Pringles Part 4: Foolish Hearts

Yawn.  Pringles Part 4 begins with Chris Harrison (again) talking to the “ladies” in their “I-wear-a-ton-of-slap-to-look-freshfaced-and-like-I-just-woke-up” living room attire (again).  “Well,” says he, “there are 13 of you left.  It seems like everything is going very . . . . [insert evil laugh] VERY well here.”  We are a little terrified.   As this is happening, Pringles is naked (again), and putting on some pants.  Good lord, he is like a hairless kitty.

So the Harrison drops date card #1 off, and it is for Groaning Selma:  “Let’s turn up the heat.”   Selma is so excited that she changes from one set of spandex into another set of spandex.  “I can’t wait to finally get to open up to him, and show him the real me . . . I want to take it to the next level, and the next level, and then have babies!!!”  While this can only mean Bad Things, Selma’s joy is also causing Poker Face to break down. Crying, she tells the camera that she really wanted a date.  Oh Poker Face, this is not something that you want like coffee or a different job or a new romance novel.  Run away, Poker Face.  Run. Away.

Pringles eventually picks up Selma for their date. “Oh thank god,” we think to ourselves, “he is not wearing a dayglo v-neck tank top.” And then we see his salmon pants.  We hate these pants.  But Selma doesn’t care because he’s picked her up in a limo, and then a private plane (which may be driven by Jake.  Did you know he is a pilot?), and she is wondering if all the rest of her dates will be like this:  "Like, I feel like I'm dreaming right now.  I don't even know if this is real.  It's just beyond anything I've ever imagined.  This definitively meets . . . exceeds. . . my expectations. . . . I feel like a princess in a castle."

ABe, writing in from BNU headquarters, e-mutters, “because no one on the show's ever said anything like THAT before."  

But we are distracted by the fact that Selma has now cut herself in half in order to drape her ample ribcage across Pringles’ lap, and is asking Pringles if he can handle “all 110 pounds of” her while the Bachelor’s Camera Man has a love affair with her blood red talons.  Yet even as we are wondering why ABC keeps showing us Selma’s nails, Pringles is taking Groaning Selma out into the desert to die.  Okay, so it is Joshua Tree National Park.  But now, NOW, babies, Selma says she “doesn’t do well with heat.”  She gets “frustrated” and feels “puffy.”  Heat makes this viewer’s thighs rub together like two pigs in a blanket, but tomato tomahto. 

 KMu: "I just realized that Selma is Princess Jasmine.  A whole new woooooorld..."
ABe: "Don't you dare close your eyes!"

Pringles announces that they are about to take a magic carpet ride up some bigass rock, and Princess Jasmine looks like she just had a rat shoved up her nose.  She hates heights.  She gets paranoid and unhappy. But then something happens:  As Princess is clawing her way towards the top of a rock, it is not our Sweet Baby Jesus and/or Fear of Falling To Death that gives her strength.  No, it is He [Pringles].  He gives her “adrenaline” and “courage” and she basically Makes That Rock Her Bitch.  Pringles is now feeling a little threatened because he has been left in the dust by an unathletic pint-sized Arabic woman with a preference for 6-inch heels.  While we have respect for GS for her made clawing skills, we can’t but help feel that Pringles was off the mark when he says that she loved everything about this date.  Being game does not enjoyment make, big P.

So off they go to dinner, in an abandoned Irish Travelers camp.  We secretly hope some 15-year-old girl in a corset and mini-skirt is going to pop out from behind an RV and start grinding against them before describing her perfect wedding dress.  ANYWAY,  now surrounded by mini-campers designed as “themes” (like “Fifi”), Pringles and the Princess cuddle on a futon and drink.  Her favorite part of the day?  Being with him.  Why he is still single? His one year relationship post-college wasn’t with the right person. He wants to kiss her, her “eyes are begging” him to kiss her, and then this happens:  “I come from a very conservative, strict home.  My mother would die if I kissed you on national television.”  Oh. A few awkward cuddles and MORE images of her talons later, and Princess Jasmine gets the rose.

Meawhile, Date Card #2 has arrived at the Ladies’ House of Shame.  “I am looking for a woman who can roll with the punches.”  Ooooo.  This card is for The General’s Daughter, the First Lady, Jackie, Hillshire, Amanda Knox, PK, Squints, and Tierra Firma.   T looks like she’s gonna cutta bitch.

