Bachelor in Paradise
August 16, 2015
HOUR NINE.
[Symptoms: Fatigue]
Last we left this collection of dummies, Samantha (a.k.a. LacePants,) had walked into a tense conversation between Other Widow and Cleetus in which Other Widow was threatening to tattle to LacePants about how Cleetus had treated her, which was “rather poorly.” Cleetus was not amused.
But when we begin this episode, Other Widow is now crying to Boobs McTrashShoes about how Cleetus had treated her. Again, “rather poorly.” The women decide that they have to “save” LacePants from Cleetus’ evil clutches lest he treat LacePants with the same disregard he treated Other Widow — even though he treated Other Widow with disregard because he was trying to get into LacePants’ lace pants. Logic is not any of these people’s strong suit.
So Other Widow and Boobs take LacePants aside and begin tell her the whole sorted story: upon arriving in Paradise, Cleetus asked Other Widow out and seemed to be super into her, only to totally ignore her once he received her rose at the ceremonia de rosas. But LacePants stops her at this moment and announces that this conversation will not go any further without Cleetus present so that he can defend himself.
Other Widow is like, “UH, NO?” But LacePants refuses to hear another word because she’s awful, and everyone calls this “weird” instead of what it actually is: straight-up bullmierda.
LacePants, meanwhile, runs straight to Cleetus, and tells him everything Other Widow said, and they laugh and laugh and twist their mustaches and laugh some more. As for everyone else, the men all agree that Cleetus is The Worst, but they realize that LacePants is just as much, if not more so, to blame for The Sorrowful Mistreatment of Tragic Other Widow and Lest We Forget, Single Mother. Tanner, for one, reveals that Cleetus showed him a text message from LacePants instructing him to do whatever it took to stay in Casa de Soltero until she could arrive; a fact that MAYBE HE SHOULD HAVE TOLD OTHER WIDOW BEFORE SHE GAVE CLEETUS HER ROSE.
Tanner tries (way too late) to “fix” the situation by going in to Cleetus’ room with Cousin Max to try to convince Cleetus to admit to everyone that he and LacePants had pre-show communications. Cousin Max whines that Cleetus lied to him when he asked if he had contact with LacePants before the show. But Cleetus fires back that Cousin Max asked him if he “met” LacePants before the show, not if he “talked” to her, Q.E.DUH, Cleetus never lied.
Meanwhile, LacePants herself is in the room the entire time and orders the men and the camera crew out because she is “changing her clothes.” And by “changing her clothes” she means “making sure Cleetus gets their story straight.” As soon as she thinks the cameras are no longer fixed on them — when they are, obviously — she furiously whispers to Cleetus that she just had an interview where she told them that they didn’t talk to each other before the show, and he needs to HOLD IT TOGETHER, DUMMY. QUIT LOOKING SO DEFENSIVE, YOU’RE GIVING THE GAME AWAY.
So, she’s a monster.
In non-Cleetus-related news, Dansome and Bloomin’ Onion are still broken up. This is sad for Bloomin’, but not so for Dansome, who is the target of the next new arrival, Amber from Farmer Teeth’s season, who wasn’t on long enough to earn a nickname, apparently. Amber comes marching in, swats away the other ladies’ invitation to “give her the 411,” i.e., mark their territory, and asks Dansome out. Before he accepts, though, he asks to speak to Bloomin’ privately, because he wants to be A Nice Guy.
There, Dansome tries to “clear the air” with Bloomin’ Onion, but Bloomin’ Onion is NOT HAVING IT, and why should she, he just dumped her the night before for reasons so vague as to be incomprehensible. (At least to her; we know it’s because SHE BE CRAZY.)
And so, that disastrous and pointless conversation out of the way, Dansome returns and accepts Amber’s date invitation. Their date involves going into Puerto Vallarta, climbing on public art (POR FAVOR, CONSIGA DEL ARTE PÚBLICO), being screamed at by locals to “¡BESAR! ¡BESAR! ¡BESAR!”, having dinner and making out on the street.
Meanwhile back at the beach, Bloomin’ consoles herself by communing with the parrots and letting them poop in her hands. Stay crazy, you beautiful pomegranate.
Oh! And hey, remember how Helmet Head and Unemployed had a date? Me neither! But they did, and the date involved them riding around on a jet ski, eating fruit and Unemployed talking about Helmet’s boobs while also saying things like, “I’m excited to be here with Helmet Head even though we are different intellectually…”
After afternoon of objectifying and insulting Helmet Head, Unemployed decides to wade into the whole Cleetus-LacePants mess because why not. 1. For once Unemployed isn’t the most hated person in the casa, and he’d like to keep it that way and 2. it’s not like there is Netflix or the cat videos on the internet to otherwise amuse him, just crabs, parrots and a drunk raccoon.
So, first Unemployed suggests to the other men that to make things right, Cleetus should give his rose to someone other than LacePants and to, and I quote, “recludes himself, you know, from the process” at which point he and LacePants can leave Casa de Soltero and live happily ever after. And while “reclude” is an actual word, that is not the word our friend Unemployed meant here. ~cough~ recuse ~cough~
And then, as soon as Cleetus joins Unemployed, Tanner and Cousin Max that evening, Unemployed asks Cleetus if he came here for only one person, and Cleetus replies, “No, I came here for LacePants.”
Cleetus then points out that Unemployed himself had to make a list of women he’d be interested in meeting on the show, so what’s the difference? Cleetus simply went out on one date with one lady, and it was lovely, but then he had a better date with a different lady. WHAT’S THE BIG DANG DEAL? But despite this not being a collection of the highest IQs in the world, the men are not that stupid, and are like, “OH COME ON, DUDE.”
Unemployed then tries to explain that Cleetus is using circular reasoning, but instead describes it as “circular references” before clearly completely losing his grip on the point he is trying to make and the next thing you know he’s burbling something incomprehensible about “straight edges” and how Cleetus needs to “solve the circular reference by taking out the circularity” and just, Dum-dum, just stop. Stop. Stop abusing the English language. Stop it. Please.
Anyway, the point is, Cleetus gets up and tries to leave but Unemployed goes and makes his best SCARY MEAN MAN FACE in Cleetus’ face for a hot second. And then Cleetus really does leave and then Unemployed threatens to knock his hillbilly teeth out before we cut to a dramatic TO BE CONTINUED card.
Bachelor in Paradise airs Sundays and Mondays at 7 p.m. on ABC. Saints and tequila preserve me.
This post originally appeared on the Hearst site Chron.com.