‘Bachelor in Paradise’: Gotta know when to hold ’em

by Therese Odell, posted in bachelor in paradise: season 10

Bachelor in Paradise
August 4, 2025

1 Hour to Ceremony

As we head into the next rose ceremony, our Golden ladies are tense: there are six of them, but only three roses available — unless one of the Original Flavor men does something surprising. (They aren’t going to do anything surprising.)

Party Gary — who calls himself “Big G” now — is something of a hot commodity, between both Prince Groupie, Hearing Aid, and Laughing Queen all hoping for his rose.

God bless the editors.

Elsewhere, Captain Kim and Biker Chick are getting to know each other, now that he’s back from the hospital; and The One and Julia Roberts hash out their bullshit some more.

Time to line up for las rosas, mis tontos:

Too Much: PowerPoint
Accent Guy: Llama Drama
Overcompensating: Selfie
Golden Retriever: Starla
The One: Julia Roberts
Big Check: Christina Aguilera
Cheeky Mummy: Frodo
Clark Griswold: Regina George
Captain Kim: Biker Chick
Party Gary: Prince Groupie

Which means we must say goodbye to three lovely Golden ladies: Chicken Dance, Laughing Queen, and Hearing Aid:

Chicken Dance = April
Laughing Queen = Natascha
Hearing Aid = Nancy

After the women say their goodbyes, Jesse Palmer drops a bomb on the remaining contestants: from here on out, there will be no more new arrivals. Instead, the couples who remain will be put through challenges designed to test their relationships. The winner of each challenge will win a special date, but, perhaps more importantly, they will decide who among the bottom three couples will remain in Paradise.

Oh, and the winning couple at the end? Will go home with half a million dollars.

Everyone:

Jesse Palmer then instructs everyone to go to bed and get a good night’s sleep: more questions will be answered in the morning. LOL, OK, GOOD LUCK WITH THAT.

Day 11 of Paradise

The next morning, our couples frantically try to get to know each other better over breakfast, believing, not entirely incorrectly, that they will be quizzed on facts about the other, like their favorite food, or where they are from, or their middle names, or their FAVORITE COLOR, TOO MUCH.

Eventually, All-4-Wells shows up and hands out boxes to each of the couples, with a note from Jesse Palmer urging them to get ready for their relationship test, that he will meet them there, they can BET on it. And inside the boxes: giant poker chips.

Jesse Palmer then meets the couples at a big table, explaining that they are going to play something called “High, Low; What Do You Know?” Each couple has some poker chips, as we’ve established. They will each be asked a question about their partner that has a numerical answer — for instance, “how many kids do you want to have?” — and they will have to decide if their partner’s real answer is higher or lower than the number Jesse Palmer gives them, placing their bet with the poker chips.

The winning couple will receive a date, and the woman in the couple will determine which bottom-ranking couple will not receive a rose at tomorrow’s Rose Ceremony.

After a series of questions like “How many unread text messages does Selfie have on her phone? 850?” and “How much is PowerPoint willing to spend on a wedding? $56,000?” and “How many times has The One had sex in a single day? 4?” and “How many cosmetic surgeries has Regina George had? 5?” and “What is PowerPoint’s body count? 12?” …

(Interesting that it’s a female contestant whose ‘body count’ is dragged out on national television.)

… three couples end up tied with 18 points: Overcompensating and Selfie; The One and Julia Roberts; and Party Gary and Prince Groupie.

On the bottom are: Too Much and PowerPoint with 2; Captain Kim and Biker Chick with 9; and tied at 10 are Clark Griswold and Regina George, and Big Check and Christina Aguilera. THIS IS IMPORTANT, I SWEAR.

Ok, so Overcompensating comes up for his final question: “What is the most money Selfie has spent on a partner? $350?” Overcompensating bets all 18 chips on More … and is correct.

This leaves the other two teams previously tied with Overcompensating and Bailey exactly two options:

1. Bet it all and hope to tie Overcompensating and Selfie; the downside being that they could lose it all and find themselves in the bottom.

2. Play it safe, maybe bet one chip, and know that they won’t be eliminated.

The One plays it safe and bets only one chip on the question: “How much does Julia Roberts expect you to spend on her birthday? $350?” He goes with lower and is correct. In fact, somehow these two dummies who don’t seem to like each other very much managed to get every question right.

Then it’s Party Gary’s turn.

Again, there are two choices before him: the only way to beat Overcompensating and Selfie is to tie them and hope there’s a tiebreaker. So you do that or you play it safe and bet one chip and guarantee that you don’t drop to the bottom? Because that’s how math works, right? RIGHT, PARTY GARY?

Party Gary does not know how math works.

Because there is a third way, in which one could bet a number of chips that would give one absolutely no benefit if one won, but would be the exact amount that if one should lose, would place one in the bottom three and up for elimination. That number is 9. If one is right, one wins 27 chips and comes in second place; if one is wrong, one loses 9 chips and left with 9 chips, placing one at the bottom of the leaderboard.

Guess what Party Gary does.

When asked, “How often should couples have sex each week? 5?” Big G places exactly 9 chips on “More” and promptly loses those 9 chips and their place safe from elimination.

