‘The Bachelorette’ Recap (Season 8, Episode 5): WEST VIRGINIA. HOODRAT. BACKWOODS.

If you call Emily’s daughter “baggage,” she will get angry and curse at you while moving her arms like she is John Madden.

The gang is in London this week, probably to spread Lane Pryce’s ashes and also to do some things that will get us closer to the ultimate conclusion, which will be two people getting possibly engaged and eventually married before it all goes down in flames because they forced the commencement of their relationship via television series.

Ten men left, but only one of them will become Emily’s husband, host Chris Harrison so aptly states to begin the episode. I don’t understand why/how he is/became the host of this show. Maybe his dad produces it or something.

Sean gets the first one-on-one date. This worries Jef and the others, who are frustrated that their game has been salted.

Emily shows up on her date in a brown raincoat i assume is made by London Fogg. First activity is a tour of the town on a double-decker bus. Sean immediately goes to the upper deck and starts yelling about London the way Leo DiCaprio liked to yell about the world before he froze to death in the middle of the ocean.

They go to Buckingham Palace. In case you don’t know, Emily will tell you what makes this building iconic: It’s “where Queen Elizabeth works.”

During bro-down time at the hotel, Kalon says any day with Emily is going to be a “crib date” because of her daughter, and begins laughing about it. Arie and Jef don’t call him out on the spot, but Jef does say in his confessional or whatever that it’s arrogant and whatnot.

Sean tells Emily he went an entire year without going on a date, so now I feel solidarity with him. They end up at a place called speakers corner, where crazy people get up on a soapbox and say all kinds of crazy stuff. Sean gets up and starts talking about love, and specifically, “great love.” He says he’s hopeful that he will fall in love with her. Emily finds this gesture to be confident and “so hot.” She says Sean has done pretty well on the checklist of what he’s looking for. (I can’t wait to write that checklist for myself. That’s how finding a soulmate is done.)

Emily and Sean have dinner at a prison; and Emily says Sean is going to be her prisoner of love. Then she tells him the story of King Henry VIII (Google it), and playfully threatens to cut his head off. This is awesome.

Chris, Arie, Ryan, Doug, Alejandro, Travis, John and Kalon are selected for the group date. K-Sulky is hacked off about this.

Sean and Emily talk about her desire to have a bunch of kids, “like yesterday.” Sean, the gamer, says he’s willing to have six to 10 children. (He doesn’t say all of them will be with Emily, though. Player’s gotta play.) Sean gets the rose, and she seems very taken with him. They make out.

Okay, so, sidenote: When is she supposed to start testing these guys out for sexual compatibility? Is that typically a part of this show? It always is on the VH-1 spinoffs.

The guys on the group date are going to have to perform Shakespeare as an audition for a troupe. None of them are very good at all, but for the most part they try and ham it up. So it becomes like, who can make himself look most gracefully like an idiot to Emily. Except Kalon, of course, who is being super serious about it. He actually says he needs to get back to rehearsals, and Emily can “run along.” She doesn’t like this. Kalon is better at being a douchebag than most other guys I know. It’s pretty impressive, actually, because he pulls it off like he’s not even actively trying to be a huge prick. But seriously doe — broad needs to let these guys rehearse.

This whole thing is rather anticlimactic except for Ryan kissing Emily during Romeo & Juliet, and the rest of the guys debating whether or not it was a real kiss or not, since it was scripted and all…

Arie gets first shot at alone time with Emily later on in the date, and they make out again. If he wins this, he’s going to have to thank God and his tongue.

Ryan is next up and he gives Emily a necklace. Nice power move.

Kalon says something else negatively about Emily having a child — namely, that she has “baggage” — and Arie and Chris step outside to talk about how this frustrates them. But they both hold it in. So what they have to do is talk to Doug about it, because he’s the guy who will absolutely say something to Emily about it, and they will not be blamed. They do tell Doug, and he gets angry about it. He calls out Kalon, who admits to it and says he will not apologize for calling the child baggage.

Doug immediately gets Emily alone and tattles on Kalon. Almost instantly, we go to Threat Level Midnight. Emily wants to rip Kalon’s limbs off and beat him with them. SHE SAYS SHE IS GOING TO GO “WEST VIRGINIA HOODRAT BACKWOODS ON HIS ASS!!!!” That is the greatest, most contradictory string of self-describers I have ever heard and I love it. I haven’t been this excited about something since I was a little kid and my parents accidentally left me at home by myself when they traveled to France.

They gather everyone together, and Doug leads the discussion. (I’ve just discovered he is something like how I’d expect a male kindergarten teacher to be. He’s very self-righteous, and talks to everyone around him like they forgot to put the Lincoln Logs away.)

Kalon immediately admits to what he said, and Emily cuts him off while he’s talking. Says she loves to hear him talk, but not until he’s finished. (This is a burn because a few episodes Kalon said the same thing to her.) Says her daughter is the furthest thing from baggage. And then she tells him to “get the fuck out.” Emily is also upset that during all of this, none of the other guys said anything. Ultimately, she decides not to give out a rose that night.

This whole thing has really screwed Emily up, because now she feels like none of the guys will “fight for her and her daughter.” This whole thing is ridiculous. I can sort of see where she’s coming from, but she’s known these guys for like a month, and hasn’t spent very much time with them at all. When you’re in that scenario, it’s not right to inject yourself into a conversation about whether a child is baggage or not. These guys were probably thinking she would’ve been upset if they DID try to get involved. None of them have even MET Ricki. For all they know, she could be the female version of Damian.

Jef gets a one-on-one date with Emily. I completely missed that announcement, I guess — sorry about that. Basically some old woman is teaching them how to do tea how the Brits do. Jef has zero interest in this, understandably, and neither does Emily. They walk out on the tea instructor or whatever she is. They go and get beer with fish and chips. I like it. Jef says if Ricki is baggage then she is a designer one he wants to keep forever. Emily likes this.

Emily is looking for Jef to show her he is into her, rather than tell. He may have to turn off the hard-to-get approach, because Emily thinks he may be taking things a little bit too slow. During dinner in the London Eye, Jef babbles on and on about a whole bunch of stuff but eventually gets to how he thinks the two of them can have something really great. He snags a rose and he finally kisses her.

“I feel like Emily gives me the feeling that, like, people write fairytales about,” Jef says. I’d feel remiss in my recapping duties if I didn’t include that.

On rose night, Arie and Emily talk a little bit about his and the others reluctance to say anything to Kalon about the whole baggage thing. Arie says he tries not to get caught up in what other people say, and that he thought Emily had that Kalon shit handled. Arie wasn’t happy with how the talk went; hopefully he can regroup.

Ryan gets some alone time with Emily where he tells her how beautiful she is and everything. She says she’s liking him more and more, despite her knowing he is kind of a cocky and shady individual. They make out. He is wearing an ascot.

Sean is up next. They make out.

THE ROSE CEREMONY

Winners: Doug, Ryan, Chris, John, Sean, Travis (not sure about this cheercision) and Arie. Jef is also still in.

Oh good. I almost passed out while I waited for her to announce that #teamarie will live to see another week. She picked him last to send a message. Next week he’s going to have to make out with her AND beat up somebody who talks shit on her daughter.

Alejandro is gone, back to mushroom farming or whatever. (He’s a drug dealer.)

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