I never thought I’d feel sorry for Bret Michaels. Last week, that all changed. My love for Rock of Love is, I believe, well known (if not well regarded). For those of you who are not familiar with the show, let me just tell you that it’s a dating show where Bret Michaels of Poison fame (and maybe all you need to know about the show, about reality television, VH1, Bret Michaels, anybody trying to win the affection of Bret Michaels, and American Pop Culture Right Now, is encapsulated by that phrase: “of Poison fame”) attempts to find “love” by the standard reality TV method of dating twenty skanks and strippers and television weather girls and wannabe reality stars, along with the occasional nice girl, all at once. Every week, one contestant’s “tour ends here” and she is sent back to whatever shiny pole she’s abandoned in Vegas or Memphis or Fargo. Sorry — that doesn’t sound very nice. It is, in most cases, however, quite true.

I love this show. Partially that’s because I love reality television, and I love really bad reality television most of all.  There’s something recklessly stupid and kind of sadly earnest about the worst reality shows (Sunset Tan, Rock of Love, early Flavor of Love, Blow Out, the Real Housewives) — everybody is so, so desperate to be famous that they just don’t give a shit about how they come off on television. Scheming? Evil? Desperate? Awesome!

Remember that girl who took a shit on the Flavor of Love stairs? Well, we remember her don’t we? If she was here right now, in my living room, I have no doubt she’d be proud of that fact, in and of itself. Remember New York from that same season? Of course we do. She has her own show now, famous in her own right (she is also maybe the most crazy person who has ever been filmed for any purpose whatsoever; either that, or a stone cold genius of an actress). Remember Lacey, from the second season of Rock of Love, who seemed to be some kind of weird evil drunken stripper gargoyle come to life and sponsored by Frederick’s of Hollywood? How about Bret Michaels himself, a grown ass man who was famous once, then wasn’t, then, by making out with strippers twenty years his junior, is now kind of famous again? Well, yeah, that’s kind of the point — at this point – right? You might not be cool with that, but I am. Honestly.

So Rock of Love has just about everything I’m looking for in a reality TV show: desperate stupid people, fueled by alcohol, screaming at each other and convincing themselves that what they really want is true love with Bret Michaels, when what they really want — probably — is to see themselves on television or Stuff Magazine or the latest issue of InTouch.

And the other thing about Rock of Love is Bret Michaels himelf: he seems like kind of a good guy. Not the smartest guy in the room, mind you, and certainly deluded about his place in the pantheon of rock gods, and his overly plastic surgeoned face is, at best, just not cool, but I’m always left with the impression that if one of the jackass Barrelhouse editors entered me into some contest, and I “won,” and as a result Bret Michaels was going to stay at my house for the weekend (note that I think of this because I’m pretty sure early edition MTV ran such a contest, in which some poor sucker “won” a Christmas morning visit from Quiet Riot; I believe his name was Dru Rigny [umlauts over the u, of course]), it wouldn’t be so bad. He’s a Pennsylvania guy, which helps. He seems like a genuinely nice human being who just happens to have a weak spot for making out with strippers and groupies in his tour bus. Given the level of human being that he has been given to work with, that’s saying something.

And that brings me to this past episode. Even as much as I like the show, and feel like Bret Michaels is actually an okay guy, I never thought that I’d feel sorry for him. That changed last Sunday, when Bret brought the ex-boyfriends of the final six contestants in for a visit and an interrogation from last year’s winner and the runner-up from the year before (that would be Ambre and Heather). Do I need to tell you that at least two of the women seemed to still be going out with, or at least having sex with, their “exes?” Do I  need to tell you that one of them still lives with her ex? That there was at least one fight, one spitting incident, and more than one person shouting “you’re a bitch, bitch!” and “you don’t know me” (incidentally, this is the second step in the official Jenny Jones Guest Yelling at Audience Progression, but I’ll talk more about that at a later date)? If I have to tell you all that, then you have not been following Rock of Love, or reality television in general.

What was revelatory, if only for a moment, was Michaels’ reaction. For the first time in these three glorious seasons, he looked like a fortysomething dude watching a bunch of silly younger women fighting over something stupid, making assholes of themselves, embarrassing everybody.  Watching adorable-if-she-wasn’t-overly-pierced Brittanya spitting on Heather, he shook his head and said, woefully, “gee grandma, sorry we’re late, but my new girlfriend spit at me over dinner.” As the segment went on, it became increasingly obvious that the producers had stacked the deck with the most bitter, desperate, strangely aggressive women they could find, and that, if only for a moment, Michaels realized exactly how he’s backed himself into a corner.

Of course, he’ll come out of that next week. Naval-gazing is not well rewarded on reality television. Best to drink another corona and see what kind of “connection” you have with that girl from Memphis, or the Penthouse Pet of the Year, or the Groupie Girl, when the bedroom door is closed. Best to put those questions behind you, suck it up, talk a lot about souls and connections and stare out at the open ocean while your newest power ballad plays in the background, and plan for Season Four.