Move over, JJ, Bentley and even Juan Pablo… there’s a new baddie in town, and the residents of Bachelor Nation haven’t even yet seen him at his worst yet! But two episodes in, it’s become clear that Chad Johnson — the 28-year-old native of Tulsa, Oklahoma — is the suitor to watch on the latest outing of TV’s guiltiest pleasure, THE BACHELORETTE. But what’s truly intriguing about Chad is that he might be the first villain in the franchise’s history who is, say it with us now… here for the right reasons.
Whereas past heels such as Justin “Rated-R” Rego were clearly more interested in fame and fortune than love or romance, Chad seems — at least so far — to actually be interested in JoJo. In fact, unlike most of the other guys hoping desperately for roses, Chad refuses to accept the unwritten rule of THE BACHELORETTE, which is, simply put, that the woman in question is so obviously perfect that every single man who walks through the door should immediately be dumbstruck by her beauty and willing to declare his love. On the spot.
But that ain’t how Chad roles. “The guys are acting like they’ve never met a beautiful girl before,” he said last night. “I will not write her a song about how much I love her.” In fact, during an outing during which the suitors were asked to some up their feelings for JoJo, Chad not only refused to play their reindeer game, but semi-jokingly accused the beauty of being a nag when she prompted him for a better response!
Chad’s behavior has, of course, rubbed the other men the wrong way. His constant interruptions of their one-on-one time and refusal to play nice with others inspired what was meant to be a confrontation but came off as… well, in Chad’s words, “It was like if the Care Bears, like, surrounded you and told you they were going to kick your ass.”
In case you haven’t figured it out yet, Chad gives good quote… and that makes for great TV. Following yet another attempt by the other men to set him on the straight and narrow, Chad mockingly quipped, “We’re a bunch of butt-hurt dudes who are going to confront you… slightly.”
When not pursuing the girl, Chad’s primary concern seems to be bulking up on anything and everything edible, which leads to him breaking yet another rule of the genre. Generally speaking, suitors are only seen eating during the ridiculously extravagant dates. The rest of the time, we’re sort of left to assume they’re perhaps dueling, Thunderdome style, for food. Chad, however, spent most of Monday night’s cocktail party stuffing his face… to the point where the cameras actually followed him to the buffet table we rarely, if ever, see. (His food of preference? Let’s just say the dude is not a vegetarian. As one fellow contestant said, “He would take an IV of meat if he could get one!”)
The producers clearly are not looking for you to fall in love with Chad. They don’t necessarily even want JoJo to fall in love with the villain. But what they both want and need is for him to stick around. Because which Bachelor Nation may once have been looking for love, the show long ago discovered that most viewers are tuning in for the drama. Without it, we’ll spend a little too much time thinking about the fact that two episodes in, our heroine has already made out with more people than most of us will in a good year. What they’re really hoping is that by the time JoJo wises up — and they always do — we’ll have invested in her romances. Chad is basically the spoonful of sugar they hope will make the medicine go down, even if it’s not in the most delightful way.