The Bachelorette FINALE Recap: Singapore Stings
And so we come down to this: Georgia Love, at the end of her quest to find a man maladjusted enough to declare undying love and lifelong commitment to a woman he barely knows and has never spent any time with outside the presence of a full TV crew, must choose which man she will be making a sickening mockery of the entire concept of romance with from now on.
Will it be Matty, the irritating jerk? Or will it be Lee, the obnoxious douche? We will find out over the course of the six or seven hundred hours of this finale episode.
The finale begins with TAFKAAG saying, “Welcome to Singapore”, which frankly I did not see coming. I mean that’s a twist.
Georgia is walking around Singapore saying she can’t believe she’s there, and I kind of agree with her — why is she there? She’s acting like it’s just the standard thing that at the end of The Bachelorette you go to Singapore and we’re all on the same page here, but I have no idea what is going on. Georgia is babbling the usual stuff about how special Lee and Matt are, but it’s hard to concentrate because all we’re thinking is why are you in Singapore?
Cut to Lee getting on a plane. To Singapore I guess. We flash back to when Lee arrived with a donkey. I’d forgotten about that. To be honest he should’ve been disqualified right at that moment, but Georgia is all “We have the same sense of humour”, so it’s probably best they get together and are then quarantined from the rest of the human race.
Then Matty gets on a plane. To Singapore. Still don’t know why. We flash back to all the dull things he’s done throughout the series.
In Singapore, Georgia meets her sister and her father. She says she always turns to her family for advice when she has a decision to make, because although she’s a grown woman she is incapable of making her own decisions. Her mother would’ve come, but she’s very ill. Of course Georgia could’ve stayed in Australia to talk it over with her mum, but that would mean not suddenly going to Singapore for no reason, and obviously that would be ridiculous.
Matty shows up and confesses to having butterflies in his stomach — Singapore has many beautiful species of butterfly, and they do often fly into your mouth. He greets Georgia’s dad and sister. “Hot enough for you?” her dad asks, and Matty chuckles, believing he’s referring to the weather and not realising he’s actually asking Matty’s opinion on his daughter’s attractiveness.
As they all sit down for champagne, the sister starts giving Matty a general knowledge quiz about himself, taking in his siblings, his age, and his ability to handle cats. In the middle of the conversation, a gunshot rings out — Matty has finally snapped!
Oh no, it’s just the champagne cork.
Georgia’s dad takes Matty aside for a lengthy conversation about long distance relationships. Dad is unconvinced by Matty’s vague, content-free pronouncements on the possibility of moving to Melbourne and his desire to support Georgia and his commitment to being the sappiest, most waffly man possible.
At no point during their discussion does the subject of why they are in Singapore come up.
Lee arrives at the Sofitel Sentosa just in time for a lingering close-up on the corporate logo. He greets the dad and sister and they sit down for a nice friendly avoidance of mentioning the fact they have no reason to be in Singapore.
Lee tells them that he likes working with his hands and for some reason that makes Georgia’s sister assume a facial expression suggestive of a judge at the Nuremberg trials. The music gets all intense and dramatic, as if someone is about to stab someone.
Georgia’s sister is deeply concerned that Lee is “saying all the right things”. This is not what she wants for Georgia: Georgia deserves a man who constantly says the wrong things.
The sister takes Lee aside to quiz him on why he’s such a big fat phony. Lee says he’s actually a pretty good guy, but the sister demands to know whether he’s in love with Georgia. She grills him relentlessly, thrusting her teeth at him in a display of dominance, desperately trying to get him to say the words she wants to hear: “I hate Georgia, all I want is you, Katie!” Sadly, he says he’s falling in love with Georgia and sister is deeply wounded.
Lee buggers off, and Georgia sits down with dad and sister to find out how much they hate Lee. Sister thinks the timeframe has been too short to form full opinions, which is true and why she should have refused to be any part of this farce.
Sister doesn’t want to give a definitive answer as to which man Georgia should choose, because obviously, she’s just met them and it would be insane to suppose one could make a proper objective choice based on half an hour in a Singapore hotel. But Georgia insists that they answer, so finally sister says Lee is too smooth and dad says Matty won’t leave Sydney and Georgia, who finds the idea of making her own decisions about her life absurd, is more confused than ever.
Now they’re going to have their final dates, which at this stage is purely filler. How can anyone actually care about these dates? Especially when we still don’t know why they’re in Singapore.
