Samantha Out-Villains Joe!

Okay, now I'm feeling a tiny bit bad for Joe. Just one
smithereen. Mostly I'm feeling happy like at the end of a movie and the bad guy falls into a pit of burning acid. Or in this case, the bad guy gets outbadded by the evil woman who used him to serve herself.




Last night on Bachelor In Paradise we watched a diabolical plan unfold. It seems the lovely Samantha has been garnering allies and men friends for months all in the name of surviving on BIP to the end. With Joe in her bikini back pocket, she received his rose and then proceeded to dump him. The best line of the night was by Joe who sensed the breakup and said "If the tables were reversed, I'd still be by her side." I wonder if he thought of Juelia and how he double-crossed her only two days earlier.
But first, the rose ceremony:
The couples are Jade and Tanner, Carly and Kirk, Tenley and Joshua, maybe Jared and Ashley I, and that is it for now.
That meant that there were two men and five women and the roses were in the men's hands! Ben had broken up with Ashley S and dated Amber, who he liked and JJ had been on a date with Megan but felt like Juelia deserved the rose. Tenley told him this.
What stuck in my craw about this rose ceremony was the way everyone insisted these men give Juelia the rose but no one wanted to forfeit their own rose. Ben likes Amber. Why should he give up on that? JJ wanted to see what would happen with Megan. Why pressure him to give Juelia the rose? My blood pressure rose to watch everyone with a rose tell the camera that Juelia deserved the rose. Then give her yours!
This rose ceremony was unusual. JJ left, saying he wanted to give a girl back home another chance if she'd have him, but not before giving AShley S his rose. I believe he knew that Chris H was going to save Juelia by bringing back Mikey, who hadn't left the country yet, obviously. Not sure about Juelia and Mikey but it was SUPER FUN to see them walk back into the fold!
Ashley I. got her rose from Jared who thinks she's the sweetest girl here (by now he's seen her dissing all the girls in the first episode!) but doesn't have romantic feelings for her. He's still getting over Kaitlyn which is a normal response to going on this show weeks after breaking up with a girl he hoped to marry. Sheesh!

When Joe threw himself a birthday party in a private party room, complete with a cake covered in chocolate cherries from Jorge's bar that said Happy Birthday Joe, Samantha took that opportunity to break up with him. She tried to turn the tables by saying he brought so much drama to the table. If you think Samantha might be a nice person, please take a moment to slap your own face.
She's scheming. I only half-smiled at the breakup because I felt kind of badly for the birthday boy. All that day Joe had shown the most pitiful side of himself--one in which he's a heartbroken idiot, a weakling being played by Samantha. Joe isn't a master mind after all. He's like the canary that sings when the criminals get arrested. Earlier, he'd felt a titch confident because his true love, Samantha, had turned down a date with the new guy, Nick. Joe took that as a good sign. But Nick was quick to tell everyone she'd been texting talking to him for months and said she'd go on a date with him when he showed up. But she stuck with Joe that day. Why? I have to think that her diabolical plan was to wait for the next man to arrive, see if he was someone she'd texted and liked better.
Now we want Samantha to crumble like a Jenga tower in a hurricane. Get her feelings hurt. Did anyone else hear Juelia say that Samantha had gone on vacations with her between Chris's season and BIP? And then she treats her like this? What is wrong with that woman?

Another highlight of this wonderful episode was Ashley and Nick getting so drunk they could hardly talk. It all started when their date was re-routed from a boat trip to a private island to massages at a hotel (Hurrican Carlos coming in) and then hot tubbing and drinking (What is "Beyond Carking Carry"? This is something Ashley said after about 8 shots of tequila. Those two didn't know when to stop drinking!)

Don't forget the other highlights...Jade and Tanner having an overnight date and declaring their love for each other, Ashley I. basing her love for Jared on his bone structure, and Joe using the word "conversate". Oh, and JJ left the show valiantly in a hero-type flourish to say he was off to continue a relationship with a girl he was dating before BIP. (His twitter account tells us he did not end up with the girl. "BIP takes its toll" he said. At least he dug himself out of that rut where he slapped himself across the face after Vill'ing.)

Shout Out goes to the production team, the editors who did a great job capturing Samantha's awkward face when Nick showed up, and to the set decorators! As always--FANTASTIC JOB!

More tomorrow! Can't wait. We'll be conversating then!