The Bachelor Week 1: I make babies everyday

Before we dive into the recap of last night's episode, I need to start this season with a warning. I'm due to have a baby sometime right in the middle of this Bachelor cycle, so I might go dark for a few weeks. Or for half a season. We'll see.

Did you sit down last night expecting a two hour premiere, only to hit the end of hour 2 and realize we were nowhere close to a rose ceremony? Me too. I should have known when Chris Harrison promised us A Bachelor Premiere Like We've Never Seen Before, he meant it would be a whole sixty minutes longer than any Bachelor premiere we've seen before.

Mr. Harrison also promised  this season would include a virgin who spends the night in the Fantasy Suite, a wholesome girl with an X-rated past, and two widows, because nothing screams ratings like loss of virtue/dead husbands.

After some red carpet nonsense wherein all stars of Bachelors past must fulfill their contractual obligations and show up looking like they still find anything remotely interesting about the mate they chose on reality television, we meet Bachelor Chris Soules in Iowa, 

where Chris works as a farmer. He owns a farm. Harvests crops. Sows seeds. The man farms. You got that? You better, because they spend like an hour showing him doing farmy things.  

I hope that the next Bachelor is an accountant or entry-level software developer or something and they spend a bunch of time showing him in his cubicle, next to the water cooler, walking out of the bathroom, etc.

Anyway. Chris wastes no time making the comparison between farming and love. "Love is a lot like farming. You plant a seed, you hope it grows, sometimes the weather isn't always on your side, but with a little bit of luck, something beautiful can come from it. That's the type of love I want to find." 

And then he's like, "Hey, do you guys mind if we take a couple shots for my fashion blog? Yeah, right here by the distressed concrete. Perfect. Thanks."

Cody, who apparently has nothing better to do with his life, comes to Iowa to train Chris for Bachelorship. Chris must exercise with hay bails instead of proper gym equipment because Chris is an Iowan farmer. Duh.

No one loves the second amendment more than Cody. Get it? Bear arms?

Wait sorry, no more jokes, this is serious, guys. Chris is leaving behind SO MUCH to be the next Bachelor. Like, it's harvest season, and people really look to him for leadership, and he won't be able to feed the world Monsanto corn from LA. He puts it best when he says, "I'm leaving behind everything to find my wife," because he's definitely not getting a brand new wardrobe or 5-10 years of relative fame or the opportunity to get A LOT of milk with out buying any cows, if you know what I mean. 

There's a quick break for some more red carpet shenanigans. We learn that Nikki and Juan Pablo broke up and that Chris Harrison has appointed himself family planner for all Bachelor couples and insists on calling their offspring "Bachelor babies." Yikes.

Then it's back to the action for a spotlight of the women the producers have deemed most likely to win/craziest.

Most of these girls seem to fit both descriptions.

Britt is 27, lives in LA, and claims to be a waitress, but actually spends her day on the street trying to embrace strangers.

Jillian is a self-proclaimed "strong woman" who lives in DC, works as a news producer, and can deadlift more than most guys she knows. 

Amanda is 24, lives in Illinois with her mother because she does not like paying bills, and works as a ballet instructor.

This is the least crazy she looks the entire premiere.

Whitney is 29, lives in Chicago, and works as a fertility nurse.

She wonders why she isn't meeting the right guy, even though she starts every conversation with "Are you ready to make a baby?"

All you need to know about Mackenzie is that she has a son and she named him Kale. Kale.

Alissa is 24, from New Jersey, and works as a flight attendant. 

Hers is perhaps the cringiest of all these introduction videos. She makes airplane safety puns and hands out roses to very confused passengers.

 I want this rose recipient to be the next Bachelor so bad I can hardly stand it:

Kelsey is 28, lives in Austin, works as a school counselor, and is a widow. It's sad.

But she's moving on with her life and she probably at this point made some sort of analogy about rowing forward but I wasn't really paying attention.

So then Chris arrives in LA and they really play up the Crocodile Dundy-ness of this small-town boy in a big city even though he spent 3 months in the very same city as a Bachelorette contestant not very long ago.

Cool effect, guys.

Chris continues to complain about how hard it is to be the Bachelor and we all feel really bad for him.

The promo shots are placed next to grown-in-studio corn because maybe you missed this, but Chris is a farmer from Iowa.

Oh man. I really hope the next Bachelor is a plumber.

Speaking of plumbing, due to ABC budget cuts, Chris is forced to shower outside. Or maybe the powers that be thought Iowa still doesn't have indoor plumbing and he'd be more comfortable showering like he does at home.

So now we're like fifteen hours into this premiere and we finally get to the limos full of women. The first to exit is Britt, aka Free Hugger, who hugs long and deep and then starts crying. This, surprisingly, does not prompt Chris to call security.

Then there's a handful of unremarkable introductions from the women who have someone in their lives who care about them enough to tell them to avoid out-of-limo-gimmicks.

Reegan is not so lucky, and pretends to give Chris a human heart because she's a donated tissue specialist. "It's just a joke," she clarifies, which is always the mark of a really great joke.

Tara shows up dressed like this,

is surprised to find the other girls unappreciative of her antics, then changes into a LBD and heels. She calls a mulligan and does the intro over, which I thought was against the rules? I guess there are no rules in Bachland.

Then a limo driver hands Chris a note that requests Chris close his eyes and turn around.

Amanda declares herself his secret admirer and scampers inside, and I guess plans to hide from him the rest of the evening? It's not a very well-thought-out plan.

Miley Cyrus's doppelganger shows up, rounding out the number of women so far to 15.

Are there going to be more? They all wonder. But when no more limos arrive, the women commence the ever important ceremonious battle for one-on-one time.

Britt tells Chris she's found a house in Iowa and has named their future children. Essentially.

Whitney tells Chris her job as a fertility specialist is very similar to hog insemination. Not great.

These conversations last approximately 40 seconds before another girl walks up and asks if she can "steal him away" like a giant, psychological game of steal the flag.

It's bad enough with 15 girls. But then. Guys. You won't believe it. 3 more limos arrive. We're only 32 hours into this thing, so why not?

Jillian threatens the next group of limo passengers with brute force. It doesn't work. 

Alissa offers an airplane seatbelt demonstration.

Jordan, the "student" pulls out the whiskey, because the kind of student who can take off mid-semester is the same kind of student that is always carrying booze.

Nicole wears a pig nose. I hope she avoids Whitney, the expert hog-inseminator.

Carly impersonates a 7-year-old girl performing at a family gathering.

Jade shows up wearing her costume from Striptease on Ice.

Chris makes a speech to his harem saying, "My wife is in this room," a statement that elicits "ahhhh"s from the ladies. It's an easy crowd. There's a 12 drink minimum.

Chris bounces from woman to woman and tries to determine their rose worthiness.

"I wish I was a polygamist right now," he says, and I find myself really hoping the next Bachelor is in fact a polygamist.

Ashley S., for whatever reason, starts in on the crazy talk. She might be drunk. She might be legitimately crazy. Or...she might be hungry. There's no way any of these women had a decent meal before squeezing into those dresses, and it's been like 76 hours with a lot of alcohol and no food as far as I can tell, so honestly, I'm just impressed that Ashley S. is still standing.

"Every person you meet is like an onion. You cut them, but when you cut them, you peel them back. And what you do is you peel them back layer by layer," says Ashley, probably because she watched Shrek on her plane ride to LA.

She tells Chris she wants to run through sunflower fields and also, she's never ridden a horse. Okay.

Then she returns to the producers and spots some sort of vegetation growing in the distance. "That to me is an onion...it's blooming. Take a freaking look at this onion. That's a freaking onion. If it's a pomegranate then God bless it."

"It is a pomegranate. Wow. I feel powerful," she declares. As well she should.

Mackenzie, who, quick reminder, named her son Kale has never heard of alfalfa. She asks if it's organic.

Tara imbibes a significant amount of alcohol,

on what I have to assume is hour 107 of an empty stomach.

Britt gets the first impression rose AND the first kiss

Tara is not impressed/is very very drunk. 

But this guy in the studio audience is like, yeah bro. Get it.

Then the menacing music starts and the women line up to have their self-esteem bolstered or demolished by one man's rose offering.

Tara isn't doing great.

She's about three minutes from losing all her Jack Daniels into the hair of the girl standing in front of her.

I got nauseous just watch her pull these faces. I mean, yeah, I'm pregnant, but still...that takes some doing.  

Chris makes an abrupt about-face and it looks like his Metamucil from that morning finally kicked in.

Actually he just needs to consider whether the sloppy drunk is worth keeping around. I vote yes, for the laughs. The producers Chris ultimately agrees.

Also, Miss Onion gets to stay and hopefully gets a meal.

Crazy eyes is sent home. Notice the morning light. That cocktail party lasted through the night and no one has had anything to eat. Shouldn't the fire marshal or someone intervene?

Shock or hunger? Hard to say.

Kara, who seems like a perfectly normal and lovely person is sent home, because normal and lovely is not what we here at this show are about. 

Kimberly is also dismissed roseless, but finds the situation unacceptable and marches right back inside to talk to the man she doesn't know at all but is pretty sure she loves. 

What happens next? Well we'll just have to tune in next week to find out, mocks Chris Harrison. Seriously, Chris? You make us sit through three hours and don't even bother with an ending? This is just like the first Lord of the Rings movie.

Fine. I'll be there next week. See you then, I guess.