Every so often during a season of the Bachelor, there is an inflection point so visceral, so gut-wrenching, that an Irish poet’s interpretation of a Sophoclean classic is the only location where the imagery exists to do it justice. At the heart of Seamus Heaney’s seminal work The Cure at Troy, is a conflict between personal integrity and political expediency. The chorus of the closing scene is perhaps the most applicable in sensibility and sentiment to this conflict but also to what we saw on this most recent episode of the Bachelor: “history says, don’t hope on this side of the grave, but then, once in a lifetime the longed for tidal wave of justice can rise up and hope and history rhyme.” That tidal wave was a 30-foot Sumatran tsunami on Monday night and boy was some justice doled out… let’s jump in

Victoria is an incredibly interesting psychological specimen. I hate to keep bringing up her similarities to Donald Trump (what a refreshing fortnight it’s been now that the hands grasping the nuclear football are not so saturated with fast food grease that there is a constant fumble risk) but she has a startlingly similar ability to overinflate her sense of self-importance and conjure conflict and hatred out of thin air with a Houdini-like élan. Victoria’s villainizing campaign was not aimed at Mexicans or the free press, but like pigs to truffles, or McCarthy to Communists, she made it her prerogative to go after these new girls with all her energy. She labelled her Robespierre Reign of Terror “The OGs vs. Newbies” which sounds to me more like a Space Jam knockoff than a concerted bullying campaign, but her activities, as well as those of MJ and Anna, really caught the attention of Matt, who dominated the early proceedings trying to get to the bottom of the toxic culture within the ranks.

The idea that the Bachelor or Bachelorette has some kind of responsibility for the cultural conditions of the house is an interesting concept that resurfaces a couple of times every season whenever there is unrest. Whether it was Bennett and Noah, Caelynn and Hannah B, Hannah Ann and Kelsey (the list goes on and on), all of these conflicts are tied together by the false indignation of the bachelor in question, and their unwavering quest to try and resolve whatever dissension there is. Matt took his cultural responsibility very seriously last night, flexing his acting skills by seeming shocked that 32 girls cooped up together all dating the same man could ever lead to interpersonal resentment. He stated the blindingly obvious that he’s not looking for a raging bitch as a wife (“If you’re having to belittle someone else to shine, those aren’t the qualities I’m looking for in a wife,”) and then cycled through the women, judiciously evaluating their stories with the look of consternation that this could have happened under his watch.

Matt’s fact-finding conversations with Brittany and Ryan were a tasty amuse bouche, but really, they were just whetting our collective palette for what was a perfectly concocted mixture of remorse, contrition and begs for forgiveness from Anna for the main course. It’s amazing the paradigm shifts that occur when the existential insecurity of these ladies comes into question, and Anna’s claim that “she is the worst, most shallow person ever” and that she’s “so sad and upset with myself” are phrases that she was most certainly not wheeling out to Victoria when the two of them were seen spilling gallons of speculative tea last episode. Matt handled the situation with a surprising amount of compassion and decisiveness (although “when I met Brittany a few days ago, she was spunky” isn’t the best thing to say when you’re trying to defend someone accused of escorting) and made the call to give Anna the chop. This was the first wave of Seamus Heaney’s tide of justice.

Victoria’s ugly downward spiral was the next indication that nature was healing and that facts, truth and decency on The Bachelor were back in vogue. I must say, it was quite funny watching her scramble to play defense as she tried to completely rehabilitate her image from fiery dragon to cuddly kitten, but Matt seemed to see through it, confronting her about her role in systematically bullying all of the new girls in the house. One instance in particular was Victoria’s characterization of Ryan, a dancer, as “a hoe.” To be fair to Victoria, her assessment that the new girls were “hoes” was intended as a much more blanket statement, but Victoria certainly didn’t help her cause by admitting to Matt that she had said it and then referring to Ryan as “the shadiest bitch” for telling him.

Any time you use “it was taken out of context” as a defense for something said – see every professional athlete who has had to defend calling their classmates racist and homophobic names on Twitter in middle school – you are guilty as hell, and Victoria’s constant impropriety, her blind insistence that she is “the best option for Matt,” despite only having spoken to him like three times, and her full-blown melt-down where she claimed that she “literally might die” if Katie was chosen over her were irreconcilable red flags for Matt. From a producer’s perspective, if you were gonna keep one lie-spreading, conniving, back-stabbing snake, then I would definitely have kept Victoria and not Serena C, but maybe Matt actually had a say in this one and his patience with Victoria was spent. I have to admit, despite her roaring character flaws and objective insufferability, Victoria is a blogger’s dream; I will miss her, and the joy that she “brought so many people.” (Her words not mine) To all you Matt’s out there, congratulations, you dodged a bullet!

