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!

Bachelor in Paradise: They're not even trying anymore.

It's gonna be hard to top last Monday's episode, but here we go.

Benoit is recounting to Kevin and Astrid how he had a great date with Jenna and how Jordan was waiting for them when he returned. Benoit seems scared of Jordan.

I repeat, he is afraid of a male model who dresses like the Hawaiian Punch guy come to life and beats up stuffed animals. I believe Benoit also was scared of someone on Winter Games for some equally sissy reason. It's almost like Benoit has never been exposed to the real world.

In other news, Chris just says to Krystal "your butt is unreal." When she questions him on marriage, he says "coming from a divorced family, the girl I get engaged to is the girl I want to be with forever," as if people who have witnessed stable marriages don't understand stable marriages. This is like saying people who grew up in non-smoking households are more likely to be smokers, or people whose parents aren't in jail are more likely to end up in jail. He then says that commitment is not a game and he's not getting married just because you have a kid together like my parents did."

 The guy who was talking about girls as menu items last week, who told Krystal her butt was unreal, is now claiming he's "100%" into commitment, and Krystal is HERE. FOR. IT. Krystal then says Chris making me glow, the timing for us to connect is divine," as if she just spent a week in Rajneeshpuram getting relationship advice (and drugs) from the Bhagwan himself.

This is immediately followed by Connor showing up. You might remember Connor as the square jawed frat boy villain in every college comedy you've ever seen. Connor pulls Krystal aside to see what she thinks because "everything looks right on her." Guys are the worst. Krystal tells Connor how awesome he is and how she came here specifically to meet him and how she wanted to keep herself available for him....and then shuts him down before he can ask for a date. DIABOLICAL. Krystal is absolutely insane. I have no idea how, but somehow this isn't over.

FIVE MINUTES LATER......

Connor is undeterred by Krystal's pre-emptive denial of the date card. He asks her anyways, and Krystal says "well I mean as long as you know where I'm at." Paradise logic is awesome. Try asking some guy's wife out on a date and see if she says "well, as long as you know that I'm married I guess it's cool." NO. IT IS NOT COOL, KRYSTAL. The moral of the story is that nobody will take you seriously if you call yourself The Goose. Krystal then straight up tells Chris that she came here for Connor, but that Chris "surprised her." Krystal is a black widow, man. Chris is going to end up a broken man, and I'm not sure what's going to happen to Connor, but it won't be pretty.

Krystal and Connor's "date" is to get buried alive while some guy sings in the background. Krystal seems to think that this is some sort of ritual to let go of the past and form a new relationship. I think they're getting cooked alive by a guy who's about to eat them. This leads to Connor howling like a wolf and them making out in the ocean. Naturally.

Jordan tells Jenna she's amazing, Jenna makes out with him. She needs to tell Benoit "some things." Those things are "I'm not going to kiss you or Jordan until I figure stuff out." This is followed by a lot of making out, because Jenna is super crazy too.

Jordan, of course, is not pleased with this. But rather than talk to Jenna, he accuses Benoit of brainwashing her and wants to know why he's kissing her when she told Jordan that she was done with him. Benoit is not happy with this line of questioning, so he storms off, muttering about how crazy Jordan is. Benoit is so mad, he angry grabs a water bottle. #CANADIANRAGE.

Kenny then bounces from paradise to see his daughter's dance recital....a noble move, but let's be honest - this was always his plan. I'm trying to imagine Kenny telling his daughter "I'm heading to Mexico, I might come back for your dance recital. We'll see how things go." No way. So instead, he just goes down to Paradise and makes out with Bibiana, Jacqueline, and Annaliese, decides that Annaliese is the least likely to call him on his bullshit, and then plays the altruistic father card which Annaliese eats up. She's now convinced that she was with the perfect guy (that made out with two other girls in the hours before they got together) and he sacrificed their relationship for his daughter's love. He booked that flight home way before he even met you, sweetie. Annaliese is like an old house - you pick her thinking you can fix her flaws and wind up with something truly special and unique on the other side, but in reality you're just going to sink a lot of time and money into her only to find out she's got some problems that just can't be fixed, like a cracked foundation or something and you end up having to cut her loose for your own sanity. She's constantly on sale on Zillow, if you know what I mean.

