Gather ’round, kids! It’s time to make fun of another episode of The Bachelorette! Just a fair warning: The Ashley broke her arm last week (I’ll pause here so you can laugh and point) so she’ll be typing one-handed for the next 6-8 weeks so bear with me here. By the time I get this recap typed Emily will have already gotten engaged, broken up with whatever knucklehead she picks, and discussed her breakup in a People magazine exclusive interview!

Anyway, this week Emily and her harem of men have traveled to London to continue their quests for love (and vacations paid for by ABC!) The episode starts with some obligatory mother/daughter quality time. Emily and Ricky set off to tour London in a private double-decker bus (as you do). After they captured enough quality time on camera, the kid gets kicked to the curb so Emily can get down to business with her men.

There are ten guys left, so this is right about the time that we’re going to start hearing things like, “I’m really starting to fall for her” and “I am starting to develop feelings for her” on the regular.

Anyway, the first one-on-one date arrives for Sean. The other guys are upset by this, as they all have developed a “real connection” with Emily. Yes, I can see how talking to her for a total of about 12 minutes collectively over the past few weeks can make you feel like you really know and care about someone.

Due to the fact that we’re in London, I’m just hoping the producers have enough sense to call up former Bachelor Matt Grant (of ‘Bachelor: London Calling’ fame) and invite him to join the Quest for Love festivities. If I remember correctly, he has the personality of a pet rock and would be super fun to blog about.

Anyway, Em and Sean set out on their date, which starts with a double-decker tour bus ride through the city. Emily is acting as tour guide, pointing out landmarks like St. Paul’s Cathedral and the Tower of London. Of course, we all know that some producer was probably standing on the first level of the bus telling her what to say to try to sound smart. There’s no way Emily could recognize any of these places on her own.

Next, it’s time for champagne in the park, followed by Sean carrying Emily’s purse for some reason. (Um…I’m all for guys being chivalrous but…that’s a little creepy, no?) They head to a place in the park called Speaker’s Corner where artistic (i.e. unemployed) people stand around all day and try to sound smart by rambling on about certain subjects. (In America, we call these people ‘nutjobs.’)

Anyway, Sean somehow makes his way to one of these speaker platforms and starts to enlighten us on what love is. For some reason, he does this while trying to speak in some weird voice that sounds like a bad Martin Luther King impression. (“I have a dream…that someday I will get freaky in the Fantasy Suite with Emily!”) Finally, he quits his rambling and Emily pretends to be bowled over by emotion from his words. Of course, it’s hard to tell because her face is pretty much frozen in place at all times.

They head to the Tower of London for dinner (as you do), and Emily tells Sean that this was where Henry the 8th kept some of his wives before he had them beheaded. Nothing works up an appetite like a good decapitation story. That’s what I always say!

By this point, Em is starting to sound like Joan Rivers after a 15-hour whisky and ciggie binge. She must be pretty sick, but poor Sean still has to kiss on her. She tells him she wants a lot of kids, and Sean says he wouldn’t mind having a bunch of kids…or, like two. Emily says she wants eight. Sean agrees that eight would be good…or, you know, two works. He says something to the effect of, “We could have six…or two…or ten…or, like, two.” Yup, he sounds like a man just dying to father a boatload of kids.

They end the night with a big, wet kiss. Break out the penicillin, Sean, because you’re gonna need it!

The next date is the group date, which promises to be absolutely ridiculous. The men learn that they will be reciting lines from the Shakespeare play “Romeo & Juliet.” Good Lord, where’s an icepick to jam in your eye when you need it? They bring out three Shakespearean experts (i.e. bookish people who guaranteed had no friends in high school except for the school librarian) to judge the men’s performances.

The men audition for roles, and it’s just awful. Why do they make these poor guys do this crap? And more importantly, why do I sit there and watch this crap?! Anyway, the men who did the worst–Ari and Doug— get stuck playing the women roles.

