Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - Soren Explains The Bachelor

Episode Date: February 11, 2025

Soren takes Daniel on a journey through Bachelor Nation, but not before the guys, who are probably not Puddle of Mudd, reminisce about the challenges of managing the Cracked staff and losing battles to Cody Johnston’s chaotic creative process. Plus how MTV reality TV producers can take your entire personality and reduce it to “I like to party” with just a few well-placed edits.-Follow the guys on Bluesky:https://bsky.app/profile/sorenbowie.bsky.social/https://bsky.app/profile/danielobrien.bsky.socialThanks to Shopify for sponsoring this episode. Sign up for a $1/month trial period at shopify.com/qq

Bettering your business takes working with the best. With the James Hardy Alliance, you gain access to leads, training, networking, and support from the number one brand of siding in North America. Achieve new levels of success by joining the James Hardy Alliance today. Just try to pod through it, man. Fucking take me. I'd be here, remember? Words without words, words without words You've got to be nice I saw a movie, Daniel O'Brien Two best friends and comedy writers

If there's an answer, they're gonna find it I think you'll have a great time here I think you'll have a great time here Thanks to Shopify for supporting Quick Question. Shopify is a platform designed for anyone to sell anywhere, giving entrepreneurs the resources once reserved for big business. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash qq all lowercase. So hello again and welcome to another episode of Quick Question with Soren and Daniel the

Podcast with long answers. My name is Daniel LeBriain and I'm one half of this podcast, senior writer for last week tonight with John Oliver, an author of How to Fight Presidents, and I'm joined as always by my co-host Mr. Soren Bowie. Soren, talk now, please. You got it. I'm Soren Bowie and I am a writer for American Dad and I am proud. I am, I don't know. You really tossed the ball to me

and I tried to dribble it for a little while and I was not prepared to do that yet because I was still sitting down and like on the bench. I think you should have known that I was gonna tag you in because all the words were coming out but in a very different order than they usually do. Well, that was what was surprising to me. I was like, there's something else happening here.

Let's dig into this. Yeah, I'm a writer for American Dad. In fact, I'm currently writing an episode as we speak. I mean, my kids, the old digits aren't up there on the keyboard, but I figured at least speaking, I'm writing the episode right now. And it's terrible and bad and I hate doing it. And that will never change.

And I am writing an episode of Last Week Tonight as we speak in addition to all of my home ownership stuff. And the way, if you've seen episodes of last week tonight, every once in a while we will end with something outside of the studio, we'll do like a sketch or like a fake commercial for something. It's rare, but we do them, they're fun.

It's always a great opportunity when we get to do something like that. And the script that I am writing now, the only thing that I have worked on in my first 24 hours of my drafting deadline has been an idea I had for a sketch to end it. And it was where all of my words went, was into this thing. Which is always like kind of a risk

because no-enders are guaranteed. No-ender sketches are guaranteed. Like this is what my brain wants me to produce. So this is what I'm producing. And then today about midday, one of my bosses in our Slack channel pitched an idea for an ender sketch. That is, you know, he had, he has no way of knowing what I'm doing because it's all private.

So he has no idea that I spent my time working on a sketch that is different than that one. And I still because this is a very encouraging workplace, I still have total latitude and runway to pitch the sketch that I want to make that you already made. But when the boss pitches a sketch, you're probably gonna do that one. Yeah. So it's, it wasn't wasted time. It was a fun writing exercise.

And now it is wasted time. Yeah, I- And that's just the way it goes sometimes. I forget this happens every once in a while, but I, as I'm breaking a story, like this story at this point is broken. I pitch, the way it works in our show is you break it with a bunch of writers, you break it with like four writers, come up with what it's going to be.

Then you pitch it to both show runners. Then they each give us an individual sign off based on notes. And then you go write an outline. But during the breaking process, there's a lot of you being teacher in the room. Like you're up at the board, on a dry erase board, and you're writing stuff up on the board and like you're the one who's driving the conversation and stuff and you're trying to build a story. Now I have these, I frequently when I am breaking a story, I have more of my, oh shit, I'm naked in public dreams than any other time throughout the year. And I don't think that that's a coincidence. I think that there are situations where I frequently am pretty keenly aware of how I

am coming across to others. I try to keep my finger on the pulse in any room, which is like a good, the whole saying, read the room. Like you should know where you stand with the room. And you can't do that when you're working on your story because it's just too many balls to juggle. You're like, you're trying to build a story. So you're thinking about what's funny.

You're thinking about what's makes sense for the entire story. You're thinking about the emotional arc. Like there's all these elements to it that you have to keep track of when everybody else is pitching to see like, what's actually, what's gonna be like a legitimate solution and what's like, now we can't,

we're not gonna really be able to do that. So to actually then think about also how you're coming across is impossible. So that one just gets dropped out. And then after that, I'll do like a day of this. And then I'll go home and do this decompression where I'm thinking about how it went that day. And I'm like, I don't know if I'm likable.

I don't know if I'm a likable person. I think I might be annoying. No, I don't think I certainly don't think you're annoying. Well, that's kind of you. But I am pretty, pretty keenly aware and even in these circumstances, what I'm doing and how I'm reacting there. I am not. It's tough to be in charge and running a room and keeping everything in your head and knowing what is foundational to the story you're trying to tell or the way you want to run the room. I mean that's I have yet to develop the skills that make me

that that mix complete flexibility and leadership in my own person because I feel like if you're leading any kind of room then you need to like do two things at once. You need to internally have a set of like columns guideposts that are the immovable things that can like support everything that you're doing. You need to be the one that has a plan and that has the firm ground to stand on. You also need to be not so married to your own structure that you can't hear other ideas. And those two things are very difficult for me to marry. And that's why I don't want to be in leadership. Yeah, I think that's true of everybody.

