This week's Bachelor recap: Ali's Magnum Opus.

Phew. We’re back to opening on the beach this week.

Something about watching Tim stare out at the horizon while he contemplates life just feels right.

And he finally admits to the beach/thinking connection that we’ve known was there since week 1: “Salt water just helps me clear my head,” he says. “I’m usually a person that thinks a lot with my head.”

Well, you’re not the only one Timmy.

Oh, wait – he’s still going: “My head is just all over the place.” Well, maybe that’s because he hasn’t taken the time to do his serious beach thinking the last few weeks’ episodes. Hopefully this extra-long sesh will regenerate his brain.

Cut to the remaining seven girls doing what all women do when they’re alone together: frolicking in the sea and throwing a Frisbee around, while dressed in their bikinis.

Osher decides that this is the perfect moment for him to show up with something they’re all willing to pounce on him for: the single date card. Ali is staking her claim early. In a private moment with the camera she says she WILL get some alone time with Tim this week. You can tell by her face that she means it. Crazy eyes has returned!

Rochelle gets the one-on-one. Ali is devastated and completely unable to hide it, although she does manage to get her emotions in check before the sea rises up in fury behind her. (She may or may not have been training a giant death squid with vials of her competitors’ blood.)

Rochelle’s magical date begins. Although before we touch base with our lovers, we need to give Tourism Broome their money’s worth in advertising with some picturesque establishing shots: beach, dead tree, desert, birds in sky, sprawling bush, lake, windmill.

That seems about right.

Rochelle and Tim are driving down a dirt road. Bird on branch. Boat on water. Another lake.

And we’ve arrived!

Apparently Tim and Rochelle are going pearling, which everybody’s hoping is a euphemism. We’re introduced to Dave the skipper, before he promptly disappears so that it looks like Tim is the one driving the boat because he is The Bachelor and The Bachelor is an expert in everything.

Ugh boring. They’re ‘getting to know’ each other. Talking talking grew up somewhere talking talking. All anybody wants to know is if this ‘pearling’ business is going to be a sex thing.

It’s not. It’s about finding pearls.

And apparently it’s really easy: You just walk over to the side of your boat and pull on the rope that’s waiting for you, and then a bunch of shells with pearls in them appear. All you have to do is open the shell. Geez, why are pearls so expensive?

Tim and Rochelle cling to each other, overcome with emotion at their unbelievable pearl-finding luck.

Back at the hotel, the girls are giggling and playing group tennis because that’s another thing that girls obviously do when they’re alone together. Osher appears with the group-date card. He explains to them that they need to open it and then read it.

Then, like the wind, he’s gone.

Anna does a REALLY good job of looking shocked when she reads the card, even though she’s ecstatic because she read it carefully just like Osher said, so she knows that it says three girls will be going on the group date… but only TWO will return.

DRAMAAAA.

Ali, Danni and Sarah have been chosen. They must fight to the death.

Back to Rochelle and Tim’s one-on-one. But first – picturesque shots of Broome at night: Rocks, desert, sunset, tiki torches. That should do it. Book through your local travel agent now.

Tim has set up his two-seater by the hotel pool but he’s chucked a bunch of palms and candles around so it’s romantic.

He tells the camera that he thinks Rochelle may be developing some romantic feelings towards him. He must be forgetting the moment she broke down like a possessed kitten-foetus the first time he offered her a rose.

Small talk small talk something something small talk.

They decide to go swimming and have a fascinating conversation about the temperature of the water. Apparently it’s not too hot or too cold. In fact, Tim thinks that it may be just right.

That’s enough for Rochelle, who gushes to the camera: “I’ve made up my mind about Tim. I definitely want to be with him.”

She tells him that her other boyfriends have been lovely but they’ve never given her anything like the diamond earrings he gave her a few weeks ago. Tim looks nervous – should he tell her that an intern went and picked those up before filming?

Naaaaah – he keeps quiet and they kiss.

Rochelle comes back to the house and is awesome at shoving her date in everybody’s faces. The fact that she got a rose AND a pearl is almost too much for Ali to bear. In between body twitches and watery-eyed blinks she admits that “my mind is going mental.”

This is going to be awesome.

Anna is finding it difficult to disguise her rage/disbelief that Tim would ever pash anybody else but her. She challenges Rochelle to a tricky duel of words to try and catch her out:

Anna: What did you do with Tim in the spa?

