The Knives Are Out

(They smile in your face)
All the time they want to take your place
The back stabbers (back stabbers)
All you fellows who have someone and you really care, yeah, yeah
Then it’s all of you fellows who better beware, yeah yeah
Somebody’s out to get your lady
A few of your buddies they sure look shady

Yeah, just keep The O’Jays Back Stabbers on auto-repeat for a while. And it’s not just the guys with their knives out. The ladies are complicit colluders, if not outright co-conspirators, too.

The back stabbing begins with Chris, who had previously put the knife in Golden Child Colton’s back by moving in on Tia (who was or wasn’t a thing with Colton depending on which fifteen-minute segment of the show you were watching). Chris not only stabs Tia by starting up a thing with Krystal, he also gaslights Tia in the process with reasoning that was dishonorable, disingenuous, and devoid of logic.

The path to Krystal opened up when she friend-zoned Kenny while he was proclaiming his desire for them to be a thing. His response to rejection was to rebound: a great date with the newly arrived Jacqueline; caroming over to Annieliese; and then bouncing to Bibiana – IN THE SAME NIGHT! This should make for interesting viewing and parenting discussions with his teenage daughter. But first, Jacqueline had to show interest in Golden Child Colton and therefore, be used as a prop in the continuing one-star rom-com drama that is Colton-Tia.

David continues his fascination with Male Model Jordan (MMJ) by rolling up with knife in hand into MMJ’s budding relationship with Jenna, this time with a stuffed doll that he notes is even bigger(!) than the one MMJ had given to Annaliese so long ago – and by “long ago” I mean three episodes. Feeling the tip of the blade, MMJ – in a ridiculous outfit – wigs out and takes out his anger first on the stuffed doll and then on Jubilee and Chelsea at the cocktail party with some really inappropriate language[1]. He appropriately apologizes to the group later in the evening after a strong talking to by Eric and Annaliese. Only on Paradise could Eric and Annaliese become the voices of reason.

Inexplicably, the evening ends with Venmo John giving his rose to Jubilee rather than Caroline, alas ending Team Caroline’s less-than-one-episode run. Even more shocking was Kenny breaking up his love quadrangle by choosing Annaliese over Jacqueline and Bibiana.

Yanni’s Leo’s lion mane arrived and with it came a new personality! No longer the reserved and reticent introvert, he seems to have undergone a Jekyll to Hyde transformation. Sticking his knife deep into Grocery Store Joe’s back, he has a hot date with Kendall who seems fine adding what she purportedly had with Joe to her collection of taxidermy.

Ah, but Leo/Dr. Hyde starts chatting up numerous other girls immediately upon his return from said hot date with Kendall and ends up in some serious, rain-soaked lip-locking with Chelsea after lying to her about where things stand with he and Kendall (“the back stabbers (ba-aack sta-bbers)”). We have to wait until this week to see how this plays out but the previews suggest some kind of conflagration between the evil Doctor and your friendly neighborhood grocer.

We got another chapter in the continuing saga of When The Runaway Colton Met Tia[2]. OG Raven shows up in a fabulous blue dress and shares her fears about Colton with Raven 2.0. But Colton scuttles all that by asking Tia if she wants to be a thing and she says that she was waiting for him to ask to be a thing, so at last they are now a thing. [cue George Michael & Aretha I Knew You Were Waiting (for Me)]

Benoit, fresh from his recently-ended engagement to Clare during Bachelor Winter Games[3] arrives in Paradise with his cool sounding name (“Ben-Wa”) and cooler-sounding French-Canadian accent, and has all the single ladies swooning on both counts. He persuades Jenna to stick her knife in MMJ’s back and they have a hot date. To his credit, MMJ tries really hard to recover from his cocktail party meltdown [cue The Spinners Working My Way Back to You] leaving Jenna with that queasy I’m-gonna-end-up-hurting-somebody feeling.

And there we have it! I’m all caught up, folks, and ready for more ridiculicious mayhem!

Blades are long, clenched tight in their fist
Aimin’ straight at your back
And I don’t think they’ll miss
(What they do!)
(They smile in your face)
All the time they want to take your place
The back stabbers (back stabbers)

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[1] I won’t belabor this point (which could easily be belabored) but there has been a lot of bad/sexist/territorial/gaslighting behavior by several guys. We should be able to be entertained without that.

[2] Oh, that is so clever. 🙂

[3] A surprise to zero people, because, Clare.