That like you have an idea of where the story should go or like where the episode should go. And you're like, it's clear in your mind. Same way we're like, let's say you have a segment and in your mind you're like, you're gonna watch the segment in your brain to be like, is this working? Does this work?

Yeah, OK, this works. And then when somebody else brings something else, it wouldn't work with what you just watched. You're like, no, that's not the thing. That's not what I just saw. That's not what I just watched the whole thing in my brain to make sure that it was going to play. This is going to make that sound weird.

And so it's also also a lot of times will end up happening is that that idea that somebody else brought is like way better than what you just fucking watched. And you just don't have that, you just can't hear it yet. I would butt heads with Cody Johnston at cracked all the time when I was running video and I was essentially his boss for that entire run.

And he is just, and I mean this in a great way, just unmanageable. Just a person who needs to have his own schedule and work his ideas out as he's creating them and never have a deadline. What a wonderful charmed existence. But we would have sketches. I remember there was a sketch about the movie Looper that he had pitched that in very like typical pro cracked fashion was a sketch

making some kind of sharp observation about the rules of the Looper universe. I'm like picking apart the internal logic of that movie as we would often do at Krakt, looking for plot holes and things to play with and in the room we were like yes go forth and write the sketch about hit movie Looper and then in the writing he just seemed to get so tickled by the idea of the characters saying Looper a lot and having funny voices and talking about the movie Looper instead of any of the things that we agreed on, any of the things that made it like a cracked sketch. He had shifted it into something that was just like

a funny sketch with funny people being funny, performed well. And I had such a hard fucking time trying to wrestle that sketch back into cracked shape. And eventually, as I did with a lot of Cody stuff, lost that battle. He ended up making a very good sketch. It was still one of my favorite sketches that year.

I don't think that makes me flexible. I think that makes me breakable. Which is a different management style. I think with Cody, his kernels were just born from a different like ether. Like with the things that he would catch hold up. We've been talking a lot in the room about, this is just to put a pin to Cody for a second about David Lynch. David Lynch does a masterclass that is very good in which David Lynch talks about like the if an idea is a fish, like you're just like your whole thing is like

catch a fish. Like that's going to be your idea for a movie. But you're not the sh- you are not the uh, you're not the person catching it. Like you're not, you are the person preparing the fish. It's the same fish no matter what. It's just how it's prepared that the audience sees. And it's like, you can prepare it lots of different ways and they can all be good. It's still going to be the fish. You didn't change anything. You didn't make the fish. You just caught this thing. And Cody catches his ideas from a different medium, I think. He has a sense. Something comes to him like puddle of mud. And he's like, puddle of mud is funny. And you're like, why? If you were to really explore it, you'd be like, why? I don't know yet. I have to carve the boy out of this

piece of wood. I have to find out why. And you're like, okay, I guess we just trust you that that's true. And then you would write a sketch and he'd solve it as he was writing it. And you'd realize, and the sketch we ended up doing, if you're not familiar, was a bunch of us sitting around playing poker, realizing slowly that we were all in puddle of mud. Being kind of upset by it, realizing in real time, oh no, are we puddle of mud? No, we can't be puddle of mud. Oh wait, we are puddle of mud. Hey, take a minute, ladies and gentlemen, to think about your favorite business. I know that's a weird question, but just think about it. Think about what is a conglomerate that I'm into. If I was asked that question I'd be like, oh Cotopaxi or I'd be like Patagonia. I think that they've got brilliant

marketing. I think that they're very smart in how they handle the world and the environment. I think that they've got a good vibe to them. Now that's not just the company doing that. There's oftentimes a business behind the business making all that possible. Now I'm not saying they're coming up with the ads, but they're certainly allowing them to free up the time to come up with those ads because they're making buying simple on the back end. That's like Shopify. Nobody does selling better than Shopify. Home of the number one checkout on the planet. What do I mean by that? Well, it means that there are less carts going abandoned and way more sales going on through Shopify. And the not so secret secret, ShopPay that boosts conversions up to 50%. So if you're into growing your business,

your commerce platform better be ready to sell whatever your customers are scrolling or strolling on the web, in your store, in their feed, and everywhere in between. Businesses that sell more, sell on Shopify. So upgrade your business and get the same checkout that ALO or Allbirds or Skims uses. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com slash QQ, all lowercase. Go to Shopify.com slash QQ to upgrade your selling today. Shopify.com slash QQ all lowercase. Go to shopify.com slash QQ to upgrade your selling today. Shopify.com slash QQ. I rejected that sketch 10,000 times in my capacity as a manager of crack.com.

Because then I start in it. The elevator pitch for it makes no sense. It's nonsense. It's not doesn't sound funny. You have to like really You have to dig into it and start doing it and it's not like an easy thing to just announce like what the game is Like it's like yeah as you're playing it you start to realize why it's funny and you're like, oh All right. Well, you saw this all the way from the beginning maestro like

I would've seen this. I mean the difficult thing about it because I'm not just I'm not just an unfunny suit or anything like that. If we were in an indie sketch troupe together, then I don't think there would have been anywhere near as much friction. Not that there was friction, but just the fact that one person thought one thing and another thought the other thing. I don't think there would have been any of that because it would have just been like

purely chasing ideas. In our capacity as leadership at Cracked, we are thinking, I was aware of how much money we were spending on every sketch and every unit of content on that site. So I was tasked with making sure the dollars were spent wisely because I went to money school and I was always thinking about budgets and like if we spend $5,000

and a night making, are we in puddle of mud? Then that's $5,000 that's being taken away from a today's topic, which is like a guaranteed return on its investment or a chunk of after hours as budget, which is for similar reasons. So it was a budget thing and also like no one could pitch a sketch or article to me or Jack or Jason or you without us thinking what the title was going to be on crack.com.

