Richie has been in limbo for the past twenty-four hours – just walking up an down the path, aching for a mojito and hoping that none of his exes are on the island.
Pretty dumb, Richie. You are the first ex-Bachelor to appear on BIP, so what are the chances that none of the girls from your series are going to appear?
In short, mate. You’re dreaming.
He stumbles through the bush, drunk on fatigue and nearly dead from dehydration. He think s he’s hallucinating when he hears the words:
“That’s my bachelor!”
He thinks he has heard Rachel, but as his sleep-deprived eyes scan the bar area, he assumes it must be the ghost of girlfriends past. He hasn’t noticed that Rachel has once again attempted the sexy-eye and failed, and she is doubled over on the ground like she has eaten a bit of rogue shellfish and can hardly breathe.
“He’s my bachelor, he’s my bachelor, he’s my bachelor…” Rachel chants.
It’s little concern to Cat who wants him to be her bachelor and we get the feeling Cass wants him to be hers too, but it’s hard for Cass to think and speak at the same time.
Meanwhile, back at his clearing in the jungle, Osher is bored. The Fijian authorities have expressly forbidden his silly games – like trying to capture a greased pig while riding a Segway and dressed as a sexy schoolgirl.
So when Vanessa Sunshine bursts through the doors, Osher can hardly contain himself. He’s found a loophole. While Richie was wandering around on the path for 24 hours, Osher has managed to steal shirts from all the other guys.
“So why are you here, Vanessa Sunshine?” he asks.
“Well clearly because my bachelor was shit,” replies Vanessa. And that’s what I love about her. She tells it how it is with absolutely no emotion on her face.
“Well I’m sending you on a date,” effuses Osher. “All you need to do is smell each of these shirts. The pheromones will decide your fate…I mean date.”
Vanessa Sunshine could be wanting to vomit at the thought of this, like any other woman, but her face gives away nothing.
“Hand me the shirts,” she says, and sniffs them one-by-one, before settling on the sweat infused floral number last worn by Nathan.
Down at the beach, Nathan cuts a sad figure. Not only has some bastard stolen his favourite shirt, but he’s been dragged away from the bar leaving Rachel back there with Richie.
Worse, he is being forced to give Vanessa a massage. He’s never given a girl a massage before. He is only 23, after all. He knows it’s supposed to be sexy, so he pours a gallon of oil on her back, opens his shirt and rubs his nipples up and down her spine.
Vanessa reacts as Vanessa does every-single-time. With disdain.
Back at base camp, Brittney is out of control. If someone is spiking her drinks, they need to stop; if no-one is spiking her drink, then someone needs to chuck her a Valium. She’s finally managed to get a conga line going, but this gives Cat a chance to secret Richie away.
Richie feels no connection to Cat; Cat thinks the conversation is going really well. Don’t you love how drama starts?
All of a sudden birds start dropping out of the sky and landing dead at Cat and Richie’s feet. They feel an imposing sense of doom.
Cue the arrival of Alex Nation.
Cat notices the blood rush from Richie’s face.
“Have another suck of your bev,” she offers as comfort. (Bev = beverage = beer)
Alex Nation’s arrival has quite the impact. Brooke was in love with American Alex yesterday, but now she’s in love with Alex Nation. James was in love with Shannon yesterday, but now he’s in love with Alex Nation. Alex Nation is keen for whatever, but she needs to talk with Richie first.
She needs to gird her loins. Always the gentleman, James suggests she skols her mojito and then offers her his. Primed, she asks Richie aside for a chat.
And so begins the longest unedited scene in Bachelor history. Also the most boring. It’s nine minutes of my life that I will never get back again.
Let ME edit for you.
ALEX: I didn’t text you.
RICHIE: Yes you did.
ALEX: So you’re saying it’s my fault.
RICHIE: You changed the goalposts.
ALEX: You didn’t come to Melbourne enough.
