By Matt Mueller Culture Editor Published Aug 07, 2019 at 4:46 AM

So there I was, watching hours three and four of "Bachelor in Paradise" this week (with NO rose ceremony to show for it, might I very grumbly add), doing my usual Facebook Live recap with a tasty glass wine and assuming all the drama for the night was through. OