Well I guess I had best start this blog with an apology. I know that there were at least three of you out there waiting with baited breath for the Episode 8 recap,but alas – none was forthcoming. I did try, but last week we had a family wedding and in the days preceding we just had family…and wine…lots and lots of wine! So I watched the episode with the same diligence as usual, took copious notes, started typing feverishly, but by the time I got to the cocktail party bit the wine kicked in, and I just couldn’t function normally.
Come to think about it, that’s kind of how the cocktail parties on The Bachelor work. How ironic.
But what an episode it was! I never for one moment though that colonic irrigation could be a spectator sport, but when Nick cleaned out three arseholes all at once, I could scarcely contain myself. OK. Technically he only cleaned out two arseholes and Romy self-evacuated, but the sense of relief was palpable – like three enormous blockages flushed out by an enormous hose. Suddenly everything is more palatable.
As for intruder, Britteny, she played the ditzy-life-of-the-party card, which works well enough when there are twenty-five girls in the mansion and the bachelor is happy enough to keep you around for a couple of weeks, but not when you’re an intruder and the guy already has some favourites and he’s just looking to see if there’s something he is missing. Britteny had to go.
So, while Cat and Romy have been busy doing the talk show circuit trying to deny their bully status (they can’t edit what you don’t say or do, girls) and Alesha has kept her head low, we’ve been counting the days to see what the mansion will be like without the mean girls. Will it all be sunshine and lollipops, or will it be a like a modern-day Medusa, with another evil head growing to replace the last?
At this stage, it definitely seems like the former. It’s all smiles and rainbows at the mansion, and in no better sign that the pall has lifted, Osher is back!
Clearly no longer worried about his entrails being ripped out and thrown into a cauldron in a bizarre sacrifice to the God of Honey Badgers, he arrives to deliver the single date card. This is a good sign. Osher has time up his sleeve and that means there is nothing inflatable he needs to prepare for this week’s group date.
Brittany gets the single date card, and while everyone claps and hugs, there are daggers in some of those eyes. It has not gone unnoticed that this is Brittany’s SECOND single date and Cassie and Emily (and the intruders) haven’t even had one yet. Or actually Cassie has, but not in the mansion, so in her eyes they don’t count.
Soon Brittany is meeting Nick down by the harbour for their “all-Aussie adventure”, assuming that it is possible to have such a thing without Glenn Robbins dressing in khaki and hitting himself in the nuts with a gas cylinder.
Nick has arrived with transport to suit the theme, and picks her up in the hollowed out shell of a convict hulk, a boat so primitive that he has to serve the prosecco out of white wine glasses.
Their destination is the Sydney Wildlife Park at Darling Harbour. They watch a bit of gecko porn before heading off to the koala pen. Brittany is hopeful of getting to pet a koala, but is instead presented with Nick and a huge snake. Brittany might be pretty impressed by its size, but the koalas (“That one’s named Shano and that one’s named Wayno”) are looking pretty nervous, remembering that time that their mate Damo had sucked on one to many eucalypt leaves, tumbled off his branch and was swallowed whole by a carpet python.
But Nick has bigger fish to fry, or at least he has a bigger fish, and they are soon off to the crocodile enclosure where Brittany gets to feed a four-metre crocodile named Rocko while Nick cowers behind because apparently crocodiles are also partial to wallabies.
And in another gratuitous reference to Nick’s rugby union career, he and Brittany end up in the wallaby enclosure, where the inconsiderate inhabitants have helped themselves to Nick’s fruit platter and everything edible is spread across the dirt.
At least the wine is OK.
Nick needs to figure out whether he and Brittany are on the same page. He asks her what’s in her future.
“I want to travel for a while, then settle down, get married, have some kids. Move to somewhere affordable and unpretentious…like…Byron Bay,” she offers.
“Ophelia,” Nick nods.
“Who?” Brittany asks, concerned and confused.
“I-feel-ya. It’s like reading me own bloody mind. Like I want to go see a couple a places, tie the flamin’ knot and, not lyin’, head to Byron.”
