The Bachelor S17 E1: Sean Loves Jesus, Texas, & You!
Well, kids, it's that time of year again...time to pop open the white wine, fire up the hot tub, and crank up those unrealistic expectations of what real love looks, feels, and acts like!
The Bachelor is back!
This season, on The Bachelor: Sean Loves Jesus, we'll be taking a journey into the heart of this Golden Texas Boy as we ask the question: Will Sean find true love? And do we care as much about that as we do about him taking his shirt off?
We will also be collecting scientific data on the following during each Bachelor episode:
How many times Sean mentions Emily
How many times Sean says "absolutely"
How many girls cry
How many girls get drunk
The first girl to declare "I'm not here to make friends"
How many times the girls say a variation of "I just didn't think it would be this hard"
Y'all ready?
(Hint: The correct answer is, "Absolutely!")
Let's get this journey started!
The season opens with the camera having a love affair with Sean's pecs. Seriously, there were at least three shots where the camera zooms in on Sean's chest and then just lingers there, hopefully, like a teenage girl ready to blossom...should she dare go to the edge of girlhood? Is she ready for all that womanhood requires? And will life ever become as sweet as it could be if she gives up the chance to spend one single hot summer night with a blond boy from a good Texas family...a night that could change both their lives...forever...
Anyway! So Sean says some stuff about his family and Texas and loving Jesus but we're not really paying attention to all that because we're too busy watching the way his chest glistens and his biceps ripple as he lifts weights with his shirt off.
And then he talks about Emily and says "absolutely" a lot. He was absolutely in love with her. He was absolutely heartbroken by her. He was absolutely faking the scene where he pretends to "come home" right after he got dumped and talk to his family about how his "heart is doing."
"God Still Has Another Plan For Me"
In one of the more cheesier episodic shots, we see Sean standing on the beach, smiling wistfully at a bride and groom who are having their photos taken in front of the ocean. He says some stuff about wanting to protect his woman, wanting to love his woman…how he wants to honor her...he wants to be rich in love!
*climbs rock* "I wanna be her rock!”
My brothers and sisters in christ, I cannot make this shit up.
(Okay. I totally can, but that did actually happen)
So then Arie shows up, because he's finally realized that he loves Sean. He's loved Sean all along, Emily was just a cover, all he really wanted was to get close to Sean this whole time, he just didn't know why until he found out that Sean would soon be tongue-twisting it with 25 lucky ladies. So Arie, somber and serious and staring at Sean's muscular, solid form...so manly, so strong...quietly confesses to Sean how he really feels, and begs Sean not to go, not to do the show. Sean comforts Arie - he even offers him a beer! But still, Sean gently lets Arie down, telling him he wants a bromance, not a romance.
So Arie swallows his loss and thinks, hey, we can still be friends, right? If I can't love you the way I wanna love you, then I'll love you in the only way you'll let me, he decides, as he gazes longingly at Sean's profile, strong and chiseled like a golden god.
"Ha ha, I know, I was just kidding around! You know me, Mr. Class Clown! So tell me, Sean," Arie says, casually placing a hand on Sean's rock solid thigh. "You're going to be handing out a lot of roses. Have you thought about how you're going to do that?" Have you thought about how you're going to offer your heart to the ones who don't deserve it...how you're going to give them the only thing I've ever wanted...
"I don't know!" Sean says, brightly. "Like, "Will you accept this rose?"
"Hahahaha! Okay, so," Arie says, with forced cheerfulness. "Give me some break up moves. What've you got?" Are you going to just casually break their hearts like you just broke mine...
They joke around about the boring way to break up with someone and how Sean can't do the stuff that he usually does, like just stop texting them (Laaaaaaame, Sean. Laaaaaaaaaaaaame)..."Well, I can't use the "it's not you, it's me" thing," Sean jokes, "Because it will obviously be them."
"Hahahaha!" Arie laughs, while he begins to cry inside. "Why don't you pretend like you're breaking up with me..." Because I need to hear it, he decides. I need it to be final, so I can move on with my life...find someone else to love...stop these sleepless nights and tortured days, filled with dreams of your chiseled pecs and boyish grin...
