-We get our “introduction” to Rachel, as if a season of her lasting 10 episodes just a few short months ago wasn’t enough. You know, Rachel’s a lawyer. And when you have a lawyer as your lead, you have to shoot a scene in a courtroom to make her look all legally and stuff. Only problem is, no court in America worth a damn is letting reality TV film crew just show up and film in there. Her scene was filmed at SMU in Dallas (I believe I tweeted it out that day), and everyone in the scene was asked to sign waivers to be on the show since, well, they weren’t actual people who worked in a courtroom, nor was that a real court. But hey, other than that, it was totally real. I half expected Judge Judy to be the presiding judge in that scene.
-Rachel gets to have her dog Copper with her in LA. This is big since not many dogs ever get to be on the show. In the early picture I had of Rachel and Peter’s 1-on-1 date (which happens next week), Copper is seen on that date. So not only is her dog cute, but apparently has a great picker on him since he’s choosing Rachel’s fiancé three days into filming. Not bad at all. I wonder if Copper will be the next “Bachelor.” I mean, we’ve have the “Baby Bachelor,” the “Baby Bachelorette,” isn’t it time we get a dog in there. No, Nick doesn’t count. I’m talking about an actual animal.
-It certainly was pretty weird that none of Rachel’s final four guys had intro videos, no? Without going back through every season, I can pretty much guarantee that’s never happened. At least one guy who lasts that long gets their intro video shown in the first episode. Maybe it’ll go up in the deleted scenes. Whatever the case, some of these intro videos were more about telling certain guys stories, until the last two, which were there for comedic value. Lets break these down:
Kenny: He’s the “Pretty Boy Pit Bull” of wrestling. And has a 10 year old daughter, Mackenzie. You see the promo at the end of the episode where Kenny is bleeding. All you needed to do was pause that scene to notice that wasn’t real blood. Another silly gimmick to get people thinking he got hurt when he didn’t. I mean, does this blood look real to you? Me neither.
Jack: Lawyer in Dallas whose mother died when he was in high school. Pretty standard, straight forward intro video letting you know, “This story about his mother will get shoved down your throats – at least until he goes home in episode 4 during his 1-on-1 date.”
Alex: He played with Rubik’s cube. So I guess that’s cool. Can he finish that thing in like 14 seconds like that world record holder or whatever? I’d like to see him try. Pretty sure we’ll be seeing him on Paradise.
Mo: He Bollywood dances with his family and has for 20 years. Caila knew Bollywood dance moves and got to final 3. Mo does and can’t get past the first night. Which once again proves my theory: Bollywood dancing means nothing on this show.
Lucas: WWWWWWWWWWHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAA BOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!! There are no words. Except Whaboom. Learn it, live it, love it.
Blake E.: You know you’ve hit rock bottom when we’re less than 15 minutes into the episode and one dude is already talking about his penis size. Of course he is. I wonder when he and Lucas were both on “Ex Isle” together Blake would let Lucas see it? Then he’d yell “Whaboom” at the top of his lungs and all the sudden everyone’s heads would spontaneously combust.
Kenneth “Diggy”: He has 575 pairs of sneakers. Yeah, but did he fork over 5 hundy for the piece of crap Lonzo Ball shoes? Or $220 for the Lonzo flip flops?
Josiah Daniel Graham: Very formal introduction giving us his full name. We very rarely get that. With that said, Josiah almost seems too perfect. We know he doesn’t win, but the guy had the backstory, he’s funny, and basically stole the show night one. To know he doesn’t go that far is beyond me. Something tells me he’ll be crushed. Something also tells me we’ll see him in Paradise.
-Rachel gets to meet up with 7 of her girls from last season: Alexis, Corinne, Kristina, Astrid, Jasmine, Raven, and Whitney. And holy sh**!, Whitney speaks! Not only does she speak, but she relays to Rachel that another one of Nick’s girls from last season, Sarah Vendal, knows someone who knows someone who’s cousin’s friend is a former roommate with a guy who played basketball with DeMario once and his intentions might not be pure. Ummmm, why not just put Sarah on the show to say that? Seemed kinda pointless to have the mute Whitney be the one to relay that info. As I mentioned in Friday’s post, you know DeMario is the one with the girlfriend who shows up on the basketball group date next week and calls him out. Rachel basically tells him to kick rocks, and he’s dunzo. We hear the “girlfriend back home” stories it seems like every season. However, this is the first one to actually show up on the show to tell the lead about it since that one former Playboy chick showed up at the mansion during Des’ season to call out Brian Jarosinski. Can’t believe some of the sh** I remember. I can’t tell you what I had for dinner last week but I can tell you something that happened in episode two or three, 4 years ago. Go figure.
crushonspivey
May 23, 2017 at 9:29 AM
Steve, I know math is not your thing, but dropping 1M viewers is actually huge. Most times it is a few hundred thousand. But 1M is massive and a red flag. The show lost 15% of its viewers from last year. I don;t blame it on Rachel though. I just think the formula is getting played out, much like American Idol did.
