WELCOME BACK!
Wow what an off season. How did we survive? Three whole months without Bachelor related content. I don’t know about you guys, but I wasn’t sure I was going to make it.
Sure it was filled with its own drama. Clare and Dale broke up (he signed his breakup statement so you know it’s #legit). They got back together again. Matt and Rachael broke up. He started dating her again (plus a few other people, so basically the Bachelor times two) and now they are together again. Kaitlyn and Jason got engaged on her podcast. I cried. And constants from the past four seasons hung out in NY, LA, and Nashville so it basically was like watching Bachelor in Paradise without ABC’s involvement.
BUT THAT’S LOW STAKES PEOPLE. I’m not here for the real life drama. I’m not watching a round-robin dating show to watch a bunch of dudes hymn and haw about whether or not after two-plus months they want to actually call you their girlfriend and omg what would make you think they wanted to be serious, you only hung out every day for the past month and met their mom GAWD can’t you read a room?
That’s what real life for.
I’m here to watch 30 adult men with fake jobs pretend they want to get married when they really want Instagram followers realize for the first time in their lives they are not the most attractive person in the room and getting the girl is not as easy as they thought. I’m here for Stockholm Syndrome to kick in and all of them be sure they are in love after one date. I’m here for the emotional breakdowns, the over the top dates, and for people to almost come to blows over whether or not they are here for “the right reasons” as if ANYONE, ANYONE EVER, has gone on this show for the right reasons. Like what would those reasons even be? To find love on national television? Someone who is convinced that’s going to happen is the reddest of flags in my book and should be immediately eliminated.
But let’s get onto the premiere. A lot happens Night One and there are a billion names so don’t hold it against me that I’m going to race through a bunch and spend paragraphs on things that took up the exact same amount of time but were more interesting.
We start with our Bachelorette, Katie, looking awkward and nervous and yet having the time of her life and may I remind you that I love Katie and will be accepting no other opinions on her as the Bachelorette, especially since we have a Michelle season coming right after who is going to be equally fantastic. We get a typical montage of photoshoots and getting ready for the opening night and it’s wholesome.
Then we get a cut to some video montage of a bunch of dudes getting ready to come to Arizona for the show, saying goodbye to family and friends and quarantining to remind us all at home that only the ~strictest~ quarantine policies were enforced. The overall vibe of the dudes is ‘all of my friends got married so I guess I gotta go find a wife now or something so I’ll be invited to hang.’
Katie thinks she is going to have to do the show hostless ever since Dark Lord Harrison got the boot but obviously that wouldn’t work (who would do the intense work of announcing there is only one rose left at ceremonies?? Do we expect these men to be able to COUNT??? smh all these unrealistic standards these days). So former Bachelorettes Tayshia and Kaitlyn surprise Katie as the new co-hosts.
They have a Girl Gang™ moment and then give her advice on being the Bachelorette that basically is don’t count anyone out and sure as shit don’t fall in love at first sight and try to leave lest we have a Clare situation all over again. As the men come they also continue to give encouragement and make jokes and I’m so here for this duo.
Now onto the intros themselves! There were about 30 dudes so I’m breaking them into categories: normal (we love to see it), funny (we love to hate seeing it), and outright creepy/sexual (lol nope).
The Normals:
Katie’s first dude is a guy named Thomas who is super nervous and Katie’s super nervous so he gives her a pep talk. It’s cute and more importantly so is Thomas despite the meh promo pic ABC had.
We then get Michael, a single father who will definitely have that be his entire storyline, who brings a watch. He talks about how it’s been in his family for 200 years and how it’s an heirloom and he wants her to have it as right as I’m roasting him for being weird he goes “lol I’m joking, I picked it up at the airport, I’m not a creep.” And while amusing, Michael doesn’t seem to realize that we have many more weeks in the house to determine his creepiness status.
Also, he has a kid and during their 1on1 time later shows her pictures of his dog (named Tommy, the same as Katie’s cat) and I’m confused where the picture of his actual child is??
Next we have a dude roll up in a truck and at first nothing happens but then Tre jumps out of the back which he had filled with rubber balls as though it was a McDonald’s play pit. Later they hang out in the ball pit drinking wine and it honestly sounds like an incredible time, I am genuinely jealous of this date.
