Back to Brad (Bachelor, Season 15, Ep. 1)

Welp, it's back.

I know you've missed it.

I know you've been weeping into your cereal every morning because you couldn't watch it.

ABC is gracious enough to fulfill our need for constant Bachelor-ness by bringing us The Bachelor Season 15: Back to Brad. (They didn't give this season an awesomely cheesy subtitle, so I made one up. I need it.)

I have to say, I got a little spoiled by having all the interns over every week to watch the Bachelorette this summer and so it was a little anti-climactic to have to snark my way through it without yelling and constant rewinding to hear the funny parts. But my roomies Katie and Jen watched with me and were appropriately appalled and intrigued.

One of my favorite things about the Bachelor is that they completely stick to the exact same formula/sequence of editing every single season. This episode did not stray. The first thing we did was jump right into learning all about Brad.

In case you don't obsessively watch the Bachelor as I have for years, you may not know that Brad was actually already the Bachelor in Season 11. He picked Jenni and Deanna as the final two and then famously rejected both of them and ended up alone.

ABC has decided to go the "America hates Brad" route in marketing this and had him talking a lot about how much he's changed, how he's ready for committment, how his dad abandoned him which made him push people away, and how 3 years of "intensive therapy" have made him ready to be the Bachelor again. I can't say that I'm that shocked that being on the Bachelor would require the need for intensive therapy but hopefully your therapist had some stuff to say about willingly subjecting yourself to it again.

I have to say, I think ABC's overplaying the everyone hates Brad angle. I actually remember kind of respecting him for not just picking someone to pick someone, but I guess they were worried people wouldn't invest in his "quest for love" if they thought he wouldn't pick someone again. If someone out there needs to hear Brad's therapist say that he's ready for committment on camera, so be it.

After the Brad catch-up, we moved onto the contestant vignettes where they pick a few of the crazies and maybe one normal person to focus on and tell us a little about their lives. The crazies included someone whose job it is to manscape (complete with unnecessary shots of her actually waxing some poor guys) and a model who may or may not actually believe she's a vampire.

The normal girl that they picked requires a story that makes you cry and Emily from Charlotte delivered by telling us she found out she was pregnant 4 days after her fiance died in a plane crash. Now she's raising her 5-year-old daughter and working at a children's hospital. There is always at least one person that is absolutely too classy to be on this show. I don't want to speak too soon, but I think that's Emily this season.

And then, finally, we got to return to the mansion! Oh, how I've missed the mansion with its crazy lights, unnatural flowers, and complete debauchery. Chris and Brad reunite and sit down to talk about what happened on his last season and how he's changed (this is a running theme throughout the night).

Chris also asks if Brad would be ready to face Jenni and Deanna if he had the chance which really should have been enough forshadowing. Come on, Brad. You've been here before. But he says yes, he would love to apologize, and then was shocked to discover that Jenni and Deanna are there! To confront Brad! And flash their super huge engagement rings because they're happy! Without Brad! HAPPY!

It's awkward. And awesome. Jenni's sweet and Deanna's bitchy and clearly bitter.

With that out of the way, we get to move onto the limo entrances. Apparently, they have told the women that the Bachelor is someone who has been on the show before but didn't tell them who it is, so they're all screaming and shocked when they pull up to meet Brad. There little intros are as lame as ever and evenly divided into one of 2 strategies: 1) feigning no knowledge of who Brad is or 2) Bitterly telling him that America hates him and he has a lot to prove.

The cocktail party is another whole load of awkward as Brad spends the entire night telling women that he doesn't know that he is a changed man and asking them to let him prove himself. Really unnecessary, Brad. They don't really have a right to be personally affronted by something you did on a reality show 3 years ago.

It didn't get any less awkward when the manscaper decided to remove some hair from Brad's wrist. She did the waxing and Brad provided us with the quote of the night when he said in response, "That's bare. Like, shockingly bare." Then she referred to something as the "undercarriage" and I blacked out in psychological defense against such scarring knowledge.

Ashley, the Southern girl (and I do mean girl- Is she 15? Also, why did they not put ages up next to their names like normal? I need to know so that I can judge) won the first impression rose for telling Brad that he can turn to her if he needs a friend. See ladies, asking him if he's ready to commit the first time you meet doesn't win you his heart.

The rose ceremony is exactly what you would think it would be. He kept everyone who got screentime, including vampy girl and the manscaper, and sent home 10 girls who seemed kind of boring.

Some exit crying and 10 minutes of previews that kind of ruin the rest of the season rounded out the episode. I started clapping in joy while my roommate Katie gave an impassioned speech about the death of dignity in our society.

I love Monday nights.