Season 19 of “The Bachelor” is fully underway, with the second rose ceremony having come and gone last night under Chris Harrison's (and America's) watchful eyes. If you're anything like me, you were sitting at home with a bottle of rosé eagerly anticipating which girl would be sent home by this season's bachelor, Chris Soules, and hoping Crazy Eyes, aka Ashley S., would stay on my TV forever and ever. Chris Harrison makes it a point to tell the contestants that there are pretty much no rules in this season; Farmer Chris lives right up the road from their mansion, and if they want time with him, they have to make it. Keep that in mind for the rest of the season, because I can see things about to get really weird from here. I play in a fantasy league for the show — my team name is Soules Train, natch — and I'm extremely competitive, so I'm very invested in who gets the most time with Prince Farming. Let's recap!
Episode two begins with Kimberly from Long Island refusing to leave after she was denied a rose by Chris in the very first rose ceremony. Ouch. That's got to hurt, but it's not like she was the only one who had to go and everyone else took their rejections in stride. Regardless, Kimberly decided that she needed a second chance, and walked back into the house … and Chris actually let her stick around. I think his Midwestern ideals got the best of him and he just couldn't be mean to someone begging to spend more time with him. So, she stays. Not only that, she got asked on the first group date of the day, and if I were a cartoon character reacting to this, all you would see is a thought bubble filled with endless question marks over my head. The other girls were not pleased, especially Jillian, who I think could beat up anyone on this show if she wanted to. There's literally nothing they could do about it, so Prince Farming added one extra future wife (seriously, all he says is “my future wife”) to his harem this week.
The first group date — Tandra, Mackenzie, Ashley I., Tara, Kimberly and Jade — involved a rooftop pool party and a tractor race in the middle of downtown Los Angeles. Again, infinite question marks. I guess it makes sense because he's from Iowa, but you know, it's downtown L.A. … at the very least, the girls seemed to enjoy it. Tandra is super country (and was overly joyed to see tractors), but she drove up to the first night of the show on a motorcycle, so I like her. Mackenzie freaks me out (also, her son is named Kale, so do with that what you will), and she gets even worse as the episode progresses. Tara was finally sober on this date, which was exciting; sadly, she's also sort of boring when she's sober. Ashley I. is Kim Kardashian incarnate (she even says that in the episode that she's more Kardashian than country, and Chris is from Iowa? Does she realize she'd have to move there?) but even so, I have a feeling she's going to be around for a while. I'm not even going to talk about Kimberly and Jade because I have nothing to say about them — they didn't leave a single impression on me. Ashley I. won the tractor race and she got to sit on Chris's lap in a golf cart for which felt like a hundred years. I kind of lost track of this because we jumped so quickly to the next activity, which was some one-on-one time alone with Prince Farming. (Side note: while all this was going on, Jillian and Megan snuck into Chris's house and ran around touching all his stuff. Megan put his motorcycle helmet on and rammed it into every hard surface she could find. I love Megan.)
Shortly after the group date ended, Chris asked Mackenzie out for some one-on-one time that night. This is where things got really weird. I had kind of written Mackenzie off because she seemed sort of bland, but hiding under that mop of curly hair is one left-of-center chick. On their very first date, she told him that she loves big noses and that's why she finds him so attractive, and asked him if he believes in aliens. I think maybe she's an alien and she's trying to feel him out before she tells him she's really from the planet Jupiter. Anyway, she insults his nose and brings up the possibility of extraterrestrial life before she even thinks about saying, “by the way, I have a one-year old son and his name is Leafy Greens.” Whatever. It was bizarre. Probably due to #aliens. Chris gave her a rose, so no matter my opinion of her, she's here to stay at least another week. I left her out of my bracket for being boring, so joke's on me.
Rose count: 1
While all of this is happening, poor Juelia is confessing to the other girls that her husband committed suicide shortly after she gave birth to their daughter, Ireland. I'm going to admit, I teared up at this part. In all seriousness, it's got to be super hard to get back out there … especially on national TV. I feel bad for making fun of the way she spells her name when I watched the first episode, but what's done is done.
After this, Prince Farming leaves a note at the house for Megan asking her out on an actual, real-life date. If I remember correctly, it said something along the lines of “your beauty is a natural wonder.” Megan, who at this point had probably lost quite a number of brain cells from banging her head against the wall too many times, deemed it to be a love note and therefore thought nothing of it. I could feel the resentment from every other girl in that room (especially Jillian, even though they had just been house-raiding partners-in-crime) emanating from my television as they all said as politely as they could without inducing an aneurysm, “YOU HAVE THE ONLY ONE-ON-ONE DATE THIS WEEK!”
So, Farmer Chris picks Megan up and whisks her away in a helicopter over the Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon. Like, wow. If a guy ever took me on a helicopter trip like that, I'd ask him to marry me. Life is not that simple on “The Bachelor,” so Megan just has to enjoy it while she can. They talk and drink champagne by the water, and Megan tells him about her father's recent passing from a massive heart attack right before she went to compete on the show. Heavy stuff. A lot of people have really tragic backstories this season (two widows, dead parents, etc.) so it's got to feel weird to have everyone unload their emotions on you every time you go on a date with them. That's reality TV for ya, I guess. Chris is very obviously moved and gives her the second rose of the week.
