The best kind of Bachelor Nation villain is one who drowns in his own well of self-delusion. On Monday night’s premiere of Becca Kufrin’s season of “The Bachelorette,” ABC delivered ― in the form of 26-year-old model Jordan Kimball.
Jordan is an endless fount of fashion “expertise” and haughty one-liners: “The power is in the brows.” “My brand is the pensive gentleman.” “Just by me wearing gray, I will stand out.” “I wanted [Becca] to hear the tapping of the shoes I wore because it’s like the heartbeat of a gentleman.”
You get the idea.
Basically, Jordan came off as both eminently hateable and basically harmless. He’s the kind of dude who is not here to make friends, who will grate on Becca’s nerves more and more as the season goes on, and who will probably make a less-than-gracious exit by episode 4. But for now, we get to watch him in all his “Zoolander” parody glory.
HuffPost’s Claire Fallon and Emma Gray chatted all about Jordan with actress and “Bachelor” fan Allison Williams:
Claire Fallon: Jordan is a model.
Allison Williams: Oh my god, is Jordan a model. Is he a model?
Emma Gray: Jordan is a gift from the TV gods.
Williams: What does Jordan do?
Fallon: He’s a pensive gentleman!
Williams: As for pensive gentleman, I thought that was very funny and self-aware. Because it was like saying, if I’m talking about myself, my thing is, like, innocent white girl who proves to be an evil white supremacist by the end of the movie. His thing is pensive gentleman. That was endearing to me, and that was the end of what was endearing to me about him.
Gray: All I could think about when he said that was that thing from “Ten Things I Hate About You,” where Andrew Keegan is showing the two model photos, and he’s in a white T-shirt in one and a black T-shirt in the other.
Fallon: It’s the same look in both photos, and he’s like, “This is more of a catalog look, and this is more underwear.”
Williams: But he really has some great quotes, like the shoes are the heartbeat of a gentleman. Is that a new slogan for a shoe company?
Fallon: He wears ― they’re not actual tap shoes, but I guess they are designed to tap loudly, and he’s like, “She’s going to hear that tapping as the heartbeat of a gentleman.”
Williams: Like high heels going down the hallway!
Fallon: Mmm, sexy.
Gray: He is so eminently hateable, but in the most delightful way. I am excited to have him on my TV screen.
Williams: Also didn’t seem to talk to her, which I love, just fully committing to the villain edit.
Fallon: He’s like, “I’m just going to be the person she hears tap, tap, tapping around in the background like ‘The Tell-Tale Heart,’ and she’s going to feel drawn to that.”
Williams: One of my other favorite moments was that when he came out of the limo, since he’s the most self-aware and presentational person, he took like seven minutes to button his jacket and didn’t even address her or acknowledge her until he felt like he was catwalk-ready, and she was like, “helloo!” and he was still buttoning.
Gray: He put a lot of time into picking out that gray suit. I don’t know if you’re aware.
Williams: Uhhh, sharkskin?
Gray: I did not know ... is that a thing?
Fallon: That is not what a sharkskin suit is. I’m just going to throw that out there. A gray suit is not a sharkskin suit. It’s a kind of fabric weave where it looks different colors from different angles.
Williams: OK, I did not know that.
Gray: I’m learning so much.
Williams: I do think it’s fun, because I would say at this point the guys and the girls talk about presentation and appearance equally, which I think is cool! And the show was sort of making fun of him for talking about men’s fashion, and I think that’s actually a bummer, because I think it’s fun to watch guys talk about fashion.
Gray: It’s not that he talks about fashion.
Fallon: I think the problem with Jordan talking about fashion is that he’s not as good at it as he thinks he is, so it’s weird to draw that much attention to it.
I also ― I always find this weird with the models. Jordan and Trent are models. I found them to be among the less physically attractive men present, and it’s weird to have that be your brand, and come in and be surrounded by these handsome guys who have other stuff going on, and be like, “My only thing is I’m handsome ― not even the most handsome one here...”
Williams: Well, like we saw in the preview, he’s like, “My business is attached to my body.”
Gray: His professionality.
Fallon: “You come at my face? You want to take that away from me?”
Gray: I’m so excited about Jordan. I was just giddy watching him.
Williams: I’m going to crystallize what you just said in amber, because in about two weeks you are going to be begging for him to go home.
Gray: He’s going to stay on the perfect amount of time!
Williams: No, he’ll stay on one episode too long, as they all do.
Fallon: I think Jordan is just intelligent enough, or he’s getting fed tons of lines and working them in really seamlessly ― I don’t think you can be super dumb and have so many great lines.
Williams: I think he is blissfully dumb.
Fallon: I think he has a certain Slytherin-esque cunning.
Williams: He’s definitely a Slytherin. But the Sorting Hat took a second because it was like, “Maybe Hufflepuff?”
Fallon: Definitely not.
Gray: You have to be kind to be a Hufflepuff.
Williams: He has the face of a kind, pensive gentleman, so you think maybe...
Fallon: He could have a glass of scotch and a book in his hand, or he could be giving a flower to a lady!
Williams: The other thing I loved was in his intro package, when he talked about sitting on the couch eating a tub of chocolates. I was like, says a person who has never eaten chocolate. What is a tub of chocolate??
Fallon: It feels like a bag of sand!
Gray: That is not how chocolate is packaged, sir.
Williams: It’s like someone talking about having sex who has never lost their virginity: Someone who talks about eating chocolates and watching a rom-com who’s never eaten chocolate in his life.
For more on the premiere of “The Bachelorette,” listen to “Here To Make Friends”:
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Do people love “The Bachelor,” “The Bachelorette” and “Bachelor in Paradise,” or do they love to hate these shows? It’s unclear. But at “Here to Make Friends,” we both love and love to hate them — and we love to snarkily dissect each episode in vivid detail. Podcast edited by Nick Offenberg.