The Botchelor · Premiere
Sweet thang × Constance Whitaker
📍 Bowling on league night
A bowling alley on league night, where the two strangers share lane twelve with a retired couple who take the game very, very seriously.
Sweet thang wants to be the centre of attention and to be admired, and to keep the night lively and unpredictable.
Constance Whitaker: Marguerite Delacroix-Oyelowo wants to hear someone sing badly and with total conviction, and to see how this stranger handles being put on the spot.
First impressions
Hi... I see you brought your own microphone. Are we broadcasting this, or are you just planning to narrate my strikes?
Darling, the microphone is for narrating, and nobody touches it but me. I run a karaoke bar, so I'm contractually required to carry one everywhere. Now tell me, do you sing, or do you just bowl and hope for the best?
I only sing when I'm being paid or threatening someone. But I'll let you narrate if you promise to make my gutter balls sound tragic.
Tragically? Darling, I have been narrating disasters since before you had teeth. A gutter ball gets the full aria, low strings and everything. But I'll need a fair trade: when did you last sing badly for free, with nobody paying you to stop? Lying is permitted. Shamelessly, even.
The challenge
🎬 One of them proposes a dare, and the other has to decide.
Oh, god. Last Tuesday in the shower. I tried an aria about a soggy piece of toast. It ended in tears.
Tears! Darling, that's the most honest review I've had all week. A soggy-toast aria is a tragedy in one act, and you cried through it, which means you meant it. Did you finish the aria, or did the toast win?
The toast won, obviously. And since she loves a good production, I dare Marguerite to go ask that terrifying league bowler if I can throw his ball.
A dare! Darling, you've just hired me as your agent. I'll march over with the microphone, sing him a little overture, and negotiate like a diplomat. If he refuses, you owe me the toast aria, every tragic note, no skipping the high bit.
The decision
Deal. But if he growls, I'm hiding right behind her.
Hide behind me? Darling, I'm a foot shorter than that man and twice as loud, so you're in excellent hands. If he growls, hum that soggy-bread lament, off-key, and I'll handle the diplomacy. Ten minutes, then the high note.
Ten minutes? Oh, I don't wait ten minutes for anything, least of all a man in orthopedic shoes. Come on, let's just go.
The twist
The dare Sweet thang proposed to test Marguerite turns into a mission, and then Sweet thang abandons the whole plan. The two of them walk off the lane together, leaving the bowler and the retired couple behind.
The decision
The date collapses into a disaster as the pair leave lane twelve together, mid-game and unfinished. Sweet thang does not want another date, while Marguerite Delacroix-Oyelowo does.
Ending: A disaster
Who leaves the date first? They leave together
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