Bachelor in Paradise S05 E09: Babies, Breakdowns and Witchcraft
I never thought I’d say this, but I guess it was good thing we had such a dramatic clusterfuck of an episode Monday night, because tonight’s episode was so fucking boring I had to claw at my face to stay awake the full two hours.
In fact, the first fucking scene was Kevin dumbly saying, “I have this really good chicken salad recipe I’ll make you!” to Astrid as they shuffled along the shore. “I make every single dressing myself, too! I use the NutriBullet and always have some in my fridge!”
Jesus fucking Christ, I fucking hate this show. Let’s dive in.
Baby Fever
People, why do we watch Bachelor in Paradise? If you said it’s for the drunken hookups, the insane fights, the torrid screaming matches, the night-vision bang sessions, and the low-level racism and xenophobia, you’re absolutely right!
If you said for it’s for the screaming babies, you’re really fucking wrong.
But guess what! We were treated to like 20 fucking minutes of non-stop baby screaming, and I literally mean babies, not the contestants (for once). That’s right, two Paradise success couples are back in town, and it leads to the worst date sequence of all time.
We have what you desperately want but will never have YAAAAAYYY (ABC)
As our contestants are rousing themselves from their hungover (or still-drunken) stupors, who descends the stairs other than Jade and Taylor followed by Carly and Evan. Now Evan is hilarious on Twitter and Tanner was stoic in the face of Leo’s psychotic tweet attack, but I don’t particularly want to watch either couple faff about in Paradise pretending like this show actually has any real worth.
BRING BACK THE DRUNKEN HOOKUPS AND INSANE FIGHTS, PRODUCERS!
Sadly we’re instead told that the Two Success Stories are going to grill the current couples to see which have the best chances of making it longterm (spoiler alert: it’s fucking no one) and then the winner gets an epic date. Ugh.
How did our contestants fare? Let’s see:
Annaliese is salivating over the idea of babies and marriage, and Kamil is obviously not, so she’s knocked down a few pegs of excitement during their grill sesh
Grocery Joe is adorable but cops to being a huge hypochondriac (#twins)
Venmo John admits to kissing 7 FUCKING WOMEN Jesus Christ, hasn’t it been like a week??
Eric gives an unhinged rant yet again about cheese, freaking out Cassandra (and the Two Success Stories) in the process
Everyone agrees that Krystal and Chris are fucking insane and terrifying, and yet oddly really work, because who the fuck else would have either of them?
After way too much time spent on this horrible gimmick, Kendall and Grocery Joe are declared the winners! Carly launches into an excruciatingly long monologue about how they’ve planned the most amazing date ever, but—what a twist!—it’s for the Two Success Stories, not Kendall and Grocery Joe! Instead, they get to babysit their goddamn babies, because fuck you, Kendall and Grocery Joe!
One of the babies literally just screams the entire. fucking. time. and while Joe’s paternal instincts are adorable, the entire thing is a fucking nightmare. Especially when Kendall tries to get the baby to stop screaming by screeching out a song as she poorly plays the fucking ukulele. Excellent, excellent birth control tho.
"Far more effective than the pill!" (ABC)
After a very, very painful montage of the Two Success Stories flitting about on jet skis, slurping down piña coladas, having cucumber slices placed over their eyes at the spa, (you get the fucking idea), Kendall finally gets the baby to stop screaming, our Two Success Stories come back, and our poor winners-but-losers are granted freedom and a nice date of their own.
The date seems to just be sitting on the beach, but again, I was so bored I was basically brain dead, so who the fuck knows.
Panic! At the Disco
Back at base camp, Eric is freaking the fuck out because he’s a gaslighting asshole that fucked himself over.
He’s nasty to Cassandra, telling her that while he made a dramatic show of choosing her over Angela, they’re not even friends and just went on one date, and there’s nothing romantic on his part whatsoever, and what’s wrong with that?? He’s incredibly defensive and dense as a fucking boulder, and Cassandra is suitably weirded out and Not Having It.
