Bachelor Recap: In The Valley Of The Dolls
Previously on The Bachelor: Keira was the centre of attention for a few minutes, pleasing her so much she didn’t notice how boring the night was, then returned to the mansion to get back to being appalling again.
Tonight on The Bachelor: something even worse.
The Bachelorettes are gathered in the kitchen, discussing how ready they are for date cards. The consensus is: very ready. Meanwhile Alex is extremely stressed over whether she might have blown her chance to gain the favour of the sexily bland Richie. TAFKAAG wanders in and leaves behind an envelope, then wanders out again in accordance with the note from the producers informing him that nobody is interested in seeing him on TV.
The envelope contains the promise of a single date for Alex, which devastates Keira, who had assumed that Richie was “intrigued” by her, by which she presumably means “nauseated”. Keira sucks her teeth to show her disapproval, the method by which she demonstrates every emotion she ever experiences. In fact all the Bachelorettes are upset — it just seems so unfair that Richie would choose to go on a date with a woman he wants to go on a date with, when there are so many women he doesn’t want to go on dates with right there waiting for him.
The women gather at the front door to see Richie and Alex off. Nikki notes that Alex has been — brace yourselves — flirting with Richie. THE VERY NERVE OF THE WOMAN!
The first stop on Richie and Alex’s date is a shop that sells very expensive unattractive dresses. Alex models a few unflattering frocks that all look the same and Richie makes clear to her that her appearance is all that matters to him. In voiceover he says that he wants to see the deeper side to Alex, but he knows, in his heart, that there isn’t one.
Back at the mansion, the Bachelorettes are playing a card game when Georgia runs in screaming like an idiot. Yes, it’s time for the unseemly spittle-flecked subjugation of female independence that is the group date!
The group date card reads “Nobody puts Baby in a corner”, a quote from the movie Dirty Dancing that seems to indicate that the date will involve the Bachelorettes watching Richie have sex with an underage girl and then performing an illegal abortion.
Meanwhile, Richie and Alex are taken to a room with food in it. Just food, no other people. There are never other people around on Bachelor dates. They never go to a restaurant with other diners present, it’s always a special room where their shame can be isolated and contained.
Alex and Richie sit in their isolation chamber and discuss Alex’s son and how much Richie hates him already. Richie thinks the fact that Alex has a good relationship with her ex is “incredible”, which indicates that Richie has a very low threshold for amazement. They both agree that love has no boundaries, a positive and meaningless sentiment that leaves the question of whether Richie can raise another man’s son — or indeed feed and dress himself — unresolved.
Then it’s off to a courtyard where someone called “Alan Stone” is singing. Richie assures Alex that “Alan Stone” is a renowned international recording artist, but his appearance here suggests he doesn’t exactly have the most hectic schedule. And not surprisingly given that he’s dressed as Janis Joplin’s cat-loving aunt.
Alex is blown away. “Nobody’s ever done anything like this for me before,” she squeaks, probably not noticing that nobody’s done anything like this for her now either, she just happens to be the one whose name came up to come along on this outing, entirely organised and paid for by the Ten Network. Her ex is sitting at home thinking yeah, I could’ve done this for her too if we’d been on a TV show.
Next morning at the mansion, the sound of crying babies fills the air. At first everyone assumes it’s just Keira, but it’s actually four creepy noisemaking baby dolls, one for each of the women chosen for the group date. Nikki begins carrying hers around, while Sasha immediately begins losing her mind — it’s a bit much to throw at her first thing before she’s eaten her breakfast rose. “I have to keep this baby alive!” she moans, even though actually she doesn’t because it’s a doll.
Nikki, Kiki, Sasha and Megan clearly take the responsibility of the dolls extremely seriously, believing that the object of this task is to see who can best look after children. The possibility that they’re actually being tested to see who can best separate reality from fantasy by ignoring the babies completely does not occur to them.
Richie walks in carrying a horrible doll of his own and TAFKAAG tells them today they will be having the worst day of their entire lives. For some reason Richie then says that Noni has to come with them too, because she was acting like she didn’t want to come, so she must be punished. She has to have twin dolls, because Richie hates her the most.
They all drive off for their terrible date, with Richie and Noni having a good laugh about how if the doll was a real baby, she would be guilty of criminal endangerment.
“I’ve always had a lot of respect for mums and dads,” says Richie, really opening up and showing us the wild, unpredictable side of his personality. He takes his Bachelorettes to play mini-golf, a difficult thing to do with a baby to look after, but a very easy thing to do with a doll to look after, as demonstrated by Noni, who leaves a doll lying on the ground at the edge of a putting green with no negative consequences whatsoever.
