Bachelor In Paradise - Recap: Love Triangles and Square Pegs
Recap and review of Bachelor in Paradise Episode 2:
Last week's premiere was a strange premiere, in that it was utterly devoid of substance, but was also kind of fun and compelling, in a silly fashion. This is mostly because Bachelor In Paradise doesn't seem to have a pretentious attitude about itself. It's a silly show that realizes it's a silly show, and doesn't try and pretend it's the height of all romantic severity. That said, this episode seems intent on going really far in the opposite direction, illustrating this as a straight-up, campy drama that's almost impossible to take seriously. But I'm ALL IN on that sort of madness. So let's get to it!
A Putz for All Seasons
So we pick up on one of last week's cliffhangers, as Michelle K. quit the show for not having made a connection with anyone. However, as Chris Harrison reveals, this is because she'd already made a connection with someone: a crew member named Ryan Putz.
After viewing a brief video of Chris trying to get a word with Michelle K. in her hotel room, we see her allowing a producer in for a chat, with Chris listening in. The producer insists that Michelle needs to talk to Chris, saying that, "He's the guy." Michelle is less convinced, saying, "No, he's just a host," to Chris's bemusement. However, in the interview with the producer, she confirms the relationship with crew member Ryan. As it turns out, Michelle and Ryan had adjoining rooms in the hotel where the contestants were staying prior to, and following, their time in the Bachelor resort. They struck up a friendship while meeting out on their adjoining balcony, and one thing led to another...
What follows is one of the weirder segments in the history of the franchise, as we get a full-scale reenactment of a story from casting handler Lauren: while attempting to get Michelle to meet with the show psychiatrist after her elimination -- as everyone apparently must -- Lauren learns that Michelle isn't alone in her room. Michelle, who is naked under a towel, angrily sends her away. So Lauren wanders outdoors to just below the balcony...only to have someone fall out of the sky and onto the ground below. Apparently, Ryan got spooked by Lauren knocking on Michelle's door and, worried about losing his job, decided to leap to safety. Of course, why he decided to wait until minutes after Lauren was gone to decide to leap, instead of just crossing the balcony and going back to his own room, is beyond me. Regardless, he misjudges the height of the balcony, which is roughly 25 feet, and ends up seriously injuring himself. According to Lauren, he cops to the relationship immediately, and she's having a hard time not breaking down laughing when recalling how Ryan painfully cradled himself like he was about to give birth.
At the hospital, with both legs in a cast, Ryan admits to the affair again, as I wonder what's so bad about cast members finding love with crew members if it leads to gloriously silly-ass segments like this. The camera man has Ryan spell out his name, just to hammer home the "putz" gag, because this is a show gloriously devoid of subtlety.
Credit: ABC/Francisco Roman
A LOVE TRIANGLE WITH A SHRINKING HYPOTENUSE
So Robert remains irritated that Marcus gave Lacy a rose, but he's even more upset that Lacy seems to be all-in with Marcus after their long talk following his date with Claire last week. Robert sees the two kissing down by the beach, and feels it's a classless move. He compares it to getting mud thrown in his face, and he's so upset about it that he fakes throwing away the date card that comes for Marcus, which has me wondering if that's something you can actually do on this show. Lord knows, the producers would probably love it for sheer drama's sake, but that would open up a can of worms that couldn't be closed.
Naturally, Marcus chooses to take Lacy on the date, and her mission on the date is to get to know what happened to Marcus on The Bachelorette. Granted, there isn't much of a story there, as Marcus says that he fell hard for Andi, and that it was tough being cut. Lacy, for her part, can't really relate since she was eliminated in the very first episode of Juan Pablo's season. But she does state that she would have been upset if Marcus had not been cut from Andi's season, since they never would have met otherwise. They seem to hit it off so well to the point where this doesn't even feel like a love triangle anymore, as Robert has been shrinking as the hypotenuse of this triangle, to such an extent that this feels less like a triangle and more like two lines. Then again, I'm not good at math analogies anyway.
Marcus is confident he'll get a rose from Lacy, and I'll be absolutely dumbstruck if he's not right. As for Robert, he's worried that losing Lacy now means he has no one to give him a rose, which also means he's now a frontrunner to be eliminated. And all because Marcus came up first in the Rose Ceremony order last week. Crazy.
Credit: ABC
A NEW ARRIVAL AND SO MUCH KISSING, YOU GUYS
Chris B. from Emily Maynard's season of The Bachelorette arrives, and he's got a date card. Of course, everyone is a bit leery of his arrival due to his reputation not only as a womanizer, but as a bit of a self-absorbed jerk. However, Chris B. is dead set on changing that perception. So he asks out Claire, hoping she'll give him a fair shake. And, to her credit, Claire agrees, noting that if Chris is a jerk then she wants to find out for herself instead of having everyone just tell her what a bad guy he is.