That because the title was in our case, the most valuable thing, like the best advertisement for any piece of content was not gonna be a byline, not going to be a log line or in some cases it was a thumbnail, but it was really just like people are going to be scrolling through Twitter or just like going from tab to tab. The title is your best shot to get someone to click on something. And we've done 10,000 different titles

that were stress tested at crack for 10,000 different pieces of content. And we mostly figured out the things that worked and we evolved when they didn't work. And when you think about a sketch, that is a bunch of guys who, for the record, don't look like anyone in Puddle of Mud. A bunch of guys who don't look like anyone in Puddle of Mud. Nobody knows what Puddle of Mud looks like.

That's why it could be you. And then realizing, oh no, we're in Puddle of Mud. That is not untitleable, but in my role as someone who is trying to get strangers to click on links, untitleable for argument's sake, just like an impossible thing to like, how am I going to summarize this and make it sound appealing in 50 characters?

Well, there's a, I mean, as much as we also strayed from it, there is a voice to the site. There's this like, there's what, there's an expectation of a reader, because people used to come directly too cracked. It wasn't just like they were finding these out on Facebook and stuff like that. People came to the site. And so there was an expectation built in of what an article would be or what a video would be. It would be both informational and it would be delivered

in a very funny way. And that was this secret sauce that we had. And when a video article didn't do that, people were genuinely angry. And so sometimes you had to like even title stuff. You'd be like, you know what? This is a very funny, who fucked this pumpkin sketch is very, very funny. All the performances in it are Oscar-worthy.

Like it's so funny. How are we gonna get people to just fucking give it a chance? So then you have to think about like how to title it. And I can see, you could always see that weighing heavily on you when we would do, somebody would be like, hey, I've got an idea for a show or I've got an idea for a sketch that is, it's insane. I did one where there was a guy who wanted you

to come down to his department store and is like selling it because it's like a local access ad, but he's really touting the fact that there are no mannequins that come to life there. That's a really hard sell. That's like a hard sell to an audience that is coming because they want to read a list. Right. And especially because it was such a funny sketch and it's a heavy lift from the audience

because you don't realize the mannequin thing early on. No, it's slower. And we can't give that away in the title because that's the joke. And like, you can... There's a shorthand for acceptable weird fears in culture. Like, you can, people are allowed to be afraid of clowns and we are quickly on board with that because that's been around as a concept for a while. Being afraid of mannequins is new.

That is a new fear that people don't have it in their vocabulary as a fear. Like you're inventing it that this guy has a fear of mannequins and is treating it uncritically as if other people do too. He's not walking, we are not walking the audience through this because he would not walk the audience through this because he thinks they're just as scared

of mannequins as he is, of course they are. You know what, you should watch shows like I think you should leave. And if you can just get the audience on board for like the first half hour of those, so let's say like five sketches of that. Man, you're so golden. Like if you can just create like a great mixtape

of the very best ones right up front and be like, this is what it's gonna be. You're just along for the ride. Sometimes it's not gonna be the game that you think it is. We're gonna be clearly setting up like a different sketch game where there's like a bunch of straight characters and like one crazy guy, but then they're all gonna turn and be on his side.

Like, and when you can do that, Mr. Show, Kids in the Hall, like these shows that were able to do that, and you can just kind of do whatever you want. It's like, oh, when they're coming for that insanity, Tim and Eric, like they're coming for something that's crazy and Eric, they're coming for something that's crazy and is confusing and strange, then you can do whatever you want. It's like, how do I get back there? How do I make that? Anyway, I think I'm on a show that does that currently, which is really fun. That's good.

All the stuff that we're talking about, there's a sort of a B runner throughout this episode that has that feel to it. And every time I try and, you know, like when you feel that you feel the funny of it and you're like trying to isolate it and get it so that it's easy to explain to somebody else. It's like, I'll pitch it to my wife or I'll pitch it to people who are not part of American dead. And as I'm doing it, it's just never going well. And I'm like, all right, well, I'll fucking I'll figure it out when I'm not part of American dead. And as I'm doing it, it's just never going well. And I'm like, all right, well, I'll fucking,

I'll figure it out when I'm writing it. I know that it's funny. Like I know in my heart that this is really funny. In the room, it was, it had us so bad that we were like crying. And I was like, I can get that. I can capture that again, I think. Dan, I do want to start the show.

Is that all right? Yeah, that's fine with me. Okay, good. Yeah. I have a quick question for you. Shoot. This is slightly related. Have you ever watched The Bachelor?

I have never watched The Bachelor. Never watched The Bachelor or The Bachelorette. No. Yeah. Okay. I had neither. This season just started in January. I started watching and I started watching for a very specific reason.

My daughter's speech therapist is one of the contestants on it. Oh my God. I know. So there was a period of time where, there was a period of time where, there was a period of time where my daughter was going to speech therapy and then couldn't for a little while.

Like it was, they closed up. And the reason was, was that this teacher had gone on the bachelor. And I was like, this is tremendous news. This is so exciting. And then she came back and I was like, this is tremendous news. This is so exciting. And then she came back and I was like, it didn't sound like it went well. Well, so she came back and it felt like

not a very long time. It was like a month or something like that. And I was like, so how'd it go? And she's like, I can't say. I was like, well, that sounds like you got married. And she's like, I'm just not allowed to say. And she's like, it went well. I'm not allowed to say what happens.

And I was like, OK. So I was like, well, I'll watch it. Let's see how it goes. Because I am also, I was not familiar with The Bachelor, but I kind of understood the general premise, which I'm sure you do, which is a guy, there's a bunch of women vying for his attention, all staying in one house together.

