With Shanae gone, Mara picks up the villain torch on The Bachelor

Is it possible for a person to be possessed by the spirit of someone who’s still alive?

I’m just asking because no sooner had Shanae been kicked off “The Bachelor” — finally! — then Mara went on a jealousy and insecurity rampage that culminated in her trying to get rid of Sarah.

This is all part of the evil producer plan, of course: stoke Mara’s self-doubt by ensuring she gets the very last rose at the rose ceremony, then send the woman she’s most threatened by on a second one-on-one date while Mara is stuck in group date purgatory. Presto chango, a new villain!

It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if it turned out that Mara — perhaps realizing her chances of getting a one-on-one were about as good as the women ceasing to over-pronounce the “t” in Clayton — signed up for the villain edit.

And Clayton continues to be the perfect producer stooge, dutifully confronting Sarah with Mara’s accusation that she wasn’t ready to get engaged, feigning confusion, then stepping away “to think this through,” leaving Sarah a sobbing mess. That doesn’t seem like something you would do to someone you claim to see a future with but, at this stage, it appears that when the producers say “Jump!” Clayton doesn’t even ask how high; he just leaps.

The women said that Clayton sending Shanae home showed he’s not a bad judge of character after all. Too bad viewers can’t share that perspective.

If anything, the result of the two-on-one between Shanae and Genevieve showed that Clayton has been playing the game all along.

Consider that up until this point Clayton has appeared to swallow all of Shanae’s whoppers hook, line and sinker. And now, suddenly, he draws the line?

Shanae did what she’s done all along: lied (she claimed to have overheard Genevieve saying she wanted to go home the night before) and faked emotion (tearing up because she’d been single for five years and, at 29, had never been in love). And then she exulted at pulling one over on Clayton: “Getting this rose tonight is gonna feel better than sex.”

Genevieve appeared to cry real tears while basically apologizing to Clayton for not being vulnerable enough. Ugh.

Clayton asked Genevieve point blank, with Shanae sitting there, “Are you an actress” — Shanae’s word — “and have you been lying to me?” A startled Genevieve said no and then asked Clayton why he’d ask her that.

Instead of answering, he walked away for a little think, no doubt counting down the minutes until he was allowed to stop pretending, and go back and hand out the rose, which he said was “going to somebody who helped me see the truth in all of this.”

“So Shanae, I’m just, I’m so sorry, but I cannot find it in my heart to give you this rose.”

And just like that, Shanae’s five-week reign of terror came to an end. I have to be honest, it felt way longer.

“Fuck Clayton. I never want to see him again,” Shanae said, which sums up how viewers feel about her. I’m sure more than one member of Bachelor Nation was popping Champagne along with Shanae’s fellow contestants.

With Shanae gone, all seemed to be sweetness and light at the cocktail party on rose ceremony night. Clayton was sucking face with his favourites Sarah and Rachel. He even kissed Hunter. But Mara, an entrepreneur from New Jersey, was fretting that Clayton didn’t know what a “keeper” she was. She only got about three minutes with him and spent that time force-feeding him what looked like cold poutine.

“I am a grown ass woman. I know what I have to offer and I know who I am, and I came here to find love,” she ranted before breaking down in tears.

Translation: I am 32 years old. I am ready to get married and start churning out little Echards. Why does Clayton like women who are younger than me?

Listen, nothing against someone who really wants to be coupled up, but if Mara is as “strong, powerful, passionate, independent” as she claims, perhaps she could ratchet down the desperation.

She finally got her rose after Sarah, Serene, Susie, Teddi and Eliza had got theirs, with Marlena and Hunter sent home.

And then it was time for Clayton and his chosen nine, including Rachel, Gabby and Genevieve, to leave Toronto and head to Hvar, Croatia, where Mara’s complaining continued apace.

When Teddi got the first one-on-one — and come on, she was the first impression rose winner; she should have got one way before now — Mara sniped that some of the women were more girlfriend than wife material and that Clayton was doing himself a “disservice” by not availing himself of Mara’s awesomeness.

