BACHIE RECAP: Oh Shit, We’re Finally Up To The Roni Shutdown!

Nothing is weirder than this coronavirus season of The Bachelor. I’m never going to get used to these long, drawn-out episodes where it takes 5 million years to hand out one rose, you know?

Like, last night we had a rose ceremony IN THE MIDDLE OF THE EP, and ended things at the end of a single date. What? Chaos! Absolute hard pass on that energy, guys!

So now we’re… post date. Which is weird. But try and follow along.

So Irena’s back from her date and is trying not to be Roxi-levels of smunty by giving the gals the bare minimum in details. It’s not entirely working since she tells them Locky gifted her the shank he used to slam off the champers bottle (wot) as a gift. With her name engraved on it.

Some of us (me) would take this as a sign he planned to murder me. Others (Irena) consider this the most romantic gesture in the world.

The other ladies laugh at her joke of keeping it under her pillow for protection but really, they’re hoping she accidentally cuts her toe off with it and has to abruptly leave the show.

Before all the women crowd around Irena, grab the shank and cut her to pieces before smearing themselves in her blood and performing a blood ritual, Locky walks in!

He tells everyone they’re going to play a little game. He’s going to lock all the doors and leave them with the shank, and the only way to escape is to-…. jokes. They’re playing compatibility chess! Or as Beth/Bianca/Who fucking knows calls it, Compatibility CHEST!

Seriously.

Actually.

No but really.

How.

Moving on. Of course, Roxi and Areeba want to grab each other by the hair then shotput their enemy into the bushland.

Guys I cannot tell you how inane and fucking moronic the questions are. A small baby could get these right. A sea cucumber with no brain could smash this game. It’s literally shit like “have you ever sent a naughty picture” (has anyone… not?) and “men’s tees on women, hot or not” (sorry, did anyone expect Locky to say “ABSOLUTELY FUCKING DISGUSTING. HORRIBLE. WOMEN SHOULD WEAR CHASTE GOWNS ONLY.”)

Eventually Roxi ends up right in front of Locky, about to take the game out WHENNNN!

Out of nowhere Becky (Brandy? Barbaresco?) gets an immunity pin or whatever the fuck these things are called. Advantage point? Whatever. She wipes Roxi off the board and wins on this absolutely brainless question – “am I known for keeping my word”.

Honestly. I mean COME ON. At least make them have to think to some degree. Although to be fair this woman did call it a CHEST game.

They go off for a chat and it’s… not good. Has big vibes of when Vakoo and Matt (remember them? Lol feels like 40 years ago) had their date and they just stared at the one sliver of cheese on the table for an hour. Becky/Bethany is talking at length about her pageantry background but in a very serious, deep dive way that Locky seems bored to tears by:

She also asks some like, proper legitimate questions about base jumping vs. paragliding except unfortunately she calls it “space jumping” and…. things are just not looking good for poor Bronsona.

Next it’s the cocktail party. Didn’t we…. just have one of these two minutes ago? Charlie tells us she’s got a surprise for Locky, and grabs him like a vice as soon as he sets foot on the patio. The surprise? THIS:

A mud bath. A MUD BATH. It’s fucking gross and weird and like… I mean think about this contextually, right? You’re in a cocktail gown and some absolutely Machiavellian producer comes up to you and convinces you that the way to stay on this show is to get in a mud bath (clearly they couldn’t afford chocolate… or, you know. WATER) with the Bachelor. Okay, you think.

Then the bath looks like THAT and you find out Locky had NFI you were going to ask him to rub grey poo all over yourselves, but you go along with it and internally he’s crying, you’re crying, the producer is grinning evilly off to the side….

Oh, and 17 other women ogling are you in your budgie smugglers like this voyeur:

It’s… a LOT. Roxi really has it nailed when she says “I dressed up for a single date? I’m not even on? I could have had a nanna nap instead?”

After 84 years, Charlie and Locky come back looking very zjooshed and not like giant grey poos.

I’m very suspicious. Surely they didn’t have time to get showered AND have an hour-long mud bath. Whatever, everyone is pissed. Mainly, because they’re all having to swoop on Locky like a springtime magpie since there’s like an hour left of the Bachelor cocktail party.

Areeba gets in first, but Kaitlyn interrupts after five minutes and Locky tells her to wait (!!!) which is more awkward than watching him wank that champers bottle last night.

