Jo Thornely recaps The Bachelor episode 10
THERE are some words you just never expect to say. But as we all know, the Bachelor does strange things to people.
Welcome to Episode 10 of The Bachelor, with sightless flirts, dirt desserts, and a bunch of skirts. Can you feel the tension? Mmm, sexy, sexy tension.
Everyone sits in the Womansion pretending not to hate the new girls, when Osher arrives with TWO envelopes. Ebru, ever the facially-expressive bridesmaid who says ‘literally’ a lot, crosses her fingers anxiously.
The first is a single date for Heather, who is absolutely delighted.
Ebru, it’s fair to say, is less delighted.
The second envelope contains a group date, and the girls wait until Osher has finished babbling about the anthropology of attraction before whizzing off to a hotel with Sam. They don’t know what they’re doing there, but like most of the dates so far, they know they have to be blind to get through it.
In order to get to know each other non-visually, the group has a dinner party in a pitch-black room via the magic of night-vision cameras and plastic wine glasses.
Going around the inky black table, Snezana and Nina have a great time, and may be the most adorable couple ever to come out of The Bachelor.
Ebru has her pants soaked with spilt wine, and reacts both facially and verbally like she’s just had a sandwich at Katz’s Deli.
Rachel doesn’t like to speak or be spoken to, so takes advantage of the cover of darkness to do some food blogging.
While Lana lays some excellent romantic groundwork directly into Sam’s eager mouth.
Without him even being visually influenced by her impossible curtain of cascading curls, Sam rewards Lana with some time in a comparatively well-lit room. The sparks are also clearly visible as they gaze into each other’s eyes and murmur the word “chemistry” back and forth, and she’s all like “would you say hello to me at a party” and he’s all like “Shyeah”.
It really gets on Ebru’s nerves.
The next day, chipping away at my determination not to be impressed by him, Sam picks Heather up for their date in a Mr Whippy van.
It’s even better if you imagine a bunch of puffed out, disappointed children running behind it. It’s a bit nice, and even a blindfolded food blogger could probably see how relaxed and happy they are together.
Arriving at a garden, we’re reminded how much producers on this show really love wrapping crap with flowers.
There’s a table covered with all sorts of glorious edible cutesy flowers and animals, tailor-made for anyone who’s ever wanted to eat their way through a children’s book.
As Heather points out, there’s even twelve different kinds of edible dirt. “Twelve different kinds of dirt is my favourite!” she squeals, and dammit if I don’t like her as well now.
They rush headlong into a mutual sugar-high, each displaying their culinary rapture in their own unique way.
Meanwhile, discussion at the Womansion centres on how the intruders are settling in. Everyone agrees that there’s a spark between Lana and Sam, and that Rachel is as warm as a penguin’s bum-feathers.
Rachel herself seems to agree. “To be honest I’m not really too concerned about the other girls”, she says. “If I wanted to make friends I would have joined my local touch football team.” As a side note, Rachel’s new album Weirdly Specific Analogies is available now on iTunes.
Back on Sam and Heather’s date, the couple has moved to a couch, presumably to commemorate the 100th appearance of a couch in this series. I begrudgingly admit that these two are adorable together, and Heather agrees. “This is the first time any man has made me feel like I’m worth a lot of effort”, she says. It’s true, three producers, a set-dresser, a dessert chef and a work experience guy worked their guts out for this date.
Heather suggests to us that she might be falling in love, and gets a rose and a pash.
The cocktail party starts awkwardly, with the schism between old and new girls prickly and apparent. There’s a lot of “well this is nice” and “my, did you see the stock market today”, interspersed with faces like this:
Just as Heather is describing her kiss with Sam in excruciating detail, he walks into the room and overhears, but she’s cool. She’s fine. She’s not embarrassed.
Rachel barely has time to let us know that if you cross her she will cut you before the rose ceremony is in full swing. I have to tell you, and I know a lot of people will disagree, but I think rose ceremonies are actually making me sick of boobs.
I deeply miss Emily’s Pick Me Face, but Nina has come to the rescue with Semi-Constant Lip-Licking Face.
While Sam catapults roses at the successful bachelorettes to an increasingly dramatic soundtrack, Ebru’s voice over reminds us how LITERALLY shocked she’ll be if a new girl leaves before an intruder.
It comes down to Ebru and Rachel, a time-honoured battle between the Ottoman Empire and the Arctic Circle.
Then, in no way predicted by the surfeit of voice-overs by Ebru this episode claiming that she would be shocked to be eliminated, Ebru is eliminated. She is shocked.
Bye, Ebs. We will LITERALLY miss your facial expressions and repeating your name quietly to ourselves every time we hear it.
Jo Thornely doesn’t get enough attention at her day job, so she writes for various outlets, takes up way too much bandwidth on the internet, and loves it when you explain her jokes back to her on Twitter. Jo will be faithfully recapping The Bachelor for news.com.au. Follow her on Twitter @JoThornely
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