‘BACHIE’ RECAP: Introducing Home And Away’s Newest Character, Sad Carlin

JOSIE: That poor sad little poodle really tried, but this is when you need to bring, like, a small adorable puppy. NO ONE CAN SAY NO TO A SMALL ADORABLE PUPPY.

MEL: Anyway, Angie went straight in with the “WTF mate” convo, and now that I know Ryan’s a liar all I can think is LIAAAAR every time he speaks! He looks so snakey now, I can’t get over it. I feel like Angie can’t either, although they smoothed things out enough to go meet his family – including his brother who was so similar-looking to Ryan you thought it might be his twin.

JOSIE: Yeah he explained it away with a woe-is-me story about not being happy in his life and claimed he didn’t know it was Ali when the casting people approached him. BUT in last night’s episode he said “Well Ali seemed like a nice girl, so…” SO WHAT IS IT RYAN? Did you know it was her or not? I feel we’ll never know.I was really thrown by the two completely bald brothers and the two quite follicularly blessed brothers in one family. But upon further inspection I feel maybe they’ll go for the cue ball look later in life, too.

Anyway the whole lying thing came out at the family dinner and Angie said she feels like she will be able to trust Ryan in the future. But as you pointed out she looked like she’d sniffed poo during their goodbyes, so I reckon he’s stuffed his chances of winning.

MEL: I just need everyone reading this to know that Josie spent a strong 3-5 minutes analysing the four brothers and trying to work out why two still had their hair and two were bald. It was a beautiful thing to watch. Yeah I just feel like she’s shut Ryan down now. I don’t think she was ever SUPER into him, and the lying just killed any part of her that was mildly keen.

JOSIE: And the sad poodle didn’t help, either. Next up it was an excursion to the HQ of renowned pie manufacturers, Garlo’s Pies. Jackson must be loaded because aside from Mrs Mac’s, Garlo’s are the market leaders in pie making.

MEL: I feel like our jaws were on the fucking FLOOR when it was revealed that Jackson’s family casually owned the biggest (maybe) pie company in Australia. We were like GET THAT PAPER, ANGIE! It was extremely cute how Jackson made her a vegan/gluten free pie to make up for his murderous one from the first episode, but overall their hometown fell flat. Mainly because Jackson’s dad thinks Bachelorette Angie’s a freeloader!

JOSIE: Jackson’s dad, who we named Peter because we forgot to pay attention and decided he looked and seemed like a Peter, was so intense about all the things Jackson does for the family business and how he needs a woman of a similar calibre. Like mate, for starters you’re grinding up animal parts and putting them in pastry, you’re hardly spearheading a world-leading cancer-curing laboratory and also, you’re not a bloody billionaire. Calm down.

MEL: Also, while I agree that Angie hasn’t exactly been toiling away doing 16 hour days to make a career for herself, it’s also not like she hasn’t leveraged her talents to get to a pretty sweet position in life. Anyway, it was clear that if she ended up with Jackson, his parents would be a bit of a punish given her reality TV past. Then she went over to Carlin’s place – hot damn, had we been waiting for this or what.

JOSIE: So excited for some tears, because we’re psychopaths! It all started well, Carlin’s brother, sister-in-law and niece were all SO bloody cute. But then Carlin’s bro put his foot in it majorly while talking to Angie outside by basically repeating everything Unhinged Jamie had said about Carlin pursuing an acting career outside The Bachelorette, but in a very calm and not unhinged way.

And it really threw Angie, because you hear the word acting and you start thinking “has all this been an act”, “is he just in this to score a recurring role on Home and Away” etc. So she confronted him outside and it was deeply, deeply uncomfortable.

MEL: Either Carlin was deeply troubled by Angie’s assumption that he was in this for fame, or he is going to be Home & Away’s next best recruit because I was fully invested in his emotional begging, to be honest. I think this revelation was the last straw for Angie in terms of her keeping it together – after a big back-and-forth, she stormed off crying and saying she wanted to go home. I think it’s easy to forget she’s probably got feelings for some of these Bachelorette boys and when they drop big clangers it probably feels a bit humiliating given it’s TV.

JOSIE: Plus Carlin made that very excellent point that she has been on two reality TV shows and he hasn’t once questioned her integrity. But then he also ruined that great point by saying things like “If you can’t see me, the real me, after all we’ve built then we’re done”. That line teamed with him standing half-obscured in darkness against a Colorbond fence in suburbia really lent some Summer Bay vibes to the whole situation.

Anyway they both cried which was a terrible ending to a date. Literally the last thing you want to happen at the end of the date is for you to both weep, unless you’re at a sad movie. Needless to say Carlin was ready to be booted out at the rose ceremony.

JOSIE: Everyone looked uncomfortable with how their dates had gone, while you could tell Timm was just questioning his choice of facial hair. She picked Ryan first, which wasn’t a surprise considering his date had maaaybe gone the best? By a nose?

MEL: Bizarrely, yes. Who knew Voldemort would end up having the best hometown! Then Timm, of course, which left Jackson and Carlin. It did not surprise either of us that Carlin made it through, leaving Mr Garlos Pies heading home to his pie fortune. Just going to ease his broken heart by rolling around in pie meat and cash, I imagine.

JOSIE: Bring on the final Bachelorette week and Ciarran’s shock return! (PLEASE.)