Amber L. Carter's Blog, page 19

Bachelor In Paradise Recap, Episode 6: Stalagmites, bae bites, and a douchebag flight!

Welcome back, Bachelor Babies, to Episode 6! 

Our episode opens on the tail-end of last week's rose ceremony/cocktail party (who cares), where Marcus receives a date card (who cares x 2). He and Lacy go on YET ANOTHER CAVE/POOL DATE (seriously, producers! What is your problem? Do you need me to take your jobs? How hard it is to come up with novel date ideas in Mexico?! I could come up with more novel date ideas stuck in a cornfield in Iowa, or a prairie in Kansas. START PLAYING LIKE CHAMPIONS). They basically climb down a hole, where they magically appear again, clad in swimsuits, lifejackets, and head lamps (apparently this is called spelunking), and swim through some seriously questionable water (like, is anyone else not worried that what they're swimming in contains a water dragon or some monstrous water spider that's been left alone in perfect water spider conditions for hundreds of years, enabling it to grow to massive monster size and lie in wait until some stupid singles decide to dive into it's habitat for "fun"? Or, more realistically, that it's been used as a urinal or a body dump for Mexican natives for hundreds of years? Because, I mean...the entrance is A HOLE IN THE GROUND IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE). And then there's bats! Like hundreds and hundreds of bats. Which is cool, because I've never been scared of bats, but it's not cool, because if I were those bats, I'd be seriously pissed that two of the dumbest people in America just woke me up in the middle of my beauty sleep. 

Then, apparently, they stumble onto these magical things called STALAGMITES (not to be confused with STALACTITES, which Lacy also probably couldn't pronounce) that are hanging from the ceiling of the cave, only Lacy The Brain is finding it impossible to pronounce STALAGMITES, even with multiple prompting from the camera guy/producer (whom, for clarity purposes, I'm just going to pretend was Elan). 
Lacy: "What do you call it?" 
Elan: "Stalagmites." 
Lacy: "Staligamites?" 
Elan: "Stalagmites." 
Lacy: "Steegamites?" 
Elan: "STALAGMITES." 
Lacy: "So then we saw all these Stalineegmites..."


This is a stalagmite. Which, coincidentally, also looks like a peen. Then Lacy and Marcus have this boring conversation about how they're both vulnerable and that Lacy doesn't really show her feelings very often, but she'd definitely on the same page as Marcus and is falling in love with him. I just...like...DON'T CARE about these two. Like, AT ALL. I feel like Marcus latched onto Lacy in the beginning because she had big boobs and doe eyes, and Lacy played around with him and Robert in kind of a sketchy way until she realized that she might not want to do that because it could burn her, and now all of a sudden they're falling in love with each other? How do essentially brain dead people fall in love with each other? It's like the classic line from Clueless: "Two learning permits do not equal a license." 

Meanwhile, Michelle is freaking out about Cody - apparently at the last rose ceremony, Cody told Michelle he loves her. So she's going to JESSE for advice about it (uh, bad move, Money). Michelle starts crying, saying that Cody is moving too fast for her. Jesse's like, "Yeah, you know...you should totally break up with him and jump on this stick instead." At least, that's what I imagine he's saying, inside his head, because it's Jesse and he's a total douchebag like that. 

Brooks from The Bachelorette: Des Grew Up Poor is here! One Armed Sarah was JUST FRENCH KISSING Robert (seriously, Sarah, are you still a virgin? Because no one over 15 who doesn't have their hymen still intact says "I was french kissing him"), and now Brooks is here, who she had the biggest crush on...what is a one armed girl to do?! Brooks, for his part, is also drawn to her. Robert, for his part, is all about the cock block - he literally is like, "YO, that one armed bae down there? She's MY one armed bae, so STEP OFF." (okay, so maybe his exact words were: "If you ask Sarah out I'll kill you. She's my bae." which is hilarious and also means that none of us can ever use the word "bae" ever, ever again and still retain our street cred).

And then she starts crying. Because she's feeling anxious. Because all she can think about is Brooks. SERIOUSLY, SARAH, IF YOU DON'T STOP WHINING ABOUT EVERY THING IN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE, I'M GOING TO CUT YOUR OTHER ARM OFF. 

In the end, Brooks asks Jackie out for his dinner date. Zack, who was part of the whole "YO STEP OFF MY BAE" convo that Robert and Brooks had, now regrets now doing the same thing when it came to Jackie. Umm, hello men. Let's talk about this thing called "free will" and not "owning" the girl that you like. Maybe let her make her own choices? Just, you know, an evolutionary thought since it is 2014 and women are no longer considered property or cattle or unable to make coherent thoughts or logical decisions for themselves without the help of a man. 

Jackie and Brooks go out on their date, and they're cute together! I personally don't find Brooks all that attractive - especially not since he was, like, in the top running for Des, which means that he might have actually liked her - but he seems funny and genuine and like a straight-up fun guy. 

Meanwhile, Robert asks Sarah to meet him on a beach. Sarah is nervous, because she's planning breaking up with him. Instead, they have this long talk about what will happen when they leave the island, and it all comes to a head when One Armed Sarah shows him that only having one arm is no impediment to giving head. J/K. They just "french" some more, and Sarah tells us that, strangely, the whole thing with Brooks has made her realize that Robert is the one for her. Huh. I don't think I've ever gone in to an interaction fully intending to break up with someone, and leaving it knowing fully that he's the one for me. But. You know. One armed people just do things differently. 

Michelle and Cody sit on the beach by the fire, talking about how Cody needs to chill the fuck out already. I love this scene the most, because Cody just looks at Michelle like, "Yo girl, I got chu. You might be scared right now, and that's okay, but soon enough you'll see that you're truly my bae." (I moonlight as a rapper). Like all totally confident and calm about the fact that he knows that's fast, but that it's meant to be. 

Meanwhile, back in Dumb Girl Land, Christy thinks that Jessee has all the qualities that girl would be SO LUCKY to have in a boyfriend. He is SUCH A GOOD GUY, you guys. Meanwhile, Jesse is sitting in the living room with Michelle and basically tells everyone that he's going to finish his drink and then go back and have sex with Christy. WHT A GOOD GUY, RIGHT. Apparently he also spilled to the other guys that Lacy gave him a hand job (I think - from what I can gather from the bleeps in the conversation and the footage from last week's episodes). Michelle tells Christy about it in a bathroom. Christy is upset, and wants to go home, because there's no one here for her. 

But you know, she's going to leave that in God's hands. 

AND THEN WHADDAYA KNOW, THE SKIES PART, DOVES FLY, AND ANGELS SING (really, but not really - it's another amazing montage by the producers and editors) AS GOD BRINGS TASOS TO THE ISLAND. 

Tasos, you might remember, was on The Bachelorette: Andi Is a Lawyer. He is a delish hipster latino type, and I dig him. He shows up with a date card, and pulls Michelle away to talk to her. There's some hilarious jokes about how, if Tasos tries to ask Michelle out on a date, "We're pretty sure Cody will eat Tasos," Graham says. Michelle, for her part, has already formed a plan, and tells Tasos  that she would love to see him take Christy out on a date, and that he is exactly what a girl like Michelle needs. 

So Tasos asks Christy out on a date, which Jesse, of course, doesn't feel great about. Not because he actually likes her, and not because he actually wants to continue to see her, because he knows that if her and "Taco" make a connection, he'd probably end up going home. What a slime bucket. 

Christy and Tasos are on this really great date on the river - just floating down the water, then having a picnic on a dock - it actually looks really romantic and peaceful. She says that Jesse is half the man that Jesse is. "I hate Jesse." GOOD MORNING. GLAD YOU COULD FINALLY WAKE UP, CHRISTY. 


"The world looks sooo much better with a brain!"Back at the Slut Huts, peeps are playing on the beach. "I mean, I've got, like, the worst arm ever." - at first my friend Jen and I thought that One Armed Sarah said that - HAHAHAHA! - but really it was Jackie, talking to Brooks. Poor Zach is kind of jealous that Jackie is hanging out with Brooks. You know, though, when you play someone (Hi Clare!), you get played...that's probably the biggest karmic lesson of this show. Zack played Clare, and now he's getting played. I can't feel bad for him.

But all is not lost, because whaddya know, Zach's got the date card. Lifetime Original Movie AshLee (OMG you guys I just watched a movie this weekend about this couple who's pregnant and some girl from their high school shows up at their yard sale and then goes missing and the cops think the husband did it because he was having an affair with her and got her pregnant and then murdered her to hide it from the wife, but it turns out the girl was TOTALLY PSYCHO OBSESSED with the husband from high school, so she framed him and then tried to drug the wife so she could steal the baby. IT WAS AWESOME and I could totally AshLee being the girl from high school) wants to express her ungratitude (really, AshLee?) over the fact that Graham still hasn't gotten a second date card. She just wants him to have the best experience possible, you guys. It has NOTHING to do with the fact that SHE wants to go on a date with him so she roofie him and then try to get pregnant with his babies so he has to marry her. Michelle sees right through AshLee, which is hilarious, because then AshLee wants to cheer Michelle for being so kind to her. Talk about sucking up to your crush's best friend, which Michelle totally catches on to, too (as demonstrated from The Best Confessional Eyeroll ever). "From this point on, my eyes are on AshLee like a hawk." 

Jackie and Zack go on a date....TO THE BAT CAVE. Apparently "swimming in a bat cave" is the new "visiting temple ruins" on this show. Brooks feels bummed that Jackie's out with Zack, and we all know where this is going, so I'm not even going to waste my time. 

Cocktail party! Michelle's faux-mohawk is awesome. Jesse is a total sleaze - he can tell that Christy is all in when it comes to "Tasso", which is a drag for him, since all he wants to do is be on a beach and make out with some girls, and he can't have that if Christy doesn't offer him a rose. "I'm not here to leave paradise, because I'm having a lot of fun, and I'm not ready to start a relationship with a dumb blonde, but Christy has a rose and so it's between me and Tacos and so my fate is in her hand."


This is what a douchebag looks like. It's kind of amazing to watch him get played. Even Chris Harrison calls him out when he comes in and make some speech about you might notice that the people still here have come at this experience with a very sincere, genuine place of wanting to create a connection with people. 

But really, Jesse wants to create a connection with people, too - that's what hand jobs are really all about, right? Creating connections. 

Christy and him go off to a table to talk, and Christy is all like, "I'm sorry, I don't know how to say it." Uh, just say "You're a douchebag, and I don't want to be with you", Christy. Jesse tries to manipulate her by telling her that he wishes that there had been more of a connection: "I wish I would have done something to just make you open up, you know? 
"Lucy was open, no?" Christy says. HAHAHAHAHAHA. Good one, Christy. 
Jesse, realizing that he's not going to win, does the thing where he bows out early so he can try to save face by not getting rejected outright at the rose ceremony. He makes this douchebag speech about how he accomplished everything he wanted to accomplish, and then high-tails it to the van. Lacy and Michelle are talking Christy through her emotions about feeling like she wanted to dump Jesse, but that he turned it around like he was dumping her first (I don't really get the gist of this conversation, and I doubt that anyone in America did, either), which basically culminates in Lacy and Michelle telling Christy to go find him and tell him off once and for all. And I want this to happen, too, so I'm literally shouting "GO GIT 'IM! GO GIT 'IIIIIIMMMM!" (my yelling voice sounds like an Appalachian woman's). So Christy waylaids Jesse as he's sitting in the van, and it's basically this big ol' badass show-down of the girls giving it to him, one-by-one...

And not in the way that Jesse has always wanted three girls to give it to him. 

Michelle is a badass - "The way you've spoken about things you've done with the girls here is cowardly, uncool, and disrespectful", and even Lacy shows some balls: "Here's the thing, Jesse. You come here, and you want multiple things with multiple girls, and then you run your mouth off to all the guys, and it's beyond disrespectful." This is the one moment in the entire show that I actually respect Lacy. 

So soon enough, they finish their Girl Power Speeches and Jesse drives off in the van. "I swear that as soon as I get home, I'm going to have sixty emails with names and numbers and invitations to parties and festivals." That's right, friends! Jesse Kovacs: Coming to a cheap Jersey Shore club appearance near you! 

FINALLY the Rose Ceremony begins, and the girls start handing out the roses. Lacy's first, with another boring speech about how she's falling in love with Marcus. Michelle, AshLee and Sarah also give speeches when they hand out their roses (to Graham, Cody, and Robert)...whatever happened to "Will you accept this rose"?! It's simple, to the point, and we don't have to hear gag-inducing speeches about your feelings. Christy gives her rose to Tasos, and the final drama of the show is when Jackie choose Zack, which means Brooks got the cut. Bumma, son. 

THEN, Harrison shows up, which is only good news at the end of the ceremony if he has a globe-trotting destination to announce. Nope - "This was the last rose ceremony here in paradise. No more date cards, no more new arrivals. Everything is about to change in paradise."

DUN DUN DUUUUUNNNNNN. 

So apparently next week is the SHOCKING conclusion of Bachelor In Paradise. WHAT'S GONNA HAPPEN, EVERYBODY?! DO I STILL CARE? DO YOU? 

Not really. But we also know that, according to the pre-season previews, there's still a fight that needs to happen, which means it can only happen during the finale, yeah? YAY BACHELOR FIGHTS!

Bachelor In Paradise Recap, Episode 5: A Surprise Exit, Cody Flexes It, and Three People Sex It

Welcome back, Bachelor Babies! It's the second episode of Bachelor In Paradise this week, and of course, every "dramatic" moment that you thought would happen tonight? Happened...but in the most underwhelming way you could imagine 

Goddamn you, Bachelor editing team. Sometimes I love you, and sometimes you are cruel, cruel magicians. 

Anyway, we pick back up at the Rose Ceremony, where Lifetime Original Movie AshLee is waiting to give her rose (and her heart, and her body, and her first born child) to Graham. Graham leaves, comes back, and...accepts her rose. 

Yawn. 

Kalon and Marquel are sent home, BTW. Marquel is sad about it, and I kind of feel bad for him, but then again, not really - playa got played. 

After Graham accepts the rose from AshLee, Lacy is SO DISGUSTED that she feels PHYSICALLY ILL. Really?! Really?! She has to go throw up in a bathroom somewhere. It's so bad that they call an ambulance (really?! REALLY?!). So the whole "there's been a fight! There's an ambulance!" preview ploy is all because Lacy drank some shower water earlier that day (and shame on us for even thinking that it would be anything else - how many times have we been fooled by the whole "And THEN! The ambulance came!" ploy on The Bachelor? And it always ends up being about somebody falling down a couple of stairs?!). Marcus, however, is sooo worried...of course he's worried about the worst! LIKE WHAT, Marcus? That she'll puke herself to death?! I mean, it's happened before, that people have died from food poisoning, but I think it's gonna be okay for Lacy. Call me when something serious/awesome happens, like she gets bit by a jungle python or something. 



Christy's here! She was on The Bachelor: Juan Pablo Has a Daughter , and she barely got any screen time before she was sent home. 



One Armed Sarah pulls her to the side to let her know which people are already coupled up (a.k.a., tell her to step off when it comes to Robert), but Christy decides to just go with her heart and do her own thing, a.k.a ignore the established couples. The man in her sights? Crazy Clare's boy toy, Zach. Sarah is like, "I told her that he was, like, completely spoken for", which makes me laugh - who gives a shit? No one's engaged, and the whole point of the newcomers is to shake things up. I love that Christy is like, Fuck That. 

Christy pulls Zack aside to talk to him about the date card, and he's like, "I like you, but I'm kind of dating this crazy chick who would seriously cut both of us if I went out on a date with you." Clare comes in to the living space only to be told that there's a new girl here, and that new girl is talking to Zack right that second. When Zack's done letting Christy down easy, Clare and Zack go and "talk"...otherwise known as Crazy Clare Interrogation Time. She even does that thing where she wipes something off his face while he's talking to her, which is a total "I own you, you are mine" Girl Code thing. Zack tells Clare that he said no to the date with Christy, and Clare is like "AAHHHH I can trust him we're getting married this is wonderful." 

Christy, for her part, tells us that Zack saying no really throws her off. She's not here to just date some douchebag like her ex-boyfriend. At which point One Armed Sarah introduces her to Jesse, she asks him on a date, and all of America laughs because Jesse is EXACTLY like her douchebag ex-boyfrind. 

Christy and Jesse's date is pretty much the most boring Mexico "adventure" ever. They eat some chocolate and then do some tequila, and then have a really boring conversation about Christy's ex, who cheated on her. She found out by finding another girl's bra in his bed (btw, what girl leaves her bra in a guy's bed? The Walk of Shame is hard enough without your boobs bouncing all over the place) Jesse's like, "Oh yeah, I've done that before" while pretending to Christy that he would never, ever do that. 

When it comes to Michelle and Cody, Lacy tells us that CODY is moving too quickly when it comes to Michelle. Really, Lacy?! YOU'RE giving relationship advice?! You're the worst. Cody tells Michelle that he's into her and that it's her or no one. Michelle says that it's hard because it's all happening so fast...uh, yeah. You LITERALLY were nothing a day ago, and now you're talking about all or nothing. Cody, however, wants someone who will make him The Best Cody, and for him, that's Michelle. Michelle is nervous about it, but not so nervous that she doesn't want to feel up his massive quads. 

