TV

‘The Bachelorette’ Power Ranking: Dad Talk And Deep Kisses

LET'S DO THE POWER RANKING.

Bachelorette

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Bring heterosexual men to me. Bathe them, put them in suits of navy and grey and other, and bring them to me. Scent them with wood chips and leather and privilege, cut their hair sharply so it resembles millions of tiny grey spears shooting forth from their scalp, and mould it with wax so it shoots ever so slightly to the left.

Sculpt their facial hair, place loafers of beige and chestnut on their un-socked feet, give them uninteresting backstories and ‘cultural’ ‘consultant’ jobs and have them presented before me thusly.

I don’t really like any of these guys, LET’S DO THE POWER RANKING!!


Winners

Luke (10 points)

Luke won the week because he’s just sort of sweet and non-threatening, like a nice primary school PE teacher or an old One Direction.

Luke decided to wear a felt hat this week. I’ve gotta tell you, I spent a lot of time thinking about this hat. How often does he wear this hat back home? Is ‘man in purple felt hat’ a new persona he is trying out for TV? Does Luke kind of know that all of the contestants look exactly the same and thought, ‘hmm better chuck on a snazzy accessory so people remember me’?

Where did Luke buy this hat? Did it originally have a feather in it before he looked in the bathroom mirror, thought ‘maybe that’s a bit much’, slapped on some Old Spice and started his day?

Anyway, he got a single date so congratulations to Luke and this prop hat he had left over from his nephew’s Gangsters & Molls 21st.

Yep, there’s the hat.

It’s a hat alright!

Luke took to the sea for his date with Sophie Monk, no not because he was growing grim about the mouth or feeling a damp, drizzling November in his soul! That’s just a line from Moby Dick! Luke went to the sea because it’s romantic!!!! His soul is fine!

(Whales?)

“SQWUAK!”

Haha, you said it seagulls. It was quite a mystery why Luke was chosen for the single date, a real head-scratcher, what could this possibly —

“I invited Luke because he’s hot,” says Sophie Monk. Well, that clears it right up.  Sophie thinks Luke looks like George Clooney but thankfully, doesn’t have the confidence of a handsome man. (She hasn’t seen the purple felt hat.)

“Hopefully she likes me!!!!!!!!” says Luke, genuinely.

Unfortunately it’s immediately awkward because Luke has to do that thing when you’re too far away from a person to talk to them, but they have a completely unobstructed view of you so they just have to wait and watch you trying to move quickly towards to them, while you inevitably just look like a fucking idiot.

“Oh look, there’s Sophie.”

“HOOROO, SOPHIE!”

“On my way, Sophie.”

“Almost there.”

Luckily for Luke the beach is his element (mine is fire) and he is happy to play the traditional game of “smash sandcastles and answer the printed out questions inside the sandcastles”. Through this game we learn two things:

1. Luke lost his virginity at 17 to a woman who was 26 and “took the reins”. (“I wonder why — JUST KIDDING, IT’S BECAUSE HE’S GORGEOUS!!” — Sophie Monk, without asking how Luke possibly found himself in that sexy situation.)

2. Sophie Monk thinks that swear words “help move a sentence along”.

Quite a good game.

What followed was a nice afternoon of encasing themselves in suits of rubber and taking turns being washed up on the sand. It was such fun. I tell ya, it’s moments like this where I am like yes, absolutely, traditional heterosexual courtship rituals should be preserved!!!

“You did really well,” says Luke.

“I clearly didn’t,” says Sophie.

“SQWUAK!”

Luke also made out with Sophie which is fantastic, well done Luke. “I usually only attract losers,” Sophie says. “Not losers!” she says quickly, in case she hurts anyone’s feelings.

How dare you.

Luke — a vulnerable flower, a literal Ed Sheeran song in a person — says “do you like me” and Sophie is a bit annoyed and says very frankly, “yeah I do”. Then she gives him a rose and immediately starts making a variety of faces that give off an “I ate onion and I really shouldn’t have” vibe.

Sophie Monk is infuriated that Luke asks to kiss her. In Luke’s absolute defence, it did look like Sophie Monk was suffering some sort of fructose-induced bowel disaster and was not in the mood for kissing anyone. But then he did!

“Can I do it again,” says Luke.

“Go on,” says Sophie Monk.

“I can’t believe he missed all my signs, hey guys does anyone know where the shitter is.”

“Trust in love, Sophie – I mean, SQWAUK!”

Ryan (8 points)

Well, hey! I didn’t think Ryan would be winning points! I didn’t think I’d have to even think about Ryan ever again!

This isn’t Ryan. This is some bad fan art of Ross from Friends.

During the scribble challenge, Sophie Monk’s sister mistook ‘deeply concerning revelations about unresolved anger in relationships’ for ‘emotional depth’ and ‘someone who is fine’ and maybe even ‘someone who you want your sister to go out with’.

Well, we all make mistakes.

Lucy Monk is all, “Sophie, this man painted a black sky and said all his love stories start happy but turn out dark, won’t you date this man sissy” and Sophie says “yes” and the producers say “YES!” and next thing you know, Ryan and Sophie are sitting on an outside couch surrounded by light bulbs suspended by ribbon held up by… sky?

