All The Heterosexual Nonsense I Was Forced To Endure During The Finale Of ‘Bachelor In Paradise’

Hello, and welcome to Junkee’s recaps of Bachelor In Paradise, where we watch episodes of Bachelor In Paradise and try to pretend we’re OK with all the hetero nonsense we see in front of us.

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Well gang, we’ve done it. We made it. Together.

We have spent an indeterminate amount of time discussing Bachelor In Paradise, and I now think of each and every one of you as my friends, fans, colleagues, family, neighbours, and estranged children. Thank you so much for coming on this journey with your parents (me and Patrick, I’m the dad), we have appreciated you reading our deranged recaps each week. It all makes it worth it! Mostly.

We have all had a lot of fun (?) this season, but it is now time to take off our Hawaiian shirts, stop shrieking ‘Bula’ in our horrible Australian accents, and go to the doctor to check for any suspicious moles that may have appeared after being constantly sunburnt.

Look, we poke gentle fun at this show obviously, but I think it has actually been nice to have something silly to talk about for a couple of hours a week. I guess what I’m saying is that it is good to be distracted from the horrors of the normal world by instead focusing on the horrors of the heterosexual dating world.

That is the most positive I can be, sorry. I am who I am!!!

So, I went into the finale thinking I pretty much knew what would happen and look, there were no real big surprises. I did however realise that one of the reasons I like Matt is because he gives me big lesbian energy. The denim!

The cap!

But in his seasons on this show he has also called out sexist behaviour, caught feelings faster than Renee, and wanted to move really quickly. It’s queer. And you can’t tell me this isn’t a beautiful commitment ceremony between a butch and a femme who met on a night out three months ago.

Even though there were no big twists in the finale, there were some satisfying and dare I say, cute, conclusions to be found. There were also some very annoying conclusions!

So let’s get into this, for the final time (until The Bachelor starts almost immediately).

MOST ANNOYING

Ciarran (Duh)

This part isn’t going to be funny! I’m just mad! Ciarran was by far the most annoying part of this season of Bachelor in Paradise. 

And on a television reality dating show, that is no small achievement. We expected more from him, having enjoyed his playful camp persona on his season of Bachie, but unfortunately it had all been a cruel trick, perpetrated by him and/or the magic of television. But it’s like the saying goes, “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, this time in Fiji, you cannot, you used up your one chance and now you are dead to me, and in fact, you’ve ruined it for all men, no more chances for anyone, that’s it, I’m turning this car around”.

It was actually pretty gross to watch Ciarran throughout this BIP experience.

We saw lots of examples of the insidious awful ways that men treat women, all condensed into a few episodes of TV. He cheated on Renee outside the experience, hooked up with Kiki outside and told her he would be waiting for her in Paradise, hooked up with Jess inside and made commitments to her, and then fucked them all over. He treated none of them with care or respect, and every single time he was confronted, he would get defensive and angry and storm off, chucking a ridiculous English tantrum .

He never had a leg to stand on because he was consistently treating women like dirt, so of course when called out, all he could do was get angry at them. Not only that, he also had the nerve to get furious at Matt for hooking up with his ex. Because he SUCKS.

In the finale, when Kiki called him out on how he has no compassion, and how he treats women, he basically told her that it’s because when he’s single, he just does what he wants, and doesn’t need to worry about anyone else. Call him a Communist, because that’s one giant red flag!

Personally, and this is just something quirky about me, I prefer the person am dating to think of other human beings as “people” with “feelings” and weird stuff like that. Anyway here are some insults I thought about him:

• Austin Powers Tiger King
• Explosion At The Tattoo Parlour
• Talentless David Beckham
• Fagin From Oliver Twist Seeming Bitch
• Malfoy Cousin
• Alternative Magician
• Shrunken Fabio

Boo forever.

Ciarran Getting What He Wanted

The only thing more annoying to me than an arrogant man is that man being rewarded and becoming happy. Disgusting. Unfortunately in the finale, we saw Kiki go down the path of many women before her. That path is “ignoring every single sign that the man you are into is a shithead, and unfortunately convincing yourself that he will treat you differently now.”