So there's role-playing, and then Sean does the most unexpected thing of all...
"You know, people call me the All-American a lot, but all they seem to talk about with you is your kissing. Can you give me some pointers?"
This is where I lose it in real life - SEAN is asking ARIE for kissing tips? ARIE kisses like a LAMPREY...it was the only thing from last season that I didn't like about him, but it was a very memorable thing! He practically just wrapped his entire mouth around Emily's lips when he kissed her and then just sucked her mouth into the inside his mouth, like a fish of death. Arie should be giving NO ONE advice on how to kiss, okay?!
So they say goodbye, after Arie says something really awkward about Sean in his suit, "all ready", and then almost starts crying real actual tears when Sean says that he really believes he's going to spend the rest of his life with one person... and hopefully SHE will step out of a limo tonight.
Which means it's time, everybody! It's time to meet the 25 *cough 26* women!
The Inner Lives of The Ladies Who May or May Not End Up Meaning Anything To Sean
Chris Harrison comes out and says a bunch of stuff that we've all heard before and don't really need to hear again - Sean got his heart broken, he's ready for love again, champagne and hot tubs, blah blah blah.
And then we take a look at some of the 25 (*cough the 26th one is a surprise cough*) ladies!
The first one is Desiree.
I don't like her on sight. First of all, Miss Bridal Betty works at a bridal salon, and her dream is to design wedding dresses. Not that there isn't anything wrong with that, but she sounds like a total bitch when she talks about it.
The second is Tierra.
She's cute, brunette, talks like a chipmunk. She's fallen in love twice, and has gotten her heart broken...TWICE! She's also only 24. She also has a TOTALLY CHEESY tattoo of a half-done heart on her finger. And then she finds out that the Bachelor is Sean and has a major freak out:
And then we see her with a tiny dog, telling the dog that Sean's going to be its’ new daddy.
Yeah. She's not my favorite either.
Then we meet Robyn from Texas!
Robyn seems really lonely. She dances in the park by herself. She sticks post-it notes everywhere of Spanish words, because she's trying to learn Spanish, “a romantic sexy language." She even sticks a post-it note on her chest that says the Spanish word for HEART. Which kind of makes me wanna cry inside, because you get the feeling that this girl does not get laid a lot.
Diana is from Salt Lake City, Utah:
She owns her own salon - "And that is...pretty...cool," she says, like she would if she were talking about the most UNCOOL thing in the world. Diana is pretty cute. As in, really cute. "That mad, deep, passionate love? For some reason I had a really hard time developing that," she tells us, sounding a little like a comatose patient, or someone with a heart defect that makes it impossible to add any inflection to their voice because that would require an extra intake of breath and their heart can’t take that kind of exertion. "I would love to fall madly, deeply in love. If that person is Sean...that'll...be...awesome."
Well that…sounds…great.
And then we meet Sarah:
From first glance, Sarah seems like a beautiful, blonde, perfectly polished advertising exec straight out of central casting. But wait! There’s something different about her…something that sets her apart! And it’s that she was born with only one arm!
Let me just be clear with you guys for a minute: It is going to be really, really, REALLY hard for me to not call her One-Armed Sarah. Not because I'm trying to be an insensitive asshole, but because I want to be fair, and if I already nicknamed Charlie from Emily's season “Head Trauma Charlie” without feeling an ounce of remorse, well…then...I honestly don’t know what you all expect from me!
Anyway. So Sarah's umbilical cord got wrapped around her left arm when she was in the womb, which effectively amputated the bottom half of the arm. But it doesn't define her! She can still ride a bike...one-handed! She can still whisk eggs...one-handed! She can still walk a dog...one-handed! She can still go on a national television show in search of love…one-handed!
And then it's Ashley P. time!