And it works out for Claire, for the most part, as they go on a couples massage and really hit it off. Chris admits that he hasn't been the best guy, but says he wants to change how people view him, since his sisters have a lifelong love, his parents have it, and he wants it as well. As the date rolls on, Claire finds herself being sucked in by Chris's charm, nothing that he's saying all the right things (mostly about commitment and how he'd be a perfect, loyal boyfriend once he meets the right girl). However, it seems to be going a bit too well...which is why it's no real surprise when it all goes to hell due to Chris's inability to stay loyal to any one woman for more than a handful of hours.
But first, to explain: in one of the more amusing moments of the season so far, Elise gushes about her one-of-a-kind connection with Dylan, saying that they've been into each other since Day 1, and it's a connection that no one else on the island has. However, we then switch over to Dylan's perspective and learn that he can't stand all this attention from Elise, saying they've hardly been apart since getting here. Things get awkward when Dylan tries to explain that maybe they should try seeing other people -- you know, in order to test their connection. Naturally, why Dylan decides he's going to tick off the one woman who's into him on the week where the women are the ones handing out the roses is beyond me, since he doesn't seem to understand that if he wants the chance to meet other people, he needs to play the game in order to stick around. But, even while he's fairly diplomatic in putting Elise off, she still gets furious at him, and makes it her mission to get back at him.
So, that night, Elise goes into the ocean with Chris B. and has an insane makeout session. By which I mean, they just. don't. stop. SO much making out, you guys. And everyone in the resort sees it, including Claire, who feels this confirms what everyone has told her about Chris B., to her disappointment. Michelle Money gets too much pleasure out of this, ripping on the couple in the ocean, and on Dylan, who's gone to bed early. She says that because Dylan has only said maybe six words to her in all this time, she doesn't know his side of the story, she just knows what Elise has told her, which is that he wants her to meet other people. The next day, Dylan finds out about the kiss when Elise tries to come clean. Surprisingly, Dylan is actually kind of furious about it, saying that when he told her to get to know other people, he didn't mean "make out with the next guy that talks to you." Elise argues that she was just trying to get to know other people like Dylan said, but Dylan responds with the dead-on assessment that, no, she was just trying to get a rise out of him. Dylan blows her off, refusing to accept her apologies and telling her not to give him a rose at the Rose Ceremony. Elise, however, just takes this as confirmation that Dylan really does care about her, because apparently everyone here has to be slightly deluded.
Credit: ABC
DYLAN'S DATE, AND ANOTHER NEW ARRIVAL
It seems Elise chose the worst possible moment to upset Dylan, since he finally receives his first date card, and suddenly, Elise is off the table as a possibility for the date. However, his other options are shrinking due to his association with Elise: he asks Sarah only to have her ask for time to think about it due to her concern over how it might affect Elise, her best friend in the resort. Sarah asks Elise for her blessing, and while she's clearly very upset, she gives Sarah the okay to go out with Dylan. Of course, after Sarah and Dylan leave, Elise continues to complain about how the kiss with Chris B. didn't mean anything, and that Dylan is just afraid of the connection he's found with her. She implies that Dylan is frightened by how suddenly he can feel something for her, and that taking Sarah on the date is just a test. She says Dylan put her in a shark tank, and "the shark bit me."
The absolutely EXHAUSTING amount of screen time given to Elise complaining about Dylan is only lightly broken up by Dylan's actual date with Sarah. Turns out Dylan is hardly thinking about Elise at all, telling her that he asked her about because he sees something in her, besides the fact that she's gorgeous. He says it's like talking to his best friend, and he's really excited to get to know more about Sarah. For her part, Sarah seems more and more receptive to Dylan's advances as the date rolls on, meaning we could have another love triangle in the making.
Well, a third one if you count Chris B., Claire, and the show's newest arrival, Zack K. from Desiree's season. Claire knows him as they've hung out together in groups, which now makes him the second guy, after Robert, whom Claire knows outside the show. I know a lot of reality stars know each other from functions outside the show, but it hasn't even been five months since the end of Claire's season of The Bachelor! That's crazy!
Zack gets a date card, and so he asks Claire because of course he does, meaning this is Claire's third date since arriving in paradise. You'd think everyone would kind of hate her for it, but nobody seems to begrudge her all the dates she goes on, nor all the connections she makes with everybody. Sure, she starts off making a bit of a connection with Graham, before breaking it off when AshLee got offended. So she makes a connection with Robert and gets a rose from him (although she was his second choice), but never really follows up with him. Then she catches the beginnings of feelings for Chris B., but tosses that aside after the business with Elise. Now, Claire is giddy about Zack, convinced they could have something real together. And, to be fair, they do seem to hit it off. But I think it's telling that in a lot of Claire's interactions with men, we hardly get the man's side of things, so for all we know, all of Claire's connections could be one-sided. Or, at the very least, not as passionate as Claire's side of it is. Speaking of Claire, now that Chris B. has lost Claire's respect, he's making it his mission to win Elise over and get Dylan out of the game, comparing him to a fat Matt Damon.
