What can we really say about the latest edition of The Women Tell All: Crocodile Tears? Not much, as it turns out; we spent the bulk of our discussion on things we wish we’d seen instead (more gen-yoo-wine glimmers of personality from Brad), or want to see next week but never will (a hospitalizably drunk Chantal on the After the Final Rose show).

I’m Sarah D. Bunting; I work here. Miss Alli is Linda Holmes; she works there. Together, we’re Bradelor! DUN!, and neither of us wants to hold the sun.

Miss Alli: I am here, and I love Michelle crying footage.

Sars: I’m STILL irritated at Chris Harrison for interceding on her behalf.

Alli: She is such a jerk. She deserved it!

Sars: I’m not even convinced she was actually crying.

Alli: Of course not. What nonsense that was.

Sars: That, and the protests that it was “just her sense of humor.”

Alli: What I didn’t understand was why she can bring up her daughter every three minutes, but then nobody else can discuss the “if you’re so concerned about your kid” issue that inevitably arises.

Sars: I’m glad you brought that up.

Alli: Don’t want to talk about your kid? Good. Don’t use her as a human shield.

Sars: Well, here’s my thing. Harrison, on his blog, basically said, “You don’t question other people’s parenting, you just don’t.” Now, I agree that that’s something that can get you into serious trouble, socially. But I think a point does exist where it’s fair for others to question, aloud, whether this is the best move.

Alli: Well, as stated: especially if you bring it up! The whole explanation in which she basically says she was just keeping her eye on the prize…what does that have to do with nasty name-calling and eye-rolling in confessionals?

Sars: That logic did make sense to me, or at least I could understand it. Then it became clear that she just didn’t want to be called on her shit.

Alli: Well, nobody does. And yet.

Sars: Learning to read a room would help her here.

Alli: Well, and frequently elsewhere.

Sars: Wouldn’t hurt Harrison, either. “This is your defense mechanism, I AM SURE, IS IT NOT?!”

Alli: Harrison was BIZARRE. See also the comment to Ashley, “I hate to break it to you, but you were in love.” Wow, thanks, OPRAH.

Sars: God, ASHLEY. So, so frustrating. Couldn’t blame herself fast enough.

Alli: Right? “If only I had done everything differently.”

Sars: “If only I had real feelings for this log with teeth who wanted me to give up my career.”

Alli: I liked the color of her hair, but it was hilariously large.

Sars: She looked like Alyssa Milano.

Alli: Hmm, good point.

Sars: The one of those we have is plenty.

Alli: The idea that if she’d said she loved him, he wouldn’t be marrying (I assume) Emily is so weird. If that’s true, I’m sure Emily is so grateful.

Sars: Wait, did Brad put it like that, or did Ashley?

Alli: Well, Harrison and Ashley kind of batted it around.

Sars: It seemed to me like her primary concern was that other people not think she’s a cold fish.

Alli: Yeah, I hear that. I think it was mostly Harrison carrying that idea.

Sars: What happened to Harrison? I used to think he had a funny attitude about all of this. Now I just think he has…an attitude.

Alli: It’s almost like Probst. He’s stopped having a sense of the absurd.

Sars: I guess you could argue that Harrison was so irritated by the decision to bring back Brad, and go with this openness-and-redemption storyline, that he’s pissing in the cornflakes, but that doesn’t really fly if he’s an exec producer.

Alli: The whole thing just felt like he was goading people into being jerks. Or coddling jerks.

Sars: See also: Melissa and Raichel. Or Raeiuiachaeeaal, or however the hell you spell it.

Alli: Look, they both went home early. Who cares?

Sars: Yeah, maybe don’t make this two hours next time.

Alli: Well, really. Or make the whole thing the outtake reel.

Sars: …YES, I was going to mention that next. What a different Brad that is.

Alli: Why is he so much less tooly when he’s not “on”? Where’s the guy who wants to hold the sun when he’s on any of these dates?

Sars: Right? Or the face when Emily dropped the key in the water?

Alli: It was really weird. Even a starker contrast than usual between the “on” person I don’t care about and the apparent actual person, who’s kind of dude-y but clearly not hateful.

Sars: And clearly has a pulse of some kind.

