Jo Thornely recaps The Bachelor episode two

IT’S only the second episode, but that doesn’t stop The Bachelor from giving three girls the boot, right after a strangly sexual Woman’s Day-style photoshoot. Oh and SANDRA.

The real hero is nipples.

It’s Episode two of The Bachelor, in which Sam floats Sarah’s boat, handles Heather’s croquet mallet, and shapes Emily’s ceramic ridge. I presume you’re as turned on as I am.

Firstly, let’s get some housekeeping out of the way with the nipple count. Thanks to dates with a winged keel and a pottery wheel, Sam got his shirt off twice, which brings our total to 10.

We’re on track for a fleshy pink century.

This is the only reality TV competition where nobody openly admits it’s a competition. Because it’s about LOVE, you see.

And photo shoots.

And Jasmin being jealous of everyone and everything.

Get used to this face.

And Madeleine not knowing what words mean.

AND SANDRA! SHOUTING, SHOUTING, CONSTANTLY SHOUTING!

I’M EVEN FUN AT FUNERALS, WOOOOO!

But y’know. It’s mostly about love.

Osher, casual in a cement and plywood outfit, brings the girls a card announcing a one-on-one date. Sarah’s the lucky girl, which Jasmin thinks “isn’t fair to the rest of us girls”, as she has never seen this show before.

Sam and Sarah sail off on a yacht as the remaining girls watch from the balcony. Madeleine commentates, saying “I saw the boat... what do they do, swim off? Or chug off? I’m not sure what boats do”.

The intricacies of seafaring terminology are escape me.

Binoculars reveal some hand-holding, which Laura, for whom mentioning anal glands on a first date is totally fine, thinks is too soon.

For all the build-up, the date proves to be largely uninteresting. Sam talks like he’s trying to chew a plank, while Sarah says “wow” a lot and finds the perfect positions for her legs and hair. The only blip on the tedium radar is when she mentions she’s here because she had a dream. “Bit of a Martin Luther King moment”, Sam says, because obviously MLK also liked to get out to the Mornington Peninsula on weekends. Anyway, civil rights leaders don’t get roses and Sarah does, so who’s the real hero?

The real hero is nipples.

Back at the house, another card appears that simply says ‘Reach for the stars’. These just get weirder and more cryptic, huh. Soon it’ll just be a seagull flying out of the envelope shouting “MAGNETS!”

As has been traditional since the early 1800s, the group date is a movie-themed photo-shoot for Woman’s Day. First up is Snezana and Madeleine as Bond girls, but unfortunately Madeleine doesn’t understand the photographer when he uses the word ‘drape’. Madeleine is a perfect cinnamon roll, too good for this world.

Why does that man’s mechanical eye keep making clicking noises?

Heather, Krystal and Bec are Great Gatsby girls, or rather Heather is a Great Gatsby girl and Krystal and Bec are ‘other’. Seething on the sidelines, Jasmin calls it “the Heather show”, and previously-demure Emily adds “She obviously likes the limelight”. Very well pointed out on television by somebody who has chosen to be on television, thank you.

Look, all you need to know about the Gatsby shoot is this:

And not a gland in sight.

Jasmin, Jacinda, Tessa, Reshael and SANDRA! are in Dirty Dancing, or as Tessa calls it “a Woman’s Day murder scene”. Gloriously, Jasmin is given the role of Baby. “You’re lucky”, says Reshael. “You just get to hold your watermelon”.

Lucky.

SANDRA! is irritated because “I’M TRYING TO FIND OUT WHO SAM IS AND IT’S SO HARD WHEN THERE’S ALL THESE GIRLS YELLING AROUND YOU”. Sweetie, that’s just the echo. You’re the equivalent of a budgie pecking at its own reflection.

Last of all, Emily and Sam’s shoot recreates the pottery scene from Ghost. “I’m very old fashioned in relationships,” purrs Emily. “I won’t even kiss a guy until we’ve thrown a pot in our underwear”.

Admittedly it’s pretty hot. I mean, ceramics lying around, the whirr of the wheel, all that squelching.

Plus if they have a cigarette afterwards, boom, ready-made ashtray.

Finally we get to the cocktail party, where we get to keep bitching about each other but in far more expensive clothes.

Emily, who can’t understand how anybody who isn’t her ever gets a date, is “confused by the whole Heather/Sam scenario”.

It’s pretty simple: drink beer, hardly wear pants.

Overcome by insecurity, the endearing Jacinda lets loose the first SCT, or Solitary Crystalline Tear, of the series.

That’s skill, that is.

“Not many men can handle tears”, she sobs. Wait until you tell ‘em about periods, doll. Sam barely has time to comfort her before he’s ready to smash a mallet into the dreams of the others in the rose ceremony.

Upon hearing the news that three girls will be eliminated tonight, Madeleine is calm, as she has no idea what the word ‘eliminated’ means. Elsewhere, the Pick Me Faces intensify.

This is two seconds before the lasers kick in.

Roses are launched at the victors, and Jasmin’s sphincter relaxes for the first time all day as Tessa, Reshael, and Krystal are given the boot.

While everybody makes confused faces and asks who the hell Krystal is, Heather shouts “Stay gangsta!” after a departing Tessa.

So remember this week’s lesson, ladies. If competing for a husband on national television fails, you can always just stay gangsta.

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

Stay gangsta!