All The Heterosexual Nonsense I Was Forced To Endure During The Finale Of ‘The Bachelor’
I hope you want to see a big dairy lad cry a whole bunch.
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.
It’s been a very eventful year thus far. Lots of stuff going on! You might have heard! If not, congrats on being one of the Da Vinky twins.
da vinky vid on the tl pic.twitter.com/EMb5mt3b2R
— mak!↯ (@D0CSHARTENS) September 21, 2020
It is my hope that one day my co-recapper Patrick Lenton and I will watch enough reality television and read enough Internet posts that our brains will become as smooth as the twins, and we will finally know peace.
It’s been a very tough year for many of us, and so it was actually nice to come together over the past few months and hold hands, not literally, and unite in watching this season of The Bachelor. And now? It is also nice that it is ending.
I have been pretty impressed at how the show’s producers and cast coped with the impact of the pandemic, and the skilful way they shot a tv show around it, but at points this season has felt as dragged out as Ru Paul (does this work, it’s been a long season).
Some of this is down to the impact of the pandemic, but I also think some of it is down to Locky himself. Even though I do think his personality was charming enough to cope with the lockdown, and he made the show watchable, I never felt hmm…anything about him. I didn’t feel any depth, I didn’t feel connected to his search for love, or an authentic feeling from him about any of it, EXCEPT when he talked about adventure, and being outdoors.
Then, and only then, did I feel his capacity for love.
We saw much more of the dramatic goings on between the women on the show than any of the connections between Locky and the women — and while I famously love women, it was ultimately not satisfying to watch (because none of them kissed). When we have heard from Locky about his feelings, it’s mostly been about Bella’s eyes and Irena making him feel safe. Both of these are good, but I needed a few more describing words in order to feel something.
This series is solely about humans finding connection and falling in love, it’s not about finding the best camping buddy, so it was overall tough to get invested! I honestly think we would have had a better and more fulfilling time watching Locky do this show except to find which kind of dog to adopt for his adventure-filled life.
Actually I would totally watch that, Osher give me a call!
But look, maybe I am being cynical! Maybe Locky has found a deep connection, and it will last for as long as other normal relationships last, which as far as I can tell varies a lot. All I know is that this is the FINALE, so strap in for some SWELLING music that tries to MANIPULATE us into thinking we know what is about to HAPPEN. I love love, and I love ranking who has annoyed me!
Let’s do it for the final time.
LEAST ANNOYING
Locky’s Mum
Locky was having a hard time deciding between the two women, so to solve his problem, he brought in his mum to meet them both and seemingly wanted to have her decide for him.
While she was there he probably also asked her to make him a sandwich and give him a soft kiss on the forehead. Still, I loved everything about Locky’s mum, and assume she came straight from teaching a paper mache course at TAFE.
She seemed to be extremely sweet and loves Locky a lot, which makes sense, due to him being her son. Her main function, however, was to say approximately 500 times that Locky needs someone who can “stand up to Locky” and “pull him into line” and “say no to him” and “stand up to him” and “stand up to him!” After meeting Irena and Bella, and declaring them both beautiful, she told Locky she was a bit concerned that Irena wasn’t as confident as Bella and wouldn’t be able to “stand up to him” as much.
To all this, I would like to say, what the fuck is the meaning of all this? Why does his girlfriend need to be equipped with a certain set of skills and demeanour to be able to stand up to him or keep him in line? He’s a grown man, not an out of control bull that has escaped a paddock. Whatever it is, I personally don’t think it’s an amazing sign that his mother seemed extremely concerned about just this one quality, but what do I know.
Anyway, she also couldn’t choose so it was left up to him.
Irena
It is no secret that I have been an Irena fan from the beginning. Some say this is because she looks like Miss Honey from ‘Matilda’, some say it’s because she has a hot voice like Helen Hunt. Others say it’s because she wore this cool outfit in this episode that looks like she is about to go horseriding.
Even though all those things are true, it’s really just because I immediately got a good vibe from her. She seems nice, she seems smart, and she opened up the most out of anyone on the show, sharing her vulnerabilities and insecurities with us. I was conflicted watching the finale because I didn’t want Irena to get her heart broken, and I didn’t want her to be rejected, but I also did not want her to end up with Locky.
For their special final date, Irena got taken…. off-road driving. I realised watching this that basically every single date this season has just been like a fun thing Locky wants to do. He gets to wrap it up in this concept of wanting an adventure-wife, someone who will be ‘up for anything’, which really at the end of the day means he gets to do what he wants and to prove she is down, she has to go along with it or else be deemed unadventurous. I’m sure the women have enjoyed the activities as well, and maybe it’s not that deep, but it’s very late at night and it’s been a long season and I did one semester of psychology at University so let me go off.
I also deeply deeply hated the way Locky lifted Irena into the car as if he was putting a baby into a carseat. Unsettling heterosexual nonsense!
