Let's chat about The Bachelor (Finale + After the Final Rose)

This week's post is brought to you by this creepy doll that made its presence known during Lauren and Becca's last dates with Arie in Peru:

Sweet baby Jesus, it was all I could think about for most of the episode because nothing scares the shit out of me more than creepy dolls (and also child ghosts and clowns and creepy child clown dolls).

"When I PITCHER Peru, this is what I PITCHER"

I shouldn't be shocked that Arie pronounces "picture" like "pitcher," but his ignorance never ceases to amaze. He is 100% one of those guys who cannot differentiate between there/they're/their. 

So we're still in Peru and the two final victims, er ladies, get to meet Arie's family because honestly we're all curious about how Arie came to be. To summarize both of their meetings: Lauren smizes and says about 12 words and all of Arie's family agrees that Becca seems better suited for him.

For their final date, Arie takes Lauren to Macchu Picchu, which is pretty fracking cool. It is obviously raining and Arie being the kind gentleman he is, uses the umbrella to protect the thing most precious to him:

Himself, duh. They look out over Macchu Picchu as they didn't do any hiking because we've already seen how "athletic" Arie is. They walk around and compete with one another to see who can repeatedly say the most mundane words until Arie decides this date has been far too academic and corners Lauren for some of this:

This gives you a really good shot of Arie's light-washed dad jeans. We also get Arie basing his strong feelings for Lauren on the fact that he knows she has "a little speckle in her eye and that matters." In that case, can someone let Michael B. Jordan know that I noticed he has two eyes and a nose and a mouth and that matters and we should be together.

After Macchu Picchu, they move to whatever random Airbnb ABC has rented for the hour and at this point, Lauren decides it's time to booze up because Arie's about to "talk"

She says that they have a strong foundation because they've "gone through hard stuff." GIRL, WHAT HARD STUFF. DID I MISS THE EPISODE WHERE Y'ALL RAN THROUGH FRESH CEMENT OR SOMETHING? And in continuing their competition to be most eloquent, Arie says "When I look at you, I feel so much and I love that." Can we all agree to never say "and I love that" as a sentence ender after this?

Moving on. Becca is next for her "date." I don't have many notes for their outing because all they did was go to a market and try on llama sweaters and this hat while Arie aimed his deflated looking balloon lips at Becca:

I don't know what would be more frightening, seeing a shark swimming toward you or Arie's mouth coming in at full speed. They talk and he tells her that he's still feeling conflicted and doesn't know why and that he's "in his head" all the time, which is actually quite physically possible since there is plenty of room in there without a pesky brain taking up space. Becca ends the date by giving him this super cute scrapbook of their memories and the key item we learn here is that Becca has Asian handwriting. OH DON'T COME AT ME. Literally 98% of my Asian friends have this handwriting and it's what I, an Asian, tried to have for all of high school.

As a note, at the end of Arie's date with Lauren, he told her he was in love with her. Then at the the end of his date with Becca, he also told her he was in love with her. I'm 110% positive that had he gone on a date with Ursula next, he would've told her he was in love with her.

This week on "Laguna Beach," will Lauren be the one?

Do we even know if that curling iron is plugged in? Lauren B. is first in this carnival game to see if she picks the cup with the ring underneath and after spilling her heart, Arie lets her down like a mama bird throwing a baby bird out of the nest. He says that he gave it everything he had but there's still something holding him back. So he walks her to her car to leave and she cries and wishes him the best.

Becca is next and let's cut to the chase, he proposes:

I was pretty shocked to see that his fingers weren't covered in Cheetos dust. Becca says yes and after the obligatory hug-and-spin, he offers her the final rose and they drink champagne and it seems lovely:

Don't know if you noticed, but that's me in the background grazing on some grass. I was whisper screaming "BECCA DON'T DON'T DO IT GIRL YOU IN DANGER." I guess she couldn't hear me because following a montage of Arie and Becca doing "coupley" things in Peru, we get a shot of him walking in the rain being "pensive" while carrying the world's most obnoxiously large umbrella:

He sits down with Chris Harrison and says that he's been thinking of Lauren nonstop and needs to "follow his heart" and therefore wants to call off the engagement to Becca. And yes, that is of course what you do when you want to breakup with your fiancee, you go to a TV show host instead of, OH I DON'T KNOW, MAYBE YOUR FIANCEE?

In which we learn the producers/Arie are actually Satan
Becca is lured to Los Angeles under the premise that it's to meet up with Arie for a "couples weekend" and she's so excited and showing off her ring and it's terrible because we know what's coming.

ABC then gives us "unedited" (SURE JAN) footage of Arie breaking it off with Becca.

You probably think I purposely chose these bad shots of Arie, but um there are no good ones because he always looks like spoiled ham. He tells her that the more he "hung out" with her, the further he got from the possibility of a relationship with Lauren. First off, "hung out"? Are we at the mall in middle school? Secondly, YES DUH DUDE, THAT'S HOW ENGAGEMENT WORKS. YOU DEDICATE YOURSELF TO ONE PERSON AND THEREFORE CAN'T DATE OTHER PEOPLE. Dear God. Are we even sure that Arie knew what the word "engagement" meant? It's three syllables, so I wouldn't be surprised if it was outside of his vernacular.

Becca handles this steaming cup of shit with such elegance and calmness and just wants Arie to leave, which seems to be a simple enough task. Yet, like the dingus he is, he can't do it. The producers then record Becca from outside of the bathroom she's crying in and at this point it's downright cruel. To make matters worse, Arie knocks on the door and asks "Hey, are you okay?" as if she's just had some bad fish and is vomiting:

Like a reoccurring cold sore, he just will not go away. It's like he needs for Becca to say she's okay with it and forgives him, but we need to note here that: 1) He never offers a true apology for misleading her by, oh I don't know, FUCKING PROPOSING and 2) I have nothing to put here except FUCK THIS DUDE.

Finally after staring at Becca for 15 hours and trying to hug her (idiot), he leaves and the angels rejoiced.

Next we get Arie going to win Lauren back, except, he's already spoken on the phone to her and clearly knows that she wants to get back together. And yet, we're still forced to hear him tell her he made a mistake by proposing to Becca and has only been thinking of Lauren and wants a second chance and all of America screamed "DON'T FALL FOR IT LAUREN" but anyway she fell for it.

The worst part of all of this wasn't that Arie proposed then broke up with Becca on TV, but rather that THEY MADE HER SIT IN A MIDDLE SEAT AFTER BEING DUMPED:

There's no way Arie can hurt Becca more, right? Oh wait.

We'll get to this moment, but first, during the live "After the Final Rose" BS, Becca is forced to talk with Arie because rehashing one of the most embarrassing moments of your life sounds spectacular. He babbles and continues to not know what an apology is and finally Becca spills all the tea and lets us know:

1. Arie let her know he had feelings for Lauren, but he reassured her that he was confident in his relationship with Becca and loved her and was happy.
2. Becca wanted him to call Lauren for closure, but did not know that he had called her until AFTER the fact and didn't know he used the call to basically win her back.
3. The entire breakup was a complete surprise because up until that weekend in LA, they had been looking at houses and talking about a future.

In case you didn't get the full douchebag effect from all of that, Arie still had feelings for Lauren but wanted to make sure she would take him back before dumping Becca. I assume had Lauren been smart and denied him, he would've stayed with Becca. And had both Lauren and Becca denied him, he probably would've proposed to that slice of Hawaiian pizza he had in Italy.

Okay so then Arie and Lauren have their moment and we all wavered between hating them and also hating them. He proposes and she says yes and the only good thing to come out of this is that Arie is out of our lives.

Welcome to the era of Becca

By now you've probably heard that Becca was announced as the next Bachelorette. Homegirl deserves it after the shit storm she just trudged through. I was staunchly Team Tia until we witnessed Becca being dragged through a garbage pit by a garbage dude. Here's how her girl gang (Seinne, Baby Bekah, Taxidermy Kendall, Tia and Caroline) reacted to her being announced as the next person who gets to date 50 people at once:

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All of them spoke so highly of Becca and how she's a generous, caring person and there's nothing like women holding up other women. Related to this, I hear that they all caught Arie outside in the parking lot later and whooped his ass, which didn't take much since he's built like a marshmallow.

Expanding upon the point that everyone loves Becca, after Monday night's breakup, hundreds of people sent Becca money via Venmo to buy herself a glass or bottle or several bottles of wine. She's donating the $6,000 that folks sent her to Stand Up 2 Cancer and ABC agreed to match her donation. Can you believe this lovely lady almost wasted her life with a human zit?