Also, you're not going to believe this, but John killed himself. I've seen this commercial so many times I have no intention of ever watching this show. Then again, I said I was never going to go to the Shane Company for an engagement ring because of all the commercials...and yet when it came time to actually pull the trigger, where did I go??

Annaliese looks around and sees everyone else making out and decides that maybe Paradise isn't for her....until Kamil shows up. Kamil told Becca he wanted to meet her halfway....like 60/40. He says it was a joke, but she didn't find it funny. I didn't take it as a joke then, but watching it back, I suppose he could be telling the truth. Of course he wants to talk to Annaliese, who is already like "Kenny who?" This is the biggest flaw of the show, in my opinion. I know that a majority of these "couples" aren't nearly as into each other as the show makes them out to be, but they could at least act just a little conflicted when they go on to the next dude/lady.

Kamil says he's from New York, and immediately Annaliese says she's always been attracted to the "New York vibe." I could write a whole bunch about how insane this is, but I'll end it by saying that Kamil could not look less interested in Annaliese if he tried.

I gotta move on though, because Kevin just pulled THE DUMBEST shit on Astrid. I'm not sure if his plan was to make himself look like an ass and make Astrid a sympathetic character to the other guys and maybe give her a bump on getting another date in the future....because if that's was the case, then what he did was genius. I'm not giving Kevin that much credit thought. A relationship genius he is not.

Anyways, he tells Astrid that he wishes she would go on a date with someone else, so that he could be sure that she wants to be with him. What I think he really means to say is that HE wants to date other people.  He's trying to spin it like when they get back to the real world, everyone will want to date them, and they're going to be tested by all these people wanting to date both of them.

Somehow, this turns into Kevin crying and saying he thought he was getting married on the Bachelorette, and then with Ashley on the Winter Games he didn't know where it was going, but he "was optimistic." Given those two descriptions, imagine my shock when Kevin says the breakup with Ashley left him more heartbroken than he's ever been.

 Kevin goes to therapy twice a week because of his time on the Bachelorette shows. Makes sense he'd come on a third then. I think he needs to fire his therapist that signed off on him coming back.

Oh Jenna broke up with Benoit because Benoit is a ninny. Duh. Harley Quinn dates the Joker, not the guy who crosses the street when a guy with a leather jacket is walking towards him. Benoit sucks.

 Kendall now knows that Leo kissed Chelsea, because Kevin told her, then acts like she already knew and BLAMES ASTRID because she told him that she was going to tell Kendall. Awesome job, Kevin.

Kendall is mad at Leo for not being all in on her. This coming from a girl that is ostensibly in a relationship with Grocery Store Joe. Leo is mad that Kendall is mad at him, so he's going to beat up whoever told Kendall.

Why is Leo so certain it was a guy that told Kendall? Why couldn't it have been a girl who is a friend of Kendall's who is looking out for her?

Leo and Kevin yell a lot of things at each other then agree that they're both cool. Now Leo decides that Kendall is "being irrational" by telling him that Chelsea's kiss upsets her. Leo then just says a bunch of crazy shit, and Kendall does that condescending thing she did on Arie's season where she explains to someone what they're feeling and it predictably doesn't go well. Joe steps in.....and we'll find out what happens tomorrow night!

Bachelor in Paradise: Jorge is a Fraud

Two nights in a row! Last night was phenomenal, which gives me high hopes for tonight. On the other hand, how could it possibly live up to the example of last night?

