The Bachelorette Season 11 starts, of course, with Britt and Kaitlyn and their thinly veiled distaste for each other. ABC very neatly summarizes them for the two people who watch The Bachelorette but not The Bachelor- Kaitlyn is the wild one! Britt is gorgeous and not that crazy!
Got it? Time for the limos full of other women’s hilarious mistakes to pull up. One guy is a stripper! This character does yoga! There’s even an Emo Music Guy! Have you completely lost your lady boner? Me too. The fun here is imagining what one interest or recent tragedy you’d use to identify yourself.
And then there’s Chris Harrison. I really love Chris Harrison. I assumed he had a more cynical take than he was letting on, but now I think differently. He’s no worldly Jeff Probst, an insider outsider host on his own fight-to-the-death/white-people-creating-problems-where-there-aren’t-any show. No. Chris Harrison is a romantic. When he announced his book at the end of The Bachelor, I thought, “This man believes in The Bachelor. He is all in.” Of course, I assume The Bachelor/ette as a suborder of Scientology, like the Sea Org. Chris Harrison is not only all in, he probably also can’t get out. Blink twice if you need help.
And then Ryan gets loud drunk, and we all play the “is he an actor?” game at home.
Then filler filler filler, except for a brief moment where one of the contestants (the white one with big muscles and an absolutely blank slate of a personality) breaks the fourth wall and wonders whether it is in his interests to vote for whomever he likes best, or who likes him best. Good thing you’re all still indistinguishable from each other, Machianonymous.
There are the occasional moments of seeing how connections are made, like when JJ calls Britt a 15 out of 10 smoke show. Despite a first impression based on observing months of her behavior, Britt is so smoking hot that JJ changes his mind about her. Try smoke and mirrors show, JJ, amIright? Emo Music Guy also grades Britt’s looks on a scale, but he gives her a billion out of 10. That is 999,999,985 more than JJ gave her. Not that it really matters, it’s Shawn B.’s/Poor Man’s Ryan Gosling’s to lose.
Drunk Ryan gets increasingly out of control and lots of guys make the show of confronting him, locking horns for a bit and then conveniently coming to the conclusion that “it’s not worth it.” (It isn’t). And then Ryan slaps Kaitlyn’s ass, and it’s clear he’s not coming back from this one. Chris Harrison for the win!!! He sends Ryan home; the car is already pulled up and the focus is back on assigning these women their value.
The votes are tallied, and though they try to leave it with a cliffhanger, I think we all know. Bye Britt. See ya never.
Wit and Slander 