The Bachelor: The claws are out (spoiler alert)

(Ben hands out costumes to Jaclyn and Emily on the group date in an ABC photo by Ron Koeberer.)

Welcome to The Bachelor, where the law of the jungle prevails, or at least the law of the storybook characters in some play that a bunch of grade school kids wrote.

What we learned, tots, is that you can be a good sport and play the part of the Weasel and be so awesome in your weaselness that the handsome prince kisses you a lot in the pool. But then the Gingerbread Man flashes her boobs and it's game over.

Yes, folks, a treasured Bachelor archetype is alive and well: the sexually aggressive contestant who manages to bamboozle the dude while inspiring loathing in virtually every other woman in the house.

Blakeley, come on down!

It just goes to show you what a difference a week makes. On last week's premiere, VIP cocktail waitress Blakeley (and what is that exactly? do you have to be important before she'll serve you a drink?) was snuggling with Monica to the point where men seemed to be the last thing on her mind.

Then whammo, Monday she was all about Ben and woe to the woman who got in her way.

Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if a little producer bird whispered in Ben's ear and told him to give Blakeley the rose on the group date. Given all the kvetching that went about how pissed off the other girls would be if Blakeley got the rose, it seems like too much of a coincidence that that's exactly what happened. 

On the other hand, Ben, being of the male persuasion, may have been no match for Blakeley's turquoise bikini and her mad kissing skills. "I absolutely believe in my kissing skills 100 per cent," she confided to the camera before hopping into the pool with Ben and attempting to perform a tonsillectomy with her tongue.

Oddly, Ben said he was giving Blakeley the rose because she "made the most of her time with me in conversation." Guess they have a different way of talking down there in Sonoma, Calif.

That's where all the dates played out this week. The 18 bachelorettes were transplanted from L.A. to wine country so Ben could see how well they fit in on his home turf (although I'm a bit confused, because I thought he'd moved back to San Francisco, which is where he heads with the harem next week).

Anyway, we knew Ben was really comfortable in Sonoma because we got to see him in his casual clothes walking his adorable Jack Russell terrier. And he talked about his father again, who's been dead for five years, but it might as well have been last week for the purposes of the show.

The first one-on-one date went to Kacie B. There is a rule somewhere in the producers' handbook that all first dates have to be "magical," so Kacie and Ben strolled the picturesque streets of Sonoma, plinked at a piano together in the Ledson Hotel, bought a Kermit lunchbox at the toy store and twirled a baton together on the main street.

"Ben and I are having a parade in the middle of his hometown and we're having a blast.... It was perfect and this was only the beginning," enthused Kacie.

As Ben bestowed the date rose on Kacie, he told her, "I could see you in Sonoma and I want you to be here." Smooching followed, but it wasn't over yet.

It was time for Ben to be "open and honest and vulnerable," so he and Kacie visited an old movie theatre where they got a private showing of each other's home movies and Ben ended up wiping away tears after seeing his dad onscreen. 

"Ben's reaction to the movie solidified that he is real and genuine and doesn't want to hold anything back," declared Kacie, "and that is exactly what I want."

Cue more smooching.

Of course, the downside of having the first date is that you then get to sit back and watch the Bachelor date lots of other women while you worry whether he's going to forget about you.

Next up for Ben was a group date with Brittney, Rachel, Jennifer, Blakeley, Emily, Jenna, Shawn, Monica, Samantha, Jamie, Nicki and Jaclyn. 

No strolls through town or private screenings for them, though. They had to audition in front of a group of kid playwrights, which mainly involved making animal noises or doing goofy dances, then perform the play the children had written in front of a selection of Sonoma townsfolk at the community theatre. 

The kids certainly wrote a lot of kissing into the play, in which Ben played a prince seeking his princess while encountering various animals, a gingerbread man, a hippie and a valley girl, and being threatened by a dragon. I must say, I'm surprised the kids wrote in a scene in which Ben, who had been turned into a sheep, stripped down to a pair of woolly boxers. 

Children, they grow up so fast these days, don't they?