Rachael got a 1-on-1 date, and Matt celebrated by greeting her in the same manner he greets all of the ladies: by licking his lips, rubbing his hands together and then saying: “I like that” after whatever the girl says to him. Rachael could literally have said that she wasn’t a fan of the Shrek franchise, or that the only music she listens to is underground Ukrainian screamo and I’m sure Matt would have repeated the same phrase. Rachael’s date was trying on some dresses under the watchful eye of Matt, and John Legend’s gay, Rastafarian, French cousin…

Rachael was forced to confront all of the other girls, 25 shopping bags in tow, upon her return to the resort. Given the reactions of some of the ladies, you would have thought she was wearing a Lady Gaga meat dress in the lion’s enclosure; Pieper in particular looked like her new puppy had been released in the enclosure as well!    

Full disclosure, I was otherwise engaged during Rachael’s dinner and the activities on the group date, so I will not be talking about them. The only analysis I could get from my parents was that MJ got freaked out by the chickens and rejected by the goats – great judges of character those goats!

My main takeaways from the group date were: Abigail is a real sweetie and actually has some of the best chemistry with Matt (despite his personality closely resembling drying paint); Michelle is definitely a contender, but she didn’t react well to being in the bullpen with the other girls rather than in a hot air balloon or the backseat of a car with Matt; MJ is toxic, maybe she should try baseball rather than the Bachelor; and I think that vulnerability is Matt’s aphrodisiac… I don’t think Matt could tell you a single hobby, college they attended, aspiration of any of these girls, his primary line of questioning is digging into their deepest darkest insecurities. “Thank you for being vulnerable with me” is almost as common a refrain as “I like that!” I’m not saying that Matt is an aspiring cult leader who preys on the weak and vulnerable… but my mother most certainly is!

I’ve said it once, I’ll say it a million times but I cannot unhear “kid” whenever Matt says “Kit,” and so “tonight is Kit’s night” really threw me for a loop. With this is mind, when I found out it was a cooking date I was expecting dino nuggets and Kraft mac and cheese on the menu. Matt’s preparation was incredibly strange… he dusted underneath his vases… literally the most OCD people in the world don’t dust underneath their vases… I would sooner create a matrix that took into account authors place of birth, book length and spine color and organize my books accordingly rather than dust underneath the vases. “Kit is a little fashionista” was his justification for cleaning up his house… certainly not a possible future modelling contract with Cynthia Rowley or anything cynical like that!

I know COVID has done a number on the quality of 1-on-1s this season, but as dates go, this was possibly the worst of all time. Imagine a guy inviting you over for dinner and he subsequently forces you to make him chocolate chip cookies, you don’t get any food, and then you make out on the couch and he has his eyes wide open the entire time. Woof. Clearly understanding that vulnerability was the only thing Matt values, she started laying it on him how difficult it was that her mother had been stocking the shelves, not physically, at TJ Maxx for her entire life. Cry me a river Kit. Of course she got a rose because its literally impossible not to get one. Thanks Matt.

In other news, Jessenia and MJ are in a little tiff so will be interesting to see how that turns out. Tyler C is going to be back, and Heather (never been kissed) Morris is also making a celebrity appearance. Until next week folks!

It’s taken a few weeks to get a statistically valid sample size, but I’m now convinced that Matt was created in an advanced former Soviet Bloc robotics laboratory and was released to the West following the fall of the Iron Curtain. First of all, I’ve done CrossFit 4 times and maintain that it is impossible to generate his kind of abdominal muscle toning without some kind of metallic robot undercarriage; He chops wood with all the fluidity and humanity of the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz; He does this weird awkward lean in whenever the ladies are talking to him that puts his body at an impossibly uncomfortable and unnatural angle for a human; he maintains this sappy, faux-radiant smile that makes him look like the robot from Futurama; and he uses the exact same playbook for each contestant, first saying something toxic like “vulnerability has always been hard for me,” moving on to robot fuckboy phrase #2 “I’m struggling to express to you how I feel,” and then as sure as the sun rising in the east, hitting them with some smarmy words of affirmation about how their relationship is developing when it clearly isn’t. At this point in the show, Matt should be narrowing down which ladies are actually in the running and which are categorically not; he hasn’t been able to do either, telling every single girl that he could imagine their life together and then extolling their virtues in his side shots by saying, “I could be speaking to my future wife.” It’s frustrating. Anyway, let’s talk about Monday’s episode…

