With the start of the new year I’ve been reflecting a lot on the type of energy I want to channel going forward.
Willingness to embrace uncomfortable situations.
Dedication to living my best life.
Unabashed sexiness.
Needless to say, The Bachelor is delivering on all of these fronts, so I feel justified in saying that my commitment to watching this season is essentially a commitment to bettering myself.
I have to start this off by saying – I’ve been a huge Peter fan since the start. Literally on night one of Hannah’s season I was intrigued, and he certainly didn’t disappoint throughout the season. Mike is undeniably amazing, and as wonderful as he would have been as the Bachelor, I’m definitely not mad at the decision to go with Peter. In fact, the only thing I am mad at is that I didn’t audition when I had the chance.
That being said, Peter has surprised me early on and exceeded my already high expectations by speaking Spanish. Some more detail-oriented fans may point out that this skill was revealed at some point during Hannah’s season, but there’s a lot less attention to detail when you’re drinking wine with friends and shit talking during each episode, vs. when you’ve committed to blogging about the show during Dry January.
Let’s meet some of the girls who signed up for this turbulent journey:
Alexa
Will relate to your friend who: Always seems to be naked around you because she “doesn’t see the big deal”
This intro raises two immediate questions in my mind. 1. Who agreed to be on camera while their vagina was getting waxed? 2. Should we be concerned by the evil smirk Alexa makes right after she rips the hair out of this woman?
Without going out of my way to seek out a ton of Bachelor content before the premiere, I recognized Alexa from posts I’d scrolled through in my feed, which leads me to suggest that she’s going to be at least somewhat significant on the show.
Hannah Ann
Will relate to your friend who: Is constantly posting old travel photos to her Instagram feed months after the trip is over
This is the type of confidence I need to start bringing into my dating life in 2020.
Hannah’s dad talking about Peter like he already knows him is honestly probably just a result of him being eager for his daughter to “finally meet a good guy” – speaking from someone who hears that sentiment every time they talk to their mom.
Tammy
Will relate to your friend who: Humble brags about how much she squats on her Instagram
This is essentially the equivalent of me professing my love for someone because he’s a chef and I love to eat. However, Tammy is clearly not someone to fuck with, so this is probably not a comparison I would ever feel comfortable making to her face.
Victoria P
Will relate to your friend who: Is constantly getting asked “how are you still single?”
I get the sense that this largely sums up what it’s like to live in Alexandria, Louisiana as a single 27-year-old. It’s easy to roast her for tearing up when she talks about Peter, but I would probably cry at the chance to find love too if I were constantly getting barraged about reminders of my steadily declining fertility.
But in all seriousness, she does seem like a very sweet girl, and I have an inkling that she’ll be one to watch throughout the season.
Kelley
Will relate to your friend who descries her family vacations as “work retreats”
First of all, I’m getting major Succession vibes from this family law office shot, particularly after Roman her brother snuck in the obligatory mile high joke.
Secondly, I think this is the first scenario (at least in recent seasons) where a contestant who knows the lead isn’t either a past hookup who turns out to be a bit psycho or a former babysitting client trying to act out some childhood fantasy.
Madison
Will relate to your friend who: Brags about the fantasy football team that she makes her brother set the lineup for every week
Pretty sure the Bachelor producers heard this and interpreted it as “I am someone who is frequently entangled in drama and will boost your ratings.”
I also wondered to myself just how relevant it is to brag about your high school basketball championships – but I’m now convinced it was just a clever ploy to put her amazingly toned thighs on display, and I have to respect it.
Maurissa
Maurissa may pride herself on having a career that helps women feel good about themselves, but I’m not sure I’d be feeling to amazing if I walked in for a plastic surgery appointment only to come face to face with a legit bombshell. If I had to pick a top girl crush from night one it would be her. In my personal opinion, Peter is almost as much of an idiot as the reporters who body shamed her for sending her home so early.
