Welcome back everyone! The run for the roses begins anew tonight! While this day always is exciting for a tv junkie like me, it's doubly exciting this season because a guy I lived in the dorms with in college is competing! So I'm rooting for Tony to.....well I'm not sure I want him to win, because winning seems to come with a built in set of issues. I guess I'm rooting for him to stay on long enough to get to see some of the world and maybe generate a little bit of a name for himself that may help him financially in the future. I guess I want him to get whatever it is that he wants out of this experience. If that's marrying Emily, well then more power to him. Although I don't see Emily moving to Oregon (see her brief engagement to Brad) and Tony doesn't strike me as the type of guy who's going to move to North Carolina, but we'll see. The relocation issue could come up a lot this season, as a brief scan of the competitors shows quite a few international imports.
Time to kick off the season! Let's start with the standard cute intro of Emily with Ricki playing at the park. They're swinging and feeding ducks and then Ricki lets some balloons go and some environmental nuts just called ABC to complain about how the ducks are going to choke on those when the helium runs out. Now we get to see the bedtime routine, which involves brushing Ricki's teeth and sending her to sleep in a bed big enough for Shaq and Dwight Howard to share. That's insane.
We also get a recap of her tragic story, although she's changed it from "the plane never made it" to "nobody made it." Well there is one person who made it....Emily. How much money does she have? No way she makes enough money to drive that car and buy that bed and live in that house and ride those horses as an event planner at a children's hospital. All her money probably comes from her late fiance's family, who is huge in NASCAR. Be forewarned contestants, you're not just marrying Emily, you're marrying one of the royal families of auto racing. Good luck with that.
Chris Harrison gives us the rundown that this season's going to be different, and that he hopes that the third time is the charm for Emily. As if her life hasn't been tragic enough, can you imagine getting engaged 3 times and never making it to the altar?
Bring on the dudes. Tony's in the first batch of guys introduced, and I think comes off pretty well. So as not to show bias, I'll defer to Rachel on her assessment. Her take is that "well he's definitely the front runner out of those guys. Also, Jef is really weird." Agreed. I wonder if his parents named him Jeff and he dropped the other f to be "quirky." He also said that he likes being underestimated, and it seems that he goes out of his way to ensure that he is underestimated by looking like he came back from the 50's with Marty McFly in the Delorean. I would not want Jef around my seven year old daughter, and I don't think Emily will either. I like the fact that she's not going to be basing this decision solely on who she has fun with or who she thinks is a hottie - she also has to factor in if the guy is daddy material. Advantage: Tony.
Cue Emily getting ready with her daughter who is wearing mommy's shoes and wants to put on her makeup. Emily shows up looking all fancy. She's also a completely different person getting out of the limo this time than she was on Brad's season of The Bachelor. Much more confident and outgoing. I cringed a little when Chris asked her about her late fiance and she says something about her daughter reminding her "of what she doesn't have," but she saves it by saying something about how it's "cool" when her daughter does something that reminds her of her daddy.
