Bachelor 2019, Week 4: Fueling the Hot Mess Express

I'd like to think that that The Bachelor doesn't play favorites or intentionally try to ensure someone's total destruction, but damned if ABC isn't trying with Hannah B. Last week she clearly dominated the pirate competition only to see Caelynn advance to the final round. This week, we start off with Chris Harrison calling Hannah "Caelynn." Damn...that's cold, Chris. After watching it a few times, I'm fairly certain he did this on purpose. Chris doesn't make mistakes - he makes TV magic. Usually he just drops vague "you really need to impress Colton this week" pep talks to try and unnerve the entire gaggle of ladies, but directly tweaking one of them is next level.

No time to dwell on it though, you ladies have one hour to pack for a location that The Bachelor has never been to before. The girls act all excited, but c'mon....if the show hasn't been there in 37 seasons of filming The Bachelor/ette, it can't be THAT cool. I mean - they've been to some pretty dumpy places (remember Ft. Lauderdale during Arie's season??) that they apparently thought were better locations than wherever they're going.

It's Singapore. The girls begin to freak out and hug like Trump just got impeached. I mean, this is some pretty serious jubilation here for a place I'm guessing maybe one or two of the ladies could locate on a map. I mean, what do you know about Singapore? I don't think I could tell you one concrete fact about Singapore other than it's in Asia. Honest to God, I don't know if it's a city or a country. Turns out it's both (wikipedia describes it as a "city-state.") I mean, I guess that's somewhat cool to travel to a place you know next to nothing about and would probably never visit otherwise. I know I had zero intentions of ever setting foot in Wisconsin until I started dating a girl from America's Dairyland, but damn if it isn't a super cool place with some great people and a diet consisting of all of my favorite foods.

You know who else knows nothing about Singapore? Colton. He introduces us to the city by saying "Singapore is amazing....it's got the lights, the buildings....it's definitely a really cool place!"

Lights and buildings. No other place in the world has those things Colton. This is how I describe Albany actually. "I dunno, it's got some lights and buildings and stuff. It's a city."

What's Singapore got?

Tayshia gets the one-on-one, and it's so mundane. They walk along the beach and Tayshia asks if they can "touch the water." I think this means walking in the surf, but nope....she literally means touch the water with your fingers. I don't know why walking on the beach with shoes on makes me so angry, but it does. All I could do was focus on their matching white sneakers. They won't stay white in the sand, guys...especially if you touch the water. Sure enough, when they touch the water, a wave gets their feet wet and they jump back like this three inch wave was some sort of freak sneaker wave. Sigh.

They stumble upon a bungee jump tower, and Colton is amped to try it because he was never able to do anything dangerous because of his "professional career." Just our weekly reminder that he played football, you guys. He was on the practice squad of four teams (the Chargers twice) over two seasons. This guy gave up bungee jumping and sex for football and got about as close as you can get without ever playing in an actual NFL game. I mean....that's gotta be hard. I remember a guy in high school striking out after fouling off about 10 pitches and coming back to the dugout and absolutely losing his shit. What always stood out to me was him yelling "all that work for NOTHING!" I imagine Colton did something like this times 100 when he realized playing in the NFL wasn't going to happen for him, and he did it every day for the better part of a year.

The bungee jump is pretty boring as far as bungee jumps go, with the only real drama being Tayshia jumping feet first off the tower, which led to the rope snapping her whole body downward like the end of a violent whip. I saw her life flash before my eyes. I was convinced that rope was gonna wrap around her neck or she was gonna get whiplash or something tragic. It was terrifying. She was fine though.

At dinner, she drops her tragic backstory. She was married, and it didn't work out. She does say "being a Christian woman you think you're only going to get married once," as if Jewish women or any other type of person is like "I'm definitely planning on doing this a couple times." Hilariously, she ends this conversation by saying "when I do get married again, I'm going to make sure it's amazing." Those Christian women...they only get married once, unless it's twice. But definitely only twice.

The Group Date is somehow less interesting than the one on one, despite there being thirteen girls on the date. Hannah B. is in her head because Caelynn got the one on one. Of course she did....The Bachelor is making sure to get Hannah as bent out of shape as possible. Demi makes Colton piggy back her around the city like a human rickshaw. They sample some of the local culture on the date...letting leeches grab onto them. They sample some street food.They find a fortune teller or something that tells Colton that him and Cassie were siblings in a past life. Line of the night goes to Colton for saying "oh, that's not what you wanna hear!"

