All The Heterosexual Nonsense I Was Forced To Endure During Episode 7 Of ‘The Bachelor’

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

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This episode of The Bachelor Australia has taught me a lot of valuable lessons about myself, and the first one is: there’s a global pandemic happening, and it’s pretty serious. Did you guys know?

The second lesson is “be yourself”.  Did you guys kNOW that you simply must be yourself???

Hi! I’m Patrick Lenton, and what I lack in street smarts, I make up for with a severe case of the street stupids.

Together with Rebecca Shaw (the SheEO of the U-Haul company of “affordable trucks for lesbians on the moooooove”) we recap The Bachelor, because we both got left in a hot car for too long as children and as the doctor put it, there have been “consequences”.

I’ve been pretty harsh on this season, tbh, because it’s felt a lot like my worst nightmares — stuck at a never-ending cocktail party, full of straight people, up way past my bedtime. We must normalise the fact that I am sleepy!

The pacing has felt off — and I have theorised that it was perhaps from an effort to pad out the content before COVID caught up with the mansion. I’m not sure about that, but if that was a problem, it’s over now — because baby, the pandemic has hit the Bachy mansion, and finally I understand what all the fuss about this virus is about. Finally, it’s hitting me where I live (I live in the mansion, in the basement. My coffin is next to Oshers)

To be real — this is a good episode of television. It’s kinda momentous — I can imagine school kids studying this in thirty years, because it weirdly captures and condenses exactly what it’s like to suddenly go through the stages of global pandemic. I mean, bold call that there will be a society in thirty years, but I guess you can call me an irredeemable optimist, or at least mildly concussed.

But this is historic TV. This is like that video where we pretended to land on the moon.

Also — it’s just a really interesting, and fun, and stupid, and dramatic episode to watch. This episode has everything — motorbikes, a slut-shaming ghost, a medium sized-psychic, tears, that thing where a global pandemic forces you to shut your reality dating show down?

Hooray.

Let’s rank the heterosity involved.

LEAST ANNOYING

Belle

Belle… exists. You might be thinking I mean Bella, but Bella is another lady. Belle is her own lady. Belle is a unique individual, who has apparently been here all the time.

Locky himself was so surprised to apparently meet her that I think he panicked and gave her a rose.

Apparently, according to a psychic (of which we’ll get to later), Belle is a reincarnated WW2 nurse who used to date Locky in a past life, so I can only assume she has taken mortal form again for revenge.

All of which I support, frankly. Not annoying! If we’re gonna have hets on the show, they might as well be the vengeful, hungry ghosts of ancient lovers, imho.

Laura

I know? Another week in the Least Annoying column? Someone saint her immediately, grab a pope let’s go. “Grab a pope, let’s go” is probably gonna be the catchphrase of a guillotine some time in the near future.

Laura made me laugh, again, and that’s not nothing.

“Would love to be on the group date, as long as it’s not sport related. I don’t play sport, and I don’t like getting muddy.

Relatable. So relatable. She’s SAYING what we’re ALL (me) is thinking!

Also, she’s basically dressed as a snake.

Delicious Doritos

The show was clearly doing some product placement of some delicious chips, but I forgot to screenshot them, so let’s just say they were Doritos.

Send me money, Doritos. I am advertising you.

Allison, The Medium Ghost-Witch

I’m not sure that I agree with Allison, the powerful ghost-witch who comes to the show to read fortunes and ruin lives, but I do respect and fear her.

“Allison is a psychic medium,” says Osher, introducing her. It’s true, I’ve seen much smaller, and much larger psychics in my time.

Anyway, Allison starts off by playing it cool, telling everyone that she can taste ghosts, which is not at all a terrifying thing to say. Then, she does a whole bunch of standard stuff like tell Bella she will bear the Bachelor’s dreadful son, and that various people’s grandparents loved them, and that they often turn into butterflies to watch you. Cool.

She reckons Locky should be a fireman, or should maybe catch fire? I believe she could probably make him catch fire using only her brain.

But I will say, I thought it was slightly controversial when she essentially told Bella that her grandfather, who had lung cancer, had just died, and she had to go and panic-call her parents to make sure he was still alive. He was!

I never expected death to have such a huge role in the drama of tonight’s episode of The Bachelor.

But I am NOT saying this was annoying behaviour, because I do not want Allison so send butterfly-ghost nannas after me.

MOST ANNOYING

The Slut-Shaming Ghost Of Izzy’s Grandmother

Allison got in touch with Izzy’s (I think??? blonde girl?) grandma, who used the unnatural abilities of a psychic to reach beyond the veil of the grave, and tell her grand daughter to dress more modestly.

Slut shaming! In 2020! If she wasn’t already dead, you can BET that Junkee would be cancelling her. Alas, the dead can neither be defamed nor cancelled.

COVID-19

Ah, time to sit down, switch on the idiot-box and just RELAX, unwind from the stress and horror of the day-to-day realities of living through a pandemic, and enjoy the untouched and stupid world of The Bachelor Australia.

Oh HANG ON.

Must this virus impact EVERYTHING I love? Must it forestall me from ALL JOY?????? If a team of highly paid professionals cannot overcome the pandemic and let one chunky soup boy fall in love with the blonde woman of his dreams, then what chance do I have???? This virus isn’t just heterosexual nonsense, it is FRANKLY HOMOPHOBIC!

There was something very affecting about watching the pandemic sneak its way into this stupid fortress of superficiality and get its sticky fingers all over the proceedings.

I think I’m REALLY starting to understand the severity of this virus!!!!!! It’s finally gone too far!!!!!!

Osher: “I have to tell you something really important. To access ‘Virtual Backgrounds’, click the little drop down menu next to “Video”, and you can upload a JPEG and pretend you’re somewhere fun.” pic.twitter.com/taDvSeYHFY

— Bachelor of Hearts Podcast 🌹 (@BOHpod) September 2, 2020

But I am super interested to see what they’re going to do from here on — and I shall be taking notes on how to conduct Zoom dates in the Bachelor’s patented awkward style, and using them in my own cursed life. I’ll let you all know how they go.

Roxi

Honestly, how does she not understand how this fucking show works yet? How has she cried every cocktail party?

But my favourite thing is when Locky is like  “are you a jealous person?” and she answers “just don’t put me in a position where I feel that way” and it’s like… sure, that hilariously does make a lot of sense lol.

It’s like if someone asked her “are you fireproof?” and she’s like “yes, as long as you never set me on fire, I am absolutely fireproof”.

NEVER TO ANNOY AGAIN

Amidst so many huge weird things this episode (like Locky riding a motorbike, omg!!!! so hot!!! brum brum!) one of the biggest gags managed to almost get overshadowed — five girls getting sent home at once! I’m a little bit upset tbh, Laura and Areeba were 100% the most interesting of the contestants, and I would have LOVED to see them do Zoom dating.

We’re left with a whole bunch of bland tbh, but I have faith! This was a good episode!!!!

Bec Shaw is with you tomorrow night, which is weird, because we are also getting beers tomorrow night, she has double booked me!

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The Bachelor airs on Channel 10 Wednesday and Thursday nights, and Junkee will be recapping both episodes.

Patrick Lenton is the Editor of Junkee. He tweets @patricklenton.