"I kissed Fat Damon's girl, and now he needs to go Good Will Hunting for someone else," he says. And now I can see why nobody seems to like the guy.
THE PURLOINED LETTER
So Marcus spills water over Ben's bag and inadvertently discovers a letter written to Ben from a possible girlfriend. Marcus and Marquel take him aside, and Ben confirms that the letter is true. He met someone back home in Dallas before coming out, and things quickly escalated from there. Now, I'm not saying Ben is right to be wasting everyone's time by coming out here when he already has someone back at home, but how is Marcus getting off so easy here? I could understand the explanation of accidentally spilling water on the letter, but where does he get off actually reading the thing? That's a massive invasion of another person's privacy. Yes, Ben is in the wrong here, but so is Marcus for going through another person's things.
Anyway, despite taking Ben aside in private, Marcus and Marquel inevitably end up blowing up Ben's spot anyway, as everyone finds out about the secret girlfriend and confront Ben in the tiki lounge. Michelle Money, in particular, loses it. She's reduced to tears as she accuses Ben of being here for the wrong reasons, and says she left her son to be here -- which I kind of feel reflects worse on her than it does on Ben. Well, actually, it reflects badly on Ben too, since he left his son back home too in addition to a secret girlfriend. He decides to leave, since it's obvious he isn't going to get a rose now. And besides, he says, "My heart is back in Dallas." So with Ben now gone, Chris Harrison reflects that we now had two people who were here without the right intentions, which -- again -- seems to reflect worse on the accusers than on the accused, as Bachelor In Paradise really never comes across, even for a second, as a show about finding love, and it's kind of silly to pretend that it is.
BEN quits BACHELOR IN PARADISE!
Credit: ABC
SENDING MIXED SIGNALS
Everything goes to Hell before the Rose Ceremony, as some of the guys seem intent on talking themselves out of a rose at the eleventh hour. Marquel accuses Michelle Money of drinking too much, while Dylan tells Elise that he sees what they have as more of a friendship. He tells her not to hold back with anyone on his account, saying it seems as though Chris B. really likes her. For his part, Chris B. seems to be working hard to get that rose from Elise, but she's not as receptive as he thinks, since she's still hung up on Dylan.
The amount of denial Elise goes through is actually kind of staggering, as Dylan tells her, point blank, that if she offers him a rose, he won't accept it. She says Dylan is "sending mixed signals," since she's convinced he still cares about her and that they have something real. Elise says that what she has with Dylan is something she's dreamed about since she was a little girl. Really? You've been dreaming about going on an island to meet a dude on a reality show? Did they even have non-Real World reality shows when you were a little girl?
That said, it's not the worst place to meet a husband when you consider sites like AshleyMadison.com exist.
WILL YOU ACCEPT THIS ROSE?
So we get to the Rose Ceremony, and it goes pretty much as expected, with Zack getting a rose from Claire, Graham getting a rose from AshLee, Marquel getting a rose from Michelle Money, and Marcus getting a rose from Lacy. But things spiral out of control when Elise's turn comes up.
Despite Dylan's warnings, she decides to offer him a rose anyway. And, true to his word, Dylan says he can't accept the rose. So, for some reason, Elise decides to give a speech addressing all of the other contestants, scored to silly background music. She explains that every romance has its ups and downs, and that no romance is perfect. However, she says that a woman deserves a man who will stand up for her and fight for her. So...she offers her rose to Chris B., which prompts everyone to wonder what the point of her speech was. But it's quickly forgotten, as Sarah is the deciding rose, and chooses to spare her pal Elise anymore opportunities to embarrass herself by giving the rose to Robert and eliminating Dylan altogether.
DYLAN is eliminated from BACHELOR IN PARADISE!
As he leaves, he notes that he never saw a future with Elise, and actually thinks she's out of her mind, which is more than I expected him to say about her. He's disappointed that she robbed him of the chance to get to know anyone by smothering him since day one. Hey now, she can't smother you if you don't let her, dude. That said, if everyone else was avoiding getting to know you because they all thought of you as "Elise's Guy," then yeah, that's messed up. But them's the breaks on a reality competition that may/may not actually be a competition.
So what did you think of tonight's show? The eliminations, the drama, Elise's reaction to EVERYTHING? Sound off in the comments!