Banned
Member Since: 2/12/2012
Posts: 9,586
|
Bachelor Canada Recap: What You Missed Last Wednesday
Quote:
It’s nice to know the U.S. doesn’t have a monopoly on fake breasts, psycho chicks and journeys to find love.
If you worried that Canadians’ reputation for niceness would mean a pale imitation of the U.S. Bachelor, fear not: Bachelor Canada is here and there’s gonna be drama.
On Wednesday, we watched Brad Smith, a 28-year-old CFL free agent from Hudson, Que., begin his journey (I think there must be a contractual obligation to use that word a certain number of times in each Bachelor episode).
RELATED: Star panel dishes on debut
OK, I admit Brad seems pretty darn nice, but he told us in his voiceover that it wasn’t always so.
He got caught up in the lifestyle of being an athlete, he said: “Brad became No. 1, everybody else was a distant second.”
Then two close friends of his died within 18 months of each other, one via suicide, the other in a firefighting accident, and Brad decided to smarten up. Also, he’s inspired by his parents (his dad is former CFL commissioner and senator Larry Smith), who’ve been married 40 years and are still in love.
So we now knew that Brad had the most important requirement for a Bachelor: a willingness to fall in love.
But there’s another key requirement: ability to look good in the pool/hot tub scenes. We got to see Brad bursting out of a swimming pool, his tattooed chest glistening, as well as showering and pulling on his pants and shirt, so we’ve got that covered.
But hey, what would a Bachelor be without his bachelorettes? Just a guy talking to himself, that’s what.
And the 25 women who emerged from the limousines did not disappoint.
We’ve already got a shoo-in for this season’s villain. That would be Gabrielle, a 24-year-old law student from Oakville who turned up in a gravity-defying, tiger-stripe, strapless dress and told Brad, “You are as pretty as they say you are.”
She has the scary intensity of Michelle Kujawa from Jake Pavelka’s season, the single-mindedness of Michelle Money from Brad Womack’s season and the unlikeability of Vienna, Pavelka’s one-time fiancee.
And then there’s Whitney, Brad’s current favourite, a 24-year-old administrative assistant from Calgary who boxes in her spare time and talks about herself in the third person, as in, “Whitney never loses.”
Whitney also never lets go. After slinking out of the limo, she enveloped Brad in a tight, long hug and then grabbed his hands and said, “I’ve waited too long to let go.”
Brad seemed to find that charming; me, I was thinking potential stalker.
Certainly, the Canadian ladies were not lacking when it came to making entrances.
We had a little hockey talk, just so the show wouldn’t look too American, with Laura B. from Ottawa expressing her disappointment that Brad’s a Habs fan.
Jessica from Vancouver emerged with pom-poms and a lame cheer (“Hey, let’s hear it! I’m here to find love! Could it be you?” Um, no); Ana from Ottawa greeted Brad in Romanian; Clarice from Toronto couldn’t stop giggling; Britany from Swift Current, Sask., gave Brad a Band-Aid with her name on it for his heart (although his heart wasn’t the one that needed it Wednesday); Fawn from Ajax tripped in her gold high heels on the way out of the limo; Amber from Winnipeg rode up on a motorcycle, pairing the pinkest and pouffiest of dresses with a huge black helmet.
And Kara, 25, a grad student from Delta, B.C., who plays softball, brought out a ball and glove and threw a pitch at Brad. “That was the most memorable thing someone’s done today,” said Brad.
Two other girls stood out, not necessarily in the ways they wanted to.
Mindy, 33, from Rocky Mountain House, Alta., likes to hunt and shoot guns at the gun club. She showed up in a long blue dress, unkempt hair, a trident tattoo between her breasts, hiking boots and striped socks. Mindy is also a photo lab manager studying to be a funeral director, but don’t get visions of a Shawntel Newton-style visit to a funeral home for Brad: Mindy got eliminated on Wednesday.
And then there’s Rebecca, a.k.a. Bubba, a 27-year-old real estate agent from Toronto whose introductory package had her trying on what looked like an adult version of a kid’s dance recital costume and declaring that she wanted to have a caring relationship that included making “sweet, passionate love three times a day.”
But Bubba was no emotional match for the cattiness inside the mansion. “I can’t do this ... I don’t fight for (a word that rhymes with rock),” she said.
In truth, I felt sorry for Bubba, particularly after her elimination. “I’m not like those girls,” she said tearfully. “They’re all so skinny and I’m not.”
