All The Heterosexual Nonsense I Was Forced To Endure During Episode 11 Of ‘The Bachelor’
I hope you like dates, because there's a lot of dates.
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.
In my time in the recapping trenches, I have learned that hetero nonsense comes in waves.
Locky is kinda like the moon — he might seem to be floating oblivious above it all, dreadfully pale, chuckling with inane ferocity, covered in limp flags from defunct nations and bits of Soviet satellites — but he is the one controlling those waves, that is making all the women surge up the beach and collapse rich people’s mansions. He is the one that turns regular ladies into werewolves.
He is the genial bitch causing the nonsense to come out and run around in a circle into it gets dizzy and vomits all over the carpet in the good room.
More and more people are saying it – Locky is the moon.
So, what I’m saying is that we’ve got a tidal surge of nonsense today, and we should all strap in, drink our stupid little dickhead juice until we feel happy again, and enjoy it.
Hello! I’m Patrick Lenton, the long and pointless story your uncle told at Christmas lunch, given arms, legs, and a bodacious attitude. Together with my forbidden love, Bec Shaw ( the “Ruby Rose of recaps”, in the sense that she’s gay and also isn’t Batwoman) we recap The Bachelor Australia every week, because if we don’t, this bus will explode!
So, all the crazy kids are back in the mansion and they’re going CRAZY for TOUCHING. I would like to say: this is disgusting. I prefer when they just had to shout incoherent affections for each other loudly at their laptop screens, forever denied the forbidden nectar of human touch. I think it’s, frankly, against the will of the lord (popular nz singer) for them to press their lips against each others lips, and make the customary humming sound that all humans do when they do the kissing function.
smooching
I’m jealous. How dare COVID be over for them. Fuck off. They’re cancelled. No, I’m fine! I’m going to open the door to the cupboard where I keep all my fabulous shoes and scream into it, haha it’s fine.
how people’s faces look atm when i describe how fine i am to them
Anyway. Let’s rank!
LEAST ANNOYING
Steph
So, this episode starts off with Osher coming in and being like “corr blimey, you’re not on Zoom anymore, who wants to slap Locky and spit in his mouth?” I am paraphrasing a little bit. “orright ladies, cop a feel of this chunk of pudding, innit”.
They brought in an intimacy expert, who helpfully blindfolded Locky, asked if he was ok with being touched, and then stood back and just watched everyone touch his naked body, with the cold-dead eyes of a woman who has forgotten why we touch, the rapidly cooling embers of a once grand passion dying in her eyes, desperately trying to find meaning in their awkward gropes. I dunno!
Anyway, everyone came in and got all handsy to various degrees, and left weird-ass marks on him.
Juliette, who we will get to later, had severe chaos energy this episode and seemed to use his back as a cry for help.
“I’m going to write every word I know! Rectangle. America. butthole”
ong so true
i mean i don’t know the science, but i am keeping an open mind
But Steph managed to just cut to the chase and give him a big old kiss, earning her a single date.
Steph seems great, and her humour was completely lost on the big puddle of milk that is Locky.
“You laugh at me all the time,” he tells her plaintively, and for that comment alone, we have to stan.
“Yeah,” she agrees, chuckling.
“to me, you are a joke”
Izzy
What is this, the Mediterranean peninsula? Because this episode has a LOT of dates.
Anyway, Izzy got a date, and it was a cursed cross between a poorly planned warehouse party and an Ikea maze. They had to wander around various stations, unrolling a huge ball of red twine (the Joanna Newsom absolutely encouraging me to go to Melbourne of it all) that all had something to do with stages of life? But basically they only did two — children, where Locky freaked out Izzy (who is like… 23) by saying he wanted twins, the most efficient amount of children, and Izzy saying that she doesn’t want children yet, because she is one.
izzy just wants to smooch, not bear locky’s dreadful twin boys
“I’m just looking for someone to be with for a couple of years. I want to have five husbands,” says our queen, and I think she was being facetious, but I choose to believe that she is a queen and absolutely stands by this. Locky is absolutely a perfect person to have as a starter husband – when Izzy is an elderly eccentric dame living on a river cruiser, she will be like “my first husband — loved to jump off things, but after a year it was me who wanted to take a leap, so I got rid of him. Ah but my next husband — he could dance… oh he could dance.”
