Bombshells and hissy fits on The Bachelorette: Episode recap
The talented and hilariously entertaining Jo Thornely is back with her latest recap of The Bachelorette.
Roses are red;
And your mum likes Bardot,
But there’s more to romance
Than just being a bro.
Some people might think I, and indeed Australia, are bitter about James – you may know him as the greatest and most dateable human alive – being eliminated in the last episode, but I can assure you that’s not the case. As a professional I, and indeed Australia, can pull it together and conduct ourselves with dignity, generosity, and aplomb.
So let’s grit our teeth, pour ourselves a Riesling, and just get through the hometown visits of these lame-ass leftover dud-muffins.
If this is your first ever hometown episode, firstly where have you been and what have you been doing, but more importantly I’ll be your tour guide and point out the standard hometown essentials along the way.
Ready?
Hometown Essential 1: The Beach Walk.
We have to have something to look at during Sophie’s voice-over monologues and every hometown episode must include a walk along the beach. Hands are optional for this portion of the program.
After that, most hometown visits follow a simple 5-step progression, which goes:
Pre-family date
Entrance
Nourishment
Interrogation
Sucking face
If you forget any of the stages, just remember that the acronym is PENIS. It’s pretty easy.
Sophie and Jarrod start off their PENIS with a quick glass of controversial non-sponsorship wine at his parents’ vineyard before heading inside to meet six thousand of Jarrod’s closest family members. The first is his mum, who Jarrod has planted circle-of-love pot plants like Sophie’s with before, which isn’t weird at all. Not weird at… not… guys, stop hugging, you have company.
Jarrod’s mum interrogates him while spooning salmon roe from Tupperware onto buckwheat blinis, asking him if he’s in love with Sophie. Dude. Come on. People in the third stage of rigor mortis already know the answer to this one.
She decides on a change of scenery for her interrogation of Sophie, taking her downstairs. “So I’m walking down the stairs into a dungeon, and I’m sh*tting my pants” says Sophie, as unhappy as the rest of us to put ‘dungeon’ and ‘Jarrod’ in the same sentence.
Soon it’s time to leave, and for Jarrod to lie directly to Sophie’s face. “It’s hard for me to put my emotions forward” he says, after ten episodes of doing exactly that. He launches into a lengthy speech that spells out what we’ve all known for some time: he’s in love with Sophie.
“Yep” says Sophie, before remembering she has to fulfil her hometown formula obligations and finish off the PENIS with a kiss.
Hometown Essential 2: Pets
Somebody on a hometown visit will always have a pet, and sometimes that pet will steal the show. On his pre-family meeting with Sophie, we discover that Apollo has a horse and some miniature ponies! They don’t steal the show, but they’re pretty well trained.
Okay, so not many people introduce you to their ponies before their friends and family, but I’m sure the rest of this family date will be one hundred percent super-normal.
“So Sophie, how are you with polygraph tests?” asks Apollo’s best mate Scott not five minutes in, telling her he’s got a lie detector in the car.
Ironically, Scott is lying and just asks her some normal questions about cougars.
Hometown Essential 3: The Ritzy Old Boiler
No hometown visit is complete without a stellar quality grandma getting some airtime, and Apollo’s home visit is no exception.
She urges caution, telling the couple not to move into things too fast, which coming from a 94-year-old is really saying something. “You’re probably the best looking boy amongst the whole lot” says grandma to Apollo. “Duh”, says Australia.
Sophie loves Apollo’s family and presumably their preference for hundreds of multi-coloured home furnishings, but I ask you: if you had the chance to kiss Apollo, would you not press yourself as close to his reinforced iron torso as you could? I mean, what’s all this about?
But is Sophie really looking for a god-like magician more than a decade her junior? She says she wants a ‘normal Aussie bloke’. You know, like your average multi-millionaire who picks her up on his gauchely flashy cruiser, for example.
“I gotta be honest, I thought he was a big douche” says Sophie of when they first met, because she’s pretty smart.
“He’s perfect” she says of him now, reminding us that she’s the same girl who rejected James.
They sit back – as all normal Aussie blokes and sheilas do – on the multi-bedroom Sydney Harbour power cruiser scoffing seafood, and chat about how much Sophie wants children. Stu reminds Sophie that he’s already had four children, and then reveals that he’s had a…
See, he had a….
What he’s trying to say, Soph, is that he….
The truth is, he’s the first bloke to ever say “vasectomy” on this show.
Hometown Essential 4: The Mid-Conversation Cliffhanger Ad Break
YOU HAD A WHAT?
It’s fine, though. It’s fine. He’ll get it reversed if she wants him to. Oh also he’s still married, he doesn’t want you to meet his children just yet and his father is terrifying, is that okay?
That said and despite some undisguised questions about whether she’s a gold-digger, Sophie feels pretty relaxed with Stu’s family, presumably because none of them drop testicular-surgery or not-divorced-yet bombshells. Plus Stu’s dad admits that he also thinks his son’s a douche, which puts everyone at ease straight away. All we need now is the kiss.
“I’m here to marry Sophie” says Blake, forcing us to remember that he’s still her. He and Sophie are about to go ice skating, and considering Stu’s vasectomy revelation, I can’t help but think that Blake is himself using a subtle method to tell Sophie of his own medical problem.
On the plus side, Sophie and Blake are both wearing some extremely great terrible jumpers. On the negative side, Blake makes it snow and tells us it makes him feel like MacGyver “using everything possible to create the perfect outcome”. He’s like a bro robot pre-programmed with lame seduction techniques.
“I’m always here to sort of guide you and protect you and that” Blake says to Sophie, reassuring us that his continued inclusion in this competition is a very hilarious joke.
Even Blake’s family aren’t that excited to see him, but they’re utterly pumped to have an ‘Aussie celebrity’ in their home.
“I’ve got your back” says Blake to Sophie.
Narrator: He didn’t got her back.
The family fires numerous semi-tough questions at Sophie while Blake mutely reboots his operating system in the corner, and even the mounted heads on the wall know this isn’t going to last and is quite possibly a rented family eating dinner in a furniture showroom.
Not wasting any more time on this farce, we zoom straight to the Rosatorium to find out who the absolutely surprising loser will be tonight.
“I’m looking at the other three guys, and I just know that they don’t have exactly what I have” says Blake’s voice-over.
Roses are briefly and gratefully received by Jarrod and Apollo, leaving just Stu, Blake, and a thoroughly familiar violin crescendo.
Go on, Soph. It’s fine, we know. Do it.
See, Blake? See what happens when you’re a bro with both manicured stubble and a picking up chicks instruction book from the mid-eighties? You get beaten by a guy with a vasectomy and a wife.
Bye, kid. Make sure you don’t say anything bratty like “Seriously, she gives me that bullsh*t answer” as you drive away in the lim… oh. Shame.
Carnage on The Bachelorette as Sophie breaks Rosatorium rules
Mannequins and goats help Sophie find her 'perfect match'
You can follow Jo Thornely on Twitter for more brilliant Bachelorette commentary.
Want more celebrity, entertainment and lifestyle news? Follow Be on Facebook,Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram.