Time for the guys to meet Emily. Always love the way the guys decide to present themselves. Doing little dances, getting down on one knee and saying corny love cliches, going in for a double hug, or my personal favorite, the hug and step back to eye her like livestock and saying "wow, you are gorgeous." A surprising number of guys went with some variation of the livestock auction intro. Props to the Brazilian that says "nice to meet you, gorgeous" in Portuguese, followed by Emily saying "gracias." Yeesh. One guy says that "the fact that you are a single mother is the most attractive thing about you." I'm guessing the "single" part is the attractive part. He tries to explain that it shows she's independent and responsible and blah blah blah, but you can be those things without being a mother. Tony goes for the glass slipper that he hopes fits. Either ABC gave him a shoe that fits, or he's done a lot of research on Emily on the Internet. She seems to like him, so I think he's safe tonight based on that. Perhaps a first impression rose candidate? One guys says "my close friends call me Wolf." Yeesh. Jef opts for the Lindzi approach but swaps out a horse for a skateboard and then awkwardly chucks it as he walks up. Yep. I hate Jef. Randy tries to play off the girl who had her grandma introduce her last season by dressing as an old woman and introducing himself. It wasn't well thought out. Neither was egg boy. Prop guy never wins. Remember dude with the mask? He didn't last long. If egg guy really brings that thing with him on dates he's doomed. If I have a second favorite, it's Ryan, the dude with the well thought out note that said "you are beautiful" on one side and "I'm so nervous" on the other side. Kalon, the guy who says "he's got a little money in his pocket" showed up in a helicopter and says "sorry I made you wait for me, but I promise I'm worth it" to Emily, then proceeds to establish himself as this season's super douche by saying "I saw you guys from up there having a little party...where's the bar?" I'd say he's the next Bentley, but even Bentley didn't try to point out his superiority to the other guys. Bentley just pointed it out to the TV audience. Kalon reminds me of the guy who once told me outside the Headline Cafe in Corvallis that we were "almost wearing the same shirt, just that his cost three times as much as my outlet mall knockoff." I didn't like that guy either.
Bring on the cocktail party! Emily remarks that this is nothing like her normal life. You're kidding, she's not being hit on by 25 drunk guys every day? Sheesh. One guy brought bobbleheads in his and Emily's likenesses. Seems dorky, but thought it worked.
Emily thinks Jef is "cool" and "makes her feel like a dork." I have no faith in her choice in men. Jef is a tool. Doug had his son write Emily a letter...good move. Emily loved it. First impression rose brings out the bitch in the guys....I loved the comment "if you show up in a helicopter and you DON'T get the first impression rose....what does that say?" Helicopter guy says "he absolutely minds" when Sean comes to interrupt, which is what every other guy wishes they could say. Had he just said that and then got up, no problem....but he makes Emily excuse him before he moves. Bad move, and Mr. Green Shirt jumps all over him. Helicopter man is going to get punched if he doesn't watch it. Guy who has son with excellent writing skills gets the first impression rose....good job putting the focus on his kid. Tony didn't get any airtime at all during the cocktail party....guess they had a pretty mundane conversation. Tony says it'd be "devastating" if he got sent home, but the Tony I knew in college would definitely not have been devastated. But it does make for a good sound bite, and cameras have a way of making people say what they know people want to hear. This includes guys like Kalon who know they can stand out by making arrogant statements and the guys who probably dont' really care at all about the helicopter, yet when that red light is on will never miss an opportunity to make a helicopter related jab.
Rose Ceremony! Emily gives the standard "I was nervous that you guys wouldn't be into me" speech, even though there's no way ABC would ever put a guy on without knowing he's attracted to Emily. They moved the show all the way across the country for her, you think they're going to put her in a Bentley/Ashley situation? No way. Tony gets the second to last rose....and yes I gave an audible "whoo!" and a fist pump. Egg boy gets the last rose, because ABC likes to keep the quirks around for a few episodes so that everyone can go "why did she keep him around?" Guy with six kids goes home, says 'chances aren't good' at his age with his basketball team roster of children that he'll find love again. Apparently going on national television with a 4% chance of landing the girl that every guy is gunning for constitutes a "decent" chance in his book. The guy is clearly desperate and lonely. I feel slightly bad for him.
All in all a pretty mundane episode. I look forward to the guys starting to act like a bunch of catty women and bashing helicopter guy's every move. The scenes from the season montage shows some pretty ugly criers amongst the guys, and also that one guy refers to her daughter as "baggage." I'll be interested to hear if that's what he actually said, or if the guys twisted his words. Did he just say she had "baggage?" Because that's a pretty innocuous statement - we all have baggage, and I think just about all of us can agree that someone who's been engaged twice, had her first love die in a plane crash and has been on two reality television shows does qualify as someone with "baggage."
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