'The Bachelorette' recap: In romantic Bermuda, Emily dreams of babies

By Amy Kaufman

June 5, 2012 8:38 AM PT

Ah, finally. “The Bachelorette” finally left North Carolina behind this week to embark upon her international travels. At last, I sighed, the show’s narrative might actually begin to revolve around something other than Emily and her status as a single mother.

Obviously, this was a ridiculous dream. The second Emily touched down in Bermuda, her ovaries were already working on overtime.

“Maybe one day I’ll come back here and be pregnant or pushing a baby stroller,” she said with a sigh.

The child theme kept rolling as Doug, a single father, was given the first date. The pair wandered around the streets of Bermuda, stopping in a gift shop to pick out hideous glass animal trinkets to give their kids that no child would ever want.

“This is what married couples do,” Emily said of her date with Doug. “They walk around town and entertain each other.” Oh! So that’s how that whole marriage thing works. Better change my vows.

For whatever reason, Emily is taken with Doug and his boring personality, especially after he tells a lame story about teaching his son that “one person can change the world.” To set a positive example for his kid, he started a charity. What that charity does, however, Doug never mentioned. No matter. Emily was going ga-ga over this latest development.

“Superman wasn’t going to show up,” Doug said, as Emily broke into a ginormous smile, her Chiclet-shaped veneers blinding me.

Because he’s a single father and started an unnamed charity, Emily decides Doug is perfect. Accordingly, she asks Doug to share some of his flaws. He says he spends too much time with his son. Em thinks he’s full of it, until he turns the tables on her and asks her to critique herself.

“I don’t work out,” she responds, blatantly lying. “I wear PJs in public.”

The horror!

After she realizes it’s hard to come up with negative things to say about one’s perfect self, Emily is back on the Doug train, and sits there making doe eyes and waiting for him to kiss her. But Doug is one of those dudes who pretends he’s macho but is really a wimp, so he plays off his inability to make a move with false bravado: “If Emily wants a kiss from Doug, she’ll let Doug know she wants a kiss,” he said with a grin. At this point, I paused my TiVo to gag, and then returned to our regularly scheduled programming.

Off to the high seas for a group date! A handful of Emily’s suitors were split into two teams, taught how to sail in, like, three minutes and then told to race one another on the ocean. There was lots of grunting and other stupid testosterone-fueled stuff, until one team lost and Charlie, the guy who suffered a traumatic brain injury, literally started crying on the car ride home.

Peace, sucka! Luckily, the winning group included some of my faves, like Arie and Jef. Unfortunately, it also included Ryan, whose weird tuft of hair that constantly sticks straight up is slowly driving me insane. As if his hideous coif didn’t make him look dumb enough, the pro-trainer kicked off the evening with a toast to his future “trophy wife.” Ryan has now officially been labeled as the villain of the season -- especially after he tells the mute ponytail guy that once he gets home he’s going to “get involved with the media and say, ‘Let’s do Bachelor Ryan in Augusta.’”

What? You mean someone came on this reality show with the intention of becoming famous? That’s sick, I tell you. Just revolting. Get this guy out of here. I only want to watch men who think it’s realistic to propose to a woman after less than a month of courtship replete with lots of booze and fancy vacations.

Speaking of, why was it like 40 degrees in Bermuda? What was up with all of the blankets and wind? It looked kind of dismal.

Anyway. I actually do kind of hate Ryan, but not because he’s a fame-seeker. More because he drops one-liners like: “There’s a lot of depth here -- to who I am,” or “I’m not here to impress you, but to make an impression upon you.” He really dropped the clincher after telling Emily once again she needs to remain svelte after marriage, saying, “God designed you to be a beautiful woman, so be a beautiful woman.”

I’m not going to elaborate on that. Let’s go to the most romantic place on earth -- Diving Board Island! -- and jump off a dangerous-looking cliff on a dreaded two-on-one date! And look, hello there, Nate! A normal and attractive dude who had yet to get much air time faced off against a guy who goes by the name of “Wolf.” Since this is “The Bach,” obviously Wolf got the rose. It was probably for the best, since Nate cried over missing his parents and then pronounced quinoa as “kee-know-ah.”

Back at the hotel, Emily put on a white jumpsuit which she oddly pulled off and attached a ponytail extension to her hair. OK, guys, seriously -- did you see that thing? No one’s hair is that blunt at the end. It looked like a horse’s mane.

While the guys were waiting for Emily to decide who she’d keep, Ryan and Doug got together to talk about what bros they were. Back in the day, they say, when they were younger and more immature, they would have felt like they needed to kiss Emily right away. But now they’re totally confident in their manhood. They don’t need kisses, they said, trying to puff the other one up.

Emily, meanwhile, was telling Chris how “physically draining” her two-on-one date was -- walking down into that cave and all and sitting for a nice dinner. She proceeded to stare at the guys’ head shots -- now kept in Bermudian-themed bamboo frames -- and sent home Charlie and ponytail guy. I don’t care what you think, conservative Southern Belle, the ponytail guy was cute, even with his ponytail.

You guys! I can’t lie. I’m really not feeling this batch of dudes. I thought I loved Arie, but then I felt weirdly grossed out watching him slurp-kiss Emily. And Jef is endearing, but I can’t see Em-dawg picking him in the end. Why are the two guys with albino-esque blond eyebrows still around? How many more weeks will the mushroom farmer with two cubic zirconia studs keep slipping by? Does Emily really think Chris looks like Gerard Butler? Can’t someone shave Ryan’s head in his sleep? So. Many. Feelings.

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Follow Amy Kaufman on Twitter @AmyKinLA