‘The Golden Bachelor’ Episode 2 Recap: ‘I’m Gonna Kill Him if I Don’t Get a Rose’

​This episode revealed the secret to Gerry’s success in making women melt

Photo by John Fleenor/ABC

Why do ladies go wild over this guy? Because, to paraphrase the 1970s E.F. Hutton ad, when women talk, Gerry actually listens. Typical Gerry line: “You have my attention.” Nancy, 60 — who shot hoops with Gerry in the premiere and started a cancer-battling foundation in honor of her late husband Mark Hulkower (prosecutor of Russian CIA spy Aldrich Ames) — said, “It’s really important to me to be seen, to be listened to.” Ellen, 71, gushed, “My emotions are going crazy every single second of the last couple days. He made me feel like the most special person in the world, like a princess!”

Granted, he dances as stiffly as the Tin Man in dire need of a shot of WD-40. But he’s uninhibited and fun, and he pays attention to who’s dancing with him. So who wouldn’t want to?

Laughs sometimes gave way to tears — but that’s a good thing

Gerry looked alarmed at the glum look on Nancy’s face. Why wasn’t she over the moon and mooning for him? He wondered, was it him? Her problems with women in the bachelorette mansion (which looked kind of like a college dorm)? A disconnect between the two of them? Or what? “Nancy just wasn’t herself.”

Afterwards, he discovered that Nancy was being very much herself

Nancy, 60, a retired interior designer from Alexandria, Virginia.

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Nancy’s costume was a wedding dress, she explained to the camera, and it made her awash in poignant emotions. “It just hit me — I haven’t had a wedding dress since I got married. It brought back memories. I know in my rational mind it’s been 12 years [since her husband died]. It was the best day of my life other than the birth of my three children.”

She then explained the cause of her bum-a-thon mood to Gerry. “That’s the worst of it, it just comes out of nowhere!” But Gerry was characteristically understanding, and in fact they bonded over this, since he’s a widower or he wouldn’t be on the show. He confessed to her that he feels the same way when he smells cinnamon rolls at Christmas — his late wife’s favorite.

Still, it seemed ominous when she kissed his cheek with what didn’t look like much passion. Was a rose in her future, or a bachelor's boot out the door? (Spoiler alert for those who haven’t seen the episode: She got her rose.)

April (left), 65, a therapist from Port St. Lucie, Florida, also received a rose.

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Two of the contestants gave the best lines of the evening

April, 65, who startled Gerry in the premiere episode by saying the F word repeatedly, said what possibly every woman was thinking: “I’m gonna kill him if I don’t get a rose!” It was hard to see which woman in the group said the other great line, but everyone seemed to relate: “When I’m 100, I plan to still be good-looking!”

Nancy wasn’t the only one who teared up

When they were alone together, Leslie, 64, the woman who inspired Prince to write the tune "Sexy Dancer," told Gerry, “I got a little choked up, because you are really amazing. There’s not many men like you.”

“You’ve got that soft, gooey inside,” observed Gerry sympathetically.

“I’m kinda like a lava cake,” she concurred.

Leslie (left), 64, a fitness instructor from Minneapolis, with Gerry Turner during the rose ceremony.

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Leslie and Gerry also bonded over shared disability

“If you ever want to whisper sweet nothings in my ear — I will be able to hear you!” she said, showing him her hearing aid. (He wears them too.) He took the hint and whispered in her ear, and she went, “Whoo!” But she refused to divulge just what he said. “That’s for me to know,” she said with a coy, cat-that-ate-the-canary grin. “You gotta keep some things private.”

Wait … isn’t that against everything the Bachelor franchise stands for??

(Left to right) Natascha, 60, a pro-aging coach and midlife speaker from New York, and Jeanie, 65, a retired project manager from Estill Springs, Tennessee.

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The ‘losers’ didn’t seem like losers at all

Jeanie, 65, who gave Gerry a genie lamp in the premiere and said "I can grant a wish!" did not get her wish. But she rose above any woes. “I know that he was feeling bad about hurting me tonight, but a lot of us were kind of giving up on love. But with Gerry, [you realize] there are nice guys out there, and there’s hope, and that’s all that we can ask for. My mama found love in her 70s and I can do it too.”

Natascha, 60, who has an infectious laugh and said that Gerry is so in shape, "I’m not going to need to resuscitate him if we have an intimate moment," didn’t get one. But he hugged her and murmured, “God, I love you, Natascha.” She thanked him and left the show. But she had some sharp advice for Golden Bachelor producers: “Guys, you have people in here 60, 70 and above — do the rose ceremony in the chairs. They have chair yoga, chair aerobics — do the chair rose ceremony!” Then she laughed long, loud and proud.