Surf Cat

Hello, and welcome to Junkee’s 2020 recaps of The Bachelorette Australia, where we watch episodes of The Bachelorette Australia and try to pretend we’re OK with all the hetero nonsense we see in front of us.

Hello to my precious babies, from wherever you are tuning in all around the country, and in fact, the world! However if you are overseas and for some reason reading these recaps with no context, I would like to know if you are okay. Do you need me to call someone? Reach out!

As for the rest of us, we are back here today to see our lovely sisters interact yet again with this group of men, which I believe, like crows, is called a “murder”.

My co-recapper Patrick Lenton (a famous wrist model for watches), and I meet each week in the Bachelorette courtroom to pass judgement on everyone involved. The people are real. The cases are real. The rulings are final.

I unfortunately (?) missed last night’s episode where we apparently saw the men forced to compete in a talent show. But luckily in tonight’s ep we got to see some talents come out organically, in the form of wakeboarding skills, and also being a huge c*nt skills.

Sometimes watching this show is similar to watching a nature documentary, where I learn a lot about the nature and quirks of the heterosexual. What I learned immediately in this episode is that all straight men dress exactly the same. Presumably so predators are confused.

Unfortunately in the television version of ‘open for a surprise’, the next shot made us see that all these men were also barefoot.

No

Why is it just those men sitting there together? The rest of the men have shoes on. Have they formed a little gang of identical dressing and no shoes? Is this some sort of show of dominance? Don’t be mistaken, I absolutely don’t want to get to the bottom of this, I just never want to see their feet again. This incident didn’t go on my list of things that annoyed me purely because I was not annoyed, I was just disgusted.

In more exciting news, I made my first ever appearance on the show, and might I say – I shone.

Let’s rank!

LEAST ANNOYING

Cousin Mitch and BFF Damo

In a totally normal human dating experience, Elly and Becky brought in their cousin Mitch and Becky’s best friend Damo to go undercover for them. They played production crew, picking the guys up and taking them to their group date. The idea was that they would be spies, listening in on the guys and hearing if they said anything untoward.

On one hand, this as a concept was pretty depressing! Having to hide undercover agents among men to find out what they are saying and how they act when they are not putting on a fake persona is awful. It is, of course, pretty specific to this show, but I suspect also not specific enough!

On the other hand….I loved Cousin Mitch and Best Friend Damo so much. I loved seeing them be sneaky, asking leading questions, and rankling at some of the things being said. They obviously hated some of the men immediately, and I can absolutely get on board with that.

“Men aren’t funny” – Mitch and Bec

They did a great job, and then at the end after delivering the news to Elly and Becky, they did air hugs and it was VERY CUTE.

Aggie

Aggie first sprang up in this episode when he and a few of the men were talking about Elly, and Aggie didn’t like the way the  way Pascal was speaking about her. Seeing men get mad at other men for disrespecting women is few and far between on this show, but it makes me extremely happy to see it. I can only imagine it makes other women extremely horny!

“Men aren’t funny” Aggie and Bec

We then revisited Aggie later in the episode, when he was pulled aside by Becky to be asked directly to tell her if Pascal or anyone had said negative things around the house. Now look, I don’t generally agree with being a cop or a dobber, but in this case I was 100% on board for Aggie to become Aggatha Snitchy and be direct with Becky about things he had heard.

He told her that Pascal had been a dog around the house, and that had said some “disrespectful, infuriating, and shallow” things, like that Pascal said that the show should have cast “hotter chicks.”

Fabi-oh-no-he-didn’t!

Even though he hadn’t told them off his own back, I appreciated his honesty, and I do believe he was genuinely pissed off at the derogatory comments he had heard. The bar is low, but he cleared it, and that is the most we can ask for. Not annoying!

James

I know that Patrick had James in his ‘most annoying’ list last night, but I missed it and therefore it doesn’t exist, canonically. I don’t know much about James except that I do like his earrings. But I feel there are a few reasons that I enjoyed him in this episode.

The first is that you could tell he was really trying hard to open up about his emotions and form a deeper connection with Elly, and they had a funny moment where they addressed how relieved he seemed once he had achieved it.

I liked this because I can relate, and I like things that I can relate to, because I have a tiny monkey brain 🙂

The second was that he and Elly had a pretty hot makeout scene in a steamy pool, and it reminded me of Neve Campbell and Denise Richard’s kissing in the pool in the movie Wild Things. This is a great memory, thank you James.

