It’s a weird time for both stand-up comedy and reality television. Social media has radically altered both mediums, forcing its participants to be good at their respective art forms and selling themselves online. You can see it in the current war over crowd work clips and in the new Real Housewives of New York, whose talent seems more concerned with how they’ll be perceived online than in making good reality television. In other words, when everything is content, nothing is art. This is all to say that Katie Thurston doing stand-up comedy is a signal of artistic collapse.
But before we can talk about tonight’s truly distressing “comedy,” we must find out who Michael is taking on this date! Everyone hopes it’s Olivia, mostly because she’s had such a rough time on the beach, but Kat just wants her gone so she’ll stop trying to hex her. He does, indeed, choose Olivia. (He doesn’t have any other options, but I’m excited for her to smooch a cutie.) She is also excited for herself and waggles her hand around in a confessional to indicate that she could be engaged soon. She starts to leave, but a producer asks if she knows Michael’s name, and she admits she does not because the waves were too loud when he introduced himself. Now this is comedy — Katie, take notes!
Their date is a performance by some local musicians — presumably employees of the resort — and they seem to have a fun time dancing together. Michael says he doesn’t know how to dance, but from how he’s moving his hips around, he seems to know how to do something else. Olvia is also taking notice. It’s what I always say: The sweetest revenge is getting dicked down so good you forget about anyone named Kat.
Cut to John Henry and Kat making out on a daybed (with tongue). John Henry tells Kat about his conversation with Olivia, spinning it as “weird,” but they’re on the same page, and both are moving on. Kat tells us how impressed she is at John Henry’s “grace” in the situation. Honestly, they’re both so delusional and dumb that it could work out! But I said that about Kat and Brayden, too, so who knows? Also, Kat learns that John Henry likes to mosh at heavy-metal shows (I’m dying to know what bands he’s seeing; he strikes me as a Slipknot guy) and is freaked out because “people die!” I have nothing to say about this moment; it’s too pure. Watching Kat is like looking at an eclipse — it’s impossible to describe, and it also hurts a little.
Meanwhile, Rachel says she feels wary of Tanner because she doesn’t know whether he gave her a “friendship rose” or is actually into her. Uh oh, someone started expressing doubt! That means it’s time for a new arrival! Technically, it’s two new arrivals, but together, they make as much of an impression as a single man. One of them is Jordan, who brings the most self-aware moment of the episode when he says, “You might remember me, you might not.” I do not, but we get a helpful reminder that he was Rachel’s first one-on-one date, who she sent home without a rose. A night one-er from Charity’s season is also here. His name is Taylor, and I think there are more words in this sentence than Taylor says in the entire episode. The man has zero rizz. (Can a young person please tell me if I’m using that word correctly?)
Rachel jumps up to give Jordan a hug when he gets down to the beach and says, “You’re not mad at me?” when he pulls her to go talk. Oh, sweetie. I’m not trying to be mean to Rachel; I truly think this girl needs to learn to love herself and not base her self-worth on whether she can get engaged to someone on TV. While Rachel and Jordan talk, Eliza tells everyone that Rachel regrets sending Jordan home so soon. When are they having these conversations? Did this come up before Jordan arrived on the beach, or did we have time for girl talk between Jordan’s arrival and this conversation? It seems like a small difference, but I think it matters if Rachel was organically talking about Jordan to her girlfriends! Anyway, he takes her on a date.
The date card says to “choose someone for your mind, body, and soul.” Obviously, that means tantric yoga! We’re meant to believe that Jordan and Rachel stumble upon this yoga class and are invited to join, but someone tells Rachel to wear yoga pants. They do some poses together before the instructor invites them to wrap their legs around each other, and Rachel bats her eyelashes at Jordan until she gets tired of waiting for him to take the hint and just goes in for the kiss herself. I know I’ve been very hard on Rachel, but I will give her this: She seems to be a pretty good kisser.
Back at the beach, it’s time for the couples to start discussing the future. Kylee and Aven are talking baby names: They come up with Navy and Heaven. Okay, here’s some advice about baby names from someone who recently went through this. Never, ever tell anyone your baby’s name before it’s attached to a baby. They should have to look at a tiny human and say they hate it. Also, making fun of baby names is so 2012, so I will simply point out that one of the options on that baby name chalkboard meme was, in fact, Nayvie. Okay, moving on.
