Weeks 1 and 2, Some Preliminary Thoughts

I'll be throwing together some consolidated scores for Weeks 1-3 later this week, but it just didn't seem right to let such a brilliant beginning to the season pass without commemorating it. I watched the two episodes back-to-back (and so help me, Harrison, if there is a very special two night event this week, I will end you), so naturally, I no longer have the ability to form coherent sentences. So here, in just a few bullets, are some patterns, I saw emerge in these first league weeks:

Things Kaitlyn Likes:

Men who Take Control: It's not easy to find a pattern in Kaitlyn's attraction. The girl clearly doesn't have a time. From the bulky, meat-heady Ben Z. to the gentle, believer-than-the-children-are-our-future Ben H. (maybe it's...just guys named Ben?), whether it's the smarmy, smug J.J. or the bumbling and slightly vampiric Joe, she seems to like 'em best when they're mauling her face (you know, with their tongues. not, like, with a meat tenderizer or anything).

Men who Just Have that Something...I can't Really Describe It...: Perhaps I'm having a hard time identifying Kaitlyn's type because this is how she describes pretty much every single one of the guys she likes. Don't get me wrong, so far, I'm fidning Kaitlyn quite delightful, but at a certain point, its gotta be less about the potency of these guy's intangibles and more about a desperate need for Kaitlyn to use her words.

Hockey: So...obviously, I coul be making a bit of an assumption here based on her Canadian citizenship, but..is there really any other way to explain her ongoing attraction to J.J.? Also, not even joking, I just did some light googling and she apparently actually used to date an Edmonton Oiler. It seems more and more likely that she's just using this experience to parlay that relationship into someone who plays for a not-entirely-terrible team.

I dare you to come up with a better use for my time than
finding this screen shot...

Naked Male Aggression: I mean...why can't they all just go to the zoo? Look, I don't want to go full-Tony here. I get that the sumo wrestling was largely silly and fun (the excited sumo wrestler sneaking into the house pretty much ade the entire season for me). But that doesn't change the fact that the first two
epsiodes featured sme sort of fighting date. And I gotta think that has a whole lot to do with item #1 (and lest you think I'm criticizing Kaitlyn unfairly, also evolutionary biology).

Naked Males: Testicles and all.

Things Kaitlyn Doesn't Like:

One of these is the face of a man who feels deep, deep shame

Birds: And I gotta say, while I see the need for Chris Harrison to step up his hosting game after Jimmy Kimmel knocked it out of the park, it also seems like he could have achieved the same effect by sending Kaitlyn to any public square. Though perhaps with considerably fewer obvious metaphors about love.

Drama: Which for the record, rhymes with Alabama and Spin-o-rama not with Barack Obama. Nobody likes drama (you know, assuming we're ignoring the show's producers me, Daniel Day Lewis...), and poor Kaitlyn really seems to have gotten more than her fair share of it in the first couple of episodes this season. So let's take a little bit of a deeper look (sub-bullet deep, where dwell the creatures of no eyes and translucent skin...creatures named Clint...) at the horrors Kaitlyn has endured in these past few weeks:

Though hilariously,
somehow in this picture,
producer Howard looks like
he and Kupah have just been
caught necking....

     Kupah: I've mentioned that so far, I like Kaitlyn as the Bachelorette. And yet, even she does not appear to be immune to the heady power that comes along with the role. I think I talked abou tthis already a couple of seasons ago with Andi, but there's something very wrong with declaring a man an inappropriate candidate for lifelong partnership because he dared question you. That being said, while challenging a person doesn't seem like adequate grounds for dismissal, lashing out in half-drunk rage at an innocent producer (who, all he wanted to do was just go to work, look like Howard really wanted to be helpful, he would start setting up dates where the men debated immigration reform while being incessantly flicked in the earlobes by fans of their rival sports teams, you know, just to weed any other potential Kupahs out.
Stern, and make sure that everyone was there for the right reasons) probably is. If Chris Harrison

    Tony: Well, chalk up another neary criminal failure for the Bachelor psychologist. Tony may have the eyes of a child, the soul of a warrior, and the toenail clippings of a gypsy he met on the greyhound, but he also has the psyche of someone too unfunny and sad to make any sort of cheap joke about. Kaitlyn even alluded to his tragic past about which, clearly only she got to learn. Beacuse it seems they are legally obligated to give people an edit that suggests that they are electively strange rather than mentally unwell.

Clint: Oh, Clint, lover of the triceratops, how gravely you disappoint me. I don't care about his bromance with J.J.  or the grossly self-interested edit they're clearly giving him to generate buzz over his sexuality. But the speed at which he flipped the switch on how he felt abbout Kaitlyn was petulant at best. With tantrums like that, it seems a favorite dinosaur isn't the only thing he has in common with someone who carries around a security blanket (a security blanket named J. J.).

This one is already doing her best to emulate Jessie Spano, and
I think we all know how that turned out...ahem, Showgirls.

One-on-One Dates: Which I thank her for. I'm not entirely convinced I wouldn't still watch if blushing men, stammering out scientific names for the female reproductive system was the whole show. Although shame on all of those parents for enabling my enjoyment at their children's expense. At least one of those kids is heading straight to the gutter of humanity and will be the most dramatic contestant ever on Season 43 of the Bachelor.

People Who Claim to be Smarter than Everyone Else and then Prove it by Making up Incomprehensible Verbs: Okay...this one might just be me. But what can I say? Judgemental fantasy league commissioners who enjoy making a sport out of the misery of assholes gotta vill.