It’s hard! Ciarran is obviously great at convincing women he feels differently about them, but you could see throughout this episode that Kiki was struggling to convince herself that she should take a chance on him.

Advice: If you are having drinks with your friends, and all of them are telling you he sucks and is bad for you, and in response to you saying he’s a good guy and you see in his face that he is sincere this time they do these sorts of things..

Dump him. Kiki is beautiful, and smart, and kind, and unfortunately those things are not enough to save women from making terrible decisions.

She sadly decided to wipe the slate clean for Ciarran (after doing so multiple times after finding out more things about him), and gave him what he wanted, which was to leave Paradise together.

He wanted to leave Paradise because everyone in Paradise kept pointing out to Kiki that he sucks, so this made him happy. Which made me very angry. But then we got a fade to black and information about what happened to them, like we were watching a historical drama.

This made me mad again, and sad for Kiki, but ultimately happy she can move onto bigger and better and hopefully nicer things. And so can we.

Boys

Fucking hell so boring.

LEAST ANNOYING

Alisha and Glenn

That’s right, it’s Alisha and Glenn! I have to confess that when I went to write this recap based on my notes, I had written Glenn as ‘Gregg’ literally the entire time this episode, without even realising it was wrong. So yes, Glenn has not necessarily captured me with his exciting personality, but I found myself finding his relationship with Alisha VERY CUTE.

Mostly this is due to Alisha, who I think is the absolute star of this season. She was constantly looking out for all the other women, she was fun, she gave great talking head interviews and advice, and she is really funny. And she loves this man with no eyebrows, and that’s fine.

I knew that these two would end up together this episode, but I did appreciate that Glenn spent the entire episode emotional about how special Alisha is, and how lucky he is that she even deigns to LOOK in his direction and she could spit on him and he would say thank you (I am editorialising).

They were blonde and tall and made cute little speeches, and you know it is real because Alisha did that face where you try not to cry but you are really crying.

Sorry to post this semi-unflattering photo Alisha, but it’s REAL. Love is sometimes unflattering and real! Anyway besides Glenn yet again going on about Alisha’s eyes, which are the exact same as his eyes..

this was all very delightful. Alisha told Glenn that she’s never had a man make her feel valued and appreciated and loved before, and even though that is an indictment of men generally, I’m glad she feels good!

This is them laughing at a joke Alisha made, because she is the funny one. Every straight couple has one funny one and one constantly sunburned one. Anyway, did I cry at some point during this when Alisha got emotional? I’m afraid I cannot disclose that information.

Mary and Conor

It turns out at some point I got really invested in wanting Mary (a complete stranger to me) to be happy, and it was lovely to see her find Conor and to see them give each other a commitment ring in the finale. They are a good match because she is a big, sparkling personality, and he is Conor. He seems sweet, and again, seems to realise his good fortune in Mary. Here he is laughing at something funny Mary said.

Mary seemed absolutely stoked to receive the ring from Conor, and she cried talking about him, and did I cry at that? Again, absolutely cannot confirm nor deny the rumours.

My favourite moment however was when they showed Conor in the lead up looking at the ring he was going to give Mary. This is because it sort of made him look like he had found a ring, had never seen a ring before, and was very confused by it.

I wish them well!

YEAH THE GIRLS

Look, I know I am biased due to the heavy bias I have towards women in all areas of my life, but thank fucking GOD for the women of this season. From the fun of angel Brittney, to the level-headedness of the other Brittany, the women on this show 100% made it watchable. The men too often fell into the camps of bad, or boring.

I guess it is called ‘reality’ television for a reason!

NEVER TO ANNOY ME AGAIN

Everyone! That’s right, the funzo is donezo (cool new saying i’ve invented). Thank you again for tuning in, with your eyes, by reading. But don’t despair, and please stop crying — we will be back very soon!

A new season of The Bachelor kicks off almost immediately, so you will only go a mere few days before Patrick and I begin this cycle again. Say safe in the meantime, and we’ll see you for more heterosexual nonsense very soon.

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