Well, hell. I got something terribly wrong in my previous review of TV2's anthropological study of the mating habits of the New Zealand drongo, The Bachelorette. I wrote that Glenn, the show's most interesting drongo – very well; its only interesting drongo – had made it through to thenext round. But tonight's show opened with the revelation that Glenn was out. Glenn was no more. Glenn wanted sex; but Glenn was ex.
It was a bombshell and it left everyone speechless.
"I'm speechless," I said to my daughter, and then proceeded to ruin her viewing pleasure by moaning on and on and on about how boring the show was without good old, bad old Glenn.
Drongo Glenn brought drama to The Bachelorette. You never quite knew what crazy move he was going to make next on Hottie Lesina or Hottie Lily. He pursued sex like Gordon Gecko pursued money in the great movie Wall Street – obsessively, aggressively. He echoed Gecko's famous dictum, "Greed is good."
Some men don't know what they want and end up with nothing. Drongo Glenn wanted everything – Lesina or Lily, either would do, and he was all good with both at the same time – but ended up with nothing. Poor guy! We shall remember him. He was the immortal and all-powerful ruler of the independent republic of Glenn.
Glenn wanted everything – Lesina or Lily, either would do, and he was all good with both at the same time – but ended up with nothing. Photo / TVNZ
"I've actually got like a very deep personality," he said. The other contestants have actually got like no personality whatsoever and they brought their appalling vacuum with them as the show flew the contestants and the bachelorettes to Buenos Aries. They made the place feel as flat and listless as the Manawatu plains.
They looked at an old building. "This is an old building," creaked the show's wooden host, Art Green. "It's from the 1800s."
There was a bit of bickering, a few drinks, Art creaked in and out of shot. No, nothing new in any of that; they may as well have stayed in Auckland and hung around their dreary mansion. But when Hottie Lesina went on a date with Drongo Jonathan, Buenos Aries provided something startling.
Their date was going nowhere moderately fast until they chanced upon a flamenco dance performance in a plaza. From there it went nowhere really fast.
The flamenco is a metaphor for sex. "They're really into each other," said Lesina, admiring the dancers as they went at it like knives. But the dance held up a mirror to Lesina and Jonathan on their date, and it revealed them as one of those couples who go to a movie and watch a hot sex scene in awkward silence on account of the fact they've lost the erotic thrill of sexual attraction - or never experienced it in the first place.
They stood and watched like the dance like waxwork dummies. Drongo Jonathan eventually came to life. He put his arm around her and laid his hand on her shoulder. It made her cringe. The hand lay there like a kind of jellyfish.
If only Drongo Glenn was there! He'd have known what to do. He'd have walked right up to the dancers and asked the senorita to go back to his place. Say what you like about that guy. He had something they value in Argentina: cojones.