If Dr. Frankenstein, or whoever it was that had the wherewithal to manufacture a perfectly mundane and by-the-book Bachelor robot, it was their evil assistant who programmed Victoria in an express effort to unhinge, malfunction at every turn and watch the world burn. Yet again, aside from Chelsey completely showing up Matt with the quality of her fade, it was Victoria’s toxic energy that dominated proceedings in the evening cocktail party. After calling everyone quite unpleasant names and getting called out by Katie for it, she honked “I can express myself through name-calling if I choose to.” I can express myself through naked fire eating on top of the Empire State Building… Just because you can, it most definitely doesn’t mean that you should… She followed it up by saying “If you want to express yourself with your dildo then you’re not ready for an engagement.” I would argue the exact opposite and the fact that your principal method of self-expression is through your vibrator is a stone wall sign that an engagement is EXACTLY what you are ready for!

The start of the date was unspectacular on the whole. I genuinely thought Matt said “I like being around kids” instead of “I like being around Kit,” which was a pretty startling reminder of the incongruity of her youth. Victoria was yet again right in the middle of the fire, an unfortunate place to be if you’re dressed like a marshmallow! Unsurprisingly, she ended the evening smoldering and burnt, however this time her demise and ridicule was not entirely by her own doing. Chris Harrison interrupting Victoria and snagging Matt like there was something seriously wrong was like one of those viral videos where the scrawny white kid who walks on to the Iowa State basketball team gets his scholarship from a cop walking into the film room and asking to speak to him about a minor transgression on campus. The kid looks terrified, then elated when he figures out what is going on, and then everyone in the vicinity goes crazy around him. This is exactly what happened, as Matt looked like he’d been caught on camera pissing on the statue in the middle of campus, was then fired up when new girls showed up and started making out with him, and then every other inhabitant of the Nemacolin resort went absolutely ape shit.  

Adding new contestants into the mix makes sense if the original Bachelor or Bachelorette gets so enamored by a Party City model that they have to cancel the show and start fresh with a new person; but adding them on a whim because it would be exciting to drive a stake between the already fractious existing ladies and these new ones? Attila the Hun was less barbaric! I wonder if Matt told the producers he was done with Victoria’s shit and they needed to get some new ladies in the house otherwise he was going back to oiling his abdominal muscles with Tyler C on the beach? In characteristic form, Victoria reacted to the new ladies arriving by whining “who the fuck are these random ass hoes coming into the house?” and then proceeded to cement her status as a bastard Trump child by being staggeringly rude to the former Miss Puerto Rico, Catalina. She stole her crown, and I was half expecting her to start throwing paper towels in her direction such was her disdain for her new antagonist (God that video gets me every time.)

I was disappointed that Kim, the girl who had an enormous hole in the front of her dress, got sent home, I was very much looking forward to seeing her assless chaps at the next rose ceremony! Catalina obviously made it through; Matt probably thought there was a Wine Mixer on the line.  

The fall in love fest might as well have been named the basic bitch fest. A crisp fall day with changing leaves abound, leggings and Ugg Boots, and an obstacle course, it doesn’t get much more Autumnal than that! When I saw the pumpkin kayaking event I was half expecting the next task to be competitive posing for pics at the apple orchard, but alas, the girls had to dress up as squirrels and navigate a pretty simple looking obstacle course instead. Mari was the ultimate winner, although there was literally zero incentive for trying as all of the girls were invited to the same cocktail party in the evening.

During every season, there is always one “watch out for this person” moment, where one contestant gets a tip from their ex-girlfriends’ grandmothers’ bridge partner who didn’t quite have her hearing aids turned up when she heard a snippet of some tea about another contestant. We saw it in the most recent Bachelorette season with Yosef’s West Virginia DM sliding; the Hannah B Caelynn drama from Colton’s season was a similar knew-you-from-prior-to-the-show-drama situation, and this time around, it was Anna accusing Brittany of being an escort with about as much evidentiary basis as a Fox News primetime host trying to overturn an election. It’s a pretty horrific thing to say about someone that “she entertains men for money,” especially when there is legitimately zero indication that it is the case but it’s a dog eat dog world out there and Victoria and Anna think they’re fucking Clifford.

Matt’s next one-on-one date was with Michelle, one of the new girls drafted in to try and draw blood out of the proverbial stone and get Matt to display an ounce of personality. She had a great degree more success than any of her predecessors, and dare I say it, Matt actually came across as someone that wouldn’t make me want to gouge my eyes out hanging with. They zip-lined, both said that they wanted three kids in a totally unscripted moment and then went for a romantic hot-air balloon ride that must have been in contravention of social distancing rules for the poor guy who was steering the thing. It was the first time that Matt had actually seemed to enjoy himself, but was back to his robotic best at dinner, responding to what his favorite part of the date was, with: “when you walked up.” Matt, you went on a hot air balloon with a super attractive female, the question wasn’t “what was your favorite part of the stair-climbing competition?!” Michelle also got called out for quoting Maya Angelou and trying to pawn it off as something that she said (major Jack Black in the cafeteria in School of Rock vibes quoting Whitney Houston when asked his views on school testing). Matt was in full android mode by the end of the date when he told Michelle that she “embodies all the qualities I’m looking for…” Haven’t heard that one before!

