How do I begin to describe Keira Maguire?
Keira Maquire is flawed. I hear her hair’s the result of Lara Bingle being on the cover of Woman’s Weekly the day Keira walked into the hair salon. I hear she posts bikini shots… on Instagram. Her favourite movie is a mirror. One time she met Richie Strahan in a mansion… and he told her she was scary. One time she punched Alex-with-the-White-Rose in the face. It was coming.
There can only be one winner… ?? #TheBachelorAU pic.twitter.com/BRVUJqCNmb
— The Bachelor Aus (@TheBachelorAU) July 28, 2016
Yes, Keira – who is quite frankly a producer’s wet dream and quite rightly gets about 50% of the total screen time – is this season of The Bachelor‘s villain. Even if you were thick as shit you could tell she is the villain. She shares a soundtrack with the almost-step mum from The Parent Trap, and her entire aesthetic is ‘on her way to steal your man’.
She’s fucking glorious.
The 29-year-old account manager / Instagram bikini model was the break-out star of last night’s episode, with producers giving her as much screen time as feasibly possible. Nicki gets the single date card, Keira is unimpressed. Keira gets a group date card, and it’s still not bloody good enough. Richie smiles at Sasha during their three-way group photoshoot on said group date, and Keira tells him “Eye contact. Look at me, please.”
Watching her is like watching a drunk train careen into a warehouse filled entirely with photos of ex-boyfriends. THIS, friends, is good TV.
Okay, let’s back it up a bit. Nicki gets the first single date, and Keira is extremely salty about it. So salty, in fact, that when she’s included on the group date (likely thanks to the producer with a gun to Richie’s head) she almost doesn’t go, because it’s not good enough. Single date or bust. Predictably, all the other girls remind her how selfish she’s being because some of them, like, totally would have gone (seriously guys, why are you bothering?), and predictably she goes anyway.
The group date is a 50s style photoshoot, a throwback to a happy and whimsical time when women were at the mercy of their husbands and societal pressures. Fun!
The first photoshoot features Richie with Kiki (looking like the literal embodiment of ‘sex on legs’), Faith and Tolyena in some kind of swimsuit shoot.
But it gets better. And here, you can tell producers are just taking the absolute piss.
…and then they turn Keira into the frumpy version of Sandra D in ‘Grease‘.
I mean, she pulls it off. But wow. Baller move, Channel 10.
Keira looked like she’d rather have teeth pulled out than share a milkshake #TheBachelorAU
— Tahlia Pritchard (@Tahls) July 28, 2016
Hmmm. You know what? On second watching, Sasha was definitely goading Keira. K-babes might be a total psycho but Sash is willing to play the game and poor Richie probably got whiplash going back and forth between the two. THE DRAMA! BRING. IT.
The final shoot for the date was a single one with Richie and Alex, and it was super romantic in the way that you can tell it was super romantic because the super romantic music was playing. Also, the camera lingered on their close-together faces for an extremely long time. Manufactured romance, tastes just like the real stuff.
Blah blah second single date. Richie gives Olena a whisper-thin red dress that looks absolutely bloody smokin’ (and is this writer’s current unachievable body goals) and KABLAMMO! It’s time for another cocktail party, and joy-of-joys Keira is drunk again.
Alex (as is her right) uses her white rose to steal Richie away for a cocktail party, and Keira is not fucking happy about it.
“Where are they with the white rose” she says, using her eyeballs to mentally fire Alex into the sun.
“At the end of the day, I have my opinion and my morals, and I can back it up,” Keira replies. “Unlike some people.”
Queue bitching, queue drama, queue ratings bonanza.
Keira, getting even more agitated, starts dragging her hands through her hair, and muttering, “Avoid, avoid, avoid the circumstances Keira, avoid it. Just don’t go near her,” which I’d put money on a well-meaning person (her mum, her corrections officer) has told her in the past.
Then Alex comes back from her alone time with Richie. The other girls ask how it was (amazing, duh). Keira pounces.
Keira [swigging champagne]: “I’m surprised that you actually did that tonight.”
Alex [stealing for a fight]: “Did what?”
Keira: “Baaaabe, come oooon. Seriously.”
And so on. This descends into a politely played-out bitch fight, where Keira claims she’s “just being honest” and Alex claims she “appreciates her honesty” even though they’re both lying through their fucking teeth.
Spoiler: Keira gets a rose (of course she does), Alex gets a rose, the only people who don’t get roses are the ones whose names we haven’t yet bothered to learn. No media contract for you, buh-bye.
“Keira… the producers have told me we need at least 6 episodes of you to keep things good so take this and shut up.”#TheBachelorAU ??
— Keegs (@keegs) July 27, 2016
Keira: I’m not here to make friends I don’t care if they hate me
Also Keira: I would have put others first #TheBachelorAU— BuzzFeed Australia (@BuzzFeedOz) July 28, 2016
My nuanced, in depth, well considered take: Keira is bad. #TheBachelorAU
— Tim Christodoulou (@tim_chr) July 28, 2016
If Keira or Eliza go WE RIOT. #TheBachelorAU
— Em Rusciano (@EmRusciano) July 27, 2016
Whoever told Keira to shh is the voice of a generation. #TheBachelorAU
— Michael Beveridge (@mickyb273) July 27, 2016
By the looks of things, Keira gets a single date next week. Can’t bloody wait.