Tuesday, August 9, 2016

Bachelor in Paradise: Yet again

What?! Another episode? Good lord! Okay, let's get this over with...

Daniel is growing on me. Unlike Chad, who is always falling back on the "it's just jokes" excuse, Daniel is actually pretty funny. And not in a destructive way. Odd, yes. Weird, sure. But not overly. He tells Sarah that she likes him. You read that right. Not that he likes her. But he does compliment her obliquely, saying you gotta be unique and special to understand him.

Christian is the new kid on the block. Christian is a big fan of this blog... Maybe. At the very least, he's 'liked' four or five tweets alerting Twitterdom to various blog updates. Whether he's actually read them or not is unknown, but I appreciate the 'likes'. (Hint: we're @BachelorBlogger)

Sarah immediately takes a shine to Christian. That can't be good for Daniel, but he eventually turns it into a positive, as we'll find out.

Daniel wants to help Evan be "less Evan-ish." See, the guy is big-hearted.

We get the day-after recounting of Carly's date from hell with Evan. After she talks about the horror of it all and their record-breaking kiss, the editors cut to a literal dead fish. Carly said Evan, in his job as an erectile dysfunction expert, is only concentrating on men boners, not on "lady boners." So she hunts him down to break up with him. Clearly she's not just there to take any rose she can get. She's got principles.

She tells Evan she'd like to be friends. She actually lets him down gently. But just wait till he watches the season.

He tells the camera he's not there to find friendship. Then he weeps at the prospect of going home to his kids. I mean, at going home, period. But he has kids, so therefore...

Apparently, Evan tried to kiss Carly after she threw up on their date. That is so romantic! She asks Daniel if Evan's doing okay. Cut to him crying on his cot.

Meanwhile, Sarah and Christian are having fun on their adventure date, zip-lining and rapelling and all that sort of stuff. He thinks she's sexy hot. She digs him, too. Interesting to note that she doesn't kiss guys she's really into any better than she kissed the last one.

Funny Daniel said he was just "back at the mansion with his dick in his hand." Did they take that clip from his season with JoJo? What mansion is he talking about?

New guy alert, even though we just got a new guy with Christian. Brandon shows up. I actually recognized him. Not sure from what season or what he did, but he looked familiar. But Chris Harrison plays up not recognizing him at all.

Carly perks right up at seeing a new face. Brandon talks first to twin Haley, and then to Carly. Apparently Brandon knows Carly's brother, who, it turns out, was also on a season of the Bachelorette. Who knew? Their parents must be so proud!

But Brandon asks Haley out on a date, not Carly. So it's back to square one. No, not Evan. She'll never go back to that square.

Before the date, one of the twins (at first I thought it was Haley but now I think it was Emily) got super drunk on one beer. And super horny.

Nick wants a rose even though he's said Amanda's the only one there he's interested in and her tongue has been firmly implanted in Josh's mouth the entire episode. Hello Carly?!

When Sarah gets back, Daniel goes in for the kill. He wants to show her his serious side. Even then, he's still cracking jokes. She laughs a lot around him. His explanation? He was dropped on his head a couple times.

He starts to peel back some layers on himself and that makes Sarah feel "giddy." He tells her "hands-down" she's the best girl there. She tells him that as great a time as she had on her date with Christian, she thinks it would have been better with Daniel. Daniel, though, doesn't kiss her out of concern for her health. He has a cold, but jokes he doesn't want to give her the Zika virus.

Brandon takes out Haley, his favourite of the twins. He swears he can tell them apart. So Haley and Emily do the old switcheroo. Haley excuses herself after a very formal conversation ("I appreciate that. That's very flattering.") then she and sis trade clothes. Emily comes back and Brandon's none the wiser.

Interestingly when Emily first makes her appearance as Haley, she finishes a sentence with "eh?" Yet the twins just yesterday were making fun of Daniel for saying "eh."

The show (only an hour, mercifully) ends with Evan preparing to steal Amanda from Josh. Because why not? What's he got to lose? He already has nothing. But it's To Be Continued. I'm sure it'll end well.

But wait, there's more! An hour of inane banter follows on After Paradise. No Chris Harrison this time. It's co-hosted by the dull Sean Lowe and the fast-talking and extremely glib Michelle Collins. Interestingly, later in the show, they make fun of several participants for not knowing the definition of "glib." All they have to do is show them three second of Collins talking. She is the very definition of the word.

The show features sit-downs with Chad, Jubilee, Lace, Leah, and Sarah. Plus there are some deleted scenes from the show. We start with Jorge the bartender saying Chad was rude (never said please or thank you and never looked him in the eye) and couldn't hold his alcohol.

Before bringing out Chad, Collins said she was slightly scared, and "I'm not even being funny." I feel she could say that about everything that comes out of her mouth.

Chad's excuse was that he was drinking. But doesn't drunkenness reveal who you are more than bring about some other version of yourself? It was stony cold between him and Lace. Collins said Chad points fingers at everyone else but never at himself. Although in this hour, he did manage to apologize for calling Sarah a "one-arm bitch," although no mention was made of "Army McArmerson," although presumably he's sorry for that, too.

Who is Spencer Pratt? He's another reality show villain. And he likes Chad. For each person (and there seem to be a lot of them) who likes Chad, I shake my head and think this explains Donald Trump's success.

Collins asks Lace if Chad deserves another chance. Lace, sitting one foot away from Chad, says he doesn't deserve to be back on any sort of Bachelor show again. Well put.

One video clip was called "Daniel explains it all, eh?" Get it? Because he's Canadian and all Canadians, as everyone knows, say "eh" all the time. They can't help it! So we see Daniel being Daniel, comparing everyone to birds. And guess what? Not a single "eh." So in two hours of programming tonight, one American twin leads one Canadian in the "eh" department 1-0.

Sean Lowe said he wants to give Evan a good haircut and get him to shave his beard. Because Sean Lowe is so hip and cool.

That's about it. I'll definitely be watching and writing next week because the lovely Caila is returning! She's the best!

Bachelor in Paradise: Episodes 1 and 2

Whoops, I did it again. Completely forgot to write about last week's debut episode of the godawful/great Bachelor in Paradise so I'll do double-duty tonight. I'm not going to go into as much detail because this is just a lowly spin-off with regular series also-rans.

Was I surprised that both Nick and Jubilee wanted to meet Chad? Yes and no. Yes, because they watched the same season we watched. What on Earth would possess anyone to want to get to know that? On the other hand, they know first-hand what editors are capable of. They learn soon enough that no amount of editing could cause that shitstorm.

Daniel's goal is to be known as the funny/weird one. Winning.

Daniel likes the twins early on. He takes Emily out to the water. Nick says he'd love to be a "fly on that wall." I think he was referring to the wall Emily erected between the two of them.

Izzy arrives and nobody knows her. Including me. It's week two as I write this and I still have no idea who she is/was.

Lots of unnecessary censorship. Lace's butt was blurred out. Then again, Lace has always been kind of blurry herself.

Jubilee is a huge Lord of the Rings nerd, leading Jared to say she has such depth. I think that says more about Jared.

Bad Chad gets jiggy with Lace. It's a tumultuous affair almost from the start. They alternate between hot kisses and threats of murder. Fun times! He told her he'd tie her to a railroad track. What a charmer!

Lace eventually calls Chad a mean person. She said everyone else was so nice and "genuous." Look it up.

Nick misunderstood Daniel's Mussolini line from JoJo's season. He thought Daniel thought Mussolini was a good guy. We all got it, though, right? Daniel was telling Chad don't be the worst of the worst, just be bad. Daniel had the benefit of Canadian schooling so he knows history.

Chad got drunk, expanding his murder threats to include rape. I wonder what other Bachelor/ette also-ran will want to meet him after this.

But you know, murder and rape is so generic so he decides to get specific. He calls Sarah a "one-arm bitch" and tells her to "keep sucking that fame dick." Atta boy, Chad. Oh, and later he called her "Army McArmerson."

But seriously, what were the producers thinking? They know who he is. They know what he's capable of. This couldn't have been a surprise to them. They put him in this position and plied him with alcohol. It's on them.

Daniel is the Hulk whisperer. He tries to calm Chad down. Doesn't work. Chad takes a swing at him then passes out by the pool.

When he wakes up, he realizes he's naked. Then he checked his shorts lying by the bed. Sniffs them. You get the picture.

Izzy wondered why he was there. She should ask Chris Harrison, who jokingly built Chad up on After the Final Rose.

Oh look, here's Chris Harrison now. He's come to tell Chad to leave. "Everyone came here to Paradise," he tells Bad Chad. "In one night, you turned it into hell."

