The Bachelorette: It's a nightmare. Absolute nightmare.

I feel ya, Al.  You only had to run an organized crime family.  I have to watch a group of low-functioning primates compete for the chance to enter a faux TV engagement.  You're the lucky one.

So here we are.  Chris Harrison has gathered this barrel of monkeys to explain the rules.  Date cards, roses, you know the drill.  From their expressions, it looks like he's explaining DNA's double helix structure to a manatee, but they'll figure it out.

The first Solo Date is with BROOKS, who looks exactly like the guy who hits on you at the craps table at the Bellagio and calls his friends "my boys."  Dezzie has a "desire and a passion to design wedding dresses," ok then, so it's off to some mid-LA dress boutique to put on funny outfits whatever whatever and then there's a breaking-the-fourth-wall problem when they hit up a cupcake truck and get mobbed by fans.  Cupcake trucks.  Ugh.  Then they drive up into the Hollywood Hills and hang out on the 2nd "L" in the Hollywood sign, no joke.  Brooks is already thinking big picture and he opines that one day he'd like their relationship to be "as idolized as this Hollywood sign."  The fuck does that mean, like some cult of personality shit or something.  I just wish someday I could be like Brooks and Desiree's relationship, little girls will write in their diaries.  This is giving me the creeps.

The shit gets SCARY because they're driving through an area with some graffiti!  Don't worry, Brooks, if some poors appear you'll be good.  Dez speaks poor, she totally used to be one.  Anyway, Brooks needn't have shit his pants upon leaving Westwood because it's all a setup for an Outdoor Dinner on some bridge.  Over dinner, Brooks confuses Dez with a therapist and starts spilling his guts about how his Dad bailed on him from 13 to 19 and made Brooks REAL MAD.  I have some bad news for Brooks, because once Dad sees this, he'll probably pull the plug again.  Anyway, D is moved by this tragic tale of paternal abandonment and gives him a rose and then they are treated to a concert by some fifth-level Maroon 5 knockoff and if you're wondering if there's any way you could make Maroon 5 worse we sadly now have an answer.

SIDE NOTE.  One thing that's new this season is that they're projecting people's Twitter posts about the show along the bottom of the screen throughout the episode, so yay, if you were wondering what the Mouth Breathers and the Partially Chromosomed of America were thinking you are no longer in suspense.

The Wife: "Melfosterrr is surrounded by cats with a cat sweater on eating Duncan Hines frosting from the can."  I suggest you recalibrate your Crying Threshold, Melfosterrr, because if this shit makes you cry you are going to need hospitalization after that commercial with the dogs greeting their owners coming back from the war.

OK, let's get to the worst thing that happened on the show tonight, and I realize that is a fairly low bar.  On this group date, 14 or so idiots are transported to a winery in Malibu where, instead of trying wine or being buried alive or some other suitable activity, they will be making a RAP VIDEO with SOULJA BOY who is either drunk or has gotten some colossally bad advice from his handlers.  So we are treated to the spectacle of 14 white people and Soulja Boy - wait, I think Traumatic Brain Injury Will might be black but it's hard to tell in this light - jumping around "dancing" and doing whatever it is white people do when they try to rap.  Oh, TBI Will says he can't dance, so that clears that up.

At night we have the Drinks Portion of the date.  Hey, what would be a creepy gift?  A creaky, old-timey wooden wheelchair? An old stuffed animal with one eye missing?  Sure, yeah, but none of those are even REMOTELY  as creepy as the gift Drilling Fluid Engineer presents to Dez - an ANTIQUE JOURNAL he bought somewhere WITH AN INSCRIPTION TO A GIRL NAMED CARA FROM DADDY and THE JOURNAL IS ENTIRELY BLANK.  Ohmyfuckingshit, DON'T TOUCH IT DESIREE!!!  Cara obviously never got a chance to write in it because MOMMY DROWNED HER IN THE RIVER THAT NIGHT. If you take that home, Dez, I guarantee you Cara will crawl out of it one night and pluck your eyes from your head.

Meanwhile, in Meatheadville, a Grown Man named MIKEY has decided that Ben is up to no good and is Not Here For The Right Reasons and so confronts him with his suspicions and what the fuck show does he think he's on?  Maybe he IS here to make friends.  Back with Dez, Brandon is trying to woo her by explaining "I was born and I had a Mom and Dad like you did."  Very good, Brandon!  "I'm also a biped and process oxygen in my bloodstream, so I think we have a lot in common."  Oh wait, Brandon's got a sob story with an absent Dad too.  ANYONE WHOSE DAD DID NOT LEAVE THEM, PLEASE QUEUE HERE.  THANK YOU.

Solo Date with Bryden, the Iraq War vet.  They go on a road trip to such places as "El Matador Beach" and "Orange Grove" and "Convenience Store Falls" and end up in Ojai which is actually a real place.  Oh good, Bryden has a Damaged Goods story too.  Amazingly enough, his trauma is not from being shot at in Iraq or being named "Bryden," it has to do with some bad car accident he was in.  Luckily for us, he carries around some snaps of his charred skin and broken face, which Dez dutifully looks at like they're HS graduation photos.  Then it's off for a dip in the pool and some face sucking.  Gross.

OK, Cocktail Party.  Michael G. valiantly tries to come up with a suitable Personal Trauma story but I guess his Dad stuck around because the best he can manage is that he has Type I diabetes.  NICE TRY, DUDE.  You need at LEAST Type III to be in the running here.  Anyway, Ben cuts off his tale, mid-diabetes, and this enrages the villagers because he already has a rose and Mikey arranges a bro-fontation with everyone else named Michael and Ben and then he calls everyone "kid" and it's over.

Rose Ceremony.  At this point, I don't even worry about learning their names, so a bunch of people I've never seen before are apparently sticking around.  Who's leaving?  TBI Will and some Generic White Guy who says "It's a nightmare.  Absolute nightmare."  You think this is bad? Try being named "Bryden," dude.