Bachelor for Nerds

Week 2

I apologize for posting a day later this week. I was caught up watching the College Football National Championship on Monday night and thus had to push my viewing of The Bachelor to Tuesday. The intention is to post these blogs within a day after the episode airs, and I still plan to follow that for the rest of the season.

Background Analysis

I began looking at the geographical diversity of the remaining contestants last week, and I kind of want to keep looking at it throughout the season.

Figure 1. Distribution of the geographic diversity of the remaining contestants.

Peter said goodbye to Massachusetts, Florida and most notably his home state of California this week. Now only 6 contestants are the sole representatives from their state with a total of 11 states represented. 10 of the remaining 19 women are from the south, upholding his possible bias for southern girls.

BSR Performance

This is the first week the BSR is put to the test. While it does take a few weeks for the model to more accurately depict each contestant’s potential longevity on The Bachelor, I will begin to track its performance starting this week.

Figure 2. The BSR and all factors for each contestant leading up to this week’s episode. Note that wild card, personality, and attractiveness are displayed in standardized form.

Contestants who fall below the gold line were projected as most likely to be eliminated. Only one contestant this week below that line was eliminated: Lauren. This means the model is leading the season off going 1 for 3, or .333.

Show Analysis

There seemed to be a lot more of nothing this episode. Hannah B. was not brought on as a contestant. Kelsey and Hannah Ann’s “champagne war” was overdramatic. Victoria F. threatened to quit. And many key contestants (Madison, Kelley, Victoria P.) spent hardly any time in front of the confession camera. However, I did learn something new: “boyfriends are temporary, cashmere is forever.” I think Hannah B. should make that her new Instagram bio.

At this stage in the show, the women are competing against each other to get favorable time with Peter. He doesn’t want to spend time with contestants who are using the time to cry or talk about other contestants. This leads me to feud between Kelsey and Hannah Ann. To my understanding, Kelsey had this special champagne saved out for her time with Peter while Hannah Ann had the same thing with a less special champagne. Kelsey’s story is that Hannah Ann deliberately chose to open Kelsey’s champagne, and Hannah Ann’s story is that it was an honest mistake. If we believe Kelsey, she still acted out of line. The case can be made that Hannah Ann knew Kelsey would freak out and make her look crazy compared to the innocent-looking Hannah Ann; if that’s true, good job Hannah Ann. She understands the state of the competition and is manipulating those who could be deemed to her as distractions. This worked in her favor as Kelsey was crying in front of Peter while Hannah Ann appeared to move on.

We are encouraged to side with Victoria F. who portrays herself as insecure amidst the rest of the competition. I noticed that she breaks down whenever she faces adversity, causing her to have thoughts of quitting. I think she has a good personality and can go far in the show because of it, but her emotions and lack of confidence will hold her back.

The narrative is set to make Hannah Ann look like the villain after winning the group date challenge, but she won at something she has significant experience in: modeling. It’s also noteworthy that Hannah Ann probably encounters many women with terrible personalities and whatnot at her modeling gigs (I hate to generalize, but I’m sure much of the personnel in the modeling industry aren’t exactly a delight to be around). She has shown that she knows how to operate in competition without losing her cool.

It may appear that I’m defending Hannah Ann in this blog. A valid argument can be made that she is very manipulative and wants it too much. The last time I heard those words used to describe a contestant was Luke P. from The Bachelorette. There is a big difference between Hannah Ann and Luke P. in that she is a good competitor and is aware of the competition while he was a straight-up liar who was disrespectful to the other contestants and Hannah B. I know comparing her to the extreme is not a great argument, but she’s honestly a great competitor whose profession is basically just trying to get more noticed, and that’s what this current part of the competition is about.

Looking Ahead

Here is what the field looks like heading into next week.

Figure 3. The BSR and all factors for each contestant following this week’s episode. Note that wild card, personality, and attractiveness are displayed in standardized form.

There are 7 contestants with a positive BSR and 12 with a negative BSR. The BSR distribution is still right-skewed, but it is moving in the right direction.

Hannah Ann still remains at the top after appearing on camera a lot in both episodes and being above the average contestant in many categories. Keep in mind that this does not necessarily mean that she is projected to win; this means she is most likely to be safe from elimination for the time being. As the show progresses, certain factors are evaluated differently: Hannah Ann will have to transition her focus from seeking attention to building a relationship if she wants to stay on top.

Now here’s the version of Figure 3 separated into tiers.

Figure 4. Contestants with a positive BSR are in tiers 1–3.

All contestants who were at least tier 3 last week remained there, which is quite satisfying that the model remained consistent regarding who the safe contestants are. Those in the bottom tiers can still move up, but something will need to change for them fairly soon.