‘BACHIE’ RECAP: Former Pushover Elly Is Now In Full Year 9 Bitch Mode

The Bachelor Recap
Contributor: Josephine Rozenberg-Clarke, Melissa Mason

The Bachelor Australia is at that boring point toward the end but not near enough the end to be exciting, edge-of-your-seat stuff. However, it is reaching that stage where the contestants start to really get invested in the Bachie and we see some true colours coming out.

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While we’ve seen Abbie‘s true colours for some time now, tonight it was Elly‘s turn to show the fuck UP. As always, my trusty colleague Mel is my recapping sidekick as we wade our way through this fascinating character study.

MEL: So we started this episode with Matt driving through the countryside, which always baffles me – why are we always so close to countryside when the mansion is clearly in Sydney? Sure, I can believe Matt going for a short 2 hour drive out to Goulburn – what amused me to no end was Helena just standing on the side of the fucking highway like she’d been dumped there at 6am.

JOSIE: Shivering there in her white linen shorts and off the shoulder top in 8 degree weather, questioning all her life choices. Really, I think the countryside dates are a wonderful excuse for some Hyundai product placement, which they really ramped up to 11 tonight. When Helena looked admiringly at his dull soccer mom SVU and said ‘Nice wheels!’ you know they’d taken the sponsorship promises one step too far.

fully sick ride bruh

MEL: Also, I think for a minute she thought it really WAS the moon? I can’t imagine anyone weeping over that setup if they didn’t kinda think Matt had made the moon disappear then re-appear. It was pretty but it wasn’t emotional outburst pretty.

omg the moon is crashing into the earth someone call the police

I did like the way Helena expressed her feelings. She didn’t gush over Matt like he was Brad Pitt with glasses. She was just like, I really like you and I can see myself falling in love with you. I’m not a HUGE Helena fan in terms of Matt’s life partner because I think she’s a bit too fancy and proper for his goofy nature, but she has a good head on her shoulders as Alf from Home & Away would say.

JOSIE: Yeah, she is probably one of the Bachelor contestants with the least BS to dish out, I reckon. So after all of that she got a rose, and I was glad because I thought that date was so fucked up. Then for the group date it was Chelsie‘s turn to have a complete meltdown but tbh I thought this was a slight overreaction? Like I understood Helena’s reservations about the solo date activity but all Chelsie had to do on the group date was drink some wine and paint a silly picture of herself.

MEL: Chelsie freaking out about putting “herself” into the artwork was a bit WTF. I understand she’s saying she’s holding back because of some bad past relationship, but you didn’t actually have to paint the words ANXIETY and LOW SELF-ESTEEM on the painting. In fact, you were meant to do the opposite, kinda express what you’d look like in drag.

it’s just too hard to speak my truth via glitter paint

JOSIE: It was supposed to be a fun and zesty activity and the drag queen literally had to take her into a room and give her a pep talk. Somehow this pep talk gave Chelsie the confidence to paint rainbow hair on her self-portrait, which in turn greatly impressed Matt. Honestly, this show sometimes. I feel like if I tried to explain it to, like, my dad, he’d think I was having some kind of stroke.

MEL: “And then Bachelor Matt chose Chelsie because she put glitter on her brain and painted a crack in the background to show she was broken but fixing herself”.

wot

So Chelsie and Matt choof off for some solo time, which is dead boring except for the bit where she alarmingly says, seemingly to me out of nowhere, that she’s falling in love with the guy. Not “can see myself” falling in love – she reckons she deadset is already.

JOSIE: I mean for someone who was too shy and retiring to place some glitter on a canvas 30 minutes ago it was QUITE the 180. He obviously loved it, though. I feel like that “I’m falling in love with you” line is like catnip to these Bachie men. It speaks straight to their ego and also to their penis. I reckon she booked herself a ticket to hometowns in that moment.

The Bachelor Recap
i just met you, and this is crazy

MEL: Hard agree, even though I fucking hate it? Bitchhhhh you have had 2 dates with this guy you cannot possibly be falling in love with him, it simply doesn’t happen that way. I don’t believe it. She seems pretty honest though, I’d say she hundo thinks she’s falling in love but – as you said to me in passing – Chelsie is 28 going on 20 in our eyes.

