The Ashley took the day off yesterday to celebrate her birthday. Ironically, this will also tie in with my review of this week’s episode of ‘The Bachelor’!

The second episode of this season starts off just like every other episode: all of the hens are clucking around the couch, waiting for something amazing to happen. Instead, they’re greeted by Chris Harrison, who explains that some of the hens will get a one-on-one date with our stud, Brad, and some of them will go on a ginormous group date (15 girls, and most of them annoying crap nuggets? I feel bad for Brad!)

He also tells them that a few girls will get no time with Brad at all. All of the girls talk about how they hope they aren’t the shunned few. The Carrie Underwood-looking dentist, Ashley H. is chosen to go on the first one-on-one date with Brad. The other girls shoot daggers at her from across the room, while unconvincingly congratulating her. The other Ashley is upset and pouts to the camera that because she got the first impression rose, she should also get the first one-on-one. Relax, Ashley, he really seems to like you, so you’ll probably be the first to pick up a sexually transmitted disease from Brad. All the gals will be so jealous!

Anyway, later that night, Ashley H. appears for the date, dressed like a gold metallic cupcake. Seriously, that dress was sinfully ugly. Who lied to you, girl? So they start to drive down the road, and all of a sudden Brad turns down a dark, deserted path. Ashley H. starts to freak out. Now, normally, if I was in a car with Brad and he started to turn down a creepy dark path, I’d start freaking out too. But this is The Bachelor, Ashley. It’s unlikely that he’s going to mug or rape you in front of all of these cameras. (Now if we were talking about Flava Flav, I wouldn’t be so sure.)

We soon find out that Brad has not brought Ashley to a gang-bang; instead it’s a carnival! All for them! (The Ashley is uber jealous of this date. It’s pretty much my dream come true to be able to ride carnival rides and eat crappy carnival food without having to put up with screaming, sticky little kids all around me. I’d even go out with Brad to be able to do this.)

LOL at the producers for editing out every single creepy, toothless carnie worker that was undoubtedly running all of those rides for them. Anyway, after some rides, Brad and Ashley sit down on a bale of hay to talk about serious life issues. Poor Ashley. Could no one have told her that a cupcake dress wasn’t going to be appropriate for her upcoming date? You know that hay was totally stabbing her in the leg and butt the whole time! Still, she put on a brave face and discussed families with Brad.

We find out they both have daddy issues. Stellar. Can you guys just start sucking face already? Ashley is an EHT (as in Extreme Hand Talker) and is moving her hands with everything she says. (Perhaps she’s trying to keep Brad’s mouth away from her?) Brad finally goes for the kiss and I (much like the other Ashley probably was) was underwhelmed.

Moving on… Later, the gang of girls picked to go on the massive group date learn that they will be making Public Service Announcements to help out the Red Cross, and will be donating blood. Not sure about all of you, but a date that includes a stranger draining blood out of my body doesn’t spell a good time for me. (Fang Girl Madison probably wet her pants with excitement when she heard about it though.)

We also learn one other piece of info: it’s  Michelle’s 30th birthday. Naturally, Michelle doesn’t want to let this special day go without notice, so she selects earrings the size of hubcaps to wear.

She is very upset that she has to spend her birthday on a date with 14 other girls. (Um, then you probably shouldn’t have gone on a reality show where there’s a ton of girls vying for the same man, idiot.) She is sad that she “doesn’t feel special.”

It could be worse, Michelle; you could be spending your birthday with a DiGiornio’s Pizza for One and 18 cats, watching Wheel of Fortune and wondering what happened to your life. At least you get free alcohol because you’re on The Bachelor. Just sayin’.

Anyway, the PSAs turn out to be the equivalent to acting diarrhea. The girls are all assigned costumes such as creepy 80’s girl, French maid, and my favorite, Butch with Broken Arms and Neck Brace. (We all know what Brad really thinks of Keltie’s looks if he assigned her this role. Don’t blame ya, Brad. That chick has like 6 different hair colors going on and really needs to get herself a wig.)

I’m not going to bore you with the details of this trainwreck. All I’ll say is that it’s 35 minutes of my life that I can never reclaim. I’d also like to say that it made NO GODDAMN SENSE at all. How does a dominatrix, a three-somes and a cheesy Spanish soap operas have anything to do with giving blood? In fact, watching that horrorfest made me decide that I will never, ever give blood just to spite the producers of ABC. The Red Cross should be embarrassed to be associated with these crap goblins. Seriously.

The only good things that come out of the PSA part of the episode is that we learn that a) Michelle is going to be the token annoying villain of the season and b) Melissa Long Face is pretty psycho. This will not be the first time we will realize both of these things during this episode.

Melissa informs us that she has made a big sacrifice to be on this show and to be with Brad. She even quit her job, ya’ll. Her job is listed as ‘waitress.’ Um, I’m pretty sure TGI Friday’s will hire you back once Brad dumps your ass, so let’s relax a bit.

Meanwhile, Michelle keeps beating that birthday dead horse throughout the rest of the date, even after the girls are taken to the rooftop pool of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. I seriously would have pushed her in that pool if I was there if I had to hear about her birthday one more time. She jumps in on her own and is trying to swim around all seductively for Womack. She keeps making these creepy “sexy” faces while she swims and it’s HIGH-larious! Apparently, Womack enjoys creepy swim faces because he gives her the rose for the date, in honor of her….wait for it…BIRTHDAY! There, Michelle, do you feel fucking special NOW?

Afterwards, we get a peak at Michelle’s actual face, underneath all of the eyebrow pencil, fake eyelashes and hair products, we find out she actually looks like this!!!!

Melissa starts to show her creepiness up on the roof when she starts to pick a fight with waxer Raichel (nope, not misspelled, that’s actually how she spells her name. Sigh.) Gag. This continues throughout the whole thing and even brain-dead Brad starts to realize that these girls are nothing but trouble.

Anyway, let’s speed this up. Brad picks Artist Jackie to go on the other one-on-one date with him. She gets a designer gown, diamonds, a facial and a really crappy hairdo from a professional stylist. Brad takes her to the Hollywood Bowl. Performance by 1990s band who made a comeback. Jackie gets the rose… And— scene. Yawn. This is when I went to put my towels in the dryer. I can’t watch this crap.

After enduring this steaming pile of crap of an episode for an hour in a half, it’s finally time for the rose ceremony. Despite the fact that she already received a rose in honor of her BIRTHDAY, Michelle grabs Brad and yanks him over into a corner to ask a series of very important questions. First, she inquires as to if he likes Starbucks better than Coffee Bean (seriously?) and what creepy food he has in his fridge. The only thing I learn from their conversation is that Michelle is a bigger twat than I thought she was.

Raichel and Melissa Long Face continue their bickerfest, telling everyone in sight, including Brad, how psycho the other one is. Ali & Roberto are wheeled out to show that “this process works” and couples can leave happy. Tell that to Jake and Vienna. And anyone else that has ever appeared on this show other than freaking Trista and Ryan.

The girls even tell Ali and Roberto about how horrible the other one is. Everyone seems generally exhausted and scared by the girls’ immature arguing.

I’ll save you the suspense and just tell you who goes home: the bickerers both get the boot— Raichel and Melissa, as well as unfortunate-looking Rockette Keltie. That’s what happens when you have too many hair colors, y’all. This episode really sucked out part of my brain. I think I’ll need to pop at Ambien every night this week just to allow me to sleep through the night and not wake up from nightmares about Michelle’s birthday and Melissa’s creepy long face and Keltie’s multi-colored mop. Someone shoot me, please.