Do you think that last night when one of the girls was playing with a potato and no-one commented on it, it was a protest against the #libspill, or was it just a quite bored girl playing with a potato?

Anyway, it’s not time to think about the slow decline of our country, it’s time to think about sexci things! So put on whatever Bloodhound Gang song you see fit and let’s get going with this thing!

Okay I guess, LET’S DO THE POWER RANKKKKIINNGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!

Winners

Brooke (8 points)

Brooke — the winner of this competition — got a sober kiss from the Honey Badger, which is a remarkable feat! Usually before kissies happen on this show everyone is liquored up like it’s the night before Prohibition.

(On this show and you know, for the first five years of your twenties, I’M FINE OKAY.)

Brooke does her hair, puts on some silk pyjamas and makes some bacon and eggs to bring to the Honey Badger’s pretend house, like they did in days of yore. When she knocks on the door, he is not wearing a shirt.

“Nick looks good for just getting out of bed!” says Brooke, as if anyone in this scene has just gotten out of bed.

He invites her into the “badger’s den” which is full of masculine items like lamps made out of fake antelope skulls and wooden statuses of fierce horses, all men, you see, having a lust for war and death.

Honey Badger thinks that Brooke has a “Pandora’s box” inside of her, to which Brooke explains that yes she does have a Pandora’s box, and it is that she is a youth worker. Honey Badger thinks that she is a “grounded soul” and a “very real girl” which Brooke then confirms by suggesting that they take off their fake pajamas and play some rugby in the backyard.

Honey Badger comes alive.

Brooke is shocked by how fast this professional sportsman is and decides to demonstrate her admiration by tackling him around the legs.

But it is one of those romantic tackles you see, where a girl tackles a man and then the man pretends to be dead and the girl pretends to give him CPR for a while and then mashes her face against his, as is the way with CPR, and birds twitter and loins pulse and maybe you’ll die alone, but these two won’t.

You know, one of those tackles.

Brooke has won this thing, let’s all just make a round of bacon and egg sandwiches and call it day.

Brittany (7 points)

This week the single date card was given to someone who had “crossed paths” with Honey Badger before. “CASS!” everyone bleats.

Cass pretends it is embarrassing that everyone knows that she knows the Honey Badger outside of the show, when she has been actively telling anyone who would listen for a week and a half.

“… It’s Brit!” Cat says, while looking at Cass. Cass handles it well.

Anyway, Brit was born in the same room as Honey Badger or something, so she goes on the date. Brit puts on the correct number of beige clothing items (three) and heads to the docks. Honey Badger arrives on a boat and he is wearing a small hat. Brit is not interested in his small hat.

“He had these tight sailor shorts that showed his physique properly,” says Brit, which makes me think I have been looking at men wrong because I didn’t know that upper-thigh was the bit. It takes a while for Honey Badger to get to shore, so they just sort of signal to each other until then.

“I like your shorts!” says Brit. Honey Badger asks her to come aboard his boat and “risk it for the biscuit”. Brit is shocked – that is her “favourite quote”!

Honey Badger says that he chose Brit for the date because she’s “well travelled” and “mature” (age: 30). They get in a golf buggy and then play a game called “foot golf” — a game of no consequence or importance. It is such fun.

“I’m a competitive person,” Brit says to the Honey Bader. “… In a fun way!” she adds, to reassure Honey Badger that she is not the wrong kind of competitive, oh no, she is the fun girl kind. They continue to kick soccer balls in holes (“I’m gonna put that shaz back in shazaam!” says Honey Badger. “Haha!” says Britt) and then Honey Badger gets fresh and tries to teach Brooke how to raise her leg and kick a ball.

“I played dumb so he could teach me!” says Brit. Oh.

Night falls and it is time to hang out on the kissie couch. Honey Badger pours her a vat of wine and they have a laugh about the day. Brit says that she has a list of questions that she wants to ask the Honey Badger, which does NOT seem down to earth – oh wait, they’re just some “sunrise or sleep-in?” bullshit.

