We had high hopes for Matt James, and so far we are not disappointed.
The 29-year-old real estate broker began his tenure on The Bachelor tonight and might have given us the most pleasant and most promising premiere in a while. The first impression rose winner is already a fave, and a second fave is a sparkly, light-up vibrator named MJ (no relation to the contestant named MJ) that caused quite the stir.
"I haven't seen something that big before," Matt told E! News. "It was extremely distracting, you know, making noises and just catching light and a bunch of different ways so it's hard to stay focused."
Yeah, this was a fun premiere.
First, let's get this vibrator situation out of the way. Contestant Katie brought the prop as a representation of what got her through quarantine, and it stuck around all night long. At one point she used it to tap another girl, Mari, on the shoulder to get a minute to talk to Matt, and Mari didn't shut up about being tapped on the shoulder by a dildo for the rest of the evening.
Another stand out (but in a worse way) was Queen Victoria, the girl who was carried in wearing a tiara. She spent all night referring to herself as the queen and fully misunderstood Matt's metaphor about trying to drink through a firehose and being overwhelmed.
"I'm like the best firehose," she told him. "So I'll make a good drink for you."
She then spent the rest of the evening pressuring other girls into talking to Matt while also going back to keep talking to him more. She is chaos, and she's exactly the kind of person who thrives on The Bachelor.
Then, there's Abigail. Abigail is the show's first hearing impaired contestant, and she got Matt immediately by telling him she was going to have to read his lips but it was fine because his lips are great. They had an obvious instant connection and by the time went off to find the first impression rose, we wouldn't have been totally opposed to the two of them pulling a Clare and Dale, especially as queen Victoria continued to annoy.
Then, a season trailer showed even more women showing up, as if 32 weren't enough already. For now, scroll down to keep tabs on who's still around and come back next week to join us in continually googling how tall Matt James is, because for some reason we can never remember. (He's 6'5".)
The Bachelor airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on ABC.