The Bachelor Recap: Rolling On The Cheap
Previously, on The Bachelor, Richie fell in love with Nikki and then later on he fell in love with Alex and then he fell in love with Olena and Keira became absolutely ropeable at the discovery that women other than herself were trying to win the competition.
Tonight, on The Bachelor, hope for us all dies a little bit more.
It’s morning at the mansion and the bachelorettes are still raking over the coals of Keira’s idiotic opinion about Alex’s white rose. In Keira’s view, it should be enough that Alex won the white rose — to actually USE it was horribly gauche of her.
“Every time we see Osher, we know that something exciting is going to happen,” says one of the women, which is funny because that’s the exact opposite to the experience of the rest of Australia. Anyway TAFKAAG rocks up to the pool with an envelope containing the name of the next woman who Richie will take on a single date. Eliza opens the envelope. “Love is in the air,” she reads, causing all the women to simultaneously hyperventilate. The woman who Richie will be dating, in order to show the women with whom he’s already claimed to have a special connection that he was lying, is Megan, who you might remember, or not.
To fulfil contractual obligations, we must now hear Keira’s opinion on Megan. “I don’t really know Megan, but I don’t know if they can really have a future together,” she says, managing to be supremely bitchy and hilariously incoherent at the same time.
Off Megan goes to see what Richie has been instructed to do for their date. The answer is that they will be sitting on a transparent platform suspended from a crane above a cliff, because romance is always enhanced by the ability to visualise one’s own broken lifeless body on the jagged rocks far below. Richie declares that it is a “spectacular moment…shared with a spectacular girl”, which means as little as everything Richie says.
“I really appreciate the thought you put into this,” Megan says to Richie, which is a bit weird because surely she should be saying this to the producer who planned the date. Also, surely she shouldn’t be appreciating it, because it’s a stupid idea for a date and only a stupid person would have thought of it. Who the hell thinks, “for a really romantic experience, I yearn to dangle over a cliff on a bench”?
Still, apparently both Megan and Richie are “big ocean fans”, and the ocean is visible from where they’re sitting, so I guess it’s a real blast. They chat with each other and tell each other that they have many non-specific things in common and that they are ready to fall in love and generally run through the conversation script that everyone follows on every date.
Back at the mansion, a bunch of women have been asked on a group date, which isn’t very interesting because nobody cares about the group dates. The envelope says “Let the good times roll”, which excites Keira because she’s good at rollerblading and in her experience that’s what men look for in a life partner.
Meanwhile Megan and Richie’s nonsensical dates continues in some kind of house with a painting of a peacock on the wall. Megan tells Richie that she is a “very passionate person”. Richie tells Megan that he is “the kind of guy who commits one hundred percent”. They bond over their love of cliches. Richie says he isn’t a good wordsmith. Megan lies that she thinks he IS a good wordsmith, and goes on to say she wants a man who is “gracious with other people” and then she just kind of starts babbling in some bizarre language of her own that is only understandable by other contestants on The Bachelor or people who have recently masturbated into a Harlequin novel.
Richie now tells Megan that when she took her shoes off at the cocktail party he knew she was the kind of woman who he loves: ie a woman with tough skin on her soles. Aroused to boiling point by the memory of her naked toes, he leans in for a kiss. Megan presents her cheek to him, like some kind of moron. She has passed up the chance for a juicy slab of tongue and is kicking herself — you don’t snag Bachelors with cheeks. Or at least, you might, but…uh…
Luckily several seconds later he tries again and this time she remembers why she is here: to bring the Bachelor to full tumescence at every opportunity. Lips are locked and tongues are tangled and Megan has received both a rose and a fair amount of saliva.
Off to the group date, and the bachelorettes arrive at a roller rink to meet Richie, TAFKAAG, and two roller derby teams. TAFKAAG explains that the rules are simple, which should suit all the women pretty well. Keira immediately expresses a desire to go to bed, which pretty much seems to be her default setting.
The bachelorettes form into teams and put on their skates, helmets and knee pads. Then TAFKAAG tells them to go put on their uniforms. So why did they go put their skates on first? The winning team gets a private street party with Richie which for some reason they want to have.
There’s a woman called “Tolyna” on the show, apparently.
At this point, Richie does that thing where he ineptly pretends to have had an original idea, and forces the women to put on Sumo suits. I’m not really sure what the object of this “date” is — Richie wants to know which women can last thirty seconds of this crap without telling him to go fuck himself? I guess if you were Richie you would be keen to meet a woman who doesn’t give up on things just because she hates them.
Anyway they all skate around and Noni is knocking people over like bowling pins and Keira is rolling around like a turtle on its back and it is actually pretty funny to see her suffering. The blue team — Noni’s — is ahead after the first round, and it’s all Keira’s fault, and Kiki keeps telling Keira it’s her fault, and Keira kind of wants to spit in Kiki’s face, and that’s pretty funny too.
And then it just goes on, and on, and on, and who thought this made good TV? The women just keep skating around in their stupid suits and yelling and squealing and they just all seem to CARE about what they’re doing far more than anyone wearing a sumo suit should. “I can see the fire in Tolyna’s eyes,” says Richie, and any reasonable man would see that as a reason to cross Tolyna off his list permanently, but if Richie were a reasonable man he wouldn’t be The Bachelor.
The blue team wins and Janey is excited because that means she gets to go to the street party, though she’ll be very disappointed when she discovers that there are no hatters or dormice there.
At this point Keira redeems herself a little, because she’s the only bachelorette willing to call out how idiotic the other women are being.
Time for the street party, which is just Richie and the blue team and a caravan serving drinks and a bunch of Christmas lights. Richie takes the opportunity to have some extremely awkward one-on-one time with the members of the blue team. He begins by asking Janey, “Do you like sports?” but he might as well have asked her if she liked anal, with the stunned way she reacts to the question. She stammers a feeble attempt at an answer, trying to make Richie understand that she doesn’t like sports because Snow White never played any.
Richie goes on to ask Tolyna about herself, to which Tolyna replies that she will never tell him anything about herself and he should stop being so fucking nosy.
Back to the mansion for another agonising cocktail party, at which Keira continues her incessant whining about Alex and the white rose. She claims “some people can’t handle” the awesome responsibility of the white rose — apparently in her view, the correct way to handle the white rose is to not use it. Frankly, some of the ladies here have been treating The Bachelor like some kind of competition, and Keira finds this most distasteful. Keira would never behave competitively: she has class.
Oh and here comes Alex to shove that bug a little bit further up Keira’s fundament. Richie takes her away to their special spot, infuriating all the other women, who have all joined Keira in her outrage that a woman who goes on The Bachelor might try to win. “It’s seeeeeelfish!” one whines. “We’re going about this in a MATURE way!” another one snivels, literally raising the subject of maturity in the middle of a rant about how it’s unfair when you go on a game show and your opponents won’t let you win. What a dickhead. I’m glad I don’t know her name.
Finally, the rose ceremony, and three women will be given what they will one day recognise as the gift of freedom.
The first to get a rose is Noni, as Richie wants to learn more about bacon in coming days. Second is Kiki, who impressed Richie by almost making Keira cry at the roller derby. Third is Nikki, who forged a special connection with Richie on the first single date, but since then has faded into the background as Richie realised how much fun it is to form lots of special connections with lots of people.
These first few roses have been accompanied by a running voiceover from Keira about how Richie needs to give her some one-on-one time soon or he is going to lose her, cleverly giving an ultimatum to someone who: a) can’t hear her; and b) has demonstrated he doesn’t care via the actions which necessitated the ultimatum in the first place.
Fourth is Olena — shrug. Fifth is Keira, who’s just like, whatever, you still haven’t tongued me so this means NOTHING. Sixth is Marja, still sort of hanging around. Seventh is Alex, the favourite and apparently the only woman who knows this is a competition. Eighth is Faith, whoever that is.
Ninth is Rachel, who I think is the whiny one from a couple of paragraphs ago, but I’m not entirely sure. Tenth is…Sophie? She’s kept herself out of the limelight expertly. Eleventh is Georgie.
Twelfth is Sasha, which is a relief because she hasn’t eaten all day.
Four women left. One rose left. One is Eliza. One is Janey. One is Tolyna. One is Tiffany. It’s a question of what Richie finds most attractive: loud mad singing people; five-year-olds in adult bodies; people who refuse to answer questions; or whatever Tiffany is.
In the end he gives the rose to Eliza, which is objectively the wrong choice. On the car ride home — or to wherever the car takes the losers — Janey says that she had hoped to fall in love and start a family, presumably in the hollow of a magical tree deep in the heart of the elven forest.
Tune in tomorrow, when Keira gets offended, deservedly.
The Bachelor has taught me just how to be a success in the dating game! Read my handy hints here.
And of course, Error Australis is still on sale. Buy it HERE, if you haven’t already — I mean, OBVIOUSLY you have…right?
