Nick Cummins is a Honey Badger and this Honey Badger is the most eligible heterosexual man in Australia.

The Honey Badger is a “larrikin”. The Honey Badger wants to meet a “cracking sort” (a functioning woman). The Honey Badger looks like a sportsman from the 1980s, when it was legal to punch someone in the head during a game just to get the ball, before or after cracking a tinnie on the field, drinking it, then crushing the can against your own skull.

This is all to say that I don’t really know who the Honey Badger is.

What I do know is that to win the Honey Badger, you have to care about stuff but not care about stuff too much. If you don’t care enough, the show will decide that you are a bitch, but if you care too much you are a bunny boiler. Sorry – badgers make the rules around here!!!!

“What!” you say. “But how do I win!” Duh, that is easy. It is best to be very down to earth.

“I love down to earth girls,” explains the Honey Badger. The worst thing you can be is not down to earth! You need to be so level with the earth — like laying down, face down in the soil — so that your spine actually fuses with the earth and your arms become tree roots and your hair is vines and your organs are worms. To win The Bachelor, you need to be so down to earth that you cease to exist because you have become the oxygen of the entire planet.

Anyway, to celebrate these fine women competing against one another for the affections of a spool of cotton wool (spoiler: they’re all called ‘Kayla’), each week we will rank according to who the producers are positioning to be the leaders in the love race.

So let’s follow this pink man to the ends of the earth! Let’s pretend we know what he means when he says, “It’s time to strap on a bag of fruit!” and laugh the laugh of an Osher, the laugh that pretends to say, “What you have said is funny” but really says, “I am laughing to acknowledge that you have said something”.

LET’S DO THE BACHELOR POWER RANKING!!!!!!

Winners

Brooke (10 points)

 Pack up the flood lights and the pool toys, we have a winner and the winner is a Brooke.

Brooke is 23 and immediately has a “vulnerability” that Honey Badger likes. Earlier in the episode, Honey Badger confesses to Osher that he wants a girl who has “gone through tough times and gotten through those times” which I am sure will mean we will hear a lot of sad stories this season, oh good. Osher didn’t seemed thrilled about this.

Anyway, Brooke doesn’t really tell Honey Badger any sad stories but she does tell him that she “has a lot of love to give”. Brooke also says that she is a “proud Indigenous woman”, is a social worker and is the winner of The Bachelor 2018, just kidding we have like 70 more weeks of this to go, so go grab some Valium folks.

Brooke brings two balls with her to give to the Bachelor. “What’s this one!” Honey Badger says of the AFL football, as if it’s an item that has fallen from space directly into Brooke’s hands. Brooke says that she loves AFL and Rugby League, but somehow doesn’t know who Honey Badger is. Honey Badger thinks this is “refreshing”.

They kick the ball together and Brooke tells Honey Badger to hold it like a hamburger. “… which I bloody love!” she adds. Honey Badger cannot believe he has found a girl who likes kicking and likes talking about loving hamburgers. When she leaves, he kicks the ball into the air. “Jackpot!” he says to no one.

“Haha, she’s great,” he says, still to no one.

Anyway, this season there’s a key to the ‘Bach Pad’ which is the most explicit fuck invitation to ever exist on the show. Honey Badger gives it to Brooke (who he has known for maybe two hours, but still refers to as “Good ol’ Brooke”).

Well done, Brooke!

Shannon (9 points)

Shannon is a female Honey Badger, which makes me think she will do well in this competition. She says that she is so nervous about the whole thing, that she is “shitting her dacks” (Colloquialisms are endearing!) (If you don’t like them, you are an elitist snob!) (Love it or leave it!). Her favourite things are painting to get over her ex-boyfriends and “being herself”.

“You scrub up alright!” says Honey Badger when he sees her, which is peculiar as he has never seen her pre-scrub so really has no barometer for how affective her most recent scrub was. “I’m a bit of a weirdo,” she says. “I skate!”

OMG, SOMEONE GET THIS LUNATIC OUT OF HERE!!!!

Instead of burning the witch, Honey Badger gets a bit weird and walks Shannon around the garden because that’s what you do with horses or something (????) until the producers tell him to stop. Shannon tells him that she loves him.

Cat (8 points)

Cat seems to have already scared every woman in the house, meaning she is doing extremely well in terms of power rankings. Cat is 24 and is a fashion designer from an exotic place named ‘Bali’ that I have not heard of.

Cat says that she is “a pretty good chick to date” because she is “young and confident”. I can tell we aren’t meant to like her because the show wants us to fear women who are confident, lest they do something like challenge the demeaning nature of the show, or one day request equal pay from an employer.

