still engaged and he is “hoping she will tell me.” They have, apparently, not seen each other for a month. But out she comes to say that she loves him. She informs him that they are still engaged, but says that he has a temper, they have volatile fights, and they have some things to work through.

(this is all after Chantally Lace comes out, cries awhile about the difficult loss of the Wombat, and announces that despite this difficulty, she has moved on with someone new).

We feel bad for Dolly Pemily, as we know that she is now with someone that is going to be very hard to shake. We know where this is going for her, and feel sad.

Thank god that we have Bachelor Nation’s “successful couples,” to guide us through this difficult time: Trista & Ryan, Big Daddy and Molly who will Not Age Well, and Ali and Roberto. We still love Ryan, even though he wrote that poem and drew a white tiger for Trista (whatever works for her). And Molly still will not age well.

And so it ends, in a cliffhanger for the Wombat, and the end of the book for this viewer. Thank you, my own Bachelor Nation, for the ride.


-Kelly Hartzler (KLo)