Brit: “That’s an easy one.”
Honey Badger: “…sunrise?”
Brit: “YEP, FOR ME TOO!”

Phew, that’s a relief. These two early-rising go-getters (Not slovenly sleep-in deros, no sir!!!! Get out of here, I wake up at 3am!!!!) discuss their ideal traits in a partner and Honey Badger mentions that he likes that Brit talks like she has an “old soul” (30) but looks five years younger than she is. Aw, that’s, wow, that’s really something.

They get in the pool and float together while making small talk like “romantic” “mmmhmm” and then they make out. “Brit challenges me!” says Honey Badger. Good for you.

Dasha (6 points)

Honey Badger has incredibly intense sexual feelings for Dasha, which he demonstrates by describing her face in the same way that one would describe a bear trap.

He asks how she got that sexy look that he keeps getting “caught” in. Dasha explains that it’s because she “comes from a different culture” and because she has been through a “lot of hardship” in her life.

Honey Badger is disappointed that his sexy question did not elicit a sexy answer.

Dasha uses the moment as a way to tell him that she has a 5-year-old son. Who doesn’t love kids!

Losers

Vanessa Sunshine (5 points)

Look, the performance artist known as ‘Vanessa Sunshine’ is a winner in my eyes, but she did not get a rose on her date, sooooooooooo.

Fine, she’s not ‘winning’ The Bachelor, but her refusal to be anything but difficult is truly a shining example to us all.

Romy (not difficult, maybe) thinks that Vanessa Sunshine is there for the wrong reasons (murder?) because she is not excited about Honey Badger. Vanessa Sunshine cannot even muster the enthusiasm to pretend to want a date with him.

“Obviously… here’s another date card,” Vanessa Sunshine says. “And I ah… hope it’s me?” Vanessa Sunshine talks about dates with Honey Badger in a tone usually reserved for talking about the possibility of Peter Dutton becoming our prime minister, haha let’s keep doing this power ranking though.

Vanessa Sunshine was triumphant in the group date. Everyone gathered in the garden in their finest ripped denim and linen tops.

“How are you, Nick?” says Osher. “Bloody well,” says Honey Badger.

“HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!” say the contestants.

The task for today is a “game of impressions” which coincidentally, is also how my therapist describes life. They have to do some pointless tasks, one of which involves holding straws, or something

“I’ve been doing my hand warm ups, so the other girls better watch out!” says a woman. Some llamas are there.

The winning girls are the ones who are most still and strong. They graduate to a challenge that involves them clutching to the Honey Badger while walking on a plank.

Then they must answer trivia questions about Honey Badger and smash plaster hearts with hammers.

It DOES actually make sense and I’ll thank you not to stare!!!

The competition pits historic rivals, Cat and Vanessa Sunshine, against each other.

“Vanessa Sunshine least deserves time with Nick,” Cat explains. “Cat is cocky and I don’t know why,” Vanessa Sunshine explains more.

Cat loses. She decides that losing was all part of her plan, as she wanted Honey Badger to have to go on a date with Vanessa Sunshine to see how boring she is.

Vanessa Sunshine is ecstatic.

Honey Badger takes Vanessa Sunshine on a date to a couch in the backyard. “From what I’ve seen, Vanessa doesn’t smile that much!” says Honey Badger, which isn’t entirely fair because I think I saw Vanessa Sunshine smile when Cass didn’t get the single date.

Honey Badger and Vanessa Sunshine’s conversation is a series of misunderstandings, in which one person thinks that the other person doesn’t understand what they are saying so tries to explain it, but really the person was just expressing confusion that the first person would say such a thing.

“Do you want someone who is funny?” says Honey Badger, hopefully. “It depends on the situation,” says Vanessa Sunshine.

I suppose in the situation of diffusing a bomb or performing open-heart surgery, you would not need someone to be funny. “Do you like dad jokes?” he says. “I don’t understand them,” she says. “You don’t understand them?” Honey Badger says, confused.

“No, I don’t understand why they’re funny,” Vanessa Sunshine says.

In a last ditch effort to fill the silence, Honey Badger asks if she had a weekend free, what would she do.

