Bachelorette Recap: An Otter?

And so we enter another year of The Bachelorette, the show that seeks to answer once and for all the question: Can a beautiful woman be attractive to men?

We’ve already been informed via the ad campaign that Sophie Monk is “not your typical Bachelorette”, and this is very true: usually Bachelorettes go on the show to become famous, whereas Sophie is on the show to resurrect the fame she used to have. But maybe that’s being uncharitable: Sophie’s presence on the show might well break down the huge barriers that exist in society for stunning blonde models.

We begin with Sophie telling a long tedious story about how nobody in LA loved her for herself and she wanted to come home to find herself and how now that she’s home she enjoys long walks on the beach, soulful gazes at the horizon, and perfectly natural unscripted conversations with her parents in the kitchen while a guitarist fingerpicks in the background. Or, to be honest, in the foreground. She also has a chat with her sister, which we are lucky enough to be privy to, and which is also completely unscripted and spontaneous.

This conversation produces a slightly odd moment when Sophie’s sister tells her she “can’t wait to see one of the guys touch your leg”. This is very unsettling and I’m not sure I should be watching.

“I’ll never give up on trying to find love,” says Sophie, displaying that gutsy Anzac spirit that made this country great.

Sophie arrives at the Bachelorette Mansion in the Bachelorette-Mobile and greets TAFKAAG in the garden, illuminated by eighteen billion Christmas lights. She tells TAFKAAG that looks aren’t that important to her, which is why there’ll be a fair few middle-aged bald obese burns victims on the show. She also says that she is “ready to settle”, which might’ve been a slip of the tongue as she tried to say “settle down”, but on the other hand might’ve just been a moment of uncharacteristic honesty.

Finally, the moment of truth: the moment when the Bachelors start to arrive and it just takes forever.

The first man arrives with a bang, a flash and a puff of smoke. He produces a rose from thin air, and immediately hearts around the country sink as we realise the awful truth: we’ve got a magician on the premises.

His name is Apollo, which isn’t helping matters. Sophie tells Apollo she wants a man who loves her for her, but you can sense the friction: Apollo really just wants a woman to saw in half.

“Imagine what he could turn a bedsheet into,” says Sophie, apparently implying that Apollo is a Klansman.

Next Bachelor on the block is a farmer, who forces us to watch a montage of himself feeding alpacas and talks about how lonely it is out on the farm. So he can offer an extremely tempting life of sitting in the middle of nowhere, spending every night staring resentfully across the room at each other, silent except for the creak of the rocking chairs, to some lucky lady.

This is Jarrod, and he has brought a basket of grapes for Sophie to stomp on. Already Apollo’s magic act is looking a lot better, as Sophie and Jarrod stagger awkwardly around in the grapes in a bonding experience that can only be called “nightmarish”. He also reassures her, as a former serviceman, that Sophie boosted morale when she went to Iraq to sing for the troops. Which she did, but not with her singing.

The third Bachelor is in an Adidas tracksuit and carrying a boombox and has a beard that is a different colour to his hair.

The frenetic efforts of each Bachelor to out-cockspank each other are reaching dangerous levels, as this dreadful creature, whose name is allegedly “Eden”, breakdances in front of Sophie, as if he has just arrived from a distant planet where the concept of completely terrible ideas has yet to arise. “Eden’s really sweet,” says Sophie, the lying cow.

Next is James, who is shy, and has every reason to be.

Sophie tells him he smells beautiful, for want of anything better to say. On the upside, James has brought her jewellery, rather than magic tricks, boomboxes or day-labour. On the downside his personality is 70 percent sweat and he miscalculated how long it would take him to grow a beard before the show started.

Next up are…three small boys wearing bowties and braces? Luckily we are now given an ad break to process the prospect of Sophie being forced to romance the chorus from Bugsy Malone. “Little boys, that’s my favourite!” says Sophie, which is still not as weird as her sister talking about the guy touching her leg.

