‘The Bachelorette’ Week 2 Power Ranking: Georgia Surrenders To The Demands Of Heteronormativity

Let us all drink this in, let us sip and gulp ‘til we are full, this tale of an employed lass named Georgia Love and her deep desire to husband one of 12 dry Saladas. “But one of the Saladas is already married!” you might bleat. I mean, that’s a really good point, but also the union of Saladas and human is illegal in this country so don’t even THINK about it, weirdo.

This season’s power rankings have been erratic — next week it’ll go back to every Friday — but this isn’t because I was attempting to chew off my own arm in an effort to avoid writing about the depressing gender norms this occasionally subversive franchise continues to slam down our throats — I was on holiday!

BUT I’M BACK NOW BB, LET’S DO THE POWER RANKING!

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Lee (5 points)

Lee is an entirely non-offensive man. I can’t imagine that he has ever had an abnormal thought. I think if he ever had a deplorable thought he would immediately clutch his chest and say, ‘gosh!’. In this house of men who all seem to look the same and act the same (#notallmen) this makes him very popular.

There is no room for dissent here. Everyone must submit to the groupthink or be cursed with a lifetime of itchy genitals that only itch when you’re in really long work meetings that you can’t excuse yourself from.

Lee got a single date this week, which the rest of the boys attributed to him being very conventionally good looking (“I don’t think Georgia would be the type to just pick good looks, though?” one of the men says desperately, haha). “Lee has such a good body,” Sam says. “Lee is a pretty good guy, too,” says Jake, sadly. “Even I like looking at Lee!” one of the blokes says. They all start laughing, because men thinking other men are attractive is RIDICULOUS AND SILLY!!!!!

But Georgia doesn’t care about that stuff, guys. Oh wait, she does. “I picked Lee because he’s incredibly good looking,” she says.

The date starts off weird because all the men watch as Georgia picks up Lee and then laugh at him when he tells Georgia that she’s beautiful like the car she arrived in. “That’s our Lee!” says one of Lee’s metaphorical — and maybe even biological — brothers. Lee is completely thrown by Georgia opening the car door for him, and wonders if he can deal with this new and terrifying world of gender revolution.

Lee and Georgia have chemistry I guess? Lee expressly says that he only went on this show because all his friends are married and he has no one to hang out with anymore, so his expectations for a life partner are low. They have the same sense of humour at least, which is to say no sense of humour. For example:

“What do you call a Greek man falling off a cliff?”

“Con descending!”

“OH MY GOD, HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!”

Am I missing something?

Lee hit all the right beats this week in that he was nice and unmemorable, which is the best that you can be at this juncture. Lee and Georgia have the kind of love where they both just try not to say anything divisive or express any real opinions, but when one of them does express an opinion, the other just moulds their opinion to fit the first person’s opinion.

Lee says that he doesn’t feel any pressure to get married or have kids and Georgia just sadly nods like she knows what that freedom feels like. Then she pretends that she doesn’t feel any pressure to have kids at a certain time, because Lee’s brain would probably self-combust if he tried to think about institutionalised gender expectations.

“I want kids one day!” Lee says. “Oh my god, me too!!!” says Georgia. They’re going to be so happy together. Georgia then makes Lee play a game that involves Lee having to do push-ups while she drinks sparkling wine. It is a good game. When it’s her turn to do push-ups she protests when he says that she doesn’t have to do them (“You don’t think much of me!!”) and then says she doesn’t want to do them (“I’ll do girly ones.”) Georgia wants all the men to feel unsafe all the time.

“I feel like I’ve known you forever,” says Georgia. Welcome to week two of The Bachelorette, everybody.

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Matty (4 points)

Matty is a bit of a wildcard in that Georgia doesn’t actually remember him being at the introductory cocktail party. Matty wants to win. Matty is in this thing. Matty wants to win so badly that when Sam is reading out the group date card and keeps pretending to read Matty’s name and then reading someone else’s name, Matty actually says to him in the tiniest, most heartbreakingly vulnerable voice I’ve ever heard: “Why are you doing this to me?”

MATTY.

Matty is on the date though, so he stops being vulnerable. The dumb thing they had to do this week is trapeze jumping or whatever because Georgia Love was a trapeze instructor before she was a journalist, which was the job she did before she became a full-time monogamy-hunter.

“Noone is complaining about it!” Georgia says in joy. Georgia just wants a man who doesn’t complain :(

Most of the men were very good at trapeze (“I certainly have the upper body strength for this,” says Rhys, who decides to wear a tank top while Aaron starts crying) but Matty was extra good because he specifically asked Georgia what she was looking for in the men’s trapeze skills. “The main thing she was looking for was pointed toes, so I wanted to give her pointed toes,” Matty said very seriously. “Wow look at those toes,” Georgia said in actual awe. Goddamn the expectations on this show are low.

It was a fun afternoon of fleshy beige action figures flying through the air. Because women just want a man who won’t let them topple to their death, Matty’s reward is that he gets to catch Georgia in midair. Matty catches her and all the men cheer. They hug each other, and Matty. Matty has caught Georgia. Georgia needed Matty to survive. The patriarchy is still intact.

“I definitely didn’t know that Matty was here until today,” Georgia says, before explaining to Matty how she invented an excellent dish called ‘spicy beef lettuce cups’ which is actually san choi bao, a dish that has existed for thousands of years. I wonder why everyone hates white people so much :)

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Courtney (3 points)

Georgia really likes Courtney, which means at this point Courtney just has to show up and he gets points. I still don’t know much about Courtney. He and Georgia both wore red to the cocktail party, which looked less like a sexcii and bold fashion choice and made them look more like twin cabana twigs in a sea of crackers.

Georgia was stressed because Courtney had the golden date card, which effectively puts the power back in male hands and defeats the purpose of the whole fucking show, and he hadn’t used it yet. “I feel like the girl who has given him a phone number and he doesn’t use it,” Georgia says in defeat. Courtney assures her that he will use it next week. “Finally I have some commitment from Courtney!” Georgia says. Georgia babe it’s only week two, all these cabanas will be tearing each other apart to get your attention soon. 

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Clancy (2 points)

Clancy shaved his beard to show his dedication to Georgia. Clancy jumped in the pool fully-clothed to show his dedication to Georgia. Clancy will start dressing like Georgia and wear a mask of Georgia’s face and legally change his name to Georgia to prove his dedication to Georgia.

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Sam (1 point)

Sam is a smug handsome man whom the producers are trying to establish as the season’s villain. Sam says things like “I didn’t even beat Aaron!” and “I wouldn’t want to be stuck in a lift with Lee!” Sam asks Rhys was it true that he wrote Georgia a poem. Rhys says yes, because he’s too earnest for this world. Rhys then reads his poem to Sam. Sam starts laughing at him.

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So, who’d she ditch?

Bye Aaron! You were right, you were probably too funny for this show anyway.

Bye Jay! I have never seen you before in my life.

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The Bachelorette is on every Wednesday and Thursday at 7.30 on Channel Ten from now until forever. You can read our premiere recap here.