They are set into different scenarios in which they were naturally pitted against one another. Just to really quickly, from what I know about reality television in general, it's a real risky move for anyone to say it went well. Right. Because you don't have control of the edit. You have no idea how you're gonna be represented on TV

until that episode is out. She might've said, I think it went well. And then she said it was fun. And so she might've just been talking from a subjective point of view. But I, so I, the show is obviously a bachelor comes on. There's all these women vying for his attention. They're doing big, dramatic things to get his attention

because there's so many other women to compete with. And then the women start hating each other. And then he gives them roses at the end of every episode and girls slowly get kicked off who he's just like, I wasn't feeling her energy or like, I didn't like her hair, like that kind of shit. And so I started watching the show. I don't recommend you start watching it, but I do want to give you like a, because it's long, it's like a two hour show every single Monday, which is that's a slog. That's a lot of watching some women in really nice dresses drink in a

living room and like, try to be like fake nice to one another but I do want to give you like some highlights just try to pod through it man it sounded like a like a hurricane alarm I was nervous for you at first no I wish No, I wish. Fucking take me. I do want to give you some highlights because, man, some crazy shit does happen. Like as you're just watching, it really lulls you into this sense of like nothing happens on the show and then a thing will happen. And it's like startling. and then a thing will happen and it's like startling. So the very first episode, all the women show up in limos

and a couple of them show up in different ways, but there's like a lot of pageantry to it. They're all like dancing, like singing to each other in the limo. And then like they show up and like they walk out one by one and they meet him, they get like 20 seconds with him. They move on, they need to do the house. But not all of them show up in a limo.

Some of them, one of them showed up in a limo. One of them showed up in a car. She was from Jersey. She showed up in a big turquoise Jeep or something and she had a pizza. And she's like, it's a pizza in my heart. It's a heart shaped pizza from Jersey, she said. And it genuinely looked like it had made the trip from New Jersey. Like this pizza was old. I mean, I usually that doesn't totally read on camera. This was a pizza that looks straight out of the fridge. Like it was, the cheese was coagulated and she's like, do you want some?

And he's like, ah. And it's rough, but yeah. So there's a Jersey girl there. There's other girls who have, I guess I shouldn't call them girls. You've been doing it this whole time, just stick with it. We're not gonna go back. I'm gonna start, I'm gonna switch courses

because I know it's wrong now, which is how I've lived my whole life. So there's other women, oh, they're showing up and they know like a little bit about this guy because there's like, they get a brief on him. And here's what we know about The Bachelor after two episodes, He loves basketball. And now we're going to move on to what the girls do. Okay, great. That's all we know about this guy. Loves basketball.

He might've played D1. I can't remember, but like they show up this one girl brings him a diamond encrusted basketball. Lord. Such a big swing. And this guy, there's just a tremendous amount of grace from him. For everything that comes, he's game. He's like, that is so cool. Thank you. Thank you. I love this. And I'm sure handed it to producer and was like, I don't never need to see that again. One girl brings him a little golden lamp, like an oil lamp. One girl brings him a little golden lamp, like an oil lamp, and she's like, his name is Grant, and she's like, I want you to rub this and it will grant you your wish.

That was her whole plan. I think they have maybe months to think of like what they're gonna do. And then I'm sure he leans off camera to one of the producers and is like, hey, I said basketball like because I felt quartered. You got my list of follow-up interests, right? You got the other, it really seems like you only told

the girls grant and basketball. I don't want to tell you how to do your job, but I did send you another list with like hiking and what I studied in school. There was, I think, so I went through and kind of like checked out my daughter's speech therapist profile. I checked out his too.

And it was saying that he was like fluent in Spanish. And I was like, that's cool. And then a woman from, a woman from Puerto Rico comes and she starts talking to him in Spanish. And it has never been clearer that a man does not speak Spanish. He's just like, talking to him in Spanish and it has never been clearer that a man does not speak Spanish.

He's just like, see, see. And he's like nodding like, oh yeah, I'm getting all this. I'm retaining everything you're saying to me. This is wonderful. A woman also comes who I think might be from the Dominican Republic or at some point had been there. she showed up in a sash that says Miss Dominican Republic. And she's like, hi, Grant, I want you to know, or my name is Valerie or whatever it is. And she's like, and I want you to know, I almost competed in Miss Dominican Republic. Almost? Pause.

What? Go back, go back. Yeah, I almost competed. Not I almost won. No, I almost competed, which is the same as me. Like I almost competed in Miss Dominican Republic. And- Well, I'm always flirting with it.

She takes- It's never off the table. She takes the sash off and turns it inside out. And on the other side, instead of saying Miss Dominican Republic, it says Mrs. Ellis, which is his last name. And I was like, whoa, what a walk that was to get to that. Like, yeah, it was a whole plan. They're like, how could I say Mrs.? How could I establish that I

want to be his wife? Well, I know another place they use Mrs. and Miss. And it was wild. It was crazy. Now, at a certain point, I'm just waiting for my speech therapist to show up. I'm just like, where the fuck is she? And then all the other women arrive in vehicles of some sort. And then all of a sudden you hear a clop, clop, clop coming up the driveway. And he's like, what is that? In the darkness, emerging from the darkness is a llama. And she is leading a llama up to him. And he's like, he's, I mean, again, he's like, cool,

nice cow or like whatever he thinks it is. Fuck's wrong with your horse. Yeah, on board for whatever he's looking at. And she comes up to him and he's like, can I pet it? And she's like, sure. And he tries to pet it right on the head. She's like, not there on the neck, please. That doesn't, they don't like it on the head.

And he's like, oh, okay, my bad. And he starts like petting its neck. And she explains that she grew up on a farm. And again, I'm like, whoa, big swing, because I'm sure that there are llamas on some farms, not like a traditionally farm animal. When you start, when you go on family feud and you have to name animals that are on a farm llama is not showing up as somebody's like first choice.

