The Bachelor Revealed

Say, is that a mochaccino you've got there?

"Hi," says Chris Harrison, welcoming us to The Bachelor, "I'm Chris Harrison, and welcome to The Bachelor." Chris strolls casually out onto a glorified, palm-fronded, swimming-pool-inclusive, but still undeniably Golden-Girls-esque outdoor lanai. He looks tanned and rested, and is in fact wearing a suit that -- in its monochromatic taupe and beige sameness -- perfectly matches both his skin tone and his personality. Chris delivers his dubious copy directly to his audience: "Over the past year, America has watched Alex and his search for a wife, fallen in love with Aaron, and embraced Trista as she struggled to find her soulmate." And though I have done none of those three things (watched Alex, fallen in love with Aaron, or embraced Trista), you really have to give Chris credit for how much he believes in this material, right down to his Emphatic Fist Pump Of Trista's Moral And Emotional Fortitude which underscores the word "struggled" at this point in his Journey Through the Hall of Bachelors epic song poem. "Tonight," we learn, "the journey begins again." Oh, goody. The six of us not watching Clay's fifteen minutes unfold on one channel or debating the continuing integrity of Aaron Brown's hairline on another can't wait. "We searched high and wide for America's most eligible bachelor," Chris continues, reading the words like they make total sense off of the Dubious-Copy-O-Prompter, a device that failed to flag the fact that the expression he's looking for is perhaps "high and low" or "far and wide," or maybe even "high and tight," which I'm pretty sure is a phrase widely used somewhere in the discipline of either sports or porn. Whereas "high and wide" is a phrase widely used in the discipline of never.

Strolling across the lanai and edging ever closer to Rose, the cheesecake, and Dorothy Zbornak (all of which clearly reside in the house beyond), Chris continues with his brave one-man anti-integrity rally, spewing, "Before we meet everyone, let me tell you what's going to happen tonight." Boo hoo, Fleiss. Show, don't tell. Chris promises that tonight's episode is going to feature "everything," from "how we chose The Bachelor and bachelorettes" to "revealing their innermost thoughts as they begin this journey." Forgive the crass generalization, but wouldn't the "innermost thoughts" of a twenty-two-year-old office assistant who is going on television to try and snag herself a husband be something along the lines of "Y'all, how does this bikini look on me?" or "Do my hips make me looking kinda, I dunno, 'hippy,' or something?" or "Do y'all think 'cause I was totally the president of my sorority my junior year at Villanova I can list 'proficient in Greek' as a special skill on my Bachelor application? Y'all?" We learn as well that we'll see the bachelorettes (or, as Chris calls them, "ladies," because it's suddenly 1940 and therefore no long socially acceptable to refer to them as "dames") "leave home, travel to Los Angeles, and meet each other for the first time." FYI, that's a pretty big set-up for a fourteen-second montage of planes taking off, Chris.

But first, Chris continues (too blinded by thoughts of what that randy Blanche is up to inside the house he's rapidly approaching to realize that the last sixteen things he's promised are all going to happen "first"), "let's take a look at how it all began." And considering how excessively this show condenses time (from meeting to engagement in six weeks, four seasons stuffed into less than a year) coupled with the attention span of the average television viewer, I'm actually a little surprised that "how it all began" isn't a cue for a montage of this episode from the beginning until now. It's not. But it's close.

"Trying to find an incredible single guy who has everything going for him and is ready to get married is no easy task." At which point Chris does not take the initiative to cock his two thumbs right in his own direction and suggest, "This guy!" Which he totally should have done, but didn't. Which causes him to lose some points with me. Oops. Too bad, Chris. Only seven points left. "For months, we searched the entire country for one of America's most eligible bachelors." Yes, that must have been grueling. I hope we get to see this experience firsthand in a "Take Your Bachelor Producer To Work Day" montage, which...oh, wait, here's one now.

A random montage of random couples kissing in hot tubs and cheesy men standing around shopping malls (meh?) dissolves us into the Bachelor production offices. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Lisa Levenson, one of the show's co-executive producers, who explains her job as such: "I'm actually finding one of America's most eligible bachelors and hoping to make a love match at the end." But Yente, my marriage to the butcher Lazar Wolf has already been decided by my poppy! People, Lisa's just in it for the love. We then cut to the great Scott Leffress, co-executive producer, who teases, "When we started shootin' the show, I knew we had something really good, but I had no idea it would do what it's done." He says "shootin'" to let us know he's just like one of us. And then a cut to Mike Fleiss, executive/producer and creator, who uses his oddly Buffalo-Bill-esque, 78-RPM vocal cadence to hypnotize us with lies: "Our first two Bachelors were very successful, largely because of the men in the title role." And I won't deny that this show has the best hair and makeup people in Hollywood working on that set, but just like they couldn't disguise Russ's constant and profuse sweating, they're having some trouble concealing Mr. Fleiss's horns and tail. Whatever. Just a note going forward.

