Look, before we get into the whole smearing thing, there’s something we need to talk about with The Bachelor and it’s the music. Specifically, how oddly racist it’s gotten.
The music on the show is a goddamn force of nature, doing all of the heavy lifting during the bits where they don’t have a Nikki or Mary reaction shot to hand.
But this episode it started doing a bit more than was technically required.
Such as throwing in some music-hall oriental tones when Kristen started speaking in Mandarin, for example, and then going all tabla’n’sitar when Matt sat down to talk about Sogand with her best friend, who was dressed identically in some sort of weird clone situation.
Thankfully they got it out of their system early so by the time Sorgand and Abbie were accusing each other of not being on the show for the right reasons their childish argument wasn’t undercut by the soundtrack getting all Bollywood on them.
Speaking of #batchymatchy, maybe prep your best friend to talk you up with some well-chosen phrases first, just in case they say something like “Sogand is like an onion. She’s very passionate,” because that really doesn’t work either as a compliment or a metaphor.
But, more importantly, there’s no polite way to ask but does The Bachelor have a thing for smearing stuff on women’s faces? Because now it’s been integral to two dates and it’s a bit… weird.
His date with Chelsea devolved into a food fight which included smooshing her face into cake batter. This time around he was massaging Kristen with coffee and exotic unguents, and went rapidly from giggly play fight to big ol’ snog.
Anyway, this brings the number of blonde women he’s pashed on dates up to a solid four, I think. Five, actually, by the end of this episode – well done, Helena.
Life lesson: beware of becoming what you’re ostensibly fighting against
The show so far has been busily bigging up Abbie as the villain of the show, a ruthless operator using her feminine wiles to manipulate her way to victory.
And her nemesis through this has been Sorgand, who has largely confined herself to being exasperated in her cutaways to this point. But this episode she started doing the exact same ruthless-manipulation thing in an attempt to bring Abbie down, most notably in telling Kate what a piece of work Abbie is.
Oh, the irony! You either die a hero or live long enough to become the villain, as that noted philosopher Harvey Dent so astutely pointed out in The Dark Knight.
Anyway: obviously Abbie and Sorgand are going to end up fighting to the death atop a volcano or something. It’ll be a ratings smash.
Date tip: don’t bring your best friend in early
The group date involved Matt running four women by his bestie, Kate. And oh, what a poisoned chalice that was!
If you’ve ever wanted to see a woman visibly thinking “how would I feel about this person being in my social group?” and concluding “nup”, this was the opportunity of a lifetime.
Also, it sounds like Kate has plenty to do herself. She’s got a wedding to arrange, Matt, stop pulling focus with your own weird TV thing. In any case, the last thing she needs to do is make awkward smalltalk with a bunch of women which she’ll almost certainly never see again.
And ultimately Cassandra’s enthusiasm for talking to Kate about her plans to expand her business as opposed to marrying and popping out Mattlings got her evicted this episode, although to be fair it did sound as though she had a lot to be getting on with.
Llamawatch: They live!
Not one but two llamas!
Clearly they heard our concerns. Thank you, The Bachelor. Thank you.