Jo Thornely recaps the First Dates Australia finale
AFTER this joke you’ll never want to eat lychees again. And it’s safe to say this first date didn’t end well. Jo Thornely reports.
IT’S the series finale of First Dates! Can you believe we’ve sat through 40 dates, mostly with strippers?
Where are we going for our gratuitous steak imagery now?
Who are we mashing together for the last hurrah?
THE DANCER AND THE SAILOR
When we first meet Kelsey, it looks like she’s going to be all about the dancing.
It turns out, though, that she’s actually all about the navy. Her dad’s in the navy. Her ex-boyfriend is in the navy. Her date Daniel is in the navy.
It’s all going swimmingly — they’re rapping about the military life, they both have nose piercings, they’re looking at each other like this:
But things seem to turn. Sure, Daniel comparing Kelsey to Anne Hathaway is cute, but specifically comparing her to Anne Hathaway in Les Miserables, the film in which she plays a dying prostitute, is risky.
The kicker seems to come when Kelsey, who Daniel had previously considered an ideal navy girlfriend, reveals that she and her last beau broke up because he cheated on her twice.
In one face, Daniel realises that if he cheats on Kelsey, her dad could probably have him court martialled.
Having essentially signalled his intention to cheat on national television, a second date doesn’t eventuate.
THE KEEPERS AT THE GATES OF THE FRIENDZONE
Jessica and Chris have two main things in common: they’re both often relegated to the friendzone in relationships, and they both love food. Basically, their date can be summed up in three pictures:
Chris wants his grandmother to see him married before she dies, which is just about the sexiest thing anyone can say at the beginning of a date.
Jessica wants a confident man she doesn’t have to babysit, because she says she has a dog for that. Hot tip: do NOT hire Jessica for babysitting unless your child particularly likes eating from a bowl on the floor and belly-rubs.
Look, these guys are fine, and they order pretty much everything on the menu which definitely gets kudos props from me, but there’s no spark. There’s a crapload of gravy, but no spark. The friendzoned friendzone each other.
Where, oh where will we find a spark tonight?
THE RUGBY STRIPPER AND THE LADY WHO LAUGHS HIM
Singer Ally tells us that music makes her happy, although I find it hard to believe that she’s ever actually unhappy.
As soon as rugby player and part-time stripper Josh sees Ally from the bar, he beams with delight.
It’s less of a spark than a 10-kiloton pheromone explosion.
I mean look, I’m no body language expert, but if you slow the footage right down, you can see a couple of hidden hints that Ally enjoys Josh’s company.
For example, when he takes his jacket off ...
When he tells her he’s a stripper on the weekends ...
When he says he’s wearing underpants ...
And when she tells her friend about him in the toilets.
It’s a little bit delightful, and the pair revel in each others’ openness and honesty. Then, right when we’re thinking that there might not be much thinking going on, Ally drops one of the best things I’ve heard anyone say on this show.
“If you like someone, and they like you, that’s all that needs to happen. You don’t need to play hard to get, or any of that. It’s really simple. I don’t understand why people don’t understand that”.
PREACH, SISTER.
Thank you, Ally. I really didn’t think I’d be inspired and educated today by someone whose main currency is giggling. As a reward, you may kiss Josh on the lips.
THE MAGICIAN AND THE ONE GIRL IN AUSTRALIA WHO’S INTO MAGICIANS
Sometimes, what’s written on the label isn’t always in the jar. When people describe themselves as quirky, they may not always actually be quirky.
Insurance consultant Shaz is giving it a red hot go though, in her semi-tutu, zany manicure and wacky habit of keeping tomato sauce and underpants in her handbag. There’s a chance that when she describes herself as quirky, she means it.
Michael describes himself as a magician, and unfortunately he also means it.
Shaz is looking for someone who can ‘out-Shaz Shaz’, and if by that she means someone who mentions magic at every opportunity, boy is she in luck. As a bonus, she gets a guy who hasn’t updated his verbal descriptors since the late nineties.
“I’m pretty chilled out, so I think we’ll have a wicked time,” he tells Shaz to relax her.
Michael means ‘chilled out’ in the sense that he spends half an hour before a date decking himself out with magic tricks. ‘Chilled out’ in that calming, likes-working-with-animals, my-numberplate-says-‘MAGICAL’ kind of way. ‘Chilled out’ in the same way that all guys who set fire to paper flowers at the table are.
Happily Shaz is that girl you heard about who finds magicians attractive, and even more happily Michael is looking for a new magician’s assistant. It’s a match made in heaven, particularly as she’s already wearing the dress.
That’s another magician off the market, ladies. Try to control your dismay.
And finally:
THE REASON YOU MAY NEVER EAT LYCHEES AGAIN
Colin and Stephanie assure us separately to camera that they’re funny.
Colin and Stephanie are mistaken.
Sure, Colin seems like a nice guy, but his idea of comedic foreplay is a joke about an accountant using their personality as contraception. Stephanie also seems like a nice person, but thinks that if you’re going to send her a picture of your penis, you should put a hat or a face on it.
Y’know. “Funny”.
Once Colin’s mention of golf fails to impress the thrillseeking Steph, he asks if she has any jokes to tell. She warns him that all of her jokes are vagina jokes. Y’know:
So here, ladies and gentlemen, for your enjoyment, is Stephanie’s unedited vagina joke:
“If you judge a book by its cover, you’d probably miss out on a lot of things in life. And one of those things could be a vagina, really. Because if you looked at it, you probably wouldn’t go near it. It’s not that great. It’s kind of like a lychee, really. But when you get into it, it’s actually pretty good, isn’t it?”
I think we’ll leave it up to the maitre d’ and barman to react to that for us.
The barman’s revenge is to deliver two complimentary lychee martinis to the table, which is obviously the best thing to have ever happened. Until Steph says “watch this”, and eats the vagina the barman gave her.
Alas, there will be no second date, as Steph is looking for someone a bit more adventurous. Presumably someone with a hat on their penis, who can competently compare genitalia to fruit.
There.
That needs to be the last sentence I write about this show.
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
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