By ROSIE WATERLAND

Here we are everyone! Only eight ladies left, which I’m sure the producers are thrilled about because it means everyone can fit inside their fave mode of transport all at once: the rickety sea plane.

Once again the editors have decided to shake things up a little by opening the show on a shot of the ladies and not Tim. They’re flying high above some beautiful landscape that I’m sure Osher will tell us about as soon as we’ve had the obligatory shot of The Bachelor contemplating life by the beach.

Ali says she doesn’t know where she’s going but she “just hopes Tim is there!” Natalie is only just figuring out the rules of the game: “To be here with Tim is like my ultimate date. The problem is I’m sharing it with seven other girls.”

Yup.

Anna’s decided that there may be seven other girls but she’s the only special one: “The girls are really starting to see it as a competition but for me this is different. This is my future.”

HER FUTURE YOU GUYS.

Wait a second – Osher is here to tell us what show this is and where the girls are but we still haven’t seen Tim having his serious think on the beach. WHAT IS HAPPENING?!?

How will Tim know which of the girls he likes and which of the girls he doesn’t, unless he’s looked out at the horizon without his shirt on? How will he know?!?

Osher points out to sea. Apparently Tim’s out on the catamaran that happens to be floating there. He gives the girls a wave. I guess we just to have to trust that he got his thinking out of the way already.

Osher tells the girls that this is The Bachelor and they’re on a beach in Western Australia and there’s only eight girls left and only one can win and Tim’s waiting for YOU on that catamaran.

He’s barely finished his final sentence before Ali is 50 metres out to sea.

DRAMA: Natalie is scared of boats. She is refusing to partake in today’s group date. Apparently it’s something about a fear of not being in control. “If you’re out in the middle of the water, there’s nowhere to go,” says the woman who JUST STEPPED OFF A SEA PLANE.

Out on the catamaran, Tim pretty much seals Natalie’s fate by saying he would find being with someone who isn’t comfortable on the water a challenge. Cut back to Natalie in a hammock on the beach:

Doesn’t really look like she gives a f**k what Tim thinks.

Tim asks who needs sunscreen and Penny leaps higher in the air than was previously thought possible for a human being. She does her usual, not at all deranged “I’ll take whatever time I can get HAHAHAHAHA!!!” routine.

Tim decides that one of the qualities he likes best in Penny is how much she likes him: “Penny’s very determined to get some one on one time with me. I really admire that.”

Ali makes a joke that is quite clearly a thinly veiled threat of violence: “Penny – I think it’s all rubbed in.” Penny dutifully steps back, so as not to trigger the lethal lasers that Ali had inserted into her eyes by the people who make WMDs.

Anna does a backflip into the ocean and Tim notices that her top has come off. When she floats about five metres away from the boat, he decides she’s being swept out to sea and jumps in to get some boob action save her.

Ali promptly hurls herself into the ocean to make sure she gets her own Baywatch scenario. She bobs up and down within arm’s reach of the boat and waits for Tim to come and get her.

WELL PLAYED.

Rochelle flips out when she notices Anna and Tim ‘rubbing hands’. This must be some kind of euphemism that only she understands because she’s decided it means they’re falling in love.

“If they’re freaking falling in love I better do something about it!” Um, DUH. What do you think Ali’s been doing this whole time?

Back on the beach, Tim announces that he’s going to take Penny to a private dinner. Her eyes twitch a little as she says “he doesn’t know what’s about to hit him.” Here’s hoping it’s not a blunt object to the back of the head.

Obviously, Tim’s dragged his two-seater across the country and dumped it on the sand by a fire, because it’s impossible to take a woman on a date that doesn’t involve a two-seater by a fire.

And look! Tim has been practicing his conversation skills! Listen to this zinger: “If you were to write the script for a movie, would it be a comedy, a drama or a romance?”

Deep.

Penny decides the word ‘romance’ is her cue to launch into some serious word vomit. She starts mumbling something about not ending up a crazy cat lady.

Tim doesn’t really get the reference and asks if that means she doesn’t really like animals. “No”, she replies. “I have a cat.”

We then spend about 24 minutes listening to Penny explain that her cat is 58-years-old and can’t go outside and he has epilepsy and she has to put a tablet up his bum every three minutes and she wakes up every hour to feed him mice she’s pre-chewed for him to help with his digestion and she just loves him so much but she’s not a cat lady.

Penny doesn’t notice that Tim looks petrified and pushes on. She’s been waiting her whole life for this one-on-one time and she’s going to say what she needs to say, damn it.

Penny talks about having been married before to a guy that broke her heart and that they were going to buy a house together and have kids together but he broke her heart and she hasn’t found love since then, which has been hard because she thought it was going to be easy but it hasn’t been and…

BREATH

… she thinks maybe she’s found it with Tim because whenever she talks to him she gets tingles and butterflies and she can tell when she looks into his eyes that she can see herself falling in love with him and…

BIG BREATH. TEARS. BREATH.

