The Bachelorette Episode One Recap

Love's a bench.

Yes, that’s right, The Bachelorette is back, and it’s got more fairy lights than ever! But this year we’ve got a Bachelorette with a difference: Brooke is the first ever bisexual Bachelorette, as well as the first ever Aboriginal Bachelorette. This is important as she shows that no matter what your race, no matter what your sexuality, anyone can grow up to spit in the face of romance and publicly trample the very concept of love into the dirt.

We begin with a brief recap of Brooke’s Bachelory adventures: she began on The Bachelor with Nick “The Honey Badger” Cummins, but left after Cummins admitted he was looking less for a woman and more for an underpants ad contract.

Brooke then moved on to Bachelor in Paradise, but fell short again. Having gone through two reality series and still having no breakfast radio slot, Brooke decided to go all in and become The Bachelorette.

We are then subjected to a montage of everything that is going to happen in the entire series, like this is Murder She Wrote or something. It goes for, at a rough estimate, five hours, and prepares us for the grim reality of the show: we are going to have to watch Brooke dab at her eyes a LOT this year.

It is now time for Brooke to stand on the red carpet, amid the scattered remains of a million dead roses, and prepare to meet the strangers she will be required to fake interest in during the coming weeks. Of course this involves being greeted by Osher “TAFKAAG” Gunsberg, TV’s most superfluous personality eight years running. “You’re showing a generation of people what they can be,” TAFKAAG tells Brooke, and he’s technically correct, she is. But then, so was Aileen Wuornos, so it’s not necessarily something to be proud of.

Oh, here comes the first limo. Out of it steps Holly, who is a marketing administrator AND a dancer - what we call a “half-threat”. She believes that she and Brooke have lots of things in common: for example, they both enjoy walking in slow motion on bridges and staring at nothing. Holly and Brooke briefly slow-dance together and both agree it is incredibly romantic: in fact the only thing that could possibly make it more romantic is if a stream of other people now show up and hit on Brooke one by one. Coincidentally, they do.

The next limo is not a limo, but a ride-on lawnmower. Riding it is Darvid, who has chosen to arrive on a mower because he knows Brooke’s biggest turn-on is the destruction of nature. He explains to Brooke that the mower has a backstory. The backstory is “I am a landscaper”. He then brings Brooke some tea because he is Persian, and also a magic lamp that when Brooke rubs it will produce a genie that will grant her wish to become a guest quizmaster on Have You Been Paying Attention without having to kiss any more horrible people. There is then some really awful banter. and Brooke makes herself laugh at nothing.

The next limo disgorges Beau, who is a photographer, a carpenter, and a builder - or in other words, he’s not really a photographer. “I like to look good,” says Beau, which is a weird thing to say for a man who’s chosen to wear Sandy Duncan’s hairdo. Brooke tells him he looks handsome. Beau agrees. Beau has chosen to appear on the show as a last resort after the network rejected his idea for show where he attempts to win the affections of himself.

Next up is Karissa, who has unfortunately badly torn her dress but soldiered on anyway. She gets Brooke in the mood for love by telling her a story about her mother’s funeral. Karissa is certain that her mother wants her to get some. She has brought Brooke a badly drawn picture of a turtle. “I’m actually speechless,” says Brooke, who is too polite to tell Karissa that she’s a creepy loon.

Next is Konrad, who’s got wood. In fact he has several huge pieces of wood, and has shown up wearing hi-vis and a toolbelt, so that Brooke knows straight away that he is a tool. Konrad introduces himself to Brooke and then asks her to help him make a bench. The power drill comes out, and the possibility of severe bloody injuries is both real and appealing, but in the end sadly nothing goes wrong and they end up with what can without fear of contradiction be called a bench. Konrad makes a deal with Brooke: he will put the bench somewhere and she can sit on it. This is, in some way, romantic.

A variety of suitors are in several limos: these are the dregs who we will be moving through quickly to get them out of the way. The first is Ryan, who is a plumber and so boring he’s on screen for less than ten seconds. Next is Ritu, who is a filmmaker and almost as uninteresting as Ryan. Then there is Taje, who like Brooke is also an Indigenous woman and will give thousands of people on Twitter even more reason to pretend this is a good show. Next is some guy whose name I didn’t catch, but who has a swimming background and therefore brings Brooke a personalised swimsuit in a deeply inappropriate gesture.

Next comes Matthew, who performs a rap for Brooke, and hoo boy, it is early days but if this series produces a worse moment than that it’ll be pretty goddamn awful. Matthew is a metal fabricator, which is a nice change from carpenters and plumbers although not to a particularly large degree. Next is Jess, who is only on screen for a fleeting moment but you can tell she’s not very nice. Next is Emily, who has brought a small horse, but sadly Brooke has already eaten.

Next, Johann, who is, in a surprise twist, a carpenter, and also a Bond villain. Next is Bec, who has one of the most startlingly long necks I’ve seen in my entire life. After Bec comes Steve, who has broken some kind of Bachelorette rule by being a podiatrist.

Now we come to an intriguing suitor. Psychology student Jamie-Lee was an intruder on the Honey Badger Bachelor season, where she met Brooke and thought she’d like to break off a piece of that. She feels like she now has a chance to get her feelings off her chest, and hopefully get Brooke on it. She has written a letter to Brooke to explain exactly how she feels about building a media career on the back of this show.

Brooke is surprised to see Jamie-Lee, but holds her emotions in check and manages to avoid saying or doing anything entertaining. The two women rub up against each other for a bit and then move on.