Then they went to the bed, and lay around on it, and had a smooch.
She spent a lot of time laughing at absolutely nothing. When I am uncomfortable, I will often laugh.
“to me… you are a joke”
“Not gonna lie, wouldn’t mind a little pash with the big boy” she says. Queen energy.
Juliette
I’ve always liked Juliette, and not just because she always dresses like a beautiful witch who wants to burn men’s hearts.
This episode, she is CRACKLING with chaos magic, and I’m here for it.
“That’s my van! I’m supposed to be glamping,” she says at one point, a sentence which is deranged in itself.
“Tis I WHO IS MEANT TO BE GLAMPINg”
“I want this rose, why didn’t I get a rose?” she asks, stealing Izzy’s rose off her. She seems to have become like the perfect form of her own id, just covetous and defined by impulse. But it’s nothing compared to the last rose ceremony — sensing her own demise, like a fortune teller who knows the way she will die, she just goes all out. And it’s beautiful and terrible, like the sea.
“I’m not going away quietly, I’m not a wallflower, I’m not going to fade away,” she tells us, gesticulating wildly. God, iconic behaviour. And she does not fade away.
“I need to talk to Locky tonight and tell him I like him, that I’ve been waiting patiently for him to go through all the plebs before he comes to the queen,” she announces. Yes! Yes!!! I think.
“Atlantic City! I choked on a shrimp!”
“I’m going to ask Locky — do you want me to be dull and dead in the eyes like Bella?”
Go off! I say, go off, and never go back in again!
“Do you want me to be a grandma like Irena, and knit you a blanket and scratch your back and change your nappy?” she asks. OK! Yass! Savage! Eu Du Sauvage! I am hooting and hollering.
right???? right????
“I could be talking to TikTok stars right now” she continues.
Hmm. I mean you could be, but should you? Ethically?
“I could be talking to Young Thug’s producer” she boasts.
“how young is this thug?”
Alright! I don’t know what any of this means, but lady, I love your energy.
Next thing, we see her in a car. Honestly yes — yes. This is how a queen leaves — in a cloud of glamour and confusion, on her own terms. I love her so much.
MOST ANNOYING
Bella
This whole feud between Bella and Irena is fucked up, and has genuinely created an amazing race ™ for Locky’s heart. I don’t know who he’ll choose, but this ep I respect Irena even more (big ma’am energy) and really detest Bella.
Irena had a very wholesome date with Locky, in a stupid van, and they rode bikes, and she absolutely flattered him in all the ways that he obviously needed to be flattered, and probably felt very big and strong. She’s like “you’re the best bike coach ever” and it’s like… you famously don’t need to be coached in how to ride a bike. It’s like… riding a bike.
“this is the seat… and believe me, I found out that the hard way that you need one of these bad boys”
Anyway, back to Bella.
Essentially, Bella feuds more with Irena over ludicrous shit “she drew a heart over my special kiss :(” and then decided to confront Locky with it all, accusing Irena of creating a web of lies, and not even liking hiking, and it comes across exactly as deranged and grasping to Locky as it sounds.
bella annoyed me so much this episode that i forgot to take any photos of her, so here’s Juliette imitating me.
“What Bella told me tonight won’t make me change my opinion of Irena — but it might change my opinion of Bella” he says. Yep.
She tells us that women continually manipulate men and ruin her relationships, and honey… that’s right, its time to say it with me:
*Studio audience chants*
STOP.
DATING.
STRAIGHT MEN! *streamers fall from the ceiling, everyone cheers, a ball drops, fireworks explode over the bridge*
Honey, the problem is men.
NEVER TO ANNOY AGAIN
Juliette absolutely got the fuck out of dodge, and Steph and Maddie didn’t get roses. We are RACING towards the finish line people, and I for one can’t wait to see true love triumph (lol, nobody is gonna last in this relationship).
DOn’t let it dock, it’s FULL of COVID
Bec Shaw is on tomorrow, I wonder what will happen? We’ll simply never know (until tomorrow).
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