One stern chat has detonated The Bachelor mansion and set off a chain reaction of chaotic events that has ended in a mass exodus.
For weeks the mansion has been experiencing unrest with the formation of a mean girl trilogy. There's only one way to topple it: destroy the leader.
It's an outcome Australia has demanded — but it's up to Nick to deliver. Is he brave enough?
The move will end in ugliness. Still, he'll come out on top. Taking down the leader of a group of mean girls requires courage, nerve and a thick skin in case she gets so irate she insults your pores.
This week, Nick summons the strength. And he cancels Cat.
I'm not entirely sure I'm using the term "cancel" right but ever since someone told me on Twitter that I was cancelled I've been dying to use it myself.
So I feel confident in saying that Nick cancels Cat. We sit back and watch the house of cards fall. Not even producers predict this result.
So much raw emotion and bitterness is exposed it seems almost insensitive to talk about the gimmicky dates we're made to endure in the lead up. We know what we came for. The previews teased it all.
While Brooke's on another date with Nick, our three means girls sit poolside and do what they do best: be mean.
Cat, Romy and Alisha leave no stone un-insulted.
Out of all of them, Cat is annoyed the most. She's can't believe she still has not been asked on a date and feels like Nick doesn't appreciate that she left behind her thriving career selling scrap metal jewellery in Bali to be here.
Producers ask if the girls have anything more to add. They don't. But as the crew leave, the ladies begin whispering. They've forgotten about the microphone chips implanted under their skin upon checking into this mansion — and we hear the details of a scheme.
"Do you think I should give him an ultimatum?" Cat asks the girls. "F**k yeah, do it," Romy urges.
But an ultimatum isn't enough. Romy says there needs to be a Plan B in place, to ensure success.
"Are you gonna cry?" she asks, knowingly. "I think it adds to it. He won't send you home."
It's a cunning plan. Crying is the most powerful weapon of all. It's how I became the proud owner of a complete set of Coles Little Shop figurines. And it's how Cat will obtain a rose.
The thing is, schemes often go haywire. Maybe Cat's won't pan out the way she predicts. Perhaps it will end the same way my Little Shop experience did — with a three-way phone call from a Coles manager and someone's mum.
Tonight's cocktail party is beginning soon and we've just received word it's a toga theme. The little warning has left us with no time to get to the shops so we steal Cass's bed sheets and cut them up to make slutty Grecian mini-dresses. We'll return the scraps to her bed at evening's end.
As we breeze on out to the patio, we arrive just in time to see Nick take Tenille away for a chat. He's being super delicate with her but that makes sense because she must've bruised her entire body when she busted through the latticework last night.
He knows there are some meanies in the house. And he's finally decided to take action. Tenille didn't just run through a fence because she thought it'd make a funny GIF — though that is admirable motivation for anyone to do such a thing. She did it because she was pushed to the brink by Romy, Cat and Alisha.
"I'm asking you to tell me, who's being mean?" Nick asks her and it's actually super sweet. I almost want to pay Cat to say something mean about my fringe just so I can get a guy to comfort me.
As this goes down, the mean girls are hiding in a nearby cabana eavesdropping.
Subtle.
"There's talk Tenille might use her chat with Nick to throw some of the other girls under a bus," Alisha says. Oh Alisha. All she's offered on this show is exaggerated commentary repeating everything everyone else has already said. We need to cancel her too.
Romy lurches to her feet. She knows Tenille's about to expose her as a big meanie.
"CAN YOU STOP TALKING SO BLOODY LAME DICK TENILLE," Romy blurts out, mooshing a whole bunch of offensive words together and making no sense.
Nick's manly assurance makes Tenille feel safe. She knows revealing the identities of those within the mean girl syndicate could destroy her. They have powers. But Nick knows he can protect her.
She says three names: Cat. Romy. Alisha.
"There's obviously one that's the main. And the two follow," she whispers. Nick knows the leader is Cat. She's been trouble ever since she left her fold-up table at that Balinese craft fair and came into the mansion.
"She's caused a shit stir in the house. And it's just time to go," he grunts to us.
The energy on the patio changes instantly when Nick walks out. He pulls Cat away. Her cockiness prevents her from picking up on the fact something may be wrong.
When it comes to taking down a mean girl, you can't waste time. It's not a delicate dance. Taking such care would indicate weakness, and that's when mean girls attack. You've got to catch them without warning.
Cat thinks she'll use this chat to present Nick with her ultimatum - but just as she goes to open her mouth, he cuts her off. There's been a lot of trouble, he says, and she's at the centre of it.
"I'm not mean!" she replies, almost losing the wig she insists on wearing at all these rose ceremonies. "I say things how they are!" This is a phrase often said by annoying people looking to justify all the mean and judgmental things they say.
"I have a heart of gold," she insists. Her pleas are weak. We can see in her eyes not even she believes it.
She tells us she'll be spewing if she goes home. "I want to win. And I'll do whatever it takes," she says coldly.
It's hard to get huffy in a novelty toga without looking like an idiot, and Cat doesn't rise to the challenge.
As she glares at Nick, her eyes spark. She almost forgot about Plan B.
Executing the backup plan to her scheme, she attempts to fake cry.
It doesn't work. Nick's smarter than that and he sticks to his plan to eradicate her. Cat still doesn't take the hint. There's only one thing left to do.
Nick walks her outside to a waiting car and opens the door. He makes her stand on the kerb while he climbs in. Seconds later, his head pops out of the sunroof and he re-creates the scene from Mean Girls where Janice tells Cady what's good.
She throws herself into the back of the Uber. Blaming everyone but herself, she declares she'll return to her life turning Milo tins into bangles.
It's left up to Osher to explain to everyone the drama that has just unfolded.
"They've discovered there's a … misalignment when it comes to values," he concludes, offering a new spin on conscious uncoupling.
While most of the township celebrates the downfall of Catilina, her merry band of underlings struggle to handle the news. Cracks begin to appear immediately.
Cancelled!
There's no time to mourn. We're all summoned into the rose ceremony. Indeed, one girl has already been kicked out, but that won't affect tonight's elimination plans. Two more have got to go. Will it be the ones we hope?
"Is this a sick joke? Such a total load of shit. F**k this," she spits to us. She finds herself in the bottom three with Alisha and that new odd intruder lady Brittney.
There's one rose left. Nick now knows who the mean girls are. Just letting one of them through means they win.
He stares at Romy and says her name, holding out the final rose. But it's not so much an offer as it is a test.
Nick drops the final rose back down on the silver platter and leads Romy outside.
"I don't reckon I can [take it], hey," she says casually.
He knows she can't. This was his plan all along. Take away the head mean girl and all the others fall away. They're nothing without each other. Nick knew they weren't here for him — and they proved it themselves.
As he puts Romy in a car and it speeds off, the official two evictees of the night stumble out, ready to leave. Slight problem. We've already kinda used the two elimination Ubers that were booked for this evening. We inform them they'll have to walk and promptly shut the carved timber door.
A new era begins in The Bachelor mansion. I feel alive. In my mind, that same happy song from the final scene in Matilda plays.
Back inside the mansion, the girls don't know how to feel. Emotions are mixed — joy, pain, sorrow, love and betrayal. All they can do is stand still. In this moment, we're given a scene that has the same complex beauty of one of those Jesus oil paintings.
