Welcome to our Wednesday Recap of The Bachelorette — you can read last week’s recap from Thursday here. We’ll be recapping every episode, because we are very passionate about love or TV or whatever.

Hello again Bachelorette fans and some people who just hate themselves a little bit!

I wasn’t able to recap the show last week, as I was having surgery on my uterus. If you are wondering if it was a surgery to make sure none of the contestants from The Bachelorette could ever get me pregnant, no it wasn’t, but that does seem like a good idea.

I missed both last week’s episodes, and obviously have not gone back to watch them, but I did read the recaps, so I’m fully prepared. Well perhaps not fully prepared, as all I have is a vague impressions about Chariots of Fire, and that the completely smooth Nathan was sent home.

Vale Nathan, I hope all your dreams are fulfilled:  more attention at disgusting nightclubs you couldn’t pay me to set foot in.

So, I am back on board for the rest of the series, ready to discover which men will reveal themselves to be terrible each week, like a nightmarish advent calendar.

That brings us to this tonight’s episode. How will the rankings have changed since episode one? Who will be the Most Annoying men; will it be all of them? Who will be Least Annoying, if anyone at all?

Will Ali realise that television is not the best place to find love? Absolutely not.

The episode’s own recap informs me that Ali is now suspicious of Bill’s intentions. It also informs me that last episode Bill annoyed the boys after using his Wild Rose to steal a date, which is the very thing the Wild Rose is intended for, but somehow still very bad to do (?).

Paddy describes the situation as “Bill’s done what Bill does best, and tread over someone’s face to get what he wants.”

Congrats Bill on your best quality, treading over someone’s face.

We then get into this week’s episode, which evidently is taking place at a murder mystery party.

Osher arrives and explains to the boys that Ali doesn’t want her heart broken again, that she needs some clarity and honesty, and to please look at his cool purple envelope.

He says the envelope contains a different kind of date. A special date.

He says, “two men will go on this date, but only one will return.” The other man, I assume, will be driven out to the country and spun around until he’s dizzy and then left there to find his way back.

The boys are all SHOOK at this.

Turns out the two men going on the date are Ivan and Bill! So now it’s time to get into it.

Let’s see whose names I have forgotten already, and let’s really test my limits for watching straight men do things.

Least Annoying

Robert

EVERYTHING ABOUT ROBERT WAS CUTE THIS EPISODE!

Sorry not sorry. The very first time we saw him, he looked extremely snuggly, and there is no other adjective than snuggly I like better in association with men, other than ‘silent’.

The next time we saw him, he was saying something about feeling guilty that the boys were at home while the Bill and Ivan were out getting murdered or whatever.

But more important he was looking extremely snuggly again, this time also holding CHIPS. What a dream man.

The group challenge this week featured something very important to Ali: who can build a child’s bicycle the fastest.

It is a good test because building a bike over half an hour with a child proves that you will be a good father forever. The challenge involved a group of very adorable children, who were each told to choose one of the men to work with on the bike.

Robert was immediately panicked, as if Ali had instructed a group of snakes to go forth and choose one man to poison.

He was asked how he is with children, to which his response was simply to laugh for several minutes.

It might just be the ‘getting chosen last for sports teams every single time between the ages of 5 and now’ in me, but I really felt for Robert in this challenge.

The awkwardness was dripping from him as he tried desperately to somehow bond with the alien creature before him.

Part of the problem, in my opinion, was that Robert was obviously paired with a small clone of himself, and they are both only interested in Italian menswear, not building bicycles.

He didn’t feature too much more in the episode after surviving having to be near children, but later on at the cocktail party he said out loud the words “it’s a half moon, so energies are going to be a little frazzled.”

As someone who now believes in astrology because people have sent me memes today about Scorpio season: that’s good enough for me.

Robert was not annoying at all.

Jules

Surprising me yet again, I found Jules adorable and fun rather than extremely annoying, as his facial hair would have me believe.

This is due to the fact his appearance in the episode was mostly restricted to amazing facial expressions in reacting to things.

He was so excited he couldn’t stay on the screen! Not annoying in the least.