Good god, people. If you're so in love with your own hard work on this show, why not seal the doors with y'all on the inside and tape yourself giving roses to each other all day? But first, let's hear from Sally Ann Salsano, a supervising producer (read: glorified assistant), who tells us, "Because the show is so respected, finding great guys is actually getting easier and easier. There are so many good guys, we don't know who to choose." This guy! Montage of photos in binders and email attachments. Oh, man. Look at these losers! These pictures don't do much to refute the fact that you have to be a mega-cheeseball to apply for this show, but they certainly do go far in answering the question of what happened to the collective store of mock turtlenecks produced by Aeropostale between the years of 1998 and 1992. The disembodied voice of Chris Harrison continues, "We narrowed the field to 100, and asked each guy to make a videotape of himself and send it in." More loveless dorks. A guy with a bike. A guy in a bed. A guy who indicates his "ghetto booty." A guy whose tape is in black and white, because he's from The Past and he's applying for Bachelor '45 on the DuMont Network. Those of you who didn't get a rose at the end of the USO dance...it's time to say goodbye.

Yente Levenson backstories further to prepare for the possible contingency that television has just been invented: "We need to find a great guy that twenty-five beautiful, intelligent women are gonna all find attractive on some level." More videotape. Guy playing football. Guy playing pool. Guy driving pretty, pretty sports car. The disembodied voice of Chris Harrison establishes the range of men, from "goofy guys" to "hunks." On the "goofy guys" cue, there's a quick shot of a really disturbing dude in glasses, patting an empty spot on his twin bed and making a creepy, come-hither noise. He is a Dungeons & Dragons-loving, ninety-sided-dice-rolling tool. He wants to have a Magic, The Gathering with you. Jeez, Chris, why not dispense with the euphemism of "goofy" and just say "virgins"? Not that the so-called "hunks" are any better. Yente Levenson tells us more of what they're looking for: "The Bachelor needs to open up to women and, in turn, open up to America." A tall, narrow man holding a glass of red wine underscores this point by staring directly into the camera and telling us, "Hopefully, someday I can tell my kids, 'This is how I met your mom.'" You know that character Christopher Walken plays on Saturday Night Live, where he talks to the camera and he's a total ladies man except that he's a total freak? All these guys are him.

"Finally," the disembodied voice of Chris Harrison tells us, "we narrowed it down to ten guys and began our extensive screening process." Interviews. Blood test. A guy handing a urine sample to a to another guy as co-executive producer Jason Carbone tells us, "This is the cleanest dating pool in America." Yes, thanks. I'll take that on face value time, without the extraneous pee-pee shots on my television, thanks. And really, thanks again. "Then, the psychological examination." Oh, I'd love to hear that battery of questions for the women: "Does the prospect of rejection on national television fill you with the desire to wail like a psychopath in the back seat of a limo? Yes? Welcome aboard!" And then they narrowed it down from a million to five, and we meet the finalists: Trent, Andrew, Dave, Dain, and Sean. Back on the lanai, Chris repeats their names again, sounding vaguely embittered that the Dubious-Copy-O-Prompter should put the words "Dave" and "Dain" right to each other, rendering the list almost impossible to pronounce. But he gets through it masterfully. Go, Chris. One smart fellow, he felt smart. Wait until he finds out that Dain's job is selling seashells by the seashore. Actually, it totally isn't. Instead, it's probably something ambiguously related to "finance."

And now, a look at four men who are just as much the new Bachelor as I am. They are not even slightly The Bachelor. What say we meet them anyway!

Trent is not The Bachelor. He is also "a thirty-one-year-old lawyer who lives outside Denver, Colorado. When we meet him, he is suiting up for a scrimmage hockey game that only he remembered to show up for. He tells us, "When I'm not at work, I'm outside doing something." And, just like we're promised, there he is, playing hockey, inside. He "practices contract law, but he's not your typical lawyer." Trent, not The Bachelor, follows that up by telling us, "I just don't fit the mold of your atypical attorney." Which...wait, what? The subtitles disagree, but that's exactly what he says. Does he think that atypical means, like, "super-duper typical"? He continues on, "In a law environment, it's a little difficult to get people to laugh sometimes." At which point we follow him running through the empty hallways of his law firm, twirling a giant pencil. No, seriously. That's what he's doing. I guess it's hard to get other people to laugh because they think his Giant Pencil Calisthenics aren't that funny. And also because, just maybe, those people are trying to get some work done. He tells us that he wants to get married and emulate his grandparents, who were not only married their whole lives, but were also "little tiny Italian people, probably five feet tall, you couldn't even see them driving in their car when they were driving around together, but they were always together." Wow. Those are some tiny Italians, right there. Well, it's nice to hear that Super Mario found love after the rest of us turned the game off, and it's more of a relief than anything that he stayed out of the way of the giant mushrooms trying to impede his progress through Marioland, and that he stuck around long enough to foster himself some grandkids with the lovely (though similarly tiny) Mrs. Super Mario.

