While I wouldn’t call last night’s season premiere of The Bachelorette “impressive,” by any means, it does look like this season will shape up to be pretty dramatic, but that’s mostly based on the simple question: Where did they find these guys?!
We open on the raw footage that broke all of our hearts last season, footage that we never needed to ever see again. Becca Kufrin is flabbergasted staring at Bachelor Nation’s most hated man former Bachelor Arie Luyendyk Jr. as he tells her that he’s leaving her and breaking off their engagement because he wants to be with the girl he dumped moments before proposing to her. The most important part of this segment is that we are forced to remember that Arie referred to their engagement as “hanging out.”
We then get a brief glimpse of Becca’s family talking about how excited they are to find someone who is right for her and everyone seems absolutely fine that Arie is out of the picture.
Bachelorette “success stories” JoJo Fletcher, Rachel Lindsay, and Kaitlyn Bristowe are this season’s elected pre-season, advice-giving girl gang. They all hold their hands out in front of Becca and wave their Neil Lane engagement rings together—which seems kind of mean, considering Becca used to have one of those, but then had to give it back—and I wonder if you wave a bunch of Neil Lane engagement rings together, will Neil Lane himself appear like Captain Planet? No such luck, but JoJo does give Becca comforting words that only a queen could give: This season, she’ll get a ring that’s “bigger and better than last time, honey!” Rachel says “f*ck Arie” and then sages the mansion, the couches, Becca’s left finger, and her lady parts. Why do I watch this show?
Meet the Men
Then the parade of People Who Are Not Good Enough for Becca arrives at the mansion. First out of the limo, and therefore probably hanging out for awhile, is Colton. Born on Super Bowl Sunday, Colton was just destined to play football… before he got injured and now no longer plays football. He does however run a non-profit that helps kids with cystic fibrosis, so I’m glad he’s doing that instead.
Next up is Grant. I completely spaced out during his intro vid, so I know very little about him and also he had no fun gimmick. Your future looks bright here, Grant. ?
Clay exits the limo with too many “catch” puns because he’s a pro football player and he doesn’t want you to forget it, followed by Colognoisseur (it’s been 10 days and this still isn’t a real job) Jean Blanc, who definitely gets out of the limo the most confidently. He also teaches her how to say “Let’s do the damn thing” in French, because what we all need is for her to be able to say that even more in multiple languages.
Peppered in here are Connor, John, and Leo, who Becca says has hair like her sister (lol). Nick and Mike show up dressed as a racecar driver and with a cardboard cutout of Arie, respectively, I guess thinking that bringing up someone’s ex who is literally the worst is the best way to win her heart.
Blake shows up with yet another animal, Chase with too many “chase” jokes, and Ryan with a great jacket, but sans banjo. There is an actual blank in my notes with whoever was in between Chase and Ryan, so unclear what was going on there (I went back to reference the list and it was Darius and he is already gone, so.). We also met Jake from Minneapolis who Becca “semi knew,” Jason who taught Becca his handshake that he does with his bros, Christon who is a FORMER HARLEM GLOBETROTTER, Wills the closet nerd, and Trent who showed up in a hearse and said he was “literally dead” when he found out it was Becca as The Bachelorette. Fun fact about me: I just finished binging Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, so every time I see Trent, all I can think about is Trent, the turtleneck-wearing stalker, from that show. Sorry, this Trent, who I hope is not a stalker.
Chris brought along a cute choir to sing for Becca, while on the other end of the “quality of idea” spectrum, Kamil challenged her to meet him halfway—which, fine, I guess—but then actually asked her to go 60-40 in his favor and both Becca and I were immediately like “Well, that’s one less person to actually speak to inside. Boy bye.”
We meet Joe, the kind-hearted Chicago grocer with too many produce puns, who may have already secured himself a spot on Bachelor in Paradise even though he went home the first night because that’s how this franchise works. We also meet Garrett, the Worst Guy on Your Improv Team, that shows up in a minivan stocked with starter family supplies, and Lincoln, who has a smooth accent, but probably ends up being a liar according to the season previews.
Jordan is, so far, the best TV this season has. A professional model, Jordan’s self-proclaimed brand is “pensive gentleman.” He spent six hours meticulously picking out what he was going to wear to meet Becca tonight and is pretty pissed off that no one else took that kind of care. He wanted to stand out with a gray suit, so when Rickey shows up also clad in gray, Alex shows up with a fun and stylish tie, and Christian shows up wearing no socks, Jordan nearly loses his cool. Nothing sends him quite off the deep end though like David, who shows up in a chicken costume. Seriously, Jordan might be my favorite. He serves lewks and Corinne-level ITMs. (Please weigh in on whether or not you think that David will have to do all of his ITMs in the chicken suit, because they had him do a few this episode where he tried to talk about something serious and they were gold.)
