It looks as if the 90's sitcom style opening will be a staple of
this show moving forward. I can't say it's a bad fit either. Like 90's
sitcoms, Bachelor in Paradise is an explosion of emotionally
charged plots and half-assed morality tales, which people inexplicably watch both
despite being objectively terrible.
This week's episode begins post-rose ceremony, with Lauren
Iaconetti complaining about the lack of worthy guys on in Paradise. To cut
a long, snotty, tear-stained story short, Lauren only came on the show to meet
Joshua (Kaitlyn's season) but his absence gives her no reason to stay. As
Lauren puts it, "This is my personal hell." For once, I actually agree
with her too. Being trapped on a beach with Ashley I for weeks at a time is at
least the fourth circle of my personal hell.
As a side note, every time I hear "paradise" based
wordplay I become enraged. It happens the same way every time. Someone looks right
into the camera and says "It looks like an angel just arrived in
Paradise" or "Today was more like Paradise Lost" before smugly
staring into the camera like they were the first person to discover puns. It is
absolutely terrible and I will not stand for it anymore.
"I guess you could say Paradise is absolutely heavenly..."
It's around this time we find out that Lauren actually has a
"boyfriend.” I put "boyfriend" in quotes because it turns out
that the man in question isn't exactly the monogamous type. More specifically,
he's a huge creep who is cheating on his actual girlfriend with Lauren.
Everyone on the show is quite scandalized to find out about Lauren’s “mistress”
status, even though they have all done the same thing on The Bachelor/ette. Every person on this show has been one of
several people dating the same person, just like Lauren. The only real
difference between Lauren and everyone else is the presence of a film crew,
which apparently makes this acceptable.
As if summoned by her wailing, Joshua arrives in Paradise with a
date card. He is immediately set upon by Ashley I, campaigning for her sister
to be his date choice. She describes Lauren as "the chilliest girlfriend
ever" which is a bold claim to make about someone who has spent the last
week drinking and crying. That said, Lauren is chill enough to let her
boyfriend have another girlfriend.
So chill.
Josh listens to Ashley’s pitch and immediately asks Tenley to go
on a date with him. With no perceived prospects remaining, Lauren packs her bag
to leave. Ashley pleads with her sister to dump her "boyfriend" and
stay on the show saying, "He's just going to keep cheating on you!"
To be fair, that sentiment would be more accurate if she said "He's just
going to keep cheating with you," but who am I to
nitpick?
Finally, Lauren leaves the show. As she walks down the beach,
Lauren says, "I don't know why this world is so awful to me."
Delusion aside, Lauren says this while struggling to drag a rolling suitcase
through the sand, so it's fair to say some of her problems might be her own
fault.
One Iaconetti down. One to go.
Back at the house, JJ talks about not being threatened by
Tenley's date with Josh. Feeling supremely confident, he said "I've never
seen a Disney movie where a blacksmith gets the rose." Really, JJ? You've
never seen Pirates of the Caribbean? It literally features blacksmith
falling in love with a woman. Also, Disney has never made a movie about a
"former investment banker" who gets the girl, so maybe tone it down
on the shit talking.
A blacksmith and his sexy ass.
Meanwhile, Josh and Tenley have a great time at dinner. The two
have long (very drunken) conversation about their theatrical pasts, the
location of Tokyo, and their relative hand sizes. It was about as coherent as
you could expect from two drunk people, but still moderately cute.
Not content to let his one-sided feud with Josh end, JJ reappears
to remind everyone of how much more desirable he is. "We're not
even playing the same game," JJ says. "I'm playing chess, and he's
playing tic-tac-toe." Setting aside the fact that checkers would have made
for a much better analogy, why is JJ playing chess at all? It's way harder than
tic-tac-toe and it takes forever. You can be a tic-tac-toe grand master
in a matter of minutes. JJ should either pick an easier game to play, or get
better at chess.
Or just become Magnus Carlsen. That would solve most of his problems.
Sometime during Josh and Tenley's date, Joe (Kaitlyn's season)
arrived with a date card. As he reads the card, Joe struggles with not only the
Spanish portion ("you leave manada") but the English
portion as well. After sounding out the words as best he could, Joe proceeds to
stare blankly at the group, presumably because they're all drunken strangers and meeting people is hard. Being the accommodating souls that they are, the
rest of the cast individually talk about what an awkward guy Joe is. The entire
situation reeks of high school politics and mockery.
Joe tries to cut the tension by making a joke about this being
Claire's second time on Bachelor in Paradise, but she storms off, saying,
"That's the kind of comment that makes drama!" To be clear, no it
isn't. Her reaction to jokes is the kind of thing that makes "drama."