Rose count: 2
Probably the best part of the entire episode was the group date, and that was all thanks to Ashley S., the crazy hairstylist from Brooklyn. For some reason, the producers of this show thought it would be a good idea to take a group of 20+ girls competing to find love and throw them into the zombie apocalypse … it ended up being a game of paintball, but even I was scared when the first zombie popped out.
The second date Chris went on was with Kelsey, Trina, Jillian, Becca, Alissa, Ashley S. (yes!!!), Amber, Juelia, Britt, and Kaitlyn. I love this group. Jillian is always my fave, Ashley S. brings the true crazy everywhere she goes, and Kaitlyn genuinely seems like someone whom I would want to hang out with. Amber, Juelia and Becca seem super sweet and interesting; Kelsey, Trina, and Alissa, however… again, no opinion on them whatsoever. I don't even know who Trina is or what she does… she hasn't really made a name for herself except for being the type of condescending girl who says “bless her heart” every time she disapproves of someone… but we'll get to that later.
Ashley S. was the true highlight of this episode, as she probably will be for the rest of the time she is on this show. If Mackenzie is an alien, Ashley S. is her overlord. On the very first episode, we saw Ashley S. freak out over a wild onion that turned out to be a pomegranate. She went on and on and on about this onion for an uncomfortably long time. Anyway, this episode she shot multiple zombies, which I am all for, but she also kept shooting them. Over and over and over again. She just wouldn't stop. The other girls had genuine looks of fear on their face, like she was going to turn around and pop them full of paint pellets. Not a single person in that group felt safe around Ashley S. with a gun. She found a few stray cats to play with, which is something my friend used to do in college when she was hammered, so I don't know, maybe Ashley S. is just drunk all the time. The best part? She kept whispering to the other girls to “go find your own truth” like a breathy-voiced blonde Yoda.
Confession time: I love Britt and Chris. LOVE. THEM. I don't feel right about loving a pair so much already, but if they ended this season right now so they could ride off into the sunset together, I'd be okay with it. However, that would mean no more Ashley S., so I'm ultimately against ending the season early so they can get married. I will not be surprised if she makes it into the top two, in fact, I'm expecting it. Either way, Kaitlyn gets the final group-date rose before the ceremony, which is cool, because she dialed down her own crazy a little and we're starting to see what a genuine, nice person she is.
Rose count: 3
It's finally time for the cocktail party, and things aren't looking good for the girls who have been in the house all day … because they're either super bored or super wasted. While Tara may have been the obnoxious drunk last episode, Jordan quickly and easily took that title from her this time around, twerking all over the house, imitating Jillian (which I have to admit, was actually pretty funny, because you can tell that our girl Jillian is one of those girls that talks about working out all. the. time.) and slurring all of her words together so that no one could understand her. Cue Trina chiming in for the first time all night with, “bless her heart”. Shut up, Trina.
Anyway, bartender Amber, sweet little Amber who we haven't gotten to see do anything fun this season, finally gets some alone time with Chris, and even gets a kiss! When Jordan finds out, all bets are off … she literally chases him down and screams, “ijustwannamakeoutwithyou”! Guess who probably isn't getting a rose tonight? Yeah.
Fun fact of the night: Ashley I. is a virgin and confesses this to the girls, who react nicely albeit with a tinge of jealousy, because they know this is going to make her untouchable in the competition. She then pulls some weird stunt where she gets Chris to rub her stomach like a genie lamp for good luck (apparently that belly ring is magic), and they end up uncomfortably kissing while everyone else sits inside waiting for their chance to jump on him. Juelia gets some alone time with him as well, but doesn't mention her widow status yet, which I think was very classy of her — she doesn't know him that well, and it wasn't the right time to bring it up.
The rose ceremony rolled around, and Jillian thought Chris said her name when he really said Juelia's, and as she ran up to get the rose, she slipped and fell, guns a-blazing. I don't think she was drunk. Girls got sent home, Tara cried for an especially extended period of time, and apparently Jimmy Kimmel is headed to the mansion next week to help Chris out with something. Who knows what. I don't care as long as it involves Ashley S.
Who received a rose: Mackenzie, Megan, Kaitlyn, Britt, Ashley I., Becca, Juelia, Jillian, Carly, Whitney, Jade, Nikki, Samantha, Tracy, Amber, Trina, Kelsey, and ASHLEY S.!
Who got sent packing: Tara, Alissa, Jordan, and Tandra
Thoughts & Questions
- Will the “Men in Black” show up to take Ashley S. back to the mothership?
- Who is Samantha? Who is Trina? Does anyone know anything about them?
- Has anyone ever told you that your beauty is a natural wonder?
- Are you as excited as I am to see Jimmy Fallon next week?
- I miss Tandra and her motorcycle and her name already.
- Favorite quote of the night: “I can't even pretend to be a virgin because I HAVE A KID.” – Mackenzie
Photo credit: ABC.com
Meghan is a recent graduate of SUNY Geneseo with a degree in Personal and Professional Communication. You can find her at the nearest Chipotle tweeting about Drake, her sorority little and Project Runway.
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