Cat kisses Honey Badger on both cheeks. “Oh, the Balinese kiss!” he says. What.

Autumn (7 points)

Autumn: “My name is Autumn, like the season.”

Honey Badger: “Pretty intimidating!”

Autumn: “Yes.”

(Why is autumn intimidating.)

Dasha (6 points)

Dasha from Russia (or Adelaide, whatever) is positioned as the ‘mysterious one’ because she says things like “Hey stranger” to people who are actually strangers and thinks it’s good to place her genitals close to Honey Badger’s face within seconds of meeting him.

By the by, this routine actually goes quite well with ‘Buses and Trains’ by Bachelor Girl.

Brittany (6 points)

Brit’s dogged insistence in bringing up the fact that she and Honey Badger were born in the same hospital in the same year, gives her an edge over the contestants who can’t think of anything to say to Honey Badger.

She’s also quite good at cultivating the laid-back-Jennifer-Lawrence thing that is apparently required of every woman in this season. “I’m here for the same reason every one else is here – FOR THE BUFFET!!!” she says. “I’ve been to 49 countries – maybe you could be my 50th!!!!!!” she says to Honey Badger.

(Is that a sex thing, am I not laid back enough to know that.)

Alisha (6 points)

Alisha revealed herself to be someone who loves drama, but who is also exceptionally good at encouraging other people to kick-start the drama while she has a laugh with the producers and no one yells at her.

“Absolutely!” Alisha says when Cat asks if she should go confront Sophie.

“Absolutely!” Alisha says when Cat asks if she should confront Sophie in a room of 15 other women.

“Absolutely!” Alisha says when the other girls wonder if Cass is a ‘stalker’.

Alisha is a goddamn genius.

Tennille, Renee, Steph, Emily, Ashley, Christina, Blair, others.
(5 points)

Flying under the radar can be a power move. I’m sure you’ll all have great careers on breakfast radio one day.

Vanessa Sunshine
(5 points)

Vanessa Sunshine has the name of an Etsy ‘maker’, the job of a legal secretary and an attitude that says, “I would rather pour acid in my eyeballs than make small talk with any of you”. I feel like this total disgust for both her fellow contestants and Honey Badger himself, will bring her good fortune in the wars to come.

I particularly like that Vanessa Sunshine’s courting technique is to ‘not answer questions’ and ‘pretend the person you are talking to is a piece of shit and you’re thinking of carrying out a restraining order against them’.

Honey Badger: “Hi!”

Vanessa Sunshine: “My name is Vanessa Sunshine.”

Honey Badger: “Where are you from?”

Vanessa Sunshine: “Urgh… can we talk about it later.”

I can see where she got the nickname.

Losers

Sophie (4 points)

Sophie got on quite well with Honey Badger (boats! Etc.) but made an enemy in Cat, so really lost out this week.

Sophie was recently going out with Cat’s ex-boyfriend or something, I dunno it didn’t seem to be a big deal to me. But I guess after seven or eight glasses of prosecco it seemed like THE BIGGEST THING THAT COULD EVER HAPPEN AND SOPHIE, HOW COULD YOU. Sophie vehemently denies that she is still dating Cat’s ex and Cat calmly accepts this explanation and stops attempting to slut shame Sophie on national television.

Just kidding, Cat says: “I know she’s lying. I think Nick will think she’s a basic bitch who doesn’t have much to offer.”

Ah, very good.

Cayla (3 points)

 Cayla is an energy healer.

Cass (2 points)

Cass knows Honey Badger from “the gym” and has such a crush on him, that she is already very upset that he is talking to anyone who is not her. The show is presenting her as clingy, but perhaps she is just a person.

“Has anything romantic ever happened between the two of you?” asks a producer. “We know each other pretty well,” Cass says coyly. (Reality TV translation: “Do you fuck?” – the producers. “Yes,” – Cass.)

Cass thinks she will have an advantage because they know each other, but when the Honey Badger sees her he makes the sound of laughter but the face of someone who cannot open up their mouth wide enough for all the oxygen he requires. Then Cass tells him that she can’t believe that he is The Bachelor because she wished it would be so – by writing his name down in her dream journal.

The rest of the conversation goes as follows:

Cass: “It’s really weird watching you with the other girls!!!!!”

Cass: “SOME OF THOSE GIRLS ARE HECTIC.”

Cass: “DO YOUR THING THOUGH!”

She then spends the rest of the episode staring at Honey Badger from different corners of the garden. She is fine, thank you for asking.

Kayla
(1 point)

‘If you jump in a pool and The Bachelor doesn’t care, are you even on the show?

­– Proverb, 33AD

Seeya!

Bye Autumn (oh), Susie and Urszula!

Until next week, comrades.