Chad's defence? "It's joking! It's jokes!"

Lace tells him he argues instead of owning up to his actions. Bingo.

Chad storms off, throwing his body mic to the ground. Someone says Chad has been through a lot in the past six months with his mother dying. Nick correctly states, "I have a lot of friends whose parents have passed who aren't assholes."

Chad gets in some good parting shots at Chris Harrison, telling him he went to sleep with a mimosa and wearing a robe in a hotel room. Burn!... Um, what? Is that a bad thing? He also throws in a "fuck you, dude" for good measure.

Yet Chris Harrison was apparently fine with Chad at After the Final Rose, which was taped after this. Go figure.

At the end of the first episode, we see highlights where Bad Chad returns to wreak more havoc. But where was he? There was no Chad in episode 2, and not even any Chad highlights after episode 2. Did they just purge that from history or is that still to come? If so, it's completely implausible. They could easily have him thrown off the set. They could call the cops if it came to that. You think anyone can just wander onto a set and do as we pleased?

To start episode 2, we got more from Chad's farewell with Chris Harrison. He told him (rather humorously, I must admit), "On a scale of one to fuck off, fuck off." In the vehicle, he was beside himself because now he'll never be the Bachelor. Yeah, only now his chances are ruined. He was so close before!

And he talked more about killing people. If he ever does kill someone, it could mean the end of this show.

Leah arrived. We may remember her from Ben's season. Or we may not. In fact, I do not. It could be because she apparently got lip injections, according to the felines sitting around gossiping. The 23-year-old twins, who are two years away from their own Botox injections, make the most fun of her.

Oh, and Leah really wanted to date Chad! Partly because she also really loves protein. Not gonna go there. Sorry.

Leah tells Daniel that there are so many good looking girls there that if she were a man, she'd be pretty happy. Daniel replies, "If I was a man, I'd be pretty happy, as well."

Nick reveals his head size is 7 3/8ths. I've got him beat. But size isn't everything.

The twins reveal they both have scoliosis. One of them asks Nick if he wants to see her bump. She bends over for him and lets him feel it, too. Some guys have all the luck.

Leah goes on a date with Nick. It goes well. Nick takes a bite out of Leah's big, juicy lips.

Amanda said it was "definitely harder" to leave her two kids this time around. But somehow she sucked up the courage. She's a brave one.

After returning from his date with Leah, on her card, Nick gets a date card. Leah assumes he'll return the favour and invite her for their second consecutive date. Nuh-uh. He asks Amanda, the only woman there he's interested in, probably because of her winning personality, two kids, and helium-induced voice. Oh, and she's also kinda hot.

Vinny, who was with Izzy all last week, takes Sarah aside and told her she has beautiful eyes. Vinny's inner dialogue: "Don't look at her arm. Don't look at her arm."

The best part of both episodes so far was the development of Carly and Evan as a couple. This is pure gold. She was wondering what it would be like to kiss him. She wasn't going to find out from him, apparently. He'd never make the move. Carly wants a man to be a man. Cut to Evan putting his head on Carly's shoulder. So manly. A kiss clearly wasn't forthcoming so she finally planted one on him and then ran off to bed.

Evan was floating on air. There were butterflies and fireworks. He ran off to the shore to soak it all in, then laid on his bed slowly caressing his breast.

Carly had a different impression. She described the kiss as "so terrible" and said she couldn't understand how that man has two children. Hey, maybe they were adopted.

Grant is still into Lace, despite her obvious craziness. There's a lesson here: If you're crazy, try to be as good-looking as possible. People will overlook craziness at least long enough for you to have a string of short relationships. Better than none!

Lace and Grant sleep together overnight. She puts a blanket over the camera that's focussed on their bed. We hear breathy oohs and aahs while viewing images of crab porn.

Sarah is angling for Vinny. Her main competition is Izzy. Vinny grabs Sarah and kisses her. As much as she wanted it, she sure didn't look comfortable or relaxed. That gal needs a lip injection stat!

Then Vinny does the taste test with Izzy. That kiss looked a little more natural.

Nick, straight shooter that he is, tells Leah he's leaning towards Amanda. At least she has time to lie to someone. Her Plan B is Daniel. She doesn't think much of him but hey, a rose is a rose is a rose.

