Bachelor in Paradise
August 2, 2016
Now that Bachelor Ben has “found love” with some stewardess, whatever her name was, Lori? Lulu? Loni? Who cares? and Jojo the Unicorn is “engaged” to some NFL player’s less talented younger brother, it’s time to throw a decontamination tent over the Bachelor McMansion and take the rejects down to Mexico to get drunk and exchange bodily fluids.
Three hours a week of this, you guys. And that’s not counting a fourth hour of “After Paradise” nonsense that I am definitely not watching. You can’t make me.
For the third season of the series that truly makes me worry our country is facing end times, we are back at the Playa Escondida hotel with Chris Harrison and Jorge the Bartender who can’t even try to take this crap seriously anymore, so why should we? Line up the rejects:
Emily and Haley, a.k.a. “The Twins,” who the Producers still can’t tell apart, which they drive home by having the Twins mindlessly burble on and on about how different they are, while prancing around in matching outfits and finishing each other’s thoughts. I mean, “thoughts.”
Nick Viall, whom I nicknamed “Wesley Snipes” during Andi’s season for his resemblance to Michael Sheen’s irritating 30 Rock character. After slut-shaming Andi when she dumped him in favor of muscle-necked jock Josh Murray, Nick barged his way onto Kaitlyn’s Bachelorette season, made the sex with her long before the making-the-sex-acceptable fantasy suites portion of the show, and then acted like a big baby when she dumped him in favor of muscle-necked Sean Booth. To Nick’s credit, he recognizes that some people consider him a “villain” for some of these antics, and hopes that he doesn’t end up a runner-up on Bachelor in Paradise. Aw, Nick, if anyone could pull it off, it’d be you, big guy.
Jubilee Sharpe, a.k.a. “G.I. Jane” on account of being a military badass who could break you over her knee if she wanted. After being on Bachelor Ben’s season, G.I. Jane realized she has a resting bitch face, vows to smile more.
Evan Bass, a.k.a. “Boner” for his job at an erectile dysfunction clinic. Yes, it’s a childish nickname, but in my defense, G.I. Jane herself calls him “The Penis Guy” upon his arrival in Paradise, so. Boner is so excited to come to Paradise and meet some nice girls and not be subjected to his arch-nemesis and shirt bully, The Chad! Oh, poor, sweet, delusional Boner. Have you never seen a reality show before, Honey?
Chad Johnson, a.k.a. “Chad the Villain” a.k.a. “The Chad.” The Chad was the protein-chowing, shirt-ripping, truth-telling, milk-loving, ‘roid-raging super-villain on the most recent season of The Bachelorette and pretty much the only reason to even have a Bachelor in Paradise, Boner. In fact, he might be the greatest villain of any Bachelor or Bachelorette season ever. He has a tiny purse dog named “Pumpkin’.”
Lace Morris, whom I nicknamed “The Girl You Wish You Hadn’t Started a Conversation With at a Party” for both her physical and spiritual resemblance to Cecily Strong’s Saturday Night Live‘s drunken, unintelligible character. Despite promising to “work on [herself]” after being a drunk crazypants on Ben’s season, Lace is still hitting the sauce. HARD.
Daniel Maguire, a.k.a. “Lucifer” for his resemblance to the Fox series anti-hero, but whom I now declare to be called “Dooficer” for being a big dumb Canadian doofus. He helpfully explains that the show, “can’t get rid of me, I’m like a disease that just won’t go away, you know, like Herpes or something.” Noted.
Amanda Stanton, whom I called “Token Single Mom” for the fact that she was the token single mom on Bachelor Ben’s season. She will also be the token single mom this season of Bachelor in Paradise because it is the entire reason she’s here.
Vinny Ventiera, a.k.a. “Toasted” because he got so so so so so drunk his first night at the Bachelor McMansion, and we learned literally nothing else about him for the remainder of the season — even though he hung around for a surprisingly long time.
Grant Kemp, a.k.a. “Fireman Grant,” for reasons that seem fairly self-evident.
Sarah Herron, a.k.a. “Buster,” rather cruelly in reference to the Arrested Development character. Sarah was on Dallas Sean’s season and the very first season of Bachelor in Paradise and she apparently just never learns.
