Ahoy - The Bachelor Returns!

It’s been such a long wait since we bid goodbye to the Pet Beautician and his false love Jennifer (whom he had ditched for first-runner-up, Herpes Sadie, by the time the series aired) that I am overjoyed to welcome a new Bachelor and a new cheesy theme. Last time as we know the theme was Prince Pet Beautician searching for his Princess to sweep away to a fairy tale castle where they could give dogs facials together and ponder the deeper meaning of love, like keeping it fun. This season the producers have tapped into an 80’s movie hit, An Officer and a Gentleman.

This movie is okay if you like young Richard Gere. I was unimpressed the first time I saw it, but I believe I stand in the female minority. It is supposedly very romantic. I thought Richard Gere’s character was a total jerk, and that Debra Winger should have hung out for something better to come along – it seems like there were new OCS trainees every few weeks. I just don’t think it’s that romantic when a guy jerks a girl around for a long time, then decides he may not find anything better, so he gives her a break. Lucky girl. Anyway, I digress. If this season of The Bachelor actually emulates the plot of the movie, we can hope to see the following: An abusive drill instructor, a fake pregnancy, a suicide, and a whole lot of conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. So far we have the theme song “Up Where We Belong” playing relentlessly. You can expect to know it by heart by about episode three.

Let’s meet this Officer and Gentleman. He is: a navy doctor, an Ironman triathlete, a humanitarian. He is… Lieutenant Andy Baldwin. But I shall call him Mayo, in honor of Richard Gere’s movie character. Hey, let’s stick to the theme.

♫♪ Anchors aweigh my boy... ♪♫

We are treated to a montage of Mayo doing his various things – wearing a uniform, jogging on the beach, medically treating starving children, and angrily tossing a pebble into the ocean because he just can’t find true love. We now get a slideshow of Mayo’s life starting with childhood, and he was actually a pretty cute little kid. He did amazing things like joining the swim team, having a paper route, and mowing people’s lawns. He then received a scholarship to Duke University from the US Navy. (Yva Neht Nioj, for you “Simpsons” fans). It seems he was on the fast track to becoming a Navy Seal, but when the Navy offered to pay for him to go to medical school, he just couldn’t pass up that chance to do all of mankind a favor. He is now stationed in that most hostile of military outposts, Pearl Harbor, where he tends to the sunburns of the Special Ops Dive Unit. “These are my guys… I know them from head to toe.” Hmm. I won’t ask or tell. Next we hear all about the Ironman Triathlon, which is this insane combination of swimming, biking and running that you seriously have to be superhuman to accomplish. Well, Mayo has accomplished it six times, so watch out. He was also named Humanitarian of the Year for all of the starving children he has saved. Okay, so joking aside, he is a completely terrific guy on paper. Guys like this should have absolutely no trouble finding a nice girl to be with, right? So what’s the problem? Well, we have an entire season to find out! Mayo narrates that he is taking a huge risk coming to Los Angeles to find the love of his life, but he is way excited to do so. He then walks out and climbs into Marty McFly’s DeLorean to go and meet the ladies.

"I'm traveling through time to meet my 'future' wife."

Chris Harrison is back this season to tell us everything we already know. Mayo will be meeting 25 gorgeous ladies tonight, one of whom may turn out to be the love of his life! Also, tonight is Mayo’s 30^th birthday, so he is extra lucky.

"Allow me to clarify. This is a rose."

The DeLorean screeches up leaving trails of fire and Mayo McFly hops out to learn that he has to award one of the ladies a rose for making the best first impression. This season however, the rose is to be presented as soon as that lucky lady – whoever she may be – gets out of her limo. Do you know what that rose means? Luckily Chris Harrison explains. The rose means that she is safe through the first rose ceremony and will not be going home. Oh – okay. Now the limos start to arrive. I’m going to save a whole lot of time here by summing up the next 20 minutes in two blurbs:

Girl: Oh my gosh, it’s so nice to meet you. You look so much better in person! I’m so nervous!

Mayo: Hello. Thank you. You’re beautiful. Don’t be nervous. We’ll talk more inside.

Just repeat that 25 times in your head and you have the intros. Two of the girls ask him about the rose sitting next to him and the second one who asks gets it for no apparent reason. Her name is Stephanie and she’s a 26-year-old Organ Donor Coordinator. But Mayo doesn’t know any of that yet. I think he just froze and decided to hand it over lest he forget about it entirely.

"Chris told me but I forgot. It's a rose."

Stephanie prances in with her rose and the other girls are not happy about it. Remember, this is a competition, so the best thing to do when Mayo shows someone favor is to act really mean and immature. The girl who is best at this is Lindsay, and we’ll see more of her later.

Now it’s time for the girls to hurry and make some sort of impression on Mayo so that they can get a rose and hang around for Round 2. He walks in from outside and everyone starts drinking – a great way to put your best foot forward. Mayo narrates the usual crap about being so lucky to have 25 beautiful women all staring at him. The girls take turns narrating the usual crap about how cute he is and how perfect he is and how there has never been another man like him in the history of the universe. First-impression-Stephanie says that she expects to get rose after rose after rose until she gets a ring on her finger. Yeah, actually knowing your fiancé is kind of overrated. Mayo asks a girl named Bevin (yes you read that correctly) why she took the leap of faith to come on the show. Bevin says because Mayo is athletic and she’s kind of athletic. Well, you can’t argue with that type of profound connection. She then lifts up her skirt to show him all of her “athletic” scars. Good strategy. I’m guessing Bevin will be here next week. A girl named Tina says she knows she’s not the prettiest girl, nor does she have the best dress. That is actually a bit refreshing since most of these girls are almost as obsessed with themselves as they are with Lieutenant Mayo. Tina decides that her way to stand out will be to serenade Mayo with the Star Spangled Banner. It works and he cries. See you next week, Tina!

