Because I love television. How about you?

Tag: Chelsea

A tropical storm is the least of the drama on Bachelor in Paradise

The cast waits for a long-delayed rose ceremony on “Bachelor in Paradise.”
PHOTO CREDIT: All photos but screen grabs Craig Sjodin/ABC

On Tuesday’s “Bachelor in Paradise,” the word love was being spread around almost as liberally as Kenny and Mari were drizzling each other with sour cream at their all you can eat off each other taco buffet.

It was an episode steeped in both the ridiculous (see: tacos) and the sublime, when bonds were strengthened, at least one heart was (re)broken, new connections were formed, others jeopardized, and a tropical storm that supposedly threatened to pull couples apart turned out to be a tempest in a teapot.

It ended with a different kind of disturbance as Aaron and Ivan went toe to toe over Chelsea and all of Bachelor Nation was left asking the question “What the hell did Ivan get up to in the hotel?”

Before we get to that part, let’s rewind to the start of yet another action-packed instalment.

So OK, Kendall. Maybe we can all agree that coming back to the place where you met your ex-boyfriend of two years for, um, “closure,” especially when said boyfriend had moved on to someone else and was romancing that person right in front of your eyes, wasn’t such a great idea.

Kendall Long was still pining for Joe Amabile in Paradise.

Kendall sort of twigged to that reality after watching her ex, Joe, and his new love, Serena, having a smooch fest on the beach, but she wanted to take one last kick at the can because “I’m not letting Joe’s relationship with Serena get in the way of my happiness anymore.”

Am I the only one who thinks Kendall got in the way of her own happiness when she broke up with Joe?

Kendall told Joe she never stopped loving him, and he was kind and supportive, holding her as she cried, but he told her he’d come to Paradise “because I knew it was over between us.”

So Kendall went home in tears and Joe went back to Serena, who then comforted him for feeling bad about his ex. Age difference be damned, I really like these two together and I’m glad Kendall isn’t around anymore to try to muck things up.

The next day, guest host Lil Jon claimed he was about to “turn this place upside down,” but he just meant that two new cast members were arriving, so business as usual.

The newbies were Ed Waisbrot from the Clare and Tayshia “Bachelorette” season — who will forever be known as the dude who had a date with Chris Harrison when he got lost trying to find Tayshia’s room — and fellow Clayshia contestant Demar Jackson.

Ed Waisbrot and Demar Jackson up the abs and pecs quotient in Paradise.

They arrived shirtless and ripped. Aaron quipped that Ed’s legs looked like “two thick Christmas hams. They’re absolutely massive. They would feed a whole village of cannibals.”

After a brief tease during which we were meant to think that Demar might be a threat to Riley’s and Maurissa’s relationship — he was not — he and Ed settled on Chelsea and Natasha for their double date.

It feels like the dates this season are focused either on food or people getting naked (or in some cases both). In this instance, Ed and Demar stripped down to briefs so Chelsea and Natasha could paint them, both figuratively and literally, as in spreading paint on their semi-nude bodies.

Natasha was enjoying Ed’s piercing blue eyes, his sense of humour and his depth, and I guess we’ll take her word for that last part.

Luckily for her, Ed did not seem to have an attachment to Brendan Morais, the dude who did her wrong, unlike her previous date, Dr. Joe. So there was plenty of laughing and kissing and, as Natasha put it, “Hallelujah, the vibes are here!”

Natasha Parker took the measure of Ed Waisbrot and liked what she saw.

Next up, it was Kenny’s and Mari’s turn to go on a date. At first I thought it was a cooking class since the chef who greeted them handed them aprons, but it was more of a build-your-own taco feast using their naked bodies as plates.

Mari and Kenny took turns disrobing and, their genitals covered with giant, fake leaves, lying on a table while their bodies were topped with tortillas and fillings and sour cream, which they spread on each other’s legs, arms, chest and stomach.

What made it even weirder is that the chef stayed in the room while they slurped chicken and beef and guacamole off each other’s body parts.

Mari Pepin-Solis and Kenny Braasch before the clothes came off.