She has NO idea why she's still single...but it might have something to do with the fact that she already has a special man in her life...and he just happens to be Christian Grey, the main character from "Fifty Shades of Grey!” But since he is fictional and NOT A REAL PERSON, it's just her and her cat (who obviously hates her, by the way) living life on their own, while she reads her book and bites her lip and tells no one in particular to spank her.
Yeah, it was embarrassing to write that, and it was even more embarrassing to watch it.
Pretty (suuuper pretty) Lesley lives and works in DC:
She works for a political consulting firm, but has had no luck with the guys in DC...she doesn't like the nerds, she doesn't like the politicians, and that's all DC is, everybody! And then the producers make her stand on the Mall and yell out Sean's name a lot, which is embarrassing for everyone (especially for all the innocent tourists and passersby) and then she has to hold up a sign that reads, "Lesley Sean 2016.”
She’s way too good to be treated like this, which probably means the producers this season are out for blood and we’ve got a LOT more embarrassing set-ups in this season’s future.
And then we have to meet Kristy:
Kristy is a Ford model…and BTW, Ford is like, the #1 agency, everybody, in case you didn't know, but good news for you, because Kristy is here to tell you! Kristy also wants to clear it up right off the bat that the girls will be jealous of her ("No question. That's just how girls are.") which means that everyone is going to hate her, not because she's a pretty model, but because she sucks as a person.
Also, she calls herself, "The Best From The Midwest.”
Oh yeah. All the girls are gonna looooove her.
AshLee is a professional organizer!
She loooooves to organize. She's OBSESSED! with organizing. Also...she wants to be in love more than anything. PERIOD. "There's nothing more to that," she says, softly, almost threateningly, as a certain cloudy look crosses over her eyes. See, AshLee is adopted, and she's been through six different foster homes. Six, in one year..."I have a really hard time putting my finger on why..." she says, innocently, hoping that they don't find out - that no one ever finds out! - what really happened. In a stroke of luck, Lil’ Orphan AshLee was adopted into a pastor's home, which doesn't sound like the backstory to a horror film or a Made For Lifetime Movie at ALL, does it! But the point is...AshLee is ready for real love. She's ready to find true love...love that always lasts...love that never dies...never leaves you...never abandons you...never forces you to do horrible, terrible things to make it stay…
Love that just, y’know...gives you that fairy tale.
That "happily ever after"...* cue the creepy broken music box music *
The Limo of Love...
Lil’ Orphan AshLee is the first out of the limo, which is unremarkable except for the fact that her smile and everything that comes out of that mouth kind of creeps me out. Also, notice that she wore a red dress…it's an inside production secret that a girl in a red dress is always first out the limo. Which may or may not be important, but I’m still gonna drop that lil’ niblet in your lap and walk away.
Then it's Jackie, who decides to "put her mark" on Sean before any of the other girls can, which apparently means pulling out a really red lipstick and kissing him on the cheek, which leaves huge red lip print. Gross.
Selma comes out and pulls a crumpled up Kleenx out of her cleavage. Normally this would skeeve me out, but she uses it to wipe off the lipstick print on Sean's cheek, and for that I'm grateful. But it also tells us that the lipstick mark and her kleenx was staged, which is gross. Which one of the dumbass producers comes up with this shit?
I'm not going to go through all the girls - I do have a life to live, pals - but I will give you the highlights:
Daniella looks like a girl who knows how to party. She does a really awful and dumb high-five sequence, which makes her memorable for the fact that it's stupid.
Kelly, a CRUISE SHIP ENTERTAINER, comes up and sings Sean a country song. It was embarrassing for everyone.
Some yoga girl comes up and teaches Sean some yoga, and then it's time for...
Fifty Shades of Grey girl, Ashley P.
Just in the way that she talks...she's just weird. And then she pulls out a TIE. Out of her cleavage. And tells Sean that maybe he can teach her how to use it later.
Catherine walks out, and there's a moment between them that instantly put her in my Top 4.
Robyn does a back flip out of the limo, then does another one and falls. It was awesome!
Lacey is a blonde hottie - everyone calls her "Lace", though, so she brought a lace heart for Sean to remember her by. Le sigh.
