The Bachelor S27E01: I’m Just a Dude That Loves Family, Football & Frozen Pizzas
I cannot believe I’m going to say this, but…
…I genuinely enjoyed the premiere.
I KNOW, I know. And no, I didn’t have a recent traumatic brain injury, and no, I’m not drunk. Well, not drunk right now.
Even with a weird, borderline offensive start, the premiere turned into a genuinely enjoyable affair with (mostly) enjoyable contestants and even a (somewhat) enjoyable leading man.
Okay FINE Zach seems pretty legit. Are you happy?? I, too, was salivating for a deliciously dramatic episode rife with sociopathic singles and low-IQ men, but here we are. An episode rife, instead, with respect and charm and easily natural consent.
GOD WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO ME. TO US.
Let’s dive in.
Darkness Must Come Before the Dawn
At any rate, I can slide right back into my normal persona with a gleeful, if weirded out, first stab at the beginning of the ep. I forgot just how absurdly deep Zach’s voice is, and didn’t realize he was 6’4” (Rachel was like…5’1” so everyone looked like a giant compared to her—including me! Yes that’s me with my new group of besties. No, you can’t have my autograph.)
Anyway, with height and a baritone it’s no wonder impressionable women are attracted to Zach, so I had to sigh reluctantly in acceptance as I settled in.
Jesse Palmer, aka Definitely Human Man Not Robot, shows up to blandly announce “You thought you knew Zach, but you do not” but then does proceed to drop a few golden bombshells:
Zach played the bass guitar in a band called Public Disturbance in the 7th grade
Zach was a DJ in college who went by the moniker Berzachy
That’s more personality than I’ve gotten from Zach after a full season of The Bachelorette. God bless you, DJ Berzachy.
Speaking of sighing reluctantly in acceptance, who joins Zach to kick off the show than the Bachelor of all Bachelors himself? Yes, that’s right, here comes Sean Lowe! Great.
Look, I know people like Sean, but it’s hard for me to warm up to him. I can’t really tell if it’s all his born-again celibacy and deep religious creepiness, or if it’s his anti-woke crusade against a post-Chris Harrison Bacheloverse, or if it’s his love of appearing on endless reality shows where he humiliates Catherine , or if it’s his liking an endless array of tweets celebrating aggressive anti-abortion legislation and homophobic anti-gay rights propaganda, but—wait, where was I again?
Anyway, true champion of women and the gay community Sean shows up to give Zach a pep talk, which pretty much starts with him bragging about being the Bachelor that spent the most time shirtless, and ended with him rubbing Zach’s naked body down with oil.
No, seriously.
Thankfully, it’s time for Sean to slink back off to resume his efforts of converting this world to White Jesus christianity and for us to meet the women!
Kind Eyes, Really Nice Teeth, Can’t Lose
Again, this does not start well.
Every premiere inexplicably opens with some backstory on a handful of seemingly random women. Some of them may go home Night One, some of them may get to the Final Rose Ceremony, and many will be sacrificed to the gods during the Midseason Massacre, but rest assured—all of them will humiliate themselves in this moment.
We open with Bailey. Or, to be more precise, we open with a shot of Bailey’s toned abs as she slowly peels off her shorts and reveals a teeny bikini. She then, of course, jumps onto the water and then stands around sopping wet for the next 5 minutes. Yay, the patriarchy!
Then we meet:
Katherine, who jumps dramatically off a swing and then wanders pensively along a river in a crop top
Charity, who wanders pensively along a beach in a tiny sundress
Christina, who introduces us to her daughter and then promptly does pushups in a bikini
Greer, who aggressively shakes up a bottle of champagne and spurts it all over herself (and who has already, in the fastest damage control move ever, had to make a public apology for being a racist and publicly defending blackface
Brooklyn, who lassoes a cardboard cutout of Zach and breathlessly announces he has “kind eyes and really nice teeth”
Brianna, the First Impression Rose winner from After the Final Rose who laments the fact that her parents are already on her to get married despite being 24 years old
Kaity, who gives some finger guns and yammers on about her ex being trash
Cool!
The Entrances
FINALLY! It’s limo time, baby, and with them come the women, decked out in their finest ball gowns for a chance at love.
But this time, things were different.
Things we did not get during these entrances:
Women in any kind of costume (no sloths slo-mo-walking from the limo, no dolphin costumes that the contestant mistook for a shark, not even a single windmill costume because the lead banged the last Bachelorette several times in one)
Ridiculous gimmicks (no pregnancy belly strap-ons, no giant bubbles to bounce out in, no grandmas)
Sex jok— oh just kidding
We did, admittedly, get a pig on a leash, a party bus, and a very, very uncomfortable licking moment, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.
