
Great news! After āsix years and more than $65 million invested,ā the hands-down best show on television has returned to bless me with its soothing delusions of American exceptionalismāand this time, it features Ashton Kutcher.
The intro to Shark Tank Season 7 is clear about the showās intention of āinspiring the nation to dream big,ā which it fully executes. Dream big, dream stupid, thatās the motherfuckin life for me! The products teased for the upcoming season are extremely spicy, also: featured on the screen are motorcycles, drones, weird headphones, dust that lights on fire (for your grillāor for my boudoir), little robots, some sort of (Iām guessing) bridesmaid dress startup, something called a BEER BLIZZARD (above; take all my money), something called āBeard King,ā a wiggly faux-hoverboard ab workout, a quick-inflate technology (am I right, ladies), a thing thatās like a carnival sumo-joust situation except with giant bubblesālike, sign me up:

And then thereās a woman crying, naturally, and then another woman crying, and Barbara saying, āYouāve got to give up this crying stuff. As soon as a woman cries, youāre giving up your power,ā and then it cuts to a guy crying, so what about that one, Barb? āThis is the Shark Tank, weāre gonna kill you,ā says Mr. Wonderful in utter nonchalance. Great!
This season, there are three new sharks whoāll be switching in and out of the money seats. First, Chris Sacca, whose Wikipedia says he is āknown for his signature embroidered cowboy shirts.ā Then, Troy Carter, the music executive behind Lady Gaga, whose intro section clips him smiling as he says āThereās another kid in the garage that wants to eat your lunchāāwhy would the garage want to eat your lunch, Carter?āand, of course, thereās Ashton Kutcher, who my colleague Clover Hope suggested might become the Paula of the panel. Ashton Kutcher sits in what will now be known as Bro Corner, next to Cuban, and he brought pretty good vibes to this season premiere.
Before we get into it, I would like to note Robertās dye job:

Advertisement
The hue is a bit too Hot Fudge River to look natural, but I get it; heās been going through a thing.
Letās get down to the products.
BEEBO
Whatās a Beebo? This is a Beebo.

Advertisement
This is an Ashton Kutcher looking at a Beebo:

And here is the intended use of a Beebo:

Advertisement
It allows you to do other things while feeding your baby, like, as the founder suggests, ācaress your baby,ā which, I guess.
The Sharks point out that Ashton Kutcher is a new dad. āOne of my favorite things is to feed her,ā Ashton says. But he doesnāt want to go in on the deal because heās ānot helpful with manufacturing goods.ā Good thing heās on Shark Tank, then! After some fuss, because of his new-dad vibe and marketing connections, Ashton ends up splitting the deal with Lori.
ROCKET SKATES
āFucking ROCKET SKATES,ā say my notes. Welcome to what the founder of Acton Rocket Skates calls āthe worldās smallest electric vehicle.ā
Advertisement

Robert decides to try them, careens helplessly off into the distance. āWhereās my camera,ā says Lori in a very sincere and adorable wayāforgetting, maybe, that all of this is being recorded for national TV.
Cubes likes the skates. āI used to rollerskate around Indiana,ā he says. āThat wouldāve been badass.ā
Advertisement

The founder of this company is very bad on television: evasive, dead-eyed smiling, insincere. Heās not sure how many skate guys he can produce in a month. Heās not totally sure what it costs to make each one. He wants to sell these for $500 at Target, and he wants $1 million for 3.5 percent, which is not a fun idea for any of the Sharks.
āMy gut tells me that youāre not really vying for a deal here today,ā Lori says. He doesnāt get one and I hope I never see a pair of these in real life.
Advertisement
MCCLARY BROS DRINKING VINEGARS
Hereās a woman from Detroit who seems extremely competent and good. In the preroll, she talks about having a publishing company that went under in 2008; she and her husband lost their house but got back on their feet, partially via this āshrubā/ādrinking vinegarā business.

Advertisement
Drinking vinegars have been all over my issues of Bon Appetit lately, and her goal is to take these mass marketāIām guessing, like, to entice a new cocktail consultant at the head office of Applebeeās. The Sharks sensibly bring up the fact that, aside from apple cider vinegar enthusiasts, this is a category that has yet to be fully created or proven.
Mr. Wonderful is, naturally, extremely rude about this, saying the market consists of āfour guys and a dog.ā Ashton Kutcher, having apparently never seen Shark Tank before, asks him to stop being such a dickhead.

Advertisement
(Notice Cubes laughing in the back.)
āYouāre belittling people, and thatās NOT OK,ā says Ashton.

Advertisement
Ms. New Vinegar does not walk away with a deal.
SIGNAL VAULT
āImagine Iām a hacker,ā says the founder of the last company, who then simulates a hack on Cubanās wallet.
Advertisement

āBankās name: Markās Bank.ā
Signal Vault is a little card with a chip that you put near your credit cards, whichāll keep them, supposedly, from being hackedāthe U.S. accounts for half the credit and debit card theft worldwide, okay, sure, but who will vault the signal vault? Doesnāt matter, because he can sell them for $14.95 and make them for 75 cents each.
Advertisement
The Sharksā eyes light up. āMAH MAN,ā yells Ashton.

This guy got his seed money from getting four out of five lottery numbers rightāthe inherent mythology of this show is amazingāand he seems good and nice, if, as is traditional, pretty nervous.
Advertisement

This one devolves into a classic Shark War of Egos, with Lori doing the thing where she gets semi-romantically upset when the entrepreneur wonāt focus on her. She writes ā1,000,000.00ā on a piece of notebook paper and keeps saying āI know he sees the merit in me.ā

Advertisement
āYeah, because this is so similar to a lipstick box,ā says Robert, who may well be Dark Robert this season.
The entrepreneur asks the two of them to work together, and miraculously, gets his wish. All is well in the kingdom. We love you, America, good night.
Images via NBC. Contact the author at jia@jezebel.com.