No, but she was like really engaging and funny with this llama and like talking to it about him in a way that was like really good. She's like, Hey, he's getting, she, the llama was getting close to him. She's like, Hey, that's my crush. Stop it. Stop it. She's like, what do you think of him? He's nice, right? Seems good. And she brings the llama into the house. And I was like, whoa, this is like, this is more than I was prepared for. And in the end, it ended up being so smart because the camera cannot get enough of this llama. Like when the girls are all in the house, then I think this first day of the show

has got to be like 16 hours. Cause it's a lot of just these girls meeting him, going into a house and then just drinking, just like drinking their nuts off. Like, and talking to each other and like trying to like be very kind, like we're going to be a different, we're going to be different this season. We all love each other.

It's not going to go bad. And, and the llama and obviously all the other girls want to know about the llama. So there's a lot of footage of like other girls being like, is that thing allowed in here? And like other girls interested in it. And the llama starts to just like win everybody over in the room. Everybody starts loving this llama and they want pictures with it. By the end, the host is like walking the llama home and like that's the final scene. It was so smart to bring a goddamn farm and a giant giant farm animal. I'm going to say I can't believe it's slightly smarter than bringing a lamp. And I don't know how she did it either. If the producers were like,

you're from a farm, what if we got you something big? Or if she was like, I'm going to need a thing. Like give me, um, do you, yeah. What do you guys have? Do you have horses? Do you have goats? And they're like, we could get a llama in three hours. She's like, perfect. Or if it was actually her llama, it's definitely seemed like she was familiar with it. Cause she was like, very like close to it. It seemed, um, anyway, it was very smart of her. Then these girls go off and they do like individual meetings with him. Some of the most startling choices anyone's ever made on a date, there was one woman who showed him a slideshow of AI pictures she made of her pregnant with his baby.

That's not weird. Top notch first date stuff. He is like, oh yeah, man, how did you get? That's mine in there? Cool. That's my baby, how did you get? That's mine in there, cool. That's my baby. How did you get these? He kept talking about how did you get these photos?

He didn't know AI exists. And these are the most AI photos you've ever seen. She made him a slideshow and talks about how she's always making slideshows with her friends, which I have so many follow-up questions that I'm just not allowed to ask the television. She ended up staying like he was like, that was pretty fun, rose. Some of the other ones that showed up and

seemed like they had, I don't mean I don't want to be pejorative towards women, but there are certain people that you look at and you think, I see something in your eyes that seems dangerous and I'm a little uneasy around you. Yeah, and that's famously just women. It's not, but that's the only person I've been conditioned to recognize it in. You know how some people you could tell by looking in their eyes that they're dangerous?

Yeah, women mostly, right? Women. So that's everyone's experience. That they wanna hurt you, hurt your heart. There was one woman who was from Salt Lake City. She was a Mormon and on the show and she was like, obviously I have a lot of, my family and I didn't see eye to eye on me

coming on the show. And I was like, I think that's probably true of all of you. I think that all of you, occasionally you see them with their moms or whatever to prove that they're family oriented. And the family in every single turn is being barely civil. Like the family is like, maybe you'll find love. And none of them mean it because they're all like,

what do you, please don't do this. Please don't do the show. Please don't go marry somebody. This is my father and he's engineered his entire life to not be on television. Let's ask him what he thinks about me dating this failed basketball player. And he goes on and on and by the end there's another rose ceremony and another rose ceremony. There's the very first rose ceremony of the entire show, but I think these girls have been there. These women have been there so long that you can watch them get up to do the rose ceremony and they're all like, ah, moaning and stuff. Because I think they've already gone from

the excitement to then getting drunk to then coming down from being drunk and excited. And like, there's no worse feeling. There's no worse headache you have than that moment. You're dehydrated. You're in a dress you don't want to be in anymore. You've got on some eyelashes that are not yours. I think they're just tired. He starts doling out the roses and some of the people that he chose to give roses to, I'm like, I think maybe the producers might have had a hand in that. I think maybe there was one woman who was a D1 basketball player.

He met her. They really seemed to vibe at first. And then he didn't give her a rough face. I was like, that's your whole thing, man. Like that's all we know about you is that you love basketball. And the very next episode, he takes them on a group date to go play basketball. Excellent. And so she must've been watching that with all of us because she doesn't know what happened after that. She must have been watching that being like, are you fucking kidding me? That's my whole, that's my game. They're group dates afterwards.

I will say my daughter's speech therapist, she gets the very first rose, which is he got, there's a rose he can give out. It's like, they really hammer at home that this rose is important. That it means that that person gets to go on a alone date with him. It's like the first impression rose,

that he's the one, the person that he seems most interested in right up front, and then he gets to go on just a private date with that person. And Alex got it. The one with the llama got the rose. And I was like, yeah, good for her. She was also, she had that alone time with him.

She did this thing where she talks about being a speech therapist. She talks about how she's from French Canada and that she speaks French. And she's like, I want you to try saying these words. And she has these little cue cards and she shows him some French. And she's kind of like guiding him through it

and how to say it. And he says it. And she turns over the card to show him what he just said. And it was like, will you give me a kiss? And she was like, sure. And so she, and it's like the smoothest, like it's- She's thought it all through so well.

And I was like, good for her. This is, I'm like rooting for her. And the second episode, she goes on a date with him to the Beverly Center, which is a place I'm sure you know. It's a mall here. It's completely closed except just there, the only ones there. So they get to just run through different stores and do whatever they want, jump on beds and things like that. And it's the most charming fucking meet cute you've ever seen in your life. She's so kind and warm and like he it makes him better too like he is both of them together you just

like want them to succeed and I've never seen this happen on a game show before because all these people generally I see them come up and I'm like I don't think this is a good idea for you to be together this seems like a bad bad choice but she's wonderful and and then they do these group dates with a lot of the women that you would expect to be on a show like this. And they immediately start fighting with each other. Like they play basketball against each other and it gets super chippy right away.

