Sean Week 1--The Ghost of Arie Luyendyk

Greetings and welcome back, my friends. It's time for our annual cheesefest known as the Bachelor. This season, executive producer/ human ratbag, Mike Fleiss, has reached back into the heart of Texas (again) to produce his latest broken-hearted lothario--aryan genetic marvel, Sean Lowe--who could make Taylor Lautner blush with pectoral envy. Sean, who was unceremoniously dumped by Emily Maynard last season, is by most tales, a nice guy, but I see he has that odd Texas malady shared by both Brad Womack and Jake Cheesemachine Pavelka: he keeps losing his shirts. Are they all in the dryer with my missing socks? Do men from Texas wear shirts? I could swear I saw George W. Bush in one every now and then. No matter. After the unmitigated disaster that was Ben Flajnik, Fleiss has gone back to that cheese-filled well he must have bought in Texas, and yanked Sean out and means to keep him half-naked at every turn. When in doubt, go blonde and ripped. I like Sean, but he looks like Fleiss found him on Heinrich Himmler's Amazon Wish List. Well if ya got it, ya might as well flaunt it, I guess. Sean might turn out to be as dull as kindergarten scissors, but the Beefcake WILL be shown! Hey, when do I get to see a Bachelorette nude from the waste up? Listen to me whine. I'm sure my mostly female readership could care less about my definition of a double standard. After all, in a minute I'm going to get to see some drunk gal demand to get tied up with a necktie and spanked until she passes out. 50 Shades of Class. Let's recap.

One European Horndog, Comin' Up!

I settled into the Captain's Chair with some liquid refreshment expecting to hear (and see) Chris Wingman Harrison come out in front of the mansion and start screaming some scripted boilerplate at me about what a wonderful, sincere guy Sean is, when suddenly it's Sean doing his own intro. That was weird. The guy's doing his own spec sheet. It sounded like he was at a group meeting, "Hi, I'm Sean Lowe and I'm an alcoholic!" Where the hell is Harrison? Week 1 and he's already skivved off, eh? Turns out it's more than just Harrison's usual laziness at work though; once Sean is done showering, jogging, working out, cooking, mowing the grass, playing chess, and strumming a ukelele at an old folks home with his shirt off, we hear that an old "friend" is coming for a visit. That "friend" turns out to be none other than fellow Emily Maynard castoff, Racecar Arie Luyendyk. I watched last season and I never remember Sean and Arie standing within 20 feet of one another except at rose ceremonies. Now I'm supposed to believe that a down home Christian boy is best buds with some European skirt chaser who's nailing Ben Flajnik's ex-witch? Yeah, ok, I'll believe it. Anyway, Sean goes to answer the door at his rental digs and in stumbles Arie still wearing one of his Garanimals shirts from last season. Arie drags himself inside and proceeds to put on a horn dog clinic for the allegedly innocent Sean. Truthfully the whole thing was funny as hell. Both guys took this with the same seriousness as Arie does his relationship with Courtney Robertson. Arie mocked his own ballyhooed kissing skills by demonstrating how to properly mug a woman by using your hairy mitts on her face before you ram your tongue down her esophagus. The only bad news was a reminder to the audience about just how much charisma Arie has when compared to Sean. Arie's fans must have felt smug and self-righteous. But it just put a ghost in the back of my mind that followed me around the rest of the night: WWAD--What Would Arie Do? Every time some gal went nuts, Sean laid back and took it all with cool aplomb and I just couldn't help seeing the same event replayed with Arie at the wheel. WWAD? Uh-oh.

The Women

Once Sean dismissed Arie so he could head to the free clinic for his monthly chlamydia test, Harrison finally pops out in front of the mansion and opens fire on me with that hyperbole cannon of his. I squint my eyes and imagine he sounds like Charlie Brown's old teacher "Whannt whaant, whaant whaant whaant!" He made as much sense as usual that way. Since Arie has already done the opening for him, Harrison eschews the normal Bachelor interview and cues a promo of the women. Hmmm. Less nuts in a can of Planters than this group, but we'll get to it. Promos complete, a very long limo pulls up and out steps Sean looking like he drove himself there in the standard Night 1 Bachelor Limo Driver Uniform: Black suit, white Oxford, and black tie. Harrison takes only a second to cheese him up before the limos roll up.

Now, an important caveat: Sean started handed out roses so fast, the entire broadcast not only became a chase for  "who has the rose?", it actualy devolved into chaos. The girls weren't really showcased much--it was all about roses. It got so chaotic, I'm not even sure which women got dumped and who stayed. I'll do my best.

1) Ashlee F.--Personal Organizer. Some OCD chick who's is just dying to reorganize Sean's man cave. Nice looking girl here and a great dress. I think this one will be around a while.

2) Jackie--smacks him on the cheek with a blob of lipstick so the next one will have something to wipe off. Other than that? Well, she was beautiful anyway.

3) Selma--vavoom! Selma? I wonder if her last name is Hayek? Outrageous boobs! Yummy. Almost certain to get villain editing.

4) Leslie H. The first of several black gals Fleiss stuck into the cast. Not bad looking with a healthy helping of junk in her trunk. She looked fine until she smiled and then whoa! that was one wide mouth. Dubbed Sean Mr. McSteamy. So much for being original. Survived night 1. We'll see.

