Monday night ABC premiered season 15 of The Bachelor, with their repeat bachelor, Brad Womack. Late last year it was noted that ABC wasn’t finding themselves a suitable bachelor for this season of the single guy on the prowl and that there were concerns of getting a good person who would generate ratings. (My spin on the issue there.) They had originally gone after Chris Lambton, who was one of the guys from Ali’s season but he wasn’t interested. [Brad Womack is Back] Chris had had enough. So they went for Brad, from season 11, who said yes to the offer.
I’m Cynical
The first fifteen or twenty minutes of The Bachelor addressed the issue of how Brad was devastated by what he did when he left both DeAnna Pappas & Jenni Croft at the ABC alter of proposal on his season. He says that he went to therapy for a few years to address the issue because of how he felt and what everyone on the planet was saying about him. During therapy he recognized his problems stemmed from father abandonment issues and that’s why he bailed on the girls.
ABC brought the girls back to confront Brad… and DeAnna seemed intently … frustrated, for lack of a better word. I had an issue of sorts with how critical DeAnna was, considering how she left her own bachelor that she picked from her season, Jesse, via a text or email message. In subsequent news after that, Jesse later revealed that she was more about the career than themselves. DeAnna went on to host some wedding show and I haven’t really tracked her since. But as it seems, both girls are happily lugging around rings on their wedding fingers now
The cynic in me says this bit about his therapy was all staged to make Brad (the owner of 4 bars) look better than he did after his season, but it could be true… I guess, on this “reality” dating game series. But I have to question the psych evaluation processes that ABC applies to applicants of the show. But then again, if you look at the collective group of nutcases that have ended up on the show over the last 15 seasons, maybe it’s by design with the psych evals that we land ourselves some head cases, and hence, drama. And just maybe, how Brad got in.
The Women
The collective of women ranges from good-ol down to Earth personalities to some freaks…. I mean head cases… I mean to the more extravagant mind-sets.
There’s the woman who wears vampire teeth (I presume she’s wearing them, but I missed if they were filed down or fakes), a woman who opens her eyes very wide at the beginning of every sentence and other general nutcases.
The more emotional contestant of the bunch, for this writer, is Emily Maynard. When they touched on her being a single mom of a 5-year-old girl. (No bells went off yet, but she seemed very down to Earth.) But then they explained that the man she was engaged to, Ricky, a race car driver who had passed away. Oddly, bells started to go off in my head, though they were subtle at first. Then she mentioned, without mentioning his last name, that he was a racecar driver who had died in a plane accident, where all ten passengers had died. That’s when it hit me that this was Ricky Hendrick.
This brought me back to the day when we all learned of that terrible tragic day when the team was letting Jimmie Johnson win his race at Martinsville and had not told him about the scenario until after he won the race.
That day is seared in any NASCAR fan’s memory because that was a horribly tragic day where a good family and great NASCAR team lost several folks in one fell-swoop. Many good people left us that day but Emily bore some wonderful news when it was discovered that she was pregnant with their child.
As it stands, I’m a little confused about her being on the show. She appears to be the most down-to-Earth girl there and I don’t understand for the life of me why she is on the series. The show seems to be mostly based around highly egotistical women with some seriously public intentions. But it is what it is and according to various pieces around the web, she’s the favored underdog. But then I’ve discovered that she does have some journalism under her belt. She’s hosted the show Three Wide Life & has done podcasting for the Speed Channel.
As far as I can tell, if things work out in a fortuitous fashion, she could be the next Bachelorette because I see her being hugely popular with fans of the show.
Is Brad Nuts?
Well, that may be a given. Brad spent the entire night being nervous and putting himself out there and explaining to everyone, one-on-one, that he’s a different man. I got tired of hearing it over and over, but in all honesty, he did have to calm the nerves of all the girls down about his intentions and we were there along for the repetitive ride. The cynic in me says he spent more time than normal addressing how nervous he was, but again, it could be real.
When Brad picked out twenty girls to stay, he kept the one who slapped him “for all the girls in the world” from how he handled his season, to the girl who thinks she’s a vampire. Seriously? The vampire wanna-be??? Yes, he kept that nutcase girl.
The last girl he gave a rose to in his elimination ceremony was Chantal O’Brien, the girl who slapped him at his introduction.
Let’s Get On With the “Dating”
I don’t know if you noticed but as ABC previewed the season, I don’t think they showed one moment or scene with Emily. At first I was a bit traumatized but then I realized that how they edit these shows is designed to make you ask questions about the most obvious or most hoped-for setting. Emily’s complete absence from the previews told me much and I’m looking forward to seeing how well she handles the usual escapades and emotional tantrums that come from these packs of man-hungry, fame drooling women.
Not really a spoiler, because it’s out all over the web, and it’s not the final chosen woman on whether Brad actually chooses someone this time …
As you may or may not know, during a whirlwind press-relations push to get Brad out of the dark light of impressions from his last season, he did announce that he’s found love this time around. He did this in an early December press teleconference with many in attendance
And the ladies watching the show will get an eyeful of Brad. We were already introduced to a multitude of shirtless images of Brad, well timed and placed to make sure that the female viewing contingent knew what was coming!
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Interested in seeing all the girls from the show. Check out ABC’s Meet the Bachelorette’s web page.
IF YOU LEAVE COMMENTS that could be SPOILERS, PLEASE Mark them as such as your first line so as to not ruin it for others who want to be surprised by their ride with the season. Thanks.
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