Spilling out of the limo to meet DJ Berzachy are:
Jess, wearing glitter body lotion because she’s 23 damn years old, who timidly stumbles out of the limo and freezes like a deer in headlights
Ariel, who claims she missed her flight, broke her suitcase, and ripped her dress, but that nothing will stop her from coming
Charity, who dreamily announces that there’s no better place to find love than the Bachelor Mansion
Davia, with the deepest plunge on a dress I’ve ever seen, who brings a bottle of champagne and pours them both a glass
Gabi from Vermont, who brings maple syrup and forces Sean to chug some (“Maple-y!” He announces)
Greer who brought a cup of coffee all the way from New York
Viktoria E., who’s from Austria and says they need to switch up the tradition of a two-kiss-on-the-cheek greeting to a four-kiss-on-the-cheek greeting, during which they both almost get whiplash
Madison, who teaches us that “uff da” is slang they use in North Dakota, because of course they do
Aly who exclaims how excited she is to meet Zach
Anastasia who says she’s only here because Zach is the Bachelor
Cat, who we met during After the Final Rose, who Gabagools her way through the conversation
Brooklyn, also from AFTR, who apologized for spewing profanity on live TV due to her nerves
Bailey, also also from AFTR, who reminds Zach that he forgot her name on the show and somehow thought it was “Bailen” (even with her little rhyme of “On the daily, I’ll be thinking about Bailey”)
This time, Zach remembers her name, and also promptly makes out with her. Bailey is genuinely shocked and then absolutely ecstatic. Talk about an early start to the season!
Up next are:
Kaity, who drops a dick joke about everything being bigger in Texas as she stares at Zach’s crotch
Genevie, who is the third person to babble to the cameras about blacking out around Zach
Katherine, a nurse specializing in dermatology who gets Zach to spray her with SPF
Vanessa, from Louisiana, who forces an intern to play a trumpet for her while she throws some beads into nearby bushes
Kimberly, who raps that she’s “Kimmy G, yes I’m your new wifey to be”
Olivia M. who brings two pennies she claims she found heads up for luck
Victoria J, who tells Zach he has an attractive voice
Kylee with a megaphone
Lekha who tells Zach to bend down then promptly fucking licks him, genuinely startling the shit out of him and everyone at home watching, and barks out “I licked it so it’s mine! I marked my territory!”
Holland, who reminds Zach that he had a failed date in Holland, and claims it “didn’t work out because he was in the wrong Holland”
Mercedes the pig farmer, who trots out with Henry the actual pig (much to Zach’s delight)
Christina, who rolls up in a party bus
Sonia who basically gets edited out
Becca, who declares that she, too, is ecstatic to be there
Olivia L. who tells Zach he’s cute
Brianna with her First Impression Rose, looking jaw-droppingly gorgeous in a rose-covered dress
Family, Football, Frozen Pizzas
With the entrances over, our 30 women congregate inside the Bachelor Mansion, trilling and fluttering about with nervous energy. Christina—who I pegged as the season villain and wanted desperately to hate—steals my heart as she excitedly sprints up to Sonia and declares that they’re wearing the same dress in different colors. Bless her heart, I’ve seen women nearly come to blows over this in the past, but Christina is so excited she can’t contain herself. Please don’t let this be a fake nice edit!
Zach comes in and the women scream in delight!
Okay I’m being a little harsh, they actually seem great. Again, I know, this goes against everything I’ve built my reality upon, but here we are.
Zach rambles on about how his parents have been married for over 30 years and how wonderful they are and how they’ve set such a great example for him, etc.
OKAY FINE, I’M BEING A LITTLE HARSH. I kind of like Zach. Let’s hope it stays that way.
As the Cocktail Party commences, the women run wild to steal Zach away for some 1:1 time.
Katherine snags him first and asks if Zach is weird. “Yeah, I’m fuckin’ weird!” he excitedly trills, before dreamily telling the cameras that there’s definitely something between them.
Kaity gets him and a kiss next!
Christina grabs him next and wow, is this woman full of surprises. Again, I want to hate her. I mean, look at this stack:
Both during the first half of this episode and on her official Bachelor Bio, she uses her full name, Christina Mandrell...
…which appears to be because her mom is Barbara Mandrell, solo country artist and actress, and member off The Mandrell Sisters
She had a prominent role in Taylor Swift’s Fifteen music video
She’s a CrossFitter
She just SCREAMS VILLAIN
But…I cannot. I cannot hate her. I kind of love her. Even though she zoomed in on a party bus, she’s been excitedly making friends and discovering matching dresses, and seems…dare I say genuine?
And then, she drags Zach on the party bus and forces him to play a compatibility game. She’s hand-drawn the cards herself! There’s a shark that Zach says looks like a wonky sardine, to which she delightedly laughs and claims he’s a very manly shark. They debate dragons or dinosaurs! She chooses dinosaurs but fully supports dragons. A girl after my own heart, indeed.
Then they make out, of course.
Then the other ladies storm the party bus! And of course this delights Christina, who begins dancing happily with them.
The party bus then turns into a really bad late-night club scene, with the women gyrating all over each other and attempting to gyrate all over Zach. It’s so, so, so awkward. If I had to watch one more second of someone hip thrusting at Zach, I would’ve lost my mind.
