‘The Bachelor’ Week 4 Power Ranking: Richie Reveals The Savagery Of The Ruling Class

In this show, we have witnessed a group of young women compete for the love of a cardboard man through humiliating and retrograde tasks such as caring for fake babies and cooking his favourite meal. The only woman who called bullshit on the exercise, was kicked out for being a killjoy. The current year is 2016. Let that sink in.

I can’t wait for people to analyse this terrible toilet in gender studies when we’re all dead, maybe it’ll be tomorrow :)

LET’S DO THE POWER RANKING!!!

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The Intruders (5 points)

The only women to benefit from the tyrannical social structure on this show were the three intruders (in my own head they’re all called Serena — JK, the brunette one is Blair!!). The OG Bachelorettes begin grinding their teeth as soon as the fresh meat arrives in the mansion, wishing upon them the most stubborn skin condition, the most prolapsed arches, the driest hands that can never be moistened no matter how much Aesop goo is smeared, smeared, smeared and kneaded into their gnarled mitts.

Factions have been formed. I’m 99 percent sure this is exactly how the French Revolution started.

This week Richie pretended to be walking through a forest to get to the Bachelorette mansion and Osher was like “dog, I have some more twentysomethings to add to your collection”. Richie was bloody flabbergasted! He has amnesia from the time he was actually on this show and can’t remember a bloody thing about how the game goes! We are told that these women are “up for anything” which sounds like something they say about murder victims in Law and Order pre-murder, and I suddenly get the urge to travel back in time and warn them not to go on this show.

The first Serena arrives on a bike. Hang on, girls aren’t meant to like bikes! None of the other contestants brought a bike with them! “That’s the best entrance I’ve ever seen, ha ha,” Richie says. “Yeah I’m a little bit wet,” Serena #1 says. Okay, bye.

They then proceed to race in a paddock and Richie says he wants to “win a few things” which I guess means sex, hmm cool. Serena #1 drives with one hand and makes fun of Richie for not being able to do donuts. “She let me have it, it was fantastic,” Richie says, eyes wild with lust. Men love it when women are lightly mean to them in very particular situations, while also hinting that they could win the chance to have sex with them.

He asks her how she’s still single. She explains that she deferred uni to become a full-time model. At uni she was studying biomedical science. Serena #1 is not a real person, Richie is being IRL catfished and I won’t be convinced otherwise.

The second Serena is also on a bike. She really likes dirt bikes and is from Byron. “How good is Byron,” Richie says. “I love it,” Serena #2 says. It’s a true meeting of the minds.

Richie reckons “riding a bike with a beautiful girl is a dream come true”. Richie is confounded every time a woman likes something that he likes. He helps her on her bike, despite the fact that she has already said that she works for the motorcycle association or whatever. She humours him because that’s what this show/oppressive heteronormativity is all about ladieeeeeeeeezzzzz.

She tells Richie that her relationship philosophy involves doing nice things for her partner and then letting them do whatever they want. Fark, what a cool chick! The mini-burgers in front of her remain untouched.

Blair arrives on a horse. She tells Richie that she likes BBQs and catching up with friends. Richie tells her that he has a Great Dane “at the moment” — Richie likes to contemplate the mortality of all things at all times, nothing gold stays — which is like a small horse, sort of. Horse Girl is beautiful like a Babysitter’s Club villain.

I’m starting to believe that Richie has felt a sexual connection with every single person he’s ever met in his entire life (watch out, Osher!!!)

Meanwhile, this whole time the OG contestants have been at a garden party steadily getting drunker and drunker. “We ate all the cakes!” Noni says, slumped on the lawn. Keira announces that she loves them all “individually” a bald-faced lie (maybe Kiki was in the toilet). Alex thinks there must be a reason why Richie isn’t there and think there’s some sort of twist. She immediately starts looking for weapons in case this is a Hunger Games scenario. The girls start drunkenly screaming out his name.

OH HECC, IT DEM INTRUDERS!!!!

I haven’t seen a chopper landing this brutal since Apocalypse Now. Alex looks like she wants to stab their throats with her pointy ornamental headdress (haha, white girls). “They haven’t been what we’ve been through,” says Olena which is absolutely right, because these three girls have not been living rent-free in a mansion where their literal job is to get drunk and have their hair done every single day.

Noni decides that Serena #2 is a bitch and then when prompted further by Kiki admits: “I haven’t spoken to any of them”. “Carly is a slimmer version of Rachel,” Keira says.

The Bachelor PTSD has set in. Serena #1 feels like they are all Richie’s girlfriends and it seems like she’s stealing him away. And she likes that. She likes that very much.

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Olena (4 points)

Ah, Olena! What a woman of mystery, a mysterious woman who has a mysterious accent and mysterious eyes and a mysterious flat stomach and a mysterious way of saying nothing even when she’s directly addressed. Richie acts like he’s trying to peel away layers from her tough façade like it’s a Jane Austen novel and he’s the girl, but really there is nothing mysterious about Olena except the fact that she hasn’t been cast in a Fast and the Furious movie yet.