Yes, it was embarrassing for all of us.

One girl tells Mayo about her college boyfriend who died – um, okay, sorry about that and thanks for sharing. First-impression-Stephanie decides to interrupt another girl’s one-on-one time with Mayo to whine that he should come back inside. Stephanie, you have a rose. I recommend laying low before you piss everyone off, including the Bachelor himself. Ah, now we’re back to Lindsay, who confessionals that Stephanie is heinous and that Mayo should have given her (Lindsay) the rose. Lindsay is clearly here to make a scene because she taunts Stephanie about the rose right to her face. A girl named Tessa tells Mayo about how her mom met her second husband while hiking the Inca trail and that is why she decided to go out on a limb and come on the show. Then she tells the camera that she feels a huge connection to Mayo, but she has no idea why.

"I am definitely in love, yes. What?"

A girl named Blakeney (again, yes you read that correctly) is three sheets to the wind and now has the hiccups. After slurring to the girls that she is about to get some alone time, Blakeney thumps off of a bar stool onto the floor.

Blakeney saves her drink,
which is the important thing.

Lindsay almost has a hey-day laughing at her. She then marches over to Blakeney and gets in her face, almost demanding a stand-off, but all Blakeney has done is laugh at herself right along with Lindsay, so this is not Lindsay’s lucky day.

A girl named Peyton reveals that tonight is not only Mayo’s birthday – it is hers as well! The other girls are mad because you have to give someone a rose if it’s her birthday. That conniving biz-natch. Mayo’s head is spinning with the sheer coincidence of it all. Two girls decide to make Mayo a birthday cake to make themselves memorable, but finding no eggs in the refrigerator, they substitute tequila. Well, what’s the difference, you know? A girl named Linda who has man-arms challenges Mayo to a push-up competition. Linda thinks she’s got this rose in the bag because she is an obsessive exerciser, like Mayo. Well, maybe, but is she sort of athletic with some scars to show off? Lindsay jumps in to do some very ladylike squats with Mayo, but I think her main motive was to get her hmm hmm on television. No thank you, mean girl.

Once, twice, three times a lady...

A girl named Kate in a mini dress decides to do the worm in honor of Mayo. I hate to be the one to break it to our officer and gentleman, but the worm was also performed at my 30^th birthday party, and I can prove it.

I was the luckiest girl in the world that night. Definitely.

Next a different girl named Stephanie does some gymnastics in her ball gown. Okay what’s next, are some ropes going to drop from the ceiling with Bachelorettes twirling by their toenails and their gowns over their heads? Will one of them perform open heart surgery right there on the pool table? Sheesh. Well I was almost right, next comes out the gigantic pile of crap posing as a cake. Mmm, cake.

Nothing is too good for Lt. Mayo

Mayo makes a toast to true love and tells the camera that he can definitely see himself finding his true love in the group. Uh oh, Chris comes in tapping his champagne glass with a fork and we all know what that means… I bet it’s the hardest thing Mayo’s ever had to do.

The rose ceremony isn’t very exciting, and there are no big surprises (except that Chris does something totally strange and comes out to tell us when there is only one rose left). Plus there are still too many girls to really care about any of them, so I don’t even know who’s still here. We’ll get into that next week. The interesting thing happens when Lindsay doesn’t get a rose. She shoves through the rest of the girls to find her shoes, then stomps past Mayo and outside where she proceeds to throw a giant tantrum. See, she doesn’t care, and she just wants to get her stuff and leave. Here is her rant:

“I ran out of the rose ceremony because I don’t give a bleep. I don’t care. At that point there’s nothing left for me to be in there – there’s no reason for me to be in there. If I was blonde and had fake bleeps I might have been in there longer. THAT’S WHAT IT’S ABOUT, I DON’T CARE! I DON’T CARE! I’m not saying bleep else, I wanna leave! I want my bag and I’m gonna leave!”

She’s actually probably right about the blonde and fake bleeps thing. I mean, who are we kidding? Mayo is male. Now Lindsay decides that storming away isn’t enough. Oh no, she’s going out in the least dignified way possible. She must have reviewed the video of New York leaving “Flava of Love” right before she arrived.

“Truth be told, he’s short and his head is big and his teeth look fake. So if you want to talk bleep I’ll talk bleep… He isn’t looking for somebody who looks good, he wants somebody with fake bleeps and a fake personality. And that’s not me, and that’s cool. But I’m gone. LA is not for me. I’m over it. All this bleep is fake and stupid and I’m done.”

"I would never date him anyway!"

Of course, this tough girl thing might be more believable if she weren’t bawling through the whole thing. The other rejects all gasp or laugh while they watch Lindsay, so at least she’s saving all of them from humiliating tearful rejection speeches. Mayo toasts all of the remaining girls for making his 30^th birthday so wonderful.

This season on The Bachelor it looks like there will be a lot of contrived dating situations, a lot of cuddling and smooching, and a lot of definitely falling in love. Mayo says it’s important to him to have a woman who is willing to press herself beyond her limits. Wow, like going extreme camping? That is something to look for in the woman who will raise your children. It looks like the girls go swimming a lot and they even have to go to some form of boot camp. An enormous thing will happen this season when one of the girls gets dehydrated and has to be rushed away in an ambulance. I’ll pay you five dollars if it’s something else – you know she just needs a drink of water. The girls are putting it all on the line and Mayo is having the most incredible journey. It’s a dream come true! ♫♪ Love lift us up where we belong!! ♪♫

What do YOU think will happen this season? Are you with me on the dehydration theory?