Sure. Girls, women who do not play basketball all of a sudden care a great deal because there's this guy, Grant, fucking watching them and they have to prove themselves to the stranger that they want to marry. So they immediately start fighting out on the court. There's a lot of like elbows being thrown and stuff like that. One team just dominates the other one partially because all the short women are on one team and all the tall ones are on the other team. Not super fair for them.

It's around the other team. Not super fair for them. And then- This is probably a stupid question. Does winning, if you win the group date, does that grant you any kind of- Great question. Immunity from getting eliminated?

Like, is he forced by reality TV laws? Like, ah, fuck, now I gotta keep all these tall women on for another week. Rats. No, it's not like MasterChef where there's like a red team, blue team, and they all get to stay. No, the team that wins doesn't get shit. There's one person from each group date that he picks out,

that he singles out as like the one who performed the best and is like, ah, you get a rose. Good job, man. So there's one woman who was taller and I would say like much better at boxing out than everybody else. And so she just dominated this game. And he was like, yeah, sure. You get a rose. This is great. Then the other date, there's another group date with another swath of women. These women, obviously we're dealing with at least 10 in the first date because they had a five on five and probably 10 in the second, maybe more. The second one, they go see Mario perform.

He's an R&B artist. Thank you. Then he says, you now have to write a song for Grant in the next 30 minutes or whatever. And then you're all gonna perform these songs for him. And they, for each one of these events, I know for each one of these events, I don't think I sold it well enough

on the basketball thing. There's a crowd of people, there's children. There's a bunch of kids there for some reason. What do they think they're seeing? There's a bunch of kids there for some reason. What do they think they're seeing? I don't totally understand how they got on board with this. They're all they all have posters made for the teams and stuff. Obviously there's no team names.

Oh, no, there were fucking team names. Oh, God, they were so bad. One was when one team called themselves Grant Slam, Dan. Okay. Basketball game. And so his name is Grant Ellis. His name is Grant Ellis. And we're getting a lot of mileage out of Grant.

If I could just, if there's anyone watching, if I could just throw a pitch in there, L is for love. Think about it. They have not, they've no, no one has touched Ellis yet. Ellis, maybe that's, they're saving that for the back nine episodes of the season. I don't know. No one has touched Ellis yet. Ellis, maybe they're saving that for the back nine episodes of the season. I don't know.

I'm not optimistic based on everything I've heard so far. It's always first idea wins here. It's clear for both the women and for the producers in terms of what they force them to do. It's just like whoever has an idea, that's what we're doing. So the second date, they go see Mario and then Mario was like, quick, make a song. And then all these women are, some of the women are like, got it. No problem. I sing. This is wonderful for me. And other women are terrified because they're like, this is not my wheelhouse. I deal with analytics. I don't know how to be creative. I don't know how to sing. I don't know how to dance.

And then they give them all different Spice Girl type outfits and stuff like that. It gets so rough that at a certain point, these women go up individually to him and a crowd of like, he's up on a ring stage. What do you mean Spice Girl type outfits? You can't think I was going to let that go? Picture baby Spice. All the women are dressed't think I was gonna let that go? Picture baby Spice, all women are dressed like her. They all have matching crop tops with leather, but like shiny glittery leather pants. Okay, fair. So yeah.

And I thought of these 20 women, they had gone out and done like single adjective personality conveyed through outfit. No way. No, oh, I see what you're saying. That would have through outfit. No way. No, oh, I see what you're saying. That would have been great. No, there was no effort made on that front. It was just a, they got all got a big clothing rack

and like first come first serve. So I just women ended up with whatever was on the rack. Now these women come out one at a time. I want you to just picture how this looks. It's a bunch of audience members in a pit. And then there's a stage that extends out the front, like a catwalk. He's sitting at the end of the catwalk on a very comfy sofa

and these women have to come out on the catwalk, sing to him and then walk back. And then they are peeking from the wings at each other and watching what happens. And these women come out to do their songs. They all have to clearly do it to the same beat and everything. And I can't watch it.

Like I'm kind of listening and I can't bring my head up to see what's going on because it's so painful to watch somebody put out – obviously not in their element but still really trying but also not being totally clear on why they're trying or why they care so much. And the songs are rough. They're really, really tough songs and a lot of off key, obviously. I mean, that's to be expected. And then every once in a while you'll get- What do you expect? They're basketball players. Once in a while, you'll get a woman who does clearly have a voice, but she has made, it seems like maybe zero effort to, she had AI write it for her or something.

There's no song, there's nothing that's being said means anything, nothing that's being sung means anything. It's really just a, hey, I wanna see you put yourself out there and see how embarrassed you get. And I wanna see how you handle that. Did anyone do a good job on the assignment? Because I do understand, completely separate things. If I'm Grant Ellis, Ellis for love,

Grant Thea Rose, if I'm this guy, yes, I am looking for someone who is really throwing themselves into it in like a charming and not embarrassed and not like dragging their feet sort of way. Like to me in that moment, succeeding at this mission is like, it would be fun to raise kids with you because you like are okay embarrassing yourself

and that's important to me. Yes. Separate from that, did anyone make a good song? Regardless of whether or not they succeeded in the mission of being charming, are any of the songs good? One woman, this woman with braids made a good song and she was a good singer.

And it was great. To see, to be an audience member and to suddenly discover you were in capable hands is the biggest relief in the world. To see someone hand her a mic and to hear her start singing, you're immediately like, oh, thank God. Oh, thank God. I can watch this.