Rachel returns from her yoga date and pretty immediately talks to Tanner. This is a boring conversation, as is the follow-up where Rachel returns to Tanner after a Wells pep-talk, and they both agree they want to “try” this relationship out. Rachel says that this conversation is the most she’s felt since being on the beach, which confirms that she’s kind of a boring person. Why is she still on my TV?
More boring stuff happens: Aaron asks Eliza to be his girlfriend, and Brayden pierces Tyler’s ear. We get a brief clip of the gang playing charades with things that are paradise-related, but it clearly didn’t stir up any drama or further any storylines because we only see a couple of seconds of it. We’re back to the truth box, with two notes about Peter’s smooth legs and one about Kat and John Henry going the distance, which Kat wrote. Finally, things pick back up when we get a note saying, “Tyler, everyone knows you’re not that into Mercedes.” This is certainly news to me and seems to be news to Mercedes as well. “Whoever wrote it obviously is looking out for me,” she tells us in a confessional. Tyler should be talking to Mercedes about this immediately if only to laugh it off and reassure her it’s not the case, but he does not do that! Instead, he sounds like me in my performance reviews when my boss asks me my goals for the next quarter. Just like I cannot say, “Do as little work as possible without getting fired,” Tyler cannot say, “Get paid for every episode of Paradise and maybe get to see your boobs at some point.” Mercedes asks if he has his walls up after he got dumped after last year’s BiP, but honestly, I think this dude was just looking to get paid for making out on the beach.
It’s the next morning, and Kat is leading a yoga class for the men in a bikini, so she definitely flashes everyone her entire vulva while demonstrating crow pose. I’m just saying that as much as these men like to accuse Kat of being a “homie hopper,” they’re still desperate for her attention. Oh, right, Taylor is still here. He’s waiting for a date card, but instead, Aven and Pete get a double date. Producers were clearly out of ideas with this date — it’s a daytime dance party, but also, they’re doing games? Kylee is nervous because she likes “hanging out with [her] friends and having a good time” (read: she goes clubbing every night), and Aven is more of a “shy boy.” This should indicate to Aven that maybe they’re not going to be compatible outside of here, but instead, he tells Kylee he’s falling in love with her. I predict these two will get engaged and break up before spring. Sam and Pete seem like a fun hang, though.
Back at the beach, Jess and Blake finally appear to be on the same page, her inability to throw a frisbee notwithstanding. We get a very out-of-context, floating soundbite of Jess saying, “I’m just happy I found my person,” which means some shit’s about to hit the fan. That shit comes in the form of Katie Thurston, former Bachelorette and Blake’s ex-fiancée. Jesse very unconvincingly says that he didn’t expect to see her here and lets her know Blake is on the beach. These producers think they’re slick! A former Bachelorette is not coming on the show as a cast member on week eight, and we all know that. But it’s not until after Katie has a very tense conversation with Blake (I don’t want to recap it because Katie shouldn’t even be here, but I did remember during this conversation that Katie was a pioneer of weaponized therapy-speak) she reveals she’s here in her capacity as a “comedian” to host a Bachelor in Paradise roast! If there was any doubt about whether Katie was good at stand-up, her two attempts at jokes fizzled so hard she had to tell people they were allowed to laugh.
Okay, here’s the thing about a roast. It is a very, very specialized skill that requires a lot of trust between participants and self-awareness. This group has none of either. But this is a generation raised on Comedy Central who thinks a roast is just saying something mean. But because (good) comedians make what they do look effortless, lots of people don’t understand just how difficult it is to write a (good) joke. At least when they do roasts on Drag Race, the contestants are professional entertainers who have help from actual comics to tighten up their jokes. These guys just have Katie Thurston. It’s not a great sign for her career that her jokes are on the same level as everyone else’s. Actually, Aven’s impression of Rachel was funnier than anything Katie said. Also, I need to know what was bleeped in Tyler’s joke about Mercedes. “She thinks she’s a Mercedes, but she’s actually just a bitch” is kinda funny, I’m sorry.
So, yes, this roast was a disaster. But it didn’t need to be funny; it needed to stir up drama. And that it very much did because none of these people have a sense of humor about themselves. Rachel is really upset; Jess is too, but pretending she isn’t. We’ll see how things come to a head with Rachel next week, but for now, we’re left with Blake telling Jess that he remembered how in love he was with Katie after less time together. (I get whiplash sometimes when the show off-handedly reminds us how insane its premise is like this.) We’ll find out how Baby Jess handles this news in two weeks, and we will definitely not forget everything that happened this season amid the Thanksgiving haze!
