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David Craig/YouTube

Parody webseries imagines ‘The Bachelor,’ but with knives

It's only slightly crazier than the original.

 

Nayomi Reghay

Internet Culture

Posted on Jan 11, 2016   Updated on May 27, 2021, 9:26 am CDT

Fans of The Bachelor expect nothing less than wild wine-swilling and attention-grabbing antics.

Last week’s season premiere featured one woman dressed as a giant rose, a woman whose career was listed only as “unemployed” floated in on a hoverboard, and another brought her pet pony along. If you’re tuning into The Bachelor, chances are you’re looking for a healthy serving of crazy.

But what if those emotionally unstable contestants were even more volatile?

That’s the premise of the very bluntly titled new webseries, Bachelorette With a Knife—a spoof where one girl will stop at nothing to get the final rose.

Series creators David Craig and Lily Du explore the emotional highs and lows of a rose ceremony, with an absurd and comical twist. The girl who got that “first impression” rose? The one smiling in that familiar manic way? She’s wielding a very large knife.

“I truly love The Bachelor [and The Bachelorette],” Craig told the Daily Dot. “Not just as a guilty pleasure. My favorite aspect [of the show] is how completely into the process the girls and guys get. I thought it would be amazing to see something truly absurd, like a knife, enter into the equation.”

His co-creator concurs: “I’d seen a few episodes of The Bachelorette but what really piqued my interest in the show is Lifetime’s UnREAL,” said Du. “I think it’s an incredibly funny and dark dramatization of what goes on behind the scenes of a show like The Bachelor. So… it didn’t seem far-fetched to me at all that an unstable contestant desperate for love would resort to bringing a giant kitchen knife onto the show.”

While the rose ceremony antics are definitely absurd, they’re not that far removed from the reality of the actual show.

Although the webseries filmed entirely prior to this season, Du watched last week’s season premiere and noted that there are already uncanny similarities: “I couldn’t believe the girl who came out of the limo and told Ben Higgins she had already stalked him on social media and knew everything about him. That is practically verbatim what one of our parody contestants said in her exit interview as a joke.”

The series features a talented cast of female comedians and is replete with pratfalls and goofy antics, but it will also follow the traditional arc of The Bachelor.

Said Craig: “Every episode we’re going to heighten and explore a different aspect of what The Bachelor would be like if one contestant’s ‘thing’ is that she’s constantly wielding a giant, 16-inch kitchen knife. Some will explore the psyche of Ashley, the girl with the knife, and some will be super absurd. You’ll even get to see why the producers haven’t been able to stop her. Hint: It has to do with the knife.”

Du added, “You’ll also be seeing more bachelor tropes and funny character choices from the rest of our incredible cast. As we get into later episodes, everyone starts to crack a little and get more detached from reality.”

New episodes of the webseries will air on Tuesdays and should pair perfectly with your recaps of Monday night’s show—pass the rosé and get ready to guffaw.

Screengrab via David Craig/YouTube

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*First Published: Jan 11, 2016, 3:45 pm CST