“This weekend?” says Vanessa Sunshine. Once she realises that Honey Badger is not allowing her a weekend away from the show, she says that she likes to have brunch.

Honey Badger makes a joke about which meal she’d be missing if she combines two meals; she misunderstands and explains that brunch is a combination of two meals.

“It’s a Melbourne thing,” she explains.

Somehow, despite all of this, Vanessa Sunshine continues to be in the competition.

“I genuinely have no clue who he is,” says Vanessa Sunshine of their date.

Cass (4 points)

Poor Cass.

Cass spent most of this episode swinging wildly between being devastated and being exhilarated in the company of Honey Badger. “Obviously I would like to kiss him,” she says.

She is sad when Brooke comes home with a rose and Brit (who also has a rose) decides to comfort her.

Brit: “They’ve obviously had a –“
Cass: “WHAT, WHAT HAVE THEY HAD???”
Brit” “… a successful date?”

Cass cries to Brit and explains that she has written down notes that she wants to read to Honey Badger because her “feelings are so strong” that she gets flustered around him.

As this is only Week 2, Brit seems genuinely alarmed, but is concerned enough that she gives Cass a condescending kiss on the cheek.

Cass takes her sparkly notebook and sits down with Honey Badger. “I don’t think I can read it, I’m too embarrassed!!!!!” says Cass, fishing for Honey Badger to say, ‘Dear Cass, please read your thoughts my beloved’.

Instead Honey Badger says, “Well, why are we here.”

Cass tells Honey Badger that he has made her believe in love at first sight and then she flops on him like a puppy. He tells her that “there is a lot to take into account” and kisses her on the cheek. Cass takes this to mean, “I can’t hurt the other contestant’s feelings, but I choose you” which makes her seem like the kind of wildly optimistic person I’d like to be around.

She continues to flop. He says, “Thanks for sharing”.

Shannon (2 points)

I didn’t know who Shannon was until she dared to do battle with Cat and now I will remember her forever, as I remember all fallen soldiers.

Cat spends the cocktail party talking about how terrible she imagines that Vanessa Sunshine’s date was.

Cat and her friends Romy (Who wears a ‘FUTURE IS FEMALE’ t-shirts and makes fun of the other women on the show) (She didn’t say the future was going to be good) and Alisha make fun of Vanessa Sunshine.

“I HEARD VANESSA SUNSHINE DOESN’T EVEN LIKE HIM!” Cat says to a large group of women. A girl named Blair defends Vanessa Sunshine, saying that being sexually attracted to someone and being ‘connected’ to them is different (Vanessa Sunshine is neither, but that’s besides the point).

“I just feel like you’re getting very aggressive,” says Cat.

Once Blair has died, Shannon decides to take up some righteous indignation of her own. She says that Cat, Alisha and Romy make faces at a lot of the girls and make fun of them constantly. Alisha acts as if Shannon has come at Cat with a shiv.

“SHANNON IS AN OPPORTUNIST,” says Alisha, for some reason. “CAT IS INTIMIDATING BECAUSE SHE’S A WONDERFUL PERSON.”

Ah yes, the ‘nice person intimidation’ a classic stitch up.

As her soldiers form human shields around her, Cat tells Shannon and Blair that actually, they are “rude” and have “prejudice” and that she and her nice and intimidating friends were just sitting here minding their own business, check the tape.

Romy rises from the couch. Cat grabs her hand. Romy soundlessly sits down on the couch again. Shannon dies. Cat is a genius.

Seeya!

Bye Kayla, Christina and Cayla! And what an exit Cayla made!

Cayla: “I just wanted to tell you that there are so many unauthentic girls in this house.”
Honey Badger: “I appreciate you sharing.”
Cayla: “Do you want to know who the good ones are?”
Honey Badger: “All the best.”

The sun sets on Cayla.

—

Sinead Stubbins is a writer from Melbourne who has done stuff for Vulture, The AV Club, Pitchfork, Vice, frankie and Elle. She tweets about Drake, Gilmore Girls and cheeseburgers at @sineadstubbins.