JOSIE: Oh I hate it too. I reckon it’s game-playing from her, in a way. All the Bachelor men want is for the girls to “open up” even though the Bachelor men can never open up because they’re dating 25 girls. Wonderful double standard! And yes there is something very awkward about her that reminds me of being in that weird late teens/early 20s phase when you don’t know yourself or what the fuck is going on.

MEL: Yes! I feel like she is not a mature 28, she’s a young 28. I relate to this! That was me! And that’s completely fine but this is a good example of how age isn’t as important as some people on this show have made it out to be. You can be wise beyond your years at 24, or a baby at 30. Anyway, she gets a rose for saying she was in love almost, and then it’s time for the fucken cocktail party. My favourite moment, always.

JOSIE: Because there’s so few girls left it’s a really weird vibe don’t you reckon? Because suddenly Matt has a lot more time to spend talking so it’s more about who gets him first rather than who gets to talk to him at all. So after last night’s debacle of being out-demoned by Abbie, Elly decided she wasn’t going to be stomped on again because she “needed to talk to Matt first”. But it didn’t really work out that way because no one can outplay Abbie.

it’s called initiative bitches, look it up

MEL: Nope – Abbie positioned herself RIGHT where Matt walks in, and grabbed him. Which like – fair enough, I say. What does she owe Elly? I know people would say “well she took the date card from Elly last episode so she could at least let her have the time” and I do think she could have, but I also see that Abbie’s focused on her own relationship with Matt. She’s playing The Bachelor like it’s Survivor and I’m not entirely sure it’s… not a mood for me??

JOSIE: On one hand it’s like, Matt’s not a prize and on Survivor you win a bunch of money. So I can see why people hate the way Abbie is, because she’s extremely intense and competitive and ruthless and it’s a dating show, not a show that is designed to test your game playing and manipulating skills like Survivor (she would win that show hands down). But on the other hand I also see her point of like, she’s not her to make friends, she’s here for Matt and she doesn’t want to help others further their relationship with Matt? Like why would you if you also like Matt? A few weeks ago I thought she was just a two-dimensional villain character but now I’m seeing her point of view a little more.

MEL: SAME (stay tuned everyone for my very intense Bachelor thinkpiece on Abbie, coming to you in… 5 minutes). I don’t love her behaviour, but I don’t entirely hate it. Anyway – Elly has had enough of this and walks over with a shit-eating grin on her face to interrupt the pair. Stunning stuff.

The Bachelor Recap
two can play this fucken game
MEL: Yeah it was hugely not a vibe for me. I find any time someone backstabs another, even if they think they have good reason to, they come off as the asshole. Elly just looked petty and bogged down in the drama of the mansion! She should have used the time to just tell Bachelor Matt whatever she originally wanted to back before the date card saga, IMO.
The Bachelor Recap
actual image of Sogand possessing Elly

JOSIE: Just use the opportunity to reiterate how you’re feeling, that you like him, that you “can see yourself falling in love with him”, have a cheeky pash, whatever! Put your best self forward instead of trashing someone else, I reckon. It was all just a bit high school and like so out of character for her. It was honestly like Sogand had ripped out some of Elly’s hair and cooked up a bloody polyjuice potion just to keep the I Hate Abbie movement going. Anyway, he took it on board and then it was rose ceremony time – between Elly, Abbie, Emma and Kristen.

MEL: We were proper gripping our chairs with stress over this – I couldn’t see Abbie going home after that next-level tension, producers surely wouldn’t allow it. But I’d considered Kristen a quiet front-runner for this whole season! Sadly, she wasn’t one in Bachelor Matt’s eyes, and she copped the boot.

JOSIE: As you said to him in your best Julia Roberts voice: “Big mistake. HUGE.” But since they’re both still here, I cannot wait for the Elly and Abbie drama to hit the proverbial fan.

Love Josie and Mel? Then you simply must listen to their hit true crime / mystery podcast, All Aussie Mystery Hour, right bloody now! Find it HERE

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