We then have Greg, who will become important later this episode, who is super nervous but he and Katie vibe. Katie declares as he walks away “oooo he looks like my ex-boyfriend” which I can’t imagine being anything other than a bright red flag but alas, Katie’s about it.
John comes next and he’s nice and normal, but my favorite part is Katie saying “wow he’s such my type” while he is WAY too close and he turns around and laughs and Katie learned a lesson about how far they need to be before she can give her ABC required feedback on each one.
And finally, rounding out our normal men, albeit almost not, is Andrew, who is an Austrian football player (American football, not soccer, as I incorrectly assumed) who for whatever reason does a British accent despite not actually having a British accent. Katie calls him out for it being fake but in a cute way and I can’t tell if I hate Andrew or love him.
The Weirdos:
This category is what truly makes the premiere wonderful. Because there are some producers who are truly evil and who purposefully convince these (probably?) normal dudes to make utter fools of themselves on national television because no why would you just introduce yourself when you instead could act like a serial killer? Or dress up weird? Or share embarrassing facts??
The first of the weirds is Jeff, the skin salesman. Listen, if you’re a skin salesman you can’t also have a gimmick. Your gimmick is that you’re a skin salesman. Your entire job for the evening is trying to convince her that you are not going to wear her skin. What you CAN NOT DO is show up in an RV (that is apparently lived in?) and make a joke while you’re making a drink for her in your RV about how you won’t try to date rape her. I assume people who make me drinks aren’t going to drug it UNTIL THE VERY SECOND they say that they won’t. That’s the default dude. Just no.
Next we have this guy James, who arrives in a box. Now does he make Katie open the box and he come out because he’s her present? No. Is he in the box because he wants her to know he’s going to be present for her? Also no. Instead, he decides to stay in the box. For about half the night. On one hand, smart move, because if you’re going to do something dumb, you might as well not have your face shown for it. On the other, more pressing, hand, Katie has 30 dudes competing for her attention and your strategy is to chill in a box for half the night??
Later on he gets out of the box and he’s cute in a Jay Gatsby way and they have a nice conversation but I will no longer be referring to James as anything other than Box Man for the rest of the season.
Gabriel also stopped by to creep us out and compete with Jeff the RV living skin salesman for most likely to be a serial killer. He begins by telling Katie he wants to share his favorite hug with her (wut?) and enfolds himself around her, cracking her back and deeply inhaling so much that the mics picked it up. It sounded like he was smelling her before he was going to LITERALLY eat her. Gabriel and Armie Hammer are probably friends outside of the Bachelor bubble.
And the highlight of all the weird attempts, we have Connor B., the ukulele-playing math teacher who steps out donning a cat costume because Katie is a self-described cat lover. And listen, is it weird? Yes. But the man committed with the ridiculous onesie, cat whiskers, and cat puns. He’s so committed it’s fun, he just wants her to “ask meow-t.” Most importantly Katie is super into it – not because he’s dressed as a cat (or…at least I hope not) but because he’s silly and having a good time and what a bunch of these other dudes seem to be forgetting is that Katie is one of the most normal Bachelorettes in quite some time and she just wants someone to joke around with, especially since they’re all clearly attractive. Personalities are actually required this season boys, sorry, someone should have told you!
The Overtly Sexual Ones:
This specifically shouts out Cody, Quartney, Christian, and Justin. Christian, the only person from Boston, you let me down. The only thing you contributed to this episode I don’t need to immediately bleach from my brain was saying Boston isn’t the most romantic city in the world which like, yeah, I guess if we looked at things like other cities in the world and my dating record, but give Boston a chance! We have cute museums! The Boston Public Gardens! Ice skating! And according to an actual travel company the third sexiest accent in the US – based on ACTUAL PEOPLE surveyed! Maybe it’s you Christian, you ever think about that?
We then move into the mixer part of the evening, some of which I’ve touched on above. Half of the dudes are sweating uncontrollably and yet Katie seems cold which baffles me – at least when we were doing the La Quinta and it was 100+ degrees we knew everyone was suffering. What’s going on in Arizona?
