The 9 Most Awkward Moments of The Bachelorette Season Premiere

If it feels like just a few weeks ago that we found out JoJo Fletcher was going to be the next Bachelorette, that's because it pretty much was: The Bachelor had its season finale on March 15, when Ben Higgins and Lauren Bushnell publicly announced their engagement. That's when JoJo went from jilted lover to the one who gets to do the rejecting and stomped back to the mansion to quickly shoot her season of The Bachelorette. And now here we are, meeting the 26 eager, muscular young men competing for JoJo's hand in marriage. This is limo introductions, which means a smorgasbord of awkward situations for cringe aficionados. From drunkenness to idiotic puns to Gob Bluth levels of misplaced arrogance, this episode had it all.

Here are the nine moments that made me want to crawl under the couch and say "jojojojojojojojo" so I couldn't hear what they were saying on my TV.

9. There's a singer named James Taylor
James Taylor can't help that he's a singer-songwriter with the birth name James Taylor. He didn't give himself the same name as the multiplatinum singer of "Fire and Rain," nor did his parents know that he was going to grow up to try to make a living singing and playing acoustic guitar. But when he realized the path his life was taking, he should have said "I can't have the same name as a very famous man doing the same thing as me. I will take a stage name to differentiate myself." But he didn't do that, and now he will always be unfavorably compared to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee with the same name, because James Taylor from The Bachelorette will not have a more successful music career than James Taylor from Sweet Baby James.

8. Bachelor Superfan James' sad viewing party
Every season has a few contenders whose jobs aren't even close to being real jobs, and one of this year's is James S., who self-identifies as a "Bachelor superfan." In his intro video, James S. alternates between doing shirtless pushups at the top a mountain and practicing saying "I do accept this rose in the mirror." Then it cuts to him having a Bachelor viewing party with two adults (who are never introduced) and two children. Poor guy. His Bachelor superfandom has alienated his friends and the only people who'll hang out with him are his sister and brother-in-law and his niece and nephew. I mean, hopefully they're his niece and nephew and not just two random kids off the street. Then he asks his framed photo of Chris Harrison for advice on which jacket to wear. Obviously this was all totally staged, but it doesn't make James S. look desirable, which should have been James' goal.

7. Santa
Nick B. commits hard to a very dumb joke (St. Nick, get it?) and shows up in a Santa suit (this was filmed in March, remember) that he leaves on for the whole night, beard and all. He also keeps saying "Jo Jo Jo!," which is maybe the worst pun ever devised. He gave JoJo a present, which she never opened. This will haunt me for the whole season.

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6. Fletcher family tradition
Robby's gift for JoJo is a bottle of wine, but there's a catch. "In true Fletcher family tradition," he says while uncorking the bottle, "who needs glasses, right?" This is a reference to JoJo's hometown date last season, when her mother was seen drinking wine straight from the bottle. While it's nice that he actually watched the show and familiarized himself with JoJo, I guess, this is not a great thing to take away about her mother. Does JoJo need to be reminded that her mom's a lush?

5. Daniel's weird energy
Speaking of lushes, several guys got way too drunk and behaved foolishly. None were more embarrassing than Daniel, a Zoolanderish male model (you don't have to specify that you're a male model, we can tell) with a thick Canadian accent. He tried to explain the "Damn, Daniel" video to JoJo, who was unfamiliar (remember, this was filmed in March), which made him feel dumb. So he continued to get even more hammered and do weird stuff. He poked Evan in the bellybutton, which severely incensed Evan (sidebar: I don't care for Evan. He's whiny). Then he stripped down to his briefs and flexed for the camera. Then he jumped in the pool. When he jumped, Brandon the hipster said "Damn, Daniel," showing that he knows the meme. Evan said Daniel's energy is weird, which is a good way to put it. Somehow, Daniel didn't get eliminated -- none of the very drunk guys did -- but he won't be around for long, because he'll probably end up peeing in a corner in a blackout.

4. Chad is full of doodoo
I'm not going to talk too much about Chad yet. He's clearly this season's villain, so there will be plenty more Chad awkwardness to discuss. But it was awkward to me as a viewer to hear JoJo say "there's something about Chad that I can't pinpoint" and know it's that he's a douchebag, he's just not showing it to her yet.

3. Evan, the erectile dysfunction specialist
Evan was cast solely on the fact that he has a funny job. He runs erectile dysfunction clinics. He makes seven penis references in his intro video. It's terrible.

2. Jon is Scottish below the waist
Jon gets out of the limo wearing a kilt. "I'm half-Chinese, half-Scottish," he says. "But luckily for me, I'm half-Scottish below the waist." When he says that, the bagpipe soundtrack does a sad trombone record skip and stops, which is a nice editing touch. "Okay, what does that mean?" JoJo responds. I love this response so much, because it means either JoJo doesn't get the joke, which would be so much funnier than the joke itself, or she does get it and she's going to force him to squirm while he explains his idiotic joke. And he chickens out! He says "it's open for interpretation, I guess," which is a lie! He does not mean to leave it open to interpretation in the slightest. If he had said, "I mean that Asian men stereotypically have small penises, but I have a big one, despite being half-Asian," that would have been the greatest moment in television history. But he didn't say that, and that's why he got eliminated. Also, the way he says "Scottish" with a little half-assed Scottish accent makes me want to punch a haggis in the face.

1. The black and Asian contestants get eliminated on the first night
The Bachelor and The Bachelorette are very white. No people of color have ever been Bachelor or Bachelorette. A whopping 59 percent of black contestants are eliminated in the first two weeks. Jon is only the second contestant of Asian descent in The Bachelorette's 13-season history. So to see him and Jake, the black man eliminated in the first round, sent home so soon reinforces the homogeneity of Bachelor Nation and shows that the show hasn't learned anything from its critics. To be fair, there are still some biracial contestants on the show. And Jon and Jake were not good contestants, due to Jon's terrible decision making and Jake's blandness, but that's an easy way to let the show off the hook, allowing them to shrug and say "we tried, this is who we got." Try harder.

So that's it. Jon, Jake, Sal, Nick S., Coley and Peter were eliminated. Jordan got the first impression rose and is clearly going to win it all. But that's a bigger story for another time.