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?