You guys. I don’t think Jorge was a real bartender. I don’t think he actually opened a business as a tour guide. I know for a FACT he didn’t write a romance novel. Seriously, what was that? I wanted to just clown Arie, Lauren, Amanda, and Ben for agreeing to be bad actors in a five minute movie about a fake romance novel, and then I realized that if someone called me and said “hey let me fly you down to Mexico. You pretend to be a mariachi star whose girlfriend hates him.” Who says no to that? That sounds awesome!

Meanwhile, Leo comes in and all the ladies lose their damn minds. It’s like feeding time at the zoo. The promos keep trying to tell us that Joe and Kendall are one of the strongest couples in Paradise, yet it took her all of two seconds to say yes to a date with generic brand Fabio. I feel bad for Joe. Hell, I kind of was Joe. In college, I spent a summer in Colorado at a ski resort. It was kind of like Paradise, in that they just threw a bunch of people in their early 20s together for a few months. A small population, short time frame, you start to think there are feelings that don’t really exist. At the end of the summer, I actually had a girl say to me “I think I like you about half as much as you like me.” Been there Joe. I’ve been there.

Shortly after returning from her date with Leo, turns out that maybe Kendall is there too as Leo immediately makes out with Chelsea. Whoopsie Kendall. Jordan of course is there to tell us that Leo
is “sampling all the porridge” which I think was a reference to all the girls having blonde hair like Goldilocks. Also at some point Jordan refers to the guys all being in various stages of doing their laundry in terms of making relationship mistakes. If I were Jordan, I would start an app where people asked me for advice and I would equate them to some random thing. This show is dead when he goes home.

Tia and Colton go on a date, and surprise, Jorge has changed jobs again. He’s now a street DJ having a salsa competition. Oh look, Raven and Adam are here. Really they are here so Raven can tell Tia she hates Colton and thinks he's got bad intentions. "You deserve someone who treats you like Adam treats me" she says. Translation: I'm jealous that your guy is better looking and you two are more famous than me and my guy and it's not fair because you're only famous because I was on the show first and recommended you for it. Raven sucks.

Tia cries, Raven threatens to cut Colton's unused penis off, and then Raven feels her work is done. She's gone. Colton and Tia go to have a talk. Tia says she wants to be the first and best option always, which seems like a weird thing to ask. Wouldn't you want to be the only option? Colton vows not to look at another woman in Paradise, because Tia is his girlfriend. Tia demands to be asked to be his girlfriend, because #womenarenotproperty.

Benoit is here, and girls are digging the accent. Benoit pulls Kevin aside, Kevin says he'd like Krystal because she's blonde and high energy. Benoit starts off by calling her Kendall. Strong start, bud. He goes on to say that reality TV has "worked out well for him" twice already. He did not win Bachelorette Canada, had an on again off again on again off again relationship with Clare on and after Bachelor Winter Games....this is not a strong track record of success buddy. I want him to succeed with Krystal just to see the Goose's feathers ruffled, but I guess I'll have to settle for him setting off Jordan and getting his similie generator going.

Jordan is in rare form:
He says that Beniot "better have Jenna home to daddy early, because she's got a curfew."
He calls him Pepe le Pew and then says he's "the Diet Coke of French" because he's from Canada.
He calls him Jean Blanc 2.0

Meanwhile, Jenna is slathering her lipstick all over Beniots face, and I'm fully convinced that she escaped from Arkham Asylum with the Penguin and the Joker. I think the term I'm looking for is "Criminally Insane."

Want evidence? She thinks that the fact he was recently engaged is a good thing, because "it shows he's open to commitment." This is like saying "I know he just got fired, but I think that's a good thing because it shows that at least he can get a job in the first place."

Jordan tries to apologize by writing "I'm sorry" in the sand. This seems like a good start, but then he says "I mean, what's a guy gotta do?" as if she should've forgiven him already. Nice plan, Jordan. Jenna tells Jordan she had a really good connection with Benoit, but also with him. Jordan then tells Jenna that she needs to just let him know if it's not going to be him, because he's only here because of her. "Only one Jenna in the world," he says, as he walks off to bed.

