Most seasons of The Bachelor start off with a strange paradox. They show us how the Bachelor is an irresistible sex god with 12-pack abs and an impressive-but-not-nerdy job who has also founded a charitable foundationthey pair adopted kids with adopted puppiesbut now hes finally decided to settle down. They show him showeringthey always show him showeringand I turn to my girlfriend and whisper, Go to him. Ill understand. And then, after convincing us that every woman on Earth would be a foolish idiot not to immediately drop everything for him, they show us his run on the last season of The Bachelorette, when he was dumped by the Bachelorettewho, of course, was dumped by the previous Bachelor, who, of course, was dumped by the previous Bachelorette.
This year, though, the show has at last broken the cycle. With the quick turnaround in between the filming of last seasons The Bachelorette and this seasons The Bachelor, the show didnt have time to see which contestants would be popular before choosing a new starso they went outside the box and picked a Bachelor who has never been on any Bachelor show: Matt James. (Unfortunately, not our Matt James.) James was a wide receiver at Wake Forest where wildly popular contestant Tyler Cameron played quarterback, and the two remained friends after Cameron transferred. (Oddly, his connection to Tyler is never mentioned in his debut episode.) James fits the Bachelor billhes 6-foot-5, ripped, works in real estate, and has a charitable foundation. Plus, his season-opening intro shows him landing an ollie, which is pretty sick. For all we know, nobody has ever dumped him.
Breaking the cycle of prior rejects also helped break another cycle. As it turned out, picking the guy who wasnt good enough for the girl who wasnt good enough for the guy led to a show lacking diversity, since the shows white leads were only interested in dating other white people. A Black contestant never made the final four of either show until Rachel Lindsay, on Season 21 (!) of The Bachelor. And no white Bachelorette ever had a Black contestant in their final four, until Clare picked Dale on the past season of The Bachelorette (if that counts.) Although the show has always included a handful of nonwhite contestants, their presence felt superficiala 2016 article showed 59 percent of Black contestants were off the show within two weeks.
This is Season 25, and Mattwho is biracial, with a Black father and a white mother, is the first Black Bachelor ever. Before meeting his seasons cast of women, he pulls Chris Harrison aside to ask him some questions. At one point, Matt brings up a tough topic with Chris: Matt says theres a pressure that Ive put on myself being the first Black Bachelor. He elaborates: Ive experienced what its like to be a product of an interracial marriage, and its tough Youve got people who are cheering for you to find love, and youve got people who are cheering for you to end up with a specific persona specific person of a specific race. Thats something that has kept me up at night. I dont want to piss off white people. I dont want to piss off Black people. But Im both of those! Harrison is a good host and clearly wants Matt to find happiness, but hes a white guy who has primarily interacted with white Bachelors and Bachelorettes dating white contestants. Hes not the right guy to provide guidance on this topic. And since theres never been a Black Bachelor before, there arent many people Matt can ask for guidance on this incredibly specific topic.
The show has put Matt in an awkward position. Hes being kept up at night by the responsibility of being The Firstand because the shows historical lack of Black contestants meant they reached outside of its normal contestant pool to find a Black lead, the First Black Bachelor is also someone who has never been on TV before. The shows decades of white leads had experience on TV and nothing to worry about but their own happiness; Matt is trying to simultaneously navigate his first TV experience while dealing with a responsibility created by the shows shortcomings.
The Bachelor is clearly proud that a barrier is being broken here, but it hopes you dont think too hard about how that barrier got to be there in the first place. Luckily, the next Black Bachelor wont have to ask Chris Harrison to ask about interracial datingthere will be somebody who has done this before.
Most Unfairly Edited Contestant: MJ (the Vibrator, Not the Person)
The contestant who gets Matt to laugh the most is Katie, who approaches him with a vibrator as a gift. (Matt repeatedly refers to it as a lightsaber, which makes me question whether he knows what vibrators are, but I dont think hed be laughing so hard if it was just a Star Wars reference.) She quickly realizes its not a great gift, since shell need it a lot more than Matt. She nevertheless proceeds to spend most of the night talking about her vibrator. She talks about how the vibrator makes her more prepared than the other contestants; she names it MJ (after Matt, causing confusion because theres another contestant named MJ); she offers to lend it to her roommates. She probably pushes the vibrator thing a bit too aggressivelyat one point, she interrupts a serious conversation about how Hurricane Maria affected Maris family in Puerto Rico by tapping her on the shoulder with the vibrator; Mari handles it gracefully but spends the rest of the night (rightfully) complaining about how she was interrupted by a vibrator. Its a bit of a one-note jokesex toys are funny because sex is funny!but Matt really seems to enjoy it.
