Joe Millionaire
Fox
Mondays, 9pm / 8pm Central

"Joe Millionaire" is a seven-part reality series in which 20 women vie to marry a dashing millionaire named Evan. The catch: He's a construction worker who makes $19,000 a year. The women are eliminated until Evan chooses his bride and reveals his secret, leaving the winner with an ostensibly heart-wrenching decision. Flak will provide spirited commentary on every episode each Tuesday morning.

Part Four: In which the the b*tch goes down.

Once again we join Evan and his girls, now culled to just Sarah, Melissa, Mojo and Zora, back at the Chateau where hopefully they will prove to Evan that they can "hang out."

Evan embarks on his first date with Sarah, the sophisticated blonde. They ride bikes to a farmhouse, where they drink glass after glass of fine wine. "We were drinkin' and drinkin' and drinkin' and drinkin.'" marvels Evan, who has throughout the show never been shown without a drink in hand.

As the wine flows, Sarah and Evan get closer. Sarah begins a conversation about Evan's newfound wealth. "Are you going to travel the world? What are you going to do?" she asks. Evan looks at her blankly and says "I dunno." A regular Brett Maverick, that Evan.

"I just wanted to kiss her" he explains in voice-over, and leans in for the show's so-far most racy kiss. "The heat was on." Evan says, signaling that he's finally running out of cliches.

Back on the Chateau grounds, Evan and Sarah sneak off to the woods to mess around like a couple of teenagers at summer camp, except with microphones and a camera crew.

"They're on to us" Sarah says as the two trudge through the brush. "I don't care," Evan says hornily.

Soon, we learn what dry-humping in gravel really sounds like, complete with subtitled moans.

[Female voice]: "Ahhhhh. Mwhah. Mmmmmm. Maybe it'll go better lying down? Slurp. Gulp. Slurp." Oooh, scandal!

Either Evan and Sarah both happen to be vocal exhibitionists, or the clause in their contract stipulating that they keep their mics on at all times carried a hefty penalty fee. There's no way to tell what really happened in those woods that night, but all the money in Vegas says it started with a "B" and ended with a "job."

Back at the Chateau after the date, Sarah takes an appropriate smoke break with Melissa. "Did you kiss him?" Melissa asks.

"Yeah, goodnight," Sarah quickly answers/lies. "Like, a little."

Then it's time for Melissa's date, which will involve "hanging out in sweatpants" according to Evan. They head to the kitchen. "We're going to cook?" Melissa screeches when she hears of the evening's itinerary.

"I can't be buyin' fancy dinners every night," Evan says in his weekly reminder that he isn't, in fact, the debonair duke of sophistication he's pretending to be. "I don't think she's domesticated," he surmises, as cats and dogs everywhere shudder at the metaphorical near-miss.

A predictable kitchen scene unfolds, in which Melissa overcomes a tremendous obstacle by correctly identifying garlic.

They sit down to eat. Melissa, apparently, thinks that this has all been a test and the "real dinner" will be served at any moment. "This is the real dinner," Evan garbles as the real dinner falls out of his mouth and onto his plate.

Evan decides to ask Melissa a tough question — what would she do if she suddenly had unlimited funds?

"I wanna go to a Third World country?" she says. "And bathe their children and give them shots." And presumably teach them all of the stock answers to all of the dumb questions in the world.

And then, and then: "I'm a mercenary kind of person." She finishes, beautifully.

Whether she meant "merciful," "missionary," or something else, is beside the point for the delighted audience. And, well, it's definitely beside the point for Evan, as he nods his head in appreciation of Melissa's compassionate soul. No making-out occurs for Melissa, however.

Back at the cathouse, Melissa claims to have been "traumatized" by her kitchen term. "I just got my nails done!" she says as evidence of her suffering. Now Melissa, is that what a devoted mercenary would say?

It's finally time for Fox-favored Zora to go on her date. "I bet you a hundred Euros she makes out with him," Melissa shouts to the others as she spies Zora and Evan mounting horses in the driveway. "She's already went horseback riding!" prospective Beverly hillbilly Mojo complains.

Evan still worries that he'll never get Zora to open up. "I think she's afraid of getting her heart broken," he says after she admits that she's so sure she'll be booted off, she's yet to unpack her things.

But out in the French countryside, the two horse lovers share tender moments of splendor in the grass. "She's so good. So decent. It's like being in a Disney movie," Evan says in the voiceover as Zora plays with her horse's mane.

The cameras cut to shots of a family of deer, a rabbit, a bird and then a raccoon, as if Fox needed further proof that it was in on the joke.

Meanwhile, back at the Chateau, the stepsisters are getting restless. Oblivious Melissa is going on about how she wants to "move to L.A. and get some chump to pay for me ... for the rest of my life," as Mojo tosses last episode's ridiculous hat onto the bed. "I wanna see you guys in my HAT!" she yells. Unmerciful laughter ensues. Then they leave for girl's night out.