Getting a date card that has the words “are you ready to fight for Matt?” on it can literally only mean one thing, and the ladies knew it. There’s no such thing as metaphysical “fighting” in Bachelor-world, when Chris wants fighting, he wants down and dirty, grievance airing, bone-splintering hand-to-hand combat, and this is what we were treated to. As is tradition, they gave Matt a few minutes to show off his blistering sled-pulling technique and let him squat a few logs before Mia St John (I can’t be the only one to have never heard of her?) was trotted out to inform the ladies that boxing would be their skirmishing technique for the date. Katie beat the fuck out of Jessenia, Serena beat the fuck out of Kit, Serena P got absolutely rocked in the nose and that was about it.

The rest of the episode was dominated by some good old-fashioned back and forth between Victoria and anyone that would listen to her. To quote one of my favorite sea shanties, the Wellerman came, brought sugar, tea and rum and the ladies completely ignored the sugar and tea and massively over imbibed on the rum. Katie once again took the moral high ground and told Matt about the bullying within the house and it appears as though this is where we will pick up next week! Until then…

The concepts of motivational carrots and injurious sticks have been leveled to try and inspire particular personal behaviors for millennia. From antiquity to present however, no organization has managed to leverage them side-by-side to quite the effect as our friends at ABC, The Bachelor producers. This week, a fainting Sarah and the promise of a Victoria-Marylynn reckoning were the carrots plucked from the ground and dangled in front of The Bachelor’s leporine onlookers; and the prospect of having to listen to Victoria wallow in her fatuous and unsubstantiated self-pity presented a stick that hits with the integrity of a fresh-carved Louisville Slugger. I hope carrots are a good cure for concussion, because I signed up instantly and unashamedly for both!

The provenance of the Victoria-Marylynn feud has always been shrouded in mystery, certainly from an on-screen presentation perspective. Marylynn doesn’t strike me as the roommate from hell, but who knows, maybe she’s dropping in at Tilted Towers with the gals until 4am every night? Maybe she doesn’t remove her hair from the drain? I don’t want to cast aspersions, but based on the incredibly vitriolic reactions of Victoria, maybe she doesn’t flush? Whatever it is, Victoria has managed to aggrandize this rivalry to the extent that it will invariably lead to one of their departures. Marylynn didn’t handle Victoria’s offensives particularly well, a surprise, given that event coordinators have to consistently deal with irrational and incredibly neurotic individuals with over-inflated views of their own importance. She was like a deer in the headlights, more shell-shocked than kicked into action. I’m not planning any major events in the near future, but when Gordon Ramsay wants “the fucking lamb sauce,” I don’t know if Marylynn is the one I want in charge! It wasn’t shocking that Marylynn was ultimately sent home (rumor has it Victoria’s eye infection was so contagious that she couldn’t be released into the big bad world as it might have prompted a second pandemic) but still a little disheartening that Victoria, Donald Trump’s 17^th child out of wedlock, was able to act so abhorrently with impunity.

The first group date was one of the most entertaining segments of television I’ve seen on the Bachelor in a long time (not saying a whole lot since Peter’s season made me want to self-immolate half of the time but still.) The ladies were tasked with following in the footsteps of Chris Harrison (who showed that his 50 shades weren’t just in reference to quarter-zip sweater colors but he had previously written an erotic novel entitled “The Perfect Letter”), and composing their own passage of an erotic novel. Matt went first, and to say that Napoleon Dynamite has given more compelling stump speeches on the campaign trail really fails to capture just how unspectacular Matt’s delivery was. There was talk of chocolate cake in the kitchen and kissing of skin between suit and hairline (did he just reveal his Hillary Clinton pant suit fetish?), but for all the sexual arousal he was able to inspire, the ladies might as well have been in a Professor Binns History of Magic lesson.