Anyway, Teddi and Clayton were off on the ever popular “let’s walk around this town and do the most cheesy, touristy things possible” date, followed by the standard true confessions dinner.

Teddi told Clayton that she was — gasp! — a virgin and Clayton’s response was a master class in awkwardness. First he told her that he “would have never known” since there was physical attraction between them. Then he hastened to add that their connection was more emotional. And then he asked, “Have you been in love since that point?”

First off, what point? Secondly, since Teddi said she was saving herself until the first time she was in love, clearly she had never been in love because, if she had, she wouldn’t be a virgin.

Clayton blathered about how he wanted Teddi to be “fully vulnerable” — and is there a double entendre in there somewhere? — and Teddi said she trusted Clayton and felt safe with him.

He gave her the rose and they kissed just like people who aren’t virgins do, and Teddi said she could see herself falling in love with Clayton and best not to let your mind go there.

In the meantime, when Mara found out she was on the group date along with Serene, Rachel, Susie, Gabby, Eliza and Genevieve, and that 23-year-old Sarah was getting a second one-on-one, she bemoaned Clayton “going for the youngest girl in the house, who I couldn’t imagine being ready to get engaged.”

And look, I’m a lot older than Mara, but this a bullshit, ageist argument. Chronological age is not a guarantee of readiness for anything. My mother got married at 18 and she’ll be celebrating her 62nd wedding anniversary this year. Besides, the most immature woman on the show so far has been Shanae at 29.

But Mara put on her game face during the group date, which involved the women donning medieval armour-type outfits and being led through challenges by a female knight named Katarina (at least I think that’s how it’s spelled).

Mara figured she had the competition in the bag because she out-muscled Rachel in the strength challenge; chowed down on pig’s liver and cow’s stomach and fish eyes and other, um, delicacies; and, as a sign of her devotion to Clayton, recited a poem that included the lines “I cook and clean and I’m great in bed/Come on Clayton, use your head.”

Personally, I preferred Genevieve’s “I endured an epic war against the evil shrimp dragon.”

In any event, Serene was declared to have the virtues of a true knight, which meant she got to wear a cape and smooch Clayton.

At the after-party, Mara complained to Clayton that she’d been “vulnerable, sweet, cute, flirty” but still hadn’t got a one-on-one. Furthermore, Clayton was wasting his time on younger women like Sarah, one of whom Mara alleged — OK, she meant Sarah — had said she couldn’t picture herself engaged after just a couple of months.

But Mara speaking her “truth” was no match for Rachel telling Clayton she was falling for him, so no date rose for Mara.

Mara was miffed, so when Clayton got an unsigned card saying “Meet me at the clock tower,” it seemed like Mara might have more to say. (Some people even speculated it was Shanae taking another kick at the can.) It was just Susie, who became the second woman to tell Clayton she was falling in love with him.

And then, finally, it was time to emotionally torture Sarah.

After first having a staged pep talk with host Jesse Palmer about his “biggest fear” potentially coming true, Clayton dropped the bomb on Sarah that she’d been called out for possibly not being ready to get engaged and thus, he was “confused” and “scared.”

Sarah began to cry and to strenuously object, saying she absolutely wanted to get engaged to Clayton. And then Clayton left her there at the table, bereft, to step away to think, which was obviously a bit of producer manipulation.

In the meantime, Sarah cried her eyes out. She was still crying when Clayton came back to the table, telling him she was afraid to lose him over a “blatant lie.”

Well, of course, she wasn’t going to lose him. It was just some bullshit drama. Sure enough, Clayton told Sarah that he was sure she was there for him and “you want what I’m after.” Sarah cried on his shoulder after he gave her the damn rose.

Cue Sarah, mad as hell, heading back to the hotel suite to confront the “liar” and the words “To be continued” on the screen. So there’s more Mara and Sarah drama ahead next week and is this bloody season over yet?

You can watch Monday at 8 p.m. on Citytv. And you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo