Only a reality franchise as far removed from real life as The Bachelor would brand Clayton Echard its unsung hero. After two years and four seasons spent filming in various hotels under COVID protocol, The Bachelor has returned to its famed mansion and the formula it’s used for 26 seasons. Echard, a former athlete and contestant on Michelle Young’s recently-wrapped Bachelorette season, is joined by new host Jesse Palmer, a former Bachelor and athlete himself. If you squint, you’d swear they were ousted emcee Chris Harrison and former football player lead Colton Underwood. Or Sean Lowe. As Monday night’s premiere unfolded, the show seemed designed to feel that way.
“I’m just a boy from Missouri that wants to find love,” Echard says at the beginning of his journey, sharing news of his casting with his mother and returning to his hometown of Eureka as a hero. “I’m sure you’re wondering why I’m the Bachelor after getting only eight minutes of screen time on The Bachelorette,” he continues. “It’s because I truthfully believe in this process, I think more than anybody else. I know I can find my wife here. I know this works. I’m so humbled to be the Bachelor. I’m just a Midwest guy that doesn’t really like the spotlight.”
Echard’s admission is meant to endear him to fans who viewed his casting as uninspired, following Matt James’s historic season as the show’s first Black Bachelor in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests. This was also the likely impetus behind this season’s tagline—“Everyone loves an underdog”—and a “Mean Tweets” segment involving Echard on last season’s After the Final Rose special.
Really, Echard doesn’t subvert any expectations as the Bachelor. But that doesn’t mean the show won’t spend two hours trying to convince us otherwise. Echard is shown emphasizing how “humbled” and “in over my head” he is as he meets a parade of conventionally-attractive women between the ages of 24 and 33. Before a single stiletto can emerge from a limo, however, Echard meets Salley, whose occupation is listed as “previously engaged.” As it turns out, she’s recently ended said engagement due to “lack of trust” and was scheduled to get hitched the very weekend she arrived to film The Bachelor.
Suddenly “emotionally wrecked” over the scenario in which she placed herself, Salley pays Echard a visit five hours before the rose ceremony. “I thought I was ready to do something like this, but I don’t know if my heart is ready,” she tearfully tells him. In turn, Echard expresses that there’s a “connection” between them and offers her the season’s first rose. But the Bachelor gets turned down and, as he states, the rose’s rejection feeds into one of Echard’s “biggest fears”: being rejected himself.
If that wasn’t enough to seal Echard’s underdog edit, a second contestant, Claire, would do production’s heavy lifting later in the episode. After beating Echard in cornhole at a makeshift tailgate (as one does), Claire’s time is cut short by fellow contestant Mara. When that pair leaves, Claire does the unthinkable—decides she’s just not that into the Bachelor. She tests the waters by telling the group that Erhard’s “not the vibe” and “he’s 100 percent too nice for me.” Claire later goes full-throttle, declaring: “I can’t be with fucking America’s sweetheart,” becoming the season’s villain and voice of reason all at once. Alas, she’s sent packing by night’s end.
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Beyond Salley and Claire’s departures, Echard’s premiere was painfully by-the-book. Kooky limo exits ensued, including a 63-year-old retiree named Holly serving as wing-woman for pilot Rachel and Jill toting an urn of her exes’ ashes. (“I brought them here just in case you make the same mistake,” she warns.) Erhard’s first impression rose recipient was 24-year-old Teddi, who shares in her intro package that she’s a virgin, one of several publicly-chaste contestants’ in show history. And despite Erhard’s billing as a Midwestern underdog stuck in a 6’5 athlete’s body, the Bachelor did kiss his first contestant of the evening—five of them, actually.
The Bachelor has retreated back to its villa-esque mansion, and reverted back to a lead that matches its overly familiar exterior. But one gets the feeling the show will spend the entire season pretending that it hasn’t.
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