It’s evening when we re-join the girls so it’s not clear whether it’s right after the rose ceremony or if it’s a whole day later. What is clear if that the girls have changed into something more comfortable, especially Florence. If she was any more comfortable, her boobs would be hanging in her wine glass, an image not lost on the cameraman and the editing staff, who provide us with a five-minute montage of Florence’s cleavage.
At some stage Osher has snuck in with a group date card and announces Jennifer, Elise, Cobie and Simone as the chosen ones.
Flash to the next day and the quartet have arrived at yet another random mansion, and Osher arrives to say that there is going to be a massive luncheon and all the girls are going to cook for Matty and he will judge the best meal and they all giggle and cheer because 1954 was such a great year.
But that’s not all. Matty has invited one of each of their parents to the lunch, which goes a long way to explaining why Florence and Elora are not on this date, because their parents would actually have to come from a long way, and the travel budget was flat out extending to Queensland,
Matty, who has never met any of the parents before, manages to match the correct parent to its Offspring (cue gratuitous plug for Channel 10’s dramedy which follows The Bachelor on Wednesdays). Anyway, that’s quite a skill to get four out of four; it’s like Matty is a huge walking Ancestry DNA kit.
All of the parents have brought with them a secret family recipe that they will be cooking up for the luncheon. Ha-ha! I can’t help but think of some of the secret family recipes that we could have brought to the show, like steak and eggs cooked in dishwashing liquid (it’s a long story, but they’re not called secret recipes for nothing) and deep-fried, boiled sausages.
Elise and her dad are up first and they are cooking up a tuna dish. Spread amongst all her other ingredients is a large bowl of peanuts, like if the tuna doesn’t win over Matty’s heart, maybe she can eliminate some of the competition through a dose of anaphylaxis. Elise chats about her lack of single dates and Dad smells something fishy…and also wonders what Matty’s intentions are for his daughter. He talks about it with Matty thereby ensuring she will either get a rose and or be sent packing.
Jen’s worked up quite an appetite whinging to her Mum about all the duds in the house, but despite her hunger can’t figure out if she’s eating fish or chicken (that old reality chestnut – thanks for your contribution to pop culture, Jessica Simpson).
Of course, it was fish, because the chicken dish is served up second by Simone and her mother, and their family recipe is so secret that neither of them have ever cooked it before, and they manage to make chucking a barbecue chook on a plate of salad mix look like a saga.
Cobie and her Dad serve up yet another salad, before Jen and her mother, the self-proclaimed dessert queens get to whip up their five Michelin star deconstructed banoffee. That is, a couple of crumbed Scotch Finger biscuits topped with a can of Top ‘n’ Fill Caramel and a sliced banana. Forget Matty J; where’s Matty Preston when you need him.
Despite this three-ingredient masterpiece, it’s Elise who gets the one-on-one time, much to Jen’s chagrin. Thank goodness for Jen’s chagrin, because life would be pretty boring without it.
“She’s the worst dish here,” whines Jen. Or maybe she said that she cooked to worst dish here. Either way, Jen’s displeasure is a dish best served cold.
On the couch, Matty and Elise reminisce about all the fun times they had fishing for sweaty coins on the bridge over the swimming pool, and not guilted into anything at all by her Dad, Matty produces a rose.
Back at the mansion, all the girls are assembled in the kitchen when their vacuous banter is interrupted by a deep, guttural grunt, and for once it’s not the sound of Jen talking out of her arse. The girls run out onto the terrace to inspect the source of the sound. Florence is running out of clothes and is still wearing the blue romper, so maybe the primal grunt emanated from the loins of the microphone guy.
But no! It’s Matty, who has rocked up in the back of a camel to pick up one of the girls for a single date. Now, surely I can’t be the only one who is a bit disappointed that Osher hasn’t presented a date card with one of those pithy one liners: Who’s up for a dry hump? Who’s got the shoes with the camel toe? Comedy gold.
Tara is the lucky girl, and newly appointed cameleer Matty takes her for a ride all the way round to the back yard where he has set up a little Moroccan cubby house complete with tea set. Impressed with Tara’s ability to imbibe leafy beverages and her affinity for the camel, Matty has decided that it’s time to introduce another animal.
Cue the belly dancer.
“Eeeewwww!” squeals Tara. “Do we have to touch it?”
I am thinking that this is very rude of Tara, until I realise that Sheba of the Desert has a snake wrapped around her shoulders.
Then, when Tara thinks that things couldn’t get any worse, Matty announces that they are going to be doing some belly dancing.
“The two things I hate most in the world are dancing and snakes,” says Matty, perhaps instantly regretting how he rabbited on about he makes all the decisions in this show.
After this excruciating interlude, Matty is back to doing what he knows best: sitting on day lounges, drinking wine and reflecting upon first dates with his women.
“I just didn’t know which way things would go on that first date with Tara,” Matty recalls. Should have rethought that tandem bike then.
I have noticed that there is a direct correlation between the possibility of receiving a rose and how many props have had to be installed to set the date up. So, when there are ninety-seven day pillows, twenty-three teapots, a camel, a snake and an ample-girthed belly dancer all shipped in to create ambience, a rose is a dead set certainty, and sure enough, one is produced.
Which brings us back to the mansion where the girls are assembled for the cocktail party and Jen is holding court. Jen has a dessert-inspired surprise for Matty, and when she finally drags him off to a back room, I am only thankful that she has served up a chocolate mousse and a cheesecake and not herself wearing only Dairy Whip and a crotch-less G-string.
Even so, she can’t just let the man enjoy his pudding; she has to whine about how upset she is that she hasn’t had a single date and that her dish was the best at the luncheon and yet she didn’t get picked.
“I could be Picasso in a painting competition and I couldn’t win a date,” she laments.
In Matty’s defence, I get this. Even the Bachelors like their girls to be a bit more “together”.
Finally, it’s rose ceremony time. With Tara and Elise already clutching their roses, only seven of the remaining eight are safe. Michelle, the police officer is sent packing, off to face some sort of internal disciplinary committee about misuse of a police car during episode one.
The writing was on the wall. She had considerable air time tonight without going on either date, and we know that never bodes well.
Neither does being a dibber-dobber, and the trailer for tomorrow night’s episode taunts us with the impression that Jen is about to do just that…I know you can’t wait.
Until tomorrow night…
friday night with kath 