Katie kicks it off with a speech that is a significant improvement over Matt’s last season but all I can focus on is why someone decided to mic up her drink because she is clearly nervous and her hand shakes a bit and the ice in her drink is LOUD every time that happens.
Anyways we get some 1on1, yadda yadda, then we get to Greg, the nervous boy from earlier. I hate how much I love Greg. It’s so obnoxious. He is oddly the most earnest, winning me over with the line “everyone has like three kids it’s so annoying” and YES GREG IT IS SO ANNOYING. I went to A WEDDING this Memorial Weekend. What kind of nonsense is that??? Next thing you know all my friends are going to get engaged and married and have kids and NO ONE prepared me for how expensive it is to have friends! Like why do you get gifts/things paid for at the engagement party, the bridal shower, the bachelorette AND the wedding? I’m sorry but why do you need three parties before your actual party? I don’t have three pre-birthday party parties! And I CLEARLY need to put distance in all my friendships before my friends get engaged because I for sure can’t bankroll being a bridesmaid again.
So anyways, Greg gets me.
He also had his three-year-old niece make Katie a painted macaroni necklace and clarified that the paint was not actual gold as if Katie would legitimately think he was handing her a gold necklace in the shape of macaroni pieces. Even my cold dead heart melted.
There were a couple of 1on1s that were cute also, Katie and Connor the Cat Man did a ‘Big’ style keyboard dance and then aggressively made out (some would say he got some tail *wink wink*) and some dude named Justin and Katie also made out although I must have looked away for point four seconds because I have no clue who he is beyond someone on my shit list for a bad dirty joke. I think he paints? Justin clearly made a big impact.
ALSO at some point two dudes got in a fight and in a rare move from ABC rather than spending the full two hours on it we got maybe twenty seconds of one dude (Aaron) coming up to another dude (Cody) and essentially shouting “I don’t like you, I’ve never liked you,” and then stomping away and I have so many questions… Bro, you met maybe an hour ago? Unless you knew each other previously? Was the ‘I never liked you’ supposed to have emotional weight? Like never was about three hours MAX man. What’s the drama? Also, why didn’t you tell anyone what it was about? DON’T LEAVE US HANGING. Cody also, spoiler, was the last one to get a rose so you know ABC had a backup plan of focusing on only drama and got too much heat from Matt’s season so had to pivot to some ~love stories~ for Katie instead.
We then skip back to normal programming where Katie gives out her First Impression Rose, which goes to Good Ol’ Greg. Cat Man looks sad and I bet was the number two choice, but Greg is heartwarming and earnest and adorable and I know it’s all likely a scam and he’s secretly here for the Instagram followers (which increased 741.1% in a 24hr period for any data nerds out there) but LET ME BELIEVE IN LOVE FOR ONE EPISODE.
Finally, we get to a rose ceremony which feels like a miracle because we actually finish it, a near first in Bachelor history these past few seasons. Guys that get a rose include Tre (ball pit man), Michael A (single dad), Thomas (pep talk), Garrett (I have literally no idea who this man is, he has red hair though), Connor the Cat, Andrew (fake accent man), James (box man), Justin (makeout man), Quartney (not quarantine which my phone tried to correct to), Karl (I didn’t touch on him but he’s obnoxious and totally a villain), Mike P (religious man), John (one that was her type), Kyle (IDK who this is either), another Andrew, some name my phone corrected to Germany and I don’t remember who it was so I’m just leaving it and will call whichever man this ends up being by the country from now on, Josh (another mystery man), Connor C (not Cat Connor), Brendan (another enigma!), David (lol did half these dudes even get airtime??), Aaron (fight yeller), Christian from Boston, Hunter (he held a fish because he’s a catch) and Cody (fight yellee).
Also I’m pretty sure two of three of these dudes got cut (but not bb Greg in the top right) so I’m not buying Katie’s “I don’t’ have a type” nonsense because her type is clearly short hair.
And there we have it folks! Week One in the books. There is an extended preview for the season you can watch here, but don’t worry, it hits the highlights.
If you are participating in the bracket you can officially draft your Week Two picks! I’ll send a reminder on Monday but you can fill it out any time before then.
Good luck and thank you everyone for joining me this season!
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