Anyway, it all worked out. Ben was reassured that none of the women were child haters, the women were touched that Ben was so kid-friendly and Ben declared, "It's gonna be something that I don't think Sonoma will forget for a while." To which I would say: Sonoma doesn't get out much, does it?

As we all know, the real fun was at the post-play pool party at the Sonoma Mission Inn, where Blakeley inspired such loathing that Samantha hid in the bathroom for a while and Blakeley was branded a cougar (at the ripe old age of 34), a candy-striped hooker (a reference to the striped jumper she wore on the date) and a slut. Jennifer felt sick to her stomach after seeing Blakeley and Ben in the pool, not long after she and Ben swapped spit of their own. 

Blakeley had a very different reaction to being watched in the pool: it turned her on. "If she wants to watch us make out she can. It was making me excited just thinking about it. Oh, I love it, I love it. I'm getting excited just talking about it," Blakeley said in her confessional.

Well, okay then.

Blakeley was not the only villain on Monday's episode. 

Model Courtney was also upping her bitch cred trying to psych the other girls out by bragging about the connection she had with Ben. She made it clear to Lindzi she thought it was the horse and not her who earned the first impression rose. And when Kacie read out Courtney's date card, "Courtney, let's spin the bottle," Courtney gloated, "How'd that taste coming out of your mouth?"

Of course, bitchy Courtney was nowhere in evidence on her date with Ben. Instead, we saw nature-loving Courtney, marvelling at the beauty of the redwood forest where she and Ben had their picnic lunch and gushing over Scotch, Ben's beloved Jack Russell. This Courtney begged to know more about Ben at dinner (oldest trick in the book, get him to talk about himself) and invited sympathy with her hints about the actors, photographers and other high flyers who'd broken her heart ("I found underwear in the bed, you name it"). She had trust issues, she confided. 

Ben went for it hook, line and sinker. "I want you to trust me," he said as he proffered the date rose. 

Oddly enough, Courtney did not talk about the two-carat diamond ring she's hoping to bag. Funny that. 

I will give her credit for one thing: when it came time for the pre-rose ceremony cocktail party, Courtney sat back and let the roseless girls get some Ben time. That meant, for instance, that Ben and Lindzi got to compare notes about what kind of tractors they drive.

But Blakeley decided she needed more time with Ben and kept horning in when he took another woman aside for a private chat. The girls were getting angry. Even Blakeley's former girl crush, Monica, accused her of offending people.

"The Blakeley situation makes people more high strung. It brings out an environment where everyone's on edge," said Emily.

And that was true of no one more than Jenna. Yes, Jenna, the relationship blogger who spent most of last week's premiere either feuding with Monica or locked in the bathroom crying. This was her chance to make things right with Ben, but darned if there wasn't another battle going on in her head.

This is what Jenna told Ben when he took her aside for some private time. "I'm really grateful you gave me another chance after this first night. I just feel like, I feel like I'm a guy in how I act. I don't want you to think, I'm not, it might appear as if I'm not. It's hard, it's only you, waiting around for you. It's totally worth it, but I'm not, like, a girl if that makes any sense."

No Jenna, not a lick. And riddle me this: how is it that someone who writes for a living can't string two sentences together?

Jenna, realizing she'd blown it once again, ended up back in the bathroom crying and then went for a full-on jag, lying in bed in her cocktail dress with the covers over her head.

But Blakeley was not to be one-upped, not even when it came to crying. 

After she overheard some of the other women making fun of her, she headed for the luggage room, where she crouched in a corner and cried some crocodile tears. Her makeup looked surprisingly streak-free when Ben came to find her, which I suspect was the point all along. Ben sympathetically clutched her hand and told her to take a moment to collect herself. It was tough seeing Blakeley "in a corner of the luggage room curled up into a ball," he said. Oh puhleeze.

Ben also found Jenna, a.k.a. the lump in the bed, and got her up.

"I had no idea things had gotten this bad this early," he said.

What better time to ratchet up the tension with a rose ceremony!

The roses were distributed, in order, to Jennifer, Emily, Elyse, Jaclyn, Erika, Rachel, Lindzi, Nicki, Casey S. (did she even speak during the episode?), Samantha, Monica, Jamie and, finally, Brittney.

