There’s no point beating around the bush: when The Bachelor drew to a close on Thursday night and Sam Wood finally expressed his true feelings, the ungodly screams my housemate and I issued were not unlike Teri Garr’s response to Dustin Hoffman’s big reveal in Tootsie.
We screamed, we threw couch cushions on the floor, we reached for another fistful of nacho cheese corn chips: in short, we had been comprehensively duped by a combination of careful editing and mind-numbing musical cues. We had steamed towards the finish line convinced Sam was about to break the heart of a single mum and her daughter.
I was so certain of this fate for finalist Snezana Markoski that after her confession on their last date she’d fallen in love with Sam, and after he grunted “That’s such a beautiful thing to hear you say,” I bellowed, “DON’T YOU SHOPLIFT THE POOTIE, SAM!” at the television, recalling the sage wisdom of Rod Tidwell from Jerry Maguire on the topic of dating single mothers.
Fortunately, Sam appeared to choose a deeper connection over the frisson of intruder-inspired lust, even handing over a present for little Eve (who did not, sadly, immediately drop into the mansion via parachute to claim her necklace prize).
As for Snezana’s rival, Lana Jeavons-Fellows, the big-eyed brunette seemed so convinced of her impending triumph that watching her stomp out of the poolside floral show, only to hide under a shady tree and whimper, “Don’t film me,” inspired a strange mix of schadenfreude and sympathy.
The finale was a fitting end to a season of the show that made me honk, “Yeah, they all say that,” while clutching a bucket of Moscato – every time Sam whispered sweet nothings to an interchangeable paramour – as often as it forced me to consider whether it would be possible to find True Love within the contrived confines of the Bachelor mansion.
After all, this was a season in which the Bachelorettes were subjected to unusually cruel tricks, like the episode in which Sam went on an identical date with Ebru, Jacinda and Bec – ostensibly to test their “cool girl” mettle – a move whose psychological fallout made the Stanford prison experiment look like a teenage sleepover.
First off on Thursday night, Snezana and Lana – “Beautiful women of the highest calibre,” said Sam, as though he were talking about racehorses – were introduced to Sam’s family. His dad cried with Snezana, his sister grilled Lana and his brother said close to nothing – presumably because the producers had by that point spent so much money on candles and Moroccan-inspired wineglasses they couldn’t afford an extra radio microphone.
“Aww, that’s nice to see,” said Lana with the disaffection of a midday movie serial killer, as Sam’s sister Hannah wept about her love and respect for her romantically challenged big brother.
The show moved into a final date with each woman: a helicopter flight followed by a rowboat cruise for Lana and a trip in a convertible through the countryside with the top down for Snezana.
“When I look at a future with Lana, I know that she would constantly challenge me,” said Sam, who sent home four women in a row because their backgrounds, lives and personalities were too challenging for him.
The pair toodled around a small lake in a rowboat. “Shall I try to give you a kiss without getting wet?” asked Sam as he rowed Lana through a millpond, inadvertently summing up The Bachelor’s raison d’etre. He made good on his promise and my housemate screamed, “Auuuughhh why do we have to watch this?! Make it STOP!!!” before burying herself under a doona.
Then it was Snezana’s turn. As Sam squired her through the country in “his” red convertible and I mused, “I want to know more about that drystone wall they just drove past,” we reached peak Romance™. Sam brought the “romantic date involving a rapidly stagnating, shallow body of water” tally for the evening to two as he pulled the car up near a puddle in the mountains.
They later retired to a shabby chic barn, where at least 25,000 candles had been laid out (presumably to mask the smell of fresh horseshit, both literally and figuratively). As Snezana struggled to communicate her true feelings to Sam, his eyes struggled to focus, as though the candle aroma was about to overcome him.
Then, finally, it was time for the big announcement. As Sam whipped out his banana-coloured Zamel’s ring and thought about his Big Decision, the MechWarrior 2-esque music so beloved of the rose ceremony editors fired up again, just so we knew that someone was about to be served with at least six months’ worth of psychotherapy material.
As it turned out, that person was Lana, who was turfed into her limo and driven away to freedom. I couldn’t help but feel as though I’d just watched Andy Dufresne from The Shawshank Redemption crawl through a sewer en route to Mexico.
It was Snez’s big night, as it turned out. “Her dress was more bridal,” I offered sagely as my housemate agreed enthusiastically.
This was no romcom, though: romantic stories – which sit alongside good-quality protein and legumes in the food pyramid – allow us, in a sense, to relax and enjoy the ride; no matter how much the book or film or TV series might be at pains to convince us otherwise, we know who’ll end up together.
The Bachelor, on the other hand, is a nefarious piece of editing suite subterfuge in which our expectations (“It’s going to be Heather!”, “No, it’s Lana!”) are dashed repeatedly. In the “factual entertainment” equivalent of an M Knight Shyamalan twist ending, B-roll and reverse shots were carefully calibrated to make Sam look vague or uncomfortable while hanging out with Snezana, lustful and engaged with Lana.
We were duped again and again, which is perhaps part of the appeal. Like Jaws’ police chief Brody watching the water from the beach – lulled into a false sense of security by false alarms – by the time the great shark tears a kid to shreds, we’re completely caught off guard. This makes sense in the context of Sam’s quest for love because The Bachelor is a horror show, pure and simple.