According to Christy and Jesse, they had a great time on their date. According to America, it was the most boring, vapid date ever. They come back to the house, and party girl announces that "I could be leaving in two days, I wanna get wasted, what the fuck!" Jackie notes that ever since Christy came to the island, Jesse's been acting totally different...yeah, I'd say. Christy brings out Jesse's true colors, which is Slimeball Green, Douchebag Yellow, and Asshole Red. To prove the point, Christy and Jesse totally start making out. 

Clare and Zack are sitting at a campfire, and Clare tells Zack that she "hopes" Christy doesn't feel weird being around them, being that she basically tried to move in on Clare's man even though she was fully aware that Zack was CLARE'S man, and NOT UP FOR DISCUSSION WHEN IT CAME TO DATES WITH OTHER GIRLS NAMED CHRISTY. This whole conversation is so hilarious, because we all know full well that Clare wants to make sure that Christy feels as uncomfortable as possible. Unfortunately, we don't get the chance to witness what would surely be the most entertaining part of this whole series, because Zack unwisely takes it as an opportunity to tell Clare that he's still "figuring things out" between them. "You were, like, all in right away, and I tend to take things much slower." Oh shit. Clare is pushes him on it, and basically tries to make the point that he should know what he wants, and if he doesn't, then he doesn't want it with her. "I'm going to bed," she tells him, which is basically code for "I am so mad at you right now, and the best way to punish you for it is to make you worry about it all night long." Zack tells us that he's confused. Yeah, buddy, you are confused - you are confused about how girls work. Girls don't want to hear about how you're still "figuring things out." Keep that shit to yourself, okay? Or just talk about it with your bros. DON'T tell the girl you're seeing, completely unsolicited, that you don't "know" about the two of you quite yet. 

I feel like you guys are getting both a reality tv recap and dating/relationship coaching all in one. 

So Clare goes into the bathroom and cries, and then she runs off into the jungle (followed by Elan. ELLAAAAAAAAN!) and cries some more. The jungle animals, alerted by the sound of her tears, gather around her the way they would a Disney Princess, but quickly dart away when she starts to talk like a crazy person again. "I don't want this! It's all drama! And here I am, looking like a fool, AGAIN, and I just wanna leave!" 

It's pretty amazing. 

After a while, Clare comes out of the jungle and finds Michelle to Whisper Talk about it. "It's not paradise for me. It's torture." WE ALL FEEL THE SAME WAY, CLARE, WHEN IT COMES TO YOU. She tells Michelle that she's leaving. No one believes her, until she goes to find Zack (queue scary-movie music, which is SO hilarious). Waking him up from a deep sleep, she makes him go sit outside with her while she cries about how he hurt her and she's going home now, which is every guy's dream, right? Like the best moment in his entire life.  

"It's never easy to hear a man say that you're not what he's looking for, that he's not sure about you," Clare tells us. OF COURSE HE'S NOT SURE, CLARE: YOU'VE KNOWN HIM FOR ONLY A WEEK. Get the fucking net! "Like I know I'm going out crying with a stuffy nose and puffy eyes, but it doesn't stop me from wanting a perfect love for me," she asserts, later. Zack carries her bags out to the van while simultaneously high-riving himself on the inside, and Clare gives him a hug and a parting shot: "I just wish you could have seen what I saw in you." Which is awesome, because I've totally done that kind of thing to guys, too, and it's like the best passive-agressive move EVER. "I'm so tired of feeling these feelings," she tells us. "It's exhausting. It's not good." And then, in a sad little voice, she ends with, "This is why I just wanted to do Dancing With The Stars." 

HAHAHAHA. That was pretty much the most adorable thing she's ever said. Too bad Dancing With The Stars is also still "figuring out" their relationship with Clare. 

LUCY'S HERE! The shoeless flower girl from The Bachelor: Juan Pablo Has a Daughter is here, and you know what that means: 



BOOBS OUT TIIIIIME! She shows up wearing a huge flower crown, because of course she does. She's also literally there for, like, ten minutes before she strips down to her birthday suit, apparently with the goal of finding someone to go on her date with her (I wonder if that would work for me, too? I feel like if I bounced around naked, I'd maybe get asked out on more dates, too?). She has really pretty gold and silver tattoo jewelry on, though, which I fully enjoy, so I'm not even all that annoyed. She bounces up to Jesse and asks him if he wants to go on a date with her. He obviously says yes. Then we find out that Christy and Lucy are best friends, which you would think would be complicate things, but with these two, it really just means that there's probably going to be threesome. 

Also, I thought Kate Upton was your best friend, Lucy.

Jesse and Lucy go see some more temple ruins. GOD these dates are getting boring. Jesse is all, "Lucy is blah blah blah, I can't wait for her to take her top off again, blah blah." 

Michelle and Cody go on their date, which takes place at a hotel, and apparently they're doing a mock pre-wedding photo shoot. WTF? Sometimes Bachelor reminds me of that well-meaning but also really annoying best friend who purposefully puts you in really awkward situations with that guy you like. The photographer asks them to do a clothing change, so they go off to separate suites, and Michelle walks into her room to find a wedding dress waiting for her. She freaks out while the rest of America wonders why they didn't give this date to Clare or AshLee. Let's start playing like champions, producers. 

So after she "totally freaks out", Michelle puts the dress on and comes walking out onto the beach toward Cody, who is ecstatic and not even trying to hide the fact that he's totally cool with pretending that these are their wedding photos. Which is kind of weird, right? Also, Cody, you GOTTA get another hair cut. Like, seriously. You look like a comic book character with that hair. 

AshLee walks into Graham's bunk and is like, "I have something for you." AND THEN PULLS OUT A DAGGER AND STABS HIM! Just kidding, even though that scenario is totally realistic for AshLee. She has a date card, and for their date, they pull up to race car driving course. "Please tell me that we get to drive these things!" Graham exclaims. Why is there no one smart on this show? 

So AshLee drives first, and she drives like a grandma. "AshLee proved to me tonight that she is ready for a minivan." YA THINK?! Then he makes this really long metaphor for how racing a race car is like a relationship/date, and every woman in America gets wet from being compared to a motorized vehicle. (we don't even have to hear you doing it...it's like a bat signal for us. "Someone in America must be comparing women to a shiny metal object that they can steer, need to learn how to maneuver, and have to maintain, because I am suddenly, inexplicably aroused.")

Back at the Slut Huts, it's campfire time! Robert and One Armed Sarah are cuddled up, Marcus and Lacy are murmuring to each other about how they can't wait to go to bed (so go to bed? WTF), and Christy's over there, sitting  by herself, all, "There's so much booze and no one's drinking it! WHY! It makes me so mad." Calm down, there, Party Girl. 

(Un)Luckily for us, Marcus and Lacy are feeling True Love. Apparently brains isn't everything, ladies - men will still fall in love with you if you jump into the ocean with just about anybody, play two guys against each other, and continue to mispronounce everything. Marcus tells Lacy that he loves her and she's like, "That makes my heart skip a beat." Can you stop it with the cliches already? First we had to hear you tell us that "You're never fully dressed without a smile" on The Bachelor, and now this bullshit. Also, I am actually totally jealous and dying with envy that they get to sit on a beach and make out in front of a campfire while I'm sitting on a couch, wondering when, exactly, my vagina will just decide to close down shop and lock down the shutters due to business having dried up in the ghost town formerly known as Sex City. 

To make things even better/worse, Lucy and Jesse are kissing, and they do this weird thing where Lucy stands in front of Jesse and puts her arm back and basically gives him a sexy little handshake. It's gross and weird. They return to the campfire, Lucy makes a spectacle, and I realize for the 100th time that Lucy is totally that girl that I would want to punch in the face - she always has to be center of attention and be The Fun Girl, and if you, for one mini second, *don't* feel like being The Fun Girl with her, suddenly YOU'RE the one who's uptight and not cool and has a problem with life. Like, that's the opposite of what fun hippies should be - they should just let you chill and have the coolness to leave you alone when you wanna be left alone, man. 

The campfire ends with Jesse and Christy and Lucy doing shots, and Lacy being confounded by the very idea of shots ("Shots? On a beach in paradise? During a campfire? With a bunch of hot young people? I just, like, don't get it. It's confucious to me."). 


Apparently, though, doing shots in broad daylight ISN'T confusing to Lacy.At some point Christy goes into a room to drunkenly cry about Jesse and Lucy supposedly having a more fun time on their date than Jesse and Christy did - not too big of a feat, considering Christy and Jesse had The Most Boring Date In The History of The Universe - but at some point she picks herself back up and goes to find an equally drunken Jesse. "Did you guys drink tequila on your date?" Christy asks. Like it's their special thing or something. Jesse slurs out some semblance of "I didn't want to go but I didn't want her to feel left out or hurt her feelings by saying no, so I said I'd go." Christy is like, "Wow, Jesse is so nice. What a gentleman, right?" OH MY GOD YOU GIRLS ARE SO STUPID. You REALLY think that Jesse gave Lucy a pity yes to a date, Christy? You really think that when Lucy was standing in front of Jesse, tits out, that he was like, "Oh geez, I really don't want to hurt this girl's feelings, so I guess I'll go and pretend to have a fun time with this girl and her boobs." UGH. 

Christy and Jesse end up in bed, kissing and rubbing on each other (seriously, we got to see it, and it was gross), and Lucy goes to find them, because of course she does. Lucy believes that sharing is caring. "It's natural, it feels good, why not do it all the time?" Yes...why NOT have a threesome with your "best friend" and the biggest slime bucket in America all the time?! Especially on national TV - what better place to demonstrate these particular beliefs?! And you know what really pisses me off about this? Lucy gets laid ALL the time. You know she does. That's the beauty of not having any sexual morals - you get to have sex, like, a BILLION times before your adult brain kicks in and is like, "Uh, maybe we want to start taking this stuff seriously." So it's like, I wanna hate her because she's dumb and annoying and basically shows off her sexuality in a way that is also dumb and annoying, and yet...I also feel like, Go On Wit' Yo' Bad Self, Girlfriend. I ain't gonna slut shame you, because that's not what I do. I only slut shame people who use sex to hurt other people, or do it for selfish/manipulative ends, and you use sex for neither of those things. So welcome to your threesome on national TV, and let's hope Jesse wasn't too drunk to make it worth your while. 

BOTH your whiles, I should say. 

Cocktail party! A bunch of people have conversations - Jackie and Zack (he basically gives himself another internal high-five for chasing Clare off the Island so he can hang out with Jackie now), Christy talks to Jesse, then Jesse talks to Lucy. Lucy apparently tells Jesse something shady about Christy, because even though Christy is Lucy's Best Friend, all is fair in love threesomes and war.

Rose Ceremony results are as follows!

Robert - Sarah
Graham - AshLee
Marcus makes a long and boring speech to Lacy...so boring that everyone starts to sigh and roll their eyes - even Chris Harrison looks bored - and then he kisses her for an uncomfortable amount of time. Take it down to the beach, you two! 
Zack - Jackie (YAY)
Cody - Michelle
Jesse - despite the "drama" of who Jesse will pick (do we actually care?) he gives it to Christy, which is actually kind of surprising - Lucy IS more fun, you guys - until he explains: "Christy likes me. But with whats-her-nuts...Lucy...she's not really giving me the vibe" and he wants to make sure he gets a rose next week. Wow, isn't Jesse SO NICE? Like, WHAT a gentleman, you guys. Lucy says it makes her sad for Christy because he's a jerk. NOW she's concerned about Christy?! These people are the worst. 

Next time on Bachelor In Paradise, we see that someone shows up to throw One Armed Sarah off her game with Robert (dude, take what you can get and stick with it, Sarah), and that Zack's head is also turned by yet another newcomer. Cody and Michelle get closer, AshLee probably does some more crazy shady shit, Lacy and Marcus make out some more, and Christy continues to be the Resident Skank Party Girl of the Island (seriously, when she was on Juan Pablo's season, she was all cute and wore pretty outfits and actually brushed her hair, and now on Bachelor In Paradise, she looks like she could legitimately being hiding a drug problem). 

Or, that's what I just assume will happen based on the past episodes of this show. 

Tune in next week to find out if I'm right! 

Bachelor In Paradise Recap, Episode 4: A Surprise Exit, Cody Flexes It, and Three People Sex It

Welcome back, Bachelor Babies! It's the second episode of Bachelor In Paradise this week, and of course, every "dramatic" moment that you thought would happen tonight? Happened...but in the most underwhelming way you could imagine 

Goddamn you, Bachelor editing team. Sometimes I love you, and sometimes you are cruel, cruel magicians. 

Anyway, we pick back up at the Rose Ceremony, where Lifetime Original Movie AshLee is waiting to give her rose (and her heart, and her body, and her first born child) to Graham. Graham leaves, comes back, and...accepts her rose. 

Yawn. 

Kalon and Marquel are sent home, BTW. Marquel is sad about it, and I kind of feel bad for him, but then again, not really - playa got played. 

After Graham accepts the rose from AshLee, Lacy is SO DISGUSTED that she feels PHYSICALLY ILL. Really?! Really?! She has to go throw up in a bathroom somewhere. It's so bad that they call an ambulance (really?! REALLY?!). So the whole "there's been a fight! There's an ambulance!" preview ploy is all because Lacy drank some shower water earlier that day (and shame on us for even thinking that it would be anything else - how many times have we been fooled by the whole "And THEN! The ambulance came!" ploy on The Bachelor? And it always ends up being about somebody falling down a couple of stairs?!). Marcus, however, is sooo worried...of course he's worried about the worst! LIKE WHAT, Marcus? That she'll puke herself to death?! I mean, it's happened before, that people have died from food poisoning, but I think it's gonna be okay for Lacy. Call me when something serious/awesome happens, like she gets bit by a jungle python or something. 


Christy's here! She was on The Bachelor: Juan Pablo Has a Daughter , and she barely got any screen time before she was sent home. 


One Armed Sarah pulls her to the side to let her know which people are already coupled up (a.k.a., tell her to step off when it comes to Robert), but Christy decides to just go with her heart and do her own thing, a.k.a ignore the established couples. The man in her sights? Crazy Clare's boy toy, Zach. Sarah is like, "I told her that he was, like, completely spoken for", which makes me laugh - who gives a shit? No one's engaged, and the whole point of the newcomers is to shake things up. I love that Christy is like, Fuck That. 

Christy pulls Zack aside to talk to him about the date card, and he's like, "I like you, but I'm kind of dating this crazy chick who would seriously cut both of us if I went out on a date with you." Clare comes in to the living space only to be told that there's a new girl here, and that new girl is talking to Zack right that second. When Zack's done letting Christy down easy, Clare and Zack go and "talk"...otherwise known as Crazy Clare Interrogation Time. She even does that thing where she wipes something off his face while he's talking to her, which is a total "I own you, you are mine" Girl Code thing. Zack tells Clare that he said no to the date with Christy, and Clare is like "AAHHHH I can trust him we're getting married this is wonderful." 

Christy, for her part, tells us that Zack saying no really throws her off. She's not here to just date some douchebag like her ex-boyfriend. At which point One Armed Sarah introduces her to Jesse, she asks him on a date, and all of America laughs because Jesse is EXACTLY like her douchebag ex-boyfrind. 

Christy and Jesse's date is pretty much the most boring Mexico "adventure" ever. They eat some chocolate and then do some tequila, and then have a really boring conversation about Christy's ex, who cheated on her. She found out by finding another girl's bra in his bed (btw, what girl leaves her bra in a guy's bed? The Walk of Shame is hard enough without your boobs bouncing all over the place) Jesse's like, "Oh yeah, I've done that before" while pretending to Christy that he would never, ever do that. 

When it comes to Michelle and Cody, Lacy tells us that CODY is moving too quickly when it comes to Michelle. Really, Lacy?! YOU'RE giving relationship advice?! You're the worst. Cody tells Michelle that he's into her and that it's her or no one. Michelle says that it's hard because it's all happening so fast...uh, yeah. You LITERALLY were nothing a day ago, and now you're talking about all or nothing. Cody, however, wants someone who will make him The Best Cody, and for him, that's Michelle. Michelle is nervous about it, but not so nervous that she doesn't want to feel up his massive quads. 

According to Christy and Jesse, they had a great time on their date. According to America, it was the most boring, vapid date ever. They come back to the house, and party girl announces that "I could be leaving in two days, I wanna get wasted, what the fuck!" Jackie notes that ever since Christy came to the island, Jesse's been acting totally different...yeah, I'd say. Christy brings out Jesse's true colors, which is Slimeball Green, Douchebag Yellow, and Asshole Red. To prove the point, Christy and Jesse totally start making out. 

Clare and Zack are sitting at a campfire, and Clare tells Zack that she "hopes" Christy doesn't feel weird being around them, being that she basically tried to move in on Clare's man even though she was fully aware that Zack was CLARE'S man, and NOT UP FOR DISCUSSION WHEN IT CAME TO DATES WITH OTHER GIRLS NAMED CHRISTY. This whole conversation is so hilarious, because we all know full well that Clare wants to make sure that Christy feels as uncomfortable as possible. Unfortunately, we don't get the chance to witness what would surely be the most entertaining part of this whole series, because Zack unwisely takes it as an opportunity to tell Clare that he's still "figuring things out" between them. "You were, like, all in right away, and I tend to take things much slower." Oh shit. Clare is pushes him on it, and basically tries to make the point that he should know what he wants, and if he doesn't, then he doesn't want it with her. "I'm going to bed," she tells him, which is basically code for "I am so mad at you right now, and the best way to punish you for it is to make you worry about it all night long." Zack tells us that he's confused. Yeah, buddy, you are confused - you are confused about how girls work. Girls don't want to hear about how you're still "figuring things out." Keep that shit to yourself, okay? Or just talk about it with your bros. DON'T tell the girl you're seeing, completely unsolicited, that you don't "know" about the two of you quite yet. 