Carly Waddell, a.k.a. “Little Miss Glitter Girl 2003,” because she came off super-pageanty at the beginning of Farmer Teeth’s season. It turns out she’s not pageanty at all but instead funny and smart — this despite the fact that this is the second time she’s decided to subject herself to this particular brand of nonsense. Last year on Bachelor in Paradise, Carly fell in love with some guy named Kirk only to be dumped at the last minute when he realized that the show was coming to an end and he didn’t actually have any intention of dating a fellow reality contestant outside the confines of a show.
Isabel “Izzy” Goodkind, a.k.a. “Onesie” because she inadvisably showed up on the first night of Ben’s Bachelor season wearing a onesie — and was promptly eliminated as a result. No one knows anything about this mystery person.
Jared Haibon, a.k.a. “Cousin Max” because he looks like my Cousin Max. After being dumped by Kaitlyn, Cousin Max headed off to Bachelor in Paradise where he became an inexplicably hot commodity. I mean, he’s cute and all, and he seems like a nice guy, but women were losing their DAMN MINDS over him and I just never understood.
The rejects arrive one-by-one (or in the case of the Twins, in a pair), and in between checking each other out, they fret about The Chad being a part of the cast, which they all seem to accept with varying degrees of concern and excitement. The lady rejects, in particular, decide that The Chad can’t be all that bad, while the male rejects who were actually his roommates gaze off into the distance with the 2000 yard stare of men who have seen some shit.
And sure enough, The Chad arrives and makes his first order of business to apologize to Boner for tearing his shirt and other acts of assholery during their time together. It’s a whole new The Chad! He’s turned over a new leaf and is going to be a great guy, I can feel it! But then moments later, The Chad is bragging that he didn’t murder Boner, that he didn’t “rip his head off and shove it down his throat,” for which he seems to want to be praised. The more things change, yadda yadda yadda…
As for The Chad’s Bachelorette BFF and protein pal, Dooficer, upon arriving at Paradise, he describes the women as “washed-up stray dogs” and announces he’d have to be “white girl wasted” to hook up with them. Good luck with that attitude, Dummy!
Chris Harrison calls all of the rejects inside where he explains the “rules” such as they are: The men and women will take turns initiating dates and handing out roses. This week, the Female Rejects will have the date cards, the Male Rejects will be handing out the roses, and then one of the women will be going home. Additionally, if one twin stays, they both stay. And with that, the Male and Female Rejects split off to their respective cabanas to ignore one another until the date card arrives.
While they wait, Boner roots through The Chad’s luggage where he discovers The Chad has brought a meat scale:
And The Chad gets into a fist fight with a refrigerator:
G.I. Jane receives the first date card, and wastes no time inviting Cousin Max to come with her. Their very very boring date involves them talking about Lord of the Rings while surrounded by piñatas because Mexico, and being terrorized by a clown, because … Mexico?
But it’s back in “Paradise” where the actual action is taking place. Toasted and Onesie immediately bond over being the biggest nobodies on the cast and are chewing on each other’s faces in no time.
Meanwhile, Fireman Grant tries to chat up The Girl You Wish You Hadn’t Started a Conversation With at a Party only to have her immediately begin yelling at him that HE’S NOT ASKING ANY QUESTIONS ABOUT HER. Fireman Grant asks her to tell him something about herself that her friends don’t know, and she complains that THAT QUESTION IS TOO BROAD.
And that’s when The Girl You Wish You Hadn’t Started a Conversation With at a Party moves on to crazier pastures: The Chad.
While everyone around them watches in an equal combination of horror and fascination, The Girl You Wish You Hadn’t Started a Conversation With at a Party and The Chad begin circling each other. Both extremely drunk, horny and volatile, the two worst people in “Paradise” begin alternating between humping each other in the hot tub and slapping one another across the face — sometimes doing both at once. Toasted is not wrong when he describes them as a category 5 hurricane, adding that he hopes to make it out alive. It’s not a sure thing, Toasted. You need to find shelter, Toasted.
Things that happen during the whirlwind romance of The Chad and The Girl You Wish You Hadn’t Started a Conversation With at a Party:
- The Chad repeatedly says, “DOLLAH DOLLAH BILLS Y’ALL” for no discernible reason
- The Chad declares that, “I GOT MONEY, BITCH. I GOT MUSCLES, I GOT MONEY”
- The Girl You Wish You Hadn’t Started a Conversation With at a Party calls The Chad a “poopy,” which translated from the original Drunk means, “puppy”
- Wesley Snipes describes the whole mess as “rat sex”
- The Chad calls The Girl You Wish You Hadn’t Started a Conversation With at a Party a “bitch” literally too many times to count
- The Chad announces that his sunglasses cost $200
- The Chad threatens to “throw [The Girl You Wish You Hadn’t Started a Conversation With at a Party] under a bus,” “hold [her] down with duct tape,” and “tie [her] up and make her smell like peppermints” which, if nothing else, might go down as one of the most creative threats ever made.
