We’ve finally made it to the last episode of Bachelor In Paradise, this weird live show/commitment ceremony hybrid thing that I hate very much. Just do one or the other, guys. One of the other! We came into this thing with Alisha & Jules under an umbrella of ambiguity, Alex Nation considering saying the “L” word to Bill, Davey being strange with Flo even though he basically begged to see her again, and Nathan apparently only wanting to kiss Tenille in front of the cameras.
[jwplayer cYRrlbK0]
And we ended it with… basically everyone hating each other with the fire of a thousand suns. I cannot remember a time before I started watching this marathon episode of reality TV. Did time exist before this finale? I think not.
USUALLY, I’d be recapping this with Josie, my Editor. But she was minding a baby and then the baby hated her so much it started uncontrollably vomiting all over her! All I am saying is that my dog decided today was the today to start pissing on the couch, and I’m still here guys. Kidding. Babies are totally more demonic than puppies.
ANYWAY! You’ve just got me so fucking deal with it OK? OK.
We started out with Oshie looking very dapper in front of the most excited live audience I’ve ever seen. Seriously, this guy was butt-jumping in his seat with glee. What do you think you’re getting here, guys? Because I will tell you, as someone who once was in a live audience. About 4000 hours of sitting around being told to cheer and clap repeatedly until you die, plus massive dehydration and boredom!
Anyway, Oshie directs us over to pre-recorded footage which picks up where we left off with Jules/Alisha. Namely, Alisha has said for the 4 billionth time “Jules, do you want to date me or just be friends?” and Jules is staring into the abyss as per usual. Honestly, is this guy some weird clone of all the men I have dated between 2016-2018? The answer is definitely yes and absolutely, and why do you want to hurt me Channel Ten? I forgot how HEINOUS dudes who aren’t ready to commit are. They are ~the woooooorst~! The literal cesspit of a boil of the worst.
Anyway, Jules does his Jules-thing where he rambles on and sends a bunch of shit like “ohhhh we’re just enjoying our time here ohhhhh I can’t give you a full 100% commitment” and Alisha’s like mate I just want you to say you want to actually date me. He can’t do that, so she fucks off to do a to-camera piece in which she gloriously says “when’s the next flight to Vancouver, I’m gonna go see Demon Daniel” when Jules walks in (!!!) right on that line (!!!!!) and starts blabbering on again about confusion and just fuck off, mate? Just fuck offfffffff like YES, SHE GETS IT. YOU JUST WANTED TO FUCK AND BE FRIENDS AND SHE SAID NO TO THAT SO NOW GO SIT IN A CORNER YOU STUPID AMOEBA.
Alisha becomes A Mood and tells him she is no longer going to “pursue him emotionally”, harking back to the same dumbass line he used on her originally when he wanted to try and stick his tongue down Tenille’s throat before Tenille brutally rejected him.
YES, YES, YES. I knew our girl was capable of shutting this commitment-phobic softboy down and she did it. She listened to her bestie Hannah “Brene Brown of Fiji” and got. Shit. Done.
Then we went to Davey and Flo who just had some boring convo where Flo was being mature and asking about where things went post-Paradise, and Davey was like “uhhhhhhhhh doiiiii IDK how to say words when lady says commitment things” but then he snaps completely the other way and gets really intense about commitment, and then Flo is scared? Ugh I hate both these people just date for a month for the publicity then break up, bye.
Next is Alex, flying in a helicopter for some unknown reason (to be fair, I zoned out while painting my nails) to tell Bill she loves him.
She’s concerned he’ll hesitate and if so she’ll be off him forever. Frankly I have zeroooooo idea why Alex wants to do tell anyone she loves them on national TV again after the Richie debacle but, here we are. I really like Alex now, I feel like she’s this grown up legend, but really. Gal. You can just say “let’s keep dating” and say I love you in private and save yourself the pain.
Anyway in a shock twist (!!!) Bill starts delivering this robotic speech that he’s clearly memorised. I actually felt for the guy, I think maybe he fucking hates public speaking? And fair enough, it’s shit. So I think he was just struggling to say the stuff he wanted to say to Alex, whether it was genuine (no) or not the hesitation wasn’t about being unsure about his words, it was literal nerves.
Eventually he gets out that he loves Alex. She is beside herself and tells him she loves him too. Then, in absolutely WILD scenes, she reaches up her dress to her undies area and rips off a sticky-taped ring. That actually happened. She gives it to Bill as a commitment ring, they kiss and head off.
Then we get Tenille and Nathan. It’s phenomenally boring – they just commit to dating. Who cares! Not me they are beigetown population the coffee stain on my beige bedsheets.