Eventually she steals him away and weirdly, Areeba is cool with it? She’s like “she’s one of my girls and I know she has a surprise for him tonight”. What??? Areeba? Make up your mind lady – are you here just for you, or here for your girls.

It’s all very sister-wife because “The Girls” then mince around in the shadows watching Kaitlyn kiss Locky.

Well… when I say kiss, I mean it’s more like a very chaste peck that Kaitlyn turns into a pash by gripping Locky with her talons.

Things get HELL fucked from here. Of course, Areeba and Juliette start screaming about the kiss, to rile up Roxi. Which works, because Roxi has not learned yet that they’re just trying to get a rise out of her for more Bachelor air time.

Roxi loses her shit – she tells Kaitlyn to her face that it was disrespectful to kiss Locky at a cocktail party – which will be hilarious when she realises Bella (? or was it Nicole??) kissed him a few parties ago.

But then she goes full demon. She starts telling everyone who will listen that Katilyn is Gold Coast trash, that she’s disgusting, that she’s a slut etc. It’s foulllllll. Kaitlyn seems to be able to hear it all too.

Like she says she doesn’t give a shit but it seems like, well, all the bitching within earshot is making her give a shit. As it WOULD.

Meanwhile Bella is freaking out as much as Bella can – a gentle tear falling from her cheek – because she’s had no time with Locky that night.

Soon everyone is crying. Roxi runs off. Nicole runs off. Brentleigh (???) starts sobbing. Honestly, is this the most depressing series of Bachie? WHY IS EVERYONE CRYING.

But by far, Bella is the most heartbroken at this cocktail party. We cop this genuinely (seriously guys) sad moment where she’s saying she feels real feelings for Locky but he hasn’t looked at her all night.

Then, it turns out she’s telling IRENA, ROSE GIRL this???

Honestly this is like telling the person who got 40/40 in a math test how you barely passed.

In honesty though, they seem to have an actually genuine friendship and it’s kind of… really nice to watch? This is the love story we asked for, people!

Back inside, tensions are sky-high. This random woman gets up to make a speech no one asked for:

Kaitlyn, also known as President No Fucks, tells her to shut up and rando lady loses it.

As does Roxi, who has been gunning for a Kaitlyn fight since 1843 it feels like.

She says her now iconic (infamous???) line of “YA FAKE HAIR, YA FAKE EYELASHES, YA FAKE TITS” but goes wayyyyyy too far, calling Kaitlyn a slut and all this other awful stuff. It’s also all said to-camera for the most part as well, so she can’t even blame editing on this one. Unless she was calling someone else a slut? Which is still… fucked?

Anyway, she goes and cries, the random lady has another go at Kaitlyn, Kaitlyn’s not an angel herself and is being pretty rude, Irena grabs Bella’s hand like they’re kindergarten best friends and walks off, then we’re…

Off to the rose ceremony!

Boring boring, all the usuals get in. Then we’re down to Rosemary, Brendalina (what IS her name honestly) and that other henchman of Areeba’s who hasn’t done anything of note.

Locky is a hundooooo percento getting fed who he has to pick, look at the concentration here. You cannot tell me the man isn’t waiting for his cue on an earpiece:

He picks Bartholomew, which means I will have to spend another whole episode trying to work out her name.

That means Rosemary and Henchman go home. Meanwhile this woman is still here????

Who the hell is that? How are there people I don’t know still here while people I DO know go home? Madness.

Anyway the reason they ^^^ look so upset? Because as soon as Rosemary and Henchman are booted, Osher comes BACK.

Everyone’s like AGSKFDKDBIJFNOIF what is happening. He tells them he has something “very important” to tell them and everyone looks extremely alarmed, as they should be because he’s ABOUT TO TELL THEM ABOUT THE RONI PANDEMIC!

We’re FINALLY at the bit where coronavirus ruins the party! Everyone out! Bye! See ya! Zoom dates! I mean it’s going to be the absolute, most dick-shrivelling worst but hey. It’s breaking up all this endless cocktail purgatory so. That’s something.

Until next week!

Melissa Mason is a freelance writer and today she fed her dog expensive grilled salmon because she deserved it. You can find her posting sub-par thirst traps on Instagram and tweeting very sporadically on Twitter.