Cocktail Party
After a pep talk from Chris Harrison that did not include enough classic CH Advice™️, Becca enters the lion’s den mansion so that the men may feast upon her try to court her through meaningful conversation and more weird gimmicks.
Connor gets to her first and opens a champagne bottle with a huge knife, which is both impressive and terrifying. She gets a bracelet from Lincoln, bad vibes from Jake, dunked on by former Harlem Globetrotter Christon, modeling clay from Clay (come on, dude), and a fishing lesson and fly from Garrett, who based on that alone would probably be my dad’s top pick if I were Becca.
Then we’re graced with the first nonsensical drama of the season. Overview: Chris is like “Hey, Chase! Your ex-girlfriend texted me when she saw you on ATFR, and was like ‘That guy is bad news and not there for the right reasons!'” It is so early for people to be pulling out “the right reasons,” and I am here for it. Chase is then like, “LOL, I casually dated that girl for like two weeks and like two full years ago, so what does she know?” Instead of just leaving it there and hoping it goes away, Chase decides to “get ahead of it” and brings it up to Becca himself. I say, “Oh no, goodbye, Chase,” out loud because dumb dumb idiot nah. Then, his next best defense is to bring Chris into his one-on-one time with Becca (y tho) and they have the same conversation, but this time, in front of Becca. She’s obviously like “This is dumb and I don’t want to deal with it anymore,” and sends Chase back out into the party to think about how stupid this all is.
In the words of Lizzo, Becca is now super “tired of the bullsh*t,” and calls Jake in to talk to her about his intentions for being there. After calling him out for them meeting multiple times via mutual friend circles and never showing any interest in her before, Becca tries to send him home. Jake refuses to listen to her (this is a classic douche move: guys, no one is obligated to date you and if they say they don’t want to, they don’t have to) and argues that, to be fair, he only remembers meeting her one of those times. Since this is not a real argument and makes him look even worse, Becca again asks him to leave, proving to the men that this is no joke and validating me because I knew the guy with the “past” wasn’t going to make it further than night one. Didn’t even make it to the rose ceremony. Yeesh.
David and his chicken suit egg on (Get it?! EGG on?!) Jordan about how he didn’t get any real conversation time with Becca and it makes Jordan so angry and I can’t wait for him to just be so sensitive and angry for as long as he lasts on this season. Please confirm or deny that Jordan is also just actually Robby Hayes trying to have a new identity.
Blake gets the double hand hold during their conversation and they actually seem to get along very well. She also says “He’s making such an impression on me,” and I yell “FIRST IMPRESSION ROSE.” Unfortunately, I am wrong and this honor (as well as the first kiss) are gifted unto Garrett, who I heard this morning may or may not be an awful person, so we’re off to a good start!
Rose Ceremony
Garrett has the first impression rose and the remaining roses go to:
- Lincoln: Possibly the worst, according to season previews!
- Blake: Not the worst.
- Rickey: tbh, I am shocked.
- Jean Blanc: Um….
- Christon: CH teased that they don’t know his actual name for, like, half the season, so looking forward to that.
- Clay: “Catch” him if you can!
- Wills: HP tattoo; knows Latin as it relates to things from HP
- Connor: First to “steal Becca for a second”
- Jason: BFF handshake
- John: Who? No screen time.
- Ryan: Banjo.
- Alex: Wore the tie that infuriated Jordan
- Nick: Wore a racecar outfit
- Trent: If he shows up in a turtleneck with a bunch of secret files to blackmail Becca with, I won’t be surprised.
- Colton: SWEET AF
- David: Chicken suit
- Jordan: Villain, model, pensive gentleman
- Leo: Man bun
- Mike: Man bun that’s not Leo
- Chris: Got Clay sent home for texts from an ex-fling from two years ago. THAT. IS. STRATEGY.
This season’s previews looked like literally everyone here is a liar (Were these folks actually pulled together for Tia because she would destroy them all and that’s good TV?), there will be plenty of crying, and once again, we watch someone learn that by the end of this journey, you are tricked into actually can fall in love with two people at the same time.
You’re wearing a chicken suit; don’t talk to me,
A
P.S. I am still reeling from the Ashley I. and Jared news, so please @ me on Twitter if you still want to talk about that.
Photos: Courtesy of ABC
