The Bachelor Recap: First Impressions
Bachelor season is upon us, and it’s about time because 2016 was a dog shit year for everyone involved with a few exceptions, such as Chance The Rapper (awesome) celebrity obituary montages (total bummer) and the soft-penis sycophants that stumped for a presidential candidate who uses Velveeta Cheese as bronzer (gross).
If someone from Trump’s newly assembled Anti-American Task Force (We’ve been down this road before guys) happens to reads this and decides that I need to be thrown in the gulag that will inevitably be built along the Florida Panhandle, all I ask is that you stick me in a cell next to someone interesting (The guys from “Keepin’ It 1600" will work) and allow us to watch the entire Bachelor franchise. Ok? Thanks!
Anyway, 30 — no that isn’t a typo —women have decided to make the pilgrimage to Los Angeles and via for the love of a man that has decided the best path to marriage is competing with 20+ bros for the love of one woman or going on late-20s/early 30s spring break and living in a Lost Boys treehouse that has been converted into an F-Shack.
From watching Sunday’s preview show (I’m not proud) and the opening couple segments of the premiere it’s clear that the producers are billing Nick’s quest for a spouse as an underdog story. That’s fine, except, are we really willing to call Nick an underdog? My dude comes from an upper middle class family that hasn’t shunned him for going on reality television for a fourth god damn time. He’s got a job that allows him to take dating show sebaticles. He lives between Chicago and Los Angeles. He’s handsome enough to be on television. He’s got a degree. Remember The Titans this is not.
The second Nick storyline being pushed is that this is a redemption story for our 2017 bachelor. From bro-time with past Bachelors like Ben Higgins and Chris Soules to soliciting the opinions of people on the streets of LA, it’s clear that the general feelings towards Nick are mixed, at best. His fellow Bachelor alums highlight his appearance on Bachelor in Paradise as a turning point, while the general public still seems to view Nick as the human equivalent of a semi-reliable vibrator. It’s redemption time, baby!
For the record I’m totally cool with Nick being The Bachelor. The choices from Jojo’s season were sub-optimal and since Nick has been here before, he’ll know what to do to make this an enjoyable experience for the viewer. And in the end that’s all I care about, because I’m selfish and don’t actually care if Nick finds a wife. I just want to be entertained.
Now that the stage is set, I give to you (just what we all need), a single 30-something white male’s take on Nick’s options.
The “Whose Season Was She On?” Squad
After spending a mere two hours with them, we said goodbye to three nurses, three teachers a food truck owner and a law school graduate. I’m not entirely sure if the teacher and nurse numbers are accurate, but does anyone care? After reading through the bios prior to Monday’s episode I thought there was some potential in this group. Lauren was age appropriate and had a law degree. I thought Angela had villain potential as a confident model from the South. I was wrong. This group of eight will join the dozens of women before them that never made it past the opening night like, Keri, Sasha F. Sara C. Dorothy, Rose, Blanche, Sophia and Tammmy with three Ms.
Before moving on let me defend those from this group that cried during their exit interview. It has nothing to do with missing out on sleeping with Nick. The tears are a result of two things. One, dealing with rejection on national television and second, staying up all night while being force fed $9 chablis and Lunchable grade deli meat. It wouldn’t be a stretch to claim this as a form of torture. Have you ever had a bunch of booze, eaten bad food and stayed up so long until you develop a hangover? It’s the pits. Big shout Butch McGuires!
Mostly Unsubstantiated Claim, But Come On, We Know I’m Right: Four of these girls have a wooden plank in their apartment that reads, “Live, Laugh, Love” in cursive. The other four have a print in their apartment that says, “Keep Calm and ____ On.” The one exception may be Michelle, because she owns a food truck and that’s fucking awesome.
Oh, BTW, four of the names I listed as past first night exits were Golden Girls characters. LOLZ!
The Ashley S. Memorial Division a.k.a. The Producers’ Picks
Alexis and Josephine are nothing more than the court jesters for the 2017 Bachelor season. Neither has any shot at winning Nick’s heart and will both be gone before we all start freaking out about Jude Law and The Young Pope.