Things get super weird at the evening portion of the date as Courtney whines that Colton hasn't paid any attention to her all night. Demi tells him that she needs to just go find him and talk to him. Seems like good, friendly advice. Courtney of course does the opposite, saying that she's gonna be patient. Demi, frustrated by Courtney's inaction, decides to go talk to Colton herself. NOW Courtney decides it's time to talk to him. Of course Colton has somehow vanished from the premises, so Courtney finds only Demi, and gives her a piece of her mind. She tells Demi she's immature, rude, trying to "play God" and saying "sometimes you don't think." Courtney's condescension is so thick you could use it as a blanket. Demi is understandably pissed. Demi gets the last laugh as Colton gives her the rose for the night.

Caelynn's date is basically the "Pretty Woman" date, where Colton uses ABC's money to buy her a bajillion clothes and shoes. I'd make jokes about her, but she just told an absolutely horrific story about being date raped. That was tough. We are in this weird space in this country where I feel like anything I say (even something supportive of her bravery and strength) about this will be seen as insensitive or offensive by someone, so we'll just move on.

Demi decides to go to Colton and make her beef with Courtney public after Courtney throws some very overt shade at her. Hannah and Caelynn bury the hatchet (for now) and Colton does what he does best.....tell Courtney exactly what Demi said about her. This leads to another fight that Demi completely dominates....she's now crushed Tracy and Courtney in back to back weeks. Ultimately, Courtney finds out that Colton not seeking her out on the group date really did mean something, as she's sent packing along with Tracy.  Demi is pitching a perfect game right now. Of course, Demi being Demi, she can't just let it go....saying "Ding Dong, the bitch is dead" and acting like Courtney would still be her if she'd just taken her advice as if Colton's decision wasn't already made by him not seeking her out on the date. Demi's ego will 100% be her downfall at some point here in the next few weeks. She could just continue to play the super seductive crazy lady and probably confuse Colton into proposing to her, but something tells me she'll mess it up.

Tune in next week when Elyse walks six miles for an unknown reason and Colton angry walks down the beach! So much walking!

Bachelor 2019, Week 3 - Toddlers in Tiaras

We start with Sydney recapping all the drama that went down (her and Onyeka, Hannah B and Caelynn, and of course Tracy and Demi. She then says (with a straight face) "I hope the drama is over with."

IT'S BEEN TWO WEEKS!

This is a good time to remind everyone involved with this franchise that when you make a statement, ABC will do everything in its power to make sure that the exact opposite happens.

If you hope that the drama is over, the drama is just getting started.
If you hope Caelynn isn't on the same group date as you, she is (sorry Hannah B.)
If you want him to send a girl home, she will get the last rose.
If you hope the date doesn't involve snakes, there will be some monkey fighting snakes on your Monday to Friday plane.

It's science.

The group date involves going to a pirate themed place where Colton is telling some unconvincing pirates "hey you knuckleheads, knock that off!" He's the worst pirate ever. Actually I take that back. Hannah B. with the sparkly eye patch that is not even covering her eye is the worst pirate ever. The girls get to hit each other with pugil sticks in the lamest episode of pirate themed American Gladiators ever. They batter each other, and we get multiple shots of Hannah B. blasting people, but the unconvincing pirates select Caelynn and Tracy as the finalists for the group date. I don't understand why they do these competitions if there's no real reward for winning them, or even participating. Caelynn essentially forfeited to avoid getting run over by the hot mess express and moves on to the finals anyways?

In the end, Tracy essentially waves the white flag and just lets Caelynn win the date. Based on what I've seen so far, Caelynn's gonna be around for a while.

Demi, in a strange moment of clarity, says that, based on the roses Colton has given out, it's clear he doesn't have a type but anyone who assumes he has a type is being a fool. This is like when the Scarecrow gets a piece of paper that the Wizard claims is a diploma and all of a sudden he knows the Pythagorean Theorem.

Tracy, of course, can't stand for Demi to say anything, so she disagrees without having anything to disagree with. She goes off on some tangent about how she had a type, but then she got older and realized she needed to branch out. I'm not sure what that had to do with Demi saying Colton doesn't have a type based on the roses he's given out, but OK. This leads Demi to make a bunch of age related insults before finishing with "I feel sorry for you." Demi is dominating this beef. Tracy needs to just accept the loss and move on.

Meanwhile, Hannah B. decides that she has to tell Colton just how awful Caelynn really is. Colton seems genuinely concerned and asks her "like what was she like? What did she do?" Hannah B. goes full Hot Mess Express again and just says "It was a high stress situation and it was awful." As most high stress situations are, Hannah. Colton then says "Was she mean? Was she manipulative? Was she fake?" and Hannah B. loses her ability to speak and just stares at him.