Unsurprisingly, some of the ladies warmed to the task more than others… On the one hand, Serena C, who clearly likes being peed on or something, said “if there was one thing that I wouldn’t want exposed, my sexual preferences are it” whereas on the other, Katie and Victoria were about as wide open as South Dakota’s COVID restrictions and their chapters were the literary equivalent of being beaten over the head with Katie’s vibrator! Bri’s chapter was like a children’s book where the princess and the stable boy hold hands and live happily ever after and was followed up by a one-two punch from Victoria and Katie that sounded like a New York City rush hour there were so many beeps. I hope to one day hear the unredacted versions (although we may have to wait until the Statute of Limitations expires because I’m pretty sure half of what Victoria was saying was illegal!)

Sarah, Sarah, Sarah. What are we going to do with her? Her date with Matt was cute, but her behavior since has been eerily reminiscent of a person who had only ever watched Clare’s season of the Bachelorette and so thinks that contestants just waltz away with their men at their discretion. This is The Bachelor sweetheart, Matt has to develop lukewarm flirtations founded on a bed of sexual curiosity with about 6 women, and then hastily propose to one of them despite having slept with the other two just days prior; how hard is that to grasp?! Sarah is acting surprised that Matt isn’t paying her exclusive attention, and strolled over to interrupt the evening group date with a serious “burn-the-hotel-to-the-ground” look in her eyes. Interrupting a group date is not unprecedented, but for someone who clearly watched Clare’s season, Sarah should know that you should NEVER go full creepy Blake Moyne and crash dates like Vince Vaughn is your boss.

Not a hot take, this has been floating around the internet for a couple of weeks, but Matt kisses with his eyes open. He also goes for the over-lip hoover suck, something I haven’t seen since the scream extractor was almost applied to Mike Wazowski:

The date crash was largely uneventful, however Sarah thought it appropriate to apologize for taking time on the date, something that DID NOT go over well with the broader group.

Victoria is severely lacking in a lot of departments (given her dress choices, it’s clear the only sty she has is the eye infection), but emotional intelligence might be her greatest deficiency. Victoria coming to comfort you in your time of need would be like Hugh Hefner serving up some candid advice on the value of celibacy or something. In the indelible words of Hermione Granger, “she has the emotional intelligence of a teaspoon” and that is generous.

She led the are-you-ok conversation after following Sarah out of the room with: “your situation must be serious, we were worried for you” but followed it up immediately by devaluing her issues entirely with: “it was a personal conversation on our time.” If Victoria was the surgeon slicing into Sarah’s self-esteem, then Katie showed up with a salt grinder and limes to compound her misery. “Is this about your insecurities?” is a brutal thing to say to anyone but not as brutal as “I encourage you to really just figure it out” like it’s something that you can just turn on and off.

Matt did his best to comfort Sarah, characteristically reacquainting her with the lip Hoover to dam her floods of tears. While Matt’s intentions were no doubt pure, saying things like “I will stop by here every day because I have real feelings for you” and “this relationship is really real and it means a lot to me” only served to work Sarah up into an even more fragile state… much more to come here later!

Serena P’s date was pretty unspectacular on the whole. Matt asked for her help “making a cheese board” because he had never made one before… literally that is like asking someone for help putting on a t-shirt, you just slap some cheese on a board. By this point in the season, I would generally be expecting to see some fire and passion from The Bachelor; but Matt? He’s about as charismatic as Serena’s cheese board. He says all the right things, appeases all the crazy girls with placeholder words of affirmation, but is a bit bland on the whole… Between his rock-hard abs and rather dull personality, I was half expecting the donkeys that interrupted his date to comment on the “nice boulder” that was sitting next to Serena!

Their dinner date was equally as unenchanting.  Matt’s opening refrain of: “you did well today” is not usually what you tell someone on a first date and Serena responded to her strong performance by claiming she was “falling into like with you.” This is a good line that is emblematic of the entire process. I literally think that to not get a rose on a 1-on-1 with Matt you would have to spit in his face and tell him he looks like he ate too much pasta for dinner last night.

I really didn’t enjoy the closing sequence of this episode, which was effectively an exercise in seeing how far the girls could debase themselves in bullying Sarah for a really minor indiscretion. Victoria was throwing more jabs than Muhammad Ali in his prime and the under ticket of really unsavory ladies hurling shit at Sarah included Kit and Serena C who characterized Sarah as “calculated, manipulative, toxic” – speak for yourself girl. I guess if you put 16 girls in a couch circle with a grievance, a couple of sacks of Franzia Sunset Blush and a scapegoat then that is what you get? It was really unpleasant watching all of the ladies pile on, but Katie surprisingly emerged as the one who was above the childish antics. Who would have thought the girl who showed up on night one with a dildo was the most mature girl in the house?

Sarah still left, although her departure, with 45 seconds of B-roll Chevy Suburban pulling out of the resort, absolutely REEKS of a late-season return. Til’ next week folks!

