And then there were three.
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Welcome to the latest episode of Matty Dumps 21 Women and we’re told it's Hometowns Week.
Which is a lie because it’s one episode not a week. And it’s a lie because Florence is from Amsterdam not Melbourne. Tara is probably from Queensland I can believe that. And it’s a lie because Laura is from West Wollongong not “Rushcutters Bay” – which, last time I checked, wasn't an actual suburb but a park.
This week we heard departed contestant Elora also lives in Rushcutters Bay but she and Laura don’t talk. Poor things ending up living in a park. It’s a mighty long way down rock’n’roll from Top of the Pops to drawing the dole.
I guess after months locked up in the mansion at Dural it's not surprising they opted for the great outdoors living under cardboard boxes.
You'd also understand if the Nouveau-dogsh*t design of the Bachelor mansion sent them scurrying for some old-school chateau cardboard once they were released.
But making your house out of cardboard may prove fatal as we know the big bad wolf is on his way, sharpening up his cutting tools, knowing that tonight he’ll get to dump somebody. Wooohahaha.
Speaking of cutting the rushes, it does seem the Breakup Artist star of this show gets a selective viewing of the hours of footage filmed inside the mansion, which he uses to help him judge people. Creepier and creepier.
But there he is leaning on a verandah smouldering for the camera. He has a cup of tea with the bag still in and the milk already added, which is a problem.
It’s Tara’s hometown first and it appears she lives in a fantasy castle. They meet at Movie World and Tara is so excited she’s squealing. That’s right a Gold Coast resident who still loves Movie World.
Tara’s enthusiastic and she’d better keep it up if she’s to fulfil her destiny of being the second-last dumpee.
They have the whole place to themselves. Matty says it’s “literally a dream of his” to have a theme park to himself and we learn this guy has a pretty anti-social subconscious.
After a day at the fun park they go back to meet the bogans. Oops I mean family. The three men take Matty outside and Tara yells “good luck” to him.
One bloke puts some steaks on a cold barbecue. Nice one. Then another called Troy with his cap on backwards tries to act menacing. It works. It doesn’t take much to frighten the Sydney marketing metrosexual.
Power is shaky for Matty, who prefers to hang around mansions where there’s only women and he’s the boss of all of them. Also shaky is the camerawork, which tells us the mood is fighty.
Troy says going on reality TV to find a girlfriend is not something he’d do. There would be a lot of offers but he gets more at da club. Matty sounds rehearsed when he says “I don’t think I can give you the answer you want to hear”, which he has been rehearsing.
They go off for dinner and these are aspirational bogans you can tell by the chic square plates they use.
Later Matty gets a good old pash and he decides Tara’s family is “just like Tara”. Well if that’s true mate marry Troy.
Tara mentions the word love and the music goes bananas. She says she doesn’t want to be let down. Matty remembers how hurt he was when he was dumped by Georgia Love. So he’ll make sure he doesn’t do that to them. Or that he does do that to them.
Then we’re off to somewhere in Melbourne that has a windmill because Florence is Netherlandish. We’re told she’s from Melbourne well why then do we have to pretend it’s The Hollands?
Matty ain’t impressed Florence’s parents have not flown out here to meet him. He’s questioning how settled she really is.
So she pretends some travelling friends of hers are her closest people, but it seems one of them will be hard to impress. She’s very “blunt” and not like that sap singer James from yesterday.
There’s tulips, bicycles, cheese, kissing, it’s all so very Amsterdam we expect the next stop is the red light district for some China white.
But no. Matty is feeling left out because Florence’s friends are more happy to see her. He’s whinging a lot and then she publicly humiliates him by telling him to let go of her hand. That stings. I’m meant to be the humiliator round here. Things are not going well.
Matty cops a grilling from one friend who says he’s just in it to get famous. She can’t believe he’d go on a show like this to find true love. She finds that weird. Matty can’t understand why every single person in Australia agrees with her.
Florence is finished. She takes the lead too much, her family’s not here, she likes it “real”, her friends are edgy. Matty has been going through the motions on this date but he’s been dreaming of how he’s going to dispatch her ever since he saw that first windmill. Will anyone else join her?
First we have to go South Australia to visit Elise’s family.
Matty’s actually serious about Elise. We don’t get it. They don’t seem to fit. But she appears to be the only threat to Our Laura for the title here. And she doesn’t make any trouble for our himbo lead.
The date goes fine. Matty is impressed with her nice “picture perfect” nuclear family. They get along fine and Matty thinks they’re lovely.
Matty goes in to help her with some potatoes but Mum is in there drinking. Matty knows how to impress the older ladies. We then go from expecting some tough questions, to being taken aback by some tough questions, to understanding the tough questions which were expected, just like all of them. Matty sounds rehearsed when he says “I don’t think I can give you the answer you want to hear”, which he has been rehearsing.
Him and Elise pash on and off we go to Laura’s piece of the park.
Laura shows off her three-legged dog because she is a Really Good Person who gets a rescue dog.
They go to the beach and Matty demands to know exactly how Laura feels about him. She’s reluctant to committ 100 per cent while she’s still one of four. But 25 per cent of a heart ain’t going to satisfy Matty so Laura better watch out.
They marvel about how they live minutes from each other but have never met. Tells you something about Sydney people and how friendly they are.
Laura has her mum, sister and grandparents. Instead of going to West Wollongong she’s dragged them all up to her sister’s flat. Matty tries to charm the oldest ones first. Nan reckons he’s alright. They talk about how much these people have talked about these people so much.
Matty’s scared of Laura’s sister who has some questions along the lines of “you can’t hurt her, OK because otherwise she’ll be back living in the park”.
Sister asks if he’s into Laura 100 per cent. Matty sounds rehearsed when he says “I don’t think I can give you the answer you want to hear”, which he has been rehearsing.
After dodging the 100 per cent question he goes to Laura and grills her on whether she’s 100 per cent.
Laura makes the world of sense which is hardly a smart thing to do in this environment. “It’s not fair to ask me when you can’t tell me back,” she says. They seem real. But Matty didn’t like that much. Remember this mission is about collecting women’s hearts whole.
Usually when someone doubts the process, they're given an episode to stew, then booted. Will that be Laura's fate? Will we ever see her south of Bulli Pass again?
Back to the mansion. Matty can’t wait any longer for some blood. He gets rid of Florence. He doesn’t give reasons any more. He thanks her for their adventures and dumps her right there in front of everyone.
He’s warming to this new “surprise dumping” method he tried out on Cobie the night before. Florence didn’t see it coming. But she just didn’t convince him she would never want to go to back to Holland.
We wonder what it all means. What is love? Which is north and which is south? And we wonder why they recorded the hometown visits as a “week” but then squashed it into a single episode.
Somewhere, to someone, Matty’s still saying: “I don’t think I can give you the answer that you want to hear”.