It should come as no surprise they worked up enough of an, er, appetite to head to the boom boom room at the end of the date. But first they had what passes for a deep conversation in Paradise, avowing that they were falling in love with each other — something 40-year-old Kenny claimed to have never said to anyone other than his dog. So good luck with that Mari.

Speaking of deep conversations, Maurissa was desperate to have one with Riley because, despite how happy she said he made her, she worried that he wasn’t expressing his feelings.

Riley got tongue-tied trying to explain how he felt about Maurissa because it reminded him of his difficult relationship with his father and how his father had messed things up with his wife and kids despite how much he wanted a family, which was what Riley wanted too.

Maurissa Gunn and Riley Christian made it falling in L-word official.

After shedding some tears, Riley told Maurissa he was falling in love with her and vice versa.

So that’s three couples who have used the L-word to date, including Mari and Kenny, and Joe and Serena.

For Tia, it was more about the V-word as she tried to choose between nice guy James and bad boy Blake. James led Tia away for some private time to get to know more about her and her Arkansas hometown, but she lamented that “sometimes you have to just listen to your vagina. Kissing Blake makes my vagina dance and tingle and feel really nice.” But when she kissed James, “I just don’t feel a tingle in my vagina.”

Then Tia directly addressed her vagina for help making the decision. To the best of my knowledge, her vagina did not answer back.

As it happens, her decision was delayed when two men with walkie talkies showed up as the cast was eating the next day and told them a dangerous tropical storm was bearing down on the resort in Mexico and they had to evacuate immediately.

Would they be safe? And even more importantly, would all the couples survive their supposed separation? I mean, we saw the men and women being loaded into separate vans, but surely they were all being taken to the same hotel.

Despite the dramatic footage of time-lapsed clouds and wind and rain and lightning, everybody was back after one commercial break, the couples strolling onto the beach hand in hand. So not even Mother Nature is immune from being manipulated to fit a plot line.

Lil Jon greeted the returnees and told them the postponed cocktail party would start in one hour.

Tia was still trying to decide between Blake and James, but it looked like her lady parts were losing their influence.

Tia decided that Blake wasn’t making enough of an effort to show her she was special — like where the hell was his piece of wood with a stoplight painted on it to represent her small one-stoplight town?

Blake insisted that Tia and their relationship was all he cared about, but he didn’t have an answer when Tia asked why he hadn’t sought her out for a real conversation since their date. “I’m a simple person,” was his lame response.

I suspect Tia’s vaginal dance floor is going to be closed until further notice.

And then there was Ivan, whose prospects weren’t looking good since Kendall left. “Sad boy summer” was Aaron’s pithy description.

Aaron himself was feeling confident about his connection with Chelsea. Sure, she went on a date with Demar, but she rewarded Aaron with kisses when he built a catwalk in the sand in honour of Chelsea being a model and strutted for her.

But suddenly Ivan was leading Chelsea to a beach bed, and they were flirting and laughing and kissing, and walking hand in hand to the bar.

Declaring Ivan a “little snakey bitch bag,” Aaron confronted him. The episode ended with them right up in each other’s faces and the words “To be continued.”

So I guess we’ll find out if any punches get thrown in next week’s three-hour episode and also what the words “Something happened at the hotel” mean in relation to Ivan.

You can watch Tuesday at 8 p.m. on  Citytv.com. And you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo

A two-timer is banished from the beach on Bachelor in Paradise

“Bachelor in Paradise” “VIPs” at a party where the wheels came off for Chris Conran.
PHOTO CREDIT: All photos Craig Sjodin/ABC

Does a villain by any other name smell as rank?

It seems a question worth asking since on Tuesday’s episode of “Bachelor in Paradise” Chris Conran stirred up a storm of moral outrage the likes of which I can’t remember seeing since supervillain Chad Johnson rampaged around the beach in 2016.

Yeah, Chris acted like a dick with a capital D, no question. He goes to a “VIP” party with Jessenia, the woman he allegedly came to Paradise for; Alana Milne, a Toronto contestant from Matt James’ Bachelor season, walks in and soon Chris is playing tonsil hockey with her in front of Jessenia and everyone else.

Not cool, no question. But was his flip-floppery worthy of them both being run off the beach, which is what happened at the end of the episode, after Chris and Alana had returned from a ziplining date?

Paradise’s version of judge, jury and executioner, led by Joe and Riley, decided that they must have had a pre-existing relationship — Alana said they had met a few times pre-Paradise — and told Chris to, in Jessenia’s words, “follow your heart and get the fuck out of here.”

(There’s a certain irony to the fact Chris said he had found a spark with Alana that he’d been missing with Jessenia, which is exactly what Jessenia said when she threw Ivan over for Chris. Karma, it’s a thing apparently.)

A rare moment between Alana and Chris at the party when they weren’t attached at the lips.

With Chris being banished, Alana had no choice but to go too. She would have been a pariah if she’d stayed. Chris suggested they leave together, but Alana sensibly pointed out that would mean they were pursuing a committed relationship “and after one day here I cannot tell you that.”

So to circle back to my first question: if Chris committed an unforgivable sin by throwing over one woman for another one he had met before, what about Brendan, who was very clearly in a pre-Paradise relationship before he screwed over Natasha by dumping her when his girlfriend Pieper showed up? And not just dumping her but saying insulting things about her, whereas Chris kept telling everyone how great Jessenia was.

“I feel the same way Jessenia feels,” said a puzzled Natasha. “You guys feel this strongly about Chris, but you don’t feel as strongly about my situation?”

Those chickens might come home to roost next Tuesday, according to the end-of-episode promos. We’ll see.

In the meantime, the game of musical partners continued with others besides Chris.

I’m sure you haven’t forgotten about Kenny, who started out with Mari, took up with Demi when Mari told him she was interested in dating other people, and then went on a date with Tia, putting him at the centre of the beach’s only lust quadrangle (so far).

Mari was trying to win Kenny back, a plan that was complicated when new guest host Tituss Burgess showed up and invited some of the cast to a “VIP” party. Demi and Kenny made the cut; Mari didn’t and she worried that Demi would use the bash to solidify her position with Kenny.

But here’s the thing: Demi’s only strategy for solidifying things apparently involved sex positions. Before Tituss showed up, she was still talking about getting Kenny back in the boom boom room.

Too bad for Demi that Kenny and Mari kissed and made up: it seems Kenny had feelings for Mari that he’d never felt before, which makes you wonder about this dude’s romantic history. He’s 40 and his most significant relationship to date is with someone he’s known for a few weeks and whom he was triple-timing?

When Kenny broke the news to Demi she ranted about how Mari was stuck up and mean and evil and a pageant girl, and why would Kenny want Mari instead of “someone like me who is playful and funny”? And then, when Kenny didn’t bite, she accused him of being “the most immature 40-year-old I’ve ever met in my life,” harsh words from an immature 26-year-old.

Meanwhile, the VIP party planted some other seeds of chaos, which was obviously the whole point.

Paradise newcomer Chelsea Vaughn chats with Thomas Jacobs at the party.

Chelsea Vaughn was one of four new women invited to the party and one of two, including Alana, who landed on the beach the next day with a date card in hand.

Chelsea chose to take Aaron, which was mildly annoying for former Bachelorette Becca Kufrin, who claimed she was interested in forming a relationship with him.

Aaron was quite taken by Chelsea’s legs, which he said were “two miles long”; Chelsea by Aaron’s eyes, which she described as “not regular brown.” It’s OK: you can pause and let the poetry wash over you.

Then, oh look: a date card arrives for Becca while Aaron is still out with Chelsea. And Becca, having had a “surprisingly good conversation” with Thomas at the party, decides to ask him on the date.

But Thomas was in a thing with Tammy, who had dumped Aaron for him, and now Thomas was going on a date with the woman who had saved Aaron’s ass after Tammy discarded him. Wow, you practically need a chart to keep up.

Becca asked Tammy’s permission first, and Tammy gave her blessing and then cried her eyes out after Becca and Thomas left.

The reaction she got was not quite as sympathetic as what was lavished on Jessenia.

