Jo Thornely recaps The Bachelor episode 9

ALEX took creepy to the next level on The Bachelor’s latest episode, touching Richie intimately ... while all the other girls were watching.

ROSES are red;

And rubies, the same,

Are we just cheerleaders,

In Alex’s game?

Let’s begin as we so often do, with Osher pulling a date card from Osher’s Dark Place.

Luckily the roses just come straight from the florist.

The card’s clue mentions “taking it up a gear” which causes Intruder Steph to correctly guess the date is for her, because “whenever I’ve spoken to Richie we talk a lot about engines”.

He might have just said he likes getting piston the weekends, but we’ll give her the benefit of the doubt.

As an aside, Alex-Who-Owns-Richie tells us she can’t imagine Richie and Steph having a future together, having not entertained that possibility in her I Wuv Richie scrapbook that has her own photograph glued next to him on every page.

Fulfilling the overriding transportation theme of the show, Steph travels to the date on a motor cruiser wearing just the lightest film of outdoorsy sports make-up.

Oh my god, it’s like she’s naked.

A distant rumble manifests itself as Richie on a jet ski with the statement: “From the moment I met Steph, it was clear she loves anything with an engine”.

It was a toss-up between a jet ski date or a washing machine date, and I think he made the right choice.

There’s only one word that could possibly force its way out from Steph’s three-hundred grams of lipstick at this point.

“Stoked”, she says.

By law the pair have to sit down on a boat-couch and discuss what they’re looking for in a partner, but soon afterwards they’re whizzing around the water at a cracking pace, grinning at both ends.

They’re happy because neither of them have our view of Richie’s hair.

Night falls extremely suddenly, prompting the pair to immediately approach a fireside floor-couch, illuminated only by four hundred thousand candles.

There was a great special on homewares this week.

Steph’s quite nervous as they chat, telling Richie: “I don’t jump head first into things, especially men”, and he tells her that “when I’m in love, my goodness, I bend over backwards”.

It’s all sounding a bit acrobatic for a simple marshmallow-roasting session, but despite almost two thirds of the room’s contents being on fire, the date is oddly devoid of warmth.

He does give her a rose though, obviously. This is Richie, indiscriminate rose-flinger.

Suddenly we’re back at the Womansion for a group date, which Osher calls the “Bachelor Compatability Test” complete with relationship expert and blindfold.

“I don’t think you can test love”, says Unofficial Commentator Rachael. “Unless we get hooked up with wires, that’s the only way I could see how you could get tested”.

Oh, honey. Your doctor has a rude shock for you.

The first test involves multiple-choice questions about money, pets, and a really hard one about what sound a sheep makes.

They’re looking at the sheep from behind.

A handful of girls are eliminated, with Rachael and Steph being the most similar.

“I just didn’t think Steph and I had that much in common”, says Rachael. “I just thought she was like, the bogan”. Oh, honey.

In the second test, the point of which is written on a tissue in an envelope at the bottom of the sea, each remaining girl gets two minutes to silently touch Richie while the others watch on a monitor, which is surprisingly legal.

Nothing’s fresher than a nice bunch of gropes.

Make no mistake: this is an extremely stupid challenge.

Faith waltzes with Richie.

Steph strokes his chin.

Kiki gets amatory with her mammatory, finding ways to touch Richie with her boobs.

Rachael physically addresses him as she might a wardrobe or a particularly roof tile.

Aaaand then it’s Alex’s turn. From the outset, she looks at Richie in the same way Hannibal Lecter might regard a nice chianti.

She can practically taste his fava beans.

She runs her hands through Richie’s hair. She takes his hand and makes him touch her mouth. She rubs the back of his neck. She kisses him slowly on the cheek. The Bureau Of Meteorology issues a high uncomfortable reading in the Sydney area, or as Noni comments, “It’s like a car crash. It’s horrific, but you can’t look away”.

Alex finishes with an increasingly smug look on her face, while Nikki, watching from the Womansion, maintains the same look on her face for the next hour.

Do they even make Dettol for eyes?

Based on their excellent frottage skills, Faith and Alex participate in the final test, in which Richie must drive a golf buggy around a course blindfolded and reverse park under instruction from Faith and Alex.

Make no mistake: I made a mistake before when I called the previous challenge stupid.

True to form, Alex is totally sure of herself and in control, although she does use hand signals to instruct a blindfolded man and manages to knock over a few traffic cones.

Plus she’s a great respecter of personal space.

“Alex is okay with knocking a few things over to get what she wants”, snipes Kiki, instantly sprinting to the lead in the separate Bachelor Sick Burn Test.

Faith is adorable, warm, communicative and the top three best people in the universe, and wins easily.

As is so often the case with these things, Faith’s Richie-Time prize is some liquid nitrogen ice cream in the back garden. There’s a bit of actually charming fantasy discussion about what their lives would be like together, and the invention of the word “compatombility”.

Their time ends with the universe’s least surprising combination: a couch, some candles, a rose and a pash.

I think the script pages got stuck together.

The cocktail party contains the usual elements: whispering, envy, flimsily-concealed body parts, individual Richie chats, and Alex calmly and generously enjoying the company of the other girls.

I just want to share Richie with you all so much.

As if. Alex gets super-upset about her story that Rachael can’t see the point of Busy Mum Alex being there when Nikki is clearly the obvious pre-chosen winner.

The NERVE of that Rachael, being competitive enough to suggest that one of the other competitors in this competition might win.

“I’m not here to play games” steels Alex, having recently participated in a golf buggy game.

There’s nothing for it but to haul their back gardens into the Rosatorium where Osher, serious in a chiselled sapphire suit, introduces Richie through a sea of close-ups and voice-overs.

“I feel like Alex thinks this is the Alex and Richie show, and we’re just the cheerleaders in the background”, voice-overs Rachael, accurately distilling everybody’s thoughts into a single stellar piece of commentary.

One by one, Richie drives rose-shaped golf buggies into the girls’ hearts until only Noni, Khalia and Sarah remain.

Someone hit Ctrl+V three times on the pissed off emoji.

Minutes pass, and the Brunette Curse claims two more victims, with blonde Squeaky Sarah staying safe.

Bye, Khalia and Noni. We’ll miss your comparatively high levels of melanin.

It’s just a shame that Noni missed out on her chance to make the same bacon pun six to ten more times.

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.