You were saying???

 It's never a good sign when someone asks for details and you can't give them a single stinking one. She also claims that him keeping Caelynn around "be-fumbles" her. Fantastic misuse of words, Hannah. Nonetheless, Colton decides to scold her for her vague warnings in the most brutal way possible: He gives Caelynn the group date rose. He whispers the entire time he gives her the rose for unknown reasons.

My girl Elyse gets the one-on-one! This is exciting! She's the Jackie Robinson of the Bachelor Universe, shattering all artificial ceilings for redheads. The date involves taking a helicopter (no snakes) to an amusement park and spending the day riding rides with some sick children. During this date, we discover that Colton and Elyse are both big into children's charities, and we get to hear Elyse's tragic backstory. This is a legit sad story, I can't even hate on it. Her sister was diagnosed with cancer while she was pregnant, and was unable to get chemo or start treatment until she delivered her baby.....and then subsequently died sometime after childbirth. They started a charity in her sister's honor. Super sweet story, but of course Colton is like "I knew it! I knew you had this natural maternal instinct with these kids!" Like he's proud of the fact he noticed that she was good with children, and he's so pleased that there's a reason she's so good with kids, although I don't know that having a sister die of cancer constitutes "natural ability." But really, the best part of the date was Colton explaining the origin of his charitable foundation by saying "my little cousin was born with cystic fibrosis while I was playing - you know - football." We didn't forget buddy. You were a football player. There was also a private concert with someone named Tenille Arts. Tenille Arts sounds more like a place where you paint pottery than a musician.

The next group date involves Terry Crews and his wife Rebecca. I knew nothing about Rebecca Crews, so I looked up to see if she was somewhat famous. Turns out they were just college sweethearts that got married, but the janky website I ended up on to tell me about who she was (bijog.com) told me that "once, Terry and Rebecca had to endure a three month period without sex and this strengthened their relationship." Fascinating.

The date involves feats of strength. I can't be the only person who was a little shocked that DJ Agro is a black belt that sort of kicked the shit out of the heavy bag. That was the most impressive thing I saw on this date.

The worst thing was dragging Fred Willard out again. At this point it seems like elder abuse. Fred Willard just basically sits there while Chris Harrison talks, and every once in a while Fred does that thing really old people do where they make a generic statement so that they don't have to embarrass themselves by admitting they have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. I'm wondering who got paid to put Mr. Willard on TV, because I'll bet it wasn't Fred. That was just sad. So was the competition. Onyeka won, but that doesn't result in any extra time with Colton. What is the point of these competitions again?

At the date afterparty, there's lots of talk about strong, confident, empowered women pulling limos and lifiting "heavy hearts" to try to get a little bit of extra time or attention from a man. Of course Tayshia is talking about how much fun the date was despite us not even seeing her really. Colton compliments her for "working her butt off" and "encouraging everyone." This gets her a kiss.

Caitlin gets her one on one time, but unfortunately for her she has no tragic backstory. She says "she's looking for a guy who wants to go out with her friends have a silly, ridiculous evening, and she's happy to open up to him about that." I'd love to hear her expand on  what a silly, ridiculous evening with her friends is like. "I can't open up to you about anything because honestly, my life has been really good." We should all be so lucky, Caitlin.

Colton, unfortunately, needs a girl with a tragic backstory that is desperate for love, because they play better on TV. Caitlin becomes the sacrificial lamb on the group date to ratchet up the crazy from the other girls. THINGS JUST GOT REAL, LADIES.

Props to Caitlin for telling Colton "I'm not sure I want to hold your hand right now." She had no problem opening up about that. She then opens up about how the other women are shady bitches that Colton is going to regret keeping around. Too bad she needed to be dismissed to start having a personality. Angry Caitlin is kinda fun.

Not nearly as fun is Angry Hannah B. She's telling Never Been Kissed Heather that there's a beautiful monster inside her with a full tank of rage that is about to come out. WHAT? This girl has gone completely silent and blank at every confrontation, and now she's growling at the thought of Caelynn talking crap about her?

Caelynn then does exactly that, telling Colton that Hannah is manipulative and shady and deceitful. Caelynn then very smoothly mentions that she is a happy person who surrounds herself with happy people, but when a "toxic" person comes into her life she starts to pull back - a clear warning to Colton that she's going to be a bitch if he doesn't cut Hannah. Smooth.