“Tammy did it to herself,” said Maurissa, explaining that Aaron was like a “really good quarter” that was a little bit rusty, but Tammy got distracted by a “shiny penny.”

Aaron’s reaction, when he returned to the beach, was that Tammy deserved to cry: “She did me dirty and it’s coming back to bite her.”

So you probably don’t need me to tell you that Becca and Thomas hit it off, right? Complete with lots of smooching? No? Good. James was convinced that Thomas’s interest in Becca was mainly about her being a former Bachelorette, so higher in the pecking order than a former Bachelor villain.

In case you’re trying to keep track, Abigail and Noah, and Joe and Serena are the only Day 1 couples still going strong, unless you count Kenny and Mari getting back together.

Are there actually going to be any engagements at the end of this? Maybe the show should have budgeted for cubic zirconia instead of Neil Lane? Guess we’ll see.

Next week, Riley and Maurissa get into the whip cream; Kendall is not OK with Joe kissing Serena; next guest host Lil Jon shows up; general mayhem apparently ensues. Who knows? Maybe we’ll even get a rose ceremony.

You can watch at 8 p.m. Tuesday on ABC or online later at Citytv.com. And you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo

A ‘toxic’ Bachelor season? Not according to ‘Women Tell All’

From left, Serena P, Anna, MJ, Mari, Pieper, Chelsea, Victoria and Serena C on the somewhat misleadingly named “Women Tell All” episode of “The Bachelor.” PHOTO CREDIT: All photos Craig Sjodin/ABC

Oh the irony. There was erstwhile “Bachelor” host Chris Harrison Monday night talking about how there’s been more “explosive drama than any of us were prepared for” this season. Little did he know when that “Women Tell All” episode was taped, just five days before that fateful “Extra” interview with Rachel Lindsay (a fact noted with a disclaimer at the start of the program), that he’d be at the centre of the most explosive drama the franchise has ever seen.

As I write this, there’s still no word on how long Harrison’s hiatus from “The Bachelor” will last or whether it will be permanent (if you’re not sure what’s going on, go google Harrison and Extra and/or Rachel Lindsay and/or Rachael Kirkconnell). We now know that author and TV host Emmanuel Acho will replace Harrison on “After the Final Rose.”

Here’s another thing I know: it was maddening to watch Harrison soft-pedal the drama that did occur this season — the name-calling, the bullying, the gaslighting, the overall meanness — by not calling out the women behind the worst of it and basically just sitting and nodding along while some of them talked more crap.

I mean, come on, we’ve all seen Harrison ask tough questions in these types of situations before, but they were MIA here.

Victoria was still milking the “Queen” nonsense on “Women Tell All.”

So we had Victoria, the Queen of Mean, suggesting that the fact that contestant Ryan was upset about being called a “ho” and an idiot and a “shady bitch” on TV was down to Ryan being overly emotional.

“It’s hard to hear yourself being called a ho on national television,” Ryan said.

“Do you think you’re a super sensitive person?” asked Victoria. And then, noting that she herself had been subject to social media backlash, Victoria added, “I’m a little bit puzzled as to why you’re holding on to this emotional anger right now.”

At least Kit and Chelsea defended Ryan’s right to be angry over being called “horrible things” on TV.

From left, Katie, Jessenia, Ryan and Brittany on “The Women Tell All.”

And Victoria did apologize to Katie for calling her disgusting. But then several contestants piled on Katie for having the nerve to bring up the unpleasantness in the house to Bachelor Matt James.

Chelsea actually said, and I quote, “The house wasn’t toxic until you made it toxic by bringing it up to Matt and then causing the domino effect that led to every single drama in the house that you were involved in.” Hello, shoot the messenger much? It’s complete bullshit. Personally, I was writing about how nasty women like Victoria and Serena C and Anna were being several weeks before we saw Katie talk to Matt about it. She didn’t cause the drama; she just brought it to Matt’s attention.

After Serena C recycled her BS about how Katie “wanted to do it to light a flame and start a fire,” I was the one feeling “emotional anger.”