It turns out that these three greasy little tykes have come to babble some garbage about their uncle, who doesn’t have the goddamn guts to do his own introductions. They inform her that the “best thing” their uncle has ever done is “take us to Target”. Following this glimpse into a gruesomely abusive uncle-nephew relationship, we finally meet the uncle himself, who has failed to take advantage of the extra time his nephews afforded him to do his hair properly. Or even, I’m pretty sure, wash it.

This is Sam, who impresses Sophie because he’s “good with children”: apparently that “took us to Target” thing slipped by her.

Next is Jourdan, who begins by announcing, “I’m super weird”, and is every bit as boring a person as that would indicate. He strolls up to Sophie, blindfolds her, and then walks away. That’s it. That’s Jourdan. He’s a tool.

One man who has no intention of playing weird Kubrickian games with the Bachelorette is Luke, who arrives, says he’s nervous, and then leaves.

This heralds the beginning of the traditional Parade of Bachelors Too Uninteresting to Spend Any Significant Time On. One by one, they walk up, say their names, and move on. No montages or special gifts from these fellas: there’s monotony to be done!

After Luke there’s Chad.

After Chad there’s Brett.

After Brett there’s Harry.

After Harry there’s Jefferson.

Jefferson brings roses in a pizza box, but he still only gets ten seconds onscreen.

After Jefferson there’s Jamie, who looks like if Chad Kroeger got in the machine from The Fly with Jimmy Savile.

After Jamie there’s Pete, who has a t-shirt over one shoulder.

It’s a gift for Sophie and it says “A Rose Among Thorns”, which is incredibly funny. Pete obviously has a real gift for humour.

After Pete there’s Hayden, who wears an ugly suit, has an ugly beard, and dabs as he approaches Sophie, saying “You look DABulous!”

To her credit, Sophie has enough sangfroid to refrain from stabbing him to death on the spot with her shoe.

Next comes a horse, with a wanker on top of it. The wanker’s name is Bingham — I rewound several times to check that, it actually is — and not only did he turn up on a horse, he wore a special hat and carried a polo stick to dispel any doubts about him being a colossal dicksplash.

A polo-playing Bachelor seems to be as bad as it gets, but something truly horrific is about to happen to put it all in perspective. A chill runs down our collective spines, as Mack gets out of the car…with a guitar. Mack claims to have had a crush on Sophie for ten years, which makes you wonder about the judgment of the producers in allowing self-confessed stalkers to participate in the show.

If the stalking wasn’t enough, the song that issues forth from Mack’s guitar and mouth puts the seal on it: this is a man who needs institutionalising. The song is about him and Sophie, and consists almost entirely of the words “You and Me” squealed at progressively higher pitch and with increasingly elongated syllables until the overall effect is that of a wounded hyena begging to be put out of its misery. There is no way singing a song at the start of The Bachelorette can possibly end well, but this breaks all records for criminal arsebaggery.

The ordeal over, we are now forced to meet Blake, an investor/entrepreneur. That’s actually how he describes himself: “I’m an investor slash entrepreneur,” he says.

He claims to be incredibly successful and wealthy, but he still can’t afford a good-looking jacket. He also claims to be something “this show has never seen before” and “the complete package”, the first of which is untrue — this show has seen quite a few insufferable aspiring date rapists before — and the second of which is absolutely true — he’s a perfect storm of every unpleasant personality trait known to man. Blake has brought a special present for Sophie — a big fur coat that will keep her warm in the cold chill of cynicism and emptiness already permeating the mansion.

Blake walks into the mansion and immediately begins slapping the other Bachelors in the face with his dick. For some reason, even after Blake has arrived, Sam says he expected the producers to bring in “one douche”, but that he hasn’t seen him yet.

The editing implies that the next Bachelor, Ryan, is the aforesaid douche. “I’m not gonna be mucked around,” he declares, and begins his conversation with Sophie by interrogating her on why she has yet to find true love and spends the whole time staring at her like he’s about to challenge her to a boxing match.