One aspect of this season that is immediately apparent, is that Matt has no fucking clue what he’s doing. Being the Bachelor is a lot like being a heart surgeon… You can have former heart surgeons (Tyler C/Hannah B) whispering sweet nothings into your ear about how to approach the situation, read everything on the internet about which fat to cut, and have Chris Harrison (still clearly buzzing from his bromance with Ed and one of the best to ever scrub in) fist bumping and chest pounding next to you, but when it’s you in that moment, thorny scalpel in hand and faced with the prospect of breaking hearts, the operating room is a lonely place for a first-timer.

So, what is Matt doing as The Bachelor? There are a couple of conspiracy theories floating around as to why this absolute Adonis would up sticks and risk it all for a two-month engagement and a couple hundred thousand Instagram followers…

The first is that he was so devastated at the new legislation coming down from Albany banning broker’s fees for NYC apartments that he needed a new pastime since his prior favorite of relegating struggling post-graduates to diets of ramen and wonder bread with mystery fees is over. Another, is that with the Coronavirus lockdowns, Matt’s New York City child outreach activities (which btw made Mother Theresa look like a fucking couch potato) were halted and so he thought he could make the biggest difference to the city’s youth by chaperoning Kit instead. The third theory (that is definitely floating around the internet and I didn’t just frivolously make up over my second cup of tea this morning,) is that he “got ripped in four weeks” and wants to show everyone that 8 minutes of cardio and 2×10 bicep curls just don’t cut it anymore. In his workout montage my man was mixing in mountain climbers, reverse crunches, some off-brand pull-up bar activities that made my lats hurt just watching…  Whatever his ultimate reasoning, he fits the bill of a rocket-launcher male who has “struggled with opening up and being vulnerable in the past.” Just how damaged he is, we will just have to wait and see.

A quick aside, I have missed the Orbit ads like the sun misses the flower. Like the sun misses the flower in the depths of winter (S/O Knight’s Tale crew)

Now my expectations for this season did not start particularly high… Chris only referred to the first episode as “the exciting premier of the Bachelor.” If Chris can’t even work up some NEVER SEEN BEFORE and THE MOST DRAMATIC SEASON EVER energy then it doesn’t bode particularly well for the future… This being said, there do appear to be some interesting girls this season and whether Matt has the grit and guile to navigate them will be an intriguing test for him, and his ravenous viewers. Abigail is deaf, Magi is from Ethiopia, Anna the copywriter is really annoying, Sarah looks just like Alexis from Schitt’s Creek and so on and so forth. Going through the girls in exhaustive detail at this stage is a futile endeavor – rule number 1 of the Bachelor: NO emotional attachment until at least week 4 (except for Abigail – what a sweetheart.)

They really played up the new kid on the block thing right off the bat with Chris and Matt’s little Fireside Chat before the girls arrived. Chris certainly embraced his role as the soothing FDR-like figure, explaining what the New Deal was with the Coronavirus setup and starting to lay out how to build roads and bridges into these girls’ hearts. I was half expecting him to whip out the fabled classic: “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” but that would have been a lie, because Chris knew that Victoria was coming out of that limo and boy is she fucking scary.

There were two aspects of the automobile disembarkations that were particularly amusing to me, the first was the obese replica of the bird on the Twitter logo that was behind Matt as he greeted these ladies. The hotel itself is stunning, but I’m failing to see how this bird adds any real value to the otherwise magnificent décor. The second was Matt’s towering height in comparison to his diminutive potential brides. Matt’s stoop down hugs were eerily reminiscent of Hagrid trying to hug Harry after Gryffindor gets mysteriously gifted the House cup at the end of every year; or after Harry performs magic far beyond his meager learned capabilities and delivers victories in dark-wizard-duels or Tri-wizard-tasks. Matt is really tall.  

A few other observations from the girls’ exits:

Chelsea made up for her lack of hair by having the longest dress train in Bachelor history

Kristin really prosecuted the case with her line: “you have been found incredibly guilty of being fine” – that is pathetic

Serena, standing at a generous 5’2” brought a step to stand on and was still 3 inches shorter than him

Someone needs to tell Saleh that those are not goat feet, those are very much camel toes. (I was getting flashbacks to sloth girl – unfortunately they both befell the same fate and didn’t survive night one)

Emani displayed her inner realtor when she got out of the car, clearly physically incapable of looking at Matt due to the monstrous chateau behind them. I’m sure the broker fee would be pretty handy selling that bad boy!

Katie the bank marketing manager/dildo girl is getting fired for SURE after she’s done with the show. She all but admitted to being the female incarnation of Jeffrey Toobin with her “best friend” MJ the dildo during quarantine. “I strategized, and some of those girls are going to lose their minds because they didn’t come prepared.” Come on Katie, I’m watching this with my mother!  