Rochelle: What would YOU do with Tim in a spa?

Anna: HAHAHAHA! Yeah. But what did you do?

Rochelle: I wouldn’t do anything you wouldn’t do.

Silence.

Um… Touché?

The next morning, Sarah, Danni and Ali wait for their group date/brutal elimination to start.

Osher comes to tell them that he saw them yesterday on the tennis court and now he is talking to them here in this moment.

He confirms that one of them will be eliminated before the day is through, but quickly distracts them from the shock with a helicopter. They’re ridiculously squeally and excited about this, which is odd, since everybody in this show travels exclusively via seaplane or helicopter. (Except the losers who get kicked out and are driven to the airpot in a sedan.)

Ali does some of her “I’m the luckiest girl in the world/Tim is the only man I will ever rub special places with etc etc etc” She gets so overwhelmed in her private cutaway that she actually starts crying. It looks like her brain may have broken. This is what we’ve been waiting for, you guys.

The helicopter lands on a catamaran in the middle of the ocean and Tim looks so much like a rich billionaire that Ali immediately orgasms and screams at an octave only small dogs can hear.

On board, Tim tells the girls that they must prove their love by holding onto a rope and hurling themselves into the ocean. Apparently this will help him assess something about commitment. Or something.

All three girls jump. No dramas. No obvious signs of Ali’s giant death squid.

Ali decides to go again, just to make sure she has this thing in the bag. Wait, why is the music getting weird and dramatic? What’s happening? 3… 2… 1…

It’s time for Ali’s magnum opus.

She gracefully jumps from the boat. The rope she’s holding erupts into a glorious spin, and just when you think she’s about to let go, she doesn’t! In a shocking and creative twist she hangs onto the rope as it continues to spin out of control and back towards the catamaran. Then, in a moment of TV genius, she finally unlocks her grasp, just out of shot of the camera but close enough to the side of the boat that we know she must be injured.

It’s a move of carefully choreographed perfection.

Tim rushes to her aid. Ali is shaking and crying – clearly in shock. He carries her upstairs, as she winces in pain. She proudly tells us in a private cutaway that the she just couldn’t calm down, “But then I felt Tim’s hand and I immediately felt more calm.”

Tim sits with her, alone. Ali is in heaven. Apparently she has a bit of a strained knee.

And then, in a plot twist not even Ali would have dared dream, Tim decides that he needs to leave the other two girls on the boat (And let’s face it: WHAT other two girls?) and take her to hospital.

Here’s Ali’s masterpiece, step by step:

Take a bow, Ali. Take. A. Bow.

Not even she can believe her luck. She breaks down in a private cutaway: “I couldn’t have asked for someone better to support me,” she says, through heaving sobs. This has made her completely sensible love for Tim even stronger.

But has her brilliant move worked on the love of her life?

“My mind is all over the place,” says Tim. “But all I can think about is… Ali.”

SUCCESS.

Meanwhile, back on the boat:

The girls eventually head back to the house for the rose ceremony. They tell everyone else about the spectacular culmination of Ali’s life’s work. They are all reeling that she managed to pull it off, although nobody wants to admit it. This is most pretend-concern you’ll ever see in one place.

Tim arrives. He’s been gone with Ali for hours. And just as the girls are asking him how she is…

SHE MAKES HER TRIUMPHANT RETURN.

On crutches.

This couldn’t be more brilliant if she tried.

OMG. Everything has just been so complicated this week that I’m glad Osher is here to explain what’s happening.

Rochelle is safe. But because Ali pulled off her diabolical plan strained her knee, nobody was eliminated on the group date. That means that there are only four roses for six girls.

6 – 4 = 2.

TWO GIRLS WILL BE GOING HOME.

Ali’s name is called first. And in a wondrous cherry to top of her incredible cake, Tim walks over to her in her injury chair and kneels down to offer her the first rose. JUST LIKE CINDERELLA YOU GUYS.

Anna gets through. Then Katherine. (And seriously – let’s just take a moment. Who is Katherine, really?)

Joan Collins and Sarah are booted.

Osher appears out of nowhere to tell them they have been booted. Sarah provides a bit of last minute drama when she refuses to talk to Tim about why he’s kicked her out. But I’m just so exhausted from Ali’s brilliance that I don’t even care.

The next few weeks are going to be incredible. I wonder if she’s willing to part with a limb?

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Week 8

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Week 1

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