Evan, probably sensing the opportunity for his next you-know-what, invites Zora to join him in the hot tub. They go their separate ways to change into bathing suits.

But their plan is thwarted! Music from "Carmen" plays as the camera goes back and forth between shots of Evan undressing and the car pulling into the driveway with the other girls on board.

The girls enter and curiously snoop around. Suddenly, Evan stands in the doorway, utterly shirtless!

"He was half-nekkid!" says Mojo. "Either something just ended that was hot and heavy, or it was about to start."

Not to be out-slutted, the other girls decide to immediately join Zora and Evan in the hot tub. After watching them from an upstairs window, they swarm into the water as Evan grins appreciatively and Zora, modestly sporting a tank top over her bikini, looks virtuously disappointed.

"How did I get from a construction site, using a Port-A-John, to hanging out with four hot girls in France?" Evan asks as viewers hope he's not using the hot tub for the same purposes as the Port-A-John.

Zora's not having it. "The other girls got a little ... too flirtatious" she says in voice-over, and we watch Sarah's painstakingly-arranged breasts bob in the bubbles as she licks her lips.

Zora, without fanfare, without milking the situation for drama, heads back to her room for the night as oblivious Evan playfully yells to the other girls "I'll be right back!" and sinks under the water.

Just when it seems that Melissa has no rival for the one-way ticket home, Mojo arrives, ready for her fencing lesson with Evan. It's boring.

Back at the Chateau, Mojo tells Evan she has a surprise for him, something she made before coming to the Chateau. "It was a poem and a puzzle." Evan says as we see him unwrapping the gift. Mojo reads aloud:

"Butterflies of passion/Excitement and fun/ ... Waiting patiently for my husband/And you for your wife ... "

"Scary," Evan points out the obvious in voice-over. He then fumbles with the puzzle. "That's all I need: a challenge," he actually says. Finally, mentally and physically spent, he places the last, and, if I'm not mistaken, 20th piece of the puzzle. It's a picture of Mojo, decked out in short-shorts with "I Choose You" flashing across her bare midriff.

"I guess it was ... sweet," says Evan in voice-over as they then proceed to kiss.

Back at the cathouse, the girls have some choice words about Mojo. "We're not in the same element?" says Melissa, further demonstrating her lack of command of the English language. "We're in two different elements." She then goes on to announce than she, for one, "can deal with Evan drinking beer and going to Hooters. I can change that."

But, just when we start to think Melissa is the new butt of nearly every joke, Mojo presents Evan with her scrapbook, which features pictures of her family, and ... a check for one million dollars she has written to herself.

"I plan to cash it in three years," she explains proudly as even Evan winces. She goes on to tell him the story of how a then- unknown Jim Carrey wrote himself a check for five million dollars, conveniently forgetting that Carrey's ambitions went slightly beyond marrying up.

Finally, it's time for someone to be fired. "I hope Mojo goes next" says Sarah to the others. "I wanna see that b*tch go DOWN."

Tension is implied as the girls pace and Evan walks the grounds with his cheeky butler and advisor, Paul. Then the host-lady comes out with the necklaces. This time they're made out of rubies!

"Each date was unique ... [blah, blah, blah]" says Evan, and it's time to call the first name. And it's ... the blowjob queen!

"Sarah and I really bonded," Evan says, grinning. Next, it's Zora, of course. "Did you unpack yet?" Evan whispers to her as he places the necklace around her neck.

Finally, the last call. Evan looks at Mojo. "I'm glad I met you," he says, foretelling her fate. Melissa's name is called for a necklace and Mojo's reign as Most Hated draws to a close.

The girls sit awkwardly as Mojo visibly rationalizes her loss and searches her tiny brain for million-dollar-check Plan B.

"It just keeps getting worse ... it's awful," says Sarah, she of the "I wanna see that bitch go down," comment. She can't seem to wipe the grin off her face, though, as Mojo is escorted out.

"I have so much true, deep love inside me for the perfect man. This was what every girl has dreamed of for her whole life," Mojo says wistfully speaking for herself.

She looks directly at the camera. "Some girls are ... gold-diggers ... and I'm definitely not one of them."

"Hopefully, some of these girls are into more than just money," a delusional Evan wraps-up in voice-over, as we watch the girls wasting no time in celebrating their "big, honkin' rubies" with a champagne toast.

"Gold, sapphire, emerald, ruby. What could possibly be next?" asks Melissa, and we cut to Paul the butler, who tells us from his drawing-room chair: "I didn't get a ruby ... but I did swipe the PUZZLE," brandishing Mojo's ironic "I Choose You" gift and instantly sealing his place in our hearts forever.

Next week, we join Evan and the three remaining girls on a private jet to the French Riviera, where they will presumably join the mile-high club, go "drinkin'" on the beach, and allow Melissa to do the good Lord's work as the world's sexiest mercenary.

— Lindsay Robertson (lindsay@lindsayism.com)