The Bachelor: Group date curse or group date strategy?

The real purpose behind the group dates actually makes a lot of sense. Photo / Supplied

As someone who's never really watched The Bachelor so avidly before, I may be late to this realisation: The group date curse is actually less of a curse than a strategy.

Never was this more obvious than on Monday night's episode in which Zac corralled all the girls at the bottom of the Bach ladder - Karina and Vanessa who are new, Bel who is losing her damn mind, and Ally who Zac has spoken to for about three minutes total - to essentially figure out who he liked the least.

Who's the weakest link? Photo / Supplied

Ally, being literally the only woman to have not had an ounce of one-on-one time with Zac, finally got her chance last night and Zac basically made a hard pass, eliminating her soon after (sorry, Ally).

But hey, at least he gave her one more shot on that "group date" (aka "last ditch attempt to see if Zac actually likes you") first.

Maybe the best part of this whole episode was when the women got the date card about "holding your horses" and while everyone else assumed it would be horse riding, Ally just flat out let her freak flag fly.

"As soon as I hear 'hold your horses' I think, Magic Mike, ride your pony."

#GetItGurl

Here's the thing, when Ally left, she grabbed Lily by the shoulders and said: "You got this", thus picking her winner. And it's looking like she might be right.

Lily finally got a single date and despite Hannah's "keep your hands where I can see them" warning (subtle), Lily won the award for best kiss on The Bach (Note: There's not actually an award for this anywhere else but in my mind).

While the Bach was worried Lily was too much of a free spirit for him, she assured him she was looking for someone "that makes me not want to leave ... someone that will ground me".

Later, she was once again the only one making any logical sense when she had zero time for everyone's sniping and theorising, shooting them all down by saying: "We don't know. We might all be f***ed."

She's probably right.

The fact that half these women keep referring to "the real world" like they're not in it is a bad sign. Someone (I'm betting it's Bel) loses it next week saying: "If this was the real world I'd be out."

What I wouldn't give to see someone answer "will you accept this rose" like this: