Props to the predicate nominative, and my sincerest apologies for treating it so shoddily last week.

Bob "Assanova" Guiney moves with purpose around Bob's Villa, throwing clothes in a bag with the reckless abandon of one who used to be fat but now is not fat and also is really good friends with his ex-wife. He emerges in the bedroom wearing a red t-shirt and wearing a black skullcap, which I guess means he already packed the most important item in his wardrobe, e.g. whatever isn't that hat. He's shooting for "simple white man's co-opting of urban culture" and instead landing squarely on "three inches lower and he's a cliché cinematic bank robber." Bob carries bundles of clothes and throws them into a bag. Seeing as the only articles of clothes we've actually seen him wear since he showed up in Malibu are "a bathing suit" and "evening formalwear drenched in Meredith's tears," this middling adventure in business casual might be a little excessive. Perhaps he jammed all of those clothes in there as a stopgap to keep all of the skeletons he's hiding (such as which of Satan's many pacts he signed in blood to make himself impossibly irresistible) from clanging to the ground and making quite the ruckus. Either way, nice beige sportsjacket, Larry from Three's Company.

In a different red shirt, Bob over-backstories for the benefit of, I guess, Mary's parents, who are translating this show on a Speak 'n' Spell and are therefore five seasons behind on the central concepts of a television show entitled The Bachelor: "This next stage of dating certainly gets more serious. I finally get to go to each of these ladies' hometowns and meet their families." Yes. Finally. How on earth have you held out so long, you brave, suffering soul? Remember the feeling you had when Mandela got released from prison? Well, this is just like that, except with fewer political ramifications and more beige sportsjackets. "I think that people opening up their homes and introducing their families to me is a big deal, because I think that that's probably one of the most telling signs as to whether or not I could be part of these women's lives and be a part of their families in the future." Oooh, the future! Where the dog is a robot and the hot tub is on the moon and, a thousand years on, the other girls have finally caught up in age to Mary's cryogenically frozen head.

Man, I knew the ratings for this show had been slipping for the last couple of seasons, but I wasn't aware that it had gotten so bad that they made the Bachelor book all of his own travel. Practically pulling out old copies of AAA triptychs and being all "and then, after The National Grammar Rodeo, we'll stop at the Knoxville Wigsphere," Bob files his flight plan in a way that makes for television as compelling as a locked list thread: "I'll be going to Illinois to see where Kelly Jo grew up." The expression "grew up" implies a certain amount of maturity, which...well, I still just don't know yet. "Then to Portland, Oregon, where I'll be with Meredith, her mother, father, and brother." And, if you scratch just below the surface, her Nana. "Finally, I'm going to Beverly Hills, where I'll get to spend some time with Estella and her mother." And not her father? Would this be a bad time to point out that the adjective best suited to describe her voice is "deafening"? But first, because of the whole playing-the-life-expectancy-odds thing, "I'm going to Tampa, Florida, to meet with Mary and her mother." On that cue, Mary walks down the stairs of Shady Pines (well, that's what it's called when she's in it, anyway) carrying a suitcase and a giant teddy bear, a gift from her as-yet-not-conceived child from its doting and loving never-gonna-be-its-father, given to her in that dark, cobwebby sanctum known as "Mary's crazy, crazy mind." Besides, isn't all this luggage precluding Mary from getting on that mechanized chair thing that's supposed to help her down the stairs?

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