“A bachelor is a guy who never made the same mistake once.” -Phyllis Diller
“Never trust a husband too far, nor a bachelor too near.” -Helen Rowland
“A bachelor’s life is no life for a single man.” -Samuel Goldwyn
“There are not a lot of quotes on the Internet about pads” -Me
And after a season of young love (Rachel & Stags), old love (Tony & Blakeley), horse love (Lindzi & War Emblem, whom she met at a bar after her and Talon’s bridge date), heartbreak (Rachel, Jamie), and Boone’s Farm (Ed), here we are. It’s the grand finale in which someone will become $250,000 richer, but more likely two people will become $125,000 richer, because nobody’s dumb enough to risk giving away that much money when Chris Harrison starts playing mind games with them. OR ARE THEY?!?! Let’s find out.
So here’s how this is gonna go down. The first three quarters of this show is basically a reunion special in which people talk shit about how Chris is an asshole and a few chicks cry. It’s too haphazard/boring to do blow by blow, so I’m gonna provide a brief rundown of any pertinent developments, contestant-by-contestant, then break down all the dirty details of the money round.
THE CONTESTANTS
Jaclyn: Looks surprisingly not-Muppety! She pretends to still be extremely upset with Rachel for axing her instead of The Villains Chris & Sarah, even though I’m Facebook friends with both her and Rach and there’s pictures of them hanging out at Fashion Week parties because they love fashion and that will always bind them together yay fashion!! She also thinks Jamie is fake, and that it doesn’t make her a horrible person if she’s not friends with Jamie, just because she was poor, and is currently unfashionable.
Jamie: Is dressed like some sort of Indian princess who did a semester abroad at Gypsy College, thanks to a weird metal thong-headband and a vajazzled face.
Rachel: Hates Stagliano now. Apparently he was cold and weird when they got back to the real world, since he “doesn’t do long distance.” So they broke up. Then, he started dating some girl in Chicago who’s presumably Oprah long distance, which Rachel points out is a logical inconsistency, making him a dickhead. Also, at some point in the last month, presumably due to strong winds, her bangs decided to start going sideways.
Mikey Stags: Is very polished at having to confront people he’s dumped or otherwise wronged on national television. Still very short. Was planning on bolting before the show was over as he had to get up early for a leotard fitting, but toughed it out. After further research on her Wikipedia page, is not in fact dating Oprah.
Chris: Oh man, Chris. Chris is just great, frustrating television. Jamie comes at him hard, calling him a total d-bag and saying that he would’ve made a terrible father for Lil Ricki and that he sucks. He starts out apologetic, saying that the game took control of him, just like it often does to me when I’m playing Clue and take a bathroom break and a candlestick just HAPPENS to be sitting on the mantle and I lure a female guest wearing a red dress into the Conservatory and I…sorry, I swung a little off topic for a second there. Essentially, Chris thinks all the girls should stop yelling at him, because his dad gives it to him good every day for disgracing the Bukowski family name, but not as much as the woman below. Then he decides he wants all the girls to vote for Sarah, not him, even though they’re on the same team and there’s no way to vote strictly for one or the other. Immature!
Megan Normoyle provides just one more way to disgrace that name
Body By Nick: Did back and bis today.
Talon: Recently bought a Honus Wagner baseball card, then traded it to a neighborhood kid for a Andy Van Slyke 1988 Topps card, just to prove how rich he is.
Lindzi: Was highly disappointed when she found out that that the Gallup Poll was actually an objective measurement of public opinion, and not a big metal stick you ride a horse around at high speed, that for some reason also asks people what they think about Mitt Romney, on the side.
Donna: Since we last saw her, she 1) maintained her enormous breasts, 2) subscribed to DJ Pauly D’s MySpace page with three different accounts, just in case, 3) tweeted “where the hell did the rest of Alicia keys ass go?! yikes that sucks 
“
Damn right Donna was on this shitty radio show along with some dude named Cotter McManus
SWAT: Disappointingly does not watch Bachelor Pad finales in silk pajamas while drinking a lovely Syrah. Did tweet “It’s a bitter sweet symphony. #life“
The Twins: Are not nearly as entertaining as the chicks who share the same body, or however that works on that Abby & Brittany show.
Blakeley: Actually looks really nice for once, and once I stop looking at her remarkably exposed fake breasts, her face doesn’t look half bad either. Is hoping to “get her life back on track and afford cable TV.” Loves Tony because he can see the “real Blakeley”, at least when he’s not staring at said tits.
Tony: Has cable, and so he… PROPOSES TO BLAKELEY, ON BACHELOR PAD! And she says yes. Jesus christ. He clearly got a free Neil Lane ring for pulling this stunt. Everyone pretends to be happy about this. This may rank slightly above Baseball Game and slightly below I Was Shithammered On Schnapps With Ed, Then Came Home And Said Fuck It And Asked Her Cause She’s Probably Also Banging That Dude Steve From Work So I Might As Well Lock It Down, Right? on the spectrum of horrible ways to get engaged.
THE CHALLENGE
There somehow isn’t one. Despite this being a two hour show, the winning couple, between Chris & Sarah and Body By Nick & Rachel, is decided strictly by who the other contestants — who all sucked enough at this show to be sent home, and therefore should have no say in anything — vote on. No wonder they let Jaclyn talk for half an hour about how she’s fake-mad at Rachel.
THE VOTE
Superfan David, Erica Tiara Rose, and Talon all vote for Chris & Sarah. Everyone else votes for Nick & Rachel, because everyone hates Chris. Seriously, someone should make that into a show. We could get Chris Tucker or something. Anyway, Nick & Rachel win all the monies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OR DO THEY?!?!? Man, I hope that’s reading as evil as I want it to.
THE PRISONER’S DILEMMA
No, unfortunately they’re not incarcerating Chris and making him watch the Kevin James/Vince Vaughn movie The Dilemma on loop for eternity. Instead, Body By Nick and Rach now have to choose from among two words: “Keep” and “Share.” It’s simple: if they both Share, they split the $250,000 everyone won’t shut up about. If one Shares and one Keeps, the person who Keeps gets the whole pot, and the sap who Shared gets nothing. If they both Keep like greedy fucks, they don’t get squat and rest of the cast splits the $$$. Nick looks confused, and like he did preacher curls yesterday. Even last year, when Mikey Stags and Holly won, and she broke his heart and maybe also banged Brett Michael in his tour-Winnebago, and she could never have said Keep because that would’ve made her a bigger bitch than this dog, and he knew all this and could’ve made a run with the money, he still picked Share. It’s the safe play, and it’s $125,000. Expect Share.
THE PICKING OF THE WORDS
Chris lays out the rules to Nick & Rach, and they head back into soundproof isolation chambers that each have Share and Keep signs that’re very nicely framed. I mean, these probably cost $250,000 apiece…have you ever tried to have something custom-framed? Fucking nightmare. They show them staring at the signs, and picking each one up before putting it back down and picking the other one up, and generally looking pained, then cutting to commercial. What oh what will it be?!
Rachel goes first. She lays out her big speech, about how she came on the show for money and maybe love, and that she was close to both, and that one isn’t a possibility anymore unless she quickly gets Neil Lane to give SWAT an engagement ring, and that she didn’t come on here to win half the money, but that you can’t win without a partner, so she picks…Share! Like a very savvy first grader, she decides to share because she knows that it’s the best choice, selfishly. She’ll benefit from seeming to be nice. Way to play it safe. Way to play it smart.
Now it’s Nick’s turn to say Share so everyone can go home happy except Chris since he’s a huge miserable dick whose father hates him now. Chris Harrison: “Are you ready to reveal your decision?” Nick: “I’m ready.” Chris Harrison: “Ok, when you’re ready.”
In Nick’s big speech, he says that nobody would’ve put their money on him, and that he wasn’t on anybody’s radar, and that he did this all by himself, and that Rachel never wanted to be his partner, and that she tried to leave three times, and that she was always on the phone with Stagliano, and that she told him during the Night Ranger challenge that if Michael was here she would’ve totally won, and so he decided to Keep the money.
Wait, what? Holy shit I think he kept the money. HOLY SHIT HE KEPT THE MONEY!!!! This is so very incredible. He runs over and high-fives SWAT with the grin of a man who just benched 450 without a spotter. “You’re laughing right now?!” an enraged Rachel screams. “I won the money!” he reminds her. “You’re here because of me! You never would’ve won this competition without me!!!,” she pukes out while looking extremely upset that she left her mace in the green room.
And therein lies why Nick is completely awesome.
He’s not here because of her. She’s not even here because of her. She’s here because Stagliano seemed to know how to play the game until he proved he didn’t and trifled with the loosest cannon/OTPHJer of them all, Erica Rose. But she contributed nothing to that team except free sex she’d later regret. Nick was stuck with Erica Rose, who is totally worthless unless you need to melt down her gavel to make a crystal vase. He worked his way here through cunning and wit and the subtlest of all deceptions: essentially not even being there to have to deceive anyone.
Last night at 10:00pm sharp, because apparently he doesn’t have a DVR, my buddy Juice texted me “That guy Kaiser Sosayed the shit out of everyone.” He couldn’t have been more right, except about the spelling Keyser Soze. By the time Nick said Keep, Chazz Palminteri’s Kobayashi mug was already tumbling out of his hand to the floor below. As he explained why he did it, so many flashes of the past season surely ripped through the mind of every viewer — Nick sitting on the couch by himself, Nick sitting on a different couch by himself, Nick making out with Donna, Nick sitting on a beanbag chair by himself, Nick looking stupid, Nick sounding stupid, Nick not causing any trouble and seeming like the weakest member of the cast even though he can deadlift 675.
And this, dear readers, is precisely why you become friends with Donna on Facebook.
He played the perfect game: he never spoke up because to speak up is to put yourself in trouble. Every week on this show, some asshat is going to piss someone off, and then try to cover themselves by getting someone else voted off, and eventually one of those people gets voted off — not the dude who just sits on couches and looks stupid. Why would he be a threat?! There’s too much time to waste on petty personal shit and backstabbings and “broken trust” to get rid of a “nobody.” Like Verbal Kint, Nick just sat there looking soft while everyone puffed out their chests and did all the stupid things he wanted them to, and Chris banged hookers with dysentery.
After some beautiful exchanges (Rachel: “You’re such a fucking schmuck. You’re disgusting.” Nick: “I’m schmuck with $250,000!”; Michael “C’mon man, she’s crushed over there.” Nick: “Then console her!”), Nick leaves by saying “This is the end of the game. It’s over,” and strides triumphantly offstage. Rachel’s lost. She just had a purse full of $125,000 ripped away from her, and the thief already turned the corner and is spending it all at Best Buy, and she’s panicked. It’s like getting the keys to a new Lamborghini and then dropping them down a storm grate because someone you trusted slapped your hand, and that storm grate is actually a Sarlacc that loves Lamborghini keys. Other metaphors about losing $125,000 go here.
Maybe the best part of it all? It comes out during Rachel Screamtfest 2012 that Rachel & Nick had talked on the phone between the end of filming and this finale show, and agreed to both Share. It’s just too delicious. She did her best to reject him and leave, because some short dude who loves leotards, and not-her, got cut. Nick got no respect and knew he could play her. He was the only one who truly played this like the dirty game it is. And the only way to do that was to not play the least bit dirty until the very end, at which point, he turned into a Christina Aguilera song, and I’m not talking about Genie in a Bottle. He got the dirtiest. He won.
To make herself look like even more of a crazy person, Rachel chases after him looking for answers, finds him, and yells lots of curse words, before he ends with:
“I played this game brilliantly”
“No you didn’t.”
“Yes I did. Bye bye”
And as she cries by an exhaust pipe that’s almost surely covered in asbestos, Body By Nick slinks into his limo before Chazz Palminteri can round the corner, looks into the camera, and says in a completely measured voice he’s never even come close to speaking in, with a calm that’s remarkable because he just won $250,000 by duping some crazed chick who would very much like to put a pickaxe through the window and into his highly muscled skull: “She’s such a sweet girl. Bachelor Pad. BP3. Anything goes.”
The greatest trick the devil ever played was convincing the world he didn’t exist. The greatest trick Body by Nick ever played was convincing the Bachelor Pad cast he wasn’t the devil. Bravo, son. Bra-fucking-vo.
“I said I’ll flip ya. Flip ya for real.” -Nick, to a particularly disagreeable fire truck.
Damn… Body By Nick, who knew? More importantly, I think we should institute a Gallup Poll right now for those of us readers who never want the horse jokes to end, despite Lindzi’s presence on the show. All those in favor, say naaaayyyy.
I heard Lindzi just came out with a popular new pop song beloved at karaoke, Call Me Nayyyyybe
Batch please!