As I enter this season of giving thanks, one of the things I am thankful for is that there is only one more week of Paradise. Two episodes left and the last one appears to contain an Everybody Tells All segment which could be a lot of fun. Finally, it will be revealed what all the Paradisers have been talking A LOT about this week: ENGAGEMENTS ARE COMING!! And WILL WE WANT TO CONTINUE THIS OUTSIDE OF PARADISE?
Let’s not kid ourselves. We are anxious to see how this overly long and messy season ends. (I’m sure there is some sort of snarky comment I won’t mention about the season being about as long as Gabby and Erich’s engagement. Ooops. I guess I just did.)
So where are we now as it relates to our key questions? In the None of the Above category, last week’s cliffhanger was resolved when Eliza took her shot by chasing down Justin in his Baltimore hometown, only to see that shot fail to score. Justin understandably didn’t like the feeling of being a second choice despite Eliza’s plea that she felt pressured by Rodney’s stans to give him her rose over Justin.
I suspect they had a much longer convo than what we were shown. Makes me wonder how close (or not) Justin was to accepting Eliza’s shot at redemption. Regardless, this brings the Rodney-Eliza-Justin triangle to its sad end [cue David Guetta Love Is Gone].
In the We Didn’t See That Coming category was softy Andrew leaving Paradise after blowing up his relationship with Jessenia to explore a relationship with Ency and then blowing up his relationship with Ency because he still isn’t over Teddi [cue David Guetta Getting’ Over You[1] who blew up her relationship with him because she wasn’t feeling it. Teddi left Paradise as a result. The irony here is that Andrew did to Jessenia what Teddi had done to him. And Teddi must have wrecked him because dude had two HOT women pleading with him on the same night and he left both. Dude, are you sure the non-Paradise grass is greener? To be fair, Ency’s pleas seemed more than a bit unhinged since she had known him for all of about 24 hours and one date[2]. Hot has its limits.
In the Inquisition category, Rachel and Gabby show up on the beach to spill the tea on the fiftyleven guys at Paradise from their season. After telling My Girl Brittany how perfect Tyler is [cue Salt-N-Pepa Whatta Man], they both read Logan for filth to The Devil’s Mistress Kate, particularly about his lack of commitment. In their defense, he did make a play for both Bachelorettes during their combo season and has explored multiple connections in Paradise before settling on The Devil’s Mistress as the apple of his eye.
But his Logan’s defense, isn’t the point of Paradise to explore? Putting aside the fact that The Devil’s Mistress is always finding ways in which Logan is failing to measure up to her grown woman expectations, Logan has shown a lot of commitment to her [cue Heavy D Now That We Found Love[3], too much, actually. Methinks he needs to find the off-ramp from this relationship.
In the Wells Speaks Truth category (“this place is making me dumber”), we have G-vieve and Aaron.
Watching these two not only makes me feel dumb for watching these two but it is also extremely uncomfortable. A couple of days later I feel bad for all the mean things I texted about Aaron even if I believe them to be true. And I don’t understand what makes G-vieve repeatedly get to the point of packing and leaving and then coming back for more. I’ll leave the psychoanalysis to others but watching the two of them do what they do, I feel like this poor staffer who must be re-evaluating how much his job recording them is worth.
Finally, in the How Solid Are They category we have the ever-steady Brandon and Serene [cue Aretha Rock Steady]; the heavily vibing My Girl Brittany and the perfect Tyler [cue Luther Vandross For You to Love]. And then there is Michael [Sia Fear] and Danielle [Gorgon City Ready For Your Love]. I await with trepidation to see what manner of meltdown any or all of these relationships experience, especially Michael and Danielle. There is great hesitation on both parts to drop L-words. She seems to want to but is taking her cue from him while she gives him space to work through his internal struggle of letting go of the past and moving into a new future.
None of the other connections can be taken seriously. But the EGPs really missed an opportunity by not having a return of Pizza Guy to attempt a connection with the quite saucy Mara[4]. That would have been way more fun than being tortured by G-vieve and Aaron.
See you after next week’s Big Finish.
P.S. This week’s viewing wine was Saladini Pilastri Rosso Piceno, a good quality-to-price-ratio Montepulciano.
[1] Wish I could spin my world into reverse/Just to have you back again, there’s no gettin’ over/There’s no gettin’ over, there’s just no getting over you
[2] And it was a weak date at that. Seemed like all they did was play on the beach. Was the season so long that the Evil Genius Producers (EGPs) ran out of budget?
[3] I’m not quite sure as to what is going down/But I’m feeling Hunky Dory/About this thing that I found
[4] Suggested by my friend CS, a Loyal Follower of These Musings .
Ray's Musings 
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