The vibrator is easily one of the stars of Night 1but still, I think it gets a bad edit. As in, literally, the vibrator gets edited out of every shot.
On the last season of The Bachelorette, I found it odd that the show repeatedly talked about penisesbut censored Blakes sculpture of a penis. I get ityou probably cant show a dick on ABC. But the same question still applies: If the entire episode is talking about vibrators, why cant they show the vibrator?! Vibrators dont even really look like anything inappropriate! This is halfway between me joking about the shows history of overzealous censorship and a legitimate criticism of how we stigmatize female masturbation.
Longest Glance: Mari
The Bachelor and The Bachelorette both begin in roughly the same way: Contestants step out of limos and say a few words to the lead and then walk away, at which point the lead will turn to the camera and make a quick comment about the interaction they just had. However, at that point, theres a slight difference between the two shows. On The Bachelorette, the lead will turn around and get ready to see the next contestant. On The Bachelor, the lead will proceed to watch the person they just talked to as they walk awaybecause, of course, they usually do a Butt Stare.
And in all the years of The Bachelor, nobody has ever done a Butt Stare as comprehensive as Matts Butt Stare after his interaction with Mari. You ever meet somebody, and you dont know what to say? Matt asks as she walks away. That was that moment. Im trying to be smooth, but you cant sometimes. While still staring, he lets out a panta dry, hot breath, like you might expect from someone dying of thirstand says, Wow.
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We use the phrase jaw-dropping a lot, but while looking at her butt, Matts jaw literally drops. He experiences every emotion in the human arsenalecstasy, uncertainty, painin the span of eight seconds. He looks at her butt like an ancient astronomer gazing through one of the very first telescopes and laying eyes upon Saturn, filled with a simultaneous combination of wonder and smallness.
Mari is a former Miss Maryland USA, which automatically makes her a front-runnera former Miss Something or Other has finished in the final four of each of the past two seasons, and Hannah Brown, who went on to become The Bachelorette, was a former Miss Alabama USA. (Youd almost think The Bachelor was some sort of beauty pageant or something!) But we dont really need to know Maris pageant history to know that she was going a long waywe can tell by the way Matt looks at her.
Worst Contestant: Victoria
There are two types of fake job titles on The Bachelor. One is a good signwhen the show adds flourish to someones sorta nonexistent job to make them sound more impressive because they will make it pretty far on the show and the producers want its final contestants to sound impressive. Kelsey, in last seasons final four was a professional clothier, Hannah G., the runner-up the season prior, was a content creator; Luke P. from Hannahs season of The Bachelorette doesnt seem to have a job, but was billed as an import/export manager; and then there was Peter, a personal trainer who was instead listed as business owner because he owned his own personal training business. (Look out for one of four people in marketing to go a long way.)
But its a bad sign if your fake job title is directly linked to your opening-night gimmick. A few seasons ago, someones job title was listed as sloth because they dressed up as a sloth; last season of The Bachelorette there was a guy who came in on roller skates and was billed as a roller boy. Needless to say, those contestants probably wont make it very far.
Which brings us to Victoria, labeled as queen. Notably, her job is not actually queen, which we know because there are only, like, five reigning queens in the world, and none of them are 27-year-olds from L.A. with less than 5,000 Instagram followers. Shes billed as queen because, uh, her name is Victoria, which is the name of a famous queen. For Victoria, being queen consists of entering in a sedan, wearing a tiara, and claiming that shes the queen. Its never a good sign when the most interesting thing about you is sharing a first name with a more interesting person.
Victoria gets portrayed as the villain of the first episode, but honestly, I dont think shes interesting enough to even occupy that throne. Shes loud, sure, but none of the other contestants really seem to feel threatened by her. She goes around encouraging women to talk to Matthonestly, not a particularly villainous trait!and at one point, she upsets Kit by calling her a princess in comparison to her queendom. (When you realize that Kit bills herself as a fashion entrepreneur when her mom is actually a prominent fashion entrepreneur, you can understand why she bristled when being referred to as a more famous persons daughter.) But theres one scene when Victoria makes a big ruckus in front of a few other women, and when she leaves, they just laugh at her.
Victoria also shares her name with the key villain from last season, but I dont see her having that type of impact. Theres just not enough there. I think this queens reign will be pretty short.
Least Successful Gimmick: All of Them
I go back and forth on the opening-night gimmick. Some years theres a contestant dressed up as a dolphin or a guy who keeps saying WHABOOM and Im like, Hey, these gags arent even funny, and then the next year its gag-free and its just a bunch of contestants saying, Its so great to meet you! and I get so bored I start crying. So I wont issue judgment on the entertainment value of the gimmicksjust whether Matt enjoyed them. And guess what? He hated them!
