The Bachelor Recap: The Unforgettable Liar
Previously on The Bachelor, Keira left, resulting in outpourings of gratitude from Munchkin and Winkie alike.
Tonight on The Bachelor: Further confirmation of the aphorism, “Every day is the worst day of your life so far” for Alex.
“With Keira’s departure, the energy in the house has changed,” says Kiki, and I think she means in a positive way, although really Keira’s departure could easily be damaging, because without Keira it’ll be a lot harder for the other Bachelorettes to keep lying to themselves that they are good people.
TAFKAAG shows up and tells the Bachelorettes that they come from “many different backgrounds”, which seems a bit of a stretch. I mean all their backgrounds have at least one thing in common: the complete destruction of their self-respect at an early age.
TAFKAAG has delivered a card, which promises a single date with the phrase, “Let’s take it up a gear”. “DRIVING! THAT’S DRIVING!” yells Noni, who has regressed to a pre-school mentality. Noni is hoping the single date is for her, as she’s the last remaining original to not have a single date yet. If the single goes to an intruder, it’ll be a real kick in the guts for Noni.
“It’s a real kick in the guts,” says Noni upon finding out the single date goes to Steph. See, I told you.
Steph says the atmosphere gets really awkward after the reveal, but also Steph really doesn’t give a fuck about the atmosphere — even by Bachelor standards this is a woman with an awe-inspiring lack of concern for anyone else’s feelings.
Meanwhile Alex opines that there is no future for Richie and Steph, Part 483 in our ongoing series, Alex Frantically Tries To Reassure Herself That Everything Is Fine.
Richie shows up to pick Steph up on a jetski, because he thought picking up Steph on a jetski would be a great idea, a thought he had several seconds after being ordered to have it by a producer. “I planned this date specifically for Steph,” he lies, his mendacious soul condemning itself ever further to hell.
Lounging about on a boat, Richie asks Steph if she’s a jealous person, but Steph is not a jealous person, because why would you be jealous of anyone when you know you’re literally the best person who ever lived?
Richie takes Steph for a jetski ride, but Richie assures us he has “something a lot more special planned”, as baby Jesus continues to cry torrents of tears at his every statement.
The “special” thing that Richie has not in any way planned is a room with an open fire, in which they sit on the carpet and drink wine. Richie claims (falsely) he has designed this scenario specifically for Steph — other women would loathe sitting in front of a fire drinking wine, so it’s really considerate to have designed the date with Steph’s idiosyncratic preferences in mind.
Richie tells Steph he wants to get to know her better. Steph says she needs to let her walls down. Richie says he would like to talk about feelings. Steph agrees that this would be ace. Richie says that love is good and that that when you’re in love one of the most important things to bear in mind is love and how big a part love plays in the process of loving someone. Steph nods. She finds no particular fault with Richie’s main thesis: Love is in many ways desirable.
Having delved deeply enough into the most intimate corners of each other’s psyches, to the point where consensus has been reached on the general nature of love, Richie wraps the date up by giving Steph a rose. Both Richie and Steph agree that as two human beings who can apparently spend several hours in each other’s company without any major industrial accidents or fires, there is a future there between them.
Next day we put all that intrusive emotional probing together with a group date that involves testing the Bacheloerettes’ compatibility with Richie. A strange woman asks them a series of questions to see whether they come up with the same answer as Richie. Multiple choice questions of course, so a Bachelorette could easily turn out to be compatible with Richie by chance.
Richie admits there will probably be a temptation for the women to give answers they think Richie will like, rather than answering honestly, but “that’s not what this is about, this is about seeing who’s compatible”. Then again, gross dishonesty is Richie’s main character trait, so in a way, trying to game the system would be a prime indicator of compatibility. But either way, it’s perfectly obvious that none of the women will at any point try to answer honestly, so it’s a pointless exercise and therefore represents the entire show in microcosm. And Nikki comes last which is funny.
Having removed the dead wood, Steph, Alex, Kiki, Faith and Rachael move on to the second round of this valuable time-filler. The challenge here is that Richie is blindfolded, and then each woman walks up to him and gropes him for a bit, and then he has to pick his favourite two.
There’s not much to say about this. Faith sort of flaps at Richie like a chicken, Steph is afraid to touch him, Kiki practically dry-humps him, Rachael is apparently worried about boy germs, and Alex re-enacts the music video for Lionel Richie’s “Hello”.
“Alex knows we’re watching. She obviously doesn’t care if she’s hurting anyone,” says Noni from the observation chamber. Yeah, Noni, that’s correct. That is what happens on this show.
Nikki is deeply hurt by Alex’s affectionate shenanigans, and as Noni says, Alex does not care. But to be fair, nobody cares. What sort of weirdo watches The Bachelor and cares about the cast members’ feelings? You’d have to be a total dickhead.
Richie picks Faith and Alex to go through to the next round and then says he was “pleasantly surprised” that it was those two. So…he didn’t think it WAS them…but he’s glad it was? So he deliberately picked two women in the belief they were women he didn’t want to pick?