Mini-golf is followed by a picnic with champagne, as a big part of parenthood is daytime drinking. Sasha’s doll starts crying, depriving her of intimate time with Richie, so she snatches it up and rocks it from side to side in a manner that many abusive parents will recognise.
As Richie and the girls get progressively drunker, TAFKAAG shows up to tell them that the sensory data gathered from the dolls — which are becoming creepier and more intrusive with every revelation — has shown Nikki’s doll to be the “happiest”, which means Nikki wins the prize for being the least normal woman with the poorest sense of perspective, and so she gets a single date night with Richie as a prize for her unhinged nature.
Richie takes Nikki to the place he calls his “bachie pad” in an attempt to show that he can use slang terms and is technically human. They discuss how great it is to theoretically speculate about procreation. Richie tells Nikki that she is incredible and beautiful and that he’s been wanting to kiss her ever since he saw her that morning: that being the morning after he told Alex she was incredible and beautiful and shoved his tongue so far down her throat he tasted her breakfast. He duly shoves his tongue down Nikki as well, and Nikki has never felt more special than she does at this moment, knowing she is one of less than fifteen women that a man is currently planning to feel up.
Richie is now on a solid ratio of one woman kissed and told she is incredible per day, and feeling pretty good about that level of consistency.
Cocktail party time, and Alex plans to use her white rose early. Presumably to get Richie alone, although possibly to jam into one of Keira’s orifices. She will have to wait though, as he grabs Rachel and drags her away to have a deep and meaningful talk about who she is and how she got in. Meanwhile the other Bachelorettes grill Nikki about her romantic evening with Richie and the fluids exchanged therein.
Alex is deeply depressed by this news, finding it shocking that a show about a man dating numerous women might involve the elements that are inherent in its own premise. Keira finds it incredibly amusing and decides to fuck some shit up, by telling Nikki that she should shut her stupid mouth about her stupid kisses and that telling everyone was, like, totes unclassy. Keira lets everyone know that she’d never be all yukky like that. Keira is way too sisterly.
Alex is utterly devastated. She considers kissing to be something really intimate, which means she’s on the wrong show. She is afraid Richie might be falling in love with Nikki, which she could understand because Nikki is a wonderful person, which Alex is mistaken about.
Nikki and some others sit down to thrash out the question of whether Nikki deliberately tries to bum people out, or if she just can’t help it. Keira says she hopes Nikki didn’t think it was a personal attack. It was a personal attack, but Keira really hopes Nikki doesn’t think so. Richie comes over to find out what they’re talking about because he’s a nosy pig like that. He never finds out though, because Eliza swoops in and drags him away — probably not the first time that sentence has been said about her.
Eliza wants him to know that she’s needy and insecure and worried that he’s paying her no attention and that she’s made a weird little rose out of a ribbon to give him in order to reassure him that she is just as batshit insane as he always thought she was. Richie nods kindly until he feels it’s safe to try to escape, at which point Alex whisks him away with the white rose and Nikki starts crying about how she doesn’t want to hurt anyone and it’s so hard being her and why are people so unkind all she wants is to kiss dudes on TV.
After that painful interlude, an even more painful one: the rose ceremony. Nikki and Alex already have theirs, rewards for their limber tongues, but the rest of the Bachelorette party is tense.
First rose goes to Sasha as she was hungry and couldn’t wait. Second to Kiki, who Richie likes but isn’t interesting enough to keep till the end. Third to Faith, who is, against all expectations, still there. Georgia is stressing in voiceover about how little time she’s spent with Richie, but the next rose goes to Rachel, who is the Faith of the women who we remember the names of.
Georgia gets a rose! Keep her dangling a while longer, Richie. Then Olena — hey, remember Olena! Then Megan, who abused her baby earlier in the episode but not enough to deserve banishment.
Only two roses left, and three women. Keira gets a rose, because the publicity department doesn’t know how to fill the commercials if she doesn’t. And so it’s down to Noni and Eliza — a choice between a woman whose only personality trait is liking bacon, and a woman who will probably murder him.
He chooses bacon. Noni stays. Eliza goes back to whatever music therapy group she came from. TAFKAAG apologises to Eliza for this inevitable and incredibly understandable development, and everyone pretends to care that she’s leaving. On the car ride home, Eliza cries about how she now fears she’ll never get to sleep with a boring man, and then ceases to exist for all intents and purposes.
Tune in tomorrow for even dumber date ideas.
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