Also, they went wakeboarding on the group date, which did set him up to easily impress, but he was fucking really good at it! I enjoyed watching it

Finally, in a small tiny moment, when Elly and Becky came back from their confrontation with Pascal, he and Frazer were concerned and sweet toward them, and James took Becky’s hand and walked with her, even though Elly is the one he is interested in.

Clearly this is nothing at all really, but for some reason it touched me, and I thought it was sweet and genuine. But it’s hard to say yet what my overall vibe is of James.

He reminds me a bit of Ciarran, in that I could be getting the wool pulled over my eyes because I pin hopes on men who seem like they could be a bit different to the archetypal straight man meathead. But that, as we have seen, doesn’t mean they are good men. Only time will tell!

MOST ANNOYING

Pascal

One of the great durs of history. To be honest, Elly and Becky both should have realised that Pascal is evil the first time they saw that facial hair.

The man looks like he has a dastardly plan to tie an innocent woman to railroad tracks.

It was pretty obvious to me from the first moment that we met Pascal that he was arrogant and extremely, extremely annoying. But sometimes straight women are blind to that sort of thing for a while, due to their agonies. But in this episode it all blew up in Pascal’s face (unfortunately did not take off his moustache).

Uncle Mitch (hero) first picked up on what a dick this guy is, and informed the women that he seemed to have a problem with how many men the women had kissed, on the dating television show, The Bachelorette. We then got the follow-up with Aggie, where he told Becky what Pascal had said about them.

This part was not annoying, at all. We got a great sequence, that made me very excited to watch!! First of all Becky STORMED her way over to where Elly was, and Elly could tell just from her outline that Becky was FUMIN.

FURIOUS WALKING

We then got some amazing pissed off faces, first from Becky delivering the news…

and then Elly receiving the news.

Absolutely magnificent. The two of them went back into the cocktail party to confront him, and this was also funny, because upon seeing them he called out “you girls look beautiful! two for one special” which was just perfectly exactly the wrong thing to say in that scenario.

They pulled him aside to discuss what he had said, and he did that thing where he went very quiet and calmly spoken, and tried to sound reasonable as he attempted to lie to their faces. He said stuff like ‘are you trying to create drama out of nothing?’, trying to make them think that they were wrong, and being crazy. We absolutely hate that in a man.

Anyway, this exchange produced my favourite moment of the episode. When he tried to backtrack and reassure them he thought they are beautiful, they were like NO WE DON’T CARE. Elly said the sentence “No, no. That kind of comment does not impede on my self-worth, or Becky’s” and it had me punching the air, hootin and hollerin.

You are nothing to us 🙂

In another great moment, Elly said “it’s time for you to leave” to which he replied indignantly”I’m going home”, which is like breaking up with someone when they break up with you.

Also on his way out to the limo he said “this is utter bullshit…in every sense of the word” and I would love to know what he meant by that. How many senses of the word are there for something being utter bullshit? In any case, it was an absolutely thrilling segment of television.

Goodbye Pascal, you are a disgrace to pineapple lumps.

Sydney Harbour Bridge Date

Look I know things are dire, what with the Coronavirus and all, but you absolutely cannot sell me the Sydney Harbour Bridge and tell me it’s an exciting date. Pete (who remains cute) and Becky went on an exciting date, which turned out to be climbing the bridge.

Pete called it “epic” and the whole date seemed to consist of them saying “what a great date” back and forth while they climbed the bridge.

EPIC

That was all well and good, if not very boring, but the show tried to make it special and exciting by…..having a singer waiting at the top to sing a song for Becky and Pete?

The singer, named Starley, was great! Wonderful voice. Very strange gig, to stand on top of the literal Sydney Harbour Bridge and sing a song. It got even more bizarre when Becky and Pete started to dance, even though Pete did remind me of myself, dancing awkwardly at every nightclub i’ve ever been into.

After the dancing, poor Starley had to stand there while Becky and Pete made out. The entire thing was quite weird!

Later at drinks, Pete confessed to Becky that he had been in a 12-year relationship, including marriage, and they had been separated for only one year. But he told her that he was fine and ready to move on, and she believed him.

Unfortunately I will never be able to move on from the image of them dancing on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, so we will all have baggage moving forward in our lives.

NEVER TO ANNOY AGAIN

Pascal is gone, and Harry went home voluntarily this episode after realising it wasn’t going anywhere with Elly, in addition to him missing his kid. They are dropping like flies.

So that’s it for another week! I am finding myself invested in the happiness of the sisters, especially Becky, and I will not find peace until she does.

So join us next week as we see what kind of absolutely deranged heterosexual nonsense these heterosexuals get up to!

The Bachelorette airs on Channel 10 Wednesday and Thursday nights, and Junkee will be recapping both episodes.