“I don’t think you’re ready for a relationship,” she tells him, voice steely. “I think you have a lot of growth to do, inside yourself.”
PREACH IT, GIRL.
Astrid inexplicably feels for him and goes over to talk, which leads us to one of the most infuriating statements in Paradise:
“Angela leaving hit me hard,” this obtuse motherfucker says. “That was my girl.”
OH, THE GIRL YOU GASLIGHTED AND FUCKED WITH AND THEN SENT FUCKING PACKING BECAUSE HOT NEW MEAT SHOWED UP?
Struck dumb by his own stupidity (ABC)
He dramatically decides to leave, shedding crocodile tears as he tells the gaggle of remaining contestants. Shushanna, because she is the fucking worst, immediately bursts into tears. Girl, you showed up 10 hours ago and HAVE NEVER TALKED TO ERIC. BYE.
What’s Good for the Goose is Good for the Gander
Somehow Krystal and Chris then get their own little montage, and it was actually somewhat of a relief to see them instead of Eric and Shushanna.
Welcome to hell, ladies and gentlemen.
They’re being all coy about falling in love with each other and wanting to take their relationship to the next level, which I can only assume means they want to commit their first murder together.
Ooh, and murder we may get, because Chris gets the 1:1 date card and off they go!
Their date turns out to be dinner in the middle of…a fountain? I don’t know, it’s all very confusing. Chris hems and haws his way through some lead up to a direction of love, but is distracted by a….mischievous raccoon that sprints onto the scene and runs amok.
Honestly, that raccoon is all of Bachelor Nation, for real.
"I speak for all of us!" (People)
Finally, he spits out his “I love you” and Krystal vocal fries “I’m in love with youuuuuuuu teeeeeeuuuu” because she is fucking insufferable. But you know what? I do think these crazy kids (and do I ever mean “crazy kids”) love each other. Not in the normal way anyone else loves each other, but how sociopaths do, but still.
Then a random two-man band comes on and plays music badly and our sociopaths dance badly to it and everything is just bad.
Must Be the Season of the Witch
In just-as-painful-yet-in-a-different-way happenings, back on the beach our coven of singles decide to play Truth or Dare, and promptly begin with the dumbest dare of all time.
Harkening back to yet another Carly and Evan date, in which they tried to set a world record by eating a habanero pepper and then making out, Kiwi Jordan dares John and Olivia to do just that. I gagged for every reason. Olivia, girl, you deserve SO MUCH MORE than habanero messiness and Venmo fucking John.
Then, because infuriating a psychopath is super fun, Kiwi Jordan sets his sights on Shushanna and she picks truth. He—without ANY prompting from the producers, of course—asks her if she believes in love at first sight and if there’s anyone in Paradise she wanted to kiss but didn’t get to.
“YES!” she screams, only just restraining herself from springing from her seat and attacking Kamil on the spot.
It’s her turn next, and she asks Kiwi Jordan “have you ever wanted to kill someone?”
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, FUCKING SHUSHANNA. Kamil is gonna get so murdered.
I FIND YOU (ABC)
She then declares she’s kidding, but then goes on a psychotic voiceover rant with the producers, going on and on about how there’s “literally no body language between Kamil and the blond girl,” and how “it’s NOT THE END for Kamil and me!”
Friendly reminder: Shushanna has known Kamil for ONE DAY and went on ONE LACKLUSTER DATE and THAT IS LITERALLY IT.
Congratulations, Shushanna, you've now officially become The Most Annoying Person in Paradise. And I say that as I'm LITERALLY watching Chris and Krystal on a date.
The next morning everyone’s still feeling really weird about Shushanna, mostly because she’s staring feverishly at Kamil the entire fucking time.