Plain Paige is BACK! Paige, who didn't get a rose on Bachelor Pad 3 (she was a Fan) is here to win Sean's heart. Did you know she's a Jumbotron Operator? Kind of awesome.
And then it's Tierra Time!
She shows Sean her dumb tattoo - "I have a heart on my finger, and it's open, and I hope you'll be the guy to complete it."- and then they have a silent, awkward moment, and then Sean bails. We all think he's going to send her home! Or at least we're hoping that’s what he’s going to do (re: Me. I'm hoping). Commercial break, and we find out that Sean has decided to break from "tradition" and give her a rose right off the bat. Lame.
And THEN he says, "I hope that won't create any tension among the girls" as she walks away…even though we all know that it's going to make them TOTALLY hate her! Which it does. One of them is like, "Can you explain where this rose came from?" like a total bitch (can you explain where your face came from?!). Tierra doesn’t really help herself, though, by just giggling and saying, "It's so exciting!" ProTip Tierra: You don't say that when you have a rose and no one else does.
Some chick does a purposeful awkward pause thing when she meets Sean, and it's embarrassing, and her dress is so ugly that I make it a point to not remember her name.
Desiree "But You Can Call Me Des" walks out, and she brought some pennies for them to throw into the fountain so they can make a wish together. She walks away and Sean says "She's really cute" to himself, so I guess she is also (begrudgingly) in my Top 4.
One-Armed Sarah (I'm SORRY, I can’t help it, and if I'm honest, I don't WANT to!) gets out, and Sean has a very cute and awesome moment with her, and that’s cool.
And then BROOKE! Holy wow, everybody...Brooke is a BOMBSHELL. The way she walks, the way she carries herself, the way she talks...she is a lady. I don't think she's a match for Sean (she might be way too good for him, tbh), but she's one of my favorites already.
Diana's cute and seems to have already gotten that heart defect fixed.
Lesley brings a football and wants to do a game play which basically just means both of them bending over so she can look at his butt, which is awkward but also sort of hilarious.
Kristy gets out, and the first words out of her bitch mouth are, "Sean, did you invite these girls? Because I sure didn't." Her hair looks AWFUL, and she pulls out her "Bringing you the best from the Midwest tonight" line again. Really, Kristy? You're going to let those words come out of your mouth with that awful hair on your head? Really?
And then the girl in the wedding dress gets out of the limo.
Lindsay seems a little drunk. Super bubbly. Calls herself a prankster. Says, "Who does this?!" Sean goes, "Uh, apparently you." Can't tell if she's crazy or awesome.
Sean thinks he's done and ready to go inside, but surprise!! There's one more person. The Bachelor marketing have been leading into this during all the previews and the promos, and I already know it's Kacie, who made it all the way to the hometown dates on The Bachelor: Ben Doesn't Have a Dad.
And it is! Kacie looks hot - little black dress, high heels, the works. She mentions that she and Sean have met before, so she wanted to see if there could be anything between them. Sean seems happy about this, so that's cool.
The other girls, of course, are not, and Desiree does not think it's fair AT ALL, because Kacie already had her chance with Ben and it didn't work so what makes her think that it's going to work with Sean?? One chance at love, Kacie! ONE CHANCE! You get no others, according to Bridal Betty over there.
Cocktail Wishes and Rosebud Dreams
The wine starts flowing, conversations start happening, and girls start getting anxious to get some time with Sean.
Kacie and Sean are the first ones to do one-on-one time, and we get a little more backstory on the two of them (they've hung out, Sean has only really viewed her as a friend up until this point, but now that he knows that Kacie has feelings for him...). Then Sean hangs out with Desiree, who honestly won't let him get in a word edgewise, but despite that, he still gives her a rose, because apparently he's doing that tonight. And then "Des" does a little dance with the rose - the way that COURTNEY used to - which confirms my initial feeling that she's kind of a bitch.
