This season on The Bachelor -- a hot guy makes out with a whole bunch of women and America pretends that a weeks-long round-the-world vacation with tons of different fantastical dates breeds true love.
Juan Pablo Galavis is our bachelor this year. He was born in New York, grew up in Venezuela, appeared on The Bachelorette, and then became The Bachelor. He did a stint as a professional soccer player, and now works in a sports marketing job that allows him to go around the country and visit Venezuelan baseball players who tease him lightly about being on this show. He's got an adorable almost-five-year-old daughter named Camila Valentina (on account of her being born on Valentine's Day) and he and Camila's mom broke up a couple of years after Camila was born. He likes to salsa dance under overpasses.
His parents and Camila are joining him in Los Angeles for a couple of weeks so he can help impress upon the women competing for his hand that this little girl is actually the most important woman in his life. He's ready to fall in love and expand his family, ladies, and he likes to contemplate that on mountaintops as well as on the beach at sunset after kicking around a soccer ball!
He has no idea how to handle this many women at once, so he calls up former Bachelor Sean to get some advice. This show may make me mildly uncomfortable about the human race, but I'm not going to lie that there are far worse things to imagine than being the meat in a Sean-Juan Pablo sandwich. ROWR. "Who else I was gonna call?" asks JP. Well… your selection is severely limited given the success rate of the Bachelors, so it was probably going to be the one who is getting married on television in a couple of weeks. To be fair, JP admits that he knows the success rate is less than stellar. He then wins me over a bit by admitting he wants to call it something other than a "journey" (Sean suggests "adventure," which is only mildly less hokey) and then wins me over a lot when he admits that he's terrible with names. Seriously, when I've thought about if I were ever to hit my head on a bedside table and wake up a different person and try to go on this show, one of the first thoughts I have had is that the producers would hate (or love) me for my ability to forget someone's name even as I am repeating it out loud. It's a special gift. Sean advises that JP should admit that up front and go with it, and to just ride out the insanity some of them will bring when they arrive in wacky outfits. He also advises JP to kiss anyone he wants as long as he doesn't let the others see him do it.
Chris meets JP when he arrives at Bachelor Mansion with a little surprise: he doesn't have just 25 women to make out with, but 27! JP seems mildly terrified and admits that he hates hurting people so he's most worried about having to tell anyone goodbye. Sucks for him since he'll be doing it 26 times over the short while. And now… let the limos arrive. We are treated to a lot of screeching giggles and "OH MY GAWD"s from the limo before Amy L., a local news reporter from Florida, steps out in a red dress. Hugs, nice to meet you, so excited, etc. Cassandra, a former NBA dancer from Michigan, is up . After the obligatory hug and hello, however, they have a long awkward pause and I suspect I won't need to commit her name to memory. As she walks in he can't stop staring at her ass, though, so maybe that might win her a rose all on its own. Then we see Christy from Chicago, marketing manager, and fan of tanning and lip gloss. Christine, a police support specialist from Miami, is up . She's the first to try and make herself memorable by bringing a little name bracelet for Camila. Nikki the nurse then comes out and her shtick is to have him listen to her heart with a stethoscope to see how nervous and excited she is -- it's surely purely coincidence that this gives him the chance to basically touch her boob.
He seems mildly overwhelmed as the limo of shrieking females arrives and he meets Kat, a medical sales rep from Scottsdale who gets him to teach her some salsa steps. These ladies are keeping the bandage dress industry alive singlehandedly. Then we've got Chantel the account manager from San Diego who immediately and kind of bossily teaches him how to correctly pronounce her name and at least knows how to pronounce his as well, with the correct accent and everything. Victoria is a legal assistant from Boca Raton who originally hails from Brazil and Juan Pablo clearly finds her quite fetching. I'm actually surprised it took us this long to get to the first wedding dress introduction, and of course it's on a girl, Lucy, whose occupation is listed as "free spirit" and who isn't wearing shoes. Just… no. Okay, the dress may not actually be a wedding dress but it's floor-length and mostly white and she's got a crown of white flowers in her hair so I'm tagging it as such.
Say hello to Danielle, a psychiatric nurse from St. Louis who claims she's got a gift for him inside. (The mansion, not her pants, you dirty-minded things.) The girl arrives, not in a limo, but riding a bicycle piano, you know, like you do. Her name is Lauren S. and she's a 26-year-old music composer from Austin (as opposed to a somethingmumblesomething-year-old writer from Atlanta). She plays him a song and only hits one horrible, glaringly wrong note before saying hello and going inside. JP then clutches at his chest, but instead of having a heart attack, he seems to be trying to keep his pocket square in place as he runs in to ask Lauren her name since she forgot to actually tell it to him. He then repeats it and it sounds good coming out of his mouth, if I do say so myself.
We see a montage of girls being charming and presenting him with gifts before he and Andi sit down and she tells him all about being a prosecutor and how she really doesn't like to read that much. When he gets time with Sharleen he again talks about how elegant and gorgeous she is. He finds her interesting and worldly, having lived in Germany, and finally offers her his suit coat when it gets chilly. He excuses himself a minute to go get the first impression rose, but while he's gone she admits that she thought she'd feel more instant chemistry but actually it just felt forced. I can't imagine why, in a natural setting such as this, she'd feel like that. When she sees the rose, she asks, "Seriously?" and not in a coy, flirty way. He tells her how he wants to get to know her better, but when he asks to accept the rose, she has a long pause before accepting it. The other girls all then congratulate her while trying to silently choke her using the Force, à la Darth Vader. JP then leaves to go ponder to whom he'll give his other roses.
Chris then gathers everyone together and explains this complicated process before calling in JP. He thanks them all for being there, this is the hard part, blah blah, before calling baby bump Clare first. He then picks Nikki, Renee, Andi and Alli. There are so many "waiting, distraught, fretting" looks, I can't begin to describe how amazing some of them are and how some of these girls might try already to murder the others in their beds if they aren't picked. But my favorite thing in the world is the numerous number of shots of Molly who is just there like, "I don't care about this at all, but aren't I adorable in my bandana?" Chantel, Lauren S. (this is never not going to be funny to type), Kelly (and Molly), Cassandra and Danielle get the roses. He then calls Kat, but Kylie pulls a Zoolander and walks up to happily accept a rose and JP has to admit that he didn't actually say her name. Mortification abounds. While the remaining girls start to fidget and frown, he calls Victoria, Christy, and Lucy, who twirls back into place with it. Valerie may be horrible and catty, but I want to give her a rose of my own for her epic eye roll in response.
Then he calls Elise, and finally there is one rose left and a lot of pissed-off ladies when Amy L. is the lucky recipient of the final one. There are sad goodbye hugs all around, and then the others leave and cry. Amy J. can't believe she put herself out there during this single evening during which she had ten minutes alone with someone and that she now can't pin her hopes for a family on him any longer. Lauren H. cries while we see footage of the rose recipients having a champagne toast to Juan Pablo, which really just seems cruel after we've gotten a first-row seat to her actual deep and unresolved issues. This is as opposed to Kylie, who could picture her life with JP even more now that she's actually met him, and this is really hard, you know? Sigh.
For one final gem, Sean tells JP that he needs a "thing," and after deciding it's dancing, JP gets up and teaches Sean how to salsa. We then learn that when you're The Bachelor, your shirt tends to just disappear like MAGIC.
Lauren S is a writer who lives and works in Atlanta and hopes you'll accept her rose. She wants everyone to know: "The views expressed in my recaps and anything else I might write on TWoP are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer."