‘The Bachelor’ review: Victoria Lima, drunken disasters, and Juan Pablo Galavis’ winter wonderland
“The Bachelor” Monday night was a complete mess … and that’s probably why we enjoyed it so much. At least for the second hour. The entire first hour was spent dealing with the typical cliches, whether you are talking about “fairy tale” comments, romantic dates, sappy music that you’ve heard for years on this show, and other nonsense.
Clare Crawley – This was the first one-on-one date, and one that was all sorts of random! What you need to know is that there was some sort of bizarre winter wonderland set up, which Clare gave Juan WAY TOO MUCH credit for setting up. Also, there was Josh Krajcik from “The X Factor,” which somehow made this even more random. All this date was missing was a set of bagpipes and someone streaking through the snow. (We had that more or less at the mansion with Lucy running around without a top on). Of course, there was a rose.
Kat Hurd – The second date was mostly only memorable to us by one thing: Kat saying that she “loves big surprises like this” while also going into a private jet. Does she think that Juan Pablo is a BILLIONAIRE? The nature of these dates is so over-the-top, it’s like going to a burger joint and being handed thirty points of beef.
Now, let’s turn to the fun part: The group date. This was a Disaster with an intentional capital D, starting primarily when we saw Victoria Lima completely lose it all across the board. She was drunk, emotional, and completely not ready for this sort of experience. She even locked herself in the bathroom and screamed that she really didn’t want to be a part of this anymore.
Let’s say this when it comes to how “The Bachelor” almost dooms some of these women to humiliate themselves on TV: These group dates are long, and you’re really bored after a while since you have very little to do other than snack, drink, and chat with other contestants. What do some people do when they get nervous? Get boozed up! This was Victoria’s biggest flaw, and she obviously thought she could handle it better. The only thing more insane than watching her meltdown was her the next morning, where she tried to brush if off by saying that she’s Brazilian. (Brazilians everywhere literally face-palmed.) Obviously, Juan Pablo sent her home and handled the situation pretty well. The slight hypocrisy here is that he claimed that he wants to have the right people around for his daughter, though earlier in the group date he took photos with dogs and many of the women while they were all over him in bikinis. Some of it was definitely of the “racy” variety.
Prior to the Rose Ceremony, meltdown #2 came to us courtesy of none other than Cassandra Ferguson, who was upset over being away from her son. Personally, we would have also sent her home at around this point, since she is going to be emotional about this for some time, and may be distracted. We equate the situation to Tony Pieper back on Emily Maynard’s “Bachelorette” season.
Contestants sent home – Victoria (who you already know about), Amy (who clearly thought that her news interview was gong to be cute, when it was really just annoying), and Chantel (who we thought was genuinely going to last a while). Also, we never want to hear Juan Pablo say “it wasn’t easy” ever again. Grade: B
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Photo: ABC