I feel like you guys are getting both a reality tv recap and dating/relationship coaching all in one. 

So Clare goes into the bathroom and cries, and then she runs off into the jungle (followed by Elan. ELLAAAAAAAAN!) and cries some more. The jungle animals, alerted by the sound of her tears, gather around her the way they would a Disney Princess, but quickly dart away when she starts to talk like a crazy person again. "I don't want this! It's all drama! And here I am, looking like a fool, AGAIN, and I just wanna leave!" 

It's pretty amazing. 

After a while, Clare comes out of the jungle and finds Michelle to Whisper Talk about it. "It's not paradise for me. It's torture." WE ALL FEEL THE SAME WAY, CLARE, WHEN IT COMES TO YOU. She tells Michelle that she's leaving. No one believes her, until she goes to find Zack (queue scary-movie music, which is SO hilarious). Waking him up from a deep sleep, she makes him go sit outside with her while she cries about how he hurt her and she's going home now, which is every guy's dream, right? Like the best moment in his entire life.  

"It's never easy to hear a man say that you're not what he's looking for, that he's not sure about you," Clare tells us. OF COURSE HE'S NOT SURE, CLARE: YOU'VE KNOWN HIM FOR ONLY A WEEK. Get the fucking net! "Like I know I'm going out crying with a stuffy nose and puffy eyes, but it doesn't stop me from wanting a perfect love for me," she asserts, later. Zack carries her bags out to the van while simultaneously high-riving himself on the inside, and Clare gives him a hug and a parting shot: "I just wish you could have seen what I saw in you." Which is awesome, because I've totally done that kind of thing to guys, too, and it's like the best passive-agressive move EVER. "I'm so tired of feeling these feelings," she tells us. "It's exhausting. It's not good." And then, in a sad little voice, she ends with, "This is why I just wanted to do Dancing With The Stars." 

HAHAHAHA. That was pretty much the most adorable thing she's ever said. Too bad Dancing With The Stars is also still "figuring out" their relationship with Clare. 

LUCY'S HERE! The shoeless flower girl from The Bachelor: Juan Pablo Has a Daughter is here, and you know what that means: 


BOOBS OUT TIIIIIME! She shows up wearing a huge flower crown, because of course she does. She's also literally there for, like, ten minutes before she strips down to her birthday suit, apparently with the goal of finding someone to go on her date with her (I wonder if that would work for me, too? I feel like if I bounced around naked, I'd maybe get asked out on more dates, too?). She has really pretty gold and silver tattoo jewelry on, though, which I fully enjoy, so I'm not even all that annoyed. She bounces up to Jesse and asks him if he wants to go on a date with her. He obviously says yes. Then we find out that Christy and Lucy are best friends, which you would think would be complicate things, but with these two, it really just means that there's probably going to be threesome. 

Also, I thought Kate Upton was your best friend, Lucy.

Jesse and Lucy go see some more temple ruins. GOD these dates are getting boring. Jesse is all, "Lucy is blah blah blah, I can't wait for her to take her top off again, blah blah." 

Michelle and Cody go on their date, which takes place at a hotel, and apparently they're doing a mock pre-wedding photo shoot. WTF? Sometimes Bachelor reminds me of that well-meaning but also really annoying best friend who purposefully puts you in really awkward situations with that guy you like. The photographer asks them to do a clothing change, so they go off to separate suites, and Michelle walks into her room to find a wedding dress waiting for her. She freaks out while the rest of America wonders why they didn't give this date to Clare or AshLee. Let's start playing like champions, producers. 

So after she "totally freaks out", Michelle puts the dress on and comes walking out onto the beach toward Cody, who is ecstatic and not even trying to hide the fact that he's totally cool with pretending that these are their wedding photos. Which is kind of weird, right? Also, Cody, you GOTTA get another hair cut. Like, seriously. You look like a comic book character with that hair. 

AshLee walks into Graham's bunk and is like, "I have something for you." AND THEN PULLS OUT A DAGGER AND STABS HIM! Just kidding, even though that scenario is totally realistic for AshLee. She has a date card, and for their date, they pull up to race car driving course. "Please tell me that we get to drive these things!" Graham exclaims. Why is there no one smart on this show? 

So AshLee drives first, and she drives like a grandma. "AshLee proved to me tonight that she is ready for a minivan." YA THINK?! Then he makes this really long metaphor for how racing a race car is like a relationship/date, and every woman in America gets wet from being compared to a motorized vehicle. (we don't even have to hear you doing it...it's like a bat signal for us. "Someone in America must be comparing women to a shiny metal object that they can steer, need to learn how to maneuver, and have to maintain, because I am suddenly, inexplicably aroused.")

Back at the Slut Huts, it's campfire time! Robert and One Armed Sarah are cuddled up, Marcus and Lacy are murmuring to each other about how they can't wait to go to bed (so go to bed? WTF), and Christy's over there, sitting  by herself, all, "There's so much booze and no one's drinking it! WHY! It makes me so mad." Calm down, there, Party Girl. 

(Un)Luckily for us, Marcus and Lacy are feeling True Love. Apparently brains isn't everything, ladies - men will still fall in love with you if you jump into the ocean with just about anybody, play two guys against each other, and continue to mispronounce everything. Marcus tells Lacy that he loves her and she's like, "That makes my heart skip a beat." Can you stop it with the cliches already? First we had to hear you tell us that "You're never fully dressed without a smile" on The Bachelor, and now this bullshit. Also, I am actually totally jealous and dying with envy that they get to sit on a beach and make out in front of a campfire while I'm sitting on a couch, wondering when, exactly, my vagina will just decide to close down shop and lock down the shutters due to business having dried up in the ghost town formerly known as Sex City. 

To make things even better/worse, Lucy and Jesse are kissing, and they do this weird thing where Lucy stands in front of Jesse and puts her arm back and basically gives him a sexy little handshake. It's gross and weird. They return to the campfire, Lucy makes a spectacle, and I realize for the 100th time that Lucy is totally that girl that I would want to punch in the face - she always has to be center of attention and be The Fun Girl, and if you, for one mini second, *don't* feel like being The Fun Girl with her, suddenly YOU'RE the one who's uptight and not cool and has a problem with life. Like, that's the opposite of what fun hippies should be - they should just let you chill and have the coolness to leave you alone when you wanna be left alone, man. 

The campfire ends with Jesse and Christy and Lucy doing shots, and Lacy being confounded by the very idea of shots ("Shots? On a beach in paradise? During a campfire? With a bunch of hot young people? I just, like, don't get it. It's confucious to me."). 

Apparently, though, doing shots in broad daylight ISN'T confusing to Lacy.At some point Christy goes into a room to drunkenly cry about Jesse and Lucy supposedly having a more fun time on their date than Jesse and Christy did - not too big of a feat, considering Christy and Jesse had The Most Boring Date In The History of The Universe - but at some point she picks herself back up and goes to find an equally drunken Jesse. "Did you guys drink tequila on your date?" Christy asks. Like it's their special thing or something. Jesse slurs out some semblance of "I didn't want to go but I didn't want her to feel left out or hurt her feelings by saying no, so I said I'd go." Christy is like, "Wow, Jesse is so nice. What a gentleman, right?" OH MY GOD YOU GIRLS ARE SO STUPID. You REALLY think that Jesse gave Lucy a pity yes to a date, Christy? You really think that when Lucy was standing in front of Jesse, tits out, that he was like, "Oh geez, I really don't want to hurt this girl's feelings, so I guess I'll go and pretend to have a fun time with this girl and her boobs." UGH. 

Christy and Jesse end up in bed, kissing and rubbing on each other (seriously, we got to see it, and it was gross), and Lucy goes to find them, because of course she does. Lucy believes that sharing is caring. "It's natural, it feels good, why not do it all the time?" Yes...why NOT have a threesome with your "best friend" and the biggest slime bucket in America all the time?! Especially on national TV - what better place to demonstrate these particular beliefs?! And you know what really pisses me off about this? Lucy gets laid ALL the time. You know she does. That's the beauty of not having any sexual morals - you get to have sex, like, a BILLION times before your adult brain kicks in and is like, "Uh, maybe we want to start taking this stuff seriously." So it's like, I wanna hate her because she's dumb and annoying and basically shows off her sexuality in a way that is also dumb and annoying, and yet...I also feel like, Go On Wit' Yo' Bad Self, Girlfriend. I ain't gonna slut shame you, because that's not what I do. I only slut shame people who use sex to hurt other people, or do it for selfish/manipulative ends, and you use sex for neither of those things. So welcome to your threesome on national TV, and let's hope Jesse wasn't too drunk to make it worth your while. 

BOTH your whiles, I should say. 

Cocktail party! A bunch of people have conversations - Jackie and Zack (he basically gives himself another internal high-five for chasing Clare off the Island so he can hang out with Jackie now), Christy talks to Jesse, then Jesse talks to Lucy. Lucy apparently tells Jesse something shady about Christy, because even though Christy is Lucy's Best Friend, all is fair in love threesomes and war.

Rose Ceremony results are as follows!

Robert - Sarah
Graham - AshLee
Marcus makes a long and boring speech to Lacy...so boring that everyone starts to sigh and roll their eyes - even Chris Harrison looks bored - and then he kisses her for an uncomfortable amount of time. Take it down to the beach, you two! 
Zack - Jackie (YAY)
Cody - Michelle
Jesse - despite the "drama" of who Jesse will pick (do we actually care?) he gives it to Christy, which is actually kind of surprising - Lucy IS more fun, you guys - until he explains: "Christy likes me. But with whats-her-nuts...Lucy...she's not really giving me the vibe" and he wants to make sure he gets a rose next week. Wow, isn't Jesse SO NICE? Like, WHAT a gentleman, you guys. Lucy says it makes her sad for Christy because he's a jerk. NOW she's concerned about Christy?! These people are the worst. 

Next time on Bachelor In Paradise, we see that someone shows up to throw One Armed Sarah off her game with Robert (dude, take what you can get and stick with it, Sarah), and that Zack's head is also turned by yet another newcomer. Cody and Michelle get closer, AshLee probably does some more crazy shady shit, Lacy and Marcus make out some more, and Christy continues to be the Resident Skank Party Girl of the Island (seriously, when she was on Juan Pablo's season, she was all cute and wore pretty outfits and actually brushed her hair, and now on Bachelor In Paradise, she looks like she could legitimately being hiding a drug problem). 

Or, that's what I just assume will happen based on the past episodes of this show. 

Tune in next week to find out if I'm right! 

Bachelor In Paradise Recap, Episode 4: Solo Dating, Slut Shaming, & Beach Mating!

Welcome back to Whore Island, otherwise known as Bachelor In Paradise ! According to last week's preview of this week's episode, MAJOR drama was supposedly in store for us...which I was super excited about.

Until I realized that the Emmy Awards were on the same night. 

So, because the Emmy Awards happen once a year and is pretty much one of the best award shows of the year AND because there's ANOTHER Bachelor In Paradise episode on Tuesday (WTF, ABC - some of us have LIVES. ...Maybe not *me*, but I'm sure some of us do) I decided to watch the Emmys, catch up on the slut huts during the commercials, and piece together what happened through both that and my Bachelor Master Twitter List. 

Read on for what I think happened on last night's Bachelor In Paradise! 

So the episode opens on the tropical beaches of wherever our Bachelor Hos & Bros are staying in Mexico. AshLee and Clare and Michelle and One Armed Sarah play with their hair and talk about boys and relationships and other girl stuff, while the guys just lounge around the beach, talking about football and jobs and other boring boy stuff. 

I flip back to the Emmys to watch Seth Meyers totally kill it with his opening monologue. When I flip back, Cody's there, with his roided out arms and AWFUL hair cut (Cody, I love you, but seriously, brah - you needs a no-brosefs-allowed makeover). Apparently Clare shot down Cody on his "HEY GUYS I'M HERE TO SHAKE THINGS UP BUT NOT REALLY BECAUSE YOU GUYS ARE BORING AND ALL STUBBORNLY PAIRED UP" date card, which bums him out so much that he gives it to someone else, which I later learn on the next commercial break is Robert, who asks One Armed Sarah to go on the date with him. One Armed Sarah asks Michelle to do her hair, and while Michelle does her hair she does that "I'm trying to be a nice girl by asking you about your date with the boy I like even though I'm a fool to even bring it up but this is what girls do because we're weird masochists about this shiz" and asks One Armed Sarah a bunch of questions about her date with Robert. Which, for the record, I don't get this scenario from either side - One Armed Sarah knew that Michelle was hanging out with Robert the week before, so why is she being a bitch by letting Michelle do her hair before *she* goes on a date with the guy? If roles were reversed, we would all think that Michelle was being a total catty bitch, but because Sarah has one arm, we're all like, "Oh, but she's nice." She's NOT that nice, you guys. Plus she whines ALL THE TIME, which, as I explained to my friends last night, is why I don't feel bad about calling her One Armed Sarah. You've got one arm. Life has been hard for you. Life has been hard for Lifetime Original Movie AshLee, too, but you don't see me letting up on her crazy ass, do you?

So anyway. It's weird. One Armed Sarah and Robert go out on this boat, and Sarah's wearing a cute swimsuit, which is nice. Then she starts talking about how it makes her feel good that Robert picked her over Michelle, and I get bored again and flip back to the Emmys. 

When I come back, there's some shiz going on with AshLee hanging out in a hammock with Zack while also simultaneously talking smack about Crazy Clare. 




First, why are they in a hammock together? Why is this not the most troubling part of this whole scenario? Apparently AshLee called Clare crazy (HAHAHAHA! TAKES ONE TO KNOW ONE, ASHLEE) and told Zach that Clare fucks people in the ocean (um, who doesn't?!! If you're in the ocean and you have the opportunity to fuck someone, you take that fucking opportunity. Literally). Which. I mean. How does Zach not already know that Clare did stuff in the ocean with Juan Pablo? How is that breaking news or any type of secret? And we ALL know that Clare is cuckoo. She's the perfect example of Hot Girl Crazy - she's practically the definition of it. You want a hot blonde with an amazing rack and a body that just won't quit? Then you also want crazy. That's how the world works, friends. 

But apparently, AshLee didn't realize cameras were around, so she tries to do damage control by telling the girls that she said something she shouldn't have. Lacy, of course, runs straight to Clare (but not before telling us that she thinks AshLee has a guilty "conscious"...it's pronounced "conSCIENCE", Lacy. C'mon)  and tells her all about it. Clare is like, "WTF" and stomps around the beach a lot during a campfire and basically tells Zach to grow a real dick when he's all "I don't want to get involved with girl gossip." YOU'RE ALREADY INVOLVED, ZACH. YOU GOT INVOLVED WHEN ASHLEE STARTED TELLING YOU THIS STUFF AND YOU DID NOT IMMEDIATELY GO, "EXCUSE ME, I PREFER TO NOT BE A PART OF THIS CONVERSATION." I fucking hate that shit: Guys LOVE getting involved in girl gossip. They LOOOOVE it when we talk smack about other girls, but only say that they hate it when they're expected to actually get involved in a confrontation about it. Which for the record, are my least favorite people: The ones who are totally happy to let peeps spill dirt about other people to them (and encourage it, even), but when it comes time to show any loyalty concerning the people involved, all of a sudden they're all "I don't want to get involved." Finally Clare is like, "FINE, I'll take care of it", which, if you have any knowledge of Girl Code whatsoever, means "I'm never going to suck your dick ever (again)." Because she just asked you to take care of something, you refused, and so the next time you expect her to take care of something (i.e., your penis), guess what? NOT GONNA DO IT. 

Women are amazing. I love how our minds work. 

At some point during the campfire, AshLee's like, "Um, Clare? Can we go talk? I feel like you're mad at me." And Clare's like, "YEAH I'm mad at you, you two-faced B." One thing I have to say for Clare? She doesn't back down when it comes to telling people how she feels. I feel like a lot of girls are like, "I can't believe she did that, what a bitch" and then when confronted, are all like, "Oh noooo! I'm not mad at you! It's totally fiiiiiine." Not Clare: Clare will totally tell you to your face that you're tacky and she hates you. At the end, AshLee actually has the audacity to ask Clare if she wants to hug it out, and Clare's like, "Nah, I'm good." AshLee runs up the Spiral Staircase of Sorrow again and spews some bullshit about being upset because she works really hard on her character and her feelings are hurt that Clare's mad at her, but no one cares and I flip back to the Emmys, where totally awesome and funny stuff is happening. 

