Rose Munching, Planking & 7 Other “Surely Not” Moments On ‘The Bachelor’

Strap on your judgement-tinted glasses, mates – The Bachelor is back! 

Yes, the first episode of Richie Strahan‘s quest for love via national television (take two!) aired last night, and it was every bit as weird and batshit as one could hope for, while sticking within the strict confines of a spectacularly weird dating show.

As per ~usje~, this episode primarily consisted of Richie meeting the contestants one-by-one, experiencing various levels of awkwardness, and then deciding mere hours later which ones he never wanted to see again. (Hint: it’s not the weirdest. It’s never the weirdest.)

It was an episode of trials, tribulations, and stresses over exactly WHEN between five and seven minutes it is okay to interrupt your rival’s chat with Richie boy. “Sorry, I don’t want to interrupt!” said almost every single contestant despite doing literally just that. Niceties, amirite?

Anyway, here at the nine most WTF things about The Bachelor Ep 1.

1. Janey, the 7-year-old girl trapped in the 26-year-old woman’s body.

Ah yes, the children’s entertainer whose gone on to The Bachelor to presumably both find love and escape the person with a giant butterfly net and tranquilizer dart looking for her.

“I’m passionate about myself,” she says in her intro [here we go], “and magic and sparkles and rainbows and [thinks] swimming? and mermaids and unicorns and glitter and fairies and fairytales and [thinks harder] clouds and sunny days.”



She’s also a ballet dancer, which gave me hope for about two seconds that the fairy tale nut was just a trope being hammed up by the producers – but no, here we are back at fairy tales. She’s on this show to find her Prince Charming, and not one of these other Fake-erellas would even think to leave him a shoe. (Geddit? GEDDIT? IT’S A GODDAMN IRL FAIRYTALE.) 


2. Eliza, the one who wouldn’t stop singing even though she really should.

If I was a nicer person, I’d like to make Eliza a really good cup of tea, sit her down, and console her. “No it’s fiiiiine,” I’d say. “The singing was cute, really! Everyone was just jealous they didn’t think of it first. You, babes, have got this in the bag.”

But I’m not and she doesn’t. Eliza will be out of here within 3 episodes, tops.


3. SOMEONE COMPLIMENTING RICHIE’S ACTUAL TEETH ALLIGNMENT.

I don’t remember her name. (Help?) One of the ladies, after meeting Richie for the very first time, told the camera: “He’s got good alignment with his teeth so I shall eat them,” and that is only very slightly paraphrased.

(She might have said, “He’s got good alignment with his teeth, he’s a good size. I’d probably eat that face, yeah”, which is probably what Hannibal Lecter would have said if he’d gone down a path of orthodontics instead of murder.)

4. The planking competition.

Fed up with the monotonous nature of a cocktail party where the company is dire, Richie and a couple of the stronger-cored ladies got down on toes and elbows to plank it out.

Honestly, this was a pretty baller move for three reasons: you’re automatically deemed a ‘good sport’ and ‘down for a laugh’, it gives you the teeniest tiniest thing to bond over in a completely bizarro situation, and no self-respecting bloke would stiff you a rose if you’d actually fuckin’ sweated for it.
The winner got an early rose, so you know.

5. Sasha the Russian being entirely unused to out-loud laughter.

While Richie and Megan (WIFEY! WIFEY! WIFEY! Also a mermaid with the “big bazookas”) were merrily chatting on the couch (and after Megan had taken her shoes off, later earning her a rose), the other ladies were craning their necks to find out more. WHAT, they asked one another, could the lovebirds POSSIBLY be doing on the couch 10 meters away?

But Sasha, that wiley devil, SHE figured it out. “They’re just laughing, laughing out loud,” she said, experiencing an LOL IRL for the first time in living memory.

6. Sasha eating her rose.

It’s true, we saw it. Another blatant disregard for quote unquote ‘normal’ behaviour.



7. Richie deadset asking Keira 
(the evil villain) what turns her on. 


Later, he clarified that he MEANT to ask budget Lara Bingle about her passions in life. But Keira – who is sex on a stick, and a self-described “great catch” – sauntered in with vibes of pure sex, and befuddled the poor bloke. “What turns you on?” asked Richie, immediately realising his mistake and blushing. Keira didn’t get a chance to answer, but if she did, it probably would have been “You, and storing the bodies of my competition in my art deco basement”.

Yep, Keira is this season’s villain, and she hates literally everyone. Which is lucky, really, because they all hate her.

(Not this writer: I love her and want her to get to the final three AT LEAST, and then score her own spin-off show.)

8. Keira getting wasted.

Really, she’s all of us. While all the contestants were probably sleep-deprived and tipsy, Keira took it too another level. At one point, she just broke all the rules of social interaction and just yelled “bed” over and over for no reason at all.


According to Sam Frost, if producers think a contestant has had too much champagne, they’ll switch her onto water. Evidentially ‘too much champagne’ for Keira is literally never.


9. Vintea eliminating herself in the first round
.

Message therapist Vintea with a heart of gold (and a mouth of ash) got real fucking bored of the show in EPISODE ONE. She arrived, chugged all the free booze, swore her head off, horrified Janey, and noped the fuck outta the rose ceremony before it was even over.
Why? Nobody knows. Perhaps Channel 10 producers simply couldn’t fucking be bother to bleep all her bleeps out and booted her, or maybe she realised the whole show is actually a great stinking pile of well-dressed shit. Either way, je suis Vintea.
Byeeeeeeeee fuckers.
TOP 3 PREDICTIONS: Megan, Alex and Olena. Watch this space.

Photos: Channel 10.

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