Courtney, Blakeley and Kacie already had date roses, so that meant Jenna and Shawn were SOL.

I had forgotten who Shawn even was, but now I recall she was the single mom who played soccer with Ben last week, and seemed more like a buddy than a romantic partner, so I'm not surprised to see her go. 

Jenna made a predictably dramatic exit, sobbing and clutching her chest while her nose got progressively redder and her hair stringier: "Are you kidding me? No, really, are you kidding me? I'm mortified."

Honey, treat it as blog fodder and just be glad they didn't expose even more of your neuroses on national TV.

As for the ladies who made it through to next week, they're heading to San Francisco. The promos showed Ben and Lindzi on a one-on-one date; Brittney making some kind of announcement that seems to shock her fellow bachelorettes; somebody passing out (is it Blakeley? please?) and Ben's ex-girlfriend showing up, inspiring outrage in the contestants. 

In other words, good times for us.

I'll be watching and recapping next Monday at 8 p.m. on OMNI.2. Yes, you read that right. Citytv is apparently kicking The Bachelor off its schedule in favour of Alcatraz. Hey, I'm a J.J. Abrams fan, but that seems like a bit of a slap for faithful Bachelor fans. If you don't get OMNI, you can also catch the show on ABC.

And I would love to know what you think of the season so far. So comment here, tweet me @realityeo or visit my Facebook page.

The Bachelor: And the games begin (spoiler alert)

(Ben Flajnik and the 25 Bachelor contestants in an ABC photo by Craig Sjodin.)

When Chris Harrison called Monday's Bachelor season premiere "the craziest first-night party in Bachelor history," he wasn't joking.

We had more bitchiness than I can recall seeing so early in a season, for starters.

We had a girl who rode in on a horse, another who brought her grandma. We had a Canuck who invited Ben Flajnik to taste her "Canadian bacon." We had a student who made up a rap for Ben (which put me in mind of Kasey Kahl's crazy songs for Ali, except the lyrics were better). We had a British expat who recited a cringe-worthy poem. We had a woman with a wacky heart tattoo (thinking of Kasey again). We had a materialistic, ultra-competitive girl whom I'm pretty sure we're going to love to hate (Vienna anyone?). But those were mere snacks compared to the main course, which was possibly the most crazypants bachelorette of all time.

You thought Michelle from Jake's season or Melissa from Brad's were loony? Meet Jenna, the blogger who writes about love in New York City (a.k.a. the Carrie Bradshaw wannabe).

I thought for a second we might see fisticuffs at the party given the daggers of hate that were flying between Jenna and Monica, the dental consultant who told Ben that she missed her dog.

But before we get too far into the drama, let's talk about Ben.

Like all Bachelors, the 28-year-old winemaker had to prove to us, the viewers, that he was ready to begin this very special journey.

Shirtless shots establishing presence of biceps and lack of man boobs? Check. Ability to gaze longingly at scenery (mountains, bodies of water) while wearing non-threatening plaid shirts? Check. Proficiency at both manly pursuits (kayaking) and pastimes that show his sensitive side (playing piano)? Check. Sincere expression of his lack of regret over getting humiliated on national TV? Check. Ability to say, with a straight face, how excited he is about the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of being The Bachelor? Check.

Before we could get to the 25 women eagerly awaiting their one and only shot at love (because the franchise has such a great success rate compared to say, picking someone up in a bar), we had to be reminded of how Ben got here.

And that meant taking another look at Ashley Hebert turning down his proposal during the last Bachelorette season finale, Ben telling us not once but twice, "I had my heart broken, I did," and Chris bringing it up yet again when he had his tete-a-tete with Ben before the limos rolled in. Why yes, Chris, it is humiliating to watch it on TV, thanks for asking.

But Ben assured Chris he's a different person now than that hurt and "just a little bit angry" man who left Ashley that day. 

"I was unavailable when we started The Bachelorette and I'm completely and utterly available now," Ben told Chris. "That's why I'm back. I want to try to find love again." Well, duh.