5) Daniella--hot blonde with a some dumb handshake bit. That was her intro? I was waiting for her to head butt him before she went inside.

6) Kelly--Cruise ship songstress who both looked and acted like it. Had different colored eyes and a bowling trophy spray tan so deep she looked like a pumpkin. Then she sang a dumb song. See ya!

7) Katie--yoga instructor. Shows him some yoga and then pretty much vanished like one of his shirts. Didn't bother to wear shoes either. Maybe she was from Arkansas.

8) Ashley P. Oh boy. Walking hotmess from the promos who grins before yanking a tie out from between her tits and dangling it in front of Sean's eyes and letting him know that she reads crappy books. Sean stares at the tie like it's a live cobra and finally seems to get the Fifty Shades reference and swallows uncomfortably.
(WWAD? Harrison leaps from behind the bushes and pounces on top of Arie like a ninja superhero and tries vainly to pull him off the girl. By the time Harrison arrives, Arie has her hogtied and naked from the waist up.)

9) Taryn--Uh, uncomfortable, insecure woman dumped.

10) Catherine--Va-VOOM! Wow! Beautiful gal who joined Katie and my missing sock in Sean's vanishing shirt cabinet. What? Oh, c'mon! We never saw this one the rest of the night. Shit.

11) Robyn--Hey, who invited Condoleezza Rice? The former secretary of state tried to show Sean how excited she was to meet him by nearly breaking her neck in the driveway. Smooth.

12) Lacey--gives him a lacy heart. He carried it around and then dumped it into the trash when he dumped her.

13) Paige--the only sane member of Bachelor Pad 3 came on this show to demonstrate that she is obviously losing her sanity. Dumped--no rose here either. You walked from Minnesota to California for this? Sell that desperation, girl. I don't know whether to feel sorry for her or laugh.

14) Tierra--oh my. This one got out of the limo, showed Sean a half-heart tattoo on her finger and giggled. He immediately wandered off to get Harrison's head out of the punch bowl and "broke some rules" by grabbing an instant rose. Heh. Yeah, he blindsided the producers, I'm sure. Anyway, I saw the season previews. This gal is going to be a nutcase-bitch. The name sounded familiar so I looked it up--Tierra means Land in Spanish. Well that's not going to work. Try dramatica. Yeah, that's more like it--Tierra Dramatica--DramaLand! That's your name woman.

15) Amanda--fit model who did an awkward moment thing? Huh? Lame. Good looking though.

16) Keriann--she drove 2,275 miles to get here? She could have at least picked poor Paige up on the way. Well, maybe she can give her a ride back to Minnesota anyway since they both got dumped.

17) Desiree (Dez) Yum, yum. Great entrance too. She joined Sean to toss coins into the mansion's Trevi Fountain and make a wish. Good intro plus pretty girl should equal a long stay. We'll see. I like this one. Works in a bridal salon or something.

18) Sarah--Good looking blonde with one arm. Later she speaks with Sean and pretty much hints life has been hell. I'm sure. Sean shrugs, he could care less about the missing wing. I wouldn't have either. He gave her a rose. I would have too, but since she wants to be treated like everyone else, I'm also going to make fun of her.The whole time she was sitting with Sean I just kept wondering how she avoids swimming only in circles, but whatever. She was pretty--seems nice--yeah, the rose was a no-brainer. Circle-swimmer Sarah.

19) Brooke--sultry black girl. Yummy, not bad. Since Fleiss is bowing to pressure and filling the cast with minorities and disabled folks, it's just as well they be pretty.

20) Diana--mom of two--I liked her but she's too damn old for Sean.

21) Lesley M. Saw in the promos she was a political consultant from D.C. Considering she made a point about her environmental activism, I'm guessing she's a Democrat, and I'm guessing Sean is…not. She brought a football and conned Sean into bending over so she could check out his ass.
(WWAD? Easy; when she kept barking signals without calling for the ball, he would have urged her closer and then fired a retro blast at her to show her what a card he is too. BRAAAAP!)

22) Kristy--model who made a point in the promo to tell us that the other girls would all be jealous of her. Blech.

23) Ashley H.--Best intro line of the night. Walked up and told Sean, "Hi Ken, I'm Barbie." That should have earned her a rose.

24) Lauren--Italian girl who goes all Sopranos on Seanie and assures him that if he hurts her, her dad will break his legs. I'm amazed this didn't win him over. Sean played it safe and dumped her. Whoops!

25) Lindsay--wedding dress? Jesus. Then lip mugs him before she even tells him her name. Cuckoo. Then to charm him, she got shit-faced. She got a rose? Really?

26) ???? Holy crap, it's Kacie B. At first I thought this was weird, then I realized that since a nice Christian boy is stroke' the pony with a lowlife like Fleiss, nothing can be considered weird this season anyway. Why not? C'mon Kacie. Got a rose too. Cool.

Ok, what happened next? Sean handed out roses right and left and I lost track of what was going on. Other than girls talking about what was going on with the roses, virtually nothing happened. Over half the girls who got early roses, well, we didn't even see it happen. A couple got drunk and the 50 Shades of Grey ho got smashed and acted so skanky her grandchildren will never live it down.

Roses????

How the hell would I know? Some got them, others got dumped. (Shrug). Maybe we can tell them apart next week.

I'll see ya then.