Jo Thornely recaps The Bachelor episode 8

SPARE a moment of sympathy for Bachelor, Richie Strahan. Yes, he’s living extravagantly, and yes, he has a dozen women fawning over him, but he’s still not satisfied.

ROSES are red,

I can’t make that clearer;

And yoga’s relaxing

Unless your name’s Keira.

After last night’s bacchanalian hellmouth, morning sees the girls being nice to each other’s faces but mildly sour behind their backs, a combination that forms the bedrock of all good reality shows.

“Reality”

Knowing that a single date with an intruder would mean an unhinged bloodbath, Osher coughs up two single dates with old girls, Olena and Keira, and a group date. The fact that it’s Olena’s second date hits Alex for six, and she says “Ooh, what is that feeling, is it jealousy?”.

Alex, have you even met Alex? Dude, yes, it’s jealousy.

The mysterious Olena, in mysterious jeans and mysterious blouse, is picked up in a tiny private jet for what Richie describes as “gosh, the finer things in life, my goodness”.

Like flying hand-in-hand in a plane the size of a coffin.

Richie says he wants to find out a lot more about the mysterious and exotic Olena, and she says he can ask her anything. Favourite footy team perhaps, what sauce she likes on her bacon and egg rolls in the morning, if she’s a scruncher or a folder, for example.

But no, this is The Bachelor, so he asks her what she’s looking for in a relationship. “I don’t like to talk about relationships” she responds, so the couple sit in silence for half an hour with their hands by their sides.

“I know she likes me”, Richie says. “And I like her. But bloody hell I’m working hard for it”. He just got a private jet for free and there’s eleven girls whose sole aim is to spend time with him.

As his usual one-two-punch of telling people they’re gorgeous and saying “ha” doesn’t seem to be working, he reverts instead to putting a flower behind her ear and showing off his knowledge of geography.

“You look very like, aloha”, he says. “Like, very ... Hawaii-ish”.

It’s the sixty-first state of America, y’know.

I’m not sure if Richie and Olena really “open up to each other”, but they definitely “feed a sheep”.

That’s right, get the teat right in there.

When they inevitably kiss during their inevitable picnic later, we have to admit they’re astronomically cute together, dammit. Go on, son. Give her a rose.

The next day is group date day, and we don’t know what we’re doing, but we do turn up at a marina dressed as the cast of The Craft.

Caption: Light as a feather, stiff as an outboard.

Richie and Osher pick the girls up in a fishing boat, because hot DAMN are we obsessed with the ‘journey’ metaphor on this show. They head to the fish market to prepare Richie a meal, because sure, they’ve proved they can be good mothers, but what happens if Richie gets hungry? One must get in the kitchen and make him a filet o’ fish, mustn’t one.

Correct, this does stink.

The fish market isn’t everybody’s cup of tuna. “There’s a lot of eyeballs around”, complains Rachael. “I don’t like eyeballs”. A little more enthusiastic is Alex, who takes the opportunity to remind Richie “how good my lips can be”, or rather remind him from this point onwards that her lips have been on a fish’s mouth.

Yeah, didn’t really think this one through.

There’s a sizzle of competition once they hit the kitchen, competing in pairs to cook a seafood meal in order to win the ultimate prize: a seafood meal cooked by someone else. It’s all a bit suggestive, as Kiki asks Richie to taste her dressing, newbie Sarah exclaims that she’s never fondled a fish so much, and Noni nabs Alex’s egg.

Don’t take anything that Alex thinks is hers, like Richie.

Richie tastes each dish, declares each dish to be “tasty”, and tries to hide his disappointment that nobody chose to cook cool bananas.

Rachael and Noni win some Richie Time almost ten metres away at a seafood restaurant, and there’s a tiny bit of vinegar in the meal as the two try to bait each other, guessing that gently manufactured conflict is probably what this show has really been missing. By the time Noni spits out her oyster, we realise it’s probably time to pull up anchor.

Ew, metaphors.

FINALLY it’s the date with no likelihood of chemistry that we’ve been waiting for, as Richie picks up Keira in convertible transportation to find out if she’s one person in front of the girls and a different person in front of him. No, honey. She’s a glorious bitch goddess in front of everyone.

“I want to get to know him better alone, without these bitches” she says, cementing her position as the president of the fan club we’re all members of.

Richie has planned a date especially for Keira — a yoga session, obviously. If there’s one thing that springs to mind where Keira is concerned, it’s kicking yourself right in the asanas.

This position’s called ‘The Fish Market’

Happily there’s no relaxing at stake whatsoever, as Keira takes charge and basically tells Richie his yoga poses are garbage. She remains supremely confident that she’ll be getting a rose, a plan with zero drawbacks.

The ladies back at the Womansion are quite relaxed in Keira’s absence, Kiki exhaling as she describes Keira as an asshole, and Noni meditating as she says she wouldn’t want to kiss Richie after Keira has.

And this one’s called ‘Peasant Pose’.

Meanwhile on the yoga retreat couch, Richie does what everyone does when they’ve just reached a perfect state of spiritual Zen, and dumps Keira. Black armbands are distributed to all Australians to commemorate the death of interesting.

Here, make sure you engage your core while I’m getting rid of you.

Look, even a brick buried six feet underground knows that these two were never going to get together, but losing Keira is a devastating blow for storyline, for unadulterated sass, and for constantly licking your own teeth.

Bye, Keira. We’ll miss the way you say “I was too good for this situation, I do not give a f**k about those bitches” as you drive into the distance.

When the girls hear of Keira’s departure at the cocktail party, they do the Three Os All In A Row:

One was a Q, but its tail fell off in shock.

As soon as the last gasp has finished echoing, everyone takes the opportunity to bitch about her behind her back. Then, as soon as the last knife scrapes bone, there’s a new scandalous distraction when Richie takes Nikki to a couch that has NEVER BEEN SAT ON BEFORE.

He tells her he still feels strongly towards her and kisses her. Like, at LEAST as strongly as all the other girls he has strong feelings for and kisses.

In the Rosatorium, Osher, reassuring in an origami battleship suit, announces that there will be no rose ceremony tonight. It’s like he knows that after Keira, everything is an anticlimax.

“Anticlimax”

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. Follow her @JoThornely or check out her Bachelor podcast.