Georgia takes Matty to a giant bell called the Bell of Happiness, because Matty makes her happy. In fact, according to Georgia, “it doesn’t matter what he says or what we do”. This doesn’t seem like a very good sign to me — surely it should matter a bit? If it doesn’t matter what he says or what they do, maybe Georgia doesn’t actually have any idea what’s been going on and she’s just feeling happy because of a brain parasite stimulating a particular pleasure receptor.
Matty and Georgia have a ride on ziplines and say some really stupid garbage to each other and still don’t bring up why they’re in Singapore.
Then they kiss and it’s gross like always.
The final part of their date takes place at the butterfly park, where numerous beautiful butterflies, having escaped from Matty’s stomach, surround them. Georgia feels like the date has been a summary of her and Matty’s relationship so far, in that they’ve spent most of their time together sliding down flying foxes and having insects land on them.
The obligatory non-specific discussion of enjoyable feelings ensues. Matty will be devastated if Georgia doesn’t choose him. What he doesn’t know is he’ll also be devastated if Georgia DOES choose him, and he discovers that once the show’s over, they have to pay for their own dates and restaurants won’t clear out all the other patrons before they arrive.
If he was a normal person, of course, he’d already be devastated because he knows that shortly, the woman he is wildly in love with is going on a date with another man who will also tell her she’s amazing and kiss her repeatedly. But Matty is not a normal person, he’s the kind of tool who goes on The Bachelorette.
Time for Lee and Georgia’s date, which is similar to Matty and Georgia’s date except there’s a rickshaw and a sponsored montage from the Singapore Tourist Board. Georgia tells us all about how happy Lee makes her and pretty much makes Lee sound exactly like Matty — the only discernible difference between the two men seems to be that Georgia keeps saying that they’re “incredibly different people”.
Later on they get on a boat and sail around and have another non-specific conversation, but this time Georgia tells Lee how much her sister hates him and Lee tells Georgia what a massive bitch her sister is.
Then there’s a laser show on the harbour, but we still don’t know why they’re in Singapore. Then they go up to a pool which Georgia says is a very famous pool in order to bump up the sponsor dollars a bit more. Then Lee tells Georgia it’s not easy to talk about his feelings, but what he can say is that one of the feelings he has is that he’d really love to bang her. Lee can no longer see a future without Georgia. Pretty sure that’s a suicide threat.
“I can’t believe this day has finally arrived,” says Georgia as she walks towards the site of the execution of a man’s dreams. “I’ve made some incredibly difficult decisions in my life,” she continues, inaccurately. This decision, though, is apparently the toughest of all, because she can’t imagine not having one of these men in her life — apparently she’s never heard of threesomes.
Meanwhile Lee and Matty both put on shirts, an important part of starting a relationship.
Everyone remains totally silent on the subject of why they are in Singapore.
Georgia meets TAFKAAG and tells him she’s fallen madly in love with one of the men. Yesterday she hadn’t, but now she has! Isn’t it always the way — you don’t know who you’re madly in love with, but you go on a zipline with one and in a boat with another and boom, you’re madly in love with one and not the other! Amazing how romance works.
There’s like fifteen minutes left according to the guide, this is going to be EXCRUCIATING.
Matty shows up first. This, as we know, is not a good sign. I mean it’s not a good sign for Matty. It’s a good sign for us because we get to see Matty be sad. Hooray!
“You look very handsome,” says Georgia, as if speaking to her three-year-old son on his first day at kinder. She starts gibbering on about her connection to Matty and how special he is and how much she enjoys being with him and how wonderful everything about him is, and then she adds that yeah by the way she’s not in love with him so he has to go now.
Matty says it’s been an unforgettable experience, much like the experience of having a family of condors tear the flesh from your head and neck with their talons. He is devastated, which is pretty funny, and if this show has been a horrible nightmare from beginning to end, it is at least nice to see someone come out of it emotionally crushed.
And then Lee shows up and obviously yay, he gets the girl. It’s a shame that on a show like this, there has to be a winner, but at least Lee isn’t Rhys, I guess. Anyway they’re in love and they kiss and the prophecy foretold by Lee when he gave an interview where he accidentally gave away the result has come to pass.
And so the fairytale ending that nauseates the country came true. All we need now is for Georgia and Lee’s relationship to end in acrimony and flames, and everyone can die happy.
The End
PS I still don’t know why they were in Singapore.
The Bachelorette is gone, but we can still live, and laugh. At my book. Buy it now.
