First Impressions are Everything on 'The Bachelor's' Big Premiere

“The Bachelor” is back!  It’s great to be watching again, even if I thought this season might be little dull, but boy was I wrong!  These ladies make up for any missing charisma from Ben and speaking of Ben, you see his personality really come out!  He’s pretty charming and really seems to put forth a lot of effort when it comes to getting to know each of the ladies.

The show begins with the usual recap.  We see Ben get dumped again by Ashley on last season’s “Bachelorette”.   Suddenly, we are taken to modern day and we see that Ben has picked himself back up and he’s doing better than ever!  His business is thriving, he’s having fun with friends, and most importantly, he’s ready to love again!

Then, it’s time to meet some of the ladies.  Because this is just a two-hour show instead of three, they seem to have edited this portion down quite a bit and I didn’t really mind it.  We are first introduced to 27-year-old Lindzi, a horse rider from Washington.  I really liked her clip, it was funny.  She got dumped in a text that said “Babe, welcome to dumpsville, population YOU!”  Yikes, that’s gotta sting!

 

 

Next, there’s Amber T.  She loves to shoot and kill all kinds of animals and is from Nebraska.  Sheesh, this girl tells it like it is.  She comes off a little harsh and crass and says that she can’t wait for Ben to eat some “Beef Nuts”.  Beef nuts are also known as cow balls.  Eww.  Let’s just leave it at that.  Hopefully Ben won’t have to eat those.

 

 

Kacie B. a 24-year-old Administrative Assistant from Tennessee is cute as a button!  She really seems to be a sweet girl and looks forward to sharing in dorky interests with Ben.

 

 

A stark contrast in personality to her is 28-year-old Courtney, the model.  She is from Santa Monica and really loves talking about being a model and how all of the girls should be intimidated by her and that she’s not worried about any of them, basically because she’s beautiful and she knows it.  Modesty is obviously not her strong suit.  I didn’t really care for her too much right off the bat.

 

 

Jamie D. from Dryden, New York had a tough upbringing.  Her dad wasn’t around and her mom had drug and alcohol problems, so she ended up raising her siblings.  She’s a labor and delivery nurse and I hope Ben keeps her around for a little while because she seems like a nice girl.

 

 

Lindsie from the UK who now lives in Arizona is a real character.  This 29-year-old is quite odd.  Maybe Ben will find her quirkiness cute…I didn’t.

 

 

Then, there’s New York City girl Jenna.  Oh Jenna, she really wants to find love, but you can kind of tell that she’s got one of those personalities that is not going to mesh with some of the other girls.  She’s highly sensitive and writes a blog about looking for love called “The Over-Analyst”.

 

 

28-year-old Shawn from Arizona seems like nice lady, but, will Ben be thrown by the fact that she’s a single mom?  She’s got a cute little son named Gavin.  No word on what happened to his father.

 

 

There’s something about Nicki from Texas that you just can’t help but like!  She’s very bubbly and has a great energy about her.  I think Ben is going to like this 26-year-old, but there’s a catch, she’s a divorcee.

 

 

Finally, it’s time for the limos to start arriving!  First out, it’s 27-year-old Rachel from New York City.  She tells Ben she’s excited to get to know him and that her middle name is Rose.

 

 

Erika is from Chicago and is a law student.  She tells Ben that he’s “Guilty of being sexy.”  Gross.

 

 

Amber B.’s introduction really cracked me up.  The B in her last name stands for Bacon, and everyone loves bacon!  It also turns out that she’s Canadian Bacon!  Ha!

 

 

Elyse is 24 and she tells Ben that she’s going to “Make him sweat”.  She later goes on to make Ben do some pushups.

 

 

Then there’s our girl Jenna.   She has some weird awkward silence with Ben and fumbles a quote that he had said last season to Ashley.  She enters the house feeling like an idiot, but really, she shouldn’t worry, this is the least of the embarrassing things that she is going to do that night.

 

 

Time for limo number 2!   Pretty girl Courtney is out first and she calls Ben “cutie pie” and adds that she loves his hair.  Seriously?  That boy needs a haircut!  As she walks away he says, “That is a pretty girl.”

 

 

Emily gets the first kiss of the night!   She’s got a PhD in Epidemiology and she sanitizes his hands and sprays breath spray in his mouth before planting a kiss on Ben.

 

 

26-year-old Samantha comes out with her Miss Pacific Palisades sash on.

 

 

Casey S. was basically forgettable.

 

 

Amber T. was sweet, and appeared to go the wrong way when walking into the house, but wait, it was just an opportunity to say a cheesy line, “If you don’t believe in love at first sight, here’s a second chance.”

 

 

First out of limo #3 is Holly.  She is one of the older contestants at 34.  She’s from Kentucky and wears a huge hat.

 

 

25-year-old Jamie is a ball of nerves, but as she walks way, Ben is heard saying that he is loving the brunettes so far.

 

 

Shira tries to talk to Ben about wine, just to get caught in a fib and has to admit that she knows nothing about it.

 

 

Blakeley is also from the south, she’s from Charlotte, NC.  She’s another oldie at 34, and she kind of looks like “Hope” on “Days of Our Lives” haha.

 

 

Then it’s time for the famous “old lady” from the promos we’ve been seeing.  As predicted, she’s someone’s grandma!  72-year-old Shirley is 26-year-old Brittney’s grandmother, and she brought her there to meet Ben so that he could see how important her family is to her.