Ari is really struggling with the words. Apparently any word over three syllables is a challenge for our race car driver. Emily walks around and watches the men rehearse, commenting that she’s pleased everyone’s having so much fun on this date. Oh, yes, Emily, making dudes recite old English love sonnets to other dudes is pretty much every man’s dream come true.

The guys start to sword fight (not that kind of sword fighting, you sickos!) and soon it’s time to get suited up for their big performance. Doug, who has been assigned the role of Juliet’s female nurse, is strangely enjoying his nurse costume. I think those Shakespeare geeks better frisk him before he leaves because I’m fairly certain he’s going to try to smuggle it home with him!

The guys start performing their scenes with Emily and it’s fairly obvious that this chick can barely read. I think someone spent a little too much time staring into her makeup compact in high school and didn’t have time to crack a book. I think she’s in need of a few more rounds of the Hooked on Phonics, because her reading skills are just painful to watch.

Mercifully, the scene ends and Emily and the guys head to a local pub to have a beer, because, you know, Emily is just a regular girl, y’all! Riiiight. She probably ordered a $25 beer and had Mr. Belvedere deliver it to her!

At the pub, Ryan pulls Emily aside and tells her he has a surprise for her. He reaches into his pants (um…don’t they have to wait for the Fantasy Suite dates for that?!) The surprise turns out to be a necklace or something, unfortunately.

Meanwhile Kalon starts spouting off about how Emily’s daughter is ‘baggage’ and it’s pissing the other guys off. They proceed to form a lynch mob and go confront Kalon. He admits that, yes, he did call Ricky baggage, but they misunderstood the word. (Aww..taking a page from the Bill Clinton book of excuses…smart!)

Finally Doug can stand it no longer and pulls Emily aside to let her know what Kalon said.Emily is pissed, saying she wants to rip his limbs off and hit Kalon with them. I’m praying she does it. Beating people with their own body appendages is the only thing that could make this crappy episode more interesting!

She says she wants to go West Virginia backwoods on his ass. She stands up to confront Kalon, telling him to “get the f**k out!” EmQuisha earns some points with me by using Kalon’s previous condescending remarks against him before sending him on his way. That was kind of cool.

Afterwards, Em is very upset and takes a solo walk down a dark alley to clear her head (always a good thing to do). She comes back in to inform the guys that she’s disappointed in them for not informing her sooner about what Kalon had said. (Um…didn’t this just happen the day before? Relax, Princess Emily. They were too busy reciting creepy Shakespeare for you to have time to tell you about it sooner!)

Let’s stop here for a second and focus on one thing that Emily seemed to overlook: what about poor Doug? He stepped up and told Emily about Kalon, only to have his efforts totally forgotten about as soon as the sh*t hit the ceiling. Shouldn’t he have gotten the rose? Poor Doug got a raw deal!

The rest of this episode pretty much sucked. For the sake of space (and one-handed typing) I’ll sum it up for you quickly: date with Jef (one ‘f’)…tea time with Mrs. Doubtfire..feeling nauseated while watching this scene…

Jef and Em discuss the whole Ricky baggage incident, and Jef tells her that if Ricky is baggage then she’s “a Chloe bag that he wants to have forever.” (Um…who’s Chloe? I’m assuming it’s a designer that I’m too poor to know about? And why does Jef know about her?)

Let’s sum up the rest, shall we? Jef finally kisses Emily after pussing out several times…The men all suck up to Emily at the cocktail party…she keeps complaining that the men all ‘abandoned’ her…Ryan busts out cheesy Shakespeare so that he can make out with Emily, the germ bucket….John wears some horrific pink pants at the rose ceremony…

Finally, she cuts Alejandro, which means we won’t get to hear any more of Emily’s crappy high school Spanglish and, frankly, that makes me sad. The crying mushroom farmer is sent away, leaving only nine guys left to compete for Emily’s heart.

Next week the gang heads to Croatia. I’m fairly certain that at least half of these knuckleheads (Emily included) probably think they’re on their way to Africa. I can’t wait to listen to Emily attempt to pronounce Croatia!

Until next week!