Is it still summer where you are? I think winter is coming on “Bachelor in Paradise Canada.”
There was a melancholy, elegiac feel to Sunday’s episode, the second last of the season — maybe even the show as a whole?
Couples were breaking up, people were leaving. Part of the impetus for Paradise falling apart, to use Lisa’s words, was the arrival of two new women: fan contestants Marilyn Smith and Krissy Kennedy, 20-somethings from Toronto and Vancouver respectively.
It is laughable, of course, to believe that anyone arriving at this stage of the game stands a chance in hell of finding “love,” let alone any kind of viable connection. The point is to stir shit up, because god forbid we have an episode where we just watch people who are into each other making out and hanging with their friends.
So Marilyn and Krissy arrived with date cards in hand and a bit of attitude — Krissy: “I am a part-time student and a full-time bad bitch.” OK, yawn — and quickly asked Connor and Matia to go on dates with them.
There were two narratives at play here: one, that despite Lisa finally being all in on Connor, he would ditch her for Marilyn; two, that Matia would lean fully into his f-boy reputation and dump Celine for Krissy, despite having just spent the night in the boom boom room with the former.
The first was ridiculous. Look, I’m not going to pretend I know what was going through Connor’s mind. Yes, Marilyn seemed like a nice enough woman and I imagine going jet-skiing together would be fun, which is the underwhelming adjective that Connor kept using to describe Marilyn. But the whole “I want to get to know her a little bit more” plot line reeked of producer manipulation.
Maybe Connor did kiss Marilyn (repeatedly according to her) because he was subconsciously trying to push Lisa away and avoid getting hurt, but Marilyn never seemed like a genuine threat to his relationship with Lisa.
That impression was sealed during a conversation between Connor and Marilyn that was singularly lacking in chemistry and depth. In between the awkward pauses, Marilyn told Connor she had come to the beach hoping to find love, but she had never had a relationship, apparently because no one she had dated had met her high bar.
Connor said that was a red flag. Ya think?
So Connor went back to Lisa, telling her of Marilyn, “That ain’t it.” Tell us something we didn’t already know.
We can, however, perhaps finally bury once and for all the bad rap against Connor’s kissing skills laid on him by Bachelorette Katie Thurston. “Connor is a good kisser,” Marilyn said. And yes, it’s been said before, including by an audience plant at a “Men Tell All,” but a Canadian wouldn’t lie about it, would they?
As for Matia and Krissy, it seemed initially that all the progress made raising Matia in our estimation through his relationship with Celine was about to come undone.
Not to put too fine a point on it, the dude seemed to be thinking with his little Matia.
The buxom Krissy was Matia’s type physically, “probably the best looking girl I’ve seen here,” and he told Krissy he’d formed “no real connection” in Paradise, which surely would have come as news to Celine the day after they slept together.
Matia reasoned in his in-the-moment interview that despite his “great connection” with Celine, “I do feel it’s something just in Paradise because I feel like I know as soon as I’m out in the real world that’s gonna be super challenging to keep that going.”
So Matia proceeded to form a deep, tongue-first connection with Krissy’s lips.
Personally, I think Matia should have interpreted his overturning the jet ski and dumping himself and Krissy into the cold lake as an omen, but instead he confessed to Celine that he had kissed Krissy and would “like to take another day just to see if there’s actually something there and if there was then I just wouldn’t waste your time.”
Whether that was Matia’s genuine wish or what production wanted him to say, talk about a slap in the face to Celine!
“I feel like I’ve just been put through so much here and it’s just like I’m at my wit’s end,” said Celine. “I just don’t know how much more I can give to anybody here. I don’t want to wake up tomorrow again and just do this all over. I don’t have it in me anymore.”
That should have been the point where Matia tried to convince Celine to stay but, instead, when she asked him if he had anything else to say, he replied, “No, there’s nothing I want to say right now.”
So Celine left and Matia was free to suck more face with Krissy. And look, I know these episodes are edited like crazy and people might be playing roles as opposed to being themselves, but Krissy’s gloating after Celine left rubbed me the wrong way.
She couldn’t even get Celine’s name right in her ITMs, calling her Seeley and Shanae, and really Matia, this is your pick?
Anyway, Celine’s departure played a role in the brewing drama between Sam and Cole.
It started earlier with Sam urging Cole to go talk to Krissy, even though that wasn’t what she really wanted.
Cole ITMed that Sam was feeling pressure “to be the girl she thinks I want or something” and “at this point with Sam everything we do just feels like an act,” whereas Sam lamented, “Why can’t he just be obsessed with me?”
Still, things seemed normal as Cole comforted a crying Sam after Celine’s departure. And then Sam let slip an “I love you,” which stopped Cole cold as he leaned in for a kiss. But Sam quickly course-corrected that she “never meant that” and they finished the kiss. In his ITM, however, Cole said Sam’s outburst “seemed almost manipulative to me and that should speak to the toxicity of the situation.”
