The Bachelor Power Ranking #5: We’re Just Souls in Muscular Bodies
Honey Badger acting like a base-level good bloke was the most socially progressive thing on TV this week.
Say you’re in a place of paradise – a Stayz apartment in Sydney/somewhere where you don’t have to pay rent/heaven – and the only thing that is wrong with this paradise, is that it’s also home to three women who routinely say terrible things about you.
“Yeh yellow-bellied gutter trash!” they bleat. “You trollop, you chicken-hearted chuckle head!” It’s terrible, I mean truly horrendous.
But then suddenly, these three women are gone. Peace washes over the apartment and you can breath again. And yet, when you aren’t being insulted all the live long day, this paradise starts to feel a little dull.
This is to say, I am glad for the wellbeing of the remaining contestants that the ‘bullies’ are gone, but the producers must be absolutely shitting themselves about trying to concoct new drama on this show.
Good luck suckers, LET’S DO THE POWER RANKING!!!!!!
Winners
Brooke (10.95 points)
The entire episode was teasing a “huge secret” that Brooke needed to “confess” to the bachelor. Did she kill a guy once? Has she been slowly poisoning the other contestants? Did she start climate change? Was she the one who changed the taste of Shapes? Did she write Netflix’s Insatiable? Is she a Scorpio?
No, it’s just that she has gone out with two women, ah yes I forgot that is something to ‘confess’ how naïve of me. (It’s actually time I made my own confession: yes I voted for Shannon Noll over Guy Sebastian and no, I will not be taking questions at this time.)
Anyway, Brooke is very nervous and “uncomfortable” at telling Honey Badger this, but Honey Badger thinks it’s no big deal and we’re all just “souls inhabiting bodies” after all, so let’s call the whole thing off!!!!
I’m glad that Honey Badger was kind to Brooke. But it’s also funny how my bar for these kinds of shows is so low, that I felt a rush of gratitude when he didn’t react like a total weirdo at this revelation. Honey Badger acting like a base-level good bloke was the most socially progressive thing I had seen on television all week and made him appear like a divine being, hahahaha, what a world.
Britt (8 points)
Britt may be a contender here, ladies and germs!
Everyone is waiting around to see who gets the next date, but in a very polite way. “The mean girls are gone,” explains Deanna, a girl who has maybe been too scared to even speak until now, because I have no idea who she is.
(Honestly, 99% of the women on screen I have never seen before, were they just hiding behind pot plants and holding their breath in the pool until the bullies got kicked out?)
Everyone agrees that everyone should have a shot at a single date. It’s only fair! “There are girls who are still waiting for their first date!” says Shannon fairly, because now that this is a Good House for Good Contestants, everyone needs to make sure they are nice and fair.
Britt gets the date! But hang on, she’s already had a date. That doesn’t seem fair! “Wow!” say many of the girls, but in a polite way, this isn’t a competition it’s a polygamous commune now.
Honey Badger thinks that he and Brit have a lot in common. She has some “life experience behind her” (30-years-old) and is a “cracking sort” (hot). They meet on a pier again, because if Honey Badger is more than two kilometers away from a body of water, his body explodes and then his head shoots up into the sky like a cork, and then his head also explodes.
They take turns staring at each other’s muscular bodies.
Honey Badger tells Brit that they are getting on a boat and having an “Australiana theme” date. Are they… going to colonise things? Oh no, they’re just visiting a zoo. Bizarrely, when Britt steps onto the boat, Honey Badger gestures towards Sydney Harbour and says “This is Australia” which I’m sure sounded much more impressive in his head.
There are koalas at the zoo. Britt asks Honey Badger if he has ever held one before. “Yes. They’re awesome,” he says, in an uncharacteristically solemn tone. Britt mentions that she would almost like one for a pet except that, you know, you’re not allowed to do that. “It would be rude,” says an unsmiling Honey Badger, quite seriously.
Did Honey Badger lose a koala best friend in the Great War or something?
Then, suddenly, Honey Badger is covered in snake! He describes it as a “money can’t buy experience” which I don’t know, money has the capacity to buy some pretty bad experiences. He puts the snake on Britt (hahaha) and then he becomes engulfed in another snake. Britt looks visibly panicked and Honey Badger makes a lot of jokes about his “snake”, so it’s like most heterosexual dates I guess.
The snakes are chucked aside and Honey Badger leads Britt to another horror: a large crocodile! “This is a money can’t buy experience!” he says again, which makes me wonder how much money the zoo actually paid for this experience to be on TV.
They hold out a stick with a fish attached for the crocodile to lunge at. Embarrassingly, the crocodile misses the fish twice, a frankly humiliating blunder in the crocodile world.
Later Britt and Honey Badger sip sparkling wine in a wallaby enclosure, wow it really is an Australiana date. Like a recruiter, Honey Badger asks about Britt’s five-year plan. Britt says she wants a family – not straight away though – and wants to travel and eventually settle down in Byron. “That’s what I want too!!!!” says Honey Badger.
Bloody hell, the chances of two affluent, athletic 30-year-olds wanting to one day have a family and settle down in an expensive coastal town, I tell ya you wouldn’t read about it.
Losers
Cass (4 points)
Once again, Cass got close to getting the validation she wanted but still hasn’t had much reassurance from Honey Badger. The group date last night was a bloody debacle to say the least. It revolved around a man named ‘Steve’ who worked for the ‘FBI’ in regards to ‘homicides’ and was now determined to act as a ‘human lie detector’ to reveal falsehoods on The Bachelor.
Honey Badger says something about not knowing what women are thinking or whatever, so Steve has to sift through the contestants to find out who is a liar. Steve asks very personal questions, until someone starts crying, at which point he says, “I don’t want to delve into too many personal and private issues”.
Some people struggle with the test. “Which is more important – LOVE, WORK OR RELATIONSHIPS???” he asks Sophie, who struggles to think of the correct answer/the answer that doesn’t make her seem like a complete psycho. Others, like Cass, use it as an opportunity to vent about the agony and ecstasy of being in love with someone on a televised game show.
“Cassie is absolutely infatuated with him,” says Steve, a truly perceptive human lie detector.
At the cocktail party, Cass is desperate to know what Steve told Honey Badger about her. Honey Badger says that he deemed her “real” which was a generous version of what Steve actually said.
Cass makes noises like a baby laughing and then decides that she should be more aggressive in her approach. For the second time in the episode, she playfully berates him for not asking her out on a single date. When he smiles at her apprehensively, she whispers in his ear, “It’s a tough situation”.
Tenille (3 points)
Steve thought that Tenille had “walls”, which is the worst thing you could have. “Are you controlling?” asked Steve, in front of Honey Badger. “I like order?” Tenille answered nervously.
Wait – that doesn’t sound down to earth!!!!
Deanna (1 point)
Really, Deanna was my favourite part of the episode. Steve was so perplexed by her lack of emotion, that it felt like he was trying to do the Blade Runner test just to check that she wasn’t a Replicant.
(Related: she said that her flaw was “yoga”.)
Seeya
Deanna! Beep boop.