Flo and Davey are up next, and they head to the commitment ceremony altar only for Flo to tell Davey that she loves him but her intuition says they won’t work in real life. She seems genuinely cut up about it but who knows with these people, honestly. Davey is gutted, but who knows if that’s real either! One thing is for sure, when Flo says to Davey “you haven’t been your best self in Paradise” my response was “I think I’ve seen 0.0002 seconds of Davey airtime I can’t even remember what colour his eyes are beb”.
So then it was on to the live show. First they bring out all the has-beens we don’t care for. Nothing to note except that Brooke is loved-up which we knew, and Vanessa Sunshine made quite a moving and emotional statement about how she struggles to find love because she has high standards thanks to her deadbeat dad.
Then they bring in Nathan and Tenille. They’ve split up, because after a week Nathan invited Tenille to Byron Bay only to tell her within 24 hours that he only saw her as a mate. HOLY SHIT. Wild scenes. Then Zoe tells everyone she ran into Nathan in Byron at another time and he confessed he never liked any of the girls he was with in Paradise. He admits he said that.
One thing Nathan said that I did understand was that Paradise was “fantasy” and trying to make a relationship work in the real world with Tenille was hard. The girls were pretty hectic on him and so was Osh, being all “Fiji is a real place and these are real people” but like guys, what he’s saying is that they were on a TV show and that’s very different to real life. That is a pretty genuine statement.
Still! He sucks! And, if you ask Tenille/Zoe/Rachel, was only there for publicity or money.
Then they ask Ivan, who for some reason is there even though he was LITERALLY EMOTIONALLY ABUSING TENILLE ON THE SHOW, how he feels about Nathan and Tenille splitting and he says he would have “moved heaven and Earth” for Tenille and the audience is all “awwww”???? What the fuck guys this dude was SCARY. Not OK. Not cute.
Look for his part Ivan did apologise profusely and cry because seeing himself behaving terribly made him realise how awful his actions were. He apologised to Tenille, and he made a note of how the behaviour is often overlooked socially which is extremely true. He sounds like he’s turned a corner which I hope is true. Tenille’s response was good too – she didn’t condone the behaviour but acknowledged his apology. But still, I just don’t think giving this guy airtime was necessary. I’m glad he’s committing to change but he was heinous on the show in a genuinely abusive way.
Then it’s time for Alisha and Jules. Christ it was hard watching Alisha watch back their footage. She seems genuinely heartbroken, For a bit there I thought maaaybe she was faking it a little for attention but nup, I think she was genuinely in love with this dickhead and got her heart stomped on.
Apparently Alisha and Jules have been intermittently hooking up for the last 6 months which is… well it’s not wild actually because we’ve all done it, but Chriiiiist it’s frustrating to watch a clearly intelligent woman even entertain this man’s shit. He keeps saying things like “yes and no, I’m still processing” when she asks him about his feelings in front of Osher, who looks like he wants to deck the guy, and seems to have spent the entire 6 months feeding Alisha crumbs of hope and manipulating her into oblivion.
In great news, Alisha shuts it down (I hope forever) and tells Jules they’re 100% done but “you’re gonna be in my life as like a fun girlfriend”. Amazing. Excellent. Wonderful.
At this point I lose my will to live, this show is going FOREVER and while I’m enjoying the tea these people are spilling all over the place, it’s also like guys… this should have been a separate episode. Anyway, they haul Alex out and it turns out Bill refused to come on the show, so they’ve – I kid you not – made a cardboard cut-out of him to put next to Alex on the couch.
She tells us that within 3 weeks, they’d split. Bill told her he didn’t love her and didn’t want to be with her. I cannot say I’m surprised, the guy screeeeamed fuckboy.
Then we have Flo and Davey. For a while, I’m bored. I just never felt the chemistry with these two. Anyway, turns out after they left Paradise Davey revealed a semi-secret girlfriend. Not really – they’d just met when he went on the show, but he explains away his confusion as being torn between this new girl and Flo. It makes sense but also he goes ON and ON and ON about it and it feels like he’s rubbing it in Flo’s face. Flo’s bored:
Oshie even looks bored.
Davey’s girlfriend looks like “can you stop putting cameras in my face now”.
Then it just spirals into an even more boring convo about how Davey didn’t want to stay friends with Flo or some shit, and he’s going on about his new girlfriend being the mother of his kids. I just seriously don’t care!
Then Osher tries to save this trash-fire by saying that even though no couples have lasted, he is happy for everyone for “finding an ending to this chapter”. Even he doesn’t seem like he reeeeally believes it but hey! The 4,000 years of live show is wrapping up and we’ve gotta get out of here. So Osher makes everyone do…a conga line. Yep.
And that’s it! The end. Come back when The Bachelor starts, yeah?
