This Week On The Bachelor: Ghosts, Bodybags, And A Medical Emergency
Ugh, Laurina is the blurrrrrrrst.
The number of bachelorettes in the house is, much like my tolerance for Laurina, shrinking quickly.
WEDNESDAY!
Wednesday’s episode kicks off with the announcement of dates: one single, one group. In a strategic stroke of genius, they place Jess (Harry Potter) right next to Laurina (Voldemort) as the dates are announced; one bright eyed and full of life; the other pale, gaunt, sickly looking, and brimming with hatred.
It also helps that Laurina looks like He Who Shall Not Be Named.
We’re presented with a single date for Lisa — dear, sweet, harmless Lisa — and a group date, wherein Jess, Sam, Zoe and some of the others are sent to a site I’m sadly intimately familiar with: the Quarantine Station up at North Head in Sydney. It’s appropriate that The Bachelor chose to shoot in a facility typically associated with long-dead people going insane from diseases, hysteria and boredom.
Lisa’s date goes well. Blake takes her to the races… by which I do not mean he takes past a line-up of various ethnicities, calmly stating, “Spaniard. Japanese guy. I think this one’s from Haiti.” This would be infinitely more entertaining. Instead, they watch a tiny, brightly-dressed person relentlessly ride a big strong beast, which is pretty much how Lisa hoped the date would end. She admits she’s falling for Blake. Blake pretends no other girl in the house has said the same thing.
Blake looks lustily at Lisa. “I’m going to destroy that,” he mutters. “Nah, it’s just a fracture,” says a nearby jockey.
The group date, meanwhile, goes far less smoothly. Blake is once again drawn to Jess, with the bulk of the episode dedicated to every other girl loudly and stupidly lamenting their inability to take even the vaguest form of initiative. The group whines and wails — fitting, given their ghostly location — and when they get back to the house, they somehow corral Chantal (who wasn’t even on the date) into acting as their bitchy emissary.
She corners Blake. Blake tells her to grow up. Lauren, the horrifically bland new girl, doesn’t get a rose.
The highlight of this episode, though, was watching everyone react with feigned sadness when Osher sauntered in and told them Laurina was sick, doubled over in pain, and had been taken to the hospital. I’m guessing that Dirty Street Pie caught up with her.
THURSDAY!
Osher enters in an odd, stilted fashion, handing out envelopes. Louise lands a single date, sporting her “new look”: straight hair. Blake claims that Louise is getting more and more beautiful every time he sees her.
Louise and Blake take a horse and carriage ride through a spooky deserted vineyard. Louise pulls out what appears to be a hash cookie in foil. It is, in fact, a caramel slice. Blake takes it and eats it. Louise claims the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Louise would make a terrible heart surgeon.
They stomp grapes, and it goes pretty well.
The vineyard is called ‘Krinklewood’, in honor of Blake’s catastrophically crooked boner. He and Louise hit it off, drink some wine, and appear to genuinely bond. Then they head to a poolside garage filled with way too many candles for it NOT to be a serial killer’s lair / shed where Blake normally plays D&D.
Side note: the rose he hands Louise isn’t real. It’s all rigid and weird.
Like Blake’s crooked penis.
Zoe, Sam, Chantal, Lisa, Jess and *hurrrrrk* Laurina are in for the group date, which turns out to be a public service announcement for the Heart Foundation. The girls head into a room filled with props, and have to write, direct and act into short videos, each containing at least one kiss with Blake. The team that wins will be invited back to a private party.
Team one: Sam and Lisa. Team two: Zoe and Laurina. Team three: Chantal and Jess. From here, the episode pretty much devolves into a challenge straight from RuPaul’s Drag Race, only significantly less emotionally and tonally subtle.
After three deeply creepy short films — Laurina and Zoe’s makes my skin crawl — the winner is announced: Lisa and Sam get a chance to head back to Blake’s Bachelor Pad (sponsored by Libra). Sam continues shortening the apparently lengthy ‘Lisa’ to a far more succinct ‘Leesy’, and they all play a super-awkward game of truth or truth. Sam, wine in hand, admits she is falling in love with Blake.
The cocktail party is a masquerade ball, with all of the girls coming down the stairs in masks. It’s like a sexless Eyes Wide Shut. Osher enters and announces that instead of a rose ceremony, Blake will hand out roses throughout the evening. Everyone looks stressed and, thanks to their masks, also like massive dickheads.
In the end, after roses are handed out and the bitching commences, Chantal is asked to leave. Laurina re-enters, and the stage is set for more of her creepy broken doll face and her stupid mean vacuous words to spew forth and fill the house like a rich person’s nutrient-rich poo.
See you all next week!
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The Bachelor airs on Wednesdays and Thursdays at 7.30pm, on Channel TEN.
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Paul Verhoeven hosts Save Point, writes for TheVine, and is a presenter on Triple J. He tweets from @PaulVerhoeven