So. This means Party Gary and Prince Groupie; Captain Kim and Biker Chick; and Too Much and PowerPoint are all up for elimination, and it’s all in Selfie’s (and Overcompensating’s) hands.

Oh good.

That night, the bottom three couples are STRESSING, while everyone else makes out in the pool. Everyone but Cheeky Mummy and Frodo, who make fun of the others, and pat themselves for doing as well as they did on the challenge. Frodo adds that she’s enjoying getting to know Cheeky Mummy as a friend before becoming romantically attached. Tell yourself what you need to, Mama!

As for Overcompensating and Selfie’s date, they have dinner and toast each other for being Bachelor in Paradise‘s first-ever challenge winners. Selfie at some point brings up one of the questions being about how much she would expect to spend on an engagement ring, winking that it’s a question for later.

Oh honey, it’s a question for never. This man is never going to propose to you, and if, for some reason, the universe should fold in upon itself and he decides to propose to you, the only answer is “OH HELL, NO.”

But he’s out here being sweet and telling her how happy he is to go on this date and not telling her about BEGGING HANNAH BROWN, JR. TO COME BACK TO THE SHOW and how HE WOULD PROPOSE TO HANNAH BROWN, JR. GIVEN THE CHANCE, and I just …

But just to make sure we hate him, just to put the final nail in his own coffin as far as the audience is concerned, Overcompensating then tells Selfie that it’s “nice to be away from everything,” before adding, “I don’t like the Goldens …”

“… they’re annoying.”

SEND THIS MAN HOME IMMEDIATELY.

Instead, Selfie and Overcompensating chew on each other’s faces while some store-bought fireworks go off nearby, and Selfie talks about what a good partner she has in and how they are on “the same page.”

Not that the men back at Paradise are much better, because why is Too Much telling PowerPoint that she’s doing “too much” and by “too much” he means “being nice to [him]” and “complementing [him]” and “giving [him] reassurance.”

Day 12 of Paradise

The next day is just basically, “Everyone Stress Out Until the Rose Ceremony” time. Captain Kim and Biker Chick connect; Party Gary and Prince Groupie play on the beach; and Overcompensating discusses his and Selfie’s elimination strategy with the other men, even though technically he doesn’t get a say.

At one point, Too Much joins this conversation, and Overcompensating plays up how he’s sending Too Much home, reminding him that Too Much tried to steal his whole opening night gimmick on The Bachelorette with the Corvette and the whatnot. Too Much, who knows exactly what a shithead this man is being to Selfie, is not amused.

Jesse Palmer arrives, and reminds everyone that Selfie — NOT OVERCOMPENSATING — will decide who goes home tonight at the Rose Ceremony, and encourages everyone to have “important conversations,” i.e., beg Selfie to keep them in Paradise.

Too Much leans into this, exaggeratedly handing Overcompensating and Selfie glasses of champagne. Between joking around with them, and having a conversation with Julia Roberts about what fillers she uses*, PowerPoint begins pouting that Too Much is ignoring her and stomps off in a huff.

*And I know this isn’t the point of this interaction, but Julia Roberts is 28 years old and gorgeous and does not need fillers and I find it gross and sad that she and other young women have been made to feel like they do, it’s a shameful indictment of our beauty standards and culture as a whole.

Speaking of Julia Roberts, she’s chatting with Cheeky Mummy about Frodo, where he reveals he doesn’t have romantic feelings for her. Julia Roberts is like, “WAIT, DOES FRODO KNOW THAT?” Cheeky Mummy shrugs that he assumes so.

Frodo does not know this.

And look — anyone who has been watching this mess who has a shred of emotional intelligence would be able to tell that Cheeky Mummy wasn’t into Frodo, just like he wasn’t into Death Threat or Llama Drama. The only person he has expressed ANY interest in at all has been Julia Roberts, but no one seems to want to talk about that for some reason.

So Julia Roberts takes it upon herself to tattle to Frodo, who is like:

Frodo drags Cheeky Mummy off to the side to ask him if, in fact, she is in the Friend Zone, and he’s like, “I mean … yeah? But I don’t want to say it’ll never happen …” Frodo demands that he give her a “yes” or “no” immediately, and he’s like, “no …?”

“THAT’S FINE,” Frodo snaps before stomping off.

And then after boring, repetitive conversations between Overcompensating and Selfie and the three bottom couples, it’s time for the Rose Ceremony:

Selfie: Overcompensating
Llama Drama: Accent Guy
Regina George: Clark Griswold
Christina Aguilera: Big Check
Julia Roberts: The One
Starla: Golden Retriever
Frodo: Cheeky Mummy, to whom she gives the rose with a savage, “YOU’RE WELCOME.”

Jesse Palmer invites Selfie to join him to hand out the last two roses. First:

Biker Chick: Captain Kim

Selfie then calls Prince Groupie forward … just to tell her she’s sending her home. And this means Party Gary, and his sweet, should-be-Golden-Bachelor, math-addled ass is going with her.

Which means the final rose goes to:

PowerPoint: Too Much

Great.

Bachelor in Paradise airs Mondays on ABC at 7/8 p.m. and streams on Hulu.

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