Alexis
Alexis is the now infamous aspiring dolphin trainer that opted to wear a very well know shark costume — and when I say well know, I mean it was seen during an endlessly discussed Super Bowl halftime show that birthed a thousand memes — and insist that she was wearing a dolphin costume. My takeaway from Alexis’ performance during the premiere is that she is either as adept at maintaining her character as Kayzer Soze in The Usual Suspects, or we are dealing with someone that can’t identify the exact animal she dreams of training. Beyond staying in character we don’t learn much else about Alexis other than she’s SOOOOO CRAZY she’ll walk to the CVS in an inflatable sumo wrestler outfit.
One important note from Alexis’ bio, her most embarrassing moment was when an ex-boyfriend told her she had a mustache at a Giants game. Without knowing she is from Seacaucus, was there any doubt that this ex of hers was a New York Giants fan and not a San Francisco Giants fan? I would have had no trouble betting on the lives of my future children (Mom, relax I know I need a girlfriend before children) that Alexis’ ex-BF is a NY Giants fan. I know this because 90% of male Giants fans are sewer clowns. The only real debate is if her ex is from Bayonne or Orange.
Mostly Unsubstantiated Claim, But Come On, We Know I’m Right: Alexis, at age 24, still sleeps with two stuffed animals. One is a dolphin named Seahorse and the other is a dog named Kitten.
Josephine
Alexis’ comic relief partner is Josephine. We’re told by the producers not to take her seriously because she talks to her cat and asks a group of uninterested seals if she is right for Nick. To further drive this point home, Josephine greets Nick with a cold hot dog and weiner humor.
After the initial bio releases I wanted to give Josephine credit for keeping it so real and putting down, “Unemployed Nurse” as her profession. This was later altered, and if I had to guess, Josephine’s mom — already upset about having to explain to her daughter’s reality tv appearance to her book club — called ABC and insisted that they change her occupation to “Registered Nurse.”
Mostly Unsubstantiated Claim, But Come On, We Know I’m Right: In her bio, Josephine listed her height as 5'7" 3/4. This is someone who cares greatly about height integrity in dating app bios. And at the end of her Bumble bio it definitely reads, “I’m 5'7” 3/4 and like to wear heels [winking-face emoji]. Josephine has zero interest in DeVitos like myself, and would even tell a straight Tom Cruise to gtfo because he doesn’t meet her roller coaster rigid height requirements.
!!Celebrate Celibacy!!
Christen
Most of you aren’t aware of this because you failed to watch Sunday’s Bachelor preview — and that’s fine because I go the extra mile — but Christen is this season’s virgin. Much like the token minority on all Real World seasons or the gratuitous mid-drift shots in a Michael Bay movie, the virgin has become a staple of The Bachelor. Christen comes across as mostly normal, and I’m sure she’s fantastic at making videos newlyweds pay for but never watch. But she’s here for one reason and one reason only, to fulfill the virgin storyline.
Mostly Unsubstantiated Claim, But Come On, We Know I’m Right: If Christen is brunching and bottomless mimosa-ing she is always wearing a full brimmed hat and getting lots of brunch-hat-side-eye from neighboring tables. Note: If you are my friend and wear brunch hats, you are exempt from brunch-hat-side-eye because you are awesome, this is my post and I make the rules.
The Villain/I’m Not Here To Make Friends/He’s All Mine
Corinne
It didn’t take long for Corinne to reveal herself as the villain this year. She double dipped her Nick time, and then kissed him in front of the other women. Oh, and she handed him a sack of sex coins to use at a later date. Corinne is the next logical step in the evolution of the Bachelor franchise villain. She is from Miami, spoiled, ridiculously attractive, young enough to lack any self-awareness and DTF. She is Olivia 2.0. Corinne is the Bachelor equivalent of the T1000. Just appearing out of thin air, naked, and in front of a Forever 21 because Chris Harrison’s future son sent her back in time to wreak havoc on the Bachelor compound.
