Bachelor in Paradise — Season Finale — Live blog & Discussion

How distressing! It looks like there’s an NFL game on in my area instead of the finale episode! Rather than seeing bunch of hulking, overmuscled guys in bathing suits running around a beach, I’ll have to watch hulking, overmuscled guys in uniforms running around a field. Presumably there’s no Fantasy Suite, either. How uncivilized. I’ll try to live-stream BIP on ABC, but my technical skills are about as advanced as your average great-aunt’s.

Well, so far I’m not successful. . .I get nothing but aggressively cheerful infomericals explaining how to do my eyebrows (use different-colored pencils) and touting Ultimate Hollywood Tours. It appears from some quick, profanity-ridden research that I must upgrade my Adobe Flash player, which as we all know, takes some time and always leaves one with that disturbing sense that one has just introduced malware into one’s system.

So, as all you lovely people comment, I’ll just provide you with information gleaned from other resources, and perhaps recap the show when it’s available to me, which will not be when it’s broadcast at 1:30 a.m.  here in the New York City area, thank you not at all, ABC. The football game even pre-empted World News Tonight! What if someone had dropped a bomb on Europe! WE WOULDN’T EVEN KNOW BECAUSE EVERYBODY IS CLAMORING TO WATCH SOME BEEFY SCHLUBS IN HELMETS AND COLORFUL KNEE SOCKS TOSS A BALL TO EACH OTHER.

Most importantly, lovers of love, masochists, and those formally documenting the savage decimation of our culture alike will be delighted to learn that BIP has been renewed for a second season. They can keep this thing going for as long as the Bachelor and Bachelorette franchises continue churning out fresh material, which should be years, since so few of the couples ever remain together beyond the initial post-show weeks devoted to talk show appearances and magazine interviews. Extending the brand’s tentacles ever further, Juan Pablo and Nikki have branched out into yet another venue, appearing in season 5 of Couples Therapy to try to Krazy Glue back together their tragic pairing. Next thing you know, Trista and Ryan will be on Divorce Court.

Now then, back to the finale of the Number 1 new summer series for adults aged 18-to-49. I feel so blessed to be a part of such a vital demographic. That killjoy Reality Steve told everyone before the show even began that Marcus and Lacy and Cody and Michelle are the winners, which could mean the teo souples are getting married or that they managed to avoid sustaining alcohol poisoning or STDs. He also reported that Tasos and Christy and Graham and AshLee break up –I use the term loosely, since people dating for a shorter period than is generally allotted to precede the date when mailing bar mitzvah invitations cannot legitimately be considered a couple–before their opportunity to enjoy the Fantasy Suite. Sarah and Robert call it quits after their Suite gig, leading to all kinds of tasteless conjecture about how difficult it must be to do it with one arm. Or is that just me?

Marcus gives Lacy the option to decide whether to change the name on her credit cards to Faddoul-Grodd, which sounds like a degenerative disease. In fact, the two have been engaged for a couple of months already. US Weekly reported the joyful news in July, accompanied by photographs apparently taken in the Sears Portrait Studio. What a charming story to tell the kids when they ask how Mommy and Daddy met! “Well, son, I wanted to propose to Andi in Season 10, but when she sent me home in fourth place, I agreed to go on another show, where I saw your mother, who was dumped after the first cocktail party in Season 18. walking across the beach. . . . ” Lacy owns a nursing home, an odd job for a young person, but maybe she was planning to land a sugar daddy, while Marcus has that mysterious title of sports medicine manager that we all were curious about. Lacy will move from California to Marcus’s hometown of Dallas, where we can only  hope he doesn’t yell Andi’s name during sex.

Then there are Michelle and Cody, such a natural-seeming pair. They closely resemble the tableau created when I used my brother’s G.I. Joe as the boyfriend for my Barbie. While they’re reportedly serious, no engagement has been announced, possibly because Neil Lane isn’t offering any free rings on this show. Cody plans to leave his home in Chicago to move to Salt Lake City with Michelle. She’s a hairstylist and he’s a personal trainer, so at least they could open a business together making people look good enough to try out for reality shows. Clearly influenced by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Michelle recently tweeted, “The LAST THING @cody_sattler is is a “meathead”. Unless by “meathead” U mean, “the most amazing man on planet earth who is also very strong.”

The single most important piece of information about BIP that shall be revealed to you tonight comes via an interview in New York magazine with Chris Harrison: “The raccoon was real and the raccoon was there.” I certainly hope they paid him scale.

About E.M. Rosenberg 240 Articles
Favorite 40-volume series issued by Time-Life Music: Sounds of the Seventies. Favorite backsplash material: Subway tile. Favorite screen legend I pretend wasn’t gay: Cary Grant. Favorite issue you should not even get me started about: Venal, bloodsucking insurance industry. Favorite character from the comic strip “Nancy”: Sluggo, or maybe Rollo. Favorite Little Debbie snack: Nutty Bars. Favorite Monkee: Mike.