The Bachelor might exist for most people as some solid entertainment. Maybe they just sit back with a big bowl of chowder and a flagon of liquid suitable for humans and just let the day recede into nothing more than a distant nightmare. However, for many, the show is a lot more important than that.

For me and other romance idiots (people who are idiots in romance and probably single, or consciously coupled with jerks, or just make stupid love decisions), The Bachelor is where we come to learn. That’s right, we are watching and evaluating, ready to steal the love-tricks and emotional ploys that these steel-eyed women are using to trap the unsuspecting Cruskit of a man that we call Matty J.

So this week, in the spirit of education, I have ranked the contestants of the show based on how powerful and mighty they are in the discipline of romance. (Also, did you know that there is more than one episode of The Bachelor in a week? I totally did! I’m definitely not just going to focus on Thursday’s episode, ha ha.)

Let’s rank the mighty love witches:

---

The Wang Stallion – 20 pts

Matty J took Cobie on a horse riding date because, as he so sagely put it, “She likes animals, I like horses, I want to combine our passions”. He also said that he was raised with two horses, which makes me kinda hope that he spent the first six years of his life running through the Australian outback like a bush poem given flesh before finally being rehabilitated back into the world of men. But I digress.

Matty’s horse flashed a mighty erection and then did a big wee. Now, I’m not saying that this horse — I believe its name was Humphrey? — is in the running for Matty J’s heart. But I am saying that so far if it WANTED to be, it’s put forth an extremely strong power move.

There is something both bold and… dare I say vulnerable, about letting down all the walls, removing the mask, and just letting your disgusting erection free and then pissing everywhere. And if Matty J was raised by a family of wild horses, like I theorise, then maybe his heart could be won by this bold and unconstrained stallion.

This is the future the liberals want.

---

Flo, The Worst Witch – 15 pts

Flo’s original scheme of trapping Matty J with her cursed clogs was well-intentioned, but ultimately naïve as it relied on him actually wearing clogs, which nobody actually does. They’re wooden shoes! So impractical! But this week, Flo and her machinations are back, and she is both powerful and clever (and still Dutch).

During Osher’s evil voodoo board game — more detail later — Flo surprised everyone by knowing all sorts of secrets about Matty J. He was impressed that she had gleaned the banal details of his life. “Wow, you’re right Flo, I did spend all the formative years in which one develops a super-ego in a medically induced coma,” he (probably) thought. Did she do some sleuthing? Or did she use a tiny vial of his blood to read his past? We do not know.

But where Flo TRULY shone was when she whisked him out of the cocktail party and literally said this chilling phrase: “Just wait and see what I’ve got in store for you!”. That’s LITERALLY a Skeletor thing to say.

And it was not disappointing. First, she placed certain items around his body – a constricting cloth shackle for his neck, and carefully crafted oculars to constrict his vision.

Given her history with cursed items, I can only imagine these made him docile and suggestible — although with Matty J, who could tell. Then, she dressed up as a sexy school teacher, and forced him to say arcane phrases out loud, further binding him to her will.

“It’s hard to think when you’re like this,” he said, visibly dazed, dumbly struggling against the bonds of enchantment being woven around his soul, like a dolphin caught in a shark net. Well done, Flo. Well done indeed.

---

Osher And The Terrible Voodoo Board – 12 pts

It’s heteronormative for people to continually assume that Osher isn’t getting a slice of those hot normie Bachie boys, and being a good ally means humouring this awful fantasy of mine, ok?

Sure, maybe I don’t understand how this game works, and fine, maybe love is a lie, but my money is on Osher! And this week, his designing of a giant life-sized Matty-J themed board game was his most diabolical move yet.

I can see him now, steepling his fingers and chuckling his trademark giant-baby chuckle, watching as the bachelorettes threw pies at each other and fought amongst themselves, while he stood by with Matty J demurely by his side, their powerful thighs brushing against each other through their slacks, the true winners.

---

Cobie – 10 pts

I knew that Cobie had some tricks up her sleeve. This week her undiluted strain of Manic Pixie Dream Girl Who Somehow Escaped From The Early ‘00s did not disappoint.

This was an incredibly strong play from a character that I feel was underestimated by the more flashy girls in the house — the Bond villains and Xena wannabes. She started subtle with a long manic giggle when she saw Matty J riding towards her on the wang stallion, her eyes and mouth wider than the very sun, as if she could not conceive of this magical creature coming towards her. Maybe she thought he was a centaur? I may be a love-idiot, but I know men love being mistaken for ancient Greek mythology.

I think, for many of the contestants, a horse riding date would have been a trial, such as Jennifer whose brand is best described as ‘Most Likely To Be Shot By Peasants In The Revolution’ or Leah ‘Selling You Marble Cooktops On The GOOD Infomercial Channel’. But Cobie really managed to not look the gift horse in the mouth, and managed to turn the entire date on horseback into a subtle conversation about sex.

Here’s how we play: take every mention of her horse “Peppy” and imagine that Matty J has named his penis “Peppy”.

“You’re handling Peppy very well,” says Matty with wide-eyed wonder.

“Actually,” Cobie says back shyly, “Peppy is handling me”.

Or later when they’re washing the horses:

“Start at his feet and work your way up,” declares Matty. “Peppy loves that.”

“Matty told me you just need to sit into it, and relax into it,” says Cobie, confidently.

Later on when they’re drinking whiskey at the horse lodge, she has the sheer brass balls to pull out a poem she wrote. Now, we all know that poems are reprehensible in themselves and if this had been a genuine attempt at winning his heart through verse, she would have massively failed immediately.

One of those giant candy-striped canes would have come through the door and jerked her out. Poetry is bad. BUT, it was actually a spell. I blocked my ears for most of it because I didn’t want to fall in love with her through the TV, but it started with:

“You will see me smile, you will see me laugh, and if I cry it’s from happiness”. Doesn’t sound so much like a poem as a list of magical demands.

Then, because she had done the classic three-step romance trick: pretending a horse is a penis, standing next to a horse with a prominent penis, and then casting a spell via free verse, she felt confident enough to steal Matty J from Simone (WHO SUDDENLY HAS AN ACCENT????) at the cocktail party. Some strong early moves from The Helium Princess.

---

Constable Michelle – 3 pts

Michelle got put into a cage, calmly drank some wine, and then somehow ended up winning the voodoo board game? There’s a lesson there, I think. This show teaches us that love is something we have to go outside and grab eagerly with two strong robot hands, while rivals soar over us, trying to take what we have won.

It teaches us that love is something you get after a traumatising few months trapped in a mansion on a TV show, and that you have to work for it. But I think that Michelle has shown us that love is actually a gilded cage. We have to drink our way into believing that we want it.

---

Simone – 2 pts 

Simone has an accent now??? Anyway, she threw a pie at sour-faced Liz and said, “I just saw Liz’s face that never smiles and knew I had to throw a pie at her” and it’s JUST SO TRUE. I’ve said it before: I don’t think Simone will win, but she’s weirdly the most genuine. Two points for being the most genuine.

---

Belinda – Negative Points

We said goodbye to Belinda this week, which is embarrassing because her job is a love coach. Let’s hope, that much like my job as a professional writer, her profession is seen by the tax department as more of a hobby, and that she has a more lucrative day job to rely on, because ouch.

I’ll be back next week for another power ranking, but in the meantime, let’s wish all these scary people the best of luck in winning the affections of the custard boy.

–

The Bachelor is on Channel Ten 7.30pm Wednesday and Thursday nights from now until forever.

–

Patrick Lenton is a writer and author. He tweets at @patricklenton.