All the heterosexual nonsense I was forced to endure during episode ONE of The 3achelors
There are three of them.
Hello! Hello! Hello! No, that wasn’t me getting the lyrics wrong to your fave Cat Empire song, it was a hello for each of the THREE Bachelors we will be enduring together this season!
Joining me in recapping as always, and thank fucking god because I need physical and spiritual reinforcement, is my friend and battle partner… battle colleague? army teammate? I’ve forgotten what they are called. Anyway, it’s Patrick Lenton! He is the man shaped like a human Pez Dispenser that dispenses witty jokes and observations instead of Pezzes, and we love him.
Now, usually when I start a new season of this show I say ‘it feels like just yesterday we were here about to watch together!’ but this time the last one genuinely feels like it was a decade ago, if I can remember it at all. It almost feels like a dream, but the dream continues mainly on Instagram. I feel weird. It’s like I’ve been Severence’d! (I have not seen any of Severance yet and know nothing about it, just having a guess as to what it’s about, mainly based on the poster).
My most enduring relationship to the season is following my man Konrad’s journey (now dating Thelma Plum??), and the fact that Holly and Millie, who met as contestants on Brooke’s season, are still together!!!!! Love is real!! Lesbians are real!!
The first big news this season, besides the Charmed Sisters, is that there has been a location shakeup. Instead of the usual beautiful mansion surrounded by fairy lights and greenery, we are now in a a 74-story hideous high-rise penthouse on the Gold Coast that looks like a place coked out office workers go to die.
They are really going hard for a different vibe this season, and can you blame them? They tried diversity exactly one time and it didn’t fix everything, so what else can they do besides revert to three white men and the Gold Coast?
They are really making sure we know it’s different at every opportunity. At one point when welcoming the 3achelors to the Menthouse, Osher says, and I quote:
“Not one fake flower or fairy light in sight…so much different about the bachelor this season” Also he’s dressed like a mobster for some reason (Gold Coast).
The way Osher spoke and the way the episode was shot really made it seem like an episode of The Mole. At one point Osher even looks into a telescope and shows that the men can see the other place the women will be staying. In the episode Osher does a cheeky reference to wanting to tell the audience about a big twist but not being able to yet. Cheeky boy! It won’t be but I really hope the twist is that there is actually a Mole, trying to undermine and undercut all the relationships. If there isn’t one, there should be one next season, and it should be me. I am so good at undercutting heterosexual relationships, I was born for the role. It would be like Miss Congeniality.
The setup of all the 3achelors living together reminds me of the reboot of Joe Millionaire that came out last year, and I’m wondering if the producers caught word of that. The reboot formula is that there’s two men, one rich & one not, who date from a pool of women and at the end it’s revealed which one, but it doesn’t matter because of love (it does matter). The two men also live together and you see a lot of their relationship develop, and the audience really liked that part of the show. Anyhoo just #tvthoughts, imagine if I used this brain to think about literally anything useful. Oh well, we’ll never know!
The second big change in this season is the format. Instead of the red carpet arrivals, the first episode consisted of the 3achelors all going around having little mini dates with women (that the women organised), at the end of which they would give them a rose and ask them to come to the Gold Coast. Each 3achelor got to choose 10 women, but also in a move that the show desperately wanted us to know about, the women this season have CHOICE [choice choice choice]. That echo effect was literally on the word “choice” said in this episode, I didn’t come up with that.
I didn’t realise until now that the women of seasons past were being held captive, but apparently THIS season they will get to choose things. I think they probably just mean they can choose to hook up with any of the 3achelors, which is fine by me! My fave part of all of the chat about choice was when Osher sounded like he was doing slam poetry when he said in quite a funny manner:
“but with more choice/comes more of a voice/sitting back/hoping to get recognised/i don’t know if that’s going to get you/what you came here to find”
No idea what this means, but I have a recording of it if you want to see it. Anyway it’s time to recap this ep! As usual, Patrick and I will be ranking order of who annoyed us least and who annoyed us most, and any other things my Severence-brain can recall.
