This is JOHN PAUL JONES. JOHN PAUL JONES is adorable and perfect.
I have just been informed that JOHN PAUL JONES is no longer adorable and perfect.
I am saddened to report that JOHN PAUL JONES is a bit much and unsettling.
We should have known we were in for a wild ride when Chris Harrison’s narration started with “Tonight on Bachelor in Paradise, John Paul Jones can’t stop crying.†Not even “JPJ has an emotional day on the beach†or “John Paul Jones gets in touch with his feelings.†Nah. Chris Harrison was like, “This man is GOING THROUGH IT and you need to see this shit,†and he was right.
There is nothing that can stir up messy feelings like the wedding of a distant acquaintance. When your close friends get married, you’re excited and thrilled for them. When someone you see at the gym gets married and for some reason invites you, that’s like four sessions of therapy rolled into a bacon-wrapped date. So maybe it was the pending nuptials that no one was dressed appropriately for (would it have killed ABC to tell the Paradise folks to bring a formal outfit?), or maybe it was the prop chicken that he ate, but JPJ finally snapped. Let’s get to it.
It’s still the evening after the rose ceremony and it’s still Caelynn’s birthday when Dean decides to pull the absolute worst move in the dating playbook. He knows it’s time to break up with Caelynn, despite the fact that it is still her actual birthday, and it’s immediately after a ceremony that’s supposed to denote commitment. He pulls her aside and delivers the worst option when it comes to a breakup speech: “You’re just too good for me. You deserve someone better.†It has never occurred to a man that he might not be the catch he thinks he is until the exact moment he’s about to break up with you. Caelynn reacts by bursting into tears while all the women cover her with their mating shrouds, and Dean just walks into the ocean where his van is waiting for him. And I guess that’s the end of that rose ceremony.
The next morning, Caelynn is still weeping and standing in the middle of her room monologuing about how Dean was pushing her away and he felt something real for the first time. She also says that he’s a good guy who just doesn’t know it yet. Blah blah blah. Tell yourself that, Caelynn. One of the most useful lessons a woman can learn is that once a guy tells you that he’s no good, BELIEVE HIM. Caelynn gathers her two full travel bags of makeup and starts applying a full face in the Mexican sun.
Elsewhere, JOHN PAUL JONES begins his tragic heel turn when he just sits alone on a daybed crying. Was anyone else freaked out when his crying sounded exactly like his laughter? Is this the new trailer for Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker movie? Is the Joker’s origin story that he was dumped in Paradise?
Blake, who has suffered more emotional strife than either the Joker or JPJ, comes down to help talk JPJ through his feelings, which basically means they just repeat the words dude and man through tears. JPJ’s main issue is that he’s been looking for his wife since he was 18 and he’s decided that Tayshia has all the qualities of a perfect wife. Therefore, her feelings are not valid or necessary for this equation. Also, who turns 18 and decides to start looking for their wife? JPJ might be living in 1898 where you marry at 18, pop out 12 kids, 4 of them die because of the diphtheria, and then you die at 45 and are buried in the family plot along with your proudest cow. JPJ, in the present day, asks the Lord to help him. Then he blows his nose out into the sand and I’m officially off #TeamJPJ.
This leads us to the contractually obligated wedding of Krystal and Chris, a.k.a. Goose. Everyone is thrilled to watch a wedding that is a vague threat about their marriageability. These two dummies managed to find each other; don’t fuck this up! Clay is sweating and making very stressed faces because he realizes that Angela will be a bridesmaid at the wedding, which we also know because it has been teased for weeks. In what seems to be another 2 YOUNG 2 DESPERATE problem, Clay seems very clear that his relationship with Angela is over. He still cares about her as a person, he has feelings for Nicole, but it will just be very awkward, and Clay does not seem like a human that deals very well with emotional complexity. Unfortunately, that’s true for everyone else on this beach.
It’s time for the wedding of the season! (Because Rachel and Bryan didn’t tape their wedding!) Becca is there! Kendall and Joe are there! Ben Higgins, single motherfucker, is there! No one informed the Bachelor in Paradise cast that they should have packed a suit and everyone rolls in with pastel polo shirts and maxi dresses from Amazon. Everyone is emotionally on edge until SOME HOT DUDES WALK IN. Oh shit, it’s Connor S. Caelynn pulls her tears back into her face through sheer force of will. Dean who? Caelynn also describes Connor S. as “tall with darker features.†Is she looking directly at him?
JPJ decides that this wedding is the perfect time to settle his marriage vendetta with Derek. He has decided that Derek is a fraud because he has a PODCAST and BANGS WOMEN HE MEETS ONLINE. JPJ has concluded that Derek is a man who is alive in 2019.
Chris Harrison officiates Chris and Krystal’s wedding, and these two white people have a smudging ceremony before they exchange their vows. Chris Harrison tells the smudge to “get in there.†I can admit that their vows were very cute and they made me cry — probably because I had already gone to therapy that day, but they were very sweet. Chris Harrison turns to the crowd and says, “LOOK UPON THEM, MORTAL SOULS. WITHOUT THE BINDS OF MARRIAGE AND LOVE YOUR LIVES ARE WORTHLESS! THERE WILL BE COCKTAILS IN THE ATRIUM!â€
After the ceremony, JPJ decides to lose his entire goddamned mind and runs up to Derek to tell him that he knoooooooows all about his alleged “podcast†and all about the women he has had consensual sex with. Tayshia disappears behind a pillar to cry as if she’s a soprano in an opera. Derek wants to know two things about JPJ’s outburst: What is happening and why is it happening? Specifically now and to him. JPJ’s case for why he’d make a better husband for Tayshia is that he doesn’t have a podcast. He’s not wrong on that one tiny, specific point.
It’s time for the reception and only half of the cast gets to go. This is preposterous and fucking dumb. It’s also just engineered for maximum drama between Clay and Angela. Nicole is back on the beach to get relationship advice from all the other women who tell her that CLAY HAS TO BE HONEST WITH YOU AND YOU DESERVE ANSWERS. Some of these people are starting to get on my nerves. Once Demi puts her glasses on and Tayshia puts her hair up, it’s bad advice o’clock.
At the reception, Kristina flirts with Connor, and Caelynn takes him aside and makes out with him. Kristina makes fun of Caelynn for getting her leftovers: Dean, Blake, and now Connor. Women supporting women (until you date the same guy)!
Angela and Clay sit down and have an uncomfortable post-breakup, post-friend’s-wedding conversation. It seems like Clay knows that how he broke up with Angela was shitty but he stands by his decision and Angela is just pissed. She tells him that he needs to find himself and be alone after their breakup. Well, ma’am, you don’t really get to make that call, even if it is a good point.
Back on the beach, JPJ decides to confront Derek with absolutely no evidence or willingness to let Derek defend himself. Derek takes a two-second pause to respond to an allegation and JPJ shouts at him, “I DON’T WANNA BE ON YOUR PODCAST!†Oh my God, if this show now involves podcast drama, I’m out. I follow enough comedians on Twitter, I don’t need this. Derek also says he had no idea JPJ was into Tayshia, but really that doesn’t matter because Tayshia made it very clear she was into Derek.
The next morning, we get two new arrivals on the beach. First — it’s Connor S.! Who couldn’t see this coming!? He takes both Caelynn and Kristina aside but picks Caelynn to go on a sexy body-painting date. Caelynn immediately starts picking out the font for their wedding invite. While Clay and Nicole talk about his non-feelings for Angela and how Clay apparently didn’t introduce her as his girlfriend, there’s one final arrival on the beach: Angela, because fuck you, that’s why!
See you next week!