The Bachelorette Australia (Season 4) – Episode 7: It’s the End of the World as He Knows It

Poor Charlie.

At the end of the last episode he was a confused man.  Ali was spreading her basket too-widely and Charlie told her she needed to narrow that basket if she didn’t want to get hurt and by that he means that the only thing she should be putting in her basket was him.

And Ali put her hand up and stopped his basket weaving mid-loom.

“I’ve got this,” she said.  So shut your jealous friggin’ trap.

To help him do just that, she has invited her alter-ego “Muhammad” (Ali – see what  did there?) to do what every woman in Australia has wanted to do for the past four weeks – beat the shit out of Charlie.

Ali makes it clear that this is not a date, even though they are by themselves and she is in skimpy clothes and there is a bit of kissing over the sit ups.  It all goes well:

“I had a great time beating Charlie around the ring,” gloats Ali.

Whatever floats your boat, I suppose.

The ring beating must have been a highlight, because although we learn later that Charlie received a rose, the bit where he received it must have been so boring that it ended up on the cutting room floor.

Osher has been busier than ever and the next day all the men are marched into the scrub into his masterpiece:

“Welcome to Apocalyptic World,” exclaims Osher proudly, his arms extended into the air in triumph.  Why did no-one tell Osher that this is the worst idea for a theme park ever?  I mean, Dreamworld tried that a couple of years ago and it turned out terribly.

Needless to say, a challenge in Apocalyptic World involves a heck of a lot of rules.  There’s something about nests and supplies and putting the supplies in your nests and robbing other nests and defending nests.  So many nests, but only one bird and not a single feather.

Before any of this nest action can occur, they have to divide themselves into teams of two.  Being meatheads, they divide themselves based on brawn, leaving Todd, who had just finished applying hand moisturiser, without a partner.  More fool them, because Osher reveals a cunning twist: the pairs have to be attached to one another, and since all the blokes have picked their teams, soft-handed Todd has to be strapped to Ali instead.

In short order the quest for Doomsday supplies in on in earnest. Just in case you were wondering what you would need to survive the Apocalypse, here’s what Osher recommends:

• 1 bag of rice
• 40 cans of beer in an esky
• 1 sleeping bag
• An empty knapsack
• A garbage can lid
• A solitary bottle of wine (I need more than that to get me through an episode of The Bachelorette)
• Something that looks like a bag of pot

Needless to say, Charlie and Paddy are strapped to each other, and so are Bill and Taite. They are obsessed with emptying each other’s nests and marking their territory, while the two Daniels cower behind a wall and Todd cracks open the wine and has a picnic in the nest he shares with Ali.

Bill rips Paddy’s shirt, Paddy swings something that’s supposed to be a punch…

Osher notices the melee from the safety of his little host hill.

“I say, chaps.  Perhaps that might be getting a little heated,” he offers.

…Taite sits on Charlie’s head while Paddy attempts to garotte Bill with his connector cord.

“Cut it out!” pleads Osher and they ignore him.  Little wonder, because that’s the same thing I tell my dog when he thinks no-one is looking and he tries to steal a bacon wrapper out of the bin, with about the same level of success.

Ali is not impressed with Paddy and Charlie in particular; too much testosterone for her, and we sense she is regretting the decision to give Charlie the rose the day before.

Not only that, but while they have been busy fighting off all comers, their nest has been raided of all their supplies and they are eliminated from the rest of the activities.

Osher takes the pair of them away and locks them in the alpaca enclosure for the night, while Ali slips into a pair of Peter Alexanders and rocks up to the mansion for a sleep-over.

The boys excitedly prepare dinner.  Todd is embarrassed when he is unable to pop the top of a bottle of balsamic dressing:

“I just moisturised my hands!” offers Todd in his defence, and I must admit to fantasising just a little about those hands – so soft…so gentle…

Taite manages to remove the lid, and as a reward he misses out on dinner so that he can sit on a freezing cold verandah with Ali. It’s so cold it would freeze the nuts off a brass monkey or even worse.

Anyway, Ali and Taite  snuggle under the doona to conserve body heat and rub noses, then just as things start to get interesting, Bill arrives – dressed like he has just failed an audition to be the next Captain Snooze.

Ali asks for thirty seconds and Bill scampers away, lest his testicles suffer the same fate as this dog:

Ali’s attention returns to what’s under the doona:

“Can you feel that?” asks Taite, in sultry tones.

“Yes,” says Ali breathlessly. “I can feel it.”

“Yeah.  My heart always beats like that.  I think I’ve got a murmur or something.”

And that, folks, is about as interesting as it gets as the producers have spared us footage of men snoozing for six solid hours, their bodies crammed awkwardly into leather couches much better suited to old men smoking after-dinner cigars than burly boys on a sleepover.

Before we know it, it’s cocktail party time.

Charlie notices straight away that Ali has taken Bill to an area of the garden called the “Moroccan Lounge.” He, somewhat gleefully, suggests that this cannot be good, because nothing good comes out of the “Moroccan Lounge.” He, himself, was taken there last cocktail party and Ali put her hand in his face and told him he didn’t need his advice.

This makes him so much of an expert that he has even started his master’s thesis: The Effects of Garden Furniture Configuration in Influencing Love Variables on The Bachelorette: Why Charlie is Gooderer that Bill.

He offers up a TED talk to the rest of the men assembled.

“You watch.  Bill will come back here and tell us everything went perfect.  But it won’t be perfect, because it’s the Moroccan lounge.  Only really serious shit goes down there.  It’s never light-hearted.”

What is serious is Osher.  He quickly does a head count and announces that Charlie has a rose, and that means that there are six of them without one.

But Ali only has four roses.  Two men will be going home…

“Bill, will you accept this rose?”

The sombreness of the evening is disrupted by the sound of Charlie feeding his thesis into a shredding machine

“Taite.” Swoon.

“Daniel.”  What’s this?  Daniel the Mute.  Daniel the Sweater.  Daniel with the twice as sweaty sisters!

For one brief moment, Dan and Paddy think they actually have a chance.  That is because they are dumber than a pair of pet rocks who have been rejected membership to Pet Rock Mensa.

“Todd,” announces Ali.  Like she was going to let that one go.  That smile. That face. Those perfectly moisturised hands.

Dan skulks away, humiliated.

Paddy, on the other hand is non-plussed.

“The next girl I go for is going the be F-I-T-FIT. My Tinder is going to be throbbing.”

And as we leave his Uber driver to deal with Paddy’s throbbing Tinder, I leave  you with this pic of Taite.

And you can thank me later.