Also, 17 billboards have popped up in LA, Minneapolis and New York in support of Becca. The one in New York appeared today and and is savage and says "Strong, beautiful woman seeking man with backbone #TeamBecca" and I love it:

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Alright, so now that Becca has seen how not to do this show, she's ready to take a stab at it. And she got to meet a few of the dudes, who I think are a positive sign of things to come:

Guy on the far left is British and guy on the far right came out singing like a little Mumford & Son(s)! The last guy of the evening brought a horse, which why the hell does ABC keep trying to bring horses indoors on this show. Remember how they did that during Rachel's season? The only thing worse than horse poop outside is HORSE POOP INSIDE. WTF. But I guess it was memorable and the show ended with Becca awkwardly sitting on it while trying not to show her entire Oops I Did It Again:

We'll see how well any of these guys pan out when Becca's season premieres May 28. Of the five we met, British guy Lincoln was my fav if not just for saying this:

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AND THAT'S IT! I want to congratulate each and every one of you for enduring this season and for surviving "I love that" and Arie's garbage bin mouth and trash looking face and lava lamp body and chicken broth personality. WE DID IT! I'm proud of us and believe that our reward is getting to see Becca find love. And if not love, we'll at least get to see a good person make out with some hot dudes (it's perfectly fine when you're a good person). 

See you all soon! Til then, you can always find me creeping on Twitter here and Instagram here.

What did we learn from the 2018 Oscars?

For comparison, I could have watched both VHS tapes of Titanic, rewound them, and watched again in the time it took this year's Oscars to finish. So now that I've aged and am full of wisdom, let's chat.

Oh E! honey, please have a seat
For the most part, major stars (ahem, the ladies) avoided chatting with Seacrusty, but I was still curious to see if someone would call him out about the sexual harassment allegations against him by a former stylist. And lo and behold, Cookie Lyon delivered:

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Take off your sunglasses and put on a sweater, because there is plenty of shade here. I was screaming. And okay, sure she was talking about introducing Mary J. Blige later on in the night, but y'all. The way she touched his chin while saying, "You know what I mean?" Plus, when she moved on to the reporter next to Seacrest and was asked how she was doing, she replied "Great, now that I'm in your company." TARAJI P. HENSON FOR PRESIDENT.

Aside from Taraji, a few notable people stopped by, including Tiffany Haddish and Allison Janney, but for the most part, Seacrappy mostly got the white dudes. SHOCKING. As this ship continued to sink, the last hour of E!'s red carpet was literally just Rancic and Brad Goreski commenting on photos of dresses alongside former Teen Vogue Editor-in-Chief Elaine Welteroth.

First off, shoutout to Rancic for piecing together bits of cotton candy to create this dress. How is it not dissolving! Amazing! Secondly, how did Elaine not lose her shit being around this insane level of idiocy? A quick summary on her: When she took over as editor-in-chief of Teen Vogue last year, she became the youngest and the second person of color EVER to head a Conde Nast publication. At 29. TWENTY NINE YEARS OLD. She left the magazine last month and I guess this is her way of decompressing. Anyway, she looked phenomenal, which is a great segue into...

Best dressed
While my usuals — Emma Stone, Laura Dern, Margot Robbie — looked amazing, no one topped Jennifer of House Garner:

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SYDNEY BRISTOW DID NOT COME TO PLAY WITH YOU HOES. I was and am still screaming about this. It's amazing what shedding 225 lbs of Affleck will do for your skin and body and overall aura. This blue gown complete with a cape and the simple elegant wavy hair and that smokey eye! It's physically exhausting to not use all caps here. I've been a fan of hers since Alias and yes, even Daredevil (MEANING I'M VERY LOYAL), so I'm glad to see that that huge Hooflack zit she carried around for so long didn't have a lasting effect.

Best Helen Mirren

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Here is our queen just casually taking a shot of tequila while walking the carpet. I'd like to think that woman next to her with her hand out is her assistant saying "Come on Helen, we took 6 shots in the limo ride over. Please don't black out like you did at the SAG Awards." H.Mirr does what she wants! Plus she knew the show was about to be 16 hours long and there's no better way to get through that than with liquid courage that enables you to flirtatiously banter with Chadwick Boseman about him being Black Panther and you being a cougar.

