Nick V Week One: Fins to the Left, (Shark)Fins to the Right

Welcome back, Bachies! We're thrilled to begin our eighth season of roses, points, and casual Monday night gambling. The Roses to Riches club has maintained its strong participation numbers, with more than 100 participants spanning coast to coast once again.

Some administrative announcements:

There have been a few slight rule changes this season. See your Rules and Deets doc for details. If you don't have one, yell at your pool captain about it. Of the rule changes, my favorite is the addition of Over-the-Hill Points. This season, contestants aged 30 or over will receive three extra points for each episode they appear in. There are only three geriatric contestants in the competition, despite Nick being 36. Let's see how this plays out, shall we?

Also, in case you missed it, we have eliminated Minority Points, due to Nick's extremely diverse and racially ambiguous cast. This is a true win for humanity.

Side Note: I always miss Chris Harrison, our lord and savior, SO MUCH during the off season. His voice is like a big hug. Mr. Harrison, if you're reading, please come live in my apartment as a therapeutic life coach.

As we begin the episode, Nick really turns on the charm. He appears to be humble and relatively self aware. In the beginning we get a good recap of his past humiliations on TV.

Elizabeth is proud of his big Catholic family. His sister Bella has grown up a lot - wasn't she just a toddler last season? She's now old enough to offer "advice." Bizarre.

He meets with bachelor-emeriti Chris, Sean and Ben. They offer nothing of value, but get their ABC appearance paycheck. This is a pleasant reminder that Nick is the most interesting bachelor in at least four seasons, so we've got that going for us.

Damn girl. Got some sun to go with that shade?

The contestant bios begin, and honestly, this part of the night is kind of a blackout for blog notes. I was busy furiously writing draft notes that include the following, in no particular order:

- psycho eyes

- too much midriff

- NO PLS NO

- relatively normal

- ADULT WITH A NANNY

- old, but promising

- destined for paradise

- BOOBS

- good sob story

- gorgeous but annoying

- excited about food. KEEPER

- no underwear. NO UNDERWEAR. do not pick.

- dead eyes

I'll let you figure out which girl gets which note.

Other highlights: Neil Lane makes a guest appearance to get his sponsorship money's worth. Many contestants have potty mouths, tattoos and red dresses. Liz had a drunk quickie with Nick at a wedding earlier this year. Danielle is super confident in her french toast. Josephine forced him to eat a cold hot dog. Alexis thinks her shark costume is a dolphin.

#neverforget

Let's unpack that last one real quick - the "aspiring dolphin trainer" doesn't realize that her Left Shark costume is not, in fact, a dolphin. How is that possible? A) Wherever she got that costume from for sure had it titled "shark costume." B) Aren't there obnoxious actual dolphin costumes she could have worn? C) She probably doesn't know that Chicken of the Sea is tuna. WHY is she doing this to herself? 

The limos leave, the girls put their game faces on, and our watch party launches in drafting chaos. 

^Two pools drafting in one apartment looks like this ^

Once drafting is complete the point categories begin. 

Rachel gets the first chat time. She's adorable and clearly too intelligent to be on this show. We immediately see some sparks and I immediately begin shit talking since she was my first draft pick. Keep it up, girl.

Virgin Christen has the hungriest eyes. She's wearing a highlighter-yellow dress and clearly imagining Nick naked - not that we need to imagine since ABC put a camera man in Nick's shower at the top of the show.

Bring on the points!

Corinne shows up as the early villain. She tries to suppress her crazy at first in front of Nick, but that doesn't last long. She steals him away for a second one-on-one chat so that she can earn First Kiss Points! Conveniently, all the other girls saw the kiss and the hatred spread like wild fire. According to Nick he wasn't totally comfortable with the gun-jumping, but that clearly didn't stop him from participating in the >3sec smooch. 

Liz, however, kissed him nine months ago – so she's feeling good.

We're getting a lot of stealing away points and even some early tear points from Jasmine G.

Claw are coming out and I'm remembering why I love this show.

Dolphin/Shark girl is killin' me. She starts calling for Nick with her best dolphin impression while wading in the pool. Nick is understandably concerned with her confusion of sharks and dolphins. She does a confessional interview and her eyes don't open, so she earns the first Visibly Intoxicated points of the season.

Nick calls out the elephant in the mansion with Liz. She's Jade's best friend and hooked up with Nick at Jade and Tanner's wedding. After the incident he asked for her number, she said no thanks, then waited nine months to reach out to him via national television. Nick's cautious, as he should be, but my guess is that we'll see her for at least another two episodes.

"Except we didn't sleep and he may not remember me."

Taylor has told him multiple times that her friends think he is a piece of shit. <- that is not hyperbole; she got bleeped out every time. It's not like "my friends hate you BUT...here's a compliment to show you that I feel differently." She just says piece of shit and leaves it. That technique has never worked for me in the past, but good luck to her.

Danielle M is ADORABLE. The baby nurse. They have some chemistry and she seems likes a pleasant human to be around. Snaps for Danielle M.

Vanessa apparently hates flowers. Gonna be a rough experience for her.

Rachel gets the first impression rose! I'm thrilled, as is the Bachelor PR team now that a minority woman is an early front runner. Looks like HuffPo will need to table their white washing op-eds for at least another week.

Keep the points coming, Rachel.

At the first rose ceremony of the season Vanessa gets the first rose and Liz rounds out with the final. Sharkphin girl shockingly gets a rose. Going home tonight this morning are Angela, Briana, Ida Marie, Jasmine B, Lauren, Michelle, Olivia and Susannah. We get some last minute tear points from Briana and Lauren.

Props to Rob S, Clare C, Mary and Amanda out of Chicago, Jessica in Kansas City, and Alex H in Nashville for the only teams completely standing after night one! (and trust me, it's painful to give any credit to Rob S for anything)

Check your points and double-check our work on the pool listings. We typed a lot of teams after several bottles of Bachelor branded wine, so there are likely to be a few typos. Reach out to commish@rosestoriches.com with questions or tweet @rosestoriches. Leave us some love below.

Love and Roses, 

Julie