When when I flip back, Kalon is walking down the beach! YAAAAAY! I love me some Kalon. Back on The Bachelorette: Emily Has a Daughter, Y'all, I used to hate him because he was such a preening man-snob, but after his stellar and hilarious showing on Season 1 of Bachelor Pad ("Yeah. I'm a liar. Care for me to elaborate on that?"), he became one of my favorites. He shows up, some of the girls talk about how much they dislike him (uh, so they all want to jump on Chris Bukowski's stick but don't like Kalon?! Ladies, get the fucking net), Michelle really talks about how much she doesn't like him, and then when he asks her if she would like to go on his date with him, she's like, "Sure." WTF?! She starts talking more about it, I get bored, and switch back to the Emmys.

I switch back just in time to see Kalon decide to go on a date with himself. Apparently Michelle turned him down after all, and so did Jackie and One Armed Sarah, so he decides that he's going to make Bachelor history once again and go on his date, solo. "After three seasons, I'm finally going on a date with someone I like." 




It is seriously HILARIOUS. Which is why I love him. 

Back to the Emmys, where Weird Al does the best theme song medley parody ever, and then back to Beaches & Bitches, which is shaping up to be super boring by comparison. At some point, Jesse Kovacs, who I don't remember and don't care to, shows up, and asks Jackie on a date. Marquel is all upset about Jackie accepting a date from someone else when he thought they had a connection, and I'm like, "HOW DOES IT FEEL, BRO?" Bet Michelle and Danielle could tell you how to deal. 

So Jackie (Jacquie? I don't care enough to look it up) and Jesse go on their date, and it's boring until Jackie calls Jessie out on maybe trying to manipulate the situation so he can get a rose the next night. He acts all "Nooooo! I would neeevvveeerr do that!"...meanwhile, to us, he's like, "I'm totally doing that." It gets boring again, I switch back to the Emmys. 

I flip back in time to see Michelle pull Graham aside at the cocktail party and warn him about AshLee and her tricks. I don't get the relationship between Michelle and Graham - if they love each other so much, then why aren't they together anymore? It feels weird and slightly incestuous, how close they are without actually being a couple. I don't watch long enough to figure out how or why Graham would be upset with AshLee talking trash about another girl - to me, you just have to look at AshLee to realize that she talks trash about every other girl who's ever been around her. 

When I come back to the show, I see AshLee at the rose ceremony, holding a rose, and Graham walking away. AshLee has that eerily calm and blank expression on her face, which is like, THE SCARIEST THING EVER, because it's the kind of look that only truly insane people get before they snap and kill a bunch of kids and stuff, and then the screen goes blank and the words "TO BE CONTINUED" flash across it, which makes me really, really, really happy that I didn't skip the Emmys to watch drama unfold only to learn that I have to wait yet another week for the unfolding. 

Next Episode's Prediction: Graham comes back and is like, "YO, AshLee - I'mna BOUNCE on that rose, yo!". AshLee runs off, but not before putting Clare in a headlock and dragging her into the jungle with her, threatening to cut Clare's boobs off unless Graham returns to her with a proposal for marriage. Lacy mispronounces more words, Cody disappears down the beach to find solitude and time to delve into his secret passion, which is poetry, and One Armed Sarah whines some more about everything that could ever be whined about in the history of whining. 

See you later tonight, Bachelor Babies! 

Bachelor In Paradise Recap, Episode 3: Private Planes, Knee Sprains, and Delusional Lady Brains!

Welcome back to Bachelor In Paradise, Bachelor Babies, where some of the most beautiful people in America have gathered to live in a bunch of Slut Huts for the next 12 days and attempt to hook up find love in a tropical paradise! Yet, as this episode showed us, it's not all paradise, you guys...for instance, this week everyone was forced to suffer through Chris Bukowski's rat face/ bad jokes and Elise's crazy-making delusional speeches. So, maybe consider yourself lucky?

Our 3rd episode picks up at the end of last week's rose ceremony, where One Armed Sarah tells us why she picked Robert instead of Dylan - because she wants to get to know Robert better, and when it comes to Dylan, she is like, so not trying into get involved with all that (all WHAT, Sarah? Those smoldering eyes? That mysterious intensity? That chiseled bod? That rare yet hilarious sense of humor? STOP TALKIN' TRASH ABOUT MY BABY!). 

Let us take a brief moment to remember the gorgeousness that was my baby Dylan.Graham, on his end, didn't like Elise's speech. He thought it was pretty classless to refuse Dylan's hug (which, I mean...I probably would have done that, too. WTF is up with guys always wanting to hug a girl after he's dumped her?) and then make Dylan stand there while she gave a rambling, incoherent speech everyone. AshLee agrees with Graham (because of course she does), but also, so does the rest of America, because that speech was CRAZYTOWN. 

Elise, for her part, is soooo happy that she gave the rose to Chris! And now she feels triumphant - she feels good knowing now that Dylan was not the guy for her, that he wasn't ready. She really wants to fall in love with Chris now. Through the storm comes rainbow, and she wants Chris to be her rainbow!


Seriously, this girl would want to fall in love with a chipmunk if it looked at her right. 

In a case of the best foreshadowing ever, Michelle and Marquel are walking back from the ceremony to the Slut Huts and Michelle is telling us that "there's nothing that could get in the way of us." OH SNAP, BUT THERE IS! And her name is Danielle, the yoga girl from The Bachelor: Juan Pablo Has a Daughter . And of course she has a date card. Michelle practically pushes this girl to ask Marquel on the date - "just ask who you want to ask, don't worry about who has a connection yet or not!" - and so, she does. Marquel, of course, accepts, telling us that it feels good that Danielle chose him, and that he's going to take that run with it. OH HOW THE TIDES TURN ON BACHELOR ISLAND. He and Danielle go and sit outside and have basically the most boring conversation ever.

Graham and Michelle are walking on the beach the next morning, catching up Friendship Style. To sum up their (boring) conversation, basically Michelle feels dissed and dismissed by Marquel, and is starting to regret the way she dissed and dismissed Robert, so she's gonna go see about maybe trying to win Robert back, because what guy doesn't love being yanked around by a girl every time she feels like she just got dissed and dismissed by some other guy? Sounds like a great, solid plan!

Marquel and Danielle hop onto a plane. Danielle tells us that this could be the first date with the man she's going to marry. Fucking COME ON, Bachelor ladies. Why do you ALWAYS do this shit? YOU ARE GETTING ON A PLANE WITH A GUY THAT YOU BARELY KNOW. The chances that he is NOT your husband and that you'll never see him again are a zillion kabillion times greater than the chance that this is your soulmate. Fucking get some cool and stop being Disney Princess morons already. 

Back at the Slut Huts, Michelle is talking to Clare and Robert is talking to Graham. Clare assures Michelle that Robert is super into Michelle, and that she is so his type (how the fuck does CLARE know that? Yeah, Michelle, go ahead and take advice from someone who is pretty much the worst in the world when it comes to character judgement). Robert says some stuff to Graham about Michelle, but I'm not really paying attention because YAWN. 

Elise gets the date card, and is giddy at the thought of going on a date with Chris. Lifetime Original Movie AshLee, meanwhile, is pissed that her fake eyelashes are going to have to stay confined to a tropical beach for one more day. Clare is like, "Nobody cares about you so stop being a biznatch" which makes me laugh because I love that the two girls who are known for being blonde, big boobed, and delusional crazies basically hate each other for being exactly that. 

Elise goes to find Chris to ask him on a date. Chris is lying on the hammock, and as soon as he sees Elise running toward him, he's like, "Yes." She giggles and is like, "What? I haven't even asked you yet!" Thankfully, this is the exact point where my Directv goes out due to a thunderstorm. 

Based on my Twitter feed, I can surmise during this power outage that these things happen:

Chris sprains his knee. HAHAHA. 
Danielle and Marquel go on their date and go swimming or something. Snore. 



My reception kicks back right as Michelle goes to talk to One Armed Sarah about the fact that she and Clare have decided to plan a double-date that night with Robert and Zach. I think it shows character that Michelle has the guts and heart to *tell* Sarah that she's going to do this, but I also side with Sarah when she says that she feels a little like Michelle is swooping in, BECAUSE SHE IS.

Elise and Chris are on the other side of Mexico, on their date. Apparently everyone is taking private planes to the other side of Mexico this week. One of the best shots of the entire episode is of Elise, walking down the street with Chris, holding hands and talking her face off while Chris just smiles and pretends to listen. Her and her tight crop top and skirt sit down at a "romantic" table set for two, and Chris tells us that even though he's in agony (because of your knee or because you've just had to endure an entire afternoon of listening to Elise talk?), Elise is super hot, so he can deal. "I like to talk and I feel like I'm doing a lot more listening than talking, which is fine," Chris tells us - HAHAHAHAHA. Two of the most self-absorbed people in the world on a date together...so awesome. Elise gets a card, and tells us that she is ecstatic that it says "Elise and Chris" on the front of the card, because "our names look REALLY good together." I swear to god, ANYTHING could be a sign for this girl that she's meant to be with the guy she likes - someone could throw a stick at her head that reminds her of a guy's penis and she'd be all, "See? This stick looks like his penis and it hit me in the head, so that means that my head and his penis should be together forever!" The card is a note from Chris that also contains two keys to two separate suites. Chris admits that he wants them to spend the night together (um, of course he does). Elise, surprisingly, tries to play it coy for once and tells him that she'd like to wait and see how they feel when they're in the pool. 

How do they feel when they're in the pool? Well, let's see - Elise disrobes to reveal a green sequined bikini, and Chris basically kisses her and tries not to grab her boobs right then and there, and they're in the pool for literally five seconds before Charmer Chris says, "Let's go to the suite." Elise enthuses that Chris is such a gentleman as we see her and Chris walk into the suite together. I'm not sure what her definition of a gentleman is? Also, I totally feel like Elise is that girl from 18th century Penny Dreadful novels who is so gullible and dumb that even after she gets bamboozled by some handsome rake and sold to a pirate captain to be the pirate ship's whore, she's still like, "But he only did it because he wants me to have an adventure!" 

Clare, Zach, Michelle, and Robert go on their double date, which I guess consists of maybe some food and sitting around a fire? I wasn't paying that much attention, because again, yawn. One Armed Sarah tells us that she feels like some prettier, more well-put-together girls just swooped in on her and Robert...which I could totally relate to, because it does kind of remind you of that time in middle school when a new guy shows up to school and he's super cute and actually really nice and by miraculous chance you guys become friends on the first day, but then by the end of the week he's made friends with the guys on the football team so now all the popular girls want to go out with him and now you know that you'll never get a shot with him because who's going to turn down the effortless beautiful and naturally cool Kelly Fairbanks for some girl with thick glasses and braces who races home every day to watch reruns of The Highlander?! 

So I get it, One Armed Sarah. I am with you, and I get it. However, even her crying about it was kind of heartbreaking, she totally did it to herself - Dylan was all ready to choose her over everyone else in the house, and she was like, SEE YA, so I guess it's time to lie down in that bed you made, Sarah. Even with only one arm, you still made that bed. 

Marquel and Danielle come back to the house from their date, and Michelle feels even more sure that she's happy about closing the door on Marquel and focusing on Robert. Danielle digs Marquel and feels like this is just great, "but of course there's always that little twist of other people coming in."

DUN DUN DUN.

Suddenly, everyone is like, "Who's that girl with the slammin' body?! At first I thought it might be Courtney Robertson, but instead it was Jackie! I love Jackie - she was on The Bachelor: Sean Loves Jesus, Texas, & You! , and she was one of the most naturally beautiful and sweetest girls on that season. She got kicked off when she went on a 2-on-1 with Temper Tantrum Tierra, one of the dumber moves that Sean has ever made, so I'm hoping that her second chance at Bachelor love ends up much better. 

Zach mentions that Jackie is one of the girls that he had been hoping would be here. And it just so happens that Jackie has a date card! She asks who's paired up with whom, and Michelle tells her that they kind of have a rule - just pick who you want to pick, don't ask questions. However, Clare TOTALLY does the thing where she leans her head on Zach's shoulder and put her hand on his thigh, essentially making her mark on him, which is hilarious because it's the most non-subtle Making My Mark So Don't Pick Him move I've seen this entire season. Poor Zach - no sweet redheaded Jackie time for that one, I guess. 

In a twist that cements the fact that this episode is just going to go around and around in circles, Jackie asks Marquel on the date. Marquel, of course, says yes, because who would think about saying no after you've just come from what is supposedly a great date with someone else? Danielle was like, "To come back from our date, and to have Marquel say yes to another date, I don't know how to feel right now." Uh, may haps you and Michelle should go make a cocktail and talk some more about that. 

Marquel and Jackie take off on their date, on ANOTHER private plane. I love that producers aren't even pretending to try anymore. It's just like, "Snore, let's just get them all on planes and fly them somewhere else."

Back at Whore Island, AshLee humbly tells Danielle that she doesn't "wanna waste someone else's time wanting to like me, because I'm probably not going to like them." Graham tells Michelle that he feels annoyed because he feels like doesn't have any choice in the matter (whether he's paired up with AshLee or not). For instance, AshLee is already talking about him meeting her dad. "Oh yeah, we're gonna have hot babies," we hear AshLee say.

Oy. Men of the earth, I feel like it's my duty right here to tell you that not ALL women are like this. 

Just the really, really pretty ones with slammin' bodies and huge boobs. 

Because holy crap, does AshLee have a slammin' body. SLAMMIN'. She gets the date card and walks down the beach in this purple bikini to ask Graham on the date, and all I can think about is Googling her to find out what her fitness routine is. That girl is cray, but if I were a guy, I think I could probably put up with it for a while just see her hanging out on a beach for a week or two. 

Meanwhile, Marcus and Lacy go swimming and a bunch of people tells us that it feels like Lacy and Marcus have a real relationship, and then *they* tell us that they feel like they have a real relationship, and I just don't give a shit so I start flipping through a magazine until The Pool Party For Two is over. 

Jackie and Marquel check out some temple ruins on their date (AGAIN, PRODUCERS...let's go over the options for dates thus far on this show: 1) Romantic dinner on a rock or beach somewhere 2) Exploring temple ruins 3) Flying on a plane to some town to explore temple ruins and then have a romantic dinner. You guys are in MEXICO. You could do stuff with bullfighting, or riding dolphins, or making enchiladas, or weaving baskets, or dancing to mariachi bands. Let's start planning these date ideas like champions, okay?). Marquel feels like Jackie could be the girl he's "been waiting for this whole time." Don't get too comfortable, playa - Jackie is the kind of girl A LOT of guys have been waiting for this whole time.

Chris' knee hurts. Which is great, because Elise is a caretaker, so she loves to take care of her man. Which means that she is going to take care of him ALL THE TIME. She will never leave his side! Pain is actually the turning point in their relationship, you guys (her words, not mine). "This moment is actually the reason why I came to paradise!" Really?! You didn't come to paradise to swim in the ocean with hot guys or sit on the beach with hot guys or go on tropical dates with hot guys, but you came to sit on a bed with a so-so looking guy who's moaning in pain from his sprained knee? Because that's weird. But luckily, according to Elise, this all means that "Chris is my man now, forever."

Jesus. 

One Armed Sarah, for her part, tries to talk to Elise about not rushing into anything with Chris, and Elise is all, "yeah yeah." Nice try, though, Sarah. Then we see Clare sobbing on the beach with Zach, telling him that she misses her dad. Oy. Glad you brought that subject up, eh, Zach? Good news is that now Clare feels even more bonded to you, which is just the thing you needed in order to gently extract yourself from Clare's clutches so you could get to know Jackie better. Good going! 

It's time for AshLee and Graham's date, and whaddya know - they are ALSO hopping on a private plane and going to Campeche! They sit down to a nice romantic dinner and AshLee makes Graham uncomfortable right away by letting him know that she followed his Instagram to see what kind of man he is. Graham makes a zinger about AshLee's breakdown per Clare's date card during episode one...it was hilarious that he called her out on it, until AshLee says, "hashtag, embarrassing" - you are not allowed to make those jokes anymore, AshLee. No more "hashtag ___" jokes for you.

Graham is like, this is our first date, I just want to great time, I don't want to put a lot of pressure on forever right now. AshLee bats her fake eyelashes and pretends to agree while she mentally plans the floral arrangements for their wedding. The infamous Suite Card arrives, and Graham makes a comment that he doesn't feel comfortable sharing a room yet. AshLee, for her part, acts all demure about it, but we all know that she's secretly dying for him to put it in (after she stealthily poked holes in the condom) so they can make "hot babies" (who the fuck says that?!). Since they're not going to do the hibbity-dippity, they go out to a courtyard somewhere and shake it to a mariachi band. I gotta be honest, Graham's right - all AshLee has to do is move her hips a couple inches in each direction and everyone in the room is happy. The camera person obviously agreed, because there were MANY shots of us looking UP at AshLee's butt as she shook it to the band. You can tell that she's doing her best to seduce Graham so she has a chance to "love and kiss on him" (why does she keep using that phrase? "Love on him", "kiss on him"...it just sounds so dumb, coming from her), but props to Graham for thinking that it seems inappropriate for them to spend the night together. That's a stand-up guy, that Graham. 

Cocktail hour! The guys have to carry Chris from the Slut Huts to the Cocktail hHut, and when he gets there he uses a walking stick to walk. HAHAHA, what a douche. Also, why THE FUCK does Marquel keep wearing dorky glasses to the ceremonies? STOP IT MARQUEL, YOU'RE MAKING WANT TO HATE YOU WHEN YOU WEAR THOSE DUMBASS GLASSES. 