What the fuck is wrong with you, Richie?
The strange woman explains that the final round of the compatibility challenge/padding measures trust and communication or some bullshit. Richie is going to be blindfolded again — woefully unoriginal — and drive a golf cart around an obstacle course, under the direction of a Bachelorette. This is an important test because to have a strong relationship you need to know that if you are suddenly blinded while in control of a vehicle, your partner will help guide you to a successful completion of your planned errands.
All the other Bachelorettes are hoping Faith wins this test, because they resent Alex for showing physical affection to Richie, something the other Bachelorettes would never do because they have principles. As an impartial observer it’s hard to know who to cheer for, but it is easy to want the whole thing to end.
Faith is the more impressive guide, anyway, drawing high praise from the strange woman, who is an expert in blind-golf-cart-navigationally-based models of successful relationships. Richie wonders whether Faith is “some kind of communicational genius” — which, if so, would indicate she’s definitely not compatible with Richie. Rachael suddenly sees Faith as a threat, which is cute because it means Rachael somehow thinks she has any chance whatsoever.
As a reward for winning the idiot challenge, Faith gets some one-on-one time with Richie to hear more of his lies. His main lie this time is that it was his idea to bring in some ice cream guys to give them ice cream. They have a great time together and Faith never stops laughing once, which is as usual incredibly endearing or possibly frightening. Richie tells Faith she has a “beautiful soul”, which isn’t technically a lie, it just doesn’t mean anything.
Faith says Richie is just the kind of guy she goes for, and “I couldn’t ask for a more romantic spot” for latching onto Richie’s tongue. I guess the garden of a house containing nine other women who are also dating your boyfriend IS pretty romantic when you think about it.
It’s cocktail party time, and Richie whisks Kiki away from the others, possibly finally ready to admit that Kiki is clearly much more fun than any of the others. As usual the conversation among the remaining women turns to the white rose and Alex’s neverending whining about why Richie never comes to take her away and she always has to be the one to produce the white rose and wah wah wah wah. Anyway tonight Richie returns from Kiki to pull out a white rose of his own and yank Alex up to their special spot.
Looking for a way to dump Alex without feeling like a jerk, Richie asks her about her son and whether she’s missing him. Alex says she does miss him and that “I would do anything to be within arm’s reach of him” — neglecting to add, “anything apart from not being on this game show desperately trying to land a man, of course”. Alex makes a long speech about how much she wants Richie and how she will do anything to be with him and how if they do not end up married she will probably blow this whole mansion up.
Next Richie takes Rachael away to tell her that she’s a woman, not a girl, which is an unusually acute observation from him. This is the cue for Alex to burst into tears and tell the other women what a bitch Rachael is for telling her there was no point her being there because she’s a single mother. Nikki, ever the kind friend, reassures Alex that although Richie has already chosen her, Nikki, and that therefore there really IS not point Alex being there, that she hopes Alex won’t ever feel bad because of the facts. The women come to a consensus: fuck Rachael.
Alex rails against Rachael’s vicious gamesmanship. “This isn’t a game. Real emotions are not a game. Richie is not a game,” she passionately avers, a sentiment which to some extent relies on an ignorance of the fact that pretty obviously, it is a game and everyone knows that.
It’s rose ceremony time, and Alex is banging on about Richie being someone she “could fall in love with”, although really, having got to know Alex these last few weeks, I don’t know if there’s a man alive who doesn’t fall into that category. Meanwhile, Rachael continues to bitch about Alex’s stubborn insistence on trying to win the game show in which they are all competing. Rachael finds Alex’s desire to not only be on The Bachelor, but form a relationship with him, to be utterly gauche.
Faith and Steph of course already have roses. Alex gets the first rose just to shove it right up Rachael. Rachael gets the second rose to shove it up Alex — with Keira gone we need some way to keep manufacturing conflict. Olena gets the third rose as compensation for not being in this episode. Nikki gets the fourth rose in recognition of the fact she’s already been chosen as the winner. Kiki gets the fifth rose as a prize for being the hottest.
One rose left. Noni and the two intruders who nobody remembers left. And Richie chooses…
Sarah! Seems something about women with annoying voices really stirs Richie’s porridge, so he holds on to Sarah and kicks Khalia and Noni to the kerb. Noni therefore leaves without having ever had a single date with Richie, so it could be argued she has had the most fulfilling Bachelor experience of all, but she seems quite upset by it. It was fairly predictable, of course — Richie has a bigoted attitude towards brunettes, and it’s a disgrace that he’s allowed to make his decisions based on what colour hair a woman has. He should be making decisions based on her face and breasts, like a proper Bachelor.
As for Khalia, she leaves with no regrets: indeed she leaves with no clear memory of ever having actually been on the show.
Tune in tomorrow when Alex gets covered in chocolate and Rachael plants land mines or something.
You wouldn’t have to watch The Bachelor if you had a good book to read. Here’s one. Error Australis, out now and literally the perfect Father’s Day gift.