I'm walking off to bed too. I should've known that the show couldn't have kept up the momentum that last night created.

Bachelor in Paradise: WTF Edition

The blog is back, and I promise it's not just because my son's soccer coach's wife wondered when I would blog again and I'm trying to suck up to get my son more playing time. (Hi Ashley!) But seriously, soccer is playing a big part in the blog returning. A tournament this weekend took all the energy out of my kids, and a cancelled soccer practice due to poor air quality allowed them to get home early, eat dinner, and be asleep before 9pm for what seems like the first time since they could walk.

You know, I really thought nothing could kill my love for blogging about Bachelor related TV. Then Becca's season happened. In what was maybe the worst season of the show ever, I just couldn't do it. Hell, I could barely watch it. I think I stopped blogging after week 2. I stopped watching on Monday night about week 5, and I didn't even watch the finale or Men Tell All.

And I don't want to put this all on Becca. Becca seems amazing. A good person, a fun hang, pretty, smart.....she's really somebody any guy should want to date. I just don't want to watch her on TV. She was too normal, made too many rational decisions, and -let's be honest - never would have been The Bachelorette had Arie not blindsided her on national television. Nobody was hashtagging #beccaforbachelorette before that episode. NOBODY. Afterwards, we all felt like she DESERVED it, but I think we all thought in the back of our minds "this really doesn't make sense."

Tia would've been a better choice (more on this later). Bekah definitely would've been a better choice, even though we all know she would've picked nobody or broken it off with the "winner" before the finale aired to go smoke peyote in a teepee in Flagstaff. But we got Becca, and then we got maybe the dumbest group of men ever. I mean, she picked a guy with a history of liking racially insensitive Instagram posts. THAT WAS THE BEST GUY OF THE BUNCH. Just brutal.

Anyways, things are better now. We're in Paradise, where people stop pretending that they're in love with someone just because they thing they're supposed to be, and start horndogging it up all over Mexico. Bad decisions abound. Tia, who was one of the most generally well liked personalities ever on this franchise, burned through all of that goodwill faster than I thought humanly possible. First she essentially blocked any chance Colton had with Becca with her wishy washy attitude towards him, then she decides to take that absolute moron Chris on a date. This is a guy who refers to himself as "The Goose." He calls himself this not because he likes geese. Not because he thinks they are majestic creatures, not because of some generally accepted noble trait of the species, and not even because that was the call sign of Anthony Edward's character in Top Gun. Any of those would be acceptable reasons to call yourself Goose. No, this jamoke calls himself "The Goose" because he want's people to know he's not the seriously deranged, out of control meathead he was portrayed as on The Bachelorette, but rather he's a "silly goose." To show how silly he is, he wears a Karate Kid style bandana, which is neither silly nor goose-like.

This one's for you, Goose

I figured Tia was maybe just taking a totally unlikable guy on a date so that she wouldn't be tempted to hook up with anyone before Colton showed up, but noooooooooo.....Tia asks him what he's looking for in a woman. Chris then spouts off a few very generic things about Tia's personality that are blatantly obvious to anyone who has spent five minutes watching the show, including that he wants to date someone who isn't from a big city or some crap. Tia, honey, a word of advice: Never ask someone you're on a date with what they're looking for in a woman. There is literally no incentive for the guy to tell you anything other than qualities he sees in you. If he says he's looking for a short girl who likes Pokemon and runs ultramarathons, the date is over. On the other hand, if he says something similar to your own personality, well then there's the chance for a kiss and some heavy petting before the night is over. Tia seems oblivious to this fairly obvious scenario, and is totally impressed that Chris described her to a T(ia) (#dadjoke).

Chris then pushes all his idiot chips in to the middle of the table rather than cashing out with Tia. No......The Goose is now feeling himself, so he's gotta fly and kiss KRYSTAL.

