Welcome back, rose lovers! How's everybody doing? Have we all recovered from the emotional holocaust that was The Great Melissa-Mesnick-Molly Scandal of Early Aught Nine? (Hmmmm, I wonder what those crazy kids Molly and Jason are up to now. Probably getting used to the fact that no one cares about them anymore.) Well, TV Watchers, I hope you've recovered, because I'm going to need you with me for the next 13 weeks of The Bachelorette: Canadians Need Love, Too. So let's get this party started, shall we?
In case you didn't know (and I'm guessing you do), we first met Jillian Harris on The Bachelor — she was the perky girl with the quirky Hot Dog Theory about men who had the extreme good fortune to be dumped by Jason Mesnick. ''When I got back home from Vancouver, I felt defeated,'' she says. ''It took me weeks to sort of get back on my feet.'' (Makes sense, given that it only took her weeks to fall for the guy.) But that's all in the past now — just look at her shopping for pink ankle boots and giving her red beret a you're-gonna-make-it-after-all toss! This is a woman who has successfully repressed the memory of her public mortification. ''I am 100 percent ready to find love again,'' she says. ''I think I'm gong to find Mr. Right. But I'm going to make the right decision the first time.'' (Actually, I think that's impossible, unless she travels back in time and never goes on The Bachelor in the first place — but, you know, more power to her.)
And then she's off, ditching the gray skies of Canada for the sunshine-drenched dream factory called Los Angeles — a perfect setting for the Object of Desire Montage! It's not enough that Jillian is a smart woman with a career and a sense of humor; the producers need us to know that she's a babe, too. (Cue the electric guitar!) Thus, we're treated to shots of Jillian's sizzlin' bikini bod as she emerges from the pool in sexy slo-mo. And hey, getta load of how she works that power hose as she washes a vintage convertible in her cut-off shorts and high heels! I guess the scene where she greets the cable guy at the door wearing nothing but a G-string and a smile got cut for time. (Yes, I know that complaining about sexism in The Bachelor/Bachelorette franchise is like complaining about the lack of diversity at a KKK convention, but hey, it's my column and I'll bitch if I want to.)
I'm going to be honest, TV Watchers — I've never been as interested in The Bachelorette as I am in The Bachelor, because groups of male contestants just don't bring the same amount of crazy as the ''ladies'' do. Rather than tears and desperation and acts of self-esteem terrorism, you get chest thumping, dude-bro posturing, and the occasional glimpse of a genuine human emotion. Plus, there are bound to be far fewer fashion disasters when the contestants are men. But just like the relentless optimist Jillian — ''I am going to have my fairy tale ending!'' she insists — I'm going to stay positive. I choose to believe that among these 25 men there are at least a handful who have truly entertaining personality disorders.
First we meet Kiptyn, a business developer/event planner from California who spends his down time changing his clothes by the side of the road. Yeah, he has nice abs, but can he break dance? No, that skill set belongs to Michael from New York, who teaches kids in East Harlem and has non-threatening street cred just seeping out of his all-American pores. (I'm not gonna lie, folks — this guy's my favorite already.) Julien seems to have a real need to assert his masculinity, what with all the jumping out of airplanes and speeding down the road in a red ''No, my penis isn't unusually small, why do you ask?'' hot rod. Steve the New York lawyer has a kind of dorky charm (I don't think he stands a chance — which is too bad because he's a hoot); Juan from California builds houses and has a pushy mom; and Mark from Denver is identified as a ''pizza entrepreneur'' (which, as my colleague Lindsay Soll suggests, might be something like a ''Sandwich Artist'' at Subway).
Some of the artsy types include Kyle from Brooklyn; he likes to shop for clothes at thrift stores and thinks Jillian will fall for him because ''I look good, I smell good, I make love good.'' (I highly doubt the second part of that claim if most of his wardrobe is pre-owned, but whatever.) Wes is a sensitive musician who apparently doesn't know that obnoxious gold chains are for rappers, not country singers, and whose claim to fame is having a No. 1 hit single in Chihuahua, Mexico. Greg, meanwhile, is a fitness model from Scottsdale who goes by ''Billbro.'' In Billbro's estimation, he is a ''perfect 10,'' which I can verify, if the scale measures his ability to gallop on an imaginary horse. Finally, Jake the pilot from Dallas says ''flying is my art,'' and ''if things go well with Jillian, I would absolutely die to make her dreams come true.'' Well, at least we can't call him a commitment-phobe — maybe just a boundary-phobe.
Finally, it's time for Jillian to meet the dudes. Our Bachelorette tells Harrison that she wants a guy who is ''a great communicator, somebody who can tell me when they're uncomfortable or happy or when they're sad or when they're in love'' and that she's there to find ''Mr. Invisible'' — the man who's heretofore been hidden from her sight. And if that man is going to turn up anywhere, it'll be on TV, right?
The limos start arriving, and once again the first man up is Kiptyn. Something about this guy just rubs me the wrong way — maybe it's how he oozes condescension, especially when he tells Jillian he's ''impressed'' by her, like she's a job applicant applying for the position of Mrs. Awesome. (To be fair, Julien also tells Jillian he's ''impressed'' by her accomplishments — it seems the I-word is a term of endearment among alpha-males.) Bryan the football coach from Oklahoma is the first to violate Jillian's personal space: he scoops her up into his arms and holds her awkwardly for a few seconds. Someone in the limo must have talked him out of hitting her over the head with a champagne bottle and dragging her by the hair into the bushes. But the Worst First Impression Award definitely goes to Brian from Georgia, who struts out of the limo and greets Jillian with a sleazy, ''Hot Tub Harris!'' (She brushes it off the first time, but after Captain Douchebag salutes her inside with another ''Hot tub!'' comment, Jillian can't hide her annoyance: ''Yeah, my parents really love that 'Hot Tub Harris,''' she deadpans.)
To read the rest of this recap, .