Alex Casey delivers her eleventh power rankings for The Bachelorette NZ, where two more lads veto themselves from this get-up. Click here for previous instalments. 

The Bachelorette NZ is no longer a televised search for love, but a bizarre time capsule from a pre-pandemic era that feels so long ago that the sepia finally makes sense. Remember when men could happily down-trou each other in tandem? When courtship was simply passing a grape from your mouth to someone else’s mouth? And social distancing was just something that Logan did when he wanted to crack the chorus of his latest acoustic love song?

AMOG licking a shoe? Not in this climate. 

Doing whatever this is to a horse? Not today – or any day tbh. 

Perhaps someone saw all this chaos coming, because this week we had three whole men leave the mansion and fly home to safety – two of whom did so on their own accord. But who? And why? The results may shock you. 

VETOED: Elliott

Elliott may not have found true love on this television programme, but he did meet two women who exceeded all his expectations. “You are an incredible human,” said Lily. “Well why did you send me home?” asked Elliott. A larrikin and a scholar, I wish you all the best for your new life with Catalina the horse. 

SELF-VETOED: Michael

This week Michael mumbled endlessly about how frustrated he was that it had been 15 days in Argentina and he hadn’t received a single date. He says he’s sacrificed a lot, has been mucked around hard, wants to throw in the towel, has been disrespected and also trapped in limbo. But what does he say to Lesina when he actually gets the chance to talk to her about it alone? 

Finally, he dug up his kūmara of courage and decided to tell Lily and Lesina that he was leaving. Maybe we all live by his final words: “catch ya later”. Long live the kūmara farmer from Dargaville, wow by name and wow by nature. 

SELF-VETOED: Mike

Never have I ever seen two people say so many English words to each other, but still be speaking completely different languages. Mike won alone time with Lesina after catching an almighty catfish on their group date, staging the exact photo that scammers nationwide are going to use from now until the end of time to catfish people on Tinder. 

They talked, they left long pauses, they went and had a big pash behind the boat shed, but none of it was enough to assure Mike that Lesina was there for the right reasons, or that they actually had a future together. Lesina wanted to know what made Mike tick, resulting in an exchange which summed up why they were less compatible than, say, a cat and a fish. 

She wasn’t ready to open up about her real feelings, and he was afraid to let down his walls and show us what was really under the duct tape on his trucker cap. Bon voyage, Mike. 

LILY’S LARRIKINS

4) Terrence

I am asking you once again to consider the inequality in bum cheeks censorship on this here television programme. The week after we saw Michael’s butt in its full pasty glory, Terrence again gets slapped with the old peach emoji. Who do I complain to about this? The BSA? The Buttocks Society Arsegroup??? At a time like this!??!?

Terrence’s last gasp at staying in the competition was gifting Lily a canvas with three roses hand-painted by an old man who lived next door to the lads’ mansion in Buenos Aires. “Oh, he even painted the back,” she cooed, not really a compliment but definitely a statement of fact. Genuinely concerned about the amount of tat that Lily is going to have to lug home with her from Argentina. 

3) Quinn

The first important thing about Quinn is that he told Lily that he “would be the happiest guy in the whole fucking world” if she chose him, which is cute. The second thing is that he can spin a rugby ball so fast it looks like a huge levitating egg, which is intriguing. The third is that I really hope he gets to hometowns because I want to see his dog. No further questions, your honour. 

2) Jesse

Jesse finally got a big old pasheroo this week. Man, remember how we all used to pash each other with reckless abandon all the time? That was crazy. He says that Lily keeps him on his toes AND makes him weak at the knees, which is probably why he couldn’t manage to balance in their romantic hammock get-up for more than two seconds. 

There’s drama brewing with something Richie may or may not have said about Lily being fake, and of course Jesse was the one to pass it straight on to Lily. Whatever happens to Jesse in the aftermath, I think we can all agree formally and in writing that he definitely wore this once:

1) Richie

Lily was worried that Richie was holding back a little this week, but all it took was a high-octane go-kart to make him say “go, heart” aka fall in love aka tell her “you’re so rad girl”. He told her that he was now finally invested, and after an uncomfortably long pash confessed that he was “glad he was sitting down right now”. Now I’m calling the real BSA. 

Although things are moving fast for these two, I gotta point out that as soon as Richie confessed his feelings, Lily’s heart-shaped necklace turned entirely upside down. Could be an omen of things to come when Richie’s comments are finally revealed, could just be me staring at this programme for too long because I’m scared of the real world and losing my mind a bit. Hard to say. 

LESINA’S LADS

2) Logan

Tell you what I want, what I really, really want? To never, ever hear about Logan’s “sexy side” ever again. This week he showed Lesina the hard work he had been putting into his notebook, complete with song lyrics, film ideas and a bunch of questions and sexy things that he wants her to ask him. Not before marriage! And NEVER the disgusting grape-transfer kiss!

1) Aaron

After the Michael debacle, Aaron was a safety net for Lesina, who immediately said that she missed him and curled up in his lap like a kitten. Can’t do that these days. “I’m close to loving that girl,” he told the camera before tearing up. “Hey, why is someone cutting onions over here?” He may know about onions, but for a food tech teacher he didn’t know a hell of a lot of about wine…

And for a guy who thinks he is funny, he’s definitely not a barrel of laughs these days…

Still, he’ll probably do for the finale. I’m going to open a bottle of grapes now, see you next week.