We do get a brief reprieve for a scene of Chris and John doing synchronized swimming in the pool while Kendall and Grocery Joe clap delightedly, and then we’re right back to The Great Witchcraft Fiasco of 2018.
“She’s walking that fine line between persistent and cray-cray,” Kevin accurately points out, keeping a safe distance between them.
Kiwi Jordan gets a 1:1 date card and kindly, if inexplicably, tries to take Shushanna on it, but she gives one of the most disturbing ramblings of all time about being too hung up on Kamil and how she can’t get over it, and how she’s so sad and damaged from the rejection, and yet also kind of believes they’ll end up together, and good god, is it horrifying.
Kiwi Jordan is like “yeeeaahh you just got to Paradise and had one date with him, maybe you should try dating other guys and seeing what else is out there?” to which he’s strongly and swiftly shut down. Fun!
Kiwi Jordan goes off to ask Cassandra on the date instead, while Shushanna shows she’s completely insane and goes to drag Kamil away for some alone time.
She keeps asking him about his feelings and insisting that they should be together and it’s fucking wild. A terrified Kamil keeps steadfastly insisting he’s not interested and that there’s nothing there between them.
“There’s no spark between us,” he says firmly. “Do you understand?”
“No,” says our psychotic Stage-Five Clinger.
Is Shu really this fucking insane or is it just TRAGIC editing?
Nah she’s really insane, as evidenced by her then rushing to the confessionals to declare that “Kamil’s not being honest” despite him being BRUTALLY HONEST and how Carly and Evan didn’t like each other at first in Paradise, but now they’re married and have a baby, THEY’RE MARRIED WITH A BABY, GODDAMNIT!!
Hearing about the insanity from Kamil, Annaliese has finally had enough and storms off to find Shushanna and put her in her place.
Annaliese sarcastically mentions witchcraft, Shushanna begins to freak out, and—
ELECTION NEWS BREAKS IN AND COVERS UP PART OF THE GREAT WITCHCRAFT FIASCO OF 2018 NOOOOOO!
Wait. Was that interruption ALSO WITCHCRAFT?? My god. (ABC)
When we get back from the interruption, the scene is over. A tragedy of the highest order.
Anyway, that does mean it’s time for a new contestant to arrive, and who walks in but Diggy!!!
(I swear to god, if Diggy ends up being a gaslighting ass munch I'm going to LOSE MY GODDAMN MIND.)
Diggy, being a pure and innocent soul (at least for now) asks Shushanna on a date, and she legit shuts down a second super eligible bachelor FOR A GUY WHO'S EXPLICITLY TOLD HER HE'S NOT INTERESTED, THAT SHE WENT ON ONE DATE WITH, AND HAS KNOWN FOR 24 HOURS.
Diggy shrugs and asks Olivia instead, and she dumps Venmo John’s ass and readily agrees. Although she does mention thinking about him throughout the date and feeling kind of bad, even though she’s SUPER feeling Diggy, because women are actually thoughtful and kind.
Before the date, Olivia talks with Shushanna and tells her she needs to start opening herself up instead of shutting down all the men. She then unwittingly sics Shushanna on Kiwi Jordan, because Shushanna only psychotically wants what she can’t have, and it’s gonna be rough because this is overlaid with adorable scenes of Kiwi Jordan and Cassandra having a blast and making out on their date.
When Kiwi Jordan is back, Shushanna grabs him and tries to profess her love, saying crazily that's she's TOTALLY OVER KAMIL and all about him now. Kiwi Jordan swiftly stops that crazy train in its tracks, telling her she needs to get her shit together, and that he's interested in Cassandra now.
RIP, Kiwi Jordan and Kamil. It was mostly nice knowing you.
Diggy and Olivia finally go on their date and ARE FUCKING ADORABLE, even if they’re forced to dance to terrible live saxophone music, and then we inexplicably cut to a scene of Shushanna burning a picture of Kamil in a fire on the beach.
Well played, producers, well played.
Until next week!