LEAST ANNOYING
Kate
The show kicked off with the 3achelors all heading out to have a bunch of their mini-dates with women, and at the end of the date they would either receive a ticket to the Gold Coast in the shape of a rose, or they’d be left sad and bewildered as we saw time and time again. Some were extremely awkward to watch - usually due to the men arriving and immediately deciding that the woman wasn’t hot enough for them. You could basically see the light go out in their eyes, and they would just simply not bother to see what her personality might be like.
The dates were organised by the women to show the men a bit about themselves, and my favourite was Kate’s date with Felix, the ex-basketball player. She is an OBGYN (or maybe a midwife, i can’t remember. The doctor was a woman!) who thought it would be a good idea ‘to traumatise’ him on their first date by having him help deliver a fake baby, saying ‘there’s no way he’s going to forget my rubber vagina’. She was so funny and pretty and had a voice like a newsreader, and I was like “well, she’s definitely going all the way”, but I mistakenly forgot what stupid men are like.
Felix, the moron, was visibly uncomfortable and freaked out by it, saying at one point ‘i’m a little weirded out….not that I haven’t seen one before ha ha’
And then he didn’t give her a rose!!! GROW THE FUCK UP FELIX!!!! Get a sense of humour jesus christ!!! Kate took it well as he left, holding the fake baby and saying “Don’t worry, I’ll find you another daddy”, which is SO FUNNY.
Stupid decision, stupid man.
Felix
I just got so mad again at Felix writing the above that I almost kicked him off this list. I am definitely not saying he was NOT annoying, but to me his vibe is that of a dumb sort of nice horny man rather than a mean or rude bad man, and that’s sometimes the best we can wish for in this rotten life. But also don’t get me wrong, every single woman he goes on a date with is too good for him.
He is 27 (?) and has never been in love or in a relationship, which if you ask me is just the perfect candidate to go on this insane dating show. I warmed to him early on in the episode when he was talking about not ever having been in love and he said “Ive never felt that. That’s why im here. Yeah i wanna have fun - but with the right person you can find the middle ground.” To me this sounds like he thinks fun and love are on the opposite spectrums, which I think either 1. he is not very bright and just tried to sound smart or 2. he really thinks fun and love are opposite and i’m fascinated to see how dating goes. It is definitely number 1, and I love a himbo.
Despite saying that he was sick of “hookup culture” (a term it sort of sounded like he had just learned), and only being all about physical attraction, you could immediately tell when he walked into a room if he was cartoonishly horny for them or not, and if he was he really went for it, and ended up EXTREMELY hornily making out with two of the mini-dates. Which as a slut, I am forced to respect.
Also one of the dates was with a woman who was standing under a gondola holding her pet cat like a baby.
After the rubber vagina incident I expected Felix to be freaked out by this but he loves cats, seemingly mostly because he is “named after a cat”. He was very enthusiastic and held the cat which was very cute! The woman (i’ve forgotten your name sorry but love your work), told him that the cat usually hates people and she was surprised he loved Felix so much, which absolutely sounds like a lie and I also respect that.
Felix did not annoy me very much this episode, but I am absolutely not certain that he won’t do so in coming weeks. Tall men get away with too much with a lot of women simply by being born tall, and it’s very annoying.
Krystal
Krystal is one of the women that Felix hornily made out with, and she 100% engineered for it to happen exactly as it went down, and she’s an icon . She won me over immediately by saying “we’re doing a bit of Krystal now, no more blondes” and that they should have certain qualities and “be funny and….have a big dick”. She stripped down, got Felix to strip down, and rubbed against him in body paint.
She gave me slight Abbie vibes actually, she’s funny and deliberately sexy. I cannot wait to see more of her, stunnin’.
MOST ANNOYING
Jed
Jed is not only the most annoying this week, he is perhaps the most annoying man every week of his life. Jed is a 25 year old songwriter drummer Christian, who loves to drum, and he also drums and does drumming. I was literally laughing out loud (more than I have laughed at any scripted comedy in recent times) because they kept showing him drumming on his knees or legs or tapping things all the time.