And per usual, the early episodes are way too overproduced to give us ridiculous contestants, like Whaboom. We all know Elan made her keep him, and it simply is not believable that she would have. And that Whaboom he did after getting his name called was not funny, it was obnoxious and cringeworthy, and I was embarrassed they made Rachel say his name. What a joke. Time to stop with the fist night producer plants that are jack@$$e$ for attention. It seriously is dumb. This show has enough crazy on its own.
Congrats Peter. Alfred E. Neuman is proud of you. Now got make some adorable gap toothed babies.
rob22
May 23, 2017 at 11:31 AM
@crushonspivey: agree totally. The first night was completely unwatchable. Outside of snickering at Wah-boom, there was nothing there. And obviously Wah-boom was really stupid. The show is becoming a caricature of itself. The contestants come in with an agenda to sell something, get attention, audition for BIP or build their brand and it’s no longer even hidden. You have a professional wrestler, a guy who’s already hyping suits on social media that he wore the first night and Wah-boom, who I assume is shooting for a BIP appearance and some fun travel. I didn’t look up enough to notice much more. Yeah, I would have thought it would have played out before now, but there’s an expiration date for everything. Maybe a little too early for panic, but not too early to push it to DEFCON 4, maybe DEFCON 3.
ctrealitygirl
May 23, 2017 at 12:15 PM
I couldn’t agree more. And what’s with adding more to the typical 25 suitors?? I think I read that there were 31 and all but one or two are forgettable. Like you rob22, I skipped watching most of the show. Set my DVR and may scroll thru to see if I missed anything, but doubt it. If they continue to make the first episode such a sideshow their numbers will drop even more. Between Wah-boom and the ventriloquist guy (not to mention the tickler), I was so turned off. What a group of losers Rachel got. So disappointing.
RaRa
May 23, 2017 at 12:41 PM
On the show, Willie’s “Urkel” quick change routine was supposedly to help her remember his last name (“Urquelle” or something like that). But the profiles show Willie’s last name as “Gaskins.” I’m confused.
kimmyfromdablock
May 23, 2017 at 12:47 PM
The WHABoom dude was embarrassing. Acting like that is not appealing to any woman on this earth.
I thought Rachel was beautiful and charming.
rob22
May 23, 2017 at 2:07 PM
@kimmy, I agree that Rachel was great. I’m sure a couple of credible guys will emerge to make the show somewhat interesting. But to the point that RS always makes, the contestants make or break the show. That’s a bit concerning from what we’ve seen so far. I’m really not sure why they needed 31 guys, unless they were so desperate to find something entertaining that they threw some things up against the wall to see what might stick. It definitely feels like the shotgun approach to casting this year. Quantity over quality and hope you get some footage out of a few of them to make a show. Remember how much they milked the Corrinne story line last year & how Nick went along with it. I wonder if Wha-boom makes it through another show just to offer some footage for the show in Episode 3.
elizabeth82
May 23, 2017 at 6:04 PM
Astrid was the one telling Rachel about guy who’s a player, not Whitney. Whitney was still a mute. Surprised Steve got them confused since Whitney was one of his favs on Nick’s season.
I thoroughly enjoyed the Adam Jr. shtick, ha.
melanie88
May 23, 2017 at 10:07 PM
DEAN FOR BACHELOR!!!
shenanigans
May 24, 2017 at 5:19 AM
I think they cast 31 guys (rather than 25) in order to have a diverse group that would appeal to Rachel. As Steve noted, they had already cast most of the guys before Rachel was announced as the Bachelorette. Then, I suspect they added a few additional African-American men to round out the cast.
Think about it: would they bring on more than 10 African-American guys to compete for a white Bachelorette? They haven’t in the past.
abpbach
May 24, 2017 at 8:41 PM
Love your podcasts! They are well thought out, entertaining, and clearly natural conversations, which I value. Your guests are phenomenal – you either have guests that I want to know more about (Sharleen, Courtney, Michelle, etc.) or those that I didn’t realized I need to know more about (Ashley, Natalie, etc.). Thank you for bringing intelligent people on and keeping me entertained. Only thing I hate is having to wait an entire week to hear more! Can’t wait to hear what you and Sharleen come up with!
sprinkles
May 28, 2017 at 8:11 PM
Did not like Lucas on his last reality show. He was a total douchebag…why they would cast him is beyond me.