They are still making a lot of really uncomfortable eye contact with him. You know the type I'm talking about. I don't feel like we're the only ones in the room, but I really want to convey that, that emotion to you that I feel that way. And none of them are succeeding in that much. This one woman does do a good song. She's a good singer. She nails it. No Rose for her at the end of the ceremony. He is not interested. He also does a song at the beginning to warm up the crowd and he's good. He does a song on the date too with Alex that's really nice. He's a good singer, I think, and he's got a good beat and stuff. The poor fucking live audience there that I imagined was barked off the street, all

those tourists who are wandering around Rodeo Drive and someone with a headset was like, why would you like to be in the audience of a live TV show and get a free t-shirt? And they walk in and think like, is this gonna be feud? Is this gonna be a Kimmel? It's like, nope, you're gonna watch 11 kind of mean women sing poorly.

11 kind of mean women sing poorly. So yeah, they- For a D1 basketball player. It goes really strangely. This one woman, the woman who originally spoke in Spanish to him, she's the one who he thinks does the best. She is one who really puts herself out there. She does like a little dance that she believes to be sexy and it goes... Me out, Soren. I wasn't buying it. No thank you. He's into it but then she when

he announces her as the winner she she comes out and she straddles him on the stage and just starts making out with him. And the other women do not care for that. Sure. They're pretty upset by that. Same with during the basketball thing. There's, they had this like dunk contest at the beginning. One girl goes, one girl does a dunk.

The next girl goes, you know what, I'm going to forfeit my turn and take grant for a few minutes. And the other ones are like, that's fucking allowed. And she takes them to another floor and we don't know what happens. They're like a whole conference hotel room or something like that. She takes them to another floor

and we don't know what happens and how long they're there. She just takes them away. Good Lord. So all the other women are pissed. They're now angry at this one woman who we're like, you can't just, we're all, we're on this group date together. We have to play by the rules or there are no rules.

And she keeps being like, then there's no rules. Those are my options? Okay. Later, there are again, these moments in the house, these like decompression moments where the other, where he'll just grab a woman and be like, Hey, let's go chat for a little bit. where he'll just grab a woman and be like, hey, let's go chat for a little bit. And as he's doing this, this other woman, the same woman will come up and be like, can I steal him for a couple of minutes?

And he, I don't know if they're telling him to do this or not, but he's not like, just wait your goddamn turn. He is like, okay. And so he just leaves this, whoever one of them he's talking to, he might be kissing another woman, and which frequently happens, he kisses everybody. As he's kissing this woman,

she will walk up and just watch them kiss for a little bit, and then she'll be like, I'm sorry, can I steal him for a minute? So these women are getting so angry about this. And so this one, the woman from Jersey is like, I'm not putting up with it, I'm not putting up with it, I haven't even gotten to see him yet, and she's gotten to see him twice.

She's like, I'm going to do something about this. So while he's... So she walks in there while he's with this, the woman who keeps stealing him. And she goes, Hey, can I steal him for a minute? And the woman's like two minutes and then he's yours. And she's like, no, I think I want him now. That's right. It's like, which way should... Okay, I'll go that way. And so he goes off with this woman, the Jersey woman. She's like, which way should, okay, I'll go that way. And so he goes off with this woman, the Jersey woman. She's like, I did it. But you don't fucking, if you shoot for the devil, Dan, you best not miss.

Because this woman just walks right back up to them and she's like, can I steal him for a minute? The devil steal. She just comes up and it's like, I'll steal him again. And there really are, I think that what we're learning is, yeah, you have to get good FaceTime with him. You have to make sure that you stand out. And he does not give a shit how you do it. He's the only one who could be running interference and all this. I mean, surely the producers, but this is just candy for

them. But he's the only one who can be like, no, I'm going to be with her for a second. Give me a minute and then I'll come see you. To keep something amicable and he is not doing it. And so it's turning very lawless, very, very quickly. It's pretty fascinating to see it happen. She gets a rose. That woman who keeps stealing him. The devil?

Yeah. Oh boy. Oh, I shouldn't have. The devil? Yeah, oh boy. Oh, I shouldn't have said that. She's not the devil. She is a, she's just another lady. Uh-huh. She's a very, I'm sure she's a very great person in her general everyday life.

These other women do hate her. Okay. So he goes, obviously that goes really strangely. So you don't have to answer this, but is there like a crucial detail about this woman that you've omitted until now? Something that makes you uncomfortable calling her the devil? She wears a blue dress. She doesn't, she wears green.

No, but I just don't like the idea of calling a woman the devil because that feels very ex-wifey territory in a way that I don't want to be labeled. So he also meets with the other group of women who they all watched him kiss this one girl on stage and she was like, she was all over him. He was touching her butt and they were not happy about the way that this girl was flaunting her victory. So he comes into the room, feels that the energy is very strange, that these women are clearly all feeling something together about another person there. And the other person isn't totally aware of what's going on. So he just pulls the one who aside who could sing really well.

And he's like, what's going on? What's the vibe in there? And she's like, well, we're a little upset because she rubbed it in our faces. He's like, okay, cool. Then he comes back and just pretends like nothing happened. He's not going to address it. He's not going to do anything about it. Sure.

These women just start hating this one woman and they all agree together, we no longer like her. To watch it happen after the very first episode where they were all like, one woman and they all kind of like agree together. We no longer like her. And to watch it happen after the very first episode where they were all like, we're gonna be friends forever. Is, it's pretty amazing to see. And just one more time for me and the other dummies listening. This sort of collective action

still has no bearing on anyone's fate. All of the women can get together and decide not to like one woman. But at the end of the day, it's whomever Grant gives a rose to. They can't vote her off. They can't do anything other than I assume try to sabotage her, which also feels like-

Yeah, they can slice her up, I guess. Given that this is only the second episode, it feels like The Bachelor must get dark so fast and get to a very dark place because they're going to make it uncomfortable for the person that they don't like in the house. They're going to make it uncomfortable for them and they're going to make them feel crazy until that person acts crazy. Then they can be like, ah, ah, Grant, look, look what she's doing. Look, look what she's doing. And I think that I'm like in for something, but I will say that the fact that Alex got the rose

on the first night, that then she didn't have to be a part of either of these mob dates, that she got just a separate date with him, she's just like standing outside of all of the conflict in a way where I'm like, how did you do this? Like it's so expertly executed that I'm like, fuck. You're the one. I mean, surely you're the one.