When all the ladies had arrived, it was time for Matt to address the group before the first cocktail party. Clearly looking to get out ahead of things after seeing how Ivan was unceremoniously dumped for his atheism, Matt started out with a prayer wishing for universal strength amongst his would-be brides. Tayshia come get your mans!

The ladies started slowly filtering through, having short chit chats with Matt here and there. One interaction that was particularly entertaining was Kit giving Matt a New York City snow globe only to be interrupted by Victoria’s line “excuse me princess, but the queen is here.” I desperately wanted Katie to interrupt Kit with her dildo using the same line… There would have been something beautifully poetic about the princess being interrupted by a flashing, vibrating P. Regardless, you know the phrase a wolf in sheep’s clothing? I hope Kit doesn’t think she can hide her lupine tendencies underneath this fluffy white number (below) for the entire season… Her brewing feud with Victoria suggests she has some fight in her, and despite her trendy West Village roots, we’ll see if this wolf can take on Wall Street and pump and dump her competition en route to the top prize!  

Victoria is the most annoying character on the show by a long shot. “She is gross in every way” according to my mother, who watched her first episode ever last night. I do find it kind of hilarious that every single premiere episode someone goes to speak to the Bachelor twice and every other character bitches incessantly about it for the next 1-3 shows. Demi did it, Dale did it and it was Victoria’s turn to butt in to multiple conversations and then rub it in everyone’s faces while sipping a straw-less Aperol Spritz like a Neanderthal.   

Abigail ended up snatching the first impression rose in what was a truly heart-warming moment. It’s mind boggling to me that there are people who are able to read your lips as a substitute for listening. The only lips I can read are athletes telling other athletes to fuck off and even that can be difficult sometimes. She’s from Beaverton Oregon, and DAM was she looking fine last night! (I deleted and rewrote this line 4 times, it’s staying in!!)  

There wasn’t anything spectacular that emerged from the first rose ceremony other that I’m fairly certain whoever is the Bachelor or Bachelorette has to employ some kind of method of loci sorcery to remember who the fuck some of these people are. I would get emotional that Alicia chasséd out the door, but I literally know nothing about her, the same applies to the rest of the girls who were axed before even speaking to their man. Victoria getting a rose was about as predictable as the sun rising in the east; the long suspenseful pause before the final rose wouldn’t have fooled the Bruins playoff rally towel that I often use to mop up spilled tea on my desk.

I was lukewarm about this season until I heard one silver-tongued lady react to additional contestants being introduced into the mix as: “random ass hoes coming into the house.” Paul Revere could only dream of delivering such an impactful refrain! One such “hoe,” is never been kissed Heather. Gets kissed one goddamn time and thinks she runs the show? You’re damn right she does. Buckle up people; the girls are getting nervous; the skittish are coming!

Hello wonderful Bachelor Stans and Stanettes! The collective sigh of relief heard across the United States after Tayshia’s season ended has given way to numerous mass nationwide episodes of foaming at the mouth… Whether this foaming was directly caused by the promotional materials of a topless Matt James chopping wood, or more general Bachelor franchise withdrawal, is unclear; what I do know is that the short wait in between Chris Harrison’s unscrupulous television jamborees is over, and tonight we get to once again desecrate our minds and bodies and subject ourselves to another season of quarantine Bachelor. No one really knows what this season will look like… will it be a repeat of the Bachelorette where we have to watch hours of B-roll filler showing the La Quinta in all of its sweaty mediocrity? Or will we be back to gallivanting around the globe, bemusing small town inhabitants in South America and shedding light on shitty American cities with liberally funded tourism boards (I’m looking at you Cleveland). Whatever happens, we can be sure that there will be none of the fraternal pleasantries shared by Tayshia’s men. These ladies mean business! Here are a few randomly selected ladies who either looked nice in their cover shots, or had interesting names:   

Alicia began pursuing her dream of becoming a ballerina at aged 13, approximately 10-years after most professional ballerinas first strap on a pink tutu and begin pursuing said dream… While she’ll be hoping Matt is the Romeo to her Juliet, the Pas to her Deux, if their initial interactions are not on pointe, then expect to see her grand jeté out of the door early on. It is notoriously difficult to stand out from the crowd in the early stages of any season, and the girls she’s coming up against aren’t the exalting crowds at the Dance Theater of Harlem to which Alicia is accustomed. I don’t love Alicia’s chances to stand out in this field; imagine she’ll be just another Bachelor ballet corpse when all is said and done.

