Our Thoughts on the 2022 Bachelorette Premiere

For those of you who don’t know The Bachelorette premiered its 19th season on Monday, July 11th. For the first time ever, this whole season will have two Bachelorettes — Gabby Windey and Rachel Recchia. After Clayton Echard broke both their hearts and treated them terribly, Gabby and Rachel are ready to find true love.

Okay, so we know The Bachelor and Bachelorette aren’t quality TV. For us, it’s a way to decompress. What’s more relaxing than watching something fun while enjoying a glass of wine? But we found ourselves looking forward to this season more than the past few. ABC has a unique opportunity to highlight female friendships. While there are many more episodes this season, based on night one, we love seeing Gabby and Rachel support each other.

How Will Season 19 Work?

From what we’ve heard through the spoiler grapevine (Reality Steve), Gabby and Rachel end up picking which guys they will date after the third rose ceremony. Until then, they both date all 29 men. After they pick their men, the group will spend weeks on a cruise ship in Europe.

However, it doesn’t mean there won’t be some drama. ABC teased the upcoming season, which highlighted a few men rejecting Rachel and Gabby having some difficult conversations. It still seems like that Gabby and Rachel didn’t let the dramatics impact their friendship though, which we loved to see.

The best scenes from the premiere were when Gabby and Rachel took time to discuss the men they connected with. Open communication and complete honesty are the way to go. Their fun girl talk was easily a lot more fun than any contestant or lead speaking to one of the hosts, whether it’s Chris, Tayshia, Kaitlin or Chris. It also gives viewers the inside scoop about how these Bachelorettes feel at every step of the way. We already know who the women are crushing on and which men failed to lean in for a night-one kiss.

We look forward to more fun conversations and seeing how the girls deal with this season’s villains together.

The Men

First of all, the biggest shocker of the night was when Rachel and Gabby decided to cancel the rose ceremony because they believed they couldn’t send anyone home without getting a chance to speak with him. This showed a lot more maturity than previous leads. They only sent home three men who they didn’t have connections with: Romy (the magician) and the twins.

Overall, immediately the two women had strong connections with different men. Sure, a few men got to spend time with both of them. But for the most part, we saw the initial divide. Some men are clearly there for one of them and a few are on the fence. We appreciated that they had different picks for the first impression rose — Tino for Rachel and Mario for Gabby. We already have two frontrunners. Even after the first impression roses, we saw a few other standouts, including Hayden, Zach, Aven, Erich and Johnny.

Besides the standouts and the cancelation of the rose ceremony, the premiere had a similar formatting as all the others. Some men had normal entrances, while others went over the top. The main theme: bashing Clayton. Now, we’re not Clayton fans and we think he treated his women terribly. However, Gabby and Rachel deserve to make it through the night without having to hear about their ex-boyfriend. We’re sure it was production more than the men, but let Gabby and Rachel have their season and let’s forget about Clayton.

Conflicts

Overall, there weren’t any crazy fights or drama on night one. Sure, the men judged each other, especially for some of the more outrageous arrivals. But nothing absolutely crazy happened. The weirdest three men were sent home. Note: the twins Joey and Justin wanted double dates with Gabby and Rachel. Didn’t work out… But besides this uncomfortable conversation, we haven’t found our season villain/s yet. Not every season has craziness on night one, but some do and honestly it felt refreshing to just keep the focus on the two leads. We’re certain that dates next week will lead to some heated conversations (or worse). 29 men living together, who want the attention of two women, can only stay calm for so long.

Season 19 Teaser

At the end of every first episode of the season, ABC teases what’s going to happen and where the cast gets to travel. As mentioned above, eventually Gabby and Rachel have decisions to make about the men and they are headed to Europe. The show teased many scenes in Paris, France and the finale location: Mexico! But the teaser is never an accurate portrayal of the season. We knew going in that the most dramatic and romantic moments would be showcased, without any background knowledge.

It did show that maybe a few of the men had to turn down one of the women to date the other. In a scene, Meatball is shown saying no to Rachel’s rose. It doesn’t mean that Gabby is going to say yes though. On the other hand, we saw Hayden telling Gabby that he would rather pursue something with Rachel. But again, does Rachel say yes? For most of the men, everything remains unknown, save for the final four which Reality Steve spoiled. We won’t tell you if you’d rather wait and see, but if you want to know, just Goggle it.

Lastly, the most fun portion of the teaser was seeing Gabby and Rachel maintain their strong friendship. That’s what we want to see all season long.

Final Thoughts

We can’t wait to watch the rest of the season. We won’t be posting weekly recaps. However, we plan to write a few more times during the season regarding our thoughts. We definitely plan to share our views on the finale!

Have you watched The Bachelorette yet? Let us know in the comments. We want to know what you think about Gabby and Rachel and all the men.

Episode two releases on July 18th!