Peter steps out of the limo, and while I’m initially rolling my eyes at the cameraperson’s slow pan upwards as he emerges…I quickly find myself impressed at how good he looks in his tux. Touche, ABC, you got me, and apparently Chris Harrison as well.
Naturally Chris can’t just dole out a compliment without subsequently delivering a hard-hitting question – “Are you over that heartbreak, are you over Hannah?” [Spoiler alert- he isn’t…but we’ll come to that].
The first few girls are standard introductions – I feel like they always bring out the girls with normal introductions first so they can sit around in the house and throw shade at the subsequent girls who put it all out there. Let’s do a roll call of some of the cliches we saw this evening:
Pilot jokes: 7 (including 3 literal flight attendants)
References to Hannah (by name or Alabama mention): 3
Windmill references: 4
Ummm…this isn’t even a joke? It’s literally like a confirmation of facts. Then she literally kept repeating it during her confessionals and all throughout the house.
The ones about sex: 4
Unclear if Katrina got sent home because of how awkward her intro was, or because her look was reminiscent of Cache prom looks from 2008.
He didn’t even let her finish, for both of their sakes.
My personal favorites:
Clearly she made a positive impression on both Peter…
and the girls in the house (even if their reactions were more envy).
In my opinion, arguably the sexiest entrance was Kiarra’s. No joke about your waxed vagina even compares to the hotness of demonstrating that you can contort your body enough to squeeze it into a suitcase.
This may have been the boldest entrance of all! The choice to walk up totally causally, with no theatrics, not even forced enthusiasm in an attempt to come across as bubbly, is a brave one. Even the outfit she wore – it’s not something I would have chosen personally, but I feel like her choice to wear a totally understated black dress and pull her hair back with a printed headband reflects a sort of upfront confidence.
But I think it’s pretty definitive which limo exit had the greatest impact:
It’s unclear if the girls are screaming in frustration over the fact that Hannah may be back for round 5 (guess I’m guilty of the cliches too, I’m only human), or if they’re fangirling.
Right off the bat, she tries to friend zone him
The stated reason (at least for now) for her showing up to return the cufflinks is a sweet way to symbolize her passing the torch. And yet, it still feels a bit fucked up. I wouldn’t want my ex showing up at my door unexpectedly to give me a pep talk on the first night that I downloaded the dating apps post-breakup, so I can’t imagine Peter’s feeling great about seeing his ex right as he’s about to embark on this journey to officially move on.
Following that plot twist, night one in the mansion is unfolding exactly as we would expect it to..
Girls are getting wasted:
Girls are getting interrupted:
and some of those interruptions are exceedingly polite:
Girls are crying:
Girls are getting into confrontations about being interrupted (although this particular confrontation feels more like a conversation I’d initiate with my boss in an attempt to negotiate for a higher salary).
Girls are getting fiesty:
Girls are making out with him. A lot of girls.
While Hannah Ann wasn’t the first kiss of the night (we can’t forget our blindfold bandit), she WAS the first one we saw Peter initiate a kiss with.
Second in cringe worthiness to the blindfolded kiss was this handcuffed one:
And literally pulling his head towards yours isn’t too far behind. I don’t know who looks thirstier here – Mykenna for pulling him towards her, or Natasha for lurking with a cup of TEA in hand while they make out.
Any credit I gave Hannah Ann for getting an organic kiss from Peter was revoked when she A. Referred to herself in the third person B. Demanded a second kiss.
Hannah Ann’s claims that this is “out of her element” and that she “hasn’t ever” gone after something she’s wanted like this before are about as believable as dating profiles from guys say they’re “Not interested in one night stands.”
Girls are having deep conversations.