Id say less than half of the contestants went gimmick with their intros, and of the seven contestants eliminated, five used gimmicks. A quick rundown:
Kimberly: Asked Matt if he could catchduh, he played wide receiverand then threw a large fake fish at him. I think this is because Kimberly is from Seattle, and the only things people outside of Seattle know about Seattle are coffee, grunge, the Big Pointy Thing, and the guys who throw fish. I dont know why they throw fish in Seattle, or why we dont throw fish in all the places besides Seattle. Neither does Matt. She is eliminated.
Saneh: Tells Matt hes the greatest of all time, then reveals shes wearing shoes that look like goats feet. Matt likes human feet. She is eliminated, which is a bummer, because she seemed pretty cool.
Amber: Rides up to Matt on a tandem bike. Because of this, she has to wear sneakers, and another contestant says to her I love your sneakers! in a tone of voice that implies that she was an idiot for wearing sneakers on a night when everybody else is in heels. I was kinda impressed by AmberI imagine its kinda hard to pedal a tandem bike as one person! Matt doesnt find it impressive, though. She is eliminated.
Casandra: Shows up in a custom football jersey reading Mrs. James on the back. This clearly defies uniform conventionsMatts uniform wouldnt say Mr. James, and even in the rare scenario when a female athlete takes her husbands last name, like with Lauren Holiday or Julie Ertz, the back of their jersey just reads Holiday or Ertz. Matt realizes this. She is eliminated.
So there you goMatt doesnt like gimmicks. I guess, uh, remember that for the next time youre on The Bachelor and Matt is the Bachelor.
Slickest Line: Serena C.
While the prewritten jokes usually fail, I want to take a moment to credit the smoothest thing to ever happen on The Bachelor. One of the two SerenasSerena is the only duplicate name this season, a stunning reversal from the Era of Infinite Laurenstrips while walking up the Nemacolin stairs.
Can you imagine if you did something as embarrassing as showing up on national television and instantly tripping? Id just go back into the limo. But not Serena. She chuckles and says, Its been five seconds, and Im already tripping off you.
Stop the show. She should be the winner. Her spur-of-the-moment line based off her own personal embarrassment was better than all the lines people actually prepared ahead of time. Yeah, its cool if somebody knows how to skateboardlike I said, sick ollie, Matt. But whats really cool is someone who has no idea how to skateboard, but can fall on their ass and say, Yeah, Ive been working on that, its called a flip side McDouble and have you believe it. If you ever meet someone cool enough to turn their screw-ups into slick lines, stick with them.
Smartest Move: The Bachelors Gambit
Meanwhile, the other Serena asks Matt if he wants to play chess. Chess is romantic, she says, lying. She walks Matt outside to a chess board with human-sized pieces, and they start to play. Matt says he was in his high school chess club. Serena, meanwhile, moves her pawn one space when shes allowed to move it two.
In an instant, Matt realized a few things: First of all, Serena doesnt know how to play chess. Second of all, hes the Bachelor, and there are 32 women, and he has to meet all of them in a few hours, and actual chess games can be incredibly lengthy, especially if one of the participants doesnt know how to play. Thirdly, he realizes that this isnt romantic at all. So he makes a brilliant move: He illegally takes his queen and puts it directly in front of Serenas king. Can you do that? Serena asks. The answer is no, but Matt claims victory and moves on. His illegal one-move checkmate ends a game that couldve taken hours. Its the most romantic game of chess ever.
Shortest Appearance: Emani
You cant always tell if a contestant is going home on the first nightheading into the rose ceremony, I wouldve guessed that Victoria would get eliminated, but I was wrong. However, there are some contestants who you can definitely tell are going home on the first night. If their initial conversation is clearly edited down to such an uninteresting snippet that you develop absolutely no attachment to them or memory of who they are, theyre a goner. So I had to stop and pause and write down the name of Emani, who was so obviously doomed from her introductory chat. Here is the entirety of her conversation with Matt, as it appears on-screenall six seconds of it.
Emani: I think this is … crazy!Matt: Did you ever think youd be here?Emani: No.
Well, I hope she didnt get used to being there. I dont recall Emani saying anything at any other point before her elimination; upon being eliminated, she hugs Matt and says, Nice to meet you!
I feel like The Bachelor is obligated to show all the contestantsthey gave up time in their lives to be on the show, and this season, they had to take a bunch of COVID-19 tests and quarantine. Theyre owed at least the ability to say they appeared on the show. (Plus, showing all 32 women gives the impression he has a lot of choices.) But sometimes, you can tell when the show is just going through the motions. Ill always remember Emani, even if she had the least screen time of any contestant in the history of the show.read more
‘The Bachelor’ Premiere Recap: Matt James Finally Breaks the Cycle – The Ringer