Katie did a great job of keeping her cool and later got to sit in the “hot seat” with Harrison, saying all the right things for a prospective future Bachelorette, for instance that she’s “embraced exactly who I am” in the past year, that she’s hopeful her “person’s still out there,” that she’s “the most confident I’ve ever been.”

But, as much as I like Katie, the women who brought the most grace and class to an otherwise disappointing episode were Brittany and Abigail.

Brittany was invited up to talk about the rumour that Anna spread about her (and that “Bachelor” producers chose to broadcast) that Brittany was a high-end escort.

“When you google my name now, the first 20 results say ‘Bachelor contestant Brittany Galvin accused of being an escort,'” Brittany told Harrison, adding that there’s nothing wrong with escort work, “but that’s not me.”

“I didn’t sign up to get bullied, I didn’t sign up to get slandered.”

Brittany added that Anna had not reached out to apologize to her despite having had weeks to do so. But gee, Anna was “so, so sorry” at “Women Tell All.” Yet, despite how “awful” Anna said she felt about letting her anger and insecurity get the better of her, she kind of doubled down by telling Brittany she’d heard the rumours about her from people who knew her ex-boyfriend and went to school with her, noting that “Chicago is a small town.”

Brittany very graciously accepted Anna’s apology, saying, “I don’t want people to destroy your life as well.” And if we’re talking about potential Bachelorettes, we could do way worse than someone with that kind of maturity and generosity of spirit.

Abigail was looking every inch a potential Bachelorette on “Women Tell All.”

And then there was Abigail. If anyone had a right to be bitter about how the season turned out it was her. Since when does a first impression rose winner not get a one-on-one date? Has that ever happened before? I’d have to do a little research to find out, but it certainly seems odd. Frankly, it seems like Matt led her on. Abigail said merely that she had “a big what if,” as in could she have been a frontrunner if she’d had a whole day with Matt.

She also focused on the positive feedback she’d had from the deaf community about the fact that a deaf person was shown in a romantic light, since “disability isn’t always romanticized.”

And she mentioned that she was now “a much better version of myself, to share with whoever wants to share that with me.”

Pieper, another hot seat occupant, had a similar sentiment about her time on the show, saying she’d grown as a person. Serena P was invited onstage as well, where she confirmed that, no, she wasn’t having second thoughts about dumping Matt, even though “I care about him still so much.”

(As an aside, I don’t think Serena P is in the running for Bachelorette, but perhaps she’ll pop up on the newly announced “Bachelor in Paradise Canada” coming to Citytv. You never know.)

No offence to Matt, but I am not a fan of the beard.

Finally, I hate to end on a negative note, but Matt’s time in the hot seat was aggravating for me.

Given the chance to comment on the toxicity among the women, all Matt could say was that he was “a little surprised.”

“I just tried to be empathetic to the women and what they were going through because I hadn’t gone through it, so I couldn’t say I (would) have acted differently in their position. There’s a million different factors you have to take into account, so I try not to hold them to an unrealistic standard.”

So not calling other women sluts and ho’s is an unrealistic standard? Good to know.

Matt basically apologized to MJ for sending her home on the two-on-one and then Serena C piped up, like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, about how she hoped Matt wouldn’t think the women were bad people or mean ones.

“I’ll be the first one to say I am not a perfect person so I’m no one to sit up here and judge how any of you all decided to handle yourselves and deal with that emotion in real time.”

I guess you could say Matt was being a good Christian, but just know, Serena C, that I am judging you and, yeah, definitely mean.

The distasteful icing on the cake was that Victoria, who up until then had maintained her sangfroid, got all weepy about her dramatic exit — you know, the one in which she loudly called Ryan “the shadiest bitch” and said she, Victoria, was the only one with “a brain” in the room — and blamed it on her “fear of rejection.”

And Matt actually apologized to Victoria if she felt offended. And he also said he “dropped the ball” on their relationship. Their relationship? They had a relationship?

I’m just going to leave it there.

Next week, it’s fantasy suite dates and, yes, more drama, but we’re in the home stretch, just two more episodes to go.

You can watch Monday at 8 p.m. on Citytv. And you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo

© 2024 Realityeo.com

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