One conversation topic I want to call out isthe idea of parents who are still together serving as a marriage blueprint for their children to follow. It came up on four separate occasions – Hannah Ann brought up her parents’ 26-year marriage, Mykenna brought up her grandparents’ marriage of 61 years, Kylie later brought up her parents’ 30-year marriage, and Madison talked about it later in the episode on her one-on-one. Madison’s discussion is the one that really stuck with me, as Peter minced no words in expressing exactly how much that means to him:
As someone whose parents separated when I was in high school, I can’t claim that I’ve had that model example to look to through my life. My dad passed away a few years after this separation, so when that topic comes up with dates, the conversation tends to pivot back to my mom shortly thereafter. While I’m not actively hiding that part of my life, I do tend to find myself feeling relief at the fact that I don’t have to dive into what my parents’ married life was like. While it still doesn’t allow me to benefit from the halo of parents who are still together and very much in love, at the very least I’m not left feeling like I have to do more to prove that I’m capable of sustaining a happy long term relationship. Somehow I don’t think I would earn as many points by expressing that experiencing my parents’ separation was super valuable in teaching me what I don’t want from a relationship.
Diving back into the events of the night, it’s crazy how inconsequential a rose ceremony can feel when the entire episode is 3 hours long and you have yet to learn everyone’s names. Two moments did stand out though:
I couldn’t help but read into Natasha’s VERY deliberate hand placement on Mykenna’s shoulder as she was walking down to accept her rose.
Also, the look on Deandrea’s face – it basically captures the look I get whenever a particularly hot guy likes me on Hinge:
And to make it even better, she did it AGAIN when her name was called on the date card:
Finally we get our first group date, and the girls’ apparel has convinced me that any workout top I own that is not a crop might as well be discarded immediately
I actually love the competition dates. First of all, they’re ripe for embarrassment
Someone is inevitably triggered by something (or in the case of Annaliese in Ari’s season, a few somethings). This is particularly entertaining because the producers have now leaned into it with these dramatic reenactments:
But what I TRULY love is how telling they tend to be about the lead’s feelings. One past example comes to mind, coincidentally also on Ari’s season – the bowling date. The winning team was supposed to get Ari all to themselves for the rest of the evening, but after the winners were identified Ari threw out the rules so everyone could spend the night with him, which didn’t go over well. From my perspective, that move implies that there was at least one girl in the losing group who Ari wanted more time with, so he said to hell with the rulebook. If he didn’t care about any of the girls on that team, there’s no real reason to change the rules to make them feel better at the expense of spending more quality time with a smaller group of girls.
On the surface, the situation Peter found himself in on this date was very different, but at its moral core the issue was the same. Does he honor the hard and fast rules of the relay race and disqualify Kelley for cutting through the course to finish first? Or does he turn a blind eye to how she won and call a W a W? If Peter had liked Tammy more I think it’s fair to guess that he would have done the former. Even if he had no preference between the two girls he probably still would have disqualified Kelley for the sake of being fair and objective. His willingness to ignore the rules and award her with the one on one time makes his preference pretty clear. The other girls shouldn’t be upset that Kelley cheated – they should be upset that they’ve now been presented with a clear indication of her frontrunner status.
Also note, he doubled down on this decision in front of all the other girls while awarding her with the group date rose, and presented her approach not as “here’s to someone who was willing to cheat to get ahead,” but in a decidedly more positive light:
Now moving on to the one-on-one portion- from Madison’s perspective, what an amazing time to bond with Peter on a deeper level than any of the other girls will have the opportunity to at this early stage. From his family’s perspective…if Madison and Peter don’t wind up working out, then this is the vow renewal equivalent of having to photoshop an ex out of your family wedding photos. No pressure, Madison.
At least one family member is not having it:
Luckily for Madison, it seems that she DID win over the approval of the family member whose opinion matters most:
Of course they couldn’t leave it there, they had to drive it home with the oh so symbolic bouquet toss
An outcome that I’m sure Peter’s single female cousins were absolutely thrilled with.
The biggest question to come out of any one-on-one always comes at the end of the evening…which random country artist will be performing this time?
Oh, and I suppose there’s the question of whether or not she gets the rose…which in tonight’s case was much less of a mystery than Tenile Arts.