Imagine you are Chris. You nickname yourself Goose and refer to yourself in the third person while wearing a Karate Kid headband, and you've just hooked up with Tia, an absolutely gorgeous woman who (up to this point in the show) is generally well liked. Everyone would be impressed if you came home with her. So the first thing you do is find one of the most universally hated and generally agreed upon psychopaths in the history of the franchise and make out with her by saying "I've never kissed a blonde and I'd like you to be the first."

Side note, HOW DO LINES LIKE THAT WORK? One time I saw a friend of mine get a girl to leave the bar with him after the first words he said to her were "your hair smells nice." Thank God I'm married, because I did not, do not, and never will understand how to talk to women. I'm quite certain I'd hate myself for saying something like that.

So the Goose cooked himself, Jordan continued to show why he is one of the great characters in reality show history, and Annaliese is so far removed from the pretty girl that I bonded with over bumper car trauma, I'm having trouble remembering that special connection we had. Jenna is pretty much Harley Quinn without the makeup and giant mallett, Bibiana is still awesome, and David is still the worst human ever. Not like evil worst, or mean worst, or deceitful worst.....he's just like THE WORST.

I think that pretty much covers the first two weeks....let's get into tonight's episode!

I'd forgotten that Colton, who seemed pissed that Tia ruined his chance with Becca and then sort of led him on before kissing Chris, was the one that spilled the beans to Tia that Chris kissed Krystal. If I'm Colton, don't I just let Tia make a huge mistake with Chris, thereby freeing me up to date any number of girls that would want to watch me walk around Paradise shirtless all day? Objectively speaking, Colton is a pretty decent looking guy who is in ridiculously good shape AND has allegedly never slept with a woman. That seems like catnip to a girl that would be willing to be on a reality show. I mean, he's like good looking AND you'd have the chance to be the first to explore virgin territory with him (#dadjoke). And yet instead of just letting all this drama remove itself from his personal space, he decides to shake up his own personal sno-globe and watch everything fly around him. Good plan man.

Chris' response to being called out on this is to tell Tia that she's overreacting and just because he "had a moment" with Krystal and that him kissing her has not changed his feelings toward Tia. This Goose douche literally says that he would turn down a date card THEN says he's keeping his options open THEN SAYS that he decided that it was over between him and Tia BEFORE she started talking to him. Krystal witnesses all of this, is an active participant in this shit, and THEN SAYS THAT SHE'S SO EXCITED THAT CHRIS IS AVAILABLE. Amazingly, Chris then says that he needs tequilla and walks off to get a drink, and THIS is what offends Krystal. Him going to get a drink without talking to you first is more concerning than that entire disaster of a conversation tells me all I need to know about Krystal. She is EXACTLY who she seemed to be on Arie's season.

Jordan continues to be the greatest troll in the history of reality TV, telling Chris he did nothing wrong other than not "telling the world that he was making moves" before he made moves. I have no idea what this means. He then tells Tia that as long as her and Colton are on the same page "it's time for someone to be a man and someone to be a woman." I have no idea what that means, but I love it. Jordan being this show's Dr. Phil is the greatest thing that's ever happened on this show.

Jacqueline shows up, and this sends Tia into conniptions. All I remember about Jaclyn is that she's crazy smart. She basically talked Arie into a coma and then left on her own because she realized she was reading War and Peace while he was reading The Poky Little Puppy. She seems to want to take Colton on a date, which makes no sense, because the first thing out of his mouth is "so you're here! That's awesome!" If Arie is reading The Poky Little Puppy, Colton isn't very far ahead. Maybe he's Green Eggs and Ham. This is a guy that asked Chris Harrison what was "expected of him" in the fantasy suite.

