The Bachelor Premiere Recap: Save the Drama for Your Llama — Vote for Grant’s Best Match in Our Poll!
The Bachelor is back, and Grant’s women are keeping the drama to a minimum — for this week, at least.
Monday’s premiere reintroduces us to Grant, a Houston day trader who competed for Jenn’s heart on The Bachelorette, to the tune of Salt-N-Pepa’s “Whatta Man.” He used to play pro basketball overseas — and the day trading must be going well, since he drives a bright red Ferrari up to his mom’s house. He has a protective older sister, Taylor, and he’s sweet with his grandmother Corine, handing her a rose. Grant explains that his parents split up, and his dad Robert is a recovering addict. He sits down with Robert, who encourages him to be a better father than he was. This is getting emotional already!
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Grant arrives at the Bachelor mansion and does a little dance to work out the nerves before the limos start pulling up. First out of the limo is Rose, a nurse who asks him if he will “accept this Rose.” (Duh, he will.) Litia is a venture capitalist who hands Grant a bejeweled basketball, and J’Nae is a fellow basketball player who does the LeBron chalk toss with him, so we can expect lots of hoops talk. Carolina speaks Spanish to him (she’s from Puerto Rico), and she hopes Grant marks a positive change for her love life: “My last boyfriend was a DJ.” Alli Jo pulls up in a white Jeep and hands Grant a heart-shaped pizza, explaining that she’s from New Jersey, so “you know I’m gonna be loud.” Dina is a high-powered attorney, and she knows what she wants: She gives Grant her ring size right away.
Then the introductions start to get kookier: Alexe walks up with a llama named Linda, since she grew up on a farm in Canada. (And yes, the llama joins her in the mansion and becomes a full-fledged character, complete with subtitles.) Juliana brings Grant a cannoli, since she’s Italian, and Chloie is wearing ruby slippers because she’s from Kansas. Bailey works in social media, so she snaps a bunch of selfies — like, an obnoxious amount of selfies. Savannah is a wedding planner, so she carries in a big wedding cake with her and Grant on the topper, and Vicki is a nightclub server, so she comes in holding a big sign with Grant’s name on it. Zoe is the last to arrive, and the tech engineer-slash-model seems to make a big impression on Grant, as they fire T-shirts with their faces on them out of a T-shirt cannon. Do we sense an early frontrunner?
Grant enters the mansion and makes a sweet speech about what love means to him, and Bailey swoops in right away to pull him for a private chat. (They take more selfies, of course.) Parisa sits him down to show him a PowerPoint (?) of their future together… and she’s not breaking the “crazy cat lady” stereotype, is she? Allyshia insists she doesn’t kiss on the first date, but when she and Grant cuddle and fantasize about watching rom-coms together, he pulls her in for a lip-lock. Juliana plays keyboard for him, and they bond talking about their families — and they kiss, too. Carolina gets one-on-one time as well, and she gets emotional talking about her family. Grant wanted to kiss her, he tells us, but he holds back for now.
The girls marvel at how there’s so little tension between them so far — until a mystery woman pulls up in a limo and strides past them, making a beeline for Grant. A new competitor? An ex? Nah, it’s just his sister Taylor, who sticks around to show the girls his embarrassing baby photos and give them more background info on him. (Whew.) She likes what she sees from the ladies, and Litia praises Grant for how in touch he is with his emotions… and gets a kiss, too. He kisses Alexe as well after she gives him a quick French lesson (that’s not a euphemism), and Zoe, Vicky and Rose get smooches, too, taking his total to seven. That’s a lot of candidates for the first impression rose, which comes with a bonus this season: the first one-on-one date next week. But in the end, he hands the rose to Alexe. The llama must’ve put her over the top.
It’s rose ceremony time, and Parisa is worried: “It seemed like he was enjoying my PowerPoint.” He hands roses to Litia, Rose, Zoe, Ella, Alli Jo from Joisey, Natalie, Juliana, Vicky the bottle girl, Carolina, Beverly, Bailey the selfie queen, Dina, Chloie, Rebecca, Sarafiena and Allyshia. The final rose goes to… PowerPoint Parisa. The rejects include Savannah the wedding cake girl, J’Nae the hooper… and a few other girls whose names we don’t need to know anymore. And if the premiere was drama-free, the trailer for the rest of the season surely is not: We see plenty of tears, and Carolina confronts Grant about something he supposedly said, with him concluding, “One of these women is being deceitful.” One woman demands to know, “Are you the bitch who said my dress is too short?” Later, Carolina sings as she walks upstairs, “I guess I’m crazy and evil.”
But the biggest drama comes from Grant himself: He’s excited to propose in the finale, but “I’m torn between two women. I have a ring, and I don’t know who I’m going to give it to.” He tells his dad he has an hour to decide, and he still doesn’t know what to do. Jesse even warns him that the women are driving up for the final rose ceremony, but Grant tells him, “The truth is: I don’t know.” Well, that’s sure to make whoever he does choose feel great!
We want to hear from you, Bachelor Nation: After that premiere, who do you think is the best match for Grant? Vote in our poll, and then share your post-premiere thoughts in a comment below.
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