One Armed Sarah and Robert talk about stuff, and then Robert goes to find Michelle to talk about stuff. Except that he doesn't really actually wanna talk about stuff, and Michelle is all like, "Uh, I WANT to talk about stuff, so we're GOING to talk about stuff." She basically tells him that if he doesn't give her a rose, he's dead meat. Guys love that stuff, don't they? Being forced to talk about stuff, and then being back into a corner and basically threatened with mental anguish if they don't do what a girl wants them to do. I'm surprised that those tactics haven't worked for Michelle in the past and that she has to go to Paradise Island to find love. 

The Rose Ceremony begins. Chris momentarily presses pause on whatever it is he's been up to in paradise (lots of massages, probably. I also like to think that he's taken up deep water fishing, and he does this on a yacht while some hot tropical lady suns herself on the deck, and then when the sun goes down he has these great parties with more hot tropical women - Elan's invited, too, probably - and then Chris goes below deck with one or three of these women and they help him get over his divorce with their super delicious brown skin and soft "I don't even have to pretend to know what you're saying because your accent is so thick" Mexican voices, and then when he wakes up and gently extracts himself from the embrace of one or three of those naked hot tropical women, he goes out to drink some pina coladas and do some investigating about this one treasure map he found when he was snorkeling off the coast, and he does all of this while wearing a jaunty straw fedora and blasting Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins from his aqua blue Mercedes convertible) 

The boys are giving out roses this time, and matches go as follows:

Zach - Clare. Jackie mentions something about liking Zach, but I don't really catch it because I'm too busy reading my Bachelor Twitter feed.

Marcus - Lacy ("I'm seeing Marcus and Lacy fall in love right in front of my eyes," Michelle tells us. I, for one, am not falling in love with Lacy's hair and makeup game, though. Not a'tall)

Marquel - Jackie. Lacy tells us that Danielle's face is devastating. Marquel says that it's bittersweet, having to decide between two beautiful girls, so he just went with his heart. He probably would have sounded more sympathetic if he would have just said, "Yo, don't hate the playa, hate the game!"

Robert - One Armed Sarah. YES. Score one for the underdog! Michelle starts crying. I didn't want her to not get a rose, but it does kind of feel like she swooped in on Robert when it looked like Marquel was giving her the shaft, and that kind of sucks.

Chris - he calls Elise to him. "You put the biggest smile on my face," he tells her, "and I can't explain to you that you make me feel in a way I've never felt before. With that being said, I can't give you this rose." WTF?! "As you know I'm hurting a little bit here, and I'm ready to go home, but I want you to go with me. So I hope that you accept my invitation to come with me." And of course Elise doesn't even hesitate - not even for a moment, not even to just, you know, maybe contemplate that she's only know this guy for, what, three days? WHAT IS THERE TO THINK ABOUT - before she tells him yes, of course.  

"There's a storm and then comes a rainbow!" Elise tells us. "He doesn't want to be away from me, he wants me to meet his family, he wants me to come with him, he looks extremely handsome and he smells amazing." I seriously love this girl's stream of consciousness - ridiculously grandiose conclusions rounded out with, like, the dumbest details ever. 

So Chris stands with Elise and makes a speech about how he still has a rose, and how there is one person here who deserves true love more than anyone. Michelle starts crying, and so does everyone else, because we all know that he means Michelle (meanwhile, Danielle is just standing there, all "Yeah, cool, shut up already so I can hop this limo home."). It's literally the one good thing that Chris has ever done in his life. I'm actually surprised by it. 

I still hate him, though.

Chris and Elise leave together, the producers make this misty-lens montage of them throwing back a shot, running into the ocean, Elise wheeling Chris out of the hospital after he sprained his knee, etc, which is hilarious, because they obviously only had three days of material to work with and are totally not-so-subtly hammering that point in. 

Danielle leaves in the limo, covers her face with her hair, and says, "This wasn't paradise, this was Marq Hell."

HAHAHA MARQ HELL.

Next week - two episodes over two consecutive nights! (WTF, ABC, stop messing with my schedule! I already have to carve out two hours on Monday night specifically for you, and now you're making me do it on Tuesday, too? SOME PEOPLE IN AMERICA HAVE TO WORK. Not everyone can just sit around, waiting for you to call us up and tell us to pack our bikinis, we're going to a tropical island for another shot of love. We're not all Chris Bukowski, mmkay? Some of us have JOBS).  And it looks like crazy town has come to the island - Clare and AshLee fight about something, and then from what I can gather, Graham disses AshLee at the rose ceremony, so she disappears into the jungle and probably attempts to injure herself in some way to get his attention again. Like I said - she's not called Lifetime Original Movie AshLee for nothin'. 

It's gonna be GREAT! 

See you then, Bachelor Babies! 

Bachelor In Paradise Recap, Episode 2: A Sharknado of Crazy

Welcome back to Bachelor In Paradise ! Our second episode begins with a little story about a girl named Michelle...you may remember Michelle both from The Bachelor: Jake Is a Pilot and from the premier episode of Bachelor In Paradise, where she excused herself from the rose ceremony, stating that she didn't feel any connections with anyone there. Then she gave a little secret smile in the limo when one of the producers asked her if she wanted to find love - she said it would happen, if it hadn't already. 

You might remember that last week I speculated that she got it on with a member of the production crew. It turns out...I WAS RIGHT!

(Which, to be fair, wasn't that hard of a prediction. The previews practically had "MICHELLE HOOKED UP WITH A MEMBER OF THE CREW AND CHRIS WAS PISSED ABOUT IT" written across last week's preview).

Anyway! I guess what happened was that a few days before filming, all the cast and crew were holed up at a resort hotel. Michelle happened to be staying next door to a crew member named Ryan. They both hung out on their balcony one day, began flirting, and then - GASP! - unlocked the adjoining doors to their rooms.

When Michelle came back from Sluts Island, apparently some other crew member came to her room with the Bachelor psychologist (how did I not know that they have a psychologist on staff to talk to the people who get royally dumped? How did I not know this before so I could finish my psych degree and BE THIS PERSON?!) and found Michelle opening the door to her room in nothing but a towel. 

But wait! It gets better. Because apparently Ryan was in Michelle's room, and when he heard a knock on the door, he went out to Michelle's balcony to hide, AND THEN HE FUCKING JUMPED SIX FEET TO THE GROUND AND BROKE BOTH HIS LEGS. 

I mean. Oh my god, you guys. No one can tell me that this isn't the best show in the entire freaking world. 

Oh, and that crew member's name? Ryan PUTZ. RYAN FREAKING P-U-T-Z. 



So Chris tries to talk to Michelle at her hotel room (also, why the fuck is she still there? Why are you still paying her to stay in a luxury hotel?), and she slams the door in Chris' face. You see Elan sneaking around in the background, which was my favorite part of the entire episode, and then another producer finally manages to get inside the room to talk to Michelle. He tells Michelle that Chris is the one that she needs to talk to, and she's like, "No, he's not. Chris is just the host." 

Uh, the host and the executive producer and the man whom alongside Andy Cohen most likely rules the entire reality TV world and whom is also very much likely the father of all my unborn children. 
So anyway, they do a reenactment of the whole jumping from the balcony thing with the crew member who both knocked on Michelle's door the night before AND found Ryan laying splayed out on the ground below Michelle's balcony, and it was hilarious and amazing and AGAIN THIS IS THE BEST SHOW EVER.

But anyway, back to Whore Island: 
Clare and Lacy are whispering in bed like two school girls about Lacy accepting the rose from Marcus over Robert. Lacy tells us that she is ecstatic, and BEYOND excited about getting to know Marcus better. Nobody likes this girl anymore, right? I mean, she basically used Robert to secure a rose on the island, and then when Marcus, by total luck, was able to give her his rose first, she totally dissed Robert like (insert witty pop culture metaphor here). She's kiiiind of totally a fake sugar-voiced biznatch. 

Fuckin’ Chris Bukowski is here. I hate that guy. Does he not have a job? Why does he keep showing up on these shows? He walks down the beach, gets to the house, and immediately goes to the girls rooms to hug (i.e., rub his chest all over their boobage) them and suss out who's going to be that New Car Smell this time around. Elise giggles and bats her eyelashes at him, and all I can think is that Elise is THE WORST. She's so dumb. She is really, really dumb. 

Chris has a date card, and he picks Clare for the date. Their date is a Couple's Massage on the beach. "It's relaxing, and it's something you can do together," states Clare, blowing the lid off of What Is The Deal With Couple's Massages. "And to me, that's paradise." Can we just, like, kill Clare now? Like, when does the SharkNado start happening on this show? 

Chris asks Clare what she's heard about him, she tells him that basically it's not good, and so he tries to tell her that he's actually a really good guy, blah blah blah. Nah, ya ain't, Chris. You're a guy who got on a TV show and now thinks that he can get the V whenever he wants it and not only takes advantage of it, but also brags about it and treats those V's like a D. But it's Clare, so she's totally eating up all the charming things that he's saying because she's kind of an idiot. He starts massaging her back, she says some stuff about how Chris is a man, and then they jump into the ocean and it's annoying until I think about that movie Two-Headed Shark Attack  (starring a rather rough-looking Carmen Electra) and try to pinpoint the exact moment when the two-headed shark would blow out of the water and chomp both their heads off and then I'm happy and interested again. 

Back at The Beach of Brainiacs, Robert tells us that he feels that Lacy is not very classy...and his first sign, miraculously, is not that time when she told him she was upset because the two guys she was into both went on dates with other girls, but because she's now holding hands with Marcus right in front of his face. I kind of feel like Robert deserves this pain because he went straight for the big-boobed airhead, but I also feel kind of bad for him because he doesn't seem all that bright and he kind of reminds me of that slightly mentally handicapped younger brother of your next door neighbor who you need to always watch out for because he's got the mental and emotional capacity of a 10 year old and while he's really sweet, he can also get hurt easily even though sometimes you want to be all, "YO! Toughen UP!" but you can't because he's basically the sweetest simpleton alive.  

Marcus and Lacy are reclining on the beach, holding hands RIGHT IN FRONT OF ROBERT'S FACE while Lacy bats her mascara-streaked eyes at Marcus and gives him this ridiculously annoying post-kiss smile every time he kisses her. They talk about how they hope that Marcus gets the next date card, and so, of course, he does. He kisses Lacy again. I would also like the SharkNado to kill both of them. 
Dylan and Elise time! Elise says that she and Dylan have a connection that is so, so strong, even though they’ve only known each other for one week. The producers do this amazing misty montage, reminiscent of the misty-lens montage that you see right before the Bachelor proposes, only this is full of really mundane, dumb interactions between Elise and Dylan, which is like, THE MOST hilarious moment in Bachelor history. Between the Michelle/Ryan Balcony reenactment and that, this episode is totally hitting it out of the park. We see Elise and Dylan hanging out on the beach, and Elise is all, “Oh, I didn’t even ask you this, what’s your birthday, what’s your sign?” Dylan mentions being a Scorpio, and Elise tells him that she's a Pisces and then goes into this long extended explanation of it, and we can literally SEE Dylan zoning out. Then we hear Dylan doing a voiceover where he says that every day he hangs with Elise, he's losing the opportunity to hang out with other girls. He's feeling smothered by her (WHAT?! No way). 

They begin to talk about the date card: Dylan basically says that he hopes he gets the date card, and then he goes into this really careful yet too vague thing of telling Elise that if someone else asked her on a date, he would want her to go so she could have that experience (yeah. She's not going to tell you the same thing, buddy). Basically the conversation is a round-and-round of Elise telling him that she's going to marry him, and Dylan telling her that he wants to bang other chicks. Elise starts to get kind of psycho about it - they have this REALY AMAZING CONNECTION, YOU GUYS. AND SHE DOESN’T KNOW WHY HE’S TRYING TO ACT LIKE THEY DON’T. So she's going to pull back, she's decided, even though she doesn’t want to. 

Lacy and Marcus go on their date. First they're transported by gondola to this island thing where they have dinner. Lacy tells us that she thinks that it's absolutely possible to find love in paradise. ENOUGH WITH THE INTELLECTUALLY COMPLICATED REMARKS, EVERYONE. Marcus asks her, "What do you think about this?" She looks around, swallows the food in her mouth, and answers, "It's romantic?" like it's a freaking pop quiz. This girl is SO DUMB. She tells him that she wants to hear more about his Bachelorette experience, and I zone out again because I really don't care. 


Lookit how dumb she looks. Back at the house, all the kids are hanging out, and Chris is flirting big-time with Elise. Elise tells One Armed Sarah she’s "vibing with Chris 100%." Sarah tells Elise that Chris is a player. “Then let him be my flirtatious thing and get Dylan in check,” Elise says. To us, she says, "Dylan wanted me to be fed to the sharks so he knew his girl was coming back."

Yeah. I don't know what the fuck that meant, either. 

Chris and Elise jump into the ocean, with Elise wearing the skimpiest bikini bottoms ever - so skimpy that the show has to blur it out with a matching red rectangle. Chris and Elise start kissing in the ocean. Michelle notes that, “Chris, who just got here, is doing so many sexually amazing things to Elise that Dylan could never do.” DON'T YOU TALK ABOUT MY BABY THAT WAY, MICHELLE MONEY. DYLAN IS THE SEXUALLY AMAZING ONE, NOT CHRIS! Clare calls Chris a professional - as soon as she sees Chris making out with Elise in the ocean, she feels completely cured of him. GOOD. 

Meanwhile, Dylan is knocked out cold in his bed and misses the whole thing, which is also kind of hilarious. 

The next morning, Elise tells Michelle that Dylan told Elise that he wanted her to meet other people. Michelle tells Elise that what she did with Chris was kinda-sorta wrong, that if Dylan kissed someone else she would be really hurt. Elise starts crying, and starts saying stuff about how she wants to get married and have kids, and Chris just wants to have fun, so she's going to be strong. What she and Dylan have is special, and her telling Dylan that she kissed Chris could be a turning point in their relationship. 

So she tells him, and Dylan both calls her on her shit and internally jumps up and down with relief that now he has a total and complete save from having to hang out with her any longer. He tells her that he thinks she kissed Chris not because she felt a connection, but to get a reaction out of him (Dylan). It just solidifies, to him, that they're not meant to be. Elise doesn’t want Dylan to write her off because of it, but TOO LATE! Dylan's not mad, he tells her, but he just doesn't think this is going to work out. He tells her not to give him a rose at the rose ceremony. He knows it jeopardizes his chances of staying on the island, but he'd rather leave than let Elise give him a rose. 

Elise is convinced that this is going to just make them stronger, that this is just a bump in the road. Now they know they care about each other, everybody! The fact that Dylan's upset...now he knows that he does care about her! 

YOU GUYS. THIS GIRL IS INSANE. 
Zach from The Bachelorette: Des Grew Up Poor shows up - I don't remember him, because remember what I said about it being the most boring season ever - and Clare boob-bounces down to the beach to give him a boob hug. He has a date card, and it looks like the boob rub works - he chooses Clare for the date. 

They shop and then do stuff on a beach. Being in Mexico makes Clare feel that she’s embracing her heritage - after all, she’s half Mexican. “I love that feeling when you just get that feeling,” she muses, dropping yet another deep and profound bomb on all of America's viewers. And with Zach, she tells us, she gets that feeling. They have a connection. And "I felt his connection in the ocean!" she laughs. 

Clare, do not ever talk about a guy's erection ever, ever, ever again. Your rights to ever infer to the act, position, or feel of a male's hardened penis have now been revoked forthright.  

Meanwhile, Elise is telling Sarah and AshLee about how this whole thing with Dylan (a.k.a., him trying to tell her that she's smothering him, her making out Chris to get back at him for it, and him telling her "SEE YA!" because of it) is (again) just a bump in the road! Ultimately, it will make them stronger! She keeps bringing up the fact that he wanted to throw her to the sharks or that he threw her into the shark tank to see if she would come back to him, and I still don't understand what this shit means. It is it a thinly-vieled promo for ABC's other hit show?! Why does she keep talking about sharks? And can one just flip-flop itself from the ocean to the house, snap Crazy Elise up in its jaws, and then flip-flop back to the ocean so we can stop hearing about this already? “I know that Dylan has a fear inside his heart, but I’m not going to let it get to me! I’m focusing on him and I’m focusing on what we can be," Elise tells us, and then she goes into this whole thing about the power of visualization and how she visualizes the future with Dylan, and while I'm a big believer in visualization myself, I know that I don't use it to do crazy-making scenarios with guys who want nothing more than to *not* be on a paradise island with me. 

Chris needs Elise to give him a rose. Chris tells Elise that he talked to Dylan, and that he didn’t seem upset at all (Chris is such a scumbag manipulator - "I talked to the guy you liked, who seemed like he didn't like you at all, and I know this is going to hurt your feelings but I don't give a shit because I'm hoping eventually you'll want me to soothe that pain of yours with my penis."). Elise is all like, “he’s just scared.” UH, YES, ELISE, HE IS SCARED - SCARED OF YOU. Chris comes up with a nickname for Dylan - he says that Dylan looks like a bloated version of Matt Damon from Good Will Hunting, so he calls him Fat Damon, and says that he's (Chris) going to go Good Will Hunting for Elise. YOU MAKE FUN OF MY HUSBAND LIKE THAT ONE MORE TIME CHRIS BUKOWSKI AND I'M GONNA PUNCH YOU IN YOUR RAT FACE. 

