A Return to Normal

“Give us what we’re used to expecting”, shouted My Daughter Diandra quite jubilantly after this week’s episode. Except for the fake After the Final Rose interlude with Chris Harrison and his successfully betrothed Clare and Dale, what we experienced was a return to normalcy:

• Multiple mentions of the “journey” in the first few minutes
• Citation of evidence of or belief in how “this process works”
• One of the guys making sure all the other guys knew he was there “for the right reasons”
• Introduction of a villain
• Men shedding blood in a scantily clad – but at least clad – competition
• Not-so veiled threats of physical harm
• A fireworks date

If you were playing Bachelorette Bingo, you won on all cards. If you were playing a drinking game, you were pretty much toasted by the time the shameless, capitalist grab for advertising dollars promotion of the 54th Annual CMA Awards Wednesday night at 8:00 p.m. on ABC came on right after The Bachelorette was over.

However, normal doesn’t mean that we weren’t left with some fun moments. Fun is what we expect! Bachelor franchise fun is normal.

We had guys impressed when Tayshia walked in.

We had less than impressed when the new guys walked in.

And we had first impressed which is always more fun when the potential villain – in this case Spencer – gets the First Impression Rose. Which left Eazy less than impressed.

My Daughter Diandra and I were less than impressed with several fashion choices. Spencer apparently didn’t want to iron the collar on his bad Hawaiian shirt? Seriously dude?

And Chris Harrison’s skinny khakis by definition aren’t really khakis if they’re skinny. No Bueno.

We need to deal with that interlude introduced before a commercial break by Chris leading us to think he was doing an investigative story on Nightline or 20/20:

“There’s something that needs to be addressed . . . Bachelor Nation has many unanswered questions. Is Clare and Dale’s love story too good to be true? Is this a documented case of love at first sight? Or as many in Bachelor Nation believe, did Clare and Dale have contact before the show started? Well, we’re gonna get answers to all these questions tonight.”

I was half-expecting Geraldo Rivera to come out.

If you had “Fake Drama” in your drinking game, you got to take a sip although you may have spit it out right when Clare started talking babies after two weeks in a relationship. And this is a thing, folks – only on this show do you get engaged BEFORE YOU GET EACH OTHER’S PHONE NUMBERS!!!!

But really, that whole thing was just one big, “Hey, Bachelor Nation. Believe in us. Believe in our journey. It’s our love story. We’re here for each other. The process worked.” [cue Van Halen Why Can’t This Be Love while basically swallowing your drink and glass whole]

Based on the previews, we have a lot of normal stuff to look forward to. Unlike with Clare the Chaos Queen, it seems we’ll get what we expect to make My Daughter Diandra happy. Tayshia looks like she’s going to be a great Bachelorette. In a year when little, if anything, has been normal, normal sounds downright exciting.

See you next week.

P.S. This episode’s viewing wine: the high quality-to-price ratio 2019 Kirkland Signature Malbec Mendoza.