Hannah then gets scolded by Colton who says tells Hannah that he's worried about her being toxic and deceitful. Amazing. Hannah goes on to clap back, saying "nuh uh, I'm not deceitful, she's the deceitful one!" Colton clearly is annoyed by the situation, and goes full pout pout fish and goes to chat with a couple of production assistants, before finally Chris Harrison comes in and goes "what's up buddy?" In a clear play to get Colton back in the game. He gets so moody as soon as things get just a little hard, I have a difficult time believing he's going to last more than a few months with whomever he proposes to at the end.

Rose ceremony mercifully ends the beauty queen hissy fit. Unfortunately, it doesn't end it permanently as he keeps both of them. Gone are DJ Agro, Bri the fake Aussie, and my girl Nina, who never even got a damn chance. At least Elyse is looking strong.

Bachelor 2019 Week 2: Comedy Central

New feature! Colton taking video blogs. It's heavily edited, probably because he had a hard time stringing two sentences together. I don't know if I'm a fan of this. I think this is a younger generation thing....taking videos of yourself or live streaming your random thoughts. I tried to use Periscope for a while, but discovered it was all people really proud of the fact they smoked weed, or sort of attractive people who were socially awkward clearly enjoying attention from really pervy dudes. It creeped me out. So yeah, I don't recommend live streaming your life.

Group date right off the bat! We're at a theater, and it's Megan Mullaly and Nick Offerman! This is the best celebrity cameo this show has ever had. Of course, none of the girls really reacted to seeing them, which pisses me off to no end. We'll go nuts about some vaguely famous singer, but two of the funniest people in America garner almost no reaction. This might be a sign I'm old.

Mine too Nick, and I'm not even getting paid to be here.

They tell sexually suggestive stories about "their first time" and.....this is really what the whole season is going to be like, isn't it? Just virginity joke after virginity joke after virginity joke. At some point the girls have to dress up like Madonna, right? Like that's obvious, right?

The girls now get the chance to tell their first times. But first, Colton tells everyone how he told people the first time he told people he was a virgin. 

Elyse the redhead goes ahead and tells everyone she's dating a younger man for the first time. She does a good job, seems comfortable behind the microphone. Demi of course says "she's so brave for admitting she's older. There's really no advantage to being older." She just made an enemy of a majority of the viewers I think. One day father time will come for her too.

The Cuban girl says she's never dated a white guy, Hannah G. tells a story about how she never got attention from boys until Colton gave her a rose, which I highly doubt. Onyeka tells her "drowning in bitches" story. Catherine says "she's a good swimmer" throws the mic and ruins everyone's eardrums. I can't even handle how a majority of these girls "first" stories occurred in the past week. As if you needed another example of just how young and not ready for the world these girls were. Demi then says something about how she just goes for it and walks into the crowd to make out with Colton and says "and that's the story of how I got the first group date rose!" Bold play, not sure Colton's the guy to play the aggressive go-getter with. We'll see. Maybe he needs someone to just tell him where to be and what to do.

Date card time, and the first one-on-one goes to Hot Mess Express Hannah B.! She says it's her "Golden Birthday" which I just learned means that her age matches the date of the month she was born. I didn't realize this was a thing, or why on earth it would be significant. Like everyone has a golden birthday before they're 32. A significant portion of the population has a golden birthday that occurs before they can talk. Do people celebrate golden birthdays harder than other birthdays? Or is this something that is only significant to females between the ages of 15 and 23? 

Demi touches the group date rose, and everyone is offended. I didn't know that this was completely taboo in Bachelor-land, but Tracy is REALLY bent out of shape. 100 years from now, when people are studying this era of human civilization that they will refer to as "The Offended Era," touching a rose on a group date before it is offered to you will be one of the primary examples of how hypersensitive people were in 2019.

Elyse has some great one on one time with Colton, and contrary to Demi's opinion, I think her age might be of some benefit here. She doesn't have time for all the games and the drama. If she's genuinely interested in Colton, she'll be patient with him while he figures out how to use his penis. These other girls will get bored real quick with their Snapchat and WhatsApp and whatever apps they're using these days. I'm guessing patience is key when dating a super insecure virgin, and the older you are, the better you are at patience. Also, someone might need to fact check this, but is Elyse the first redhead to survive the first night? Is she the first to get a kiss? I don't remember redheads faring too well on this show...in fact, they might have less representation on the show than any other minority. 

