Are you feening for some sadness? Well, then tie the rubber band around your bicep, tap your forearm and find the vein because the summer cryfest that is Bachelor in Paradise (Hotel) is about to inject you with 400 CC’s of Iaconetti tears. You know you love it.
I still have no words to adequately describe the hilariously cringe-worthy theme song, which ends with an all-guy beach pyramid toppling over, but “embarrassing” is probably the closest.
Poor Jillian was paradise’s first casualty, but now it’s time to flip the black-boxless script and get all Spice Girls on this biznatch. That means Girl Power and making room for some handsome new arrivals.
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Kind of a Mistress
Immediately after the rose ceremony and fresh off Tenley kiss-whoring herself for a flower, wayward sister Lauren reveals that she is sweaty, hot and miserable in her personal hell and wants to go home. So she and Ashley I. wander off (again) to discuss how they are disconnected from the group. And, of course, there are lots of tears. So … many … tears.
Lauren reveals over breakfast that she has a boyfriend who has a girlfriend, so she’s a self-proclaimed kind-of-a-mistress, and she cries over the fact that he might be mad at her because, you know, it could be true love. She also has “so many boogers” that she can’t blow them all out.
The only thing that can save her summer vacation is welder Joshua, who just so happens to arrive along with a horrible hula girl tattoo on his calf. Hopefully, he’s learned his lesson when it comes to haircuts. And JJ can’t stand him because he’s “a little rat.”
A Self-Elimination
Ashley I. pulls Josh aside right away to pimp out her sis, and for her part, Lauren jokes about possibly having STDs and asking if he likes aggressive women. Tenley is interested, even though she’s been spending time with JJ, so she grabs him for a walk on the beach and a conversation about pooches that ends with a date invitation.
JJ and Lauren are displeased, and she tearfully questions why “the world is so awful” to her. She packs her bags and rolls on out of paradise, prompting tears from Ashley and a nasty argument about how she’s never going to find love and will always be number two. Like poop.
For drama’s sake, the producers force her to wheel her suitcase down the beach. I bet there’s a driveway. But the best part is that literally no one cares except for Ashley, who fills the dusk sky with her desperate wails.
Yet Another Like Triangle Forms
JJ doesn’t consider Joshua much of a threat, declaring that it’ll be over once the “teaspoon of wit and humor” runs out. After all, the “football players take the girls out. The hockey players take them to bed.” Classy dude. Then moonshine Joe appears.
He’s got a date card and doesn’t know how to pronounce “manana,” and the guy’s not much of a reader. The girls heard he’s funny, and Clare hopes he’s the guy for her, but then they all sit in awkward silence for many minutes until Joe calls Clare out for being back in paradise. She cries to a raccoon that takes refuge in a bottle of wine.
Joe has no interest in talking to anyone or being a functioning human being, but he ends up asking Juelia to go on his horseback riding date. It makes Jonathan nervous, and he hopes Joe falls off his horse and breaks his leg so that he has to go home.
Tenley and Joshua head to a bar for drinks and dancing, and they discuss how he was a theatre major and how she worked as a dancer for Tokyo Disney. (Josh can’t believe she worked in China.) She’s a fan of his giant bear hands, he gives her butterflies and they make out on the dance floor.
JJ grabs her as soon as she returns and asks if she wants to go on a real one-on-one, then they kiss overlooking the ocean. Later, while JJ snores in a deep slumber after proclaiming that there are reason why Josh doesn’t have much sex while he does much better in that department, Tenley and Josh take it to his room for a hookup and maybe more.
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Where Did You Come From, Cotton-Eyed Joe?
Juelia confides in Jared that she’s hopeful to find love, but she also misses her daughter and is considering leaving if there’s nothing in paradise for her. And she legitimately believes that Joe was just nervous when he arrived and isn’t a total weirdo, while Jonathan fears a connection between them will mean his time is up.
Josh gives Tenley a creepy shoulder massage at breakfast, and it’s all smiles until he starts talking to everyone about doing Molly. Mikey and Dan feel the need to share the red flag with Tenley, who is bummed out because she is still trying to soak up the chemistry, but drugs are not a part of her life. (I mean, for real, we’re all in our mid 30s.) And can you guess how she reacts? Yep, tears!
On the date, Joe and Juelia ride some horses and walk along a waterfall while she tries to evaluate his daddy potential. They make small talk over drinks and talk about Ireland (the daughter, not the country), and she mistakes his insincere three-word statements as “a great first date.” She finds him sexy, which prompts a make-out sesh in the water.