Yikes.
When Sam once again tried to minimize the “dumb” thing she said to Cole, the conversation turned to her reaction to Cole flirting with other people and Cole being annoyed with her saying things she didn’t mean. And it got heated.
“You don’t get to tell me, though, that you’re OK with something and then actually in reality behind the scenes you’re not OK with it. That’s not fair,” Cole said, his voice rising.
“I’ve given you the freedom to, at every turn, without any complaints, to kiss whoever you want, do whatever you want to do. At every turn you’ve kissed whoever you want, Jake, Joey, body shots, whatever, I have never complained or said a thing about it . . . but every time I look or talk or touch another human being you freak the fuck out. How is that fair?”
Sam protested that she had never been upset, but Cole countered that she had and she had punished him. And Sam stopped trying to argue and Cole walked away.
It seems obvious that Cole was cool with Sam being with other guys because he’s just not that into her, which has been apparent almost from the beginning of their coupling up, whereas Sam has been very much into Cole. So when Cole said it was a one-way street, he was right, though perhaps not in the way he meant: Sam seemed to really care about him; he seemed to just be killing time.
Cole said in his ITM, “I’m not proud of myself for the way I raised my voice or voiced those feelings, but they’ve been there for a while, they’ve been bubbling below the surface and I felt really trapped by her for a while now. I’m just, I’m done.”
And he was, although he waited until the next day to leave, first apologizing to Sam for not giving her “everything that you wanted or needed.” He had the cheek to ask for one last kiss before walking off the beach, though. Sam gave it to him, of course.
It’s not that things were all doom and breakups at the Christie’s Mill Inn and Spa.
Garrett and Meagan, for instance, went on a yoga date and apparently something about Meagan teaching Garrett yoga helped them understand each other better? I don’t know.
Tessa and Joey became the first couple to lob a fully formed L-bomb — or a mutual one, anyway, leaving aside Sam’s dud. They exchanged “I love you’s” and Joey said in his ITM he never had anyone understand him “to the depths that Tessa does.” Even Austin and Chelsea, the dad and mom of the beach, haven’t gotten past the “falling in” stage yet. Go figure.
And Connor and Lisa had a special “date” in which she shared her love of painting with him and he shared his love of music via portable keyboard and sang a song, the chorus of which was “I believe it’s what you say, not the time you take to say it.”
Do I expect to be humming it in the days ahead? No, but it was kind of sweet, and I have been a Connor and Lisa shipper since the beginning.
But we’re not done with Matia yet. Turns out Celine left him a note, which Matia took to a deserted dock (well, except for the camera person) to read. It looked like it was in Celine’s actual handwriting, although the cynic in me is tempted to think this was all part of a grander production plan. You know, give Matia a heel turn by having him turn his back on Celine and then voila! A letter convinces him to do the right thing. Redemption all around.
Mind you, Matia seemed genuinely emotional after reading the note, which said in part, “Thank you for allowing me to get to know the true you. Thank you for all the laughs. You always made me feel special in every way you knew how.”
Is it any wonder that Matia decided he made a mistake throwing Celine over for Krissy? Like, duh.
He FaceTimed Celine, apparently while she was in Edmonton to catch a connecting flight to Calgary. There were tears on both sides as Matia told Celine he had underestimated their connection, he was sorry and he’d like to stay in touch outside Paradise.
“A lot of people say I’m very closed off, but I think at the end of the day it really just takes the right girl and I think Celine was that girl,” said Matia. Also, “I realize it’s not always about looks.”
Speaking of looks, Matia broke the news to Krissy that he was still into Celine and he was leaving, although Krissy chose to interpret his departure as having nothing to do with any feelings for Celine because, you know, having known Matia for about 24 hours she was clearly the expert.
“I think Matia is ending things because he doesn’t want to come off as like the fuck boy of the season,” she said. Then she added, “Matia doesn’t have much more going for him than his looks” and “Matia is more boring than a sack of hammers. Goodbye. Get me out of here.”
With pleasure, Krissy. Buh bye.
And then, just as Matia took his leave of all his Paradise pals, saying, “I gotta go get Celine,” a brunette walked over to the group in a red dress or romper, and people squealed. Lisa called it “the biggest shock of Paradise” in her ITM. Given that Matia started to wipe his eyes after seeing the mystery woman, I’d bet you dollars to doughnuts that it was Celine coming back to the beach.
We’ll find out in next week’s finale, which also features a casino night; a visit from American “Bachelor in Paradise” couple Abigail Heringer and Noah Erb; a suggestion that all might not be well between Connor and Lisa; Garrett staring at an engagement ring; tears for Joey and Tessa; and a nervous Austin.
You can watch next Sunday at 8 p.m. on Citytv. And you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo
Recent Comments