‘The Bachelorette’ Recap: Meet Ali, and Her 25 Potential Husbands
S6:E1. Last season on ‘The Bachelor’ (I’m stealing that phrase for my own purposes), we saw Ali Fedotowsky choose her job at Facebook over the possibility of a life with the putridly perfect pilot (at least that’s what we called him in my house – his real name was Jake Pavelka). But ABC, being the sappy hormonal woman gone off her meds that it is, decided to give Ali a second chance to find love by combing the country for men in hopes of finding one pair of abs she’d want to pet for the rest of her life.
So of course, the last night’s premiere started out with the obligatory “meet Ali” montage, where we see Ali walking down the beach in flyaway pants and a bikini, kicking a soccer ball around (by herself), running, and gazing off with furrowed brows into the windows of the skyscrapers that surround a balcony that isn’t hers. But then she smiles hopefully, in her ‘Flashdance’ sweatshirt, and puts her faith in the producers she doesn’t know and have no experience in matchmaking (just look at their track record). Oh! And we see Ali go shopping, where she tries on a bunch of things and makes goofy faces, because she knows she won’t buy them but wants to seem approachable. It’s exactly like that movie montage in “The Sweetest Thing” with Cameron Diaz and Christina Applegate – just without the Cher.
Then Ali sat down with Chris, the host, and talked about her strategy. She acknowledged that the show does, indeed work, because even though she found love, she chose her job at Facebook over it. That led to us learning what Ali’s “sad face” looks like.
Since she knows she’s “ready” for love, she hopes she’s smart enough to tell the difference between the men who really want to marry her, as opposed to the men who are fameseeking manwhores. I will go out on a ledge and bet that each and every man there has a little fameseeking manwhore inside him, but I’m lucky because I have a radar for that and I can tell. Ali does not, and she’s going to have to work super-duper hard in that arena. Her strategy is to ask all the men to be “open and honest” with her, which are two of the most overused words in the English language. (As is the concept of a blind date, but whatever.)
Finally, just over 24 minutes in, we start meeting the dudes. But before we go any further, I should point out all 25 guys have the same name. (Little joke. But can you imagine?) No, they’re not all Dannys. But they might as well be. Of the 25 men, all of their names start with C’s, D’s J’s, K’s and T’s. There’s the occasional oddball, like F-guy, H-guy, S-guy, R-guy and P-guy. In my book, F, H, S, R and P are off to great starts because their names aren’t John, Craig, Chris or Ty.
All of the guys said they were nervous, and Ali met their admission kindly and affirmatively. However, some highlights were Jesse, who opened with the glorious line, “How do you feel about a Peculiar Man?” And no! I capitalized “Peculiar” for a reason! It turns out Peculiar is a place in Missouri, and it’s Jesse’s hometown. But Ali was a Psychology major so she didn’t know of that particularly location, and she was probably two seconds away from eliminating the guy right then and there. But he grabbed her hands before she could point him back towards the limo from where he came. (It should be noted I like Jesse because he seems witty.)
Then, there was Frank, who must have never met a car door in his life that he liked, because he exited the limo through the sunroof. We have a musketeer!!
Also, there’s Justin – who broke his ankle due to occupational hazards and started his crusade to get the “sympathy rose” by hobbling out of the limo and explaining he was a professional wrestler. Ali wasn’t smart enough to realize he must not be a very good one. There was one magician (Chris N.) who pulled a rose out from a nonexistent place under his tie. Kasey, bless his heart and his weird voice, immediately pulled an extreme no-no and brought up Ali’s “past full of heartache” within two nanoseconds of meeting her. The camera then panned to Ali to get her reaction, because it was important to track the moment she realized this whole thing might have been a mistake after meeting a magician and a guy who reminded her she left Jake for Facebook. But the last man I’ll talk about is Craig M., who stole my heart when he walked out and thanked Ali for not being Vienna. KABLAM! (Did you watch that show? Mostly meh.)
Oh, but wait. I’m really sorry. There are two more guys worth mentioning. One is Jason, who’s so totally obnoxious he exited the limo on the side Ali was not standing on, so he could have some one on one time with the camera. After “realizing” he was on the wrong side, he climbed up on top of the limo and did a back-flip off it. But I hate him already, and he manages to ruin gymnastics, something I tried very hard to be good at. And finally, there’s a guy whose nickname is “Shooter,” which I will most definitely make a point of clarifying for you in a few.
After meeting all the guys for 10 seconds each, Ali goes inside to meet them some more and steal all their jackets because she’s under dressed. They all start trying to steal her away from each other to talk to her by themselves, and talk about things like going to Paris, being risk-takers and scrapbooking in their spare time. Oh, yes! Kirk spent “like 8 hours on that thing” and “went to a scrapbook store.” Of course Craig the Canadian ragged on him pretty hard. (There must be a store in Canada for that.) This was one of the precious pages in Kirk’s precious scrapbook – which might be the highlight of this two hour-long episode.
A little while after Ali met Scrap-happy Kirk, she spoke with “Shooter,” and since you’ve been good little boys and girls, I’ll tell you why “Shooter’s” name is “Shooter.” It’s because his buddies in college found out he “might have like…prematurely, early…in college, freshman year, maybe accidentally…” Even though he said absolutely nothing, you, Ali and I all know what “Shooter” shoots, and how quickly he shoots it. Also, Ali wondered which producer’s throat she was going to slit for thinking she could marry a guy like “Shooter” who’s a quick shot.
Ali gave the First Impression Rose to Roberto. He was delighted and all the other men started calling him “Rico Suave,” which sounds a little, teensy weensy bit racist? Maybe? Chris (the host, not any one of the three bachelors) came out from behind a curtain and made all the men write down the name of someone who they thought was more interested in fame, rather than Ali’s golden locks. The votes were taken out of Al Gore’s lockbox and counted, and the majority of them men ousted Justin (the professional wrestler) as the person they thought who was using the show for exposure. Ali had the choice to keep him around or send him home. She decided to let him stay, which made the whole exercise useless and a mockery of my Monday night.
In the end, Ali had to eliminate 8 men and she elected to fumigate the mansion of everything “Shooter” and back-flipping Jason, lawyer Jay, but let scrapbook Kirk, Canadian Craig, “Peculiar” Jesse, Mama’s boy Ty and sunroof-fan Frank and a few others stick around. And from the looks of the preview for next week’s episode, we’ll be doing quite a bit of traveling and staring deep into the sunset. So for next Monday, your assignment is to find your passport, your sunglasses, and your Dramamine, because Ali’s quest for love is about to turn us all into bigger jetsetters than Donald Trump.
