Jo Thornely recaps The Bachelor episode 12

BELIEVE it or not, there is tension in the Bachelor mansion. Yep. It turns out some of the women aren’t fans of each other.

WELCOME to episode 12 of The Bachelor, with clay flinging, loud singing, and mud slinging. Top up your drink and find a fancy couch somewhere near the middle.

We start with Sam kayaking across the bay, which serves as a metaphor for later events.

Just kidding, this has nothing to do with anything.

The Contractual Obligation Nissans take our bachelorettes to an art studio, because as Sam says, “I love going on dates where I’m swept up by art and culture”. While this would usually mean reading the comics in the paper, today they’ll be sculpting and drawing, with Sam as the model.

Hey look, this is already a sculpture of Sam’s conversational range.

The level of talent in the studio varies, but hovers somewhere between Second Grade Remedial Art and I Painted This With My Toes. With a private chat with Sam as the dangled carrot prize, the girls decide that further incentive for success is found under his shirt.

The true winner is the nipple count.

While Sam reclines on a chaise, the girls pair up to knead his earthen sausages into acceptable shapes, followed by an individual drawing exercise. Sarah claims that she knows her way around a doodle, Snezana is more into murals of Aphrodite, Rachel moans about the oppressive tyranny of being stuck on the side of the drawing studio with a bad view, and Heather claims that she’s been hit with a creative beast.

Although it kind of looks like she sat on it.

Look, let’s not sugar-coat it. These things are unbelievably terrible.

Either terrible, or Sam has broken his leg in three places.

Nope, right the first time. These are terrible.

Afterwards, everyone gathers for an exhibition of the works, and I think we can all agree that by far the best thing to come out of this exercise, or indeed the series as a whole, is this thing:

This grotesque, life-changing, H.R. Pufnstuf thing.

I will never be able to look at Sam again without seeing this sculpture. It has etched its way into my psyche and my heart. And. Y’know. My nightmares.

A bit of housekeeping, though, as we welcome back the nipple count with open arms and areola.

Let’s see, Sam modelled twice, there were three sculptures and six drawings, carry the one ... that’s TWENTY TWO NEW NIPPLE SIGHTINGS, PEOPLE.

What a satisfying surge.

Everyone has a drink, Snezana’s winning drawing is announced, everyone has a drink, Rachel drinks her way through a disastrously tedious conversation with Sam, everyone has a drink, and drinks are served.

Tell me more about Tashm ... Tismonia ... The Apple Isle.

Despite Rachel’s adamant written drawing disclaimer:

What do we want? THE MIDDLE SPOT. When do we want it? THEN.

Snezana’s sketch wins the private chat with Sam.

The underpants really follow you around the room.

The chat happens in the ‘French Renaissance’, or ‘upstairs’.

This is ‘Super Fancy Couch’ by Monet.

They talk about big issues like moving interstate, intruder jealousy, and being really drunk.

Hey, you got a perdy mouth.

Rachel barely has time to remind us all that she was on the SIDE, not in the MIDDLE, when we’re back at the Womansion again with Osher sending Sarah on a single date.

OMG I can’t believe it!

Believe it. Heather is still wearing this.

Sam and Sarah head out in the rain, causing Sarah to reference The Notebook.

Sam gives her some diamonds to wear and takes her to the opera. Weirdly at this point Sarah doesn’t reference Pretty Woman, a film about a prostitute that this is much more like.

It was so good she nearly peed her pants.

It’s odd that an operatic aria, a view of Sydney Harbour, a conversation about living arrangements, a couch and Australia’s entire yearly output of candles can’t be more interesting, but Sam’s dates with Sarah seem to be a fairly regular snooze.

Until Sarah gets a rose and we get an embarrassing close-up of a pash that sounds like two wet steaks falling off a tray.

Admittedly this is quite interesting.

We plonk ourselves suddenly into the world’s tensest cocktail party. Lana resents the effusive reaction that the girls give Sarah when she returns from her date.

It’s like a Rwandan seeing a ginger for the first time.

She compares it to the reaction she got when she returned from her date.

This, but with prettier hair.

Rachel and Nina take a distinct dislike to each other, Nina saying she wouldn’t pick Rachel out of a catalogue of friends, and Rachel basically fat-shaming Nina for her enjoyment of bad food and distaste for treadmills, two of the finest qualities a human can possess. Neither thinks Sam could possibly like the other.

Look, I’ll put this delicately, but these two girls are hardly the top contenders for Sam’s affections.

It’s like watching two seals fight over a photograph of a fish.

Either way, it makes for some awkward gaps in the conversation.

So yeeeahhh, how’s that local touch football team.

Yup. Yup. Good season. Chance at the grand final.

HAHAHAHA I AM HAVING A GREAT TIME.

Unimpressed, Rachel has another gettin’-to-know-you chat with Sam, which she listens to with

traditional vigour.

So like, what are you looking for in a drink?

Finally it’s time for the Rose Ceremony and while the atmosphere is still tense, Sam looks a lot more relaxed than he did the night before.

GOOD EVENING LADIES.

Roses are flung at the four original girls, until it comes down to intruders Lana and Rachel.

If you’re thinkin’ about Sam’s lady it does matter if you’re black or white.

The original girls hint that perhaps they’d like Rachel to go home, using subtle phrases like “not a nice girl”, and “Sam would basically have to have a lobotomy to keep Rachel around”, and that high-pitched music bit from Kill Bill.

In a move that plankton in the Mariana Trench see coming, Rachel is eliminated.

Bye, Rachel. Now you can finally achieve your dream of not being where people are.

It’s because I was on the side, isn’t 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