All The Heterosexual Nonsense I Was Forced To Endure During Episode 14 Of ‘The Bachelor’

Hello, welcome back to Junkee’s recaps of The Bachelor Australia, where we watch episodes of The Bachelor Australia and try to pretend we’re OK with all the nonsense we see in front of us.

Pour yourself a glass of chilly chardonnay and get prepared to smile politely, because it’s HOMETOWNS, BABY.

Hometowns are my favourite episodes of The Bachelor, because I love to see people’s awkward dads on camera.

I love to see the weird driftwood sculptures that every middle-class mum put on their dining table. I love to watch weird parent handshakes.

I love to watch people get edited out of a polite meal, and into a tense montage of suspicious glances.

Take a shot every time someone gets taken aside for “a chat” in a hometowns episode, and you will die!

Listen, look, learn — this episode is LONG because there is DRAMA towards the end, and yes you will have to get through a whole bunch of Emma before it happens, but it’s actually not boring. It’s not particularly cathartic though, and to say there’s a twist is an insult to the concept of twists. There’s certainly some gentle curves.

But oh boy, this is some drama.

Also, interestingly, there’s less heterosexual nonsense in this episode — if you ignore the entire premise of the show, that is.

I think that’s because they’ve finally let the ladies out of the mansion, and given them some time to run around in the sun, see their beloved families, put on proper shoes. They probably got to eat a sandwich, instead of just drinking endless champagne from tacky flutes.

Love that for them. So FINALLY we get to ignore all the sniping and mansion drama, and focus on what’s important in this show: dressing a handsome man in the most godawful clothes known to man, and then making him meet semi-hostile boomers.

Last episode, my sun and Ban-Ki Moon, the love of my lift (we only talk in elevators), Rebecca Shaw, sorted all the remaining women into who they would be in Sex and the City, and it was perfect. Now that there’s four left, let’s sort them into which FRIENDS they are.

Helena — Chandler, because her reactions are big and confusing

Abbie — Rachel, because everyone underestimates her

Emma — Monica.

Chelsie — Ross, because she LOVES science

Osher — Phoebe, duh.

Matt — Joey! He’s so horny!

Anyway, let’s get into the ranking. EXCELLENTLY, there’s four women left, and two are annoying, and two are not.

Least Annoying

Abbie

A horny science boy needs a horny science bride! I don’t make the rules, it’s just science.

And boy are these two horny for each other.

They start off by doing that awkward Bachy trope, where they meet next to a river or in a park or something, and then they get really surprised when they see Matt?

Which always makes me wonder if maybe they just get told to put on some funky smart-casual attire and then go stand outside, but they don’t know why? And they’re worried maybe the producers will just leave them out there forever?

Anyway, upon seeing Abbie, Matt does the cartoon googly eyes and steam comes out of his ears, and he says “her leg’s out, she looks sensational”. Her one good leg.

Anyway, then they go to a pool somewhere and basically fuck in a pool. Then some people are meant to give them massages, but they can’t stop touching each other, and it’s massively awkward. Good for them! That’s what we like to say, two healthy young people, driven absolutely batshit by the various chemicals and goo in their attractive meat bodies.

But friends, I can’t help but stan — there’s something so puritanical about the criticism of Abbie, simply because the connection between them is so sexual. In an ideal world, that’s what you would want from this level of dating, surely? I dunno, I’ve read about it in books.

Sex is one of the top reasons to date somebody, along with: if you fall down, and can’t get up, the person you are dating might stop the cats from eating you.

But then Matt met Abbie’s family, and they had a genuinely good, fun time. It seemed actually very nice and fun. They tried to beef it up through editing into something… terrifying, but it was not.

And I also got to meet my favourite person in the world: Uncle Rob. Uncle Rob was given the “stern patriarchal approval-giving figure” music, but then he ruined that by greeting Matt by saying “you must be Matt, you are gorgeous!!!”.

We simply, absolutely, must stan Uncle Rob.

And then Abbie said that she loved Matt, and they just clearly have a good rapport and enjoy each other and have a nice time AND want to see each other naked. SHUT UP.

Chelsie

Guys, Chelsie has been so broken by her former relationships, and it’s tremendously sad.

This is heterosexual nonsense, imho. At one point she’s explaining to her mum and sister why she likes Matt and she ACTUALLY says “he lets me talk”. Oh god. That shouldn’t be a PERK, that should be bare minimum. Somebody needs to stop straight men.

Anyway, she made me super sad. She’s been through a lot. She couldn’t quite say that she loved him, but I hope he doesn’t hold that against her.

Also, my girlfriend just told me today that I remind her of Chelsie because I have an equal amount of “inexpressiveness”. Makes me like Chelsie even more.

Most Annoying

Helena

I’ve always liked Helena, she’s got a sense of soap opera ludicrousness about her, which I think people don’t expect, because her voice is so beautiful and low.

But, Helena’s hometown date was just a ridiculous shitshow, and I loved it, before I hated it.

First, she turns up in tennis whites, and is like “let’s play tennis”. Matt, however, has never played tennis and is bad at it. It is awkward. Not a good start!

Then they turn up to Helena’s family, and we get to meet her excessively French father, who is described as having a Russian mobster air about him.

Let me just say right now — an accent as flamboyantly French as this mans is NEVER intimidating. It is inherently funny. This is why French men are never Bond villains.

So, we get some stupendously French dad, some mildly French mother, and a casually beautiful sister.

And then, Matt says that he doesn’t remember Helena speaking French on the red carpet in the first episode, which tbh, neither do I!!! But Helena LOSES HER SHIT ABOUT IT. And it’s kinda understandable — I guess you’d be sensitive for any sort of red flag in this kind of dating game/ a world where straight men keep happening.

But it’s also just… a lot. She also mixes up her red flag metaphors, saying that seeing this supposed red flag from Matt, was like a red flag to a bull? But you know, go off.

So, then she bails, gets back in, bails, cries a whole bunch. And then finally turns up to the Rose Ceremony, pulls Matt aside, and apologises.

I mean, this whole fuckaround, this very drawn out nonsense, it’s probably the realest example of a breakup I’ve seen on this show — now they should just be unhappy for another few years before finally calling it quits, to really give it that air of authenticity.

But by the end of all that drama, I had the shits. It was annoying. She’ll be out next ep, mark my words. Bonjour!

Never To Annoy Or Not Annoy Again

Emma

To be honest, I have no idea how she got this far!

Her hometown was unremarkable, apart from the fact that there were two dogs! The dogs did not get enough time!

Anyway, Matt very diplomatically put forward the idea that Emma’s “feelings for him had outgrown his own very quickly” and that’s very true, in much the same way that a cartoon snowball quickly grows into a terrifying avalanche which will smother the town in icy death.

Also, I feel like Emma’s friends have a lot of this sort of conversation with her:

So, off she went. Very intense! Wish her the best of luck!

Anyway, we have two episodes left. Rebachelor Shaw will be doing the finale. I can’t wait, and not just because this show gives me brain worms and I want to be freeeeeee!

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Patrick Lenton is the Entertainment Editor at Junkee. He tweets @patricklenton.