Colton is frustrated because "all these girls keep asking me on a date." He turns down Jacqueline for the date because he doesn't want to hurt Tia. Tia says "I just want to be with someone who chooses me." Colton says "He's not there yet." Then they both threaten to leave Paradise because they don't want to be there just to be there. Then Tia tells Bibiana that it's her job to tell Colton how she feels.

These people suck so bad.  It's amazing.

Meanwhile, Annaliese tells people that she's finally figured out what she wants: Someone who is kind and adores her. Man, Annaliese and I have horrible timing. Annaliese decides this person is Kenny. Jacqueline immediately asks Kenny on a date. He says yes and SHAKES HER HAND. Annaliese is about to lose it. Kenny kisses Jacqueline, and then Kenny comes home and immediately goes to hang out with Annaliese, who serves him yogurt. Kenny likes this so much, he takes his shirt off. I'm so confused as to what the hell these people

We then get some filler content with all the people nobody cares about. Dork John is caught in a love triangle between dork Jubilee and dork Caroline. Socially Awkward Bachelor in Paradise is the not nearly as good a show as the original. I look forward to Trivago ads more than these people interacting on my television.

Kevin is still here and looks like Brendan Frasier in Encino Man if he started drinking when the movie came out twenty years ago and just never stopped. He's talking to Krystal when the GooseDouche pulls her aside and tells her "not to worry about the rose." He then pulls her aside and says she "is not what he was expecting." When she asks what he was expecting he responds with one word: "crazy."I feel like I'm watching the prequel to an episode of Cops where the officers show up just as a full beer can is thrown through the living room window.

Bibiana is now trying to talk Colton into loving Tia, and it's making her cry thinking about how nobody loves her. This show is incredible. I wonder how many emails these people have in their inboxes from therapists that are like "yo you need to call me."

After all that, Colton pulls Tia aside now they're dating and all I'm thinking is that we just wasted like six hours of television pretending these two dummies didn't already have an exclusive relationship.

Finally we have a rose ceremony. Did you know Eric was still in Paradise? Also some girl named Angela...and they're in a relationship? Drunk Encino man is with someone named Astrid.

Jordan then poses a bunch for Jenna, and they make out. Jordan then tells us that Jenna is awesome and that she says "uh huh" when they kiss and squirts coffee in his mouth. I don't have any idea what the physics of such a feat are, but I feel cheated that ABC didn't show this happening.

Back on Dorks in Paradise, John is getting a massage from Jubilee and they said some things to each other, but I fell asleep, so I don't know what it was.

David's still here, telling Bibiana that Kenny told him that she's got a big booty. Apparently this is enough to convince Bibiana that she needs to talk to Kenny. Kenny of course tells her she's fine and makes out with her. Annaliese, Jacqueline and Bibiana are all convinced they're getting Kenny's rose.

Bibs is using her booty, Jacqueline is using her brain, and Annaliese is using Mexican Wrestling Masks. Chess not checkers, Annaliese.

David is here to ruin Jordan's fun by hitting on Jenna by giving her a big stuffed dog which she names Brownie. Jordan is not impressed and chucks Brownie into the water. I can't wait until David gives Jenna his rose at the rose ceremony. Jordan's on edge. Nobody is impressed, except of course for crazy Krystal, who thinks it's great that he's standing up for his woman by drowning a stuffed dog and yelling at two women (Jubilee and Chelsea) who really have nothing to do with the situation. Fun Jordan is way cooler than Mad Jordan, but Mad Jordan says way more entertaining stuff. Eric and Annaliese talk him off the ledge, and he apologizes to everyone for his anger, in what was a very 2018 TV moment - the angry white man seeing the error of his ways and apologizing for being disrespectful.