Oh, no. Take cover...it's The Pants. Dave is "a thirty-six-year-old lawyer who lives in Maryland and is a triathlete." He is blond. His stature could be described as "Roman-esque," "Nordic," or "at odds with the regulations of the IOC." His grandparents were probably not tiny, as his genetics suggest that no lower-case, sissy letters have been allowed on his Punnet square for several generations. He wears The Pants. The Pants in question are a pair of red, plaid Skidz he seems to wear to the gym, to the beach, under his suit to his Maryland lawyer job. As he lifts a weight so enormous and heavy that it has a sideways eight where the number of pounds would otherwise be (that's right, America...The Pants can lift infinity pounds), we learn a bit more about him from him: "I'm in as good a shape as someone ten years younger than me. I don't even think they're in as good of shape as I am, so physically I think I've kept myself up." Hey! I'm ten years younger than The Pants! And I'm...sitting in my apartment, eating peanut butter out of the container with a spoon. Fine, The Pants. You win this round. But The Pants also wants us to know that he's "interesting" (no, he's not), "educated" (no, he's not), and "very kind-hearted" (no, he's not). He opines that "a lot of women find that I'm unapproachable. I guess another way to put that is arrogance." He's running in the park, temporarily okay with the fact that there are no mirrors to preen to, because that role is being filled by the tens of onlookers who turn to look at him as he passes. It's not you they're looking at, The Pants. It's the cameras. And the camera crew. And, far more importantly, it's The Pants. The Pants works at a law firm called "Webster, Chamberlain, & Bean." Is he a partner? Is he important? Are any of those people him? It's important to know. Maybe if the name of the firm were something a bit more explanative, such as "Webster, Chamberlain, and The Pants." Then we might know for sure. He continues that he's been around the word and he-he-he, he can't find his baby. He's dated "women with long hair, short hair, different color hair, different races, different religions." This sounds like a song about accepting people who are different than you are on a very adult episode of Sesame Street. Or a porno called Dr. Seuss Plays Doctor. "But I got to that point where I woke up one day and I realized I was looking for a relationship, I was looking to settle down." We need to see him put on deodorant during this? He finishes up by telling us, "If I was gonna settle down at the end of this, that'd be my goal. This is the greatest bachelor party in the world. It's me and twenty-five girls for my last hurrah." Oh, well, Dave. Hope you haven't already packed The Pants.

Dain is not The Bachelor. Dain is a thirty-one-year-old professional volleyball player from Santa Monica. Dain, regrettably for Dain's chances of becoming the Bachelor, is black. He is a Porsche-driving Olympic gold medallist who isn't getting chosen so why oh why do we care? "Currently, I'm single," he tells us. He drives through what appears to be West Hollywood, and as we meet up with him again at the gym (natch), he tells us, "I'm sure there's that girl out there who's the perfect girl, but I just haven't found her yet." Well, good luck, Dain. With the finding and all that.

Sean is not The Bachelor. And "though he's just thirty-one, he runs a mergers & acquisitions group for a mid-size New Jersey accounting firm." Is that something? Am I impressed? Does anyone know what that means? He shares some facial features with The Bachelorette's resident fugitive Greg: they have the same-shaped nose. The shape in question being "broken by the Mafia in a collecting-an-unpaid-sports-betting fracas." He tells us that he was once engaged, and that "except for this one circumstance, we would have gotten married." The producers break the fourth wall and ask, "Did you cheat on her?" No. "Did she cheat on you?" No. Then what? What happened, Not The Bachelor? "It was her mother." The ladies nod in sympathy with the accompanying, "ooooooh." Whatever, Yente. Stop pitying Sean because of the mother. You guys totally are the mother. We meet Sean's friends, Thinning On Top and Guy Who Looks Like Sean; Thinning On Top tells us, "He's definitely the biggest ladies' man in our crew. I think the show is gonna have some trouble finding twenty-five girls Sean hasn't dated." Ew. And off to the gym again, Sean tells us that he's not that scared about the prospect of marrying someone after six weeks. Except he won't. Because he's not The Bachelor.

Ignorethewarnews ignorethewarnews ignorethewarnews ignorethewarnews ignorethewarnews ignorethewarnews ignorethewarnews ignorethewarnews ignorethewarnews ignorethewarnews ignorethewarnews ignorethewarnews. Whew. Back to "reality."

"Welcome back." Thanks, Chris. "Let's take a look at the women as they say goodbye to their families and take a leap of faith to find true love." And here we go:

Rachel is a twenty-one-year-old student from what must be a made-up town called New Braunfels, Texas. She is "just kind of along for the ride." Rachel has a bikini.

