Welcome back to this old pile of stones: a random English castle. It’s the unknowing setting for a hard-nosed documentary about coping with face blindness. Titled I Wanna Marry Harry, it has a dozen American girls competing for the heart of a man named Matt, who kind of looks like Prince Harry. Now there are ten girls left to ask the difficult questions about whether that’s really what his face looks like.
Dying to know what this particular set of American ding-dongs are up to? Oh, just bonking their heads on row boats and calling a hot-air balloon their personal unicorn. All the things Americans have always done when they travel, noted most eloquently by Henry James and now this show.
I Wanna Marry Harry bolted through the quintessentially British activities immediately: cricket, croquet, tea time, freezing dips into an unforgiving ocean all in the first two episodes. Now it’s time for American things: a pool party, shallow-water boating, a picnic, twerking.
The show begins with a hot-air balloon ride. The inaugural hot-air balloon ride, in 1783, elevated a caged duck and a sheep. This moment is similar. The lucky duck who gets to ride in a hot-air balloon with a British man named Matt had never seen a hot-air balloon before. She’s also never had a picnic before! Everything is new, and everything is crazy. There’s a hammock. The date is interrupted by a fake paparazzo who doesn’t say any of the weird things that paparazzi say in TMZ videos.
Civilian Matt appears most interested in vetting his women for steering prowess. He piles three of them into a row boat, which goes right into a tree. One dashing shipmate does a back flip off the side and clonks her head. She was fine. The music and commercial break held us in a real lurch for a minute.
When the faux butler announces it’s time for a “POOOOL PARTY,” there are endless echoes in the O’s. Everything seems to pause in this chasm of crashing sound waves. Not for long, though, because there’s an impromptu twerking contest. Wouldn’t it be good for us all if twerking were like handstands and if you couldn’t really do it you either didn’t try or you fell on your face? That would be nice, thought the dear random castle as it looked down upon these foolish mortals.
The only woman who refused to twerk is sent home this week. Earlier in the show, she said: “The fact that I’m intelligent sets me apart.” It dooms her. Unfairly though, she negs the castle as she leaves: “I’m not materialistic so stuff like this [big swooping gesture to the castle that did nothing wrong at all] just doesn’t really impress me.”
Karina Kennedy wins this week. When Civilian Matt finally tells her that she’s not leaving, she cries: “You’re trickiiiyeeuggghhyyy.” So many new sounds from her. When she gets to the notably terrible bedroom of rewards, she picks up a paperweight and then looks out the window to celebrate. There is literally nothing good about this bad room.
Next week, we will hear someone finally bring up the “nose” argument regarding Civilian Matt’s veracity as Prince Harry. Holding our horses in anticipation!