Olena was picked for a single date this week, and as always, didn’t seem particularly excited about it. Even the girls have started to refer to her as “mysterious” because she doesn’t seem to exhibit any base human emotions or even react to the stimuli around her. It is at this moment that I begin to suspect that Olena is an entirely mechanical being and is maybe a replicant.

Olena can’t even remember her last date with Richie. Lucky we have the video evidence.

Richie arrives in a literal jet to try and elicit an emotional response. Olena attempts to imitate a human smile. She says she has never been in a jet. “She’s such a mysterious girl!” Richie says. Olena read in her manual that humans are often scared of flying, so she says “I am a bit scared” and holds his hand. It’s the most reassuring thing that has ever happened to Richie, and I swear to god he cries a bit.

They fly to some farm or something and Richie decides that he wants to know about her past — but she hasn’t got those memories in built yet! “I am confused and bewildered, and that’s why I like her,” Richie says. Who is this ridiculous man of muscle and straw?

After passing some rudimentary humanity tests like oooh-ing at a lamb, Olena decides to challenge herself and says Richie can ask her anything. “Wow okay!” Richie says. “What do you look for in a relationship?” “I don’t like talking about relationships,” Olena replies. Ahhh.

Richie is confounded at what do next, given the blondes he usually takes out never want to shut up about their goddamn feelings and fall over themselves trying to make him feel like the best bloke on Earth. “I’m like Harrison Ford in Raiders of the Lost Ark!” he says of the show (because there’s heaps of Nazis?) reminding us that while Richie employs a lot of pop culture references, he rarely gets them right.

“There’s quite a few pretty things in this garden, you’re the prettiest,” Richie tells Olena desperately. She mimics the slanty-mouth emoji. Richie starts sweating. Finally Olena, her software issuing an alert about her lack of social engagement and asking her if she wants to go into rest mode, explains that’s she just scared of getting dumped (did anyone at the factory explain to Olena what the premise of this show is?) and that she’s never had her heart broken because of her “protection”, by which I think she means her literal steel exoskeleton. Then they kiss very vigorously — Olena is INTO IT, this is like a 3am desperation drunk pash — so maybe Olena just wants to fuck Richie and not actually talk to him.

“There’s so much mystery around Olena!” Richie says. “There’s something beautiful about being in a relationship with someone who is constantly trying to shut you out.”

Oh good. Maybe The Bachelor really is like Raiders of the Lost Ark after all.

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Rachael (3 points)

Who would have thought that Rachael would have made the power ranking! Not me! I didn’t even know her name until this week! Sorry Rachael!

Rachael is paralysingly insecure and repeatedly saying that she hopes Richie likes her personality, because she doesn’t think her looks would cut it. Girl! Even when she gets a single date card she says “What the heck!” and stares at it in case they just spelt ‘Nikki’ wrong.

Rachel explains that she hasn’t been in a relationship for ten years and phrases it like she’s scared if she continues to be unmarried for one more year, she will be bound and pushed out on a viking boat which will be then set on fire while she is still alive. Richie takes her to a gross old ship that looks like a shit prop left over from the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean 4 and she almost wets herself with gratitude. “I hope that my personality will outshine the other girls,” Rachael says. OH, GIRL.

“The boat has a little bit of me and a little bit of him,” Rachael says in excitement, because it’s boring, unoccupied and getting rustier by the day. Richie reckons she’s courageous because she moved to Sydney once. She notices that he has blue hands from the indigo in his jeans and she laughs like it’s the fucking funniest things she has encountered in her whole life.

“Ha ha, they’re blue!”

“Not from my jeans, from yours!”

“Ha ha, yeah from my jeans!”

“You didn’t touch my jeans that much!”

“Ha ha.”

“I say the craziest things.”

These two are so crazy. Richie than forces Rachael to climb to the top of the boat, because everyone must be punished. Rachael starts hyperventilating because she’s so scared. Richie laughs uproariously at her fear. When they finally get to the top, Richie grabs her arms so she can’t hold onto the railing. What a romantic psychopath!

He is making her lean over the side of the railing like the “I’M THE KING OF THE WORLD!” scene in Titanic — a scene he has evoked at least three times in this show — and Rachael, through her terror wobbles, jokes “Jack, don’t let go!” Richie laughs. Then after a few seconds he says, “Oh, Titanic?” Richie did not even realise he was mimicking a scene in Titanic.

A man has been hiding in the basement (??) of the ship this entire time, with several bottles of rum. They drink a rum you have to smell with your mouth or something, and Richie is immediately drunk after one shot. Drunk Richie puts his arm around Rachael and she says “it was like being a real couple!” OH RACHAEL, YOU ARE KILLING ME.

Richie drunk slobbers all over her. He hands her a rose (from the crotch of his pants?). “He doesn’t need a supermodel, he just wants real love,” Rachael says, desperate eyes shining with hope. RACHAEL, STOP.

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Noni (2 points)

Noni was never really in the game (brunette, has opinions) but she was actually the architect of the Keria v Kiki fight this week. After telling Serena #1 that she hated Keira because she’s an asshole, Kiki got the blame despite being the only one to cover her ass by saying “but don’t get us wrong, she’s a good person” lolololol, god I love women.

Noni got off without repercussions and then was free to continue to drink for four more hours and cry to Richie about nothing. Kiki got repeatedly called “a peasant”.

This week Richie forced the girls to go to the Sydney fish markets (…) so they could compete over who can best cook his favourite fish dish (!!!!) because women are women and men are men and this competition is essentially a quest to find the most malleable woman of marriageable age who feels comfortable in their prison of gender expectations, pleasantly content to bind themselves to a man made entirely of sand and the laugh track from The Big Bang Theory.

“I love fish, ha ha,” Richie The Enforcer says.

This is so dumb and boring. The girls cook for his love. He tastes all the dishes and says each time “it’s got a really good flavour”. I start periodically punching myself in the face just so I can feel something again.

Rachael and Noni win. “I’ll take everything I can get right now,” Noni says. I want to die. Richie takes them to a restaurant and Noni simply cannot believe that she’s in a restaurant. “Enjoy a nice seafood banquet!” he says, which is what Osher says every time Richie enters the Bachelorette mansion, weird. Rachael is very mean to Noni. Noni almost chokes on an oyster.

“Aren’t you too young for a forever relationship?” Richie says, stopping himself from dry retching as Noni swishes the oyster in her mouth, audibly moving the soggy glob around with her tongue. “Nah!” Noni says, saliva and oyster juice dribbling down her chin.

Why are we doing this to ourselves? Why do we watch this show? Australia, we are all this spit dripping oyster in Noni’s mouth. We are all this foul shell jelly from the deep.

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Nikki (1 point)

MAKING OUT WITH RICHIE AT THE cOcKtAiL pArTy! Friends, I think we’ve found our Regina George in sheep’s clothing.

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So, who did he ditch?

WOAH. It was a big one this week.

Bye Megan! Megan was sick of this bullshit so waited until Richie gave her a rose to say “I hate this, bye”. The girls acted like it was the biggest affront they had ever witnessed (“Fuck are you serious,” Georgia said as if Megan had taken a literal shit on top of the stack of roses). Megan misses the ocean. “My island home is calling to me,” she said, as she floated away (JK she lives in WA).

Bye Georgia! I liked how you always started fights between other people to entertain yourself and how you had the saltiest exit of anyone on the show. “Who the fuck are they?” she slurs in the limo home. “They all look like fucking skanks.”

What a gift <3

Bye Keira! Fuck this. Fuck THIS.

In the long tradition of silencing difficult women, The Bachelor sent everyone’s problematic fave Keira packing this week, so good luck with your ratings I guess! Before the date had even begun, Richie was wondering if Keira acts a different way with the girls than she does with him, something real boys never wonder about without a producer telling them to wonder about it.

Keira isn’t into Richie as much as she wants to leave this prison of hormonal women, who have all synched up and will continue to synch synch synch until they’re one with the moon. Richie takes Keira to do yoga, because she’s a thin white woman — it doesn’t engage in Richie’s costume fetish, but he does it anyway, what a guy, what a nice considerate guy.

This is when the cracks show. Keira tries to explain yoga to Richie who immediately becomes irritated that he’s being told what to do. He wants her to be “one with nature” or some bullshit, and says “I know she meant well, but it was hard to find my inner peace”. Who is this clown??

Richie, annoyed that Keira didn’t pretend she didn’t know anything about yoga, asks her why she’s so confident and then admits that he wants someone who pretends they’re having fun even when they’re not. Huh. Then he drops her.

Keira steadies herself and then re-frames the situation. “I’m quite intuitive, so I knew,” she says shortly, wondering if all the wildfire she left in the basement of the Bach mansion has been tripped yet. To be dumped while on a single date is truly humiliating, and so Keira then proceeds to burn it all down in her trip home.

“I was too good for this situation,” she explains. “I do not give a fuck about those bitches. If I was a guy, I wouldn’t date half of those girls.”

Richie explains to everyone that he hates Keira because she does not humour his stupid boring ideas. Alex is so smug, her eyes roll back in her head. “Keira not coming home just put things in perspective,” says Serena #1. (I think Serena #1 assumes that they’ve just started killing contestants).

“This is pointless. We could have gone to bed,” Rachael says when there’s no rose ceremony. I know what you mean, Rachael. I know what you mean.