The suitors gather around a flaming garbage bin to get drunk. The swimming guy shows everyone his underpants. Beau talks at length about how big a threat he is and the others kindly humour his rambling gibberish. Matthew tells Bec he’s scared of women. Bec says she is too. Jamie-Lee enters and everyone is amazed to see that woman whose face seems vaguely familiar from somewhere or other. Holly recognises her from The Bachelor and the story comes out, causing everyone to hate Jamie-Lee’s guts instantly.

Suddenly TAFKAAG arrives in order to justify his salary, welcoming everyone to the mansion and telling them how hot bisexuality is. He explains how roses work on the show, as if they don’t already fucking know. He also explains how the white rose works: whoever gets the white rose on the first night gets the first single date, because on The Bachelorette, as in society, white symbolises power.

It is now time for Brooke to walk in, resplendent in her weird half-mushroom bubble dress. At this point a bombshell is dropped: the swimming guy’s name is Kurt.

Brooke addresses the crowd, telling them that she is looking for love and as a young, intelligent, super-attractive woman, she can literally not think of any way to do this that doesn’t involve her starring in a reality TV show. “Let’s have some fun,” she then says, and everyone strips off and gets busy.

Well, no, sadly this show is never that good. Brooke takes Karissa off for a chat, to let her know that her dress really is very badly ripped and everyone can see her pubes. The suitors discuss whether someone should go and interrupt Brooke and Karissa, with Taje eventually the first to take the plunge and diplomatically tell Karissa to get her hands off her woman.

Brooke and Taje have a nice chat about how sexy it is when a woman rudely interrupts two people having a conversation. Brooke wonders why none of the men seem to be willing to be douchebags to win her heart the way Taje did. One by one the women swoop in to grab Brooke away from the last woman, as the men stand around the fire trying to see where their testicles have gotten to.

But Konrad has a plan: he will whisk Brooke away to his plain, unattractive bench, and love will naturally bloom from that point. Taje helps him place some cushions on it, something that Konrad would never have thought of because he’s a stupid dumb idiotic man.

Jess explains that she has a lot to offer Brooke, such as “qualities”. “I want to do something a little bit different,” she says, cooking up a batch of crystal meth. There is a sense of foreboding in the air.

Meanwhile Konrad is surrounded by women who are eager to see him succeed with his bench-based seduction technique. And just then…

Jess sees Konrad’s bench. She takes Brooke to the bench. They sit on the bench. Tje spectators cannot believe this, because they’ve only just met Jess and don’t know yet what a colossal arsehole she is. Jess explains to Brooke how she’s stolen Konrad’s bench. Brooke giggles, finding Jess’s obnoxiousness charming.

Everyone is angry at Jess, though oddly, nobody is angry at Brooke, who had every opportunity to say, “No, actually Konrad made me this loveseat so I think we should sit somewhere else”, but didn’t because she is turned on by unpleasant women.

Konrad approaches the bench, pretending to not be burning with hatred. Jess apologises for stealing his bench and then later on tells the camera that she is not at all sorry for stealing his bench.

Konrad sits down with Brooke while Jess goes back to the party, where everyone laughs awkwardly and pretends to not think Jess is the biggest bitch they ever met. If this series can become less about a group of people trying to make Brooke fall in love with them, and more about a group of people hating Jess’s guts, it could really develop into something.

Konrad explains to Brooke that the bench is a loveseat, which is not something anyone could ever tell by looking at it. Brooke is mildly aroused by Konrad’s chivalrous manner.

We swiftly move through a series of quick convos between Brooke and the men, all of whom she finds mildly interesting and not entirely unattractive though it’s pretty clear none of them are revving her chainsaw like the ladies do. In particular Jamie-Lee, who gets some alone time with Brooke to discuss how they are already basically a couple and the whole show is a hollow farce. They agree that they had a “sliding door” moment, which is why they both have badly bruised forearms. “You’re as beautiful as the day I met you,” says Brooke, as if this is in some way unusual. They met three years ago, this isn’t As Time Goes By. And then they kiss, and everyone stands up and claps.

Time for the first rose. The white rose goes to…Darvid? OK, whatever. The lawnower worked I guess.

But now the for the good bit: the bit where someone’s dreams are destroyed. Everyone gathers for the rose ceremony. Konrad expresses his hatred of Jess. Jess hopes that she has shown what kind of person she is, and yeah…she has. TAFKAAG enters and fills some time. “A rose ceremony that will go down in history,” he wanks.

Jamie-Lee is not present as she is not feeling well. She’s also the only one who’s kissed Brooke on the mouth. Connect the dots etc.

Brooke enters to choose which person she doesn’t know anything about is worse than all the other people she doesn’t know anything about.

Holly gets a rose because her dress is the tackiest.

Kurt gets a rose because he wears Speedos.

Karissa gets a rose because it would suck to have to go home with a torn dress.

Ritu gets a rose because otherwise we’d have forgotten all about her.

Taje gets a rose because she seems nice enough.

Beau gets a rose because the longer he’s on the show the funnier it will be when he’s humiliated.

Konrad gets a rose because Brooke knows she might at any moment in her life need a bench at short notice. Jess does not like this.

Ryan gets a rose because he reminds Brooke of a dog she once had.

Bec gets a rose because she can see over tall trees.

Matt gets a rose because Brooke loves sex-offender moustaches.

Steve gets a rose because he has something interesting stuck in his ear.

This leaves Jess, who is awful, and Johann, who is an extra in a WWII movie. The rose goes to Jess because without someone who everyone hates, The Bachelorette is nothing. And Johann goes home, sparing us all the pain of getting to know him.

Tune in tomorrow, when Jess sets fire to the men’s bedroom.