As a note, I'm not including all of the winners below because I assume you all do not want commentary on every single second of the marathon show. Also, in general, the Oscars are pretty boring (THERE I SAID IT) partly because it's the last show of the season so we already know who will win and Academy voters are ridiculously predictable and also because the celebs are not given booze! It's like going to a wedding that features no open bar.

Let's begin with the things I was most excited about:

Jordan Peele!

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The first black screenwriter to win Best Original Screenplay! Which, in my expert opinion is the only true writer's category because sorry bout it, but taking something that has already been published and trimming bits to create a movie is not the most creative thing (sorry Best Adapted Screenplay). This year, there were only two real contenders: Greta Gerwig's "Lady Bird" and Jordan Peele's "Get Out" because I'm not saying Guillermo Del Toro stole his film idea from a published playright, but I mean that playright's family is definitely saying that.

While I would've been happy with a Greta win, Jordan 100% deserved it. "Get Out" was THEEEEE most original film of the year. It was so carefully thought out and developed and the opposite of the bland boiled ham movies that the Oscar voters are used to. And look, "Get Out" is on HBO Go now, so you all have no reason whatsoever to not watch it because we all know you have your neighbor's ex-wife's mom's cat's password, so just do it.

Allison Janney!

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Our girl went 3-for-3 (Golden Globe, SAG, Oscar)! And this was her FIRST nomination and her FIRST time attending the Oscars. I was actually pretty shocked to learn that she hadn't been nominated before, particularly for her role as Ms. Perky in "10 Things I Hate About You" or as Juno's dog-obsessed mom.

I have to point out that Allison's category, Best Supporting Actress, was hands-down the most competitive one with THE BEST performances of the year. Honestly, the Oscars should've done away with Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor and given those two trophies to Laurie Metcalf and Octavia Spencer. And I'm not talking shit about Gary Oldman but I mean, even I could play Winston Churchill if you put 15 lbs of makeup and prosthetics on my face. And not to discount Sam Rockwell's performance except no wait, here's a 50% off tag because literally any other mushy ex-frat bro could've played him in Billboards.

Frances McDormand!
Let me caveat this by saying I loved Frances McDormand in "Three Billboards" and we all knew she would win this. I'm sure you all have read the criticisms of the film, so I'll just say that there are problematic elements to it and there's a reason the director wasn't nominated. But Frances is simply amazing in it and absolutely the reason the film has received most of its accolades. During her speech, she asked all of the female nominees in the room to stand and dear God it warmed my frozen beef patty heart:

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I caveated this because while I have enjoyed all of Frances' speeches this season and her no nonsense appeal, I was holding on to a tiny inkling of hope that Margot Robbie would swoop in with the upset. I thought she had the performance of the year, which, if you see "I, Tonya," I think you'll agree. And like I said, the women had outstanding performances this year — head and shoulders above most of the men. In such a stacked year, I'm sad Margot didn't get as much recognition for a role she so meticulously and flawlessly performed.

Back to Frances, she ended her speech by reminding people to request an inclusion rider in their contracts, which requires films to include a certain level of diversity in its cast AND crew.

Girls Trip 2!

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Every year, the Oscars tease us with a coupling who should do a movie together — one year it was Will Ferrell and Kristen Wiig, the next it was Amy Schumer and Jennifer Lawrence and this year, it was Tiffany Haddish and Maya Rudolph. They had, quite literally, the only funny bit of the night, where they assured everyone that the Oscars were still pretty white. Also, Tiffany wore that white Alexander McQueen gown again, which I am 110% here for. Looking forward to having them host everything from now on, thanks, I'm glad Hollywood always take my opinion into account.

All of my boyfriends!

I've ordered my suitors here from youngest to oldest because I have a wide range of interests (and I can't believe I have to keep reminding y'all, but Shawn Mendes is 19, LEAVE US ALONE). So Shawn and Donald Glover only attended the Vanity Fair after party, which tbh is the best part of the Oscars if not just for the pics of A-listers eating In-n-Out. Mahershala, who won Best Supporting Actor last year, presented Allison Janney with her prize while wearing what appeared to be two-button down shirts at once. Even clothes love him so much that they all want to be on him at once.