Alli: I know! It’s crazy.

Sars: Okay, here’s my last question. I admit that I didn’t pay unswerving attention to the show, but is it me…or did they not talk to Shawntel really at all.

Alli: Really didn’t, I don’t think. If they did, I zoned out also. I’m so boring today, seriously.

Sars: There’s not much to work with. But I remember seeing her and thinking, at least her time on the hot seat should be mildly informative. And then I don’t think she even got to the hot seat. Possibly because Michelle’s Masterpiece Theater tryout took 4 hours.

Alli: And we had to cover Ashley S sobbing all over Vegas.

Sars: That was an interesting moment. S explains how it felt for Brad to be like, “Sorry, I like your best friend here better,” and H is like, “Oh, it wasn’t like that at all.” But it wasn’t “like” that. It WAS that.

Alli: I understand that H was trying to say “he wasn’t saying I was better than you.” I understand how she meant it. But you know what? He was saying she was better, at least for him. And the friend who got picked needs to live with that and not make a thing about it.

Sars: And she didn’t get picked either, in the end, so it’s not like it needs to continue being A Big Deal in their friendship. If they actually still have one.

Alli: Well, honestly. I realize I say “well, honestly” a lot in these discussions.

Sars: I’ve been known to utter the odd “well, I never” while watching it. “Land sakes!”

Alli: I groan a lot. And not in the good way.

Sars: I hide behind cats a lot.

Alli: I hide when there is kissing.

Sars: There’s kissing? …Oh, the lip-resting.

Alli: Right. The mutual lip-park.

Sars: I’m just imagining him in bed and zzw3990&

Alli: “Ah really lahk yoo.”

Sars: “Ah’m just gonna lah here. And Ah like it!”

Alli: Ewwwwwww.

Sars: Sorry! I can’t believe there’s THREE HOURS next week.

Alli: Enough for some kind of “I’m picking nobody!” fake-out, which we will know is a fake-out because they’ve already told us he’s Incredibly Happy ™.

Sars: If he doesn’t pick Chantal, which I’m positive he doesn’t, I DREAD the After The Rose show.

Alli: She will have been drinking since the proposal day.

Sars: That would be kind of fantastic, if she showed up, like, in men’s pajama bottoms, clutching a box of white wine.

Alli: Singing into a hairbrush.

Sars: Smoking Virginia Slims.

Alli: Mascara EVERYWHERE.

Sars: Or not wearing any makeup at all. Hair in a plaid scrunchie. With her dogs. Getting bleeped left and right. DO IT, CHANTAL.

Alli: And she’s like, “AH HAVE A AH HAVE SOMETHING I WAAAN SAY AH WAIT WAIT.”

Sars: “Lissen lissen lissen FUCK YOU CHRISSHHH.”

Alli: “LEMME TELL YOU SOMETHIN’ NO NO GETCHER HANDS OFF ME, HE’S GOT A CURVE IN HIS YOU-KNOW.”

Sars: “You…you…you PICKLESIMER.” And then the hiccupy hysterical crying…and then the booting of Pringles and pinot all over Chris’s Prada loafer.

Alli: What we have just described is more dignified than what Chantal will do, is the thing.

Sars: Probably. I can respect a full-on flame-out, but what we’ll get is the careful holding of Kleenex beneath the lower eyelids.

Alli: And the insistence that it was true love.

Sars: Oh, Chantal.

Alli: It’ll be better than seeing Emily’s kid brought out stuffed into a pillowcase.

Sars: That engagement will be quietly escorted off the premises in, I’m going to say, early May.

Alli: And then Brad will have an affair with DeAnna.

Sars: And I like it!

Alli: Seriously, that’s so innocuous, but it sounds so seedy.

Sars: Based on what I read on Reality Blurred, he is a big old seed.

Alli: I’m sure he is.

Sars: At least we’ll have seen the last of him soon. [knocking wood]

Alli: He’s so in love, I don’t know how it can’t last forever.

Sars: In Ricky we trust. One well-timed “you’re NOT my REAL DAD” and he’s out of there.

Alli: Well, and he’ll be like, “We can start having sex in 13 years when she moves out.”

Sars: Emily can just lie on top of him until then. Same difference.

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