Well anyway, Sophie Monk decides that Ryan wasn’t extremely angry on his first night he just didn’t want to get hurt, sounds completely reasonable to me, case closed actually. Luckily he didn’t say anything else wei–

Ryan: “I want a girl who really takes care of herself.”

Sophie Monk: “Physically?” 

Ryan: “Yeah someone with respect, not someone with a potty mouth.”

Sophie Monk: “Yes.” 

Yes.

Yes! Respect is extremely important, thank god Ryan has reminded us about RESPECT. After miming “FUCK” just to get the impulse out of her system, Sophie tells the producers that, “There’s more to Ryan than I thought” which I can only assume she means in an extremely literal sense. Perhaps Ryan has a sixth toe or a second forehead.

Apollo (5 points)

Apollo didn’t do much this week, but I did enjoy him subtly egging on Jarrod for funsies every chance he got. It must get boring in the mansion. “HOW WOULD YOU FEEL IF LUKE KISSES SOPHIE, JARROD???” says Apollo, while enjoying a mug of water. “Would you care?”

Jarrod looks like he’s never cared about anything so much in his entire life. Jarrod looks as though his heart might stop beating, he cares so much. If Jarrod had the chance to affect any world event past or present, even if that meant avoiding every global catastrophe ever inflicted on mankind, Jarrod would probably give it up just to know if Luke and Sophie did or did not kiss.

“I feel fine!” says Jarrod.

Sophie’s Sister (4 points)

Good wig.


Losers

Sam (3 points)

Sam made a fool of himself this week by talking absolute garbage nonsense in front of Monk Snr., who was of course disguised as a hire car driver. Andrew Monk was disguised as ‘Gary’, a humble car driver who exists only to drive young men in thin cotton tees to secret regional locations.

Andrew.

Andrew in character.

Anyway, it could have gone worse, but Sam still managed to say the following phrases in front of Sophie’s dad: “deep kissing”, “lust”, “bang her”, “full kiss”, “explosions”, “naughty explosions”.

Andrew was ropeable!!!!

In the end it didn’t matter so much? Sophie Monk’s dad is extremely chilled out, Boys Will Be Boys!!!!

“Oh no, is Gary going to yell at me, I thought Gary was my friend.”

“Maybe I should reflect on the way I talk about women.”

(Tells unrelated bloody ripper call)

“Yeahhh, go on Gary, you’re right it was a bloody ripper call, thanks Gary!!!!”

Jarrod (2 points)

During the scribble art session (“What’s scribble art?” – everyone. “It’s about your soul, or something,” – Osher) when Sam said, “My personal opinion is that Jarrod’s downfall has begun” I was like, huh that seems like quite a savage assessment of a fairly benign watercolour-based activity!

But I was so wrong. Jarrod’s downfall has begun. And he can feel it desperately in his bones.

So many men

to choose from.

The men took the competition for who has the best soul extremely seriously. “I THINK JARROD COPIED SOPHIE!!!” says Sam. “There were definitely similarities,” admits Jarrod, with pride.

Jarrod identifies that Sophie has put people in her drawing, so he puts a lone stick figure in his. He makes the inexplicable choice of making the stick figure green, but the tree blue. Oh, it’s because Sophie likes blue. He knows this because he also likes blue. They’ve talked about it, maybe. “I’m wearing a blue shirt!” he says to the camera.

Ah, yep.

Yep, I see the blue in there.

“I’ve also dyed my innards blue, would you like to peep them Sophie?”

SOPHIE, CALL THE COPS.

Hey, lay off Jarrod alright! We know it’s just editing, maybe he’s relaxed! At the cocktail party, Jarrod decides that exclusively dressing in the colour blue is not enough to win Sophie’s attention. He says that at the party, he would love to talk to her “for a few minutes or half an hour or for the whole thing”.

Huh, well that’s reasonable! He’s happy talking to her anywhere from a few minutes to six to seven hours of shooting! What does he want to talk about? “I want to know where she wants to be in five years, or 50 years, just to get an understanding,” Jarrod says.

Jarrod wants to know where Sophie sees herself tomorrow and the next day and is it in his lounge room, is it in his favourite armchair, is it on his mantelpiece, is it at his winery, will she talk to the alpacas, is it inside his very skin, is it in his funeral pyramid.

Anyway, Jarrod is very disgruntled when Sam gets to talk to Sophie and yells, “SHE WANTS TO HAVE A CHILD, NOT DATE ONE!” to Bingham, who looks frightened but also excited.

“I wonder if I should get a felt hat.”

Finally, Jarrod and Sam decide that they “don’t want to sleep” on their disagreemen — a disagreement that maybe happened off camera and maybe didn’t even happen at all. What disagreement?

“I figured it would come to this,” says Sam. “Me too,” says Jarrod.

WHAT DISAGREEMENT?

I honestly don’t know what their conversation was about, but it was a lot more interesting when I stopped listening to what they were saying and started imagining mariachi music playing instead.

(Dialogue)

(Dialogue)

(Dialogue)

(Dialogue)

It’s really very good music.


Seeya!

Pete (??)

Eden (??)

Jefferson (??)

Bye fellas!

The Bachelorette is on 7.30pm Wednesdays and Thursdays on Channel Ten.

Sinead Stubbins is Junkee’s former Entertainment Editor. She tweets about Drake, Gilmore Girls and cheeseburgers at @sineadstubbins. Read more of her Bachelorette power rankings here.