Anyway - Dylan's wish comes true and he gets a date card! He asks One Armed Sarah to go with him, and because she's friends with Elise, she tells him that she has to think about it. She goes and talks to Elise about it, and Elise tells Sarah that Dylan and Elise have been talking about this date all week. In the end, Elise tells Sarah that she wants Dylan to have fun, and she wants Sarah to have fun, and she trusts Sarah, and they both deserve it, and now is not the right time for Sarah to go with Dylan. Dylan and Elise have to work through this, Elise tells us, and they will, so she thinks that this is a good thing...especially because this all shows that even though she hurt him, he’s still thinking about her. 
It's at this point that Lifetime Original Movie AshLee actually calls Elise crazy. Blood flows from the eyes of statues. Holy water in every church begins to slowly boil. Gargoyles come to life and fly off into the sky.  

I personally don't love One Armed Sarah, but I do kind of love that Dylan loves her. He finds her very attractive, he tells us (aw!), and he finds her personality unbelievable (really?). During their date (another boring dinner), I feel like this could be a love connection between them, and I ain't even mad about it. 

Campfire! Michelle really likes Ben. Thinks he’s a really cool guy. She’s really impressed by him. 
Fast-forward to an hour later when she's sobbing on her bed about how this is all so messed up. Whose fault is it? BEN'S!

Marcus "spilled water" on Ben's backpack and found a letter inside (SUCH bullshit - why wasn't THAT filmed? Because the producers found it and handed it to Marcus, that's why). He shows it to Marquel, and they both agree that it's a love letter and that Ben absolutely has a girlfriend. They go to confront him - "He's gotta leave, he's gotta leave," claims Marcus (WHY does everyone still think he's a good guy?! He's NOT a good guy. He's kind of a dick.) - Clare spies on the conversation, the entire house decides to join in like it's their business, and Michelle flips out. Like royally, completely flips out - she starts crying about how she left her daughter to be here because she wants to find a connection and was excited about doing that in a house where everyone else was here for that, too. Michelle takes this shit seriously (a little bit too seriously, if you ask me). Ben tries to explain that he met this girl three weeks before he came, that things happened really fast, but he still wanted to come because he wanted the experience. Michelle's not having it, Marquel tells him that him being here is really disrespectful to everyone else here, and finally Ben apologizes and tells everyone that he's leaving.


“Goodbye Hollywood," Ben says, during his shirtless confessional. "I’m done with you. Done.” Then he gets up, dramatically picks up his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle backpack and - still shirtless! - hops into the van. 
Chalk that up to the THIRD most awesome moment of the episode. 
Cocktail Hour! Michelle and Marquel talk - although I don't know how Michelle managed to do that while Marquel wore those goddamn awful fake aviator glasses - and Marquel tells Michelle that he's noticed that she likes to drink. Rightly, Michelle states that was him basically saying "I’m not judging you but I’m for sure judging you." Robert walks up and asks to take a little more time with Michelle. Whoa-ho! Robert, hedging his bets with Michelle! Michelle's first question for him was if he thought she drank too much. He said no. Good answer. Guess the boy isn't such a simpleton after all...

Chris and Elise talk, and Chris lays on the "I really like you," to Elise. No one fucking believes that when you say it, Chris. Oh wait! Elise does. But only because SHE IS MENTALLY INSANE.

Sidenote: Does anyone else totally want AshLee to start digging her claws into Chris? I want this SO BAD. 

Dylan tells Sarah that if Elise gives Dylan her rose, he won’t accept it. Sarah tells him she’s uneasy and uncomfortable with the dynamic, and Dylan points out that she didn’t come here because she wanted to be with her best friend. Dylan then asks Elise to go talk. Elise thinks that Dylan is going to tell her that he’s had a day to think and that they’re going to continue to grow and talk and learn. Dylan tells her that he doesn’t want her to hold back her feelings for Chris. Elise doesn’t know what he’s saying. “You’re like a great friend of mine," Dylan explains. "So I think you should take advantage of what’s happening right now, I think Chris might actually really like you.” Elise still does not get it . “So you’re….saying….that…” DUUUUUUHHHHH. They go around like this a billion times - Dylan tells her to go after Chris, she’s like, “So you’re saying…” “He’s sending mixed signals, and he doesn’t know what he wants” Elise tells us. OH MY GOD YOU ARE DELUSIONAL. “I’m confused.” UNDERSTATEMENT OF THE YEAR. 

Rose Ceremonaaaaaaay! Roses given:Lacy’s first. She’s wearing a belt for a skirt and a crop top, because of course she is. Does she remind anyone else of Courtney Stodden? She give Marcus her rose. AshLee - GrahamClare - Zach Michelle - Marquel. Robert is surprised and bummed at this, and knows there’s a good chance he could be going home. Elise - gives it to Dylan. He’s shocked. Dylan tells her that he won’t accept the rose. He tries to hug her, but she tells him that she has something she wants to say to everyone. Looking mortified and so uncomfortable that it gives *me* the heeby-jeebies, Dylan stands there, staring down at the ground as Elise turns to the room and addresses them with this speech, which I recorded word-for-word: “I want to thank Dylan, because I think that I, as a woman, and every woman here, deserves one hundred percent a man who is going to fight for her." Turning to Dylan, she says, "I know that you know that life brings a lot of pain, life brings ups and downs, and I know that myself and every woman here deserves someone who is going to be there through thick and thin and sickness and health, and Chris, will you accept this rose.” 

THE BEST EVER. 
Also: HAHAHA CHRIS GETS SADDLED WITH THE CRAZY HAHAHAHA. 
It's One-Armed Sarah's turn, and she picks...Robert. WTF?! I KNEW I didn't like this girl - I don't give a SHIT if she only has one arm or not. I understand that she probably didn't want to mess up her friendship to Crazy Elise and that she saw this as her chance to save Robert from going home, but still, it pisses me off. Dylan tells us that he has strong feelings for Sarah and that he hoped that she did for him. The fact that she didn't means that he's going home. But, "I feel good about the decision that I made about Elise. I think Elise is...out of her mind." 

So Dylan goes home and my interest in watching this show goes down by 40%. I love you baby! Stay strong. Get some rest, take care of you, and I'll be coming for you as soon as the stars align and I find myself in Boston or you find yourself in Hayward or whatever situation is created so that I have to do the least amount of work to just "bump" into you and make you fall in love with me. 

Anyway, the previews for next week indicate that Graham gives AshLee the What For for planning their wedding already, and Chris begins to regret his decision to latch onto Crazy Elise, and then does his best to be a dick about it. 

The observation of which ended in this: 



The End.

Bachelor In Paradise, Episode 2: A Sharknado of Crazy

Welcome back to Bachelor In Paradise ! Our second episode begins with a little story about a girl named Michelle...you may remember Michelle both from The Bachelor: Jake Is a Pilot and from the premier episode of Bachelor In Paradise, where she excused herself from the rose ceremony, stating that she didn't feel any connections with anyone there. Then she gave a little secret smile in the limo when one of the producers asked her if she wanted to find love - she said it would happen, if it hadn't already. 

You might remember that last week I speculated that she got it on with a member of the production crew. It turns out...I WAS RIGHT!

(Which, to be fair, wasn't that hard of a prediction. The previews practically had "MICHELLE HOOKED UP WITH A MEMBER OF THE CREW AND CHRIS WAS PISSED ABOUT IT" written across last week's preview).

Anyway! I guess what happened was that a few days before filming, all the cast and crew were holed up at a resort hotel. Michelle happened to be staying next door to a crew member named Ryan. They both hung out on their balcony one day, began flirting, and then - GASP! - unlocked the adjoining doors to their rooms.

When Michelle came back from Sluts Island, apparently some other crew member came to her room with the Bachelor psychologist (how did I not know that they have a psychologist on staff to talk to the people who get royally dumped? How did I not know this before so I could finish my psych degree and BE THIS PERSON?!) and found Michelle opening the door to her room in nothing but a towel. 

But wait! It gets better. Because apparently Ryan was in Michelle's room, and when he heard a knock on the door, he went out to Michelle's balcony to hide, AND THEN HE FUCKING JUMPED SIX FEET TO THE GROUND AND BROKE BOTH HIS LEGS. 

I mean. Oh my god, you guys. No one can tell me that this isn't the best show in the entire freaking world. 

Oh, and that crew member's name? Ryan PUTZ. RYAN FREAKING P-U-T-Z. 



So Chris tries to talk to Michelle at her hotel room (also, why the fuck is she still there? Why are you still paying her to stay in a luxury hotel?), and she slams the door in Chris' face. You see Elan sneaking around in the background, which was my favorite part of the entire episode, and then another producer finally manages to get inside the room to talk to Michelle. He tells Michelle that Chris is the one that she needs to talk to, and she's like, "No, he's not. Chris is just the host." 

Uh, the host and the executive producer and the man whom alongside Andy Cohen most likely rules the entire reality TV world and whom is also very much likely the father of all my unborn children. 
So anyway, they do a reenactment of the whole jumping from the balcony thing with the crew member who both knocked on Michelle's door the night before AND found Ryan laying splayed out on the ground below Michelle's balcony, and it was hilarious and amazing and AGAIN THIS IS THE BEST SHOW EVER.

But anyway, back to Whore Island: 
Clare and Lacy are whispering in bed like two school girls about Lacy accepting the rose from Marcus over Robert. Lacy tells us that she is ecstatic, and BEYOND excited about getting to know Marcus better. Nobody likes this girl anymore, right? I mean, she basically used Robert to secure a rose on the island, and then when Marcus, by total luck, was able to give her his rose first, she totally dissed Robert like (insert witty pop culture metaphor here). She's kiiiind of totally a fake sugar-voiced biznatch. 

Fuckin’ Chris Bukowski is here. I hate that guy. Does he not have a job? Why does he keep showing up on these shows? He walks down the beach, gets to the house, and immediately goes to the girls rooms to hug (i.e., rub his chest all over their boobage) them and suss out who's going to be that New Car Smell this time around. Elise giggles and bats her eyelashes at him, and all I can think is that Elise is THE WORST. She's so dumb. She is really, really dumb. 

Chris has a date card, and he picks Clare for the date. Their date is a Couple's Massage on the beach. "It's relaxing, and it's something you can do together," states Clare, blowing the lid off of What Is The Deal With Couple's Massages. "And to me, that's paradise." Can we just, like, kill Clare now? Like, when does the SharkNado start happening on this show? 

Chris asks Clare what she's heard about him, she tells him that basically it's not good, and so he tries to tell her that he's actually a really good guy, blah blah blah. Nah, ya ain't, Chris. You're a guy who got on a TV show and now thinks that he can get the V whenever he wants it and not only takes advantage of it, but also brags about it and treats those V's like a D. But it's Clare, so she's totally eating up all the charming things that he's saying because she's kind of an idiot. He starts massaging her back, she says some stuff about how Chris is a man, and then they jump into the ocean and it's annoying until I think about that movie Two-Headed Shark Attack  (starring a rather rough-looking Carmen Electra) and try to pinpoint the exact moment when the two-headed shark would blow out of the water and chomp both their heads off and then I'm happy and interested again. 

Back at The Beach of Brainiacs, Robert tells us that he feels that Lacy is not very classy...and his first sign, miraculously, is not that time when she told him she was upset because the two guys she was into both went on dates with other girls, but because she's now holding hands with Marcus right in front of his face. I kind of feel like Robert deserves this pain because he went straight for the big-boobed airhead, but I also feel kind of bad for him because he doesn't seem all that bright and he kind of reminds me of that slightly mentally handicapped younger brother of your next door neighbor who you need to always watch out for because he's got the mental and emotional capacity of a 10 year old and while he's really sweet, he can also get hurt easily even though sometimes you want to be all, "YO! Toughen UP!" but you can't because he's basically the sweetest simpleton alive.  

Marcus and Lacy are reclining on the beach, holding hands RIGHT IN FRONT OF ROBERT'S FACE while Lacy bats her mascara-streaked eyes at Marcus and gives him this ridiculously annoying post-kiss smile every time he kisses her. They talk about how they hope that Marcus gets the next date card, and so, of course, he does. He kisses Lacy again. I would also like the SharkNado to kill both of them. 
Dylan and Elise time! Elise says that she and Dylan have a connection that is so, so strong, even though they’ve only known each other for one week. The producers do this amazing misty montage, reminiscent of the misty-lens montage that you see right before the Bachelor proposes, only this is full of really mundane, dumb interactions between Elise and Dylan, which is like, THE MOST hilarious moment in Bachelor history. Between the Michelle/Ryan Balcony reenactment and that, this episode is totally hitting it out of the park. We see Elise and Dylan hanging out on the beach, and Elise is all, “Oh, I didn’t even ask you this, what’s your birthday, what’s your sign?” Dylan mentions being a Scorpio, and Elise tells him that she's a Pisces and then goes into this long extended explanation of it, and we can literally SEE Dylan zoning out. Then we hear Dylan doing a voiceover where he says that every day he hangs with Elise, he's losing the opportunity to hang out with other girls. He's feeling smothered by her (WHAT?! No way). 

They begin to talk about the date card: Dylan basically says that he hopes he gets the date card, and then he goes into this really careful yet too vague thing of telling Elise that if someone else asked her on a date, he would want her to go so she could have that experience (yeah. She's not going to tell you the same thing, buddy). Basically the conversation is a round-and-round of Elise telling him that she's going to marry him, and Dylan telling her that he wants to bang other chicks. Elise starts to get kind of psycho about it - they have this REALY AMAZING CONNECTION, YOU GUYS. AND SHE DOESN’T KNOW WHY HE’S TRYING TO ACT LIKE THEY DON’T. So she's going to pull back, she's decided, even though she doesn’t want to. 

Lacy and Marcus go on their date. First they're transported by gondola to this island thing where they have dinner. Lacy tells us that she thinks that it's absolutely possible to find love in paradise. ENOUGH WITH THE INTELLECTUALLY COMPLICATED REMARKS, EVERYONE. Marcus asks her, "What do you think about this?" She looks around, swallows the food in her mouth, and answers, "It's romantic?" like it's a freaking pop quiz. This girl is SO DUMB. She tells him that she wants to hear more about his Bachelorette experience, and I zone out again because I really don't care. 


Lookit how dumb she looks. Back at the house, all the kids are hanging out, and Chris is flirting big-time with Elise. Elise tells One Armed Sarah she’s "vibing with Chris 100%." Sarah tells Elise that Chris is a player. “Then let him be my flirtatious thing and get Dylan in check,” Elise says. To us, she says, "Dylan wanted me to be fed to the sharks so he knew his girl was coming back."

Yeah. I don't know what the fuck that meant, either. 

Chris and Elise jump into the ocean, with Elise wearing the skimpiest bikini bottoms ever - so skimpy that the show has to blur it out with a matching red rectangle. Chris and Elise start kissing in the ocean. Michelle notes that, “Chris, who just got here, is doing so many sexually amazing things to Elise that Dylan could never do.” DON'T YOU TALK ABOUT MY BABY THAT WAY, MICHELLE MONEY. DYLAN IS THE SEXUALLY AMAZING ONE, NOT CHRIS! Clare calls Chris a professional - as soon as she sees Chris making out with Elise in the ocean, she feels completely cured of him. GOOD. 

Meanwhile, Dylan is knocked out cold in his bed and misses the whole thing, which is also kind of hilarious. 

The next morning, Elise tells Michelle that Dylan told Elise that he wanted her to meet other people. Michelle tells Elise that what she did with Chris was kinda-sorta wrong, that if Dylan kissed someone else she would be really hurt. Elise starts crying, and starts saying stuff about how she wants to get married and have kids, and Chris just wants to have fun, so she's going to be strong. What she and Dylan have is special, and her telling Dylan that she kissed Chris could be a turning point in their relationship. 

So she tells him, and Dylan both calls her on her shit and internally jumps up and down with relief that now he has a total and complete save from having to hang out with her any longer. He tells her that he thinks she kissed Chris not because she felt a connection, but to get a reaction out of him (Dylan). It just solidifies, to him, that they're not meant to be. Elise doesn’t want Dylan to write her off because of it, but TOO LATE! Dylan's not mad, he tells her, but he just doesn't think this is going to work out. He tells her not to give him a rose at the rose ceremony. He knows it jeopardizes his chances of staying on the island, but he'd rather leave than let Elise give him a rose. 

Elise is convinced that this is going to just make them stronger, that this is just a bump in the road. Now they know they care about each other, everybody! The fact that Dylan's upset...now he knows that he does care about her! 

YOU GUYS. THIS GIRL IS INSANE. 
Zach from The Bachelorette: Des Grew Up Poor shows up - I don't remember him, because remember what I said about it being the most boring season ever - and Clare boob-bounces down to the beach to give him a boob hug. He has a date card, and it looks like the boob rub works - he chooses Clare for the date. 

They shop and then do stuff on a beach. Being in Mexico makes Clare feel that she’s embracing her heritage - after all, she’s half Mexican. “I love that feeling when you just get that feeling,” she muses, dropping yet another deep and profound bomb on all of America's viewers. And with Zach, she tells us, she gets that feeling. They have a connection. And "I felt his connection in the ocean!" she laughs. 

Clare, do not ever talk about a guy's erection ever, ever, ever again. Your rights to ever infer to the act, position, or feel of a male's hardened penis have now been revoked forthright.  