Anyway they went driving, Locky looked happier than he has at any point with any of the women because he was zoom zoom go fast, and then they had a bath together where Irena said some really nice things to him, and his face went red from being hot (I don’t know, I zoned out)
He then told Irena “I am in love with ya” and that made her very happy, and again I remained conflicted. I also remained conflicted when we got to the end of the show, and Irena appeared, they said pleasantries to each other about love, Locky gave her an ugly ring, and then we immediately cut to an episode of Gogglebox.
I guess I am happy for her?????????? It’s what she wanted. So that’s good. I hope it works out! I cannot imagine it will. But i’ve been wrong before! Not about this, but other things.
This bundle of sticks
BUNDLE OF STICKS FOR NEXT BACHELOR. It’s time for a gay bachelor.
Bella’s Fury
While Irena got to go off-road driving, Bella’s final date included a helicopter ride and an orchestra playing a private show for her and Locky. At some point she said “I think this is probably the best date I’ve ever been on” and i was like….I would hope so gal! What other dates you going on?
After the orchestra left, Locky referenced their first meeting when Bella told him to ‘wear his heart on his sleeve’ and pulled up his sleeve to show her the worst poem ever written.
He then told Bella that he was falling in love with her. So, with these things combined, she understandably went into the final rose ceremony assuming that Locky was going to choose her. Unfortunately when she said in the limo “Who tells someone they love them and then picks someone else?” it turned out to be foreshadowing, because Locky immediately did that.
Her reaction was, however, very cool, to me. When she realised what was happening, she sharply pulled her hands from his. After she had asked her necessary questions, and didn’t get the answers she wanted, it was like her veins filled with ice. She became full of a righteous fury, and completely froze toward him.
And then she just looked around a bit and delivered an iconic line, saying “Can I leave?” before doing just that. She did get emotional in the limo, obviously looking stunning even while crying.
I felt bad that she was upset, and like Abby last year, has probably never been rejected in her entire life, so it must have come as a shock. But it’s arguably better to deliver an iconic line and leave the show single than to win and slowly fade from public consciousness until you publicly break up over Instagram once your contract is done, so I think she’ll be fine.
MOST ANNOYING
Locky
Surprise! Locky annoyed me a lot this episode. The big twist of the season is that it turns out that Locky declared that he is in love with both women. He explained that he didn’t want to hurt either of them, because they are ‘both so beautiful’ and as we know you can only emotionally damage us uggos without feeling bad.
At some point, when talking about having feelings for both women, he said he knew people at home would think it is “weird, strange, and unacceptable.” To that claim I thought, “have you ever met queer people or heard of non-monogamy?” and then I immediately answered my own question, which was “no he obviously hasn’t.”
I think having feelings for two women at the end of this show is fine. I think being emotional about that is fine! I think he did seem nervous and also upset when he had to tell Bella! His tears were real, also he has nice eyelashes (I noticed because of the tears).
But my main issue is that the ‘final’ conversations he had with Irena and Bella to suss out who he should pick were both damaged. His conversation with Irena was him asking her if his mum was right, or if she would be able to stand up to him, and say ‘no’ to him when necessary. What a weird and insane conversation!
His conversation with Bella consisted of him asking her what she thought their next year looked like together. She was a bit vague, basically being like “whatever you want to do, i’m down with! I want to figure it out together!” This seemed like a fine answer to me considering the global pandemic, the fact that she is 25, and the fact that the entire time he has told her that he wants a fun adventure girl who is up for whatever adventures come their way and to do whatever he wants to do adventure adventure!
But when it came to him rejecting her later, he brought this conversation up as the reason he was not choosing her. It didn’t make sense and seemed like a huge cop-out to me, and to her as well, with her saying “Don’t try and turn this around on me.”
It’s obviously totally fine if he saw more of an immediate and serious future with Irena, but it was up to him to simply point that out, not try to use a convoluted and unfair explanation that made it seem like Bella had given the wrong answer.
In my mind the real explanation for this all is that when he thought about it, Locky could absolutely not think of one thing he liked about Bella besides her eyes. Since it became clear Irena and Bella were going to the final two, it’s been a battle between “nurse who calms me” and “bella eyes.”
These were pretty much the only attributes he could name about either of them, and Bella’s isn’t even about her personality. In tonight’s episode he said “What makes Bella stand out? Her big beautiful eyes!” and then said “You could start a war with those eyes!”
Not sure how that works, but I am so BEYOND thrilled I never have to hear Locky talk about her eyes again.
NEVER TO ANNOY AGAIN
Everyone! That’s it, we are donezo!!!!!!!!
That was certainly a season of this television show, thank you so so much for joining us on this journey yet again. We will be having a long and luxurious break for approximately one week, until we join you again for The Bachelorette!! Until then, farewell, we love you all.
We will be back to recap The Bachelorette.
Rebecca Shaw is the co-host of the very regular comedy podcast Bring A Plate. She tweets @brocklesnitch