Amy is a twenty-nine-year-old massage therapist from Charleston, South Carolina. She has cool, choppy blonde hair and tells us, "The other ways I've been trying to meet men haven't been working." She'll learn the lesson that twenty-four other girls have already internalized and start lying about her age soon enough. Amy has a bikini.

Kerri is a twenty-five-year-old corporate recruiter from L.A. who eschews the need for her obsolete silent friend "internal monologue," asking and answering all of her own questions like Pamie does when she's imitating my mom: "Am I desperate? Yes, I'm desperate!" Oh, great. Nothing a man likes more than a girl who can't lose the stink that stays on you after a long swim in the fetid waters of Lake Needy. Kerri doesn't have a chance or a bikini.

Christina is a twenty-four-year-old realtor from Palm Harbor, Florida, who tells us in voice-over from the comfort of a tanning salon (in a bikini), "I would love to meet somebody perfect to marry." Christina must be significant in some way, because we then cut to her house, where a man with a goatee advises her, "Take advantage of it," and a foreign-born elder of some ambiguously Scandinavian descent tells her, "Be nice to everybody." The Finnish people do not know how to be rude. It's lovely.

Apropos of nothing, I was just thinking that if I ever formed a rap group, I would lobby really hard to name it "Coalition of the Illin'." Would y'all come see my concert?

New York City! Where the streets are paved with montage! Amy is a twenty-five-year-old graphic designer with groovy skin tone and excellent lipstick instincts. She tells us that her parents don't support her decision to appear on the show because they're afraid that she'll "disgrace the family." But they're from "a different generation." Ah, yes. The Pride Generation. Long may their ever-decreasing relevance reign. Amy also wants us to know that she's never been the kind of person to do things "the normal way." Go, Amy! Give it up for the local girl!

Kirsten is a twenty-three-year-old merchandiser (a what?) from Tampa (a where?). Everyone's from Florida. Kirsten counterpoints Amy's parental resistance with her own experience: "They've been really supportive. They're just like, 'Just don't embarrass us.'" And, to make a long story short...too late.

"I am Mormon." Hear her roar. With father's wives too loud to ignore. Audree is a twenty-six-year-old hair stylist from Vegas, who hands us the easy punchline with her confessional: "I know [what the rest of us can only assume is merely one of] my mom[s] is [or are] really stressed about this." We check in with Audree's family, her dad telling us, "If she comes out of it with a worthwhile husband, well, that'll be fine." Damn, those people are blond.

Jennifer is also from Florida. Her segment is so short I accidentally fast-forward through it.

Courtney is vaguely Asian.

Angela is a twenty-five-year-old teacher from Williamsville, New York. Which, one can surmise from her Wet Hot American Summer prom hair, is right on the border of Michigan, West Virginia, and 1987. She speaks sagely in FortuneCookieSpeak: "If it's the right person, yes. If it's not, no." Lucky lotto numbers: 1, 2, 10, 12, 25, and 26. And for the supplemental? 1987.

Amber is a professional Rachel and Christina impersonator. Actually, she's a twenty-three-year-old sales/account exec (a what?) from Atlanta who wants to find someone to marry. Oh, really?

Diagonal stripes don't flatter Liz. Liz is a twenty-three-year-old event marketing director (a WHAT?) from Chicago with an Electra complex and chemically straightened hair. She tells us, "I'm looking for someone, probably, who is pretty close to my dad." Awww. Oh, wait. I meant, "eeeeew." We also meet Liz's grandparents, her grandmother telling us, "Would you believe this -- she has my wedding gown." We cut to Liz wearing a giant Victorian doily that covers her body head to toe -- the kind of dress you'd wear when you were living in the nineteenth-century English countryside, marrying a guy named St. John (but that your college lit professor insists is, in fact, pronounced "SIN-juhn") in the final thirty pages of every novel ever written by all three Brontë sisters, ever. Liz's mom walks into the room and claps her hands together in glee? Horror? Liz smiles broadly and tells her, "I hope I have a chance to wear this dress [if I don't first die of consumption or some other plaguing disease of this time-warped past I've fallen into]." Mom assures her, "I think if the bachelor sees you in that, he'll know he made the right decision." SIN-juhn Firestone, do you take Liz to be your lawful wedded wife?

Ginny is a twenty-five-year-old law student from Kansas City. She's wearing a big red sash tied around her neck, and she tells us, "I would make the perfect wife." Not at the end of this show, you won't.

Shannon, twenty-six, a human resources exec from NYC, generalizes the universe: "Like every little girl, I've always imagined my wedding day." That is so true. About every little girl. Every single one of them. Yes, America. Even me.

Jen wins the Bachelor pool for being the first person to use the phrase "fairy tale." Still up for grabs: "connection" and "journey."