AND THEN! She sits down with a bunch of girls, and some girl says something like, "I didn't know there were two roses?" and "Des" says, with a total bitch face, "Uh, I think he can do whatever he wants." And THEN, Lil’ Orphan AshLee walks in with a rose! Plain Paige's head practically explodes with confusion and frustration, and again, AshLee drops the "Isn't this exciting?!" gushy-smug thing.
Ladies. It's not appropriate to say, "isn't this exciting" about getting a rose to a roomful of rose-less girls. That's like me winning a million dollars and turning to my povo friend and saying, "Isn't this great?! I'm rich and you're still poor and isn't this exciting?!"
So THEN, Lil’ Orphan AshLee starts to test Tierra on whether or not hers is really the First Impression Rose. Like Tierra was just lying about it the whole time or something... "So...was yours really the First Impression? Because..." Lil’ Orphan AshLee says, as she points to her, Desiree, and Tierra, "but then we all got it, after." Tierra reminds us once again that she got hers right after the limo - after saying a sentence to Sean...that's all that she said, everybody, a sentence - but Lil’ Orphan AshLee isn't giving up. "I mean, you're stunning, but it definitely wasn't The First Impression Rose, it was just the first rose."
Like, whoa. This really is Lifetime Original Movie stuff! I bet Tierra tries to kill her later through a stealthily-planned "accident"...like throwing her into the Bachelor Mansion pool after slipping a roofie into her drink or ripping a strand of pearls over the Mansion stairs so AshLee will trip on them later and break her neck.
Yeah, I watch a lot of ‘90s erotic thrillers! WHAT OF IT.
So then it turns out that Sean is just giving out roses willy-nilly during the cocktail party! Got great energy? Here's a rose! Seems like there's a great connection? Here's a rose! Can string an entire grammatically-correct sentence together? Baby, you get a rose, too! It's really uncomfortable, though, when he talks to a girl like Ashley H. and then doesn't give her a rose.
Wedding Dress Lindsay time! She asks for a dance with him, and then playfully tries to get him to kiss her ("Gimme a kiss! Gimme a kiss, baby!").
Which makes sense with her saying she's a goofball, but kind of makes her look crazy. Or drunk. But also...weirdly cute? She did not get a rose, though, and felt like she maybe blew it...and wishes that she had maybe worn a normal dress. Which I totally get...it's like that time when you went to a Halloween dance in the 7th grade and you put together this really cool '60s Mod-style costume, only it totally bombed and you ended up feeling like a total loser because no one at the entire dance got it because everyone else, like you, was in middle school but unlike you, they had actual normal interests like riding bikes or rollerblading and not watching old sitcoms like "Patti Duke" on Nick & Nite or reading racy pulp fiction that you religiously checked out from the library despite the librarian's disapproving looks every time you brought one up to the counter.
Not that I know anyone who went through that, though!
And then...Fifty Shades of Grey Girl gets drunk and slurs, "Do we...need me to start dancing?" She's obliterated and does a LOT of bumping and grinding, which is hilarious. She tries to interrupt Sean and Plain Paige, but Paige stands her ground, so Ashley P. is made to wait - and dance - until their time is up. Sean tells Ashley P. that he hasn't forgotten about the tie - "I also brought a rape whistle in case I get into trouble" Actual good one, Sean??? - and Ashley goes into a story about how Sean got dumped by Emily but it's okay because Ashley's mom already loves him. She's sooooo drunk...so drunk, in fact, that Sean says, "Fifty Shades of Grey may have become Fifty Shades of Drunk tonight."
Hilarious!
Not as hilarious, though, as the moment when Ashley walks inside and then falls right on her ass.
Love it.
So more roses get handed out, and Taryn starts getting weepy because she's not getting time with him but she's also just not the type of girl who's going to fight over a guy. Brooke tries to tell her how it is when you're up in the clurrrb (I love that Brooke!) and you wanna talk to a man but another girl is already talking to him, but it doesn't matter - Teary Taryn is NOT going to fight with other girls over a guy!
This is going to pose a problem for her in the future, I feel like.