Jed’s first date was his downfall, because something happened that immediately exposed his true self, and I’m afraid I am a Scorpio and I will literally never forgive him! His first mini-date was with a woman called Caitlyn, a beautiful psychology graduate who asked Aldi Spike from Buffy some direct questions, listened to the answers, and then rejected the rose that he offered her, saying she didn’t feel a romantic connection.
And because this season is all about CHOICE [choice choice choice], Jed was cool with it and walked her out and gave her a hug. Just kidding, he got incredibly fucking pissed off. I think she was probably directed by producers to do this, which is fine, but I don’t think his reaction was acting.
Look at that face! It is actually scary, and not just because he doesn’t know not to look at the camera. This man was was shocked that she was allowed to say no to him, and was FUMING that she said no to him, and he stormed out like a little bitch, saying “I just thought I was the one making those decisions.”
Jed thinks he is hot, and unfortunately so do many of the women - fooled into thinking this kind of guy is hot because of the Pete Davidson type. The difference is that Pete Davidson is charming and funny and talented. I guess the women are all going to have to come to this realisation in their own time, and I will have to just sit idly by and watch and be here to support, similarly to my real life.
From this point on The Little Drummer Boy was in a bad mood, and was an absolute rude motherfucker to the next few women, being non-verbal, barely talking, and ditching early. He only changed when he walked into see a woman in yoga clothes doing a routine, when he got horny enough for one of them to bother talking to her like a human being.
As you can possibly tell, I am not a fan of this man yet! He then went on to have a few consecutive dates with really hot women where he made out with them and then kept declaring each of them superior to all the other one’s he met, until the next one he liked and then he would declare her better. He went ice-skating with a woman (which he was so bad at I am shocked she didn’t get the ick), and said “Id rather be on thin ice with her than solid ground with anyone else”, imagining he is a poet. Several times in the episode he said “I should write a song about that” and honestly it was a roller coaster of going from hating him to laughing out loud at him.
I can only imagine what the weeks are to bring, I’m actually sort of excited to see how hate-filled I can become!
The 3 Rings
At the start of the episode Osher did a deeply weird Acknowledgement of Country (?) and then talked about how he was so confident that the men would find love that he had a surprise for them. The surprise - engagement rings, each customised to the man who must hold it. They were all hideous, and Jed’s was the most hideous, so they did a good job.
The other rings are the same except different colours, a blue and I don’t remember who cares. I am in Aotearoa at the moment with my girlfriend, and a few nights ago she forced me to watch Lord of the Rings (which I’ve never seen), and somehow those bumbling hobbits i found irritating and frustrating were far less annoying than these three 3achelors hobbits.
NEVER TO ANNOY OR NOT ANNOY AGAIN
A bunch of perfectly nice women who were rejected by one of these three magicians.
The end of the episode showed the women arriving at the house, and discovering that there are THIRTY of them, and that there are three Bachelors. I have no idea how the format is going to work moving forward, and it will be really interesting to see how it pans out, especially considering it feels a bit like Channel 10 is just trying to dump the episodes.
In any case, the handsome Patrique will be with you next episode and I cannot wait to get his read on these men! Thank you for joining us on this journey, please stay by my side, and I’m sorry this was so incredibly long! J.R.R Tolkien stands for Jesus Rebecca’s Really Tolkien!
Bye!
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Also, I haven't kept up with any of them from the last Bachelorette, but the knowledge that Holly and Millie are still together just warms my heart.
Incredible. I am not watching, just reading, but when you said Aldi version of Spike I just know that this is the truth. This is who he thinks.
In my ideal world, from reading this, Felix will go through this and realise that while he is allosexual, he is actually aromantic and decide to choose no one. Jed will get rejected by everyone and be a lonely little piss baby having a massive tantrum. And I guess there is another one who isn't mentioned, so I don't know what my fantasy storyline for him will be.
Also, Kate for the next Bachelorette. I'd love to see the challenges she'd make them all do.