Dan

Dan didn’t do much this episode, which is why I had his photos saved under the name ‘dave’ until now!

BUT he did coincidentally wearing a matching pink outfit with the little girl he built a bike with, thereby being extremely cute and not annoying.

Todd

Although I miss his loudly squeaking knight’s outfit and wish he still wore it, Todd was fine this episode. In the bicycle building challenge, he seemed to really want the kid to have a fun time even if it meant losing.

Most importantly so far about Todd is to know that he is handsome in a young Leonardo DiCaprio kind of way, or even better, in a soft butch lesbian kind of way.

Not annoying.

NEITHER ANNOYING NOR NOT ANNOYING I FELT NOTHING

Good effort this week to Danny, Pete, and Taite, who managed to neither annoy me nor not annoy me too much.

Special congrats to Daniel who I did not recognise at all when I saw him at the rose ceremony. Best of luck next week everyone.

Most Annoying

Ivan

Figuring out where to put Ivan on this list was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do. In relation to recaps.

This is because Ivan did a combination of things throughout this episode. Some of them were sweet, goofy, and cute.

And one of them was the dumbest thing I have ever seen happen on television.

Ivan was chosen to go on the special purple envelope date, along with Bill.

Ali chose Bill to go because she didn’t know if she could trust him, and she chose Ivan to go because she didn’t know if he would ever put her number 1 alongside his true love: dance.

The fact he was chosen for the date absolutely shocked Ivan, and he seemed truly upset at the news.

I suppose he could have been faking it by pretending to imagine a world without dance, but he also ended up leaving the room and crying loudly into the arms of the other boys.

This was sweet! And if you don’t think men should be showing their emotions, I implore you to take five minutes to read about the state of the world and see where that has gotten us.

Ivan kept talking about how he couldn’t understand why he was chosen, “considering how much I put into dancing for Ali last time.”

At this point it would have been helpful for a producer to remind him that Ali is not a dance academy he is trying to get into.

So off the three of them went to a restaurant to sit awkwardly at a table, while Michael Myers from the Halloween movies spied on them from above?

As you do in a restaurant, Ali sent Bill off to make them dinner in the empty kitchen while she talked to Ivan.

She says that she wanted to talk to him about what kind of future they could have, because he seems really set on his dance career. Whoa whoa calm down detective, where did you get that idea?

Ivan explains that it’s actually fine because he’s going to move to America and “get on” Step Up (?) in a matter of months, thereby fulfilling his dreams quickly and happily retiring to Adelaide.

At this point I googled Step Up to see if there was an upcoming film I don’t know about it that he is planning to audition for, and I simply don’t think there is, so I don’t know what he’s talking about.

Also at this point I noticed Ivan’s ‘T’ necklace.

Here are some things I think it stands for: Tap Dancing, Tango, Toestepping, Twerking, Traditional Dance, The Twist, Today I’m Going To Dance Because I Love Dance, To The Streets (Step Up).

After she heard Ivan’s plans for stardom, Bill returned with the food, everyone ate together LIKE A FAMILY, and then she sent Ivan off to make dessert.

We didn’t see much of Bill cooking, I assume because he just cooked something like a normal human. Ivan, not so much.

You see, his skills are in dance, not in basic human things like ‘knowing anything’.

The recipe for avocado mousse he was given simply said to blend two ripe avocados. So what did Ivan do?

At this point he begins to sense that something is wrong, and opens the lid.

Finally, we think, he’s going to realise the mistake he’s made. Instead he simply opens it and pushes the avocados down further with his hand.

This was all astonishing to watch.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. But I suppose it’s like that old saying “when you spend 100% of your time dancing, you never learn what an avocado is.”

The best part about this entire thing is that while it was happening Ali was having a serious conversation with Bill about her concerns that he’s a liar, and they keep getting interrupted by loud blending.

The three of them tuck into the desert, all of them chewing solid mouthfuls of what is meant to be a mousse, and Bill chokes out the words “It’s good.”

This immediately proves that Bill IS a liar after all, and we realise perhaps this was a cunning plan by Ivan all along!