Before the limos arrived, we got a sneak peek at some of the ladies via quick profiles and, um, yeesh.

Specimen No. 1 was Lindzi, a business development manager who sees dating lessons in the experience of falling off her horse and got dumped by her last boyfriend via a text that read, "Baby, welcome to Dumpsville, population you." There was Amber T., a nurse and outdoorswoman who aspired to feed Ben "beef nuts," a.k.a. cow testicles. Courtney, a model, was sure the other girls would be intimidated by her looks and was anticipating getting "a big rock." "I think two carats is, you know, I deserve it, I'm worth it." Nurse Jamie didn't have a dad or a sober mom, and raised her brothers and sisters herself in a two-bedroom trailer, and then she started talking about having "cute babies" with Ben, which made her sound desperate. Lyndsie J. modelled costumes and accents from the various countries she had lived in with her diplomat dad (like Japan, Pakistan, the Philippines) and told Ben that he was hers in Japanese.

And then there was Jenna, who explained that her blog (the sample line on her laptop screen read "What does LOVE really mean?") was called "The Overanalyst because that's what I do.

"I know deep down that relationships work and they don't work, but that's not enough for me. I want to know why it didn't work. I don't want to end up with nobody, so it becomes a feeling of panic for me. It's really contradicting because that's not me, so why do I feel like that? It's a constant battle in my head."

Oh dear.

It got worse. Jenna's first meeting with Ben was all kinds of awkward, with her staring at him trying to figure out what to say. And then she misquoted his line from the Bachelorette finale about how "good things don't end unless they end badly" and had to be corrected, and made her way into the manson muttering about how she'd screwed it up.

Things really went off the rails when Jenna asked Monica if she had feelings for Ben and Monica said she didn't know. Jenna, in her own words, was "freaking out" and suggested that Monica leave. Monica said she had no urge to go home and laughed in Jenna's face. And it escalated from there.

Jenna tried to stave off hyperventilation while complaining to the other girls that she was feeling sick because Monica made her want to cry and was also laughing at her. "What human being is like that?" she whined.

Monica, meanwhile, complained to Blakeley (the woman with the "key to my heart" tattoo) that Jenna was being mean to her and then got so absorbed by Blakeley's beauty she ended up snuggling with her on one of the outdoor sofas, stroking her shoulder and asking for her phone number. 

"I think she's more interested in the girls than she is in Ben," commented fashion sales rep Rachel.

An attempt to broker a peace between Jenna and Monica went nowhere (to Monica's comment that she and Jenna were both girls and should get along, Jenna replied sarcastically, "Maybe we can share a tampon sometime"). Then Jenna lied to Ben when he asked if she'd been crying but told him revealingly that she was so nervous "everything goes black."

The moment I was sure that Jenna was getting a rose despite her obvious unfitness to be anywhere near a reality TV show was when Ben said sympathetically that he knew what it was like to be in Jenna's shoes and "I'm hoping she can find the strength to stick this out."

Let's be honest. Jenna probably scared the heck out of Ben, as she would any sensible man, but there has to be at least one crazypants kept around to entertain the viewers, so there was no way Jenna was going home.

So she locked herself in a bathroom and cried and talked to herself for so long that she was late for the rose ceremony? Who cares as long as she sticks around long enough to be a topic of conversation at the Women Tell All special.

Anyway, 18 women got roses and seven got sent home, including Canadian competitor Amber Bacon, a nurse from Port Coquitlam, B.C., which is too bad since she was one of the bitchiest women there.

"It smelled a lot like Grandma," Amber sneered, complaining that medical sales rep Brittney had scored sympathy points by bringing her grandmother Sheryl to the cocktail party (which, of course, was exactly what Brittney had in mind since she wanted to show Ben that she was close to her family, just like him).

"You live and you learn," snarked Amber. "Darn it, next time, sash, hat and a grandma," she said, taking digs at beauty queen Samantha and Kentucky belle Holly as well as Brittney.

Here's a quick look at the women who made the cut, in the order they got their roses:

Lindzi C., 27, Ocala, Fla: This business development manager got the first impression rose, which means she'll eventually be roadkill on the throughway to true, if not lasting, love. Ben insisted it wasn't the fact she rode to the party on a horse that made the biggest impression, but that she admitted to being nervous and was funny.