One hard edit later and we are all running towards the limos in our workout gear and breathlessly wondering what possibly could this date be about??  A. Knox tells the other women that this is her third group date, so just follow her lead.  The General’s Daughter wonders if rolling with the punches means rolling in a hamster ball.  We secretly wish that it was rolling with the cheeses, but sadly know that it is roller derby.  While Le Derby may well be this viewer’s personal  favorite sport, we are not excited about watching a bunch of chickies dressed up like Susan G. Komen breast cancer survivor ribbons pretend to be competitive.  Which is exactly what we get.

So Squints feels like this is her time to shine, to be strong and show who she is.  We wish she would simply shine instead of noting that it is her time to do so.  But Squints isn’t listening to our internal monologue because now she is prosing on about how she doesn’t think that having one arm is going to hold her back.

“Wait, Squints only has one arm?” asks ABe. 

And now we are in a warehouse.   PK is terrified because she is a “girly girl” who is “not adventurous.”  Well, color her eliminated down the road.  As an extra welcomes them all into the “wonderful world of rollerderby,” Pringles giggles about how fun this is going to be because the women are all so “sweet.”   We think Pringles is on crack cocaine.   But maybe not, as he then states that A.Knox and Tierra (who  wants to “knock some beyotches”) will be the most aggressive.  A. Knox shoots a Colgate smile his way, and we shiver a little. Her evil genius tells the other team that she has done roller derby before, even though she has not. Ooooo.

Blah blah everyone falls on their butts, and Squints melts down because Le Derby is both “emotionally and physically hard.”  KMu, from across the miles, pronounces that while Squints’ voice does her no favors, we hate this show for putting a one-armed girl in a roller-derby competition effectively against her will.  The PK talks her up, and Pringles “comforts” her, and then suddenly Squints is no longer the issue because A. Knox fell on her face and may have fractured her jaw!! (she didn’t).   Says the PK, laughing:  “This is getting serious!!!”  headdesk.

Suddenly, Hot Medic is taking A. Knox to the hospital.  Wait a minute. Why isn’t Hot Medic The Bachelor??  We have been ROBBED.  We no longer care that Pringles has converted the Derby Bout into a free skate to the smooth song stylings of “Foolish Hearts.”  Yes, hear this viewer calling.  Stop before, you stop falling, Babies (unless it is for Hot Medic).

Now we’re on a rooftop, and Tierra Firma is wearing formal shorts, stripper hoops in her ears, and high heels.  She is also in a major snit.   As Pringles as 1:1 time with Squints (who is “so embarrassed”) and A. Knox (who did not seriously injure herself but plans to milk it for all its worth), La Firma is slowly working herself up the dial to 11.  
Random woman #1: “Wow, Tierra, you should do Roller Derby when you’re done with this show.  You were really good.”
Tierra:  “NO.”
The First Lady:  “So what happened with A. Knox? “
Tierra: “I must focus on myself and Sean and our connection (everybody drink). “ [which is why she is going to sulk on the sofa.].  “I don’t understand why no one gets that I don’t trust anyone here.  It’s like, so annoying.”

And then as the General’s Daughter is in the midst of exploratory surgery re: Pringles’ tonsils during her own 1:1 time, Tierra Firma goes On The Hunt.  She demands of a production assistant to be let off the show.  She “deserves more than this.  Sean is a great guy, but why should I be tortured every day.  I can’t take all the fakeness of these girls.  I am breaking down inside and holding it all in, but I cannot be TORTURED EVERY DAY.”  Yes babies, tortured.   Tierra Firma is going to Open Up a Can of Geneva Convention Whoop-ass on ABC.   Except before she does that,  she is going to steal Pringles from the General’s Daughter (who is now in her swimsuit as they head to the hot tub) so that she can tell Pringles about the “torture, seriously torture” that she is experiencing because she doesn’t get to go on adventures with him.

 

Pringles, thinking with other parts of his anatomy than the rackety little gumball bouncing around in his skull, tells her he knew it would be hard for her  . .. “because I am so sensitive and so emotional about going after what I want” Tierra breaks in.   Yes, whatever.  And also, he is apparently “crazy’ about her, and to prove it, gives her the ROSE on this date.  Even as the General’s Daughter is abandoned with the other women, in her swimsuit, up on the rooftop deck.  That is Stone. Cold.