The episode ends with a surprise second one on one…with Hannah B, of all people.
It’s a romance story as old as time…girl meets guy, girl falls for guy, girl looks for a sign that guy is the one, guy overdelivers with four “signs” inside of a windmill.
Having to participate in one of these performance dates on stage would be my worst nightmare, because they always pick the most demoralizing thing for the contestants to have to do – and telling a sex story is right in that same category. That being said, I LOVE watching the inevitable trainwreck that always follows, and oddly hope that the ensuing drama with Hannah doesn’t derail us from getting to see that disaster play out in front of an audience next week.
Naturally we have to see this play out between Hannah and Peter, and we see that (spoiler alert) Peter wasn’t exactly being honest when he told Chris that he was over Hannah the start of the episode.
Not to be dramatic, but Hannah in this moment is probably reflecting on how she made the biggest mistake of her life thus far. Picking Jed to begin with…honestly, just why? Picking Jed when you have Tyler and Peter vying for your heart as well?? Preposterous. And to make matters worse – imagine scrolling through your social media and being bombarded with posts of your exes with their new girlfriends, but those girlfriends are Gigi Hadid and a mansion full of 30 women.
From Peter’s perspective, this is so incredibly unfair I can’t believe it. Between the premature family introduction on his one-on-one to an ex coming back, I feel like the producers are dragging him through some episode 10 level drama before he’s even had a chance to get acclimated. On top of that, he now has to grapple with both the knowledge that he shouldn’t be relegated to someone’s third choice after the first two don’t work out…
And his residual feelings for Hannah
Hannah’s decision to take a step back and distance herself from Peter in this moment is very interesting, and almost seems strategic, as if she realizes the conversation is being driven by passion without consideration for the reality they’re actually in.
Unfortunately I think it’s safe to assume that Hannah does not in fact stay, which is a shame because it would truly solidify Chris Harrison’s continued promises to deliver “the most dramatic season ever.” That being said, my curiosity is still piqued, and I look forward to seeing how we end up here:
To recap and take a look forward…
Upsets of the episode:
Maurissa’s premature departure. I’m still not over it.
Discovering that you can look like Victoria P and still never receive flowers from a man
Unanswered questions for the weeks to come:
- Why does Peter have a scar? He has it at the time of hometowns and in the finale…
it’s clearly not there at the start of the season.
- What exactly happened when Kelley met Peter? Here’s what we know:
- She applied to be on the show before knowing it was him, then met him after Peter was announced as the Bachelor…yet her intro video references the mile high club joke.
- They “met in a hotel lobby” and somehow wound up dancing together, as evidenced by Peter’s invitation to “pick up where they left off
I also I love the expressed frustration that Kelley has a leg-up because she’s met Peter “in real life” – a perfect reminder of the bizarreness that is Bachelor Mansion and the related dates.
Frontrunners
Hannah Ann
She got the first impression rose, and she’s the only one Peter voluntarily initiated a kiss with on night one. Enough said.
Madison
Assuming the quote from Peter’s mom from the opening scene
wasn’t somehow taken out of context, I can only wonder if she’s talking about Madison? Realistically, she wouldn’t feel that strongly about one of the two girls who make it to Peter’s home at the end of all this. Surely, she’ll probably have some sort of preference between the two, but it’s unlikely that enough of a bond would be formed after one sterile interaction to elicit this response.
Alayah
first out of the limo. Check. Amazing rack. Check. Note from a grandmother with the same name as the Bachelor. Check.
Lauren
I’m getting major Sienne vibes, and she clearly made an impression
Victoria P
I’m not quite sure how to articulate why I feel so strongly about her being a frontrunner…but maybe it’s because she’s both thrown up around Peter and worn her glasses in front of him. If I ever attain this level of comfort around a guy, I’ve probably skipped ahead in my mind to imagine what it would be like to live together.
Chopping block
Hannah’s makeup artist