Meanwhile, Elise is telling Sarah and AshLee about how this whole thing with Dylan (a.k.a., him trying to tell her that she's smothering him, her making out Chris to get back at him for it, and him telling her "SEE YA!" because of it) is (again) just a bump in the road! Ultimately, it will make them stronger! She keeps bringing up the fact that he wanted to throw her to the sharks or that he threw her into the shark tank to see if she would come back to him, and I still don't understand what this shit means. It is it a thinly-vieled promo for ABC's other hit show?! Why does she keep talking about sharks? And can one just flip-flop itself from the ocean to the house, snap Crazy Elise up in its jaws, and then flip-flop back to the ocean so we can stop hearing about this already? “I know that Dylan has a fear inside his heart, but I’m not going to let it get to me! I’m focusing on him and I’m focusing on what we can be," Elise tells us, and then she goes into this whole thing about the power of visualization and how she visualizes the future with Dylan, and while I'm a big believer in visualization myself, I know that I don't use it to do crazy-making scenarios with guys who want nothing more than to *not* be on a paradise island with me. 

Chris needs Elise to give him a rose. Chris tells Elise that he talked to Dylan, and that he didn’t seem upset at all (Chris is such a scumbag manipulator - "I talked to the guy you liked, who seemed like he didn't like you at all, and I know this is going to hurt your feelings but I don't give a shit because I'm hoping eventually you'll want me to soothe that pain of yours with my penis."). Elise is all like, “he’s just scared.” UH, YES, ELISE, HE IS SCARED - SCARED OF YOU. Chris comes up with a nickname for Dylan - he says that Dylan looks like a bloated version of Matt Damon from Good Will Hunting, so he calls him Fat Damon, and says that he's (Chris) going to go Good Will Hunting for Elise. YOU MAKE FUN OF MY HUSBAND LIKE THAT ONE MORE TIME CHRIS BUKOWSKI AND I'M GONNA PUNCH YOU IN YOUR RAT FACE. 

Anyway - Dylan's wish comes true and he gets a date card! He asks One Armed Sarah to go with him, and because she's friends with Elise, she tells him that she has to think about it. She goes and talks to Elise about it, and Elise tells Sarah that Dylan and Elise have been talking about this date all week. In the end, Elise tells Sarah that she wants Dylan to have fun, and she wants Sarah to have fun, and she trusts Sarah, and they both deserve it, and now is not the right time for Sarah to go with Dylan. Dylan and Elise have to work through this, Elise tells us, and they will, so she thinks that this is a good thing...especially because this all shows that even though she hurt him, he’s still thinking about her. 
It's at this point that Lifetime Original Movie AshLee actually calls Elise crazy. Blood flows from the eyes of statues. Holy water in every church begins to slowly boil. Gargoyles come to life and fly off into the sky.  

I personally don't love One Armed Sarah, but I do kind of love that Dylan loves her. He finds her very attractive, he tells us (aw!), and he finds her personality unbelievable (really?). During their date (another boring dinner), I feel like this could be a love connection between them, and I ain't even mad about it. 

Campfire! Michelle really likes Ben. Thinks he’s a really cool guy. She’s really impressed by him. 
Fast-forward to an hour later when she's sobbing on her bed about how this is all so messed up. Whose fault is it? BEN'S!

Marcus "spilled water" on Ben's backpack and found a letter inside (SUCH bullshit - why wasn't THAT filmed? Because the producers found it and handed it to Marcus, that's why). He shows it to Marquel, and they both agree that it's a love letter and that Ben absolutely has a girlfriend. They go to confront him - "He's gotta leave, he's gotta leave," claims Marcus (WHY does everyone still think he's a good guy?! He's NOT a good guy. He's kind of a dick.) - Clare spies on the conversation, the entire house decides to join in like it's their business, and Michelle flips out. Like royally, completely flips out - she starts crying about how she left her daughter to be here because she wants to find a connection and was excited about doing that in a house where everyone else was here for that, too. Michelle takes this shit seriously (a little bit too seriously, if you ask me). Ben tries to explain that he met this girl three weeks before he came, that things happened really fast, but he still wanted to come because he wanted the experience. Michelle's not having it, Marquel tells him that him being here is really disrespectful to everyone else here, and finally Ben apologizes and tells everyone that he's leaving.


“Goodbye Hollywood," Ben says, during his shirtless confessional. "I’m done with you. Done.” Then he gets up, dramatically picks up his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle backpack and - still shirtless! - hops into the van. 
Chalk that up to the THIRD most awesome moment of the episode. 
Cocktail Hour! Michelle and Marquel talk - although I don't know how Michelle managed to do that while Marquel wore those goddamn awful fake aviator glasses - and Marquel tells Michelle that he's noticed that she likes to drink. Rightly, Michelle states that was him basically saying "I’m not judging you but I’m for sure judging you." Robert walks up and asks to take a little more time with Michelle. Whoa-ho! Robert, hedging his bets with Michelle! Michelle's first question for him was if he thought she drank too much. He said no. Good answer. Guess the boy isn't such a simpleton after all...

Chris and Elise talk, and Chris lays on the "I really like you," to Elise. No one fucking believes that when you say it, Chris. Oh wait! Elise does. But only because SHE IS MENTALLY INSANE.

Sidenote: Does anyone else totally want AshLee to start digging her claws into Chris? I want this SO BAD. 

Dylan tells Sarah that if Elise gives Dylan her rose, he won’t accept it. Sarah tells him she’s uneasy and uncomfortable with the dynamic, and Dylan points out that she didn’t come here because she wanted to be with her best friend. Dylan then asks Elise to go talk. Elise thinks that Dylan is going to tell her that he’s had a day to think and that they’re going to continue to grow and talk and learn. Dylan tells her that he doesn’t want her to hold back her feelings for Chris. Elise doesn’t know what he’s saying. “You’re like a great friend of mine," Dylan explains. "So I think you should take advantage of what’s happening right now, I think Chris might actually really like you.” Elise still does not get it . “So you’re….saying….that…” DUUUUUUHHHHH. They go around like this a billion times - Dylan tells her to go after Chris, she’s like, “So you’re saying…” “He’s sending mixed signals, and he doesn’t know what he wants” Elise tells us. OH MY GOD YOU ARE DELUSIONAL. “I’m confused.” UNDERSTATEMENT OF THE YEAR. 

Rose Ceremonaaaaaaay! Roses given:Lacy’s first. She’s wearing a belt for a skirt and a crop top, because of course she is. Does she remind anyone else of Courtney Stodden? She give Marcus her rose. AshLee - GrahamClare - Zach Michelle - Marquel. Robert is surprised and bummed at this, and knows there’s a good chance he could be going home. Elise - gives it to Dylan. He’s shocked. Dylan tells her that he won’t accept the rose. He tries to hug her, but she tells him that she has something she wants to say to everyone. Looking mortified and so uncomfortable that it gives *me* the heeby-jeebies, Dylan stands there, staring down at the ground as Elise turns to the room and addresses them with this speech, which I recorded word-for-word: “I want to thank Dylan, because I think that I, as a woman, and every woman here, deserves one hundred percent a man who is going to fight for her." Turning to Dylan, she says, "I know that you know that life brings a lot of pain, life brings ups and downs, and I know that myself and every woman here deserves someone who is going to be there through thick and thin and sickness and health, and Chris, will you accept this rose.” 

THE BEST EVER. 
Also: HAHAHA CHRIS GETS SADDLED WITH THE CRAZY HAHAHAHA. 
It's One-Armed Sarah's turn, and she picks...Robert. WTF?! I KNEW I didn't like this girl - I don't give a SHIT if she only has one arm or not. I understand that she probably didn't want to mess up her friendship to Crazy Elise and that she saw this as her chance to save Robert from going home, but still, it pisses me off. Dylan tells us that he has strong feelings for Sarah and that he hoped that she did for him. The fact that she didn't means that he's going home. But, "I feel good about the decision that I made about Elise. I think Elise is...out of her mind." 

So Dylan goes home and my interest in watching this show goes down by 40%. I love you baby! Stay strong. Get some rest, take care of you, and I'll be coming for you as soon as the stars align and I find myself in Boston or you find yourself in Hayward or whatever situation is created so that I have to do the least amount of work to just "bump" into you and make you fall in love with me. 

Anyway, the previews for next week indicate that Graham gives AshLee the What For for planning their wedding already, and Chris begins to regret his decision to latch onto Crazy Elise, and then does his best to be a dick about it. 

The observation of which ended in this: 



The End.

The Premiere of Bachelor In Paradise: In Paradise, We're All 80/40.

 
Welcome to the premiere of Bachelor In Paradise ! 

In case you haven't been keeping up with the newest show of the Bachelor franchise, basically it's going to be a lot of beautiful people in swimsuits who all make out with each other and then cry a bunch about how hard it is to be in paradise with a bunch of beautiful people who are all making out with each other. 

Which basically means that this is going to be my most favorite show ever. 

The slutty season opens on a tropical island somewhere in Mexico (I think), where Chris Harrison stands on the beach at the bottom of a stone staircase, ready to greet the newest tramps of Bachelor Nation. First up is the most obvious choice, Crazy Clare. You might remember Clare from The Bachelor: Juan Pablo Has a Daughter , which she is most memorable for 1) Sleeping with Juan Pablo. A LOT. 2) Speaking about herself in the third person ("Does he really know who Clare is?". 3) Telling off Juan Pablo during the Final Rose, which totally redeemed 1) and 2) because it was SO satisfying to see someone tell off the biggest douchebag in Bachelor. Clare tells Chris she is excited to find love during this experience. Because of course that's totally going to happen for her, because these situations always seem to work out so well for her. 

Next up is Marcus, the most painfully emotional man on The Bachelorette: Andi is a Lawyer. I'm neutral about Marcus. His whole "I'm so in love with you after knowing you for three days" schtick was annoying to me during last season, and also...I don't really think he's as sweet and innocent as he was portrayed in the last season. But he looks good with his shirt off, so whatever, yeah?

One Armed Sarah is here! The sweetest and most vulnerable girl from The Bachelor: Sean Loves Jesus, Texas, & You ! is back to find love in the most ego-crushing way possible. She used to feel really insecure about having one arm and meeting guys, but now that’s all changed! Sarah heads up to the cocktail party, locks eyes with Marcus, and immediately decides that this will be the guy who will heal her emotionally, especially since he can't heal her physically. 

Because she only has one arm! Get it? 

Marquel from Andi's season is heeeerrreee! I love that guy - he's smart, he's funny, he's full of integrity, and he's freaking hoooooot. Clare agrees, and I feel like she could really use some dark chocolate in her life. 
Daniella from  The Bachelor: Sean Loves Jesus, Texas, & You  arrives, looking like a low-grade cocktail waitress, still. You know, a funny thing happens after girls are on The Bachelor - it's like their whole style game goes up fifteen notches. Not Daniella, though! Daniella ain't gonna change that dye job for NOBODAAY! 

Graham from DeAnna’s season (I didn't watch it, so I don't have a nickname for it, but I can tell you that DeAnna is probably my least favorite Bachelorette, next to Desiree) is here. He's cute. He arrives at the cocktail party, and Daniella definitely wants his D. 

Some girl named Lacy starts wandering down the beach, and everyone's like, "Who the eff is Lacy?" I'm like that, too, until I remember that she got kicked off Juan Pablo's season on the first freaking night. HAHAHAHA. All the guys want her V, though, so I'm pretty sure she'll break that PR this time around. 

Ben S. from The Bachelorette: Desiree Grew Up Poor is here. I don’t remember him, because Desiree’s season was the most boring season ever, but apparently he's an asshole? So that'll be fun. 

The next arrivals are as follows, because this part is getting boring: Michelle K from Jake's season of The Bachelor (I vaguely remember her for being crazy and leaving in a cloud of drama). Robert from  The Bachelorette: Desiree Grew Up Poor . DYLAN! Dylan's from Andi’s season - I love him so much. We'll talk about it later. Elise from Juan Pablo’s season shows up wearing straight-up stilettos and has to literally hobble down the stone staircase, which is hilarious, because A. It's a beach B. Chris literally just stands there, watching her and laughing. Elise sees Dylan and tells us that she feels love at first sight, and I'm like STEP OFF BITCH THAT MAN IS MINE. Luckily while she's making love eyes at him he seems to be wondering where he can get another glass of wine. Lifetime Original Movie AshLee is the last one to arrive. Guess what, guys, - she came here for one reason, and one reason only: Graham. 

This isn't going to end up badly at all for her, is it! 

Chris brings his fine man ass to the cocktail party and tells all the hos and bros to gather around so he can explain the rules of the game. It's basically like Paradise Hotel, but with Bachelor contestants - everyone has to have enough of a connection with someone at the end of the week for that someone to want to keep them around. If no one wants to give them a rose, they're kicked off that Paradise Island, STAT. 

Also, while he's telling them this, one can't help noticing that Robert already has his shirt off and that Lacy's hair is wet and she's in her bikini, so apparently she's had a little dip in the ocean with him already - what a slut! 

Later that night, Marcus takes a long walk on the beach to think about his feelings. He's still feeling stuff for Andi, even though she dropped him but cold and was like, "Yo. Take yo' tears and BOUNCE!" Luckily, there's an ocean right in front of him to wash away all his sorrows. Luckily x 100, Lacy just got done jumping into the ocean with Robert, but she also really likes Marcus, and oh yeah, she goes after what she wants, so she jumps into the Marcus, too. One Armed Sarah finds another way to be sad about stuff by telling us that she really likes Marcus, too, so seeing him standing in the ocean with Lacy makes her feel like she's lost another limb. Robert sees Marcus and Lacy in the ocean and tells his bros, "Yo, he's stealing my girl." And Robert is NOT gonna play that, homie, so he goes and finds Lacy post-dip. "Hello, Miss I've been wet all day long," he says. I laugh so hard I almost choke. YOU SAID IT, ROBERT. 

Lacy bats her eyes and asks if he's into any of the other girls, and he's like, "no, I'm just kind of into you." "Really?!" she squeals. Oh man, Robert. You are SO gonna get played by this girl. 

Then we see Elise leading Dylan down to the ocean. I enjoy this, because it gives me a chance to see Dylan without his shirt off, and thus imagine him nekkid. Also, nice G-String tan line, Elise. They start kissing in the ocean, and I don't get mad because I know that he doesn't even know me yet and so he has no reason to be loyal and he's probably dreaming of me abstractly while he's kissing her, anyway, because we are meant to be together and I know that, even though we're total, complete strangers, he has to know and feel that deep down (like down in his pants), even if he doesn't know that that's what he's really feeling.  

Day 2! Breakfast with babes. AshLee is already going Lifetime Original Movie Stalker Mode on Graham. But don't worry, kids - even though he's the only reason she's here and she feels like they have a total connection and that she's sure that they have to end up together, she doesn't want to be "overbearing." 

You know, not overbearing as in getting all obsessive about someone you barely know and then dropping everything in your life to go to a tropical island in the hopes that you’ll get the chance to meet him in real life and make him fall in love with you, but overbearing in that she doesn’t want to make him uncomfortable by “kissing on him, loving on him” right that second.

Daniella, for her part, nails it - “When AshLee likes someone, she automatically thinks that they’re going to get married if he even halfway likes her.” Which is not a crazy psycho train of thought AT ALL. 

Date card comes, and it’s for Clare. The note says something about how nothing could “ruin” this date, and Clare goes cheerleader cray-cray and screams about how she had a dream about standing at the top of ruins. She asks Graham to go on the date with her. Surprised but pleasingly so, Graham says yes. And then laser beams shoot out of AshLee’s eyes, burning both Clare and Graham to a crisp right where they stand. 

Just kidding! Instead, AshLee climbs a spiral staircase of sadness, finally crying when she reaches the very top of it. Shutting herself into her room, we hear her talking to herself, “He’s going on the date. Not even for 24 hours. He couldn’t even be loyal for 24 hours.” Apparently her suitcase is her best friend and is always there for her when she needs to talk about her feelings, because this little speech about loyalty does not stop for a good 5 minutes, not even when Daniella comes in to the room to make sure AshLee hasn’t slashed her wrists yet. “In real life, I would never speak to him again,” she tell Daniella. “I came for him, everyone knows he’s into me. He’s the only normal person here besides me.” 

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Oh my god, there is no bounds to AshLee’s delusional Fatal Attraction particular piece of crazy. If her and Graham are the only normal people there, I am seriously concerned for Graham’s mental health. One Armed Sarah has thrown her one arm into the ring, too, stating that she also thinks AshLee is literally crazy. And you know if Sarah thinks someone is crazy, they are mentally fucking insane. 

BUT THEN THE BEST THING EVER HAPPENS IN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE, AND IT IS CLARE GOING TO SIT ON A LEDGE SOMEWHERE TO CRY AND CONFIDE IN A RACCOON.

I am sooooo not making this up. 

Clare notices that AshLee’s upset, which makes her upset, because Clare doesn’t want drama, you guys. She doesn’t want this! She didn’t come here for this! The raccoon just watches her a moment, feeling sad that he only wanted to find garbage and instead he found this basket case. It was literally one of the most amazing moments of television I’ve ever seen - it wasn’t even noon on the second day yet and two girls are already crying and crazy-talking to themselves. 