Then Brittany says something about feeling vulnerable, but she is muffled by Nick’s tongue down her throat which somehow damages her vocal chords and from that point on she can only speak in sub-titles.
“I forget what it was like to feel love,” she texts.
“Ophelia,” says Nick and hands her a rose. “You’re a good egg.”
Speaking of eggs, the next day Nick has arranged a group date for a bunch of girls whose eggs aren’t getting any younger. Osher and he meet Cassie Brooke, Deanna, Jamie-Lee, Tennille and Sophie down by the Mossman waterfront.
Osher introduces them to Steve. Apparently his job is “Human Lie Detector.”
He must be a teacher then.
My assignment is all at home on the computer so I can’t do any work today.
Yes, Miss. This assignment that you haven’t seen in draft form and which contains words I cant pronounce is all my own work.
I’m late to class because another teacher I can neither name nor recreate in a police identikit was talking to me.
But no. Steve is bona-fide, FBI lie detecting guy.
His job, according to Nick, is to find out who is giving him the raw prawn. Waterfront location justified.
He first interviews the girls individually, then each one paired with Nick. His findings are astounding.
Sophie wants love and a career.
Deanna is emotionless.
Tennille has trust issues and slowly builds into relationships.
Brooke is genuine, but has been hurt before.
Cassie is in love like an itty-bitty Labrador face planting a bowl of Pal Puppy.
Jamie-Lee is wearing a moon-boot.
Insightful stuff. And Osher – if you need someone to be a human lie detector in future seasons – I’ll do it for free.
And that’s it. No single date. No rose.
It’s back to the house for the cocktail party.
For the first time, Cat, Romy and Alesha’s presence is missed – and by that I mean that no one wants them back, but all of a sudden the cocktail party is so much shorter.
Nick invites Cass for a chat. She is dressed like 1970 Fondue Barbie. Someone pulls the cord in the middle of her back and off she goes on her usual diatribe:
“Met before…feelings…connection…giggle…giggle…met before…giggle…connection…”
Nick is comfortable that Cassie is confident about her feelings, but mostly he notices that the sparkly things on her pantsuit would be good as fish bait.
Possible spoiler alert: the usual crap mags have scoured through garbage bin evidence and innocuous Insta posts and have determined that Cass takes this thing out. Surely.Fricken.Not.
Nick gives her a hug, but it’s an overenthusiastic hug accompanied by an awkward grin, like you know this person is a complete lunatic, but if you hug them they might not send for a huge saucepan in which they plan to make a casserole from your pets.
Then it’s Brooke’s turn. She dodged telling the truth to the Human Lie Detector, but now, afraid that he may have bugged the place, she decides to tell Nick her BIG SECRET. It’s REALLY BIG. Like REALLY MUCH BIGGER THEN THIS FONT ALLOWS WITHOUT KNOCKING OUT THE LINE SPACING…
“I’ve had relationships…with…women…” chokes Brooke.
SO-SO-BIG.
Despite ho big this is (so big), the Honey Badger didn’t see it coming, even though I’m pretty sure the fine print in The Bachelor contract specifies: mothers, Instagram wannabes (especially ones based off-shore with jewellry/fashion/shoe lines, girls-who-like-girls-at-least-sometimes will all be part of contestant group…
“You’re into blokes now right.”
“Yes. I want to have kids.”
“Righto then. You’re alright with me, Brooke.”
And I believe him, because I reckon this bachelor is a decent bloke.
Osher appears for the rose ceremony, and with four girls gone last week, they are quite a forlorn little group. Brittany has the rose from her single date and that only leaves nine girls, soon to be eight.
Quickly the girls are offered and accept roses until there are only two remaining: Tennille and Deanna.
Tennille is worried because of the potential feedback from Steve, and also because she dibber-dobbed on all the girls who went home last week. Bachelor historians and student of the franchise know that dibber-dobbers seldom last long – EVEN if they use charades to do the dibber-dobbing.
Deanna is not worried, because she and Nick are both professional sportspeople.
But she forgot that Nick has a PERSONALITY, and she is sent home.
That’s it. See you tomorrow.
friday night with kath 