Cuban girl tells Colton about her autistic brother, but to no avail. The rose goes to Elyse, the thirty-something redhead. She's like a unicorn in The Bachelor universe. Oldest contestant. Redhead. Group date rose. This is the most shocking thing to ever happen on this show.

Hot Mess Express gets her one-on-one. They take off in an vintage SUV for Vasquez Rocks. Never heard of Vasquez Rocks. They get to ride horsThis es. We cut back to Ms. North Carolina who is convinced that Hot Mess Express is going to come unhinged the second she feels someone gets more attention than her. Hannah seems to back this up by telling the camera that she's very self conscious and spirals when she starts doubting herself. Here we go! 

Colton proposes a toast. Hannah has never given a toast in her life. She's too nervous to form a sentence about what she's hoping for the future. This doesn't bode well at all. Colton asks if she wants to get in the hot tub, and she says yes.......and then sits there. So weird. I'm wondering if she's a little drunk and that's affecting her behavior, because this is just weird. It's like she can't focus on anything. Colton, in true Colton fashion, thinks this means he has poor judgement and that this doesn't bode well for his opinions of any of the women. Then again, he tossed a few girls on the first night that I definitely would've kept - so maybe this is all his fault. 

This date seems like it's drowning (not in bitches, but in awkwardness), so I did some research on the difference between Miss USA and Miss America pageants. I'd forgotten about the Trump connection to Miss USA. I can't really tell if one is more prestigious than the other, but since Miss America started first, I'll assume that's the more important one. Hannah then ask Colton why he's a virgin, and he says he was "so focused on being a D-1 athlete" that he didn't allow for any distractions.

Again, this flies in the face of literally everything I learned about athletes while attending a D-1 school. Sex wasn't a distraction for them, it was a necessity....to the point that it would be reasonably easy to assume that the more sex you had, the better you would be as an athlete. Colton could probably be playing for the Patriots next weekend if he'd just banged a few pageant queens five years back. 

And now we get to Colton saying that saving yourself until marriage was "engraved on him" early on. WORST. TATTOO. EVER. I suppose you could say "engraved," but "ingrained" seems more appropriate.

Hannah then says that she had plans of staying a virgin until she got married, but she got into a dude and she ended up having sex with a dude and it didn't work out and now she feels guilty that she won't have that to give to someone she was spending forever with. This is enough to redeem her bizarre behavior in the hot tub, and she gets the rose, a kiss, and fireworks. 

Group Date #2 is a camp theme. They play duck duck goose. He calls cornhole "football bag," and I'm like "oh cornhole is too taboo for The Bachelor?" but then Colton refers to the birdie as a "shuttlecock" during badminton and it occurs to me that maybe Colton is just that weird dude who uses obscure terms for everything. I'll bet he refers to a dresser as a "bureau" and a couch as a "davenport" too.

Anyways, the girls do some competitions like tug of war and canoeing, and the red team wins, which means they get to sleep over at camp while the yellow team goes home. Billy Eichner is there, and while I don't typically like his yelly form of comedy, he does deadpan that Colton is very brave for using the results of a 3-legged race to determine who is the best choice for his first sexual partner. 

Heather is ready to drop the bomb that she has never been kissed. Colton is suddenly the most sexually experienced person in a conversation for the first time since he was thirteen. I think in Heather's mind, this was going to be how she gets her first kiss, but Colton isn't feeling THAT confident, so he just lets the awkward silence lead to an awkward hand holding and ending to the conversation. No worries though, he gives her the rose for having the most embarrassing confession to offer him. She's lucky some girl said she'd gone to an all girls school and that he's the first boy she'd ever seen is on the show. That girl would've gotten a rose for sure.

First group date: Colton gives the rose to the oldest, most experienced girl in the group.

Second group date: Colton gives the rose to the youngest, least experienced girl in the group.

This seems completely consistent with a person who is completely unsure of what he wants and probably is incredibly frustrating for anyone who enters a relationship with him. Not surprising that the girls can't get a read how to behave and act around him.

Courtney opts for the "I'm in charge, I'm prepared for a family, I know what I want, and I'm ready to lead you to the promised land" strategy. It goes well, so well in fact that she bursts into tears. Girls that burst into tears because they have a good conversation with a guy are not ready for a family.

Sydney opts for the "I want you so bad I cheated in a canoe race" strategy. It seems to go well until....

Onyeka shows up with an air horn because she's horny. That girl has more props than Mary Poppins, which reminds me of this great SNL sketch. Enjoy.