 

 

Limo number 4 has Nicki the divorcee inside.  She looks super cute and she and Ben seem to have a good introduction.

 

 

30-year-old Dianna can hardly keep it together.  She completely forgets what she wants to say to Ben and just giggles uncontrollably.

 

 

28-year-old Jennifer is an accountant and she runs down the numbers of her life for Ben to get to know her.

 

 

Lyndsie gives him a goofy poem.  My gosh this girl is just so freaking strange.

 

 

Lastly there’s 25-year-old Anna who doesn’t say a word to Ben and just walks on by him into the house!  Ben says to her as she walks by that that’s “Very risky!”

 

 

Limo number 5 has the soon to be hated Monica.  She’s 33 and she tells it like it is.  She says something lame about missing her dog.

 

 

27-year-old Jaclyn tells Ben that he looks dapper.

 

 

Single mom Shawn and Ben have a good little introduction, but as she leave she gives him a buddy buddy slug on the arm.

 

 

Kacie B. and Ben agree that they won’t sugarcoat anything with each other and I think Ben might like her!

 

 

Last, but certainly not least, Lindzi C rides up on her horse that she says is named “First Impression Rose” but is actually named “Levi”.  Ben loves it and he leaves their little meeting saying that the show has “Saved the best for last he supposes”.

 

 

As we go inside the house for the first time now that all of the ladies are inside, the claws are already coming out.  As they get wind that Lindzi rode in on a horse, you already hear comments about how they hate her and how stupid that was.

 

 

Rachel gets to talk to Ben first one-on-one and they talk about his search for love.  When she asks what he’s looking for in a wife, he’s like, whoah, I’m looking for love, and the wife thing comes later.  Hmm.  She also reveals that she quit her job of five years to be on the show, no pressure Ben!

 

 

Nicki talks about being a dental hygienist to Ben but never approaches the topic of her divorce.  She says later that she didn’t think it was the appropriate time to bring it up.  They had a nice time chatting though.

 

 

Lindzi and Ben have a fantastic time chatting.  There are some definite sparks flying between these two!  She admits to the wine maker that she attempted to make wine at home but didn’t realize you couldn’t use regular old seedless grapes from the grocery store.  Ben thought that was cute and funny.  I really like her!

 

 

Shirley and Brittney get their chance to have a chat with Ben.  Shirley seemed to stand out more than Brittney did though and I hope Ben gives her granddaughter a shot. She really wants her little baby to find love!

 

 

Attention attention the first impression rose is out! 

Then some ridiculousness ensues, the girls show off their tattoos, their hats, dance moves, and even blindfold Ben and feed him candy. 

The epidemiologist even breaks out this loser rap that Ben loves!  We’ll see if it gains her a spot and a rose later on.

 

 

Ben takes some time to talk to the gorgeous Courtney who talks about what else: her modeling career and their hair.

 

 

This season’s right reasons police officer is: Jenna!  She gets on Monica’s case after she learns Monica could care less about Ben and just wants to have a good time.  Then, Monica gets to know Blakeley a little better and tells her how beautiful she is and admits that she’s into girls too!  Wow.  So all of the rest of the girls see the two of them cuddling and are like, what is up with the lesbians?  How strange!

 

 

Jenna meantime is spinning out of control.  She knows that Monica has been talking about her with Holly and Blakeley.  She’s a crying mess.  Rachel tries to mediate the situation only to make it worse.  After Jenna and Monica sit-down to talk woman to woman, it ends with Jenna calling Monica a tampon! Ha!  That is laugh out loud funny.  I’ve never thought about calling someone that before!

 

 

Kacie also tries to talk to Jenna and calm her down as Ben comes over.  He’s like, “Were you crying?”  She lies and says no, and then fumbles her words worse than before and has another super awkward conversation with Ben.  Ben tries to be really understanding though.  Boy he’s nice!

 

 

Jenna ends up feeling really weird about how her time with Ben went and about Monica and ends up crying in the bathroom as Ben grabs the first impression rose and gives it to Lindzi!  Yay Lindzi!  I really like her the best so far too.

 

 

Jenna ends up creeping back into the main room where all of the girls are waiting for the rose ceremony to begin.  She looks like a hot mess, poor girl.  She also looks like she's holding back tears the whole time.

 

In addition to Lindzi already having a rose, those ladies sticking around for next week are:

1) Jamie

2) Rachel

3) Blakeley

4) Emily

5) Kacie B.

6) Casey S.

7) Brittney

8) Erika

9) Shawn

10) Nicki

11) Jennifer

12) Elyse

13) Samantha

14) Courtney

15) Jaclyn

16) Monica

17) Jenna (Can you believe it?!)

 

 

They showed a preview of what's to come this season and it looks insane.  I've never seen a preview with so much crying!!! It's so crazy!  It looks like they will all be traveling to some amazing locations.  Just because they are going to be in wonderful places, doesn't mean there won't be any drama.  Apparently, an ex-girlfriend of Ben's comes on the show to compete for his heart and the other ladies do not take it well to say the least.  Someone gets sick at some point and requires medical attention, and if that wasn't bad enough, it appears the lady that Ben may pick in the end may be getting cold feet!  I guess we'll have to wait and see!

 

Hugs, Kisses & Roses,

Jennifer Matarese