Eventually, Clare sits down with AshLee to talk to her about the date. AshLee is insistent that Graham had a choice to say no to the date…are you kidding me?! What guy in his right mind is going to say no to a tropical adventure with a blonde chick who sports a great rack and is just the right kind of crazy in that she’d be totally game with jumping into bed with you if you talk enough about the future in abstract enough terms for her to think that you’re including her in it? But AshLee still insists that Graham should have understood that once you take a walk on the beach with her, that you are now emotionally tied to her for life, so instead Clare offers to ask another guy to the date. Which…I mean. If it were me? I’d be like, “Get over it, I’m going on a hot date with the guy you like, and just for being a baby about it, now I’m totally going to do it with him on the top of those ruins. Cry about THAT.” But Clare is apparently much kinder/dumber than me, so she offers and AshLee is like, “Yeah, go do that, because all guys love it when you make them miserable and take away a rad chance at a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity from them in order to prove a point about how to treat you, so this is the perfect solution and everything is going to totally work out now.” 

So Clare goes off to find Graham to tell him that AshLee has already book their wedding venue and so it might not be appropriate for them to go on a date together, and then bounces off to ask Robert on a date, which Robert happily accepts. Graham goes to look for AshLee, who’s standing on the beach, staring forlornly at the horizon, obviously waiting for Graham to come and find her and reenact her favorite dramatic scene from a Lifetime Original Movie. He calls out to her. She ignores him at first. WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON IN THAT BRAIN IN HERS - YOU GUYS WEREN’T EVEN GOING OUT! THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO REASON TO BE DRAMATIC ABOUT THIS. It’s like AshLee’s emotional development got stuck back in the 7th grade, and she’s still pulling the junior high shit when it comes to boys - you should’ve just known what I was thinking, and because you didn’t, now I’m not talking to you! Finally, she turns around and decides to ask him what’s up (she literally did that - just turned around and was like, “what’s up?”, like she wasn’t just totally ignoring him a second ago). He tells her that the guys are making him paranoid about the fact that he hurt her feelings, and she’s basically like, “Yeah, you did, but I’d really like to make you suffer a little more for it, so let’s talk about it tomorrow.” Graham later tells us that it’s gone from Bachelor in Paradise to Paradise Lost. 

HAHAHAHAHA. 

He tells us that now he’s uber uncomfortable, and you gotta feel bad for the guy. It’s the classic storyline of nice, unassuming guy who gets caught in the sights of a crazy stalker psycho chick. You know, like you see in Lifetime Original Movies. 

Only with AshLee, this movie is FOR REAL. 

Fast-forward to the date: Clare and Robert are exploring the temple ruins. Robert steps onto a mountain of fire ants, and within seconds he’s covered in fire ants. He throws off his backpack and rips off his shirt, which is kind of amazing, except for the fact that I’m sitting there and yelling at them to get the fuck out of there, because fire ants are always the first sign THAT THE TEMPLE IS CURSED AND SOMETHING DOESN’T WANT YOU THERE.

Or, that something could be me. This date is super boring. 

They climb to the top. Clare is literally speechless. We all sit there and enjoy that for a minute, but then it ends. Her and Robert take photos together, which apparently is hilarious, because then Clare tells us that “I want a man who gets my jokes, and wants to know that side of Clare,” and apparently Robert could be that person. I love it when Clare speaks in the third person - it’s so precious and dumb. 

Back at The Beach of Bimbos, Lacy has decided that since Robert is on the date with Clare, she should take advantage of this Robert-free time and go after Marcus. Seriously, this girl is kind of a predator, and I’m really enjoying the fact that she thinks that playing two boys at the same time is not going to blow up in her face. 

We all know that the producers love One Armed Sarah, so obviously she gets the second date card. She asks Marcus on the date, which upsets Lacy. Someone really needs to teach this girl that when you try to go after not one, but two of the big fish, someone is going to try to beat you to the lake and snag the prize for themselves. 

I just made a fishing metaphor. Proof positive that I’ve officially lived in the Northwoods for too damn long. 

Sarah and Marcus are on their date for two seconds before they strip down to their swimsuits, which I guess is probably going to define the entire season. They end up at this insane, gorgeous oasis, and I feel like one of the producers maybe doesn’t like Sarah all that much (Elan?) because in order to get into the oasis, they have to jump off of a high dive…and as everyone knows, One Armed Sarah is terrified of heights. Luckily, she has a hot guy to hold her hand and jump in with her, so all is well. They go up for another jump, and she tells Marcus that before they jump, she really wants him to kiss her. It’s like, the most awkward ask ever, but Marcus kisses her (even though I was kind of hoping that he would yell, “NO!” and then push her in before running out of there, because hilarious). Sarah feels like she just asked the cutest boy in high school to kiss her, so she feels pretty triumphant. Good for her! High five, Sarah! 

Robert comes back to the house and notices that Lacy looks “a little sad or tired or something” (look at this guy and his apt emotional readings), so they go to talk. She literally tries to make him feel bad for her by telling him that the two guys that she likes and is interested in both went on a date tonight. WHY THE FUCK would he care if you’re sad that the other guy you like went on a date? They go walk on the beach, and then sit and talk some more, and she asks him if he kissed Clare. He says no. She bats her eyes again and thinks about how she’s going to kiss Marcus later. 

LIMO IS COMING! Who’s here?! Whoever it is, they are wearing some GODAWFUL bell bottoms. Oh hey, it’s Michelle Money! Because of course it is. She arrives and announces that, along with her surprise arrival, she also has a date card. 

Nothing like arming the impostor with ammunition, yeah? In case you didn’t catch on already, there’s going to be a surprise arrival each week, to switch it all up in the house and add more dramz to the show. And you better believe that the producers have planned include the most drama-making people in the history of Bachelorland as the surprise arrivals. 

So Michelle pulls Graham aside to talk, and the camera pans to AshLee, and we all fully expect her head to explode into a billion pieces. Graham and Michelle talk about how they have history together and still care about each other, and there’s no real resolution to this conversation - so are they just going to leave it at that, or continue to pursue something together? In the morning, though, Michelle decides to ask Marquel out on the date. They go horseback riding and then go swimming in the beach. Yawn. 

Lacy gets a date card, and takes us through her indecision of whether to ask Robert or Marcus. “I’m 80/40.” 

Uh, WHAT? I think you mean 60/40, brainiac. You can’t do simple math but you think you’re gonna be successful at keeping two of the hottest guys in the house on the hook? This is going to be fun. 

In the end, she takes Robert on the date. They sit at a table outside under the stars, Robert tries not to ask WTF is going on with her hair, they eat dinner, and then go swimming. AGAIN, yawn. 

Marcus, for his part, has a long talk with my husband Dylan about his feelings for Lacy. Dylan gives him what seems to be very good advice over a glass of wine, but I’m not as concerned about what he’s saying as much as I am about staring at him and being all “Do me.” 

Rose Ceremony! AshLee feels like she’s in a good place with Graham and that he’s going to get a rose. She gets cocky about how the other girls are going to have to work hard to have conversations and make connections. I really want a shark to eat this girl at some point. Daniella and Ben talk about the fact that they really haven’t had a romantic connection with anyone yet, but that Ben should keep her because she’s one of the most fun people in the house. Everyone knows that Robert is going to give Lacy his rose, and Marcus is quiet about what he’s going to do with *his* rose. Marquel talks about how anything could happen with the rose ceremony - someone could go back on their word to someone else and totally change the game.

This is what we call “Foreshadowing.” 

The ceremony starts, Marquel picks up his rose, and Michelle K interrupts and announces that she’s eliminating herself. Chris Harrison is like, “Cool, you kinda crazy anyway, so get yo’ ass to the limo, gurrrrl.” IN the car, some production guy asks Michelle if she wants to find love. She says it will happen, and maybe it’s already happened. The guy asks her what she means, and she just gives him this “I don’t knooooow!” look. And this reminds everyone of the start of the show, when Chris made a comment at the cocktail party about how everyone here was single and Michelle was like, “Well, maybe.” Again, this is what we call “foreshadowing”: I will be a zillion, billion dollars that she started doing it with some production guy the moment she got to the island and Chris is going to find out and they’re all going to be in big trouble. 

Rose Ceremony match-ups are as follows: 
Marqual - Michelle
Graham - AshLee
Dylan - Elise (she’s getting crazy too - “I literally would have said I love you to Dylan already but it’s too soon. WTF.)
Marcus - Lacy (WHAT AN ASSHOLE! SEE EVERYBODY? HE’S NOT SUCH A SWEET GUY AFTER ALL, IS HE?!)
Robert - Clare
Ben - cue electronic music and him saying “this sucks”, which is, like, the most hilarious part of the entire show - Sarah

Poor cocktail waitress Daniella is cut. To be fair, she did have the best zingers of the show, so I’m kind of bummed that she was eliminated on the first week, but I’m also happy because this means that she now has time to get that hair done. 


Next week: MAJOR DRAMA! MORE KISSING IN THE OCEAN! SOMEBODY CRIES AGAIN! 

I'm going to really, really love this show. 

Not comin' on the Peace Train.

So, the date with Peace Train yesterday. 

I was surprised to find that I didn't hate him. Probably one of the truest things ever said about me was this one time when my city pals Taylor and Ang were on their way to Mayo to deliver a care package to (and hopefully see) Dio when he was in the last moments of his hard metal rockin' life, and Ang was telling Taylor a story about me that Taylor laughed at and then wrapped up with, "Yeah, Amber doesn't seem like the kind of girl who suffers fools gladly." 

DAMN RIGHT I DON'T. 

I try, you guys. This summer especially, I've really been working on my patience and gentleness of spirit and that whole forgiveness thing. And if you're my friend, this stuff comes really easily to me...but if you're a ditzy coworker or a rude date, I tend to have a really hard time masking my irritation during my interactions with you. 

Like I said: I'm working on it. I can become a better person, too, everybody. 

So anyway, I was kind of apprehensive that this guy was going to walk in and open his mouth and then I would Hulk Smash him through the windows or something, because I also tend to overreact in an overly dramatic way, sometimes. 

But I didn't. He walked in, he was fairly cute, and we ended up sitting and chatting for quite a while. 

Like I talked about with my other Tinder date, I'm trying to do this thing now where I'm not making snap judgements or assumptions on our potential compatibility based on past experiences or what I *think* might be true. I've learned that if and when I'm immediately, powerfully attracted to someone and can immediately predict every point of our (hot, perfect, amazing) future together, it usually means that there's something about them that's setting off all of my deep-seated issues, and I'm probably going to end up paying for this attraction later. So instead, I've learned to pay more attention to the "Hmm. Maybe..." guys: The ones where I'm a little unsure about the level of my attraction or compatibility with them, but there's enough there where I'm open to going on another date to suss it out, etc. 

Anyway. He was a "Hmm. Maybe" type guy.

But here's the thing: There's a part of me that doesn't want to hold the whole "I ditched you and then waited four days to apologize" thing against him, because online dating stuff is weird and I've learned to really not take anything personally until the person has actually met me. However, like I also talked about before, the most important thing I'm looking for is great character...and people with great character don't typically blow off someone they had made plans with and then wait a week to apologize for it. 

(The great character thing is also why I'm working really hard on my patience and forgiveness and all that shiz. Because you gotta give it to get, yeah?)

So yeah. After about an hour and a half of conversation, he went mountain biking and I went back to writing. I was working at the Minnow later that night, so he told me he would stop by after his ride for a beer or two, and I replied that since I was working I would see him there whether I wanted to or not. 

He thought that was hilarious. Sometimes it drives me crazy that the more mean I am to guys, the more they like me. 

So he stopped in later, and my friend Lacy and Corrinne also showed up, so they all sat at the bar together and got to know one another. Normally I would say it's to a guy's credit that he can hang out and have an ongoing, good conversation with a date's friends (because that stuff can be awkward and pressurized and weird), but it's more to a guy's discredit if you can't have a great conversation with my friend Lacy - she's probably one of the best conversationists I've ever met, so if things are awkward, it's because you're making it that way. Luckily for Peace Train, it looked like they were hitting it off. He stuck around until after I was done with my shift, so we had a drink together and talked for a while longer before I announced that it was time for me to hang it up and go home. There was no awkward hug or anything, which was a relief, and he sent me a text later that night that could not have been more innocuous: "Hey. Got home. Hayward was cool. Minnow is a nice place. Glad I could talk with you." 

I think I'm getting better at this stuff. There were a couple of weird comments that he made...small little red flags that popped up here and there, but I decided to just let those things go in the moment because we all say dumb stuff when we meet someone for the first time and/or are on a first date...but there was also this really great moment when he was (foolishly, stupidly) taking me through the details of the Sunday date he had decided to go on instead of showing up for *our* date: "It was a third date. She didn't know who Tom Petty was," he said, shaking his head in disgust. And the clouds parted, the sun started shining, and I totally remembered being that guy - the one who would negate someone for something petty (get it) like that. Because they don't know who Tom Petty is, and so this is never going to work. It's usually a thing that you do in your late 20s, when what you think are standards are actually really petty (are you getting the pun yet?), meaningless-in-the-scheme-of-things details based on likes/dislikes. Does not knowing who Tom Petty is going to prevent her from wanting to stick it out and take care of you if you get cancer? Does not knowing who sang "Free Fallin'" predict an inevitable affair with your best friend? If she can't name all the members of the Traveling Wilburys, does that mean that she's going to end up being emotionally manipulative and pulling a complete bait and switch once you marry this person? C'MON. 

I can remember being that person, and now I realize - holy shit, who would've wanted to date that? Who in their right mind would have wanted to date someone who was literally looking for any small, silly fact, opinion, or slip of the tongue as a reason to not date you?

This is that moment when I officially and formally apologize to Eric Malmberg, who tried to point this out to me years ago and was repaid for it by me getting suuuuuper mad at him. 

Eric Malmberg, you were right, I was wrong. Congratulations, you did it. Great job, Malmberg, on being right for once. 

But also, I am happily not that person anymore. Don't know who Tom Petty is? Cool. He's not my favorite, but we can do a little Spotify playlist trade-off and I can share his music with you and you can share some music with me that I've never heard of before and it can become a bonding experience for the both of us. Hells, I have a handful of friends right now who've never seen Top Gun or Cocktail. Was it a deal breaker for our friendship? No. Did I wonder how they possibly managed to live this long without catching a scene or two of either or both movies while they played on cable TV every other Saturday afternoon of their entire natural lives? Yes. But that is also why God invented slumber parties and lazy rainy Sunday afternoons and Netflix - so we could bring the miracles that are Tom-Cruise-Before-He-Was-Crazy-Movies into each other's lives and share those experiences together.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is: I'm getting better at this stuff, but it still means that I'm single and not getting kissed any time soon...so maybe we should talk about whether it's better to be theoretically better at dating but still not be getting laid or if it's better to be really bad at dating and still get laid all the time?

These are the questions of our time, people. 

I am not overly optimistic about my date today, you guys.

So. Backstory: 


T and I met via Tinder. He had juuuuust begun to exhaust my goodwill with his, "So...do you date guys on Tinder?" (why The FUCK would I be on Tinder if I didn't want to date anyone on it?!) and "What would I have to do to get you to show me around Hayward sometime?" (my reply: "Simply asking is a really good start") I-don't-want-to-do-the-asking-so-I'm-just-going-hint-really-heavily-and-hope-you-do-all-the-work passive-aggressive bullshiz that some (most) guys do. But, finally, he came out with it and asked if I would be his tour guide if he came to Hayward on Sunday (two Sundays ago). 

To be fair, I wasn't super excited about the date , and I thought a couple times about bailing, but then I figured that I had already spent so much time chatting with him over Tinder and text that I at least owed it to myself to meet him in person, yeah? Sunday rolled around, and I didn't get any texts or phone calls from him about what time he'd be rolling into Hayward, etc....which was okay with me, actually. I was already having a lovely Sunday hanging out with my friend Jen, and we had plans to go to see the Michael D Band at Trails End later that evening, so honestly, it was kind of a relief that I didn't have to tell him, oh hey, I already made plans, bummer that you didn't get a hold of me earlier, guess it won't work out this week. 

But THEN, he texts me on Thursday (my friend Ben: "That soon?!") to apologize for bailing on our date. I agreed that it was kind of a dick move, but told him that, to be fair, I wasn't exactly waiting by the phone for him to call or show up that day. But then he goes on to tell me that he bailed because he had another date. WTF?! Why THE FUCK would you keep bringing that up? Why even MENTION it?! You're just adding insult to injury, and it's not fucking necessary...just say you had other plans. Say that you were obligated to stay in town. Say that you just didn't feel like it. DON'T fucking tell a girl that you stood her up because you had a date with someone else.  

So I kind of gave it to him, and then I had to remind myself that I hadn't really wanted to go on a date with him in the first place so I let up a bit, and then he texted me some random stuff about Cat Stevens and Peace Train, and then somehow we're back to this: 










I'm gonna do this, you guys. You wanna know why? Because I've already wasted this much time and energy talking to him, and while in any other circumstance I would happily tell a guy like this to go fuck himself, I want to see, with thine own eyes, what a guy like this looks and acts like. 
And also, it's been a really slow summer and I need to have some type of male-related dramz in my life, so I guess if it's going to come from anyone, it's going to come from Mr. Peace Train here.