This Week On The Bachelor: Meet The Families. The Rich, Rich Families.

Wednesday’s episode was mostly forgettable; a catch-up with the rejected bachelorettes.

Wednesday morning, however, something bizarre happened; host of The Bachelor, Osher Gunsberg, was interviewed by Mamamia.

MM: Which celebrity male would you nominate to be the next Bachelor?

Osher: Paul Verhoeven. He’s ever so clever and fun.  Plus he could live-tweet his own journey.

Oh, Osher. You bloody flirt.

But the real event of this week – the one that didn’t involve me — was last night’s epic meet-the-parents episode.

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After quartering his heart, Blake was ready to serve up a portion to each of the four finalists’ families. Aorta move on already!

The theme of this movie-length episode? DON’T HURT MY DAUGHTER.

First, Louise. Apparently she’s from Thredbo; as I suspected, she’s a snow elf. After she and Blake dispatched several uruk-hai and slid down a hill on a tyre, they enjoyed a snowball fight. A cripplingly awkward snowball fight.

Louise warned Blake about her three strong, protective brothers, and her dad, Terry. Effectively, Blake was dealing with an army of Louise-adjacent penises. They headed to her house. Louise’s horny mother looked to be a potential hurdle, and we watched as her father Terry eye Blake and claim he could read body language was a moment only topped by Blake spilling champagne on the greying alpha-male’s pants.

“It looks like you peed yourself!” Blake said. In my head. There’s no goddamned way he’d say that in real life.

The dinner party was effectively a catered interrogation; it’s odd watching a family dance around the fact that their daughter is potentially being exploited. Then, it was time for the father and potential son-in-law to have a chat. Either that, or Terry was taking Blake out back to ask for HIS rose.

“How do you let down the other three?”, Blake’s dad asked. This is, potentially, the best question ever asked on The Bachelor, and having it come from a concerned father was especially poignant. Blake’s answer, to his credit, was genuine, and Terry gave him his blessing. Then, they kissed, hard. On the mouth. Presumably after the cameras stopped rolling.

Date one: done. By this point, I was sort of banking on Louise.

Blake then went to visit Sam at her home on the Mornington Peninsula, in Victoria. Blake met ten relatives, and was swiftly pulled away by Sam’s intense sister, Chris. Every one of these one-on-one interviews seemed filled with menace; like if Blake gave the wrong answer, next episode would be him tied to a bed, being hobbled with an enormous hammer.

But after a superb first meeting with Sam’s family, she told Blake she was struggling with the entire Bachelor deal: sharing a guy you care about with three other girls. And, much like Truman trying to avoid upsetting Ed Harris, they spoke in circles about their feelings to avoid breaking weird contractual clauses.

For my money, Blake and Sam will end up together and have nineteen children.

If Sam is Mario, Lisa is Luigi. She’s the Art Garfunkel to Sam’s Paul Simon. Lisa has been holding back.

Her family catch-up with Blake started with a kayak ride to a spectacular waterside house. At this point, it became apparent that ALL THE BACHELORETTES ARE CRAZY WEALTHY. All of their homes are enormous, look brand new, have spectacular views and are spacious as hell. Which is appropriate, as Blake is a real estate agent, but it does raise some interesting questions about the show… Do only rich girls get a shot with Blake?

Blake then met Jess at the imaginatively named ‘Ocean Beach’ — just a short drive down ‘Car Road’, past ‘Tree-Filled Park’. Jess has devolved from charming and bubbly to a horny, slow-blinking, forehead-touching bland mess. So how did her family meeting pan out?

In a word: tepid. Blake and Jess’s dad had a fishing trip, proving my theory that this show is really just a long-play to set The Bachelor up with a hot dad. Blake and Andrew talked, and Andrew fished… FOR INFORMATION. *high-fives self*

But in the end, things fell flat. Jess seemed to have vastly, rapidly withdrawn, her personality having evaporated entirely. So when the rose ceremony kicked off, I had pretty strong opinions about who was going to head home.

Those opinions were kicked squarely in the dick when, after Louise and Lisa got roses, Blake took the suddenly damp Jess aside to tell her, hey, I feel stuff for you, but lately, you’ve started to suck. Give me the word and the rose is yours.

After a ninety-second blink, Jess said ‘yes’, broke down crying, then sort-of said ‘no’, then said ‘maybe’, then cried more, then BLAH BLAH BLAH JESS YOU ARE THE WORST I HATE YOU JESS BLAH BLAH CRY BLAH BLAH FART NOISES.

So, look. Blake picked Sam over Jess, and he cried. Actually cried. Because honestly, it’s got to wreck a decent person to contractually string-along several greatl women. And that’s both the best part and the worst part of The Bachelor: the high stakes. The glorious, dehumanising stakes. The stakes which are best accentuated by a violently loud Dark Knight Rises style score.

Next week, the finale, in Capetown, South Africa! And at the end… BLAKE PROPOSES. THIS IS SO EXCITING I COULD SHIT.

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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, presents on Triple J, and tweets from @PaulVerhoeven