In this case, her reaction included ranting (again) to a passing raccoon about
how weird Joe was. You read that right. A grown woman spoke to forest animals
about how weird a grown man was. I was hesitant about the show overusing this
bit, but I must say, it's still hilarious to me. We truly live in a golden age
of television.
The raccoon was spooning a bottle of wine by the way, which is
exactly how I imagine most of you watched the show.
That raccoon is a king.
At some point in the night, Joe asked/mumbled at Juelia to go on
a date with him, though it was hard to tell when or how this happened. From
what I could tell, Joe somehow tricked Juelia into asking him if she could go
on the date, then asked if she was "for real" when she accepted her
own proposal. It was very confusing. The whole thing felt like Joe Tom
Sawyer'd Juelia into a date. He talks in circles for a few minutes and
suddenly she's whitewashing his aunt’s picket fence.
On the date, Juelia and Joe ride horses and swim. Joe was far
less awkward than he had been before, and therefore far less entertaining. Both
had a good time, but it was pretty boring.
While their date is happening, Josh is back at the main house
talking about some of his hard partying days. He tells everyone about a night
in Vegas where he did Molly (MDMA) with his friends. Armed with this
information, Dan and Mikey run to Tenley to make sure she knows that Josh did
drugs once. This was all under the guise of "looking out for Tenley"
and not what it really was, "tattling on the competition."
Be careful. Molly is a hell of a drug.
Tenley eventually confronts Josh about his perceived partying, apparently oblivious to the irony of being anti-drug while on a show that
features near constant drinking. Josh reiterates that he only took Molly once,
and he didn't even like it that much. Tenley remains concerned about Josh's
"Drug Lifestyle" saying "he's acting like someone who hasn't
done anything wrong." If you ask me, Josh is acting like someone who
hasn't done anything wrong because he is someone who hasn't done anything
wrong. But what do I know? I'm not drunk on a beach like Tenley, so I may not
be qualified to pass judgment on other people's drug use.
Juelia and Joe return from their date, and she couldn't be
happier. Joe, on the other hand, was incredibly bored by both Juelia and the
date. He tells a producer that Juelia "isn't very smart" and that
he's only spending time with her to get a rose. This is played up to be a
massive betrayal of trust, even though Claire, Jillian, Tenley, and Juelia all
did the exact same thing last week to zero fanfare. Of course what Joe did is
deceitful, but it's something everyone on this show does every week. What made
this so special?
Finally, we come to the Mikey/Claire/Jared/Ashley I "love
quadrilateral" which first formed last week. Mikey gets some surprising
(to him) news that Claire won't be giving him a rose this week. Despite the fact that Claire told Mikey as much last week, this is still a surprise to him. He still doesn't fully understand what is happening though, as
he asks Dan multiple times "How do you know?" Mikey is essentially a giant, horny
toddler.
Don't Google "horny toddler" unless you want to end up on a watch list.
While Mikey's brain is still reeling from trying to hold two
simultaneous thoughts, Jared gets a date card. The date card was delivered by
Carly, who is apparently so comfortable in her new relationship with Kirk that she
is now wearing overalls. That's a bold move. Not only because her relationship with Kirk is less than two weeks old, but also because Mexico is hot as balls. Overalls aren't exactly "beach wear."
In any case, Jared immediately asks Claire to accompany him on a
date. Mikey somehow feels
blindsided by Claire accepting the date, presumably because he has already
forgotten his conversation with Dan from earlier in the day. In a last ditch
effort, Mikey asks Jared if he "really wants to date a woman eight years
older" than him. The fact that Mikey thought an eight-year age gap would
be enough to make Jared say "Eight years?! How will we ever explain this
complicated situation to the outside world?" probably speaks to his
compatibility with Ashley I more than Claire.
Speaking of Ashley I, she was also none too happy about Jared's
date card. She had let herself fantasize about going on a date with Jared and
was "completely blindsided" when she didn't receive the card. Like
Mikey, Ashley I didn't pick up on all the "little innuendos" being
dropped, which in both cases included someone saying, "I don't want to
date you." Subtlety is clearly not their strong suit.
Unlike Mikey, Ashley I is capable of some sick burns. When she
realizes the date card is not going to her, Ashley I says "She's 34. Her
eggs are almost dead." Holy shit, Ashley. Tone it down a bit. Calling
someone old is one thing, but saying "I hope you're barren" is
something else entirely. The only time it is ok to wish that someone is barren
would be if "Barren" was their first name. Even then, you should
probably just call them "Mr." because its way more likely that
someone misspelled "Darren."
The show ends with several guys claiming that Jared was the new
villain because he asked out Claire. I get their point, but it seems like the
two emotional terrorists throwing tantrums because they can't function in the
world are the actual villains here.
XOXO
Gossip Squirrel
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