Demi puts on a robe, steals Colton away, takes him upstairs to a bedroom, and gives him a backrub. Fantastic play by Demi to play to every girl's worst fear. Tracy takes it the worst, so poorly that she goes up in what looks like a glorified closet and cries. Demi tells her she's "an amazing storyteller" which I think is something that is only a compliment to grandparents. 

Finally it's time for the rose ceremony: Tayshia, and Cassie get the first roses, which is curious because they got very little screen time. Caelynn and Courtney follow, and I'm not seeing much from either of them that makes me think they're contenders. Demi follows, much to Tracy's disgust. Nicole the Cuban and Kirpa the Indian Hygenist follow. Hannah G gets a rose, and gives him a very sneaky wink as she accepts. Catherine and Bri get roses, ensuring all three of the "villains" are still around. Onyeka gets a rose, which meanwe'll get to see her pull out a tuba to interrupt a date next week. Sydney, Katie, Caitlin, Nina, and Tracy round out the group.

Annie, who I never was fully convinced was actually on the show, Angelique, and Alex the dog rescue girl are all bounced, which makes me think Colton is just eliminating girls alphabetically. Bri should be on notice next week.

Bachelor 2019: We Need to Ban 3 Hour Premieres

Welcome back! A three-hour episode on the first Monday of the new year after a two week vacation that also happens to be the same night as the national championship and oh by the way the kids have basketball, soccer, and ballet practice was just too damn much for me, so the blogging had to wait until tonight.

Turns out, the first hour was about as necessary as the pre-game show for the Super Bowl. A couple of "Colton's a virgin jokes," people with custom Bachelor themed t-shirts explaining how attractive Colton is, a proposal from a guy who claims that he first said I love you to his girlfriend after an episode of The Bachelor, and Crystal and The Goose in a hot tub in the parking lot. How desperate to be on TV do you have to be to hang out in a hot tub in the parking lot of a TV studio? Better yet, how desperate do you have to be to be one of those nameless extras in bikini's waiting in line to get in to a hot tub with Crystal and The Goose? C'mon people, be better.

 We do get to meet a few of the girls during this terrible first hour:

Cassie - the beach bum speech pathologist from California. She seems OK. Not sure I want her spending time with my kids yet, but thankfully they're well spoken young people

 Alabama Hannah refers to herself as the "Hot Mess Express." This is amazing, she seems pretty fun. Curiously though, she says that she's only "kissed four boys who have been her boyfriend.....but I'm not a virgin." This is a convenient way to omit the dozens of guys who got their "one night only" ticket punched on the Hot Mess Express.

All Aboard!

Katie is from "the East Coast." Maybe the vaguest location we've ever had. She now lives in California because she "loves to dance." Apparently the East Coast is still under the jurisdiction of John Lithgow in Footloose.

Goddamnit Katie I said NO DANCING! You go to California with that nonsense.

Heather is next. She's never been kissed. She's 22. I love it when we act like someone born in 1996 is some sort of freak if she hasn't fully lived her life yet. The other girls will think she's weird for sure.

Onyeakachewku is from a Nigerian family and says she's loud and obnoxious and isn't afraid to do crazy stuff in public. She may stick around for a while, but the fact we met her family during her intro video makes me think we won't be seeing them again later in the season.

Nicole from Miami is not about "the hook-up culture." She's a social media coordinator. Her brother is autistic. Somehow I don't think this is the last time we hear that this season.

Kirpa is a dental hygenist. Kirpa!

Demi is a Texas girl who starts her intro by accepting a collect call from federal prison. It's her mom. "My mom had to go to prison because of embezzlement," she says, as if embezzlement is a random thing that can happen to anyone. Man, I hope embezzlement doesn't send my mom to prison. She seems all sorts of unstable. I don't trust this one. She also compares being a virgin to only eating vanilla cupcakes - which also makes  no sense. "I'm the damn confetti cake" she says, as if that's the best cupcake flavor. She's so wrong.

We also get to see Colton and his upper body that looks like someone left the needle hooked up to the air compressor a little too long. We get to hear about how he was so focused on his football career than he sacrificed relationships and having sex. You know who says that? People who are scared or unable to have the sex that they want. Honestly, it sounds like something I would've said in high school. I was way too socially and mentally unprepared to have a girlfriend or be intimate with a girl, so I ended up saying things like "I don't have time for a girlfriend," instead of the more truthful "I wouldn't know what to do with a girlfriend if I had one." That's Colton to me. He's scared to have sex. He might be more terrified of having sex than anyone else in America at this point. And to be honest, that's OK. It's better to not have sex until you're ready than to make some sort of horrible mistake with the wrong person.

(Anyone who reads this, please remind me to show the paragraph above to my children when they start dating.)

Alright, let's get this show started! The first limo seems to hold all the girls we've already met. First we see Colton get out of a car driven by an older gentlemen half his size. That guy looks like he should be riding Seabiscuit instead of sitting behind the wheel of an SUV.

Oh, apparently Tiny Guy wasn't driving. He stands in the driveway and opens the door for the first limo too. Good luck dude.

Demi introduces herself and says she "hasn't dated a virgin since she was twelve." I keep hoping that means she dated some kid from seventh grade on until the end of high school, but given the way she talks and the looks of her hometown, I'm guessing that's not the case.

Tayshia is a phlebotomist and seems nice. She gives him multiple hugs.

Heather declines to remind Colton that they've met before. Probably a good start.

Nicole says half her heart is in Havana (in Spanish), which I think is a reference to the Camilla Cabello song, but Colton doesn't get it. He just says "So you're from Havana?" Which leads to Nicole having to awkardly say she's from Miami, but her family is from Havana. That didn't go great.

Caelynn is Miss North Carolina 2018, at least that's what her sash says.

Sydney is a dancer for an NBA team. Or she was. She tells Colton she had to quit to come on the show. NBA dancers don't have a great track record on this show.

Elyse is a redhead. This makes her one of my favorites, but she plays it super straight and doesn't do anything to make me think she's going to have much of a role on this season.

Tazjuan says she hopes that she's "Tazjuan" for Colton. Then she asks what he thought of her pun. Just let it hang there.

Cassie brings some butterflies. Kirpa has a sparkly purple dress. Caitlyn pops a balloon that apparently looks like a cherry. Courtney has him hold some cards and then takes one. It's a V. She took his V-card. That was dumb.

Then we get Alex in a sloth costume who moves and talks in slow motion. Enough with the costumes, Bachelor. They're not funny, everyone hates them, and now we're going to get sloth jokes for five weeks.

Onyeka (who is not Tazjuan as I originally thought) calls him a snack and says "Momma's ready to eat." The last person to use the term "snack" to refer to a person was either The Goose or Jordan on Bachelor in Paradise, and I thought it was probably "Me Too"-ish, so I can't endorse this from Onyeka.

Tracy shows up in a cop car and pronounces herself the "fashion police."

Devin is from Medford. Gotta root for her.

Raylin uses the Chinese word for "studmuffin" which I'm 100% sure doesn't exist.

Nina speaks Croatian and might be my favorite. Liked her.

Bri fakes an Australian accent. That should be fun later.

Laura has the same dress as never been kissed Heather. Apparently this is drama in The Bachelor world.

Hannah G. is a content creator. Jobs in 2019 man, I tell ya.

DJ Catherine with her dog is going to compete with Aussie Bri for America's most hated. She loaned her dog to Colton to live with him.

Also, these people with their dogs. Like, when you meet someone for the first time and all they do is talk about how great their kids are and how important they are, that's annoying right? Now imagine it's a dog.

Erin shows up in a Cinderella carriage, which prompts Erika to say "I really could've done more than a bag of nuts." Erika just got my first impression rose.

Another girl, who brought a Georgia peach and asked him if he wanted a bite says "I need him to know I'm more than fruit." I'm more than fruit gets my last impression rose.

Then we get a whole segment of....not the show. Just former contestants talking and more people proposing at Bachelor Watch Parties. Absolutely no reason to have this be 3 hours. I like all the former contestants less than I did before I started watching tonight, and if you've read this for a few years, you know I'm not exactly over the moon for any of them. Kaitlyn Bristowe in particular has been on a downward trajectory from her first night on Chris Soules season. What a mess.

Colton then says a bunch of things we've heard every Bachelor say for the last however many seasons "I value honesty, I see my wife in this room......blah blah blah."

Demi with the felon mom gets the first alone time. She's confident that Colton has a crush on her.

Erika can't figure out why he's a virgin. This bothers her. She demands to know why. Colton again reiterates that football came first....as if no successful football player has sex. Again though, I sort of see some of high school Andy in Colton. The way he talks about it being a conscious decision, and then getting to the point that he wasn't just going to throw it away on a one night stand. That's exactly how I was with alcohol. It was a conscious decision, in that alcohol played a factor in my parent's divorce and one of my friends got suspended and had to miss part of his junior year of basketball season after being caught with alcohol. I was not going to let that happen to me, so I said "not in high school." Then I got to college and figured that I'd made it this far, why not wait until I'm 21 and actually have my 21st birthday mean something? Only by then, I had seen my friends make some regrettable mistakes, been annoyed more times than I could count by drunk people, and just basically didn't think it was something to celebrate, so I gave up on it at all.