And, in fact, the threat of being made to “smell like peppermints”is a BRIDGE TOO FAR for The Girl You Wish You Hadn’t Started a Conversation With at a Party, who storms away from The Chad, done with him once and for all.
Even Dooficer, half-wit that he is, is able to realize that The Chad has done fucked up and he tries to convince his friend that maybe he should just go to bed now and stop calling women “bitches” and threatening them with duct tape. In response, The Chad threatens to kill Dooficer’s family and unborn children.
The Chad then stumbles his way over to where the rest of the group are cowering in fear, and Buster, summoning all of her bravery, tells The Chad that he’s being a drunk abusive jerk and he doesn’t deserve to be someone handing out roses that week. In response, The Chad encourages Buster to “keep sucking that fame dick.”
“DOLLAH DOLLAH BILLS!” The Chad then mumbles triumphantly.
When Doocifer again tries to talk some sense into his friend, The Chad wonders when Doocifer became so “unmurdery.” This leads to Doocifer correctly pointing out that The Chad now has 0% chance of hooking up with anyone that night, that he has “a better chance with a turtle than a girl,” so The Chad threatens to beat him up before collapsing in the sand to snore it off with the crabs.
The next morning, The Chad wakes up in a bed, mystified that he is naked. But Wesley Snipes is there to reassure us that The Chad isn’t pantless because he managed to have sex with anyone: he’s pantless because he shat himself in his drunken stupor. The Chad finds pants and joins the rest of the cast at the bar, who are sullen and tired and wary, so The Chad begins complaining that he’s offended that they’re so offended by his offensive behavior.
It’s at this point that Chris Harrison calls everyone in for a town hall, explaining that he heard that things “got out of hand” the previous night, before asking The Chad what the Hell happened. But The Chad being The Chad doesn’t just say: “Look, after being villainized on The Bachelorette, I was dealing with some self-doubt and anxiety about being on this series, so I self-medicated and overdid it. I am sorry for the hurtful things I said, and I apologize for my boorish behavior in general. I will drink less and really make an effort to be a good Paradise citizen from here on out.” The Chad does not do that. Instead, The Chad claims that everyone else is too concerned with making themselves out to look “good,” and that The Girl You Wish You Hadn’t Started a Conversation With at a Party didn’t really mind repeatedly being called a bitch or threatened to be thrown under a train.
Buster, having had perfectly enough, threatens that if The Chad doesn’t leave, she will, to which The Chad replies, “Pizzle in your brizzle…”
Chris Harrison warns The Chad that this is not the time to be glib, but since The Chad doesn’t even know what the word “glib” means, he’s baffled when Chris Harrison asks him to gather his meat scale, protein powder, cold cuts and take his leave.
But instead of saving whatever shreds of his dignity might be left and leaving without another word, The Chad instead begins ranting that 1. this is just because The Girl You Wish You Hadn’t Started a Conversation With at a Party was mad that he spoke to other women, 2. that no one even wants Buster there, 3. that there are too many crabs before literally yelling, “FUCK YOU, CRAB!” The Chad then stomps off set, smashing his $200 sunglasses along the way.
R.I.P. $200 sunglasses.
But The Chad still is not done! He then begins to yell at Chris Harrison that Chris Harrison doesn’t even watch this show, that he “went to sleep with a mimosa in [his] hand and a robe on,” whatever that’s supposed to mean, before lamenting that he’ll never be The Bachelor now.
And with that, we’re left with the threat promise that this is TO BE CONTINUED, because Hurricane Chad is not quite done with Mexico just yet.
Bachelor in Paradise is my deep secret shame and I will never not love it. It airs on ABC on Monday and Tuesday nights at 7/8 p.m.
It is my deep secret shame now too. And it is thanks to your Tubular recaps I even started watching. Which is also the case for a few other shameful shows! I think I will like your recaps even more now that you are allowed a swear word or two.
Beth in Poland
Thanks for the head’s up on the Tubular page. You’re the only reason I ever bounced by there so I am happy to come here for my TO blog fix. Hmm.. the truth may be that you’re the only reason I watch the Bachelor franchise shows. Love your literary style gurl!