Welcome to Douche of the Week, where tortured Bachelorette viewers Anna Silman and Allie Jones take turns awarding male contestants on the show with the honor of … Douche of the Week.
As I was watching Monday night’s Bachelorette premiere, I found myself reflecting upon the traditional Passover song “Dayenu,” wherein we express that if God had blessed the Jewish people with just one of his many gifts, dayenu: “It would have been enough.”
I feel many of the same sentiments when tuning in to a new season of The Bachelorette. If we had just had Evan, the pastor turned “erectile-dysfunction expert,” dayenu. If we had just had the guy in the Santa suit, or the guy who rode in on a unicorn, or the idiot in the kilt, or the “Bachelorette superfan,” or the guy whose occupation was “hipster,” or the return of douche elder statesman Jake Pavelka … dayenu. Any one of these fine douches would have been enough.
But picking the perfect douche is like picking the perfect wine. You’ve got to give it some time, swill it around, let its distinct aromas percolate in your nasal passages. So that’s what I did with this week’s Bachelorette douche. And by the midpoint of the episode, a clear front-runner had emerged.
Daniel from Vancouver (occupation: “Canadian”) arrived at the mansion with a serial killer’s intensity in his eyes, and a pickup line cribbed from a popular internet meme: “Daaamn, JoJo, back at it again as the next Bachelorette!” Disturbingly, we soon learned that Daniel’s love for “Damn Daniel” transcended mere introductions, as he then spent a good five minutes explaining the meme to poor, flustered JoJo (quote I want engraved on my tombstone: “Have you been following the internet the past couple months?”).
I wanted to give Daniel the benefit of the doubt, given that I too am Canadian, although not by profession. But it turned out that ruining a beloved meme and mansplaining the internet were just the beginning of Daniel’s reign of terror. After getting “white Canadian wasted” on a combination of tequila, vodka, and Fireball and triggering the Bachelorette Mansion’s extensive built-in gay-panic-alarm system by poking another contestant in the belly button, Daniel went ahead and uttered the douchiest phrase in the English language: “Anyone can look good in a suit. Let’s see what you look like with nothing on.” Then, following in the footsteps of many great douches before him, he threw himself headfirst into the Bachelorette Mansion pool.
JoJo still gave him a rose, amazingly, perhaps because she was asked to by producers. So, good news: Daniel will be eligible for Douche of the Week again.
Honorable mention: Nick S., who drunkenly shouted “Cheers to rock and roll” to no one in particular, midway through the evening. He did not get a rose.