Tim looks tortured. It’s like one of his daggy little sister’s friends just asked him to the formal and he doesn’t know how to say ‘thanks but no thanks’.

Penny tells him she’s crying tears of joy.

Cut to a private moment with Tim. He tells the camera that “I’m conflicted about whether this is a friendship or there’s something more. I need to take some time to think because I don’t want to lead her on.”

Read: “I really don’t want to keep her here but there’s no way I’m telling her that while we’re alone and I don’t have Ali here to protect me.”

Tim doesn’t give her the date-rose but it doesn’t bother her. She loved it. She had a ball. The only reason he didn’t give it to her is because he’s testing her resolve. OBVIOUSLY.

Back at the hotel with the other girls and… Osher’s here! He reminds us that we’re at the beach in Western Australia and this is The Bachelor. He leaves the single-date card on the table, which goes to Anna.

Rochelle’s plan to ‘do something’ about their love is clearly going well.

Date day. Tim talks us through his time with Anna so far, although I don’t know why he’s doing that when Osher is clearly the one with a talent for explaining the current status of events.

They’re going mud-crabbing because mud-crabbing is romantic. Surprisingly, we actually get to see the mud-crab man. Up until now all the experts have been hidden from sight in an attempt to make Tim look like he knows everything about everything.

Tim and Anna catch one crab. Tim says he’ll cook it for dinner but then they put in a bucket and leave the bucket. I think he lied about dinner.

I guess they had to rush off to get to the complex nature shelter Tim built on the beach:

That baby could withstand a hurricane.

Wow. This date is going well for Anna. This chick is a genius.

She’s somehow convinced Tim that she’s the Bachelorette and HE needs to win HER. She’s saying things like “I’ve never been in love because I’ve never felt like anyone was worth saying it to.” And “I’ve been with guys but none of them deserved to be called my boyfriend.”

And the kicker: “I just want to find someone who’ll love me. And that it’s mutual – because that’s where I’ve had trouble in the past.” TRANSLATION: I hope that I can love you, but nobody’s ever managed to sway me in the past. Good luck buddy”.

She’s turned herself into a conquest that Tim’s desperate to win, and our Bachelor is falling for it BIG TIME.

In a private cutaway, he looks like a giggly schoolgirl as he says “I think that she’s ready to find someone. And that person could quite possibly be me. I have a huge crush on Anna. I think this giddiness I’m feeling means I’m falling for her.”

Check. And. Mate.

They jump into the sea and kiss.

Back at the house, a few of the girls are trying to get their heads around the concept of this complex show that they’ve been working on for eight weeks now.

Sarah looks shocked as she informs the others that “There can only be ONE girl. We can’t all be his girlfriend. There can only be one girl! ” GASP.

Cocktail party time. Tim pulls Sarah away to tell her she was ‘stand-offish’ on the boat.’ Apparently he needs to “get a feel for how it’s going to be when it’s just you and me.”

And in the first incident of a girl not standing for The Bachelor’s bullshit, Sarah informs him that there were seven other girls on the boat and it’s important for him to try and put himself in her position.

He seems confused. Why is she not apologising?

There’s a tense silence. Some awkward staring. Tim is not quite sure how to handle this unpleasantness. They head back to the party. But just when you think Sarah might be the smartest players in the game, she tells the camera in a private cutaway that she’s not worried because “couples have tiffs and arguments all the time!” Sigh.

Penny is explaining to another one of the girls how she’s going to win through sheer force of will. Who needs love when you’re willing to work hard? She goes through her checklist: “Did I step up at the group date? Did I show him I’m appreciative of being in Broome? Did I leave the right amount of my eyelashes on his pillow so he may accidentally swallow one while sleeping?”

Penny is still refusing to accept she’s been friend-zoned, reasoning that “every time I’ve spoken to him I’ve spoken to him about good things. Hopefully he’ll notice that and think: I wanna spend some time with you.”

Yep. Talking about good things is the key to love.

Natalie randomly pops up and says she really wants to explain her fear of boats. Ali sweeps in and promptly knocks her out so the actual contenders can keep playing the game.

Penny’s talking AGAIN. Now she’s reasoning that there’s no way Tim could send her home because she’s been ‘so patient’.

Using that logic, I could call Ryan Gosling right now and tell him he must marry me because I’ve been waiting patiently for him ever since I first watched The Notebook.

Osher’s here! He tries to add some colour to the complicated maths this week by telling the girls that “the journey on the path to love will end for one of you tonight.” Poetic.

It comes down to the Joan Collins lookalike with a boat phobia and Penny.

Penny gets booted.

She can’t believe it because she’s been so patient and she worked so hard. Tim takes her away to explain that he just didn’t feel romantically about her. She handles it pretty well and heads home to stick pills up her epileptic cat’s bum.

Next week it looks like Ali is going to literally risk her life to get close to Tim. Could be her most genius play yet…

Missing Tim and the girls already? Check out their journey so far:

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