RICHIE: I came to Melbourne like fifteen times. But there were always goalposts, goalposts, goalposts…You wanted to follow your ‘AFL’ career.
ALEX: I don’t have an AFL career.
RICHIE: Exactly. But don’t you understand that by ‘AFL career’ I am speaking metaphorically about your lesbian relationship that was in New Idea and Woman’s Day, but I don’t want to say that you had a lesbian relationship because that would be airing our grubby little secrets and Australia isn’t ready for our grubby little secrets?
ALEX: Oh..OK..no hard feelings then. Have fun on the island.
RICHIE: You too.
Yep. Excruciating. The only thing I can be thankful for is that they decided to let this scene go unedited and not this one from their season of The Bachelor:
It was only nine unedited minutes, but while that happened the sun has set. Brooke is cosying up to American Alex and she makes the mistake of asking him about his spirit animal:
“You’re a coyote…no..no..a WOLF…no a DRAGON!” guesses Brooke.
“No, I’m a badger,” he says, but before he can explain why he’s a badger, Brooke has gone off to fall in love with Alex Nation.
Rachel, meanwhile, is trying to get an answer out of Richie as to why he let her go.
“Sometimes, you know, there’s a fork in the road, but you’re still on the road, you know..” replies Richie.
What I do know is that Robert Frost just did a somersault in his grave.
Before Rachel can even process Richie’s metaphor, another random American has parachuted into the jungle. His name is Connor. Shannon instantly falls in love with him and then someone notices that Nathan is missing.
“Oi! Any of you geezers seen my mate Nafan in the last like seven hours?” asks Paddy.
Just then Nathan and Vanessa Sunshine emerge from the jungle. Suddenly Vanessa is pounced upon enthusiastically by women who couldn’t stand to be anywhere near her when they were in the mansion together. For her part, Vanessa Sunshine is so pleased to be away from Nathan that she cracks a few smiles and almost looks happy…until she sees the men-folk on offer. None of these will do.
Nothing interesting happens for the rest of the evening or most of the next day. Alisha takes Paddy on an impromptu date. It’s a romantic one though. Paddy knows it’s romantic, because there is cheese:
“Like Blue Castello and all…” Paddy observes, before straddling Alisha on a daybed.
Finally it is cocktail party and rose time. Osher has appeared briefly to explain that the men have the power and that two of the women are going home.
Again, incongruously, for a group of people who do nothing but drink cocktails, there is a cocktail party. But we all know these are about FRICTION.
Nathan has heard things. This is Nathan’s special gift. He hears producer people. He has a feeling Rachel carries a torch for Richie. He takes Rachel aside. She asks him how old he is and he admits to 23.
“So when do you plan to settle down and have kids?” she asks.
“Um…well it could happen any minute…” he jabbers. “Who are you anyway? Like my Mum or something? I don’t like you anymore…you…you…you…POOFACE!”
(OK. So I have paraphrased a bit)
Meanwhile, Rich has gone for a chat with Cass. This is man who is clearly trying to avoid deep an meaningful conversation.
Finally, it’s the Rose Ceremony.
Connor picks Shannon
American Alex picks Brooke
James picks Alex Nation
Paddy picks Alisha
All predictable so far, but Cat’s not worried because Richie’s going to pick her. Rachel’s not worried because Richie’s going to pick her, and if he doesn’t, Nathan will pick her. Brittney is worried because she has no connections with anyone except the bartender. Vanessa Sunshine couldn’t give a fuck.
Richie picks Alex.
Rachel faints for a minute, but that’s OK, because she has Nathan.
Nathan picks Brittney. Na-na-na-na-nah.
Brittney launches herself at Nathan like that thing that comes out of John Hurt’s stomach in Alien and starts to suck his face off. But as Rachel stands there like a stunned mullet, it is Cat who loses the plot.
She runs into the jungle, a horde of producers in chase.
And Vanessa Sunshine? She doesn’t give a shit.
Until tomorrow….
friday night with kath 