This is where I will tell you that I'm so glad that I decided to abstain from alcohol instead of sex....one of the smartest decisions I ever made.

Colton tells Hannah G. that she made a huge impression on him and she is relieved because she was so nervous, so he holds her hands and says "here, I do this with my mom, it'll help." I'm not sure this is a good sign for Hannah that he's already associating her with his mom, or maybe it is. Either way, it's creepy to me.

Miss Carolina gets the first kiss. She says she's from Virginia, but moved to North Carolina about a year ago. Immediately I'm wondering if she evaluated the pageant scene and saw a better opportunity to succeed in North Carolina than Virginia. Was there an especially deep pool of beauty queens in Virginia in 2018, so she transferred to a smaller state for more playing time? In any event, it was a good move for her - she finished second (first runner up in beauty pageant lingo) in Miss USA, so good for her, but I bet the runner-up in Carolina is still pissed and filing appeals on her residency.

Sloth is named Suzette, but the girl inside is a Boston girl named Alex. She says her brother is the best guy in the whole world....so her brother isn't Grant. (Just checking to see if you're reading, bro!) All I really want to know about Alex is if she was wearing that dress under the sloth costume the whole time, or if she just put it on real quick before getting her one-on-one time....because if she was climbing a tree in a dress in a sloth costume, that's hella impressive.

DJ Catherine is interrupted by Fashion Cop Tracy who is then interrupted by Onyeka in a snorkel who blows a whistle and tells Colton she heard he was "drowning in bitches." Strong play Oneyka. She wasn't kidding about not giving a crap about what other people think.

Onyeka isn't taking this crap, so she pulls Catherine away to discuss her "behavior." Onyeka tells her not to be disrespectful. This is the girl who said Colton was drowning in bitches. Unreal.

Catherine clearly does not give a crap. She makes a third interruption to get some more time. As usual, the girls who haven't had time yet are pissed that Catherine keeps taking time from them, but do nothing about it but whine to Onyeka so hopefully she does something about it.

 

Meanwhile the Hot Mess Express is starting to get in her own head. She says she's spiraling. This should be good. Instead she finally gets to talk to him, and she's adorable, and they pinky promise to be real with each other. That is not what the Hot Mess Express should be doing right now damnit. She should be aggressively kissing him near the fire and then catching her dress on fire and having to dive into the pool.

Hannah the content creator gets the first impression rose. I'm sure this is good for her career. I don't get it. All my favorites got barely any screen time, which means I'll be saying goodbye to most of them tonight. Hannah says "this validates everything." She brought an empty box because she heard Colton didn't wear undies. Validated her underwear joke?

Gotta love the girls crying BEFORE the rose ceremony. That's new.

Then we get a Chris Harrison tribute video. I think we've all made a joke about how Chris Harrison hasn't aged a bit, but when you see him in a side by side with a clip of him from Season One, you can definitely tell that he's older now. A good little montage though. More of that, less of Kaitlyn and JoJo please. And no more Ben Higgins. Ever.

Finally, it's rose time. Colton says "you all look so beautiful" and dives right in.

Miss North Carolina, Katie, Alex B., Hot Mess Express, Onyeka, Caitlyn, Annie (who's that?), Kirpa the dental hygenist, Never Been Kissed Heather, Redhead Elyse (yay!), Tayshia, More than Fruti Courtney, Speech Pathologist Cassie, Demi the felon-offspring, Croatian Nina (yay!), Erica McNutt, NBA dancer Sydney, Fake Aussie Bri, Angelique, Fashion Cop Tracy, Half Cuban Nicole, and DJ Catherine get the roses.

Time to go home Laura. Devin makes it two consecutive seasons that a sports journalist from Oregon is sent home on night one. Cinderella Erin is gone, as well as some girl whose name I've forgotten who mentally sent home quite a few girls who stayed.

We get a montage of the season upcoming, and every single girl seems to have mastered the Becca Kufrin "jump into the guy's arms and straddle him" move. Also, the girls all hate each other. Also, Colton walks a long way in a suit. He's like the Bachelor Elf. "And then I walked through the candy cane forest, jumped a fence, and disappeared into the night."

See you next week, y'all!