Wednesday, August 3, 2016

Bachelor in Paradise: I Got Money. I Got Muscles.

Longtime readers of This is Brutal may remember that I have a mild obsession with Salvador Dali and Surrealist art in general. At its best, Surrealism is contradictory, unpredictable, and often totally meaningless. It is a clash between structure and anarchy, form and chaos. Surrealism feels like a half-woken dream where nothing quite makes sense, but nothing is also explicitly wrong either. Keep all that in mind when I say that Bachelor in Paradise is a brilliant piece of Surrealist art.

I’m not kidding.

Just look at this grotesque painting and tell me this isn't some sort of art piece.

The third season of Bachelor in Paradise remains as good as ever. Chris Harrison is still wearing his “Vacation Dad” outfits, Bartender Jorge is still wildly over serving the contestants, and the intro is still full of ‘80s camp. One new addition to the show was having to watch bachelor from JoJo’s season, Evan, eat a banana in the most upsetting way possible. That image will haunt me until I die.

"It's a banana! Stop sucking on it!"

Former contestant and current single mother Amanda arrives first in Paradise, quickly followed by two-time runner-up Nick, and American hero Jubilee. They talk briefly before Evan, the aforementioned banana muncher, arrives. Nick refers to Evan as, “the penis guy,” while Jubilee calls him, “slightly cuter in person.” I’m certain that these are much nicer things than Evan is normally called on a daily basis.

Cast members continue to arrive including JoJo rejects (Vinny, Grant, and Daniel), Ben Higgins rejects (Twins, Emily and Hayley, Lace, and Izzy), and even Bachelor in Paradise rejects (Carly and Sarah.) All in all it’s a pretty reject heavy show.

You really start scraping the bottom of the barrel after season two, huh?

Once everyone is settled in, the cast gets to mingling. Daniel immediately sets himself apart as someone to watch when he says, “Lets rank the girls… I love ranking girls,” before comparing them to rotten, spoiled fruit. Is that how rankings work in Canada? I assumed they used numbers like every other country on earth but it turns out Canadians count using degrees of rotting fruit. Who knew?

Daniel also spends several minutes trying to guess Izzy’s age after she repeatedly told him she was 25. I’m not sure what is going on with Daniel to make him say this many stupid things in a row, but my working theory is that he is actually a complex animatronic robot being controlled by a team of drunk raccoons. Yes, that may sound stupid, it makes as much sense as anything Daniel said all night.

Just as Daniel is about to solidify his role as the stupidest person on this show, the final contestant arrives and steals it from him. Chad. That’s right; “Chad Bear,” “The Chad,” “Satan Incarnate”. Whatever you want to call him, Chad has arrived. He makes a beeline for fellow idiot, Daniel, to play fight in the surf and talk about which of the women are the hottest. The pair also comes to the conclusion that it wouldn’t be so bad to be Hitler or Mussolini because, “at least they were rich.” To be fair, being a fascist dictator is a lot more fun than being anyone but a fascist dictator, so they do have a point.

Heil Chad and Viva Il Daniel

On the other, less racist side of Paradise, Jubilee has received the first date card of the season. She asks newcomer heartthrob Jared to join her and he graciously accepts. The two walk to a nearby outcropping resplendently decorated with piñatas and sit down for a quick dinner.

Jubilee and Jared compare their nerd credentials and talk about which Lord of the Rings character they most relate to. Jared claims he is more of an Aragon-type, which is obviously bullshit. Jared is Boromir at best, and a fancy Sméagol at worst.

Shave that beard, and you've basically got Sméagol in a v-neck.

Midway through their dinner, a clown jumps out from its hiding place behind some piñatas to surprise the happy couple. After Jubilee’s panicked screaming died down, the clown stared at them for several moments, wheezed something in a high-pitched voice, and then wandered off into the night. I genuinely don’t know if that clown was intended to be part of the show, or if Jubilee and Jared just missed becoming an aspiring psychopath’s first kills.

Other couples begin forming during this time as well. Nick spends most of the first night talking to Amanda, while Vinny and Izzy spend the better part of an hour making out in the ocean. None of this, however, compares to the one night power couple of Lace and Chad. You remember Lace, right? The soberly sweet, drunken self-destructive force of nature who once yelled at a man for not looking her in the eyes? Yeah, she got drunk and decided to spend her first night in Paradise groping/slapping/kissing Chad the human nightmare machine.

What could go wrong?

As it turns out, everything could go wrong. After scaring everyone else out of the pool with their aggressive tongue fighting, Chad grabbed Lace by the waist and started violently shaking her and shouting, “I got money! I got muscles! I got money! I got muscles!” Lace slaps Chad for shaking her so violently and then proceeds to make out with him again. While they are kissing, Daniel appears from out of the woods and stares down at them saying, “Oh, you two are getting it on, eh?” If reading this seems like an insane series of unrelated events, then congratulations. Now you know how it felt to watch it.

This feels like a war crime.

The kiss-fighting continues for several minutes more before Chad randomly tells Lace he will “throw you under a bus.” This angers Lace for some inexplicable reason, and she storms off leaving Chad alone, drunk, and angry.

Incensed by Lace’s rejection, Chad then goes on an alcohol fueled rampage consisting of, but not limited to, the following:
  • Calling Lace a “bitch” to her face.
  • Calling Sarah a “one armed bitch” to her face.
  • Telling Sarah to “suck a dick.”
  • Trying to fight Evan.
  • Trying to fight Daniel.
  • Snorting like a bear while walking along the beach.
  • Passing out with beach crabs in his hair.
  • Waking up with no underwear on. 
  • Pooping his pants.

I’m sure that list could easily be twice as long, but you definitely get the general idea by now.

To be fair, no one told Chad that attempted murder was against the rules.

The next morning, Chris Harrison summons the contestants for an impromptu house meeting to discuss Chad’s antics. As Chris confronts Chad with the previously mentioned list of drunken antics, Chad casually laughs each off a joke. Given how drunk he was the night before, he’s probably hearing all of this for the first time, which would honestly be pretty entertaining. It certainly doesn’t excuse his actions, but I at least gets why he thinks it’s funny.

Then again, he did make fun of a girl for having only one arm, so never mind.  Fuck him.

The high point of the episode (and potentially my life) came when Chris Harrison was forced to repeat the things Chad had said to the hotel staff. “Chad,” he said in his best dad voice, “You told everyone at the hotel to suck a dick.” Yeah. Take that in. Chris Harrison said the words, “suck a dick” in primetime. Even thinking about it now makes me feel all warm inside like Christmas morning.

How long do you think he practiced saying "suck a dick" before calling that meeting?

After pleading with Lace to try and keep him on the show, Chad is finally kicked out. As he wanders through the jungle, smashing mic packs and cursing at fleeing crabs, At one point, Chad wheels around to scream at Chris Harrison, “You fell asleep last night in a robe with a mimosa.” He yells this as if it’s an insult and not the most fantastic way to fall asleep imaginable.

Even after writing a full recap to this episode, I really don’t think I can recall more than two things that happened. I know Chad went insane and Daniel is incredibly stupid but beyond that the entire night seemed to be one long non-sequitor. None of it seemed grounded in any known reality and left me feeling both incredulous and excited about what would happen next. But that’s what’s great about Surrealist art. You might only remember one or two details of a piece, but it leaves a feeling you can carry around for weeks on end and never tire of.

I fucking love Bachelor in Paradise.

XOXO

Gossip Squirrel

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