Will The Real Andi Dorfman Please Stand Up: Bachelorette Week 4 Recap

Yes, this recap is much later than I would have preferred, but Bachelorette two nights in a row? I think we're all ready for rehab now. I am Bacheloretted out and it's the third week of airing. Today was also an especially sunny day in bloggerland and I spent a good chunk of the day reading through tons of your awesome posts! So thanks for that!
I'd also be lying if I said I wasn't putting it off because of the whole Andi and Eric situation. I have so much I want to say about the whole thing but I don't know how well I'll actually be able to articulate it.

Week 4

The "world traveling" continues and they end up in Connecticut. But it sounds classier if we only say "New England" so New England it is. Chris is super excited to be there because well, it's the second place outside the cornfield he's traveled to. The last time he was this excited was when his new John Deere tractor got dropped off at the farm.

Dylan gets the first date.

Can you see the excitement?

They head to a train station and she tells him that for their date he will be shoveling coal while she stands there and watches. The rest of the date wasn't much better than this. They take a super awkward train ride, which I'm assuming was even more awkward than what we were shown. Dinner wasn't much better and the whole date was depressing at best. Andi tells him that she doesn't want him to think that the rose was a "pity rose" but if we're being honest, we all know that that, unfortunately, was exactly what it was. She makes up for it by taking him to do one last "special" thing. And you know what it was? Toot. Toot. They got to make the train talk. Every 3 year old's dream.

Group Date

The boys are heading to play basketball. The WNBA had their highest viewership ever that night. Josh knew a little too much about each of the girls and convinced many viewers that he had pulled an Andrew and scored some digits. JJ finally realized what this game show is all about and figured that on a group date it would be best if he labeled himself with his name.

The boys get slaughtered by the girls and then they play each other where the team with the basketball coach wins (shocker!).

Marquel sheds some insight on their winning ways "We wake up in the morning and just breathe excellence. They can go back to the hotel and eat cereal, or whatever losers eat."

If eating cereal makes me a loser, well then, I'm okay with that, because this girl loves me some Resses Puffs.

Naturally ABC had the cereal eaters losers sit and look all defeated and pissed off and gave the winning team a bottle of champagne to celebrate with. Of course this came with the stipulation that they must pop it in the locker room showers.

The after party was relatively normal. I am no stranger when it comes to the rumor mill of The Bachelorette and so I knew Eric left this episode and I knew he left in circumstances other than a rose ceremony. I was bracing myself. When they talked though all she told him was that she thought he wasn't opening up. Bull. Freaking. Crap. We know more about him by episode 4 than we do about... well shall we name them? Marquel, Andrew, Tasos, Patrick, Cody, need me to continue? So, to make her happy, he continues to pour out his heart and tell her tons of personal stuff.

Brian takes Andi back to the basketball court and makes a half court shot, which basically pushes Andi over the edge and she just wants him to kiss her. Because he has opened up so much and she knows so much about him (more than Eric obviously!). Brian has been thinking telling the producers he thinks that kissing her is the next step. Doesn't happen. Apparently Brian left all his balls on the court.

Marcus gets the next one on one date

They figured they would do something revolutionary and something they haven't done in the previous 27 seasons of this show. They're going to go repelling off the side of an extremely tall building. And let me sum up the next twenty minutes of the show. Andi freaks out and won't go but of course just as the 50 people before her on the show, she eventually goes. ABC thinks they're really clever and set it up so they repel down right in front of the guys' suite. Because the building wasn't very wide and it was the only place repelling would work.

Marcus, "Want to kiss in front of them?"
Andi, "No."

They go to dinner and Marcus puts his napkin over the rose but he forgot he's not a magician and it doesn't disappear. Since it didn't disappear Andi figured she had no choice but to give it to him. They then go and watch some no name country singer. Marcus basically tells her he loves her even though, you know, it's their first date. NBD. Totally realistic.

The next day Andi gets a "love letter" From someone anonymous and as she's reading it they fade to a clip of someone writing. Really? I think we've reached a whole new level of lame.

Let's get to the meat of this episode. The cocktail party.

Eric comes to get Andi and they head over to talk by the bar. Eric tells her that he's thought about it and he feels that he has been really open with her and he feels it's the opposite, that she hasn't been the one to open up. He says that he came on the show to meet a person and not a tv actress (Go Eric! Woo woo!). He tells her that he sees two sides of her and she is wearing a poker face most of the time.

Andi doesn't even take time to process what he's saying and instantly blows up. We're talking Diet Coke and Mentos here people. She says that all he is doing is standing there insulting her and when he goes to respond she won't even let him get a word in so he stands there and listens to her continue to rant.

Andi - If you say the word acting one more time I'm going to lose it.

Honey, all of America is going to lose it if you say "stop" one more time. Oh and PS you already lost it long ago.

Eric flat out tells her that she took what he said a little heavy.
Andi rebutted with a "thank you for your time"
Eric's response (which I thought couldn't have been better) "same."

And with that he left.

It cuts to Chris explaining how Eric tragically died. Andi is there to talk about the whole thing as well. She says that he wasn't as open with her and there was more openness with other people. She thought their relationship had stalled. Chris calls him a "central figure" in the season and Andi responds by saying that "We remember him, he was a part of this."

Now here's my two cents on this whole situation, all humor and joking aside.

First off.. people are saying that Andi is being blamed for Eric's death. That is ridiculous. It was not her fault he died. She wasn't involved in his death in anyway. However, she let him walk out that door in a pretty s*#&@* circumstance and I think she should feel like an absolute fool for letting that be the last conversation that she had with someone as incredible as Eric. She should be absolutely embarrassed.

If there's one thing I've learned, it's that no relationship should be compared to another. Each one is so different that it's entirely unrealistic and unfair to all parties involved if you compare it. Andi obviously hasn't learned this. She wanted Eric to be more open with her and that's exactly what he was. He was honest with her, he wasn't looking for a fight. He was telling her that he wanted her to be more open in return and she flipped out. Eric was trying to be real on a "reality" tv show and got kicked off immediately for it.

I can't help but think back to her flip out on Juan Pablo. That kind of seemed out of no where and ridiculously blown out of proportion too. We all just assumed something happened in the fantasy suite that we didn't know about and everybody seemed to rave about her "standing up for herself". But think about it... wasn't the flip out at Juan Pablo and the flip out at Eric oddly similar? She likes to be controlling and all the puzzle pieces are falling into place and we can finally see this side of her.

She saw that Eric was real and he wasn't going to be like the rest of the guys and stand around and kiss her ass in hopes of "winning" in the end and as soon as she realized this she made him leave. In my opinion she continued to look like a real brat during that ending scene with Chris Harrison. She didn't have one nice thing to say about him. She said that he was a part of the show and chalked his death up to the fact that he won't be at the Men Tell All. I thought that during this segment my feelings about how Andi handled the situation would be changed but in the end it only made me dislike her more. She came off as cold, unconcerned, and mean.

In my eyes, Eric Hill was an amazing person (not to mention drop dead gorgeous). I did not know him personally but from what I have seen he lived an incredible life. He was probably one of the most interesting people to be on The Bachelorette/Bachelor but he is much more than a reality tv star. He seemed to be caring, genuine, real, and honest, which is more than I can say about Andi at the current moment. It's so sad to see someone who took advantage of life and loved it so much to be taken in such a tragic accident. He was probably one of my top 5 guys to have been on the Bachelorette and he definitely stood out from the crowd. He will not be forgotten. Living in Utah myself I can say that every time I am near the "point-of-the-mountain" (where the accident happened) I will always think of him.

What did you guys think about this whole situation? I'd love to hear from you. 

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