So Ryan is pretty douchey, but is he douchier than Blake? It’s a close call. And let’s not forget, there’s still a guy who made Sophie stomp grapes.

Ryan strides into the mansion and tells all the other Bachelors that he doesn’t even give a fuck about the show or Sophie and he doesn’t need this shit and honestly he’ll probably just go home in a few minutes because chicks, man.

As the Bachelors mingle, several things become clear:

1. The Bachelors are all more attracted to Apollo than they are to Sophie.
2. Hayden has an inferiority complex, and if I were him, so would I.
3. Jourdan communicates mainly with pained moans and grunting sounds.

After several hours of comparing testicle circumference and nude wrestling, TAFKAAG shows up clinking his glass with a spoon and welcomes the Bachelors to their first cocktail party. He assures them that Sophie is here for the same reason they are: to apply for a job on breakfast radio.

TAFKAAG also explains what the roses mean on the show, as if everyone on earth doesn’t already know. But also, he announces, there’s a “Worldwide First”!!!! Oooh how exciting! Turns out there’s another rose in play — the “double delight”. Whoever gets the double delight rose gets two whole single dates with Sophie. Wow! That’s definitely a massive advantage and not at all a gimmick that will turn out to be essentially meaningless!

Here’s Sophie! Everyone reacts with awe and wonder as if they haven’t already all met her. Sophie begins a speech to let the Bachelors know that she’s there for the right reasons, but before she can say anything, Ryan interrupts and drags her away from the group. Ryan is a savvy guy who knows that what women want in a man, more than anything, is aggressive rudeness.

The question of why Sophie actually goes with Ryan at this point is an open one. The more logical thing to would be kick him in the nuts, push him into the pool, and tell him he’s got five minutes to leave the property before the dogs are released. But instead she decides to hear him out for some reason.

Ryan forces Sophie into the house and starts asking more questions, believing that his initial interrogation wasn’t uncomfortable and offputting enough. Harry and Jourdan interrupt his conversation by coming in and asking to talk to Sophie, but Ryan tells them to leave and demands they “show a bit of respect”. Again, Harry and Jourdan, like Sophie, react oddly, by leaving as he instructs, rather than saying, “YOU show a bit of fucking respect you squinty little cumstain”.

Ryan asks Sophie whether she’s here for the right reasons and, again, why she hasn’t found love yet, which he ALREADY ASKED HER BEFORE. Sophie misses another prime opportunity to castrate him, and actually lets herself be involved in a conversation with this human bag of fish-heads. The conversation is awful and difficult to handle and just makes you fervently wish that the entire human race would lose the power of speech.

Ryan becomes more and more irritated as Bachelors stream into the room to interrupt and grab some Sophie time. Ryan had been informed that this was a show revolving around one woman’s attempts to escape from Ryan’s company, and these dudes are cramping his style.

Jarrod gets some precious one-on-one time with Sophie, and tells her about how every woman he meets leaves him as soon as she realises that he wants her to spend the rest of her life walking through piles of alpaca dung. “I’ve never met anyone like Jarrod before,” Sophie says, because in Hollywood most men don’t smell of fertiliser.

Sophie gathers the Bachelors to play “Never Have I Ever”, a very dull game in which everyone drinks while simultaneously revealing mildly interesting facts about themselves. Jourdan joins the game, walking with an unexplained limp. I hate to say this about a man who introduces himself to women by blindfolding them and leaving, but Jourdan seems slightly unstable. This impression is not corrected when Sophie says, “Never have I ever been cheated on,” and Jourdan bursts into tears. Overcome by emotion, Jourdan reveals the terrible secret that the mention of cheating has reminded him of: the time he had a girlfriend and she didn’t cheat on him. It’s a harrowing story of lies and betrayal and nothing in particular actually happening.

Jourdan’s emotional retelling of the most painful non-occurrence of his life is dramatically cut short when an otter appears in the pool.

Wait.

What?

An otter?

An OTTER?

How is there an otter in the pool?

