And I got the impression we were supposed to... cheer on, because Bobby is so hard-boiled?

That's certainly the way it was presented. Meanwhile you go back five years and you've got Bobby telling Dean to go easy on Meg because that's "a real girl in there" and what happened to that guy? And can you imagine the uproar if Dean had been the one acting this way?

I really dislike these two writers and their juvenile bullshit. Frankly, I think that whole scene was about getting a pretty actress in a skimpy dress and tying her up. If I were running this show I'd have given both of these guys their walking papers a long time ago.