And just like that, Date Card #3 has arrived for .. .Poker Face!!!   “Could this be forever?”  it queries. . . . .with two big ol’ diamond earrings.  Uhoh.  It’s the Pretty Woman Date.   And sure enough, “It’s just like pretty woman!” Poker Face squeels.   Yes,  Cinda-f*ckin-Ella.

So we like Poker Face (all of us).  She seems nice, and normal, and even though she may say “holey moley” a lot, seems reasonably smart.   But this is what Makes Us Salty (all of us):  Every time Poker Face gets a new object from Pringles on this “Pretty Woman” date, she’s all “I’ve never been treated so well by a boyfriend in my life!”  And here is our thing:  Poker Face is never going to be happy until she realizes that finding a boyfriend who does not eat all of the chicken out of the chicken and rice, leaving only rice for her, and who chases after her with an umbrella when it is raining, is 10 times more valuable than a pair of Neil Lane diamond earrings she had no choice in selecting and a Badgley Mischka dress that looks like an unwrapped candy bar.  RAGE.

But Poker Face does not hear our screams, as she is now on Rodeo Drive in Beverley Hills, carefully selecting said candybar dress.  “Its every girl’s dream to shop on Rodeo Drive” declares Pringles.  Well, it ain’t This Viewer’s dream, darling.  We are pretty sure that our sense of self would never recover from the trauma of being pantsless and crying in the corner of a dressing room, trying to find something  amidst all the fashion-sized clothing that did not make a normal lady look like Ripples the Hippo.

So Poker Face gets a dress, shoes, and purse to match her earrings.  Then they truck over to Neil Lane’s shop, where Neil Lane just happens to be loitering and just happens to have the perfect ginormous diamond necklace to go with all the candy bar wrapping paper at the top of Poker Face’s dress.  And Poker Face is going on and on about how she’s “never been treated so good before” (RAGE.  And also, GRAMMAR  RAGE), and how this is “just like my favorite movie come to life.” 

At last they are sitting down to dinner on the staircase of the Titanic, and there is an echo.  Into the void, Pringles is asking all manner of question about Poker Face’s relationships and family, and the conversation is flowing, but DA DA DUM: There is no spark.   We secretly think that OF COURSE there is no spark because it is episode 4, and Poker Face is a P.O.C., and everyone knows that the POCs get eliminated by episode four.   But as Pringles tells Poker Face that he cannot give her the rose, we still feel bad for her.  We also think she is taking it like a champ, until she turns around at the last minute before entering the limo and says “but there are girls here Not For The Right Reasons!!”   Badly Done, Poker Face.  Badly. Done.    And just like that, she is gone.

And now it is the rose ceremony.   Tierra Firma is all happy because, while she may have demanded to leave the show two days earlier, she is now “here to win it” and gloating over her rose.   A. Knox looks hungover.   Various 1:1 times happen in which PK confesses feelings “developing fast,” and the First Lady asks if he would like to taste some chocolate.  Okay, we are horrified.  HORRIFIED, even if it is intentionally a cheesy pickup line.   Tierra Firma complains to A. Knox about “taking heat” from the other “girls’ while not “ever doing anything intentionally to hurt them.”   So she calls The First Lady and Jackie out and apologizes to them for “the other night when you attacked me.” Ummmmm, yeah.   Even more unhelpfully, the other women then gossip about the apology while Tierra claims she is being persecuted by the “girls” to Pringles.

We are bored.   And also, we have to hide behind our afghan when Hillshire lets Pringles pull a piece of paper with a lipstick kiss out of her garter and confesses her attraction to him.   Pringles also confesses attraction to her, but there are “four other” girls sitting directly behind them.  Gentle Readers, there are five.  Five Girls. Sigh.  They sneak away to the driveway to share a kiss.

In the end, Pringles picks (to join Princess Jasmine and Tierra Firma with roses):

1.        Hillshire

2.       Desiree Who Should Be Black

3.       The General’s Daughter

4.       The Democrat – affirming that some women should never wear bright red lipstick

5.       The First Lady.  Fittingly, for the first POC to make it to round 5.

6.       PK

7.       Squints

8.       Jackie the makeup lady, aaaand

9.       Drunken Daniella!!!

A. Knox goes home.  We feel bad for her (okay not really). 

Stay tuned for next week, when there are TWO FREAKING EPISODES back to back, Mon and Tues.

 

“KLo just shit herself” whispers ABe.