Jenna accepts his rose, but not his kisses. Not out of the doghouse yet, Jordan.
David give Chelsea his rose, which makes no sense because that will NEVER happen.
Encino Man gives Astrid his rose. Whatever.
Goose and Krystal accept each other. They're getting matching tattoos next week. Bank on it.
Dork John gives Dork Jubilee his rose. Dork Caroline is crushed.
Grocery Joe and Kendall are apparently a thing. A boring thing that never gets airtime, but a thing.
Colton and Tia need to go home now. There's nothing left  for them (or us the viewers) here.
Eric and Angela are two actual people on this show. I just confirmed it on the website, and apparently they will continue to be on the show next week. I know, I'm just as shocked as you are.
Kenny has the last rose. Annaliese, Bibiana, Jacqueline are the contenders, and somehow Bibiana's butt and Jacqueline's brain lose out to Annaliese's luchador masks. I don't think America gets it, but I totally do. I still believe in you, Annaliese.

Nyssa, Bibs, Jacqueline, and Caroline hit the bricks.

And we get to do this all again tomorrow! It's been fun!

Bachelorette 2018, Episode 2

You know you're in for a good episode when Chris Harrison shows up and says "let me give you guys some advice." His advice is always "The Bachelor/ette is not here to mess around, and s/he will send you guys/girls home if you don't bring it." It's always turns the insecurity index up to 100, and somebody will crack and it will be glorious television.

The first group date is wearing tuxes and pretending to get married. They get in a large dressing room and the guys try on tuxes while Becca awkwardly stands in the middle of a dozen guys in various states of undress and says "I don't know what to do!" Lincoln is like a six year old trapped in a very muscular adult's body. He's like all smiles and giggles and single syllable words. "We're with the beautiful princess Becca! What else could a man ask for?" he gushes....because every man's dream is to get dressed with ten or so guys he's never met while a woman awkwardly stands in the middle of the room peeking through her fingers. It's a real life fairy tale!

Rachel and Brian (who are engaged but without a wedding date set) are held up as a paragon of what can happen on this show. The ol' we haven't set a date yet reminds me of people who shop at Aaron's Rent-a-Center....you want the 60" TV, but you don't want to really drop the cash on it. Or the ladies who buy dresses and strategically tuck the tag inside the dress to make sure your friends and the fellas give you the reaction you crave.

Turns out that we're not doing a wedding theme -we're doing an obstacle course. Rachel says that obstacle courses are dirty and hard, and that's just like a relationship! Becca says she wants a guy that's not going to cut and run when things get tough. I'm not sure exactly if she's saying that guys that suck at obstacle courses are bad boyfriends, or if a guy isn't going to try at the obstacle course would suck as a boyfriend, but I like to think I'm an above average husband, and I've never done a Tough Mudder, so.......

Anyways, Lincoln makes it sound like God willed him to victory in this obstacle course. All of the other guys seem to think he cheated (WHICH IS WHAT A SIX YEAR OLD WOULD DO!) Lincoln then says that kissing Becca is like riding to the moon on the wings of pegasus while dancing with unicorns on a pot of gold. Listening to Lincoln talk is the worst. He's singlehandedly disproving my long standing belief that everything sounds better when said with a British accent.

Hey Lincoln.......

 Lincoln then continues to yap, at one point having a chat with the picture of him and Becca taken earlier in the day. The guys don't like it when he talks to them, and they really don't like it when he talks to inanimate objects. Connor's had enough and frisbees the picture into the pool. I'll bet Connor feels like a real man for tossing a picture into a pool. Oh to be 25 again. He's strutting around, Jordan the male model is telling him that the whole thing was "epic" and then Lincoln loses his damn mind and tells a group of grown men he can't fight them because his mom would kill him. HIS MOMMY WOULD BE MAD! He then says the picture his broken, and along with it his heart. It is 2018, right? Becca can upload the .jpeg to Walgreens and get him another one in 60 minutes or less. This is not like the time my brother tore up my Dominique Wilkins poster that I ordered out of a catalog.

#NeverForget

Lincoln then comes to his senses and asks Becca for another picture. When she asks why, he leaves out all the parts about him parading the picture in front of the guys and how he was talking to it like she was there, and says "I have no idea why Connor would smash the picture." This guy really is a child. Get him out of here.