Mostly Unsubstantiated Claim, But Come On, We Know I’m Right: No less than seven times in the last year, Corinne has walked into a restaurant 45 minutes late to meet friends and before sitting down does a half squat while raising a single finger in the air and yelling, “SQUUAAADDD!”
Potential Lifetime Movie Stories
Daniel M. is a neonatal nurse whose fiancé died. Kristina is an orphan, who was adopted and is now a dental hygienist that would someday like to adopt a bunch of children herself. In both their bios and short amount of time on screen they came across as lovely individuals.
Being terrible and rude comes quite naturally to me, but I’m not trying to snipe at either of these two until they give me cause, like Kelsey Poe did a couple seasons ago.
See You On Bachelor In Paradise!
This is already getting way too long, so it’s time to start editing myself. Call it intuition or just a sad life spent watching too many hours of The Bachelor, but I don’t have a good feeling about anyone from this group, although Jaimi is my personal favorite and wins the awards for greatest accomplishment by catering the Oscars.
I do however need to take a minute to discuss Jasmine G. Between her bio and intro she managed to raise both literal and figurative red flags. She raised figurative red flags by using the Bling King, Neil Lane, for her intro and crying before the first rose ceremony. And by saying she wanted to be Guy Fieri in her bio, I can only assume at some point, somewhere she raised the official Guy Fieri flag, which is just a bright red flag with a flame and a large donkey sauce stain on it.
Mostly Unsubstantiated Claim, But Come On, We Know I’m Right: Jasmine G. had definitely been hit on by Draymond Green in a horribly immature way, and she’s told him to move on.
Sex Sells And Nick Is A Fan Of It
One of these four women told Nick she wasn’t wearing any underwear. The second showed off her ad exec skills, pulled up bareback on a camel and made a humping joke. The third asked Nick if he liked her breasts in German, I think. And the forth — aware that you get nothing out of being subtle — had drunk wedding sex with Nick in Kansas City. By the time we were finished with these introductions the Bachelor producers had me convinced Nick would be mainlining Valtrex before the season ends.
I am a little worried about Liz. Why would she think that Nick wouldn’t recognize her? Unless Jade and Tanner’s wedding turned into some Eyes Wide Shut scenario, I can’t imagine Nick has had SO MUCH sex that the girls become faceless. I’m sure Nick’s gotten laid often, and congrats to him, but I don’t think we are talking about Tiger Woods here.
Mostly Unsubstantiated Claim, But Come On, We Know I’m Right: Lacey totally thinks of herself as a Rachel, but her friends think she’s a Janice.
Sleepers
We learned next to nothing about Sarah, the grade school teach from CA, or Whitney the pilates instructor, but that could just be the editors trying to throw us off the J’Adore scent.
The Contenders
Danielle L. Rachel and Raven are all in the running to make it far. Two own small businesses and the third is a civil rights attorney. Beyond being accomplished individuals, because who are we kidding that’s hardly reason to make it far on The Bachelor, my reasons for putting these three towards the top are as follows.
Rachel got the more screen time than just about anyone along with the first impression rose. She really may be the most normal person to ever walk onto the set of The Bachelor. Why on earth is she on this show?
Danielle L. got less screen time, but plenty of pervy looks and comments from Nick.
As for Raven, I’m picking her because she made a number of appearances on the, “This Season On” and I feel like one of the hometown visits always involves some small southern town.
Mostly Unsubstantiated Claim, But Come On, We Know I’m Right: Danielle L. met her last three boyfriends all at the gym, with each more likely than the last to take gym selfies and finish all toasts with salut.
The Favorite
Lets see, Vanessa is an age appropriate, confident, special education teacher that speaks three languages, is easy to hold a conversation with, appears to be an actual person, and is drop dead gorgeous. She should have zero trouble making it to the hometown dates at minimum. This means she’ll probably be out after week three. So Vanessa, if that’s the case [makes a phone with my hand and mouths “call me.”]