Jamie, 25, Dryden, N.Y.: The registered nurse seems like one of the nicer girls in the bunch, although the dress, which had straps barely containing her breasts where a bodice should have been, was a little over the top. As we know, she has a sad back story that will give Ben a chance to show his sensitive side on future dates.  

Rachel, 27, Southampton, Mass.: Another nice girl but with better taste in dresses, however the fashion rep's discomfort with conflict may not bode well in such a competitive bunch, particularly since she quit her job to do the show. 

Blakeley, 34, Rutherfordton, N.C.: Monica's right, she is beautiful and Ben seems appreciative of her beauty. But if this VIP cocktail waitress sneaks out to get a new tattoo just for him, look out. 

Emily, 27, Chapel Hill, N.C.: This PhD student in epidemiology shouldn't give up her day job for a rap career, but points for rhymes that were less inane than Kasey's ("Love is like disease, always spreading/You can get it from a friend, you can get it at a wedding") and for stealing the first kiss. She seems like one of the most determined competitors.

Kacie B., 24, Clarksville, Tenn.: Making a heart symbol with her hands while declaring she wants to turn her "me to we" was too cute by half, but it looks like this administrative assistant sticks around a while, judging from the promos. A potential final three contender.

Casey S., 26, Leawood, Kan.: Well, this trading clerk is blond and I don't know why she wore a long dress with a see-through skirt, and that's about it.

Brittney, 26, Colorado Springs, Colo.: Okay, we know her grandma loves this medical sales rep, but what else you got?

Erika, 23, Charlottesville, Va.: When I first saw this legal student step out of the limo, I assumed she'd inadvertently put on one of Edyta Sliwinska's old costumes from Dancing With the Stars. Her opening line, telling Ben he was guilty of being sexy, was way too corny, but Ben seems to like brunettes.

Shawn, 28, Cincinatti, Ohio: The financial adviser and single mom played soccer with Ben in her high heels and slugged him in the arm when they met. Seems a more likely buddy than romantic partner.

Nicki, 26, Hurst, Texas: She's cute as a button and seems to be genuinely into Ben. Look for manufactured drama when it comes time to tell Ben that the dental hygienist is d-i-v-o-r-c-e-d, but there's definite potential.

Jennifer, 28, Cache, Okla.: This accountant seems too unassuming to have made much of an impression, despite her opening shtick of telling Ben how many miles she travelled to get there and how many dresses she tried on before the party (54).

Elyse, 24, Chicago, Ill.: The personal trainer has a nice smile and figure, but would you want to date someone who made you get down on the floor and do pushups? 

Samantha, 26, Pittsburgh, Pa.: I'm confused. The advertising accounts manager wore her Miss Pacific Pallisades sash but told Ben she's more than a pageant girl just like he's more than a Bachelor. Okay, so leave the sash at home then.

Courtney, 28, Scottsdale, Ariz.: This model reminds me of the Northern Pikes song, "She ain't pretty, she just looks that way." She seems to have Vienna's shallowness and Michelle Money's contempt for her fellow contestants. And from the looks of things, she'll be the source of lots of drama later in the season, which means she'll get to stick around a while.

Jaclyn, 27, Newton, Mass.: She's an advertising account manager who likes to hug, but I have no idea why she's still around.

Monica, 33, Yuba City, Calif.: Aside from the question of whether Monica really does prefer women to men (not that there's anything wrong with that), she seems more interested in the experience of being on The Bachelor than in Ben. She's not likely to back down from Jenna's accusations, so look for more histrionics.

Jenna, 27, Loveland, Ohio: If Ben really did see romantic potential in this freelance writer, he'd be a far stranger man than I ever imagined, but of course she's there as a plot device. The only question is how long it will take before the crying jags and grimaces wear out their welcome with the producers as well as Ben and the other women.

So that's how I saw the season premiere. How about you? Who were your favourites and who will you love to hate? Comment here, tweet me @realityeo or visit my Facebook page.