Anyways, Jean Blanc gets the rose for basically being the only person not to be weird. To repeat, the colognoisseur was the least weird dude on the group date.

The next day, Lincoln is still crying about this damn picture. Let's get on with this one on one date. Blake gets the honor, and Becca says she has no idea what's going on, as Chris Harrison planned the date. The date involves Harrison handing them sledgehammers and coveralls, like they're mafia hitmen or something. They get to break all of Becca's memories of Arie, and Lil' Jon is there to narrate! I don't think there's anything I want more in life than for Lil' Jon to follow me around and narrate my day.

Blake won the lottery here....a fun date activity that he didn't plan is making him seem way more interesting and fun to Becca than he really is. He then goes on to say that he fell in love with a girl after two months, and then he found out she was breaking up with him by sneaking a peek at some texts on her phone from her friends. Just know that Blake will look at your phone when you're not next to it, Becca. Take that thing to the shower with you! Blake gets a rose and some smooches. Becca says that if every day involves Lil' Jon and a sledgehammer, Blake is DEFINITELY husband material.

Becca's dates so far have involved an obstacle course, smashing shit with a hammer, and dodgeball. I think it's pretty clear she likes athletes. A bunch of kid actors start yelling at the guys and flinging dodgeballs at them at a high rate of speed.

They then end with a dodgeball competition in a trampoline arena announced by Harrison and the reanimated corpse of Fred Willard. It's sort of sad to see Willard this old...he doesn't really have his fastball anymore. It's like when baseball teams have old-timers day, and a mid fifties Orel Hershiser is throwing 60 MPH pitches to a 50 lbs overweight Sandy Alomar. Nobody wants to see that, and yet we actually kind of do.

Long haired Leo wins this date in my opinion, single-handedly giving the pink team a chance to win. He really brought it home when he deadpanned "dodgeball success doesn't come from biceps or your legs, it comes from the heart, and I was the only guy on the pink team with any heart." It's funny because it's true.

Becca then has a talk with Wills, who gets emotional because someone he knows (I wasn't paying that close attention) had their 50th wedding anniversary. Becca likes it though, because she says "I'm glad I'm getting to know you better," which is code for "I now know you well enough to let you make out with me."

DRAMA ALERT! Colton hooked up with Tia from last season! He has a very well rehearsed statement ready for Becca that involves the line "the timing wasn't right for me to grow a spark into a flame." Smooth. He then claims that he thinks him and Becca could have the time to light a bonfire or some crap.....on a television show....where you'll have to propose within two months.

Clay then does some touchdown celebration with Becca where he gets to kiss his QB. The guy has zero emotion. He's about as vanilla as it gets.

Not vanilla, however, is Jordan. He's walking around in his undies and he's going to catch Becca's attention. The chicken guy gets interrupted, and then gets really bitchy. He feels disrespected. He's not going to let this go. He actually says something about how "There's a time and place to draw attention to yourself, and this wasn't it." THE GUY DRESSED AS A CHICKEN FOR AN ENTIRE NIGHT! David then tries to say that there is right and wrong and there's not gray area (as if this is actually how the world works) and Jordan responds by totally butchering the word ingenuity, while also using it incorrectly.

Back to Colton - Becca is again saying how bummed she is to find out Colton made out with Tia, but for about the 10th time makes sure to tell him how attracted she is to him. Every time she says it, you can tell he knows he's a little closer to being forgiven.

Colton ends up getting the final rose of the night (SHOCKER) and sent packing are three guys I've already forgotten. A dude named Alex who looks a little like a dorky Tom Brady breaks down in tears because he was hoping to find love.

Coming next week - we see why Colton just HAD to get the Tia thing off his chest, Jordan says his face IS professionality, and someone ends up on a stretcher. We're all led to believe that there was a fight, but most likely a dude slipped on the edge of the pool. DRAMA!