Also, my advice to anyone is to diversify your portfolio to be able to attend max award show events. If you'll notice, Shawn is in music, Donald Glover is on TV (and in music, omg he does it all) and Mahershala is in film (and also TV, omg he does it all too). It's important to have a date to the Grammys, Emmys and Oscars.

StoneLaw!
Okay, so Emma Stone wasn't nominated this year, but she did wear a pants suit and was seated next to J.Law:

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At this point, I believe J.Law might have been 2-3 white wines deep and Emma's thinking about how she will likely have to clean up vomit later. For reference on the wine, here we have a wild J.Law, pre-show, climbing over some seats without spilling a drop!

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The fact that she's doing this in a heavy ass gown and stilettos is impressive in itself, but throw in the glass of wine and it's something you add to your resume. Have you ever jumped over seats in a theater? It always seems easy in your mind until you go to stretch your leg and realize you are not as nimble as you remember and you inevitably end up awkwardly straddling the top of the seat before giving your inner thigh seat burn as you drag it to the other side. Anyway, while J.Law athletically drank, our girl Emma kept that boss ass bitch pants suit flame going when she introduced the Best Director category:

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I WAS HOLLERING. HOLLERING, Y'ALL. Apparently, some people (read: men) had an issue with Emma saying this, but I mean, it's fact. Four dudes and one Greta. Aside from Greta and Jordan Peele, I hated this category because the Academy failed to nominate Dee Rees and Patty Jenkins. Which, me hating things is a good segue into...

Things I screamed NOOOO at:

Guillermo Del Toro
Alright, so did I like "The Shape of Water"? No. But I mean, did I think that Guillermo Del Toro was a genius director who deserved to beat Greta Gerwig and Jordan Peele? ALSO NO.

Here is how I imagine Guillermo's creative process went with directing Shape of Water: "Hmm...I think this part needs more boobs" and also "This part definitely needs more boobs" and also "This part with the more boobs, there should also be sex with the fish man."

The Shape of Water, in general
Before I continue sipping on this gallon of Shape of Water haterade, I want to note that I did think the cinematography and score were lovely. Those paired with Octavia Spencer ALMOST made me like the film. ALMOST. But I just could not get over the core element of, oh you know, Sally Hawkins having sex with a fish-dinosaur man. And whatever I guess call me old-fashioned for not having the brain capacity to comprehend wanting to have sex with a creature that has gills and webbed hands and a smooth area that looks like a Ken doll. Don't get me wrong, I understood her caring about the fish-dino-man, because I mean it is a living creature. Kind of like how I love giraffes and would not like them to be hunted and killed. But do I want to have sex with giraffes? Um, no (where did you think that was going).

I assumed the Best Picture race was down to "The Shape of Water," "Three Billboards" and "Get Out." Ever the optimistic one, I thought the Academy's efforts to diversify its membership would boost "Get Out," but it seems there are still too many white men and not enough golf courses for them to retire to. And I guess Water winning was better than "The Post" or "The Darkest Hour" or "Dunkirk," all of which are piping cups of pandering tea to old Oscar voters.

Speaking of these, Christopher Nolan really should've considered featuring a scene in "Dunkirk" of Harry Styles singing a medley of One Direction hits. I bet that would've amplified the film to new levels. And "The Post" should've considered giving Meryl Streep more than 10 lines. But what do I know.

And so we concluded the night on a fishy note and I wondered where the last four hours of life went.

Final thoughts
WHERE THE HELL WERE MICHELLE WILLIAMS AND BUSY PHILIPPS?! Without them, we received no moments like this from last year's "La La Land" debacle:

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Busy Philipps actually admitted that her husband had this photo framed for her, which omg same. Luckily, Jennifer Garner was ever so generous and provided us with the most meme'd moment of the night:

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Here is a list of things I believe she could have been realizing in this moment:

- "Shit, did I leave my cell phone in the bathroom"
- "Wait, there is no way Arya and Sansa will both make it to the end of Game of Thrones"
- "Allison Williams' Get Out character ate the Froot Loops and the milk SEPARATELY"
- "Dora isn't really an explorer because she only goes into mapped territory"
- "Dogs are only a part of our life, but we are their ENTIRE life"

And that wraps up awards show season! Or well, officially. I'll be covering any and all events or gatherings or brunches with more than 2 celebs, so stay tuned.

See you all later this week as we drag ourselves to the finish line of The Bachelor!