Also, she "can't say that he hasn't noticed [her], because it would be impossible that he hasn't."
So that's nice. This girl is going to be fun.
So THEN! Right at that moment, Sean comes over, and Teary Taryn starts to laugh - hahahahaha! You're here! I'm so relieved! - and tells him that he should sit down, but INSTEAD, he tells her that he’s actually there to steal Brooke for a moment. Which is JUST THE BEST EVER, because they walk away and then the next thing we know, Teary Taryn is sitting on a stairwell somewhere, crying her little Hot Mess Heart out to Cruise Ship Kelly.
God, I love this show!
Okay, then one of the weirdest moments in the entire episode happens...
We see One-Armed Sarah talking to the girls about being nervous to go talk to Sean, and then we see her talking to us in the Bachelor Confessional...only, in the Confessional, it seriously looks like she just gained 15 pounds. She's in the same white dress, but her face is super puffy and she seriously looks like she gained 15 pounds.
Did anyone else catch that? It was weird, right?
Anyway, so Sarah talks about the fact that she thinks men get intimated by the fact that she only has one arm, and that maybe "they feel like it's just easier to date a girl with two arms."
Can't...make...bad jokes...about...one arm...so...hard...
And then she said that she'd give her right arm to get a rose.
No but actually, then she gets up some courage and goes and talks to him and ends up getting a rose, so that's cool.
And she didn't even have to lose her other arm to do it!
(I'm so, so sorry. I'm sorry to my family, to my teachers, to everyone who ever believed in me...)
The First Rose Ceremony
Just because Sean gave a rose to everyone who brought him a cocktail does NOT mean that there won't still be a Rose Ceremony, everybody!
It's just going to be way shorter than usual.
But! For this Rose Ceremony, they separate the girls who have roses and the ones who do not, which is kind of suuuuper embarrassing for the girls who don't, right? Awkward Silence Girl (apparently her name is Amanda) gets a rose, Lesley gets one, Kacie does, too, then Kristy, then "For A Good Time Call" Daniella, and Teary Taryn, who practically starts crying again out of relief. Then it's the final rose...who does it go to?
Wedding Dress Lindsay!
Which means Fifty Shades of Drunk, Ashley P, Cruise Ship Kelly, “Lace”, Ashley H., Plain Paige, and Italian Lauren all got cut.
First Plain Paige (she never gets a rose!) cries, and then Cruise Ship Kelly does because she feels like it's really embarrassing to be the girl who sung a song and then got cut...but as my Twitter pal Kristin Lenander stated,
Plain Paige
"It's not embarrassing that you sang a song on The Bachelor, it is embarrassing that you cried after knowing him for TWO HOURS."
Cruise Ship Kelly
The one issue I had with the eliminations: why "Lace"? She was suuuuper pretty - arguably the most pretty girl there - and while she didn't talk much, she seemed cool?
Lace
Then a bunch more girls cried about being sent home and then the ones who got roses raised glasses of champagne to their heartbreak and disillusionment and drank the sweet, sweet bubbly elixir of their tears.
Predictions and Data Collection:
Top 4 Picks Thus Far:
Catherine:
Desiree:
Lesley:
Diana:
How many times Sean mentions Emily: 5 times
How many times Sean says "absolutely": 6 times
How many girls cry: 4
How many girls get drunk: 2.5 (I'm counting Teary Taryn as def. drunk, and Wedding Dress Lindsay as a possible)
The first girl to declare "I'm not here to make friends": 0
How many times the girls say a variation of "I just didn't think it would be this hard.": 5 (Ashley H., One-Armed Sarah, Teary Taryn, Cruise Ship Kelly, and Plain Paige).
And that's it! That's it for the first episode of the season. It only took two hours of television time and about 5 hours of blog writing plus photo and link loading!
A swell, well-justified use of time, I'd say!
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It’s basically like Nicholas Sparks-type lost romance mixed with ‘80s movie makeover montages sprinkled with elements of My Best Friend’s Wedding capped off with 90210 Kelly Taylor “I choose me” vibes ✨