And, they’re off! Bachelor Pad is back, my friends, and in the two-hour season premiere Monday night we have already seen (by my count): 1 bout of tears, 1 case of spit-swapping, 3 skinny-dippers, and 1.5 Erica Rose temper tantrums. Yep, looks like the gang is all here. And I, for one, couldn’t be more glad to see them.
Since the entire Bachelor/ette/Pad franchise is based completely on being revolutionary, groundbreaking, and truly important television, for Season 3 of Bachelor Pad the powers that be have decided to throw five innocent(ish) super fans into the deep end with the vicious alums. Who are these doomed kids? Let’s meet em.
Paige: This bubbly brunette either looks a lot like Rose McGowan or I watched too much Charmed in my youth. But, irregardless, she’s cute and really knows how to make a good first impression. “When I see everyone, I’m feeling like I’m going to pee my pants — which was happened before,” she tells the camera. I don’t know about you, but I love talking about my lack of bladder control on the first date.
Chris: Chris is a burly SWAT team member who likes to unwind after a long day of kicking ass with a nice glass of Cabernet Sauvignon, a Snuggie, and five hours of The Bachelorette on his DVR. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but something about this guy makes me want to do the loser cough. Wish I could figure out what it could be…
Donna: Holy fame! Bikini-clad Donna ended up on this show by accident when she stumbled into the wrong room in search of the Jersey Shore open casting call. Enough said.
David: This professional fighter may look like he’s been hit in the face a dozen too many times, but I’m positive he’s got a heart of gold. Somewhere. He also has an interesting taste in women, as exemplified by his self-proclaimed crush on both Lindzi and Blakely. Orange women are a turn-on? I’m not sure what else those two have in common.
Brittany and Erica: Twins! These two blondes share one brain and one vote on the show, as is only fair. Erica is a virgin and Brittany is… not. This is like one pizza delivery man away from a bad pornographic videotape. Fun fact about Brittany and Erica: When seen without their makeup, these ladies look like the little girl from Andre (you know, the sea lion movie).
As the contestants filter into the house one-by-one, the air immediately begins to spark from all the built up dramatic energy. Reid has some unfinished business with Ed, Chris B. is ready to mingle now that his “healing time” post his whopping dumping by Emily Maynard is complete, and Erica Rose is, here. Let me tell ya, the beginnings of this meet and greet are more awkward than a first kiss with braces. Things go from bad to worse when Ryan, the guy no one remembers, says to the camera, “Everyone knew me on DeAnna’s season as the 28-year-old virgin. Now I’m the 32-year-old virgin.” Dude, don’t lead with that. I promise you, it won’t help you change your prospects.
As all the girls pretend to be nice to Blakely Fakely (while then trashing her behind her back like real friends do), Ed begins to drink like a fish. Then he strips down to his tighty whiteys and starts swimming like one. He can’t even be reigned in to listen to Chris Harrison’s explanation of the rules. Watching Ed dive into the hot tub brings a flurry of words to mind, including both “train wreck” and “awesome,” which I now know are not mutually exclusive.
For those of you unfamiliar with how Bachelor Pad works, I pity you. But luckily, Chris Harrison is here to explain it. On Bachelor Pad, as in life, it is boys vs. girls. At the end of each week, the contestants will vote each other off Survivor style. The boys vote for the girl they want to see gone, and the girls vote for the boy they want to give the boot. Leading up to the big vote, everyone will pair off into boy/girl teams and each week they will all compete in the challenge. The winner of said challenge gets immunity and a fancypants date. Harrison then drops the bomb everyone’s been waiting for: They have to pair off into their teams right. now. As in immediately. As in drunkenly. This is a brilliant bit of plotting by the powers that be at ABC, because who is going to be happy the next morning with a pairing they made drunkenly the night before? It’s like how after staying out until last call on Halloween you wake up the next morning to find a Ninja Turtle in your bed.
The next morning, our beautiful bachelors and bachelorettes awaken fresh as daisies to the chirping of birds and the honking of angry drivers stuck in traffic on whichever Los Angeles freeway the Bachelor mansion borders (I’m from New York, I don’t understand how traffic in L.A. works, but I hear it’s pervasive). It’s challenge day, so everyone dons their Spandex and bounds out to the yard.
Today’s challenge is called “Falling for Love.” It’s full of cheesy puns (“You must find the strength in your heart”) and is probably too complicated to explain without a visual aid of some sort, so you’re just going to have to imagine it the very best that you can. The pairs sit inside giant heart-shaped cookie cutters and try to hold on while the hearts are lifted two feet off the ground and then tilted at increasingly steep angles. Contestants must try not to fall out of the heart while it is being tilted. The first team to do so gets one vote against them at the final rose ceremony. The winning team gets a date.
Erica Rose and Nick fall out first (which was totally Nick’s fault, shut up Nick we don’t even remember you anyway), while David, lover of orange women, and the twins win. I know, right? The twins? These two are the worst. Or, as Chris puts it, “immature and kind of ridiculous.” Go home, twins!
But alas, the twins are safe for this week and they set off on a perfect date with David to the boardwalk. David drops a lot of names about the amazing dates he saw on past seasons (OMG! Emily rode a carousel!), the twins suggest everyone goes skinny dipping, and I start to yawn. Because, really, no one cares about you three. At all. We switch back to the action at the mansion in the nick of time.
Back at the mansion, what do we find but more hair-raisingly electric drama. Jamie pulls Chris aside for a little Seven Minutes in Heaven, and Blakely doesn’t like that one bit. Oh no she doesn’t not one enemy little bit. Blakely yells at Jamie for not being a nice girl and then cries to herself because she really thought that people would like her now that she waxes people for a living instead of serving them cocktails.
And all of a sudden, it’s time for the deliberation. That’s right, voting time, folks. Let the scheming begin!
Michael Stagliano, who won the game last season and is just all around everyone’s favorite guy, is narrating every thought that goes through my head. “Oh my God, I love this game so much,” he says. “This game is fascinating. I feel like some people aren’t even playing it. They don’t even know that they’re on a game show.” The clueless person he’s talking to is super fan David. All the spinning from the rides at the boardwalk must’ve liquidated his brain, because he decides to spill his entire strategy to not just anyone, but everyone. Including Erica Rose, the very person he wants to vote off this week. Stupid, stupid, man. Michael, please explain what’s happening here for me, you have such a way with words. “The game is lying! Avoid conversations, and if you do talk to them, you lie to them.” Thanks, Stags.
After much planning and scooping and scoping and scapegoating, everyone makes their final vote. Due to an ill-advised Veterans Vs. Fans dichotomy that David Demi-Brain set up, it is just about 500% certain that SWAT *loser cough* Chris is going home. For the girls, it’s going to be a toss-up between Erica Rose and sweet, pants-wetting Paige. The decision hinges on the decisions made by Kalon (who hates Erica) and SWAT (who hates Demi-Brain, who hates Erica).
One by one the names are called at the Elimination Rose Ceremony.
Lindzi
Chris
Sarah
Ed
Rachel
Reid
Jaclyn
Michael
Jamie
Kalon
Blakely
Ryan
Donna
Tony
Nick
Erica
Which means SWAT and Paige (despite Reid’s twelfth hour campaign) are dunzo. It’s a shame, really; I thought Paige was cute. And lord knows my pun-obsessed self loved that Reid and Paige were teammates — get it, like, read a page? Reid himself pointed that one out, an act for which I will love him always.
Follow Abbey Stone on Twitter @abbeystone
[Photo Credit: ABC]
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