Casandra hates it when people eat food off her plate, which ensures that she is indeed a human being and not a robot; probably a good pre-requisite for a social worker. It’s nice to have another social worker in the mix this year after Madison Prewett dodged Pilot Pete’s journeyed joystick last season. Casandra is probably thanking her lucky stars that Covid has forced the postponement of Matt’s parents’ vow renewal ceremony this year so she can’t befall the same fate as her professional predecessor – I still cringe at that date.

In 1994, Kaylee, Kayleigh, Kailey, Kaylie, Kailee, Kaleigh, Kaley, Kayley, Kayli and Kaily, were the ten most popular variants of the name Kaylee. Apparently Kaili’s parents didn’t give a shit about any of these and went for their own iteration. Kaili will certainly be hoping she’s the hostess with the mostest in Matt’s eyes.  

Dad wanted Jessica; Mom wanted Antonia; It’s not always rainbows and butterflies, its compromise that moves us along; their baby Jessenia is hoping that she will be loved by the end of this season!

Kit lives with her parents in the West Village, is a senior at NYU and hasn’t had a serious boyfriend since her first love in high school. WHAT THE FUCK IS SHE DOING ON THIS SHOW? She should be struggling to balance on a three-legged lawn chair in a fraternity basement, drinking warm keg beer and belting out Asher Roth songs verbatim, not vying for the heart of Tyler C’s buddy in an attempt to kick start her fledgling fashion label. Kit is a fashion entrepreneur, something that we have in common. People forget I sold two Yale Basketball T-shirts for $5 each after rising like a majestic salmon and snatching them out of the clutches of a seven-year-old kid at the 2015 Blue Madness pep rally. I’m not sure which of ESPN’s 30 for 30 or Forbes’ 30 Under 30 will come knocking first!

There are lots of interesting fun facts that appear on the contestants’ individual bio pages online, but Pieper’s offering that she “doesn’t like picnics because the thought of sitting on the ground and eating is not appealing to her” might be the worst of the lot. As a graduate student, her aversion to picnics is curious; I was under the impression that 75% of graduate school is sitting out in the quad in tortoise shell spectacles and rifling through New Yorker totes for crumbled Nature Valley bars… maybe I’m wrong? This Pieper will be hoping she doesn’t have her face Pied and have to head for an early shower!

It is always interesting to see successful professionals upend their careers to come on a show that is designed to catapult micro-influencers and aspiring models into the middle-echelons of Instagram cosmetics advertising. Kristin’s bio says lots of things about balancing career with love blah blah blah. As far as I’m concerned, she’s a front runner as she loves to “belt out classic Disney songs” during karaoke night. With this in mind, she’ll be hoping her and Matt’s relationship will bop to the top and not just stick to the status quo this coming season!

Carolyn’s bio was a bit wishy washy but my main takeaway was that she’s looking for a man who has a warm heart and is passionate about philanthropy. OK Carolyn, I don’t want to blow your cover and say the quiet part out loud here, but there are certain implicit characteristics of those who are “passionate about philanthropy” that you may be leaving out of your bio. Yes, you may like their philanthropic intentions, but there are the obvious positive externalities like philanthropists being really fucking wealthy as well… Saying you want to marry a passionate philanthropist is like saying you want to marry a Lululemon store attendant. While both may be indicative of warm hearted individuals, you’re really just in it for the 40% employee discount!  

My 2020 bingo card missed most of the groundbreaking international events that we were subjected to last year, and should act as no surprise that my 2021 card is off to a similarly poor start. You’re probably thinking “how could you omit an Ethiopian pharmacist who shares a name with ancient Zoroastrian priests vying for supremacy on the Bachelor?” well to my great regret, I unfortunately did. Magi seems awesome and I want her to win. She grew up in a small town in Ethiopia (before you ask, no, she is not one of Madonna’s adopted children) and alongside her pharmacist gig, runs a non-profit that sends shoes back to girls in her hometown. That’s kickass.

As a fairly prolific producer and promoter of infantile nicknames, I can’t see a world in which Illeana was not bestowed with the nickname “ill” in high school. Given that her most recent culinary creation as a health food developer was called “Funky Munky Energy,” you could be excused for thinking that “ill” was short for “illiterate” and not her aforementioned name; regardless, she’ll be hoping that her alimentary indulgences and creepily curly hair give Matt all kinds of romantic sickness! According to her bio, “Illeana would rather curl up on the couch with a glass of wine rather than hit the town and go barhopping” – funny that, as I could have sworn I saw her energizing the dancefloor at the Brass Munky pre-covid!

Happy Watching people! Subscribe for this season’s recaps in your inbox 🙂