Someone says it’s actually a possum but it actually does look like an otter. How can there be an otter? What the hell is going on?

This is followed by a “walk-off” — if we can for a moment entertain the conceit that this is a real thing — between the Bachelors with short hair and the Bachelors with terrible hair. We’re supposed to be really excited about this, but it’s impossible to focus on anything while the question of the otter remains unresolved.

How was there an otter?

“Can this night get any crazier?” asks Sophie, who has apparently spent her entire life in a church youth group. Apparently, it CAN get crazier.

Unfortunately this doesn’t mean they go on an otter hunt. What it means is that Hayden pulls his underpants out of his trousers, and then Sam takes his clothes off and he’s wearing long thermal underwear and then he takes that off and he runs around the yard and jumps in the pool and honesty who gives a shit, there was an OTTER IN THE POOL.

As the night goes on, with every development narrated by Apollo, who isn’t even bothering to pretend he’s there for love rather than trying to score a job as a voiceover artist, everyone is wondering who is going to get the double delight rose. Everyone at the mansion, that is: nobody watching cares at all. There was an otter in the pool, shut up about the fucking rose.

Sam has put his clothes back on, and suffered a crisis of self-esteem in the bathroom. “You’re pathetic,” he tells himself, learning that as the undie run soweth, so shall the emotional equilibrium reap. He hates himself almost as much as I hate everyone on the show.

Time for Sophie to present the double delight rose. Ryan is fairly sure he’s landed it through his unique combination of obnoxiousness and loathsomeness. Blake is fairly sure the rose is his, because if he were handing out roses, he’d choose himself.

But actually Sophie chooses Sam, and isn’t that a lesson in life, guys: the way to get a girl’s attention is to publicly humiliate yourself. Heart-warming.

Blake can hardly believe it, since as far as he can tell, Sam is not Blake, and the idea of someone who isn’t Blake getting something is one he has not encountered up till now.

Now onto the nitty gritty: who will be sent home? “I think Hayden might be in a little bit of trouble tonight,” says some guy who I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. Will Hayden’s decision to rummage around in his pants and then throw his undergarments at Sophie impress her? Even if it does, will it be enough to make up for his stupid beard and “DABulous”?

Will Blake be punished for hubris? Will Ryan be punished for being a cockhole? Will Jourdan be punished for crying about nothing? Will Jarrod be punished for wearing gumboots to a cocktail party?

Apollo gets a rose for his narration skills.

Luke gets a rose for his height.

Jarrod gets a rose for his knowledge of camelid husbandry.

James gets a rose out of pity.

Harry gets a rose as encouragement so study hard for his exams.

Bingham gets a rose in recognition for his sterling work on the grouse shoot.

Blake gets a rose due to his powerful connections in the Church of Scientology.

Eden gets a rose because Sophie forgot which one he was.

Mack gets a rose because Sophie has a thing for creepy untalented men.

Jourdan gets a rose out of sympathy for his sad story about the relationship where nobody did anything, and also for the fact that he has either pulled a hamstring or soiled himself.

Jefferson gets a rose because the dart hit his picture.

Brett gets a rose because of his winning nondescriptness.

Pete gets a rose because he looks so enthusiastic.

Ryan gets a rose because the producers told Sophie that every series needs an irredeemable arsehole and she’s not allowed to send him home yet.

Hayden gets a rose because Sophie likes stupid beards. He then uses the word “dabsolutely”, which should mean the rose is immediately withdrawn, but sadly no.

This means Chad and Jamie have to go home, which is a shame because we wanted to get to know them. Or at least, we didn’t want to avoid getting to know them to any greater degree than we wanted to avoid getting to know the rest of them. But the fact that Jamie was the lovechild of the Paddle Pop Lion and reconditioned Skeksi muppet told against him, as did the fact that Chad was called Chad.

Who will go home next? I can’t wait, can you? Tune in tomorrow, when they’ll go on some dumb date or something I guess. And they won’t explain the otter, ever.

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