This mad mob was lead by Madison, who is from Fargo and truly embodies everything about the movie Fargo. With wild, rolling eyes, she babbles on and on to the camera about how much she already loves Zach and how they’ll be perfect together, etc. etc.
Back at the Bachelor Mansion, Madison resumes stressing out HARD to the other women about not getting enough time with Zach. Plenty of other women are starting to sweat, watching the clock tick down towards the Rose Ceremony without some 1:1 time with Zach of their own.
“I’ll be surprised if some of us have our nails and eyelashes on tomorrow,” says Vanessa, breathlessly, watching the nervous anxiety build.
So who is getting time with Zach still?
Cat, who challenges Zach to a “Who Can Stuff the Most Meatballs In Their Mouth” contest, which was much less terrible than it sounds (especially given that Cat was happily eating the meatballs when Zach wasn’t looking, and was shoving them in her mouth with very sauce-covered fingers)
Brianna, who says she’s making an effort despite having an Immunity Rose
Greer, who trills on about how Austin is her “end game” and how she’ll totally move there, and it has nothing to do with the fact that Zach is from there (sure). Zach—showing CONSENT, BABY!—asks Greer if he can kiss her, to which she excitedly agrees
Olivia M, who tells Zach she has a weird feeling he can squawk like a chicken well. He cannot, but wow does he have fun trying.
Charity, who bonds over her work with traumatized children with Zach (his mom is a special education teacher for beverly disabled children) and is also asked for, and happily gives, a kiss
Jess who, despite being a toddler (a VERY nervous toddler), is very sweet and seems to have a nice connection with Zach. She also gets a kiss, and Zach chips to the cameras about how smitten he is with her.
During all of this, Madison has swooped in and out, interrupting conversations for time with the man she’s already decided will be her husband. It…does not go well. At first it’s fine—they do the Griddy dance and she’s not acting completely psychotic, and he gives her a hug and a chaste kiss.
That is not enough for Miss Madison, however.
She commences stalking him as though prey, swooping in to finally swap spit. Zach is CLEARLY not into it. She can CLEARLY tell. This does not stop her.
We’re treated to a mini montage of Madison sobbing to various women about how she just “wants to be wanted” and “how embarrassing this is” (yes, yes it is) and Zach telling the cameras that he’s not feeling it.
“You have to remember, like, you’re the prize too. It’s not just him,” Kimberly tells Madison, clearly trying to prevent a murder most foul. “Hold your head up high. Your makeup is still on fleek!”
Oh, Kimberly.
Finally, Jesse wanders out of the darkness with the First Impression Rose, signaling an end to the Cocktail Party and a start to the Rose Ceremony.
“Go back to ESPN!” a number of random women who never worked up the nerve to talk to Zach scream.
Zach pulls Greer aside and gifts her the First Impression Rose. Should be super fun for Zach when he realizes just what she is.
Madison cannot. She CANNOT. She storms through the Mansion and grabs Zach and Jesse having a little chat before the Ceremony. She demands to talk to Zach. She is, inexplicably, missing like 6 press-on nails.
“I don’t want to force things,” she whines, having just forced them and being currently forcing them. “I want them to come natural!”
And Zach…my god, he handles it the way he should.
“Like I said, I never want to lie,”he says, kindly but firmly. “My heart wasn’t feeling it. I never want to force that, or put you through something.” He tells her he doesn’t want to lead her on and doesn’t see a future with her, but she’s awesome and wants to tell her the truth. He walks her out, and awkwardly watches as she storms off into the darkness.
My mouth, dear readers, was agape. This man…kindly and firmly did the right thing? He didn’t keep someone crazy around for drama? He knows what he wants??
I know, I know, I can’t keep my hopes up, it’s only Night One. But what a wondeful moment in time.
The Rose Ceremony
It’s time to majorly cull the herd! Only 20 roses are brought out, meaning 9 ladies are getting kicked to the curb. Already safe are First Impression Rose Brianna and First Impression Racist Greer. Joining them are:
Party Bus Christina
Charity the Therapist
Bailen
Nervous Toddler Jess
Genevie’s Blacking Out
Deep Plunge Davia
Super Excited Aly
Brooklyn Spews Profanities
Kaity Likes a Big Package
Anastasia (whoever that is)
Kylee Has a Megaphone
Gabi the Maple Syrup Purist
SPF Katherine
Mercedes the Pig Farmer
Ariel Had a Rough Trip
Voice-Loving Victoria J
Kimberly the Pep Talker
Meatball Champion Cat
Meaning we bid adieu to:
Sonia with the Same Dress
Lekha the Licker
Double Entendre Holland
Two Penny Olivia M
Austrian Viktoria E
Vanessa Louisiana
Becca Was Ecstatic to Be Here
30 First Dates Cara
Too Cute Olivia L.
Until next week!