Just end the show now. We can all go home. I am now hooked and I need to, I'm gonna talk to my coworker who writes vulture recaps about the bachelor. Shout out, Ali. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Um, and I'm gonna drop this bombshell that your, your daughter's speech therapist is the same llama girl.

Yeah. The, I also, it makes me think of, uh, this is, uh, my brother's story from a hundred years ago, but his friend, uh his friend, I'll change her name to Raina. Raina in college was on one of those MTV reality dating shows, maybe Singled Out, maybe Blind Date, maybe one of those shows where you're in a fucking bus for some reason and you're trying to date people on the beach. I don't know what they are, but it's- That's right.

A million of those dating shows involved, like you would watch them and they involve just like very strange, everyone had like kind of an MTV spring break vibe to them. And you were happy that they found each other. You didn't care what happened to them because they didn't seem like real people. And my brother's friend Raina was on one of those shows and like he knew her in college. Like you seem forgive me like a normal person. Why did you do this? Well, I thought it would be fun. Like, like

I didn't think I was going to find love on the show. I thought it would like, this would be a fun experience. And I still had a good time, but like the way they edit your introduction on the show, there was like producers talking to her and they're like, all right, Raina, tell us a little bit about yourself. She's like, well, I go to this school. I study XYZ.

I'm pretty passionate about the following, the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, a normal person's biography. And they're like, okay, do you like, you like drinking into like clubs? And I was like, no, I don't really, I don't really go to clubs. I'm not like a drug person. Like, okay, but like, you've gone to parties?

Like, yeah, I'm in college, I've gone to parties. Okay, so let's say I'm Reina and I like to party. It's like, oh, okay, I'm Reina and I like to party. It's like, now could you do a little dance when you say it? And so this young woman, everything has been completely reduced down to, it's like, here's Bryce and he wants to get his, to fuck in the bus with Reina. And then they cut to Reina, it's like, my's Bryce, and he wants to get his, to fuck in the bus with Raina.

And they cut to Raina, it's like, my name is Raina, and I love to party. She's pumping her fists in the air when she says it. After like an hour of, well, I'm studying anthropology with a focus on blah, blah, blah, it's like, no, no, no, no, you're Raina and you like to party. And it's always made me wonder what college Daniel's MTV singled out spring break intro would be. It would probably just be like, my name's Daniel and I like rock music because I

would sit with a producer and I would be like, yeah, I'm studying writing. I like, here are some authors that I like. I want to work in entertainment one day. I sing in an acapella group for, I did high school theater for years. I was in a band with my two older brothers. Ah, a band, so musician. So let's work with that. It's like, well, it's like an alternative piano folk rock band. It's like, ah, rock, yeah, okay. So, so here's what alternative piano folk rock band.

It's like, ah, rock, yeah, okay. So here's what we're gonna do. And then they would, my only representation on television would just be me going, my name's Daniel and I'm here to rock. Air guitar kind of thing. Yeah. Is what I imagine MTV would do to me

when they put me through their blender. And I'd like to rock and roll. Yeah, I think you would rock and roll. Yeah. I think you would have come out as that. Yeah. I don't know what I would have been. I think you would be a snowboarder or something. Oh shit.

Yeah. It would have been that or I would have been like, what do you play? Do you play any sports? I'm like, well, I do ultimate frisbee. And they're like, we got our hippie. We got one. Do you play any sports? I'm like, well, I do ultimate frisbee. And they're like, we got our hippie. We got one. Do you smoke? Do you smoke a little? Do you get high every once in a while? Yeah, sometimes I get high every now. And then they would just use that clip of me forgetting what I was saying and like, oh, this guy does it. So the same thing happened. One of those shows,

maybe it was singled out, it was one of the ones where you just let you wait in a room and then until you're tagged in and then you go on some of the date and maybe it was singled out, it was one of the ones where you just let you wait in a room and then until you're tagged in and then you go on some of the date and then you get tagged back out and you're with everybody else who's also like trying to woo this woman. We had two people from Occidental go on that show on the same one.

And the woman that they had on, they're asking her what she likes in a guy. And she was like, I like him to be athletic. I want him to be tall. Freeze frame on her face, a little scratch. I, Chiron comes across and says, size queen. And I was like, holy shit. They just do whatever they want.

You are not a human to them. All right, well, Daniel, thank you for listening to this episode of Soren describes, bet the bachelor to Daniel. I'm gonna probably do this again because I'm gonna keep watching the show. Yeah, I can't wait to catch an episode, not of the show, but of our show

where you tell me what happens. Yeah, that's the perfect way to do it. That's how I used to like to watch Arkham. Yeah. The show, hey, the show is called Got Ham. It's not Arkham. You fool. Thank you everybody for listening.

This has been Quick Question with Soren and Dan. You know that. Our theme song is by Merex. If you like their music, you can find it anywhere you stream music. They're from across the pond. They're an English band. I don't know if that sweetens the deal for you at all.

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if you want to donate or subscribe in either of those places. Bye. Bye. for you all right the answer's not important i'm just glad that we could talk tonight so what's your favorite who did you get two best friends and comedy writers if there's an answer they're gonna find it If there's an answer they're gonna find it I think you'll have a great time here I think you'll have a great time here