The most sensible girl of the whole bunch was the one I thought would be the focus of most of the drama: Bianka, 28, a nurse from Mississauga whose claim to fame is having been in a relationship with Kris Humphries just before he got engaged to Kim Kardashian.
Bianka is pretty, poised and has a sense of humour. She joked to Brad that her nursing specialty was mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. In fact, it’s more noble; she works with special needs kids.
I think Bianka will go far on this show.
Somebody who might not have the same longevity but is as cute as a button is Chantelle, 25, a pastor from Sylvan Lake, Alta. You had to laugh when Kara gave Chantelle a tutorial on which women in the room had fake boobs (a lot, apparently). “This is a new world for me,” said giggly Chantelle. “I’m from a small town. Most of the girls have real boobs.”
But this is The Bachelor, not Sunday school, so sweetness and light will only take you so far.
Many of the women engaged in a spirited game of “steal the Bachelor” started out by Gabrielle.
“I would never normally do that, but with all these vultures flying around who wanted a piece of him, I feel like I have to steal him away for a little bit at least,” she said in her voiceover.
But two can play that game and Gabrielle’s protests couldn’t keep Tracy of Victoria, B.C., from stealing Brad, though Tracy apologized for doing it.
Gabrielle also declared, with a flip of her hair, that if Brad “honestly is looking for somebody to start a family with, somebody that is looking for a serious relationship, I don’t really have to do anything except be myself.”
Woah, climb down, sweetheart, it’s not like he’s proposing to someone the first night.
Gabrielle has already made her first enemy in the house, in Whitney.
Fuming after Whitney got the first impression rose AND a long kiss from Brad, Gabrielle picked a fight in the kitchen, telling Whitney it was skanky to kiss a guy you’d just met.
Whitney disagreed. “C’mon, really?” continued Gabrielle. “So you would just sleep with someone on the first day you met them?”
See, Gabrielle’s grasp of human anatomy must be rusty, because kissing and having sex are two different things. But when Whitney said she’d never sleep with someone she’d just met, Gabrielle accused her of not being able to handle the truth.
What truth is that? That you’re a sore loser, Gabrielle?
To Whitney’s credit, she turned her back and walked away.
The night’s other excitement was the arrival of another limo and, according to host Tyler Harcott, another bachelorette. The girls were rattled and Brad figured the producers had dug up someone from his past.
Nope, it was just Jillian Harris, Canada’s own Bachelorette, and she was there to help Brad decide which girls to keep around.
That meant gathering the women in small groups and interviewing them, asking such searing questions as, What kind of animal would you be?
Jillian told Brad that Gabrielle was really confident, but I’d like to see what she really wrote down on her notepad. Gabrielle told Jillian she was still waiting for Brad to make it up to her for their alone time being interrupted and wanted Jillian to deliver that message. Yeah, I bet Jillian got right on that.
It is a Bachelor rule that the most annoying girls with the greatest potential for conflict always get roses in the early days, so of course Gabrielle got one, even though she had to wait till the second to last rose.
The other 13 roses doled out in the rose ceremony went to Bianka; Sophie from Moncton, N.B.; Tia from Ottawa; Michelle V. from Calgary; Nicole from St. Thomas, Ont.; Chantelle (still giggling); Britany; Laura B.; Michelle B. from Newmarket; Laura F. from Winnipeg; Stephanie from Montreal; Melissa Marie from Vancouver and Kara.
(And yes, Harcott, just like U.S. host Chris Harrison, gets to say the most useless line ever just before the last rose is handed out: “Ladies, Brad, this is tonight’s final rose.”)
But there was Ana looking sad; Ana who’d tried all night to talk to Brad and kept getting interrupted, most memorably when Bubba swooped in with her “home girl” Fawn and then Mindy yanked Brad away from all three of them.
Brad looked troubled and said he was “gonna go a little off the cuff here.” He disappeared and returned with another rose, and there was no chance of it going to anyone but Ana.
“I know everyone’s given up a lot to be here, but this person tried so hard all night to talk to me and I really want to give her a chance,” he said.
So Brad is moving ahead with 16 women.
We got promos at the end of the show of Brad with various ladies in Las Vegas, Tofino, Paris, New Orleans and P.E.I. We also saw Brad kissing a bunch of girls, Brad getting a door slammed in his face, Brad crying, other people crying, Brad wondering if someone’s been lying to him, Gabrielle calling someone evil and more.
Oh yeah, Canada. It's on.
|
Source
|