Just kidding, Ali realises that she cannot put her future in the hands of a man who just blended two whole avocados, and she bids farewell to him. Ivan is upset, and says that he feels like she ripped out his heart and stomped all over it.

Finally, and poetically, a form of dance he doesn’t like.

Paddy

Oh Paddy. Paddy paddy paddy.

He came so close to being neutral, but he just couldn’t help himself. He was doing so well when he was upset that Ivan might be going home, and when he gave Ivan a truly sweet hug.

But then unfortunately Ali appeared later in the night wearing….clothes, and he had to yell and hoot and holler like one of those cartoon dogs that sees a pretty female dog and steam comes out of his ears and his tongue flaps down onto the ground.

Annoying.

Bill

 Bill annoyed me a surprising amount this week.

Not because he dressed up like the Ikea monkey to go on his date.

And also not because he apparently wears shirts with his own initial on them.

Bill survived the first date even though he didn’t really say anything reassuring, but importantly, he did not blend avocados.

But from that point on he spent the rest of the episode talking about how pissed he was at Charlie for snitching on him. Which, fine.

But when it comes to talking to Ali, and about Ali, he just says a bunch of nothing in the same tone of voice, and he seems fake, and put your tongue back inside your head for god’s sake.

He had one bright moment where at one point he said, “It’s The Bachelorette, not the Charlie show”, and I simply must respect this hilarious observation.

He truly is amazing with words, as Charlie keeps telling people.

His feud with Charlie that spanned the entire episode is extremely boring and macho and annoying.

The only good thing Bill did the entire episode was not blend two avocados whole, in a blender.

Charlie

Charlie sucks! Charlie featured a lot in this episode, and started off strongly by looking like a very sleepy hitman.

Charlie thinks he is ‘back on top’ (a great way to speak about trying to form a relationship with a woman) after this episode, because he built a child’s bike the fastest, thereby proving his manliness and also that he is a good dad.

Ali was impressed with his bike building ability, and the rest of us were slightly scared at how intensely he needed to win building a bike for a child.

She rewarded Charlie’s efforts with a rose and a bunch of smooching, and we were rewarded with an episode full of Charlie being angrily obsessed with Bill.

While Bill and Ivan were on the first date, Charlie said after he snitched his talk with Ali about Bill, he would be gobsmacked if Bill was the one to return, and he would consider leaving (spoiler: he did not).

He also obviously didn’t get the memo about how all the boys were going to wear beanies.

Instead, as a 30-something year old, he wore a backwards cap. This is a red cap, and it is also a red flag.

It turned out to be a good decision, because as he threw a tanty when Bill walked through the door, he already conveniently looked like a teenager upset that his mum said he had to stop playing Fortnite and do his homework.

Charlie either spent the rest of his time saying that Bill is an evil genius manipulator, walking around saying “bullshit’ angrily, and generally giving off a very angry and aggressive vibe at all times, even when doing things like building a bike with a child.

He radiates anger. He also kept saying things that implied Ali was stupid for choosing Bill, that Bill is taking advantage of her ‘weaknesses’, and that he was just trying to ‘protect and guide her’.

No thank you sir! That is very annoying!

Here is Jules mocking Charlie to soothe us.

Ah, that’s better.

So in conclusion, I am not enjoying Charlie’s whole macho man agro vibe. If he knew that Ivan had blended two avocados, he probably would insist on crushing two whole avocados in his bare hands in order to prove how much more manly he is.

He is obviously just out to ‘win’ this whole thing, and instead he has the honour of winning this week’s Most Annoying man.

NEVER TO ANNOY ME AGAIN

Poor sweet Jules. We hardly knew ye. Here is one last wonderful facial expression, may you Segway smoothly on.

That’s all from me for this week, see you next time!

Again, if I missed any men, I absolutely do not care, do not contact me. But please do send me all your best recipes that require two whole blended avocados!

The Bachelorette is on every Wednesday and Thursday night, and Junkee will be recapping every episode like idiots.

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Rebecca Shaw is the co-host of the very regular comedy podcast Bring A Plate. She tweets @brocklesnitch