The Santa Barbara Zoo. Todd compares literally every single animal in the zoo-travel-montage to Ryan. You know what, Bachelorette? I liked this new and inventive one-on-one date idea a lot better when is was actually called Dismissed.

A wide shot of Ryan physically trying to pull Meredith off of a walking path and away from Todd closely resembles the opening credits of Three's Company, and my attention is briefly recaptured by this and...nope, it's gone again. Ryan steals Meredith away for some alone time, and we cut to them sitting on a blanket in the middle of a field, Ryan literally dragging out his love poem of AN UNABRIDGED DICTIONARY and reading it to Meredith, out loud, word for word. It's shocking. Here's but one atom of its total behemoth self: "It's definitely a comfort level that we had from the very beginning that is what blew me away we were just so gelling not just with what was being said it was something that you cannot put a finger on...." The word "ellipses" comes leaping out of the dictionary, all "me to the rescue!" allowing someone else to get a word in edgewise. How about you, Todd? "Ryan M. talks too much," he offers in a loitery confessional. "If he has an idea that he wants to express, it might take me three words, it would take him ten words." Don't you mean "s'more words," oh, Pun King?

It's much, much later that night, following the end of Ryan's next sentence, when Meredith finally gets a little confessional breathing room. She sounds literally winded from exhaustion, and tells us, "I think Ryan likes to talk all the time...I like, kind of, peace and quiet." Back on the large piece of woven material used as a covering for warmth out on the broad, level, open expanse of land outside at the institution in which living animals are kept and usually exhibited to the public (ten words for every three), Meredith becomes so overwhelmed at Ryan's continuing congressional filibuster that she just starts to giggle. He shifts topics but not gears, absorbing her manic giggling and asking without waiting for an answer, "What did I do right there that that many people in the world could actually think was funny?" Yes, Meredith. In fact, when confronted with the criminally, blabberingly insane, it's best to smile comfortingly but not to switch to "patronizing giggle" mode. Let him figure out how you really feel when he's thousands of miles away, watching this episode at home, long after he's been booted. Until then, just smile. And maybe sing softly. About things that make little baby hush and not say a word.