This week's Bachelor recap: Sailing, risotto and a serious lack of crazy eyes.

By ROSIE WATERLAND

Here we go again! The ads promised things would get serious this week, with double dates and fights to the death becoming the new rules of the game.

As usual, we open with Tim doing some serious surfing/contemplation at the beach. It’s getting a bit tired but I suppose you can’t blame a guy for needing to take his shirt off to do some serious thinking.

First shock of the evening: Who the hell is Katherine and why she is on camera saying she wants a group date? We’re a month into the series and I still don’t recognise some of these women.

Obviously this is part of an elaborate plan and the producers have been keeping these mystery women in isolation to evenly spread out the crazy across the series. Otherwise how do you explain the tragic departure of Jolene and Bianca?

Thank god Osher has arrived to explain to me that I’m watching The Bachelor and everything’s going to be okay. He drops the group date card and leaves; no doubt going back to his secret lair to watch the chaos unfold as he strokes a hairless cat.

Penny and Ali are both left out of the group date. They’re getting better at acting calm for the cameras but that twinkle of crazy in their eyes is a guarantee that they’ve got another voodoo love ritual planned for later. Let’s just say Tim will unexpectedly get tingles in his special place at the same time Ali and Penny are ‘doing something secret in the basement.’

WINK.

Tim apparently loves sailing, so taking control of a tall ship is obviously the best setting for the next group date. Osher arrives to remind the girls that they’re on The Bachelor and the Bachelor is Tim and that Tim, the Bachelor is here today.

They squeal with shock and excitement. Something about going on a date with The Bachelor is apparently unexpected for them.

Now each of the girls really wants everybody to know that they understand puns and innuendo by using a lot of puns and innuendo.

Check out these gems: “I’d be happy for him to be my Jack Sparrow” and “He can row my boat any day.” ZING! Well done ladies.

On the boat, Tim is hoping to judge the girls based on their ‘sea legs’. It’s not entirely clear if he understands that sea legs actually has nothing to do with physical limbs.

We’re then treated to several shots of Tim and the girls ‘sailing’ the ship. There’s maps and rulers and a compass and everything – so it must be legit. About five minutes in, it becomes clear that they actually believe they’re in control of the boat, despite all those strange men called ‘professional sailors’ walking around pulling on ropes and stuff.

OMG.

Belle and Tim are sharing an intimate moment on top of some ropes and poles and ship stuff AND SHE JUST PUKED. That was actually the most genuine thing any of the girls have done the entire season.

If it had happened while they were kissing, we could have just shut this whole thing down right now and kept that moment in our hearts forever.

Tim spends time comforting Belle while she hurls and Dani gets some serious vomit-envy. She spends the rest of the date trying to figure out how to accidentally amputate a limb to get the Bachelor’s attention.

Katherine and Tim are now off to a special dinner date at his ‘house’, which is covered in so many fairy lights it’s hard to believe Ali and her troupe of Disney forest animals didn’t have something to do with the decorating.

Can you tell I miss Ali? A lot.

And now, finally, in the biggest moment of the series to date, we get to hear Tim say more than two sentences in a row without Osher there to prompt him. He gets a little overwhelmed by the pressure of it all and things do not go well.

The Bachelor tells a joke about a dead monk and a jus recipe and then freaks out so just keeps saying the word ‘jus’ as many times as he can. He really, really wants Katherine to know he made this jus. Jus jus jus. Jus Jus.

After the dead monk/jus disaster, Tim should really be taking it easy on the ‘saying and doing things’ front but instead decides to impress his date with a magic trick. OSHER WHERE ARE YOU? PLEASE MAKE IT STOP.

Words words words sexy winking words words and they’re kissing.

And who wouldn’t? Card tricks and dead monks are where it’s AT! Amiright?

Next up we have the single date, which has actually become a double that only one woman will survive. I would really like Osher to walk in, hand each of the girls a Miley-hammer and just say “begin.”

Alas, it’s not to be.

We just have to settle for Laura and Rochelle looking really menacingly at each other by a window. One of them says “this is war” but it’s just not the same without gladiator weapons.

Tim arrives and takes them to a jewellery store. He takes some seriously special time with each of them to spend Channel 10’s money.

Rochelle wants us to know that she isn’t trying to nudge in on Laura’s time because she’s gracious and patient. She then displays the epitome of grace by informing Tim that she’s spent the last ten minutes being gracious and patient.

The three of them head to a private dinner at some fancy faux castle that exists solely for wedding receptions and Bachelor dates. Laura kills it in the small talk department by spending five minutes trying to decide if there’s rosemary in the risotto.

Tim decides he’d like to know more about the herb conundrum and invites her for some light chit-chat on the two-seater bachelor sofa he takes with him everywhere.

He starts small: “So, what life experiences have impacted on who you are?”

Laura seems confused by the depth of the question, which given Tim’s dead monk history, is fair enough.

“Um, no experiences have impacted me,” she replies. “So what are you looking for in a woman?”

NAILED IT.

Next up, Rochelle sits with Tim on the magic two-seater. She tells him that she’s never before been honest about her emotions, before being completely honest about her emotions. She really likes him blah blah blah may have stolen his used fork at dinner blah blah.

Tim is touched and decides to send Laura home because she is obviously a cyborg who has never been impacted by any life experiences and therefore wouldn’t be able to sit with him on the beach contemplating life.

When he tells her she’s going, Laura’s face goes from euphoria to complete sorrow in less than 5 seconds. It really is a wonder to watch but not as good as Rochelle completely breaking down when he offered her the rose.

She may have confused the rose for an actual marriage proposal because she kept blurting out “This is the best day of my life!” in between heaving sobs.

But Rochelle completely loses it when he gives her a box containing a pair of earrings. Her screams actually become so intense that she breaks the sound barrier and her head explodes into a million heart-shaped droplets of blood.

Rose ceremony time.

We know it’s going to be a tough one because there’s a time-lapsed sunset with serious music.

All the drama this time comes from some girl called Stacey. I know – Stacey who? Has she been down in the basement performing voodoo with Ali this whole time?

Stacey is mad that Tim doesn’t know who she is (and nor do we). Tim doesn’t notice because he doesn’t know who she is. He then sends her home because he doesn’t know who she is.

Osher tells Stacey that she’s going home because nobody knows who she is. Ali’s plan to keep her distracted in the basement has clearly worked. Stacey leaves. Nobody notices because nobody knows who she is.

There better be more Ali next week. I miss Ali.

Check out this gallery for highlights from the show so far:

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