Gossip Girl
Tenley confronts Joshua about his lifestyle to bridge the gap between her head and her heart, and he responds that he’s not a big party guy and the molly was a one-time thing. She remains conflicted, but she’s put off by the fact that he was was completely unfazed by the conversation. And so she refocuses her attention on JJ.
Joe and Juelia return to the group, and he slides right back into his role as lead zombie. Dan does a killer Joe impression before Ashley I. predicts that Mikey will be the one going home because Clare isn’t into him. This is news to Dan, who thought they were a couple, and he runs right to Mikey, who remains delusional as to Clare’s feelings. If you recall, she was like, no, I won’t kiss you. And he was like, awesome, she wants to get to know me! Swing and a miss.
Then Ashley I. pees in the ocean, but not waist-deep like a normal person. She basically squats down in two inches of water and lets it rip.
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Joe’s True Colors
Juelia is giddy over the prospect of a future with Joe, so she ends things with Jonathan, citing a lack of romantic chemistry. Meanwhile, Joe is chatting up a producer about Juelia not being smart, saying she’s a bad kisser and that it was a great date with the wrong person.
His ideal scenario involves getting a rose from Juelia, and then Samantha from Chris Soules’ season arrives for him to date. You might not remember much about her, as her claim to fame was that she was the first person out of the second group of limos. She stuck around for a while but remained largely anonymous. But she’s quite fetching.
It’s all quite horrible to do to anyone, but let’s remember that Juelia is a single mom because her husband committed suicide. So maybe she’s not the hopeful one to string along.
The producer advises him to tell Juelia all this and then yells at him for farting with his legs spread open.
Jared Blows Up the House
Clare has her sights set on Jared, who Ashley I. describes as her perfect dream man. And while she’s not worried about Clare and her 34-year-old almost-dead eggs, she’s less than thrilled when Love-Man gets a date card — “Sea if you can fall in love” — and invites the elder stateswoman to accompany him. Ashley’s reaction? Yeah, any situation in which I mention her name, it’s a safe assumption that she has devolved into a melted puddle of saline.
It’s also bad news for Mikey and his skewed perception of reality, with Kirk surmising that he’s so hopeful something is there with Clare that he’s blind to the fact that there’s nothing. But her accepting the date is a pretty clear signal, and so a shocked, betrayed, blindsided and pissed-off Mikey confronts Jared and asks if he really wants to date a woman eight years his senior. If this was real life, where he is from, and that happened right in front of him, the simple solution would be to beat the shit out of Jared.
He also confronts Clare about how she disrespected him, and they end up screaming at each other. She walks away, telling him he’s not the guy for her, which he replies it’s pretty obvious by her actions. Mikey contemplates quitting, with Kirk joking that the wedding vision board is in shambles. Clare cries to Juelia, who comforts her by pointing out that Mikey doesn’t have the emotional capacity to handle rejection in any way that doesn’t involve tossing feces.
Then the episode comes to a conclusion with Joe’s failed attempts to skimboard with a boogie board. Apparently, none of these guys have been in the ocean before.
The Drama Continues
Next up is the arrival of Michael from Desiree’s season, who I originally nicknamed “Fountain-climbing Michael G.” after he climbed into the mansion’s fountain to retrieve a coin that wasn’t there. So he got his tux all wet, and that’s basically all I remember about him. But he’s got his sights set on Tenley as well, meaning our love triangle is about to turn into a square.
And then there’s the Clare-Jared date, complete with catamaran ride, apparent crotch grabs and the revelation that it’s been some time since she’s been intimate with a man. And he gets her chest puppies barking.
Then there’s Joe, who is making plans to beat the crap out of Jonathan until his brains are coming out of his ears. It seems like an excessive amount to beat someone, and something tells me the authorities would step in prior to that point. Also, I bet Joe liked to harm animals as a child. Just speculating.
Seriously, do any of these couples really have a chance? Maybe Carly and Kirk, but everyone else is batshit crazy. And it’s all part of why Bachelor in Paradise (Hotel) is my favorite steaming pile of summer trash. The tissue budget alone probably exceeds my annual salary.
You can watch Bachelor in Paradise every Sunday and Monday at 8pm on ABC.
(Image courtesy of ABC)
Contributing Writer, BuddyTV
Emmy-winning news producer & former BuddyTV blogger. Lover of Philly sports, Ned, Zoe, Liam and Delaine…not in that order