They had a nice dialogue, though:
Leah: I have layers
Daniel: Like an onion.
Leah: Yeah.
Daniel: But you're not going to make me cry, though?
Leah: No.
Daniel: Then you're not like an onion.
Leah was very confused. It was a turn-off but it "doesn't matter." Daniel described himself as an "eagle." He's not going to "drop down to pigeon level." He said if he was just going to bang someone tonight, it would be one of the twins. Presumably either one. Or both!

Speaking of the twins, is there a mathematician out there who can walk me through the convoluted rules. My gin and tonic wouldn't allow me to figure it out. Chris Harrison said two women would be going home. There are nine women there. Six fellas. He also said if one of the twins gets a rose, the other one would automatically stay. So if neither of them got a rose, wouldn't there be three women going home? And if they each developed relationships with different guys and each got her own rose, wouldn't that be three that were going home? My head hurts. Granted, that might be the G&T.

Grant gave his rose to the woman who shared his bed: Lace.

Nick gave his rose to: Amanda.

Evan gave his rose to: Carly, who reluctantly accepted.

Jared gave his rose to: Emily, and by extension to Haley.

Vinny gave his rose to: not Sarah. It went to Izzy.

Daniel gave his rose to: Sarah.

Leah and Jubilee were left out in the cold. The temperature matched Leah's cold, cold heart. Her Plan B backfired.

Josh was the new arrival. I couldn't place him. Turns out he actually won Andi's season! Wow, how bad is that? I watched and blogged every episode that season and that guy went the whole way and I had no idea who he was.

The girls swoon over his toothy smile. Sarah calls him "next-level handsome."

And a nice little wrinkle is that Josh won Andi's heart over Nick. And now here he is. Guess who he's going to pick for his date? You got it, Toyota! He's going for Amanda.

I love how Lace, Daniel and Evan had no idea about Nick and Josh's history. That had to be a slap in the face to Nick, who has lived his life trying to gain fame on this show, and three people (four, if you include me) who are Bachelor/ette fans don't even remember the biggest moment of his life. Ouch.

Apparently Andi wrote a tell-all book and mentioned Josh quite a bit. And not in a positive light. Is it true? It's in a book so it must be. Plus, he looks all toothy and insincere. But Amanda can tell how genuine he is. She trusts him.

Back to Carly. Her brothers told her to stop dating guys that are feminine. Apparently her first ever boyfriend now has a boyfriend of his own. "Now here we are again," she says, and adds, "Evan does give me erectile dysfunction." I think I see the problem here.

She makes a tactical error. Carly admits that she wants to stay away from Evan. Rookie move. The producers have the upper hand. They always will. What do they do? They give a date card to Evan. And they know what he's going to do with it.

And he does just that. Carly is less than enthused. She paused and answered, "Uh... sure." Evan was ecstatic. Probably interpreted her dread as shy coyness.

She wasn't feeling any tingles. Said she's never not wanted to go on a date before. "I'm not excited about this right now," she said. In case you didn't pick up what she was laying down, she put it another way: "Every part of me is unexcited."

They start strolling hand in hand on their date and come across a cheering crowd. There is Chris Harrison with microphone in hand telling them they have a chance to make history. Apparently they can set a Guinness World Record by eating one of the hottest peppers in the world and kissing for 90 seconds. Yeah, I'm sure this is a totally legit record.

They do it. When their lips touch, Evan slides his hand down Carly's backside. She quickly moves it back up into fair territory. When they finish 100 seconds after starting, a long string of saliva joins the couple, like spaghetti between Lady and the Tramp. Not quite as romantic, though.

She goes off to vomit. She sets the record straight: She threw up not just from the pepper.

Emily, meanwhile, is trying to get Jared to show signs of life. They lie outside and he stares off. Emily is perplexed. "I'm not ugly," she tells us. "I've got really, really big boobs and a nice butt. And this isn't my first rodeo." But nothing's working. They get up and she finally just throws herself at him. "He finally kissed me and it was a really good kiss," she said.

When Amanda and Josh returned, they kissed right in front of Nick. Now, Nick has every good reason to be pissed at Josh, but the love of his life is hardly faultless. Instead of confronting him, just have a sit-down with her. She should be able to explain to him what's going down. Not sure she'll ever be able to explain it to her kids, but that's another story.

And I think that's where things left off. I'm not sure. I may have passed out from the G&T. What did I miss?