Return of the Bach(elorette)
Haters will say it’s a shop, but here it is: a new Bach take from your boy ConBon.
Quick note before we get into it, I’m without internet and the computer with all my editing software, so this edition will be without the usual gifs and photos, don’t fucking @ me.
I chose to skip out on Arie’s season because that dude was next level boring. I watched a decent amount, but needless to say, I did not “love that” season. That is, until the final episode where they completely changed everything I thought I knew about the franchise by showing, unedited, Arie unceremoniously dumping the winner and his fiance (and current Bachelorette) Becca for runner-up Lauren B. (Side note, what’s with blonde Lauren B’s winning? They’ve taken down 2 of the last 3 Bachelors, with the outlier being Nick who plays by his own, incredibly stupid rules) If you haven’t seen it, it’s one of the most incredible 40 minutes of reality television ever. Unlike all the other shit on this show, that segment is raw as fuck. It’s a very real breakup, complete with Arie looking for Becca to sign off on him dumping her for his ex (spoiler, she doesn’t). Throughout the whole thing, Becca handles herself with supreme grace and poise.
After that enormous debacle, ABC didn’t really have a choice. They had to name Becca the next Bachelorette, and that brings us to today.
While I don’t think Becca was the best choice for Lorette (that would be taxidermy enthusiast and all around weird babe Kendall) she proved to be more entertaining than I initially anticipated. My biggest beef right now is her catchphrase.
Every Bach or Lorette has their “thing” that gets beaten to fucking death every season, and this one is these 5 little words: “Let’s do the damn thing” (henceforth known as LDTDT for brevity).
An hour into this episode and I was already contemplating killing myself every time one of these jabroni’s felt the need to say it, taught her how to say it in a foreign language, got it engraved on a candle holder, or showed her their LDTDT dick tatoo (only that last one was made up). If this is what this season is going to be like, I’m gonna need a spotter to check in on me every Tuesday morning and make sure I’m still alive.
The show opened with a recap of Becca’s Arie-based bullshit. Pretty standard, Arie is a fuckboi, we already knew that. Becca talks to her fam about her impending journey, the only thing of note from that is that her sister looks like a literal witch. From there we get a montage of just how great Becca’s been doing post-Arie. The best part from that is her getting the key to some city in Minnesota. I would love to have seen the conversation that preceded that decision. “Hey Becca, congrats on getting your heart fucked on, have this big key.”
We get the preview for a few of the fellas that are vying to break off their engagement with Becca in roughly a year. Only a couple really stood out, starting with Lincoln, a chiseled Nigerian god with the most irresistible accent. I have him pegged as an early frontrunner, but there may be complications there (more on that in a bit). Also profiled in that group is Jordan (I think, there’s 28 dudes and it’s too early to bother learning names) a male model. This guy is so absurdly full of himself that it’s hard to deal with. His look is self-described as “the pensive gentleman”. In his profile he mentioned how often he has to salt spray (wtf is that?) and referred to being with someone as “sharing myself”. If reading all that didn’t make you want to gouge your eyes out, then have I got the douchey Floridian for you. Also noteworthy is Jean-Blanc, who has spent more money on cologne than any human should. But hey, Becca thought he smelled really good when he got out the limo, so what the fuck do I know?
This season is just brimming with athletes and former athletes. Based on the plethora of jocks, I have to imagine that Becca listed this as a preference. We have 2 former NFL players, a former Globetrotter, and several more college athletes who are trainers now. All these meatheads could lead to either some really interesting drama or (more likely) a lot of really dumb shit being said.
The limo segment went about as you’d expect. Lots of cheesy jokes and gimmicks, a few digs at Arie (although a lot less than I expected), a million different ways to shoehorn LDTDT into the conversation, and more bad shirt/jacket/tie combos than you can shake a rose at. I get trying to stand out, but some of these dudes look beyond stupid. I’d be hard pressed to pick a worst look, but I’d probably have to hand it to Chris (I think that’s his name) the snitch (more on that later) and his stupid plaid jacket/ruffled shirt/no tie combo (fuck I wish I had a picture, maybe I’ll come back later and add one, but don’t hold your breath). We had a lot of dudes wearing tuxes too, which, in my humble opinion, is way too formal for meeting your potential future ex-fiance. Then again, I wore sneakers to prom, so I’m probably not the best person to get advice about what is and isn’t appropriate to wear at a given point in time.
