Operation Soulmate, or The Attack of the Bachelorettes
Operation Soulmate, or The Attack of the Bachelorettes by Roxanne McDonald
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Aggressive Barbies converge on the cautious Ken. |
He’s an officer, a tri-athlete, a humanitarian says the narrator of “The Bachelor: Officer and a Gentleman.” He is also a bachelor searching for his soulmate, interested in a girl “who can get sporty and dirty and then who can get cleaned up and come out looking ravishing.”
Ravishing these girls are. Did you see the entrance they make in bathing suits? All of them are gorgeous, fit, clear-eyed…. (And did you catch how each of the two groups on the group dates was headed by a petite brunette, surrounded by the blondes? Looked like the show had made arrangements for some aesthetic balance, or something.)
Exciting these girls are: especially when they ride the
mechanical bull, which really turns Andy on, or when they kiss him underwater (Bevin), willingly compete in a mini-triathlon and come in strong (Amber wins and Danielle is right behind her), and dance in special one-on-one time with him (Nicole).
Not so excited is he when the girls invade his one-on-one time, come in pairs (Erin and Susan always together and holding hands prompts to call them the two Barbies), or are too conservative, evidently. (Andy says he appreciates how Alexis is old-fashioned, traditional, conservative—but he doesn’t appreciate these characteristics enough to give her a rose, though.)
Who do we like? Or is it too soon to tell? I can say I am getting a bit sick of Stephanie already: at least three times in this second installment she recounts her greatness and therefore great chances for us: how she “got the First Impression Rose; the first one-on-one date; the first date rose; and [so she thinks] the first kiss.” Someone else critiques the ass-revealing shortie dress Stephanie plans to wear as what she considers a “yacht type of dress” as ridiculous, saying, “you’re going to wear something that revealing!?”
Stephanie must have made the right couture choices, for she and Andy do what Stephanie reports is a Titanic simulation, Stephanie doing an “I’m flying!!!!” thing at the front of the yacht while Andy holds her. (Is it “I’m flying,” or “I’m king of the world!”?)
And while my response is not out of jealousy (at least I think it’s not), the responses of the others is. Bevin sort of
speaks for all of them as she says they all are a little jealous as they all want to be alone with Andy and all want to have a candlelight dinner with him.
Back at the house, the women are betting on whether she gets the first date rose, and when she comes home to announce and “show off” she indeed has gotten the rose, the women on the stairs all rise in tandem and ascend to the second floor—disgusted.
There’s also the southern belle sick of defending her sorority lifestyle (Peyton); Tina (with the highest IQ of the bunch but the lowest self esteem), who is sure she is going home; and the two who have befriended each other to the point of sticking together constantly, in the pool challenge, in the house, to the point where Susan says she and Erin are soulmates and to the point where Nicole dubs them the two Barbies—a dynamic which will not work with only one Ken.
And the Barbies and the non-athletic babes and the southern belles infiltrate the man’s spheres, interrupting group lunches, cutting short personal one-on-ones, and jockeying for front of the row clearance…while Andy looks over his dancing partner’s shoulder (or head), looks hopefully at doorways, and says he can’t wait to see those like Amber…who, despite being one of the few anti-Barbies, has no idea he is so entranced.
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