Maybe the weirdest part of the night was the appearance of Jake, some dude that Becca casually knows from Minneapolis. Bruh, you literally know this woman. If you want to date her, you could probably just ask rather than secretly flying to LA to compete with a bunch of other dudes to as to marry her, just saying.
Once everyone was out of the limo and assembled, Becca gave the usual speech about how she sees her husband here blah blah blah. The night then transitioned into the “can I steal you for a minute” phase.
There’s too many fucking dudes to get to everyone, so I’ll just touch on some of the highlights.
Former NFL player Clay is possibly a robot. The dude does not seem super comfortable with speaking words. This could be a new piece of functionality his creator only recently added and they’re still trying to iron out the kinks.
I don’t remember his name, but the Globetrotter dunked over Becca and it was fire as fuck. He should be allowed to stay for a few weeks just off the strength of that flex.
One guy (my notes tell me his name is David) wore a chicken suit. There’s usually one costume per limo ep and it’s an interesting strategy. On the one hand, it can hurt your game, as the Bach/Lorette doesn’t really know what you look like and pretty much everything you talk about centers around your costume. On the other hand, it shows you have a sense of humor and is usually enough to get through that first night. After that, you’re on your own. David’s outfit did give us my favorite non sequitur of the young season though.
“I’ve always loved chicken nuggets, but David’s personality is so fun.”
Uh, sure.
There’s a software engineer John, who claims to have made the Venmo app. A little digging reveals that he was the fifth person hired by Venmo, so he’s def paid, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves and say you made the app. You worked on it, simmer down.
Chris (of shitty outfit fame) came out the gates firing. Normally we don’t get any snitching for a few weeks while the contestants feel one another out, but Chris doesn’t give a fuck. A friend of his used to date Chase (also on the show) and when she saw that he was on the show, she texted Chris saying that Chase is an asshole who’s only trying to promote his company. Chris confronts Chase and then they take it Becca. Chase’s defense is that he barely dated this girl (he harps on this fact so hard that it starts to sound less and less believable) and it’s all a lie. They basically leave it at that, but it gets Becca thinking about who’s there for the Right Reasons™ and who isn’t.
This leads us to Jake, the dude who knew Becca from before. She confronts him, basically asking why he’s there if they knew each other already. This devolves into a vague conversation that makes it sound like Jake used to get v fucked up and did some dumb shit. We never hear what it could be, but it’s enough for Becca to send him packing early. The remaining dudes are a little shook, but this is good for them, so they need to chill.
Becca gave the first impression rose to a dude from Reno (can’t remember his name) who’s into fly fishing and his mediocre Chris Farley impression. He’s goofy and guess Becca is feeling that. Sure
Rose ceremonies this early in the season are hard to give a fuck about, but you can glean some crucial information from them. Lincoln was given the first rose, which seems about right. He was part of a long run on black dudes early in the rose ceremony.The fact that Becca only sent one home, bodes well for the possibility of the franchise’s first black Bachelor (you know, cuz it’s fucking 2018). The only dudes who got sent home that made any impression were Chase, the snitchee, and a dude who owns his own grocery store. He was really only notable for his thick ass Chi-cah-go accent and the fact that he used to sell watermelons. Oh well, boy, bye.
The best part of any Bach premier is “the this season on”. We, the viewing public, are given a lot to process. It looks like Jordan the obnoxious model is probably going to be the early season villain. The most shocking revelation is that my favorite Lincoln may be the late season villain. That would be a real tragedy, but these things are always edited weird to make shit up, so I’ll believe it when I see it. Another big takeaway is that this season is full of snitches. Based on the preview, we’re gonna have a lot of cattiness and I, for one, am here for that.
Not a bad start to a new season at all. This group of fuckbois seems to have real potential for nonsense, which is all I ever want. With any luck we’ll have an interesting season on our hands this time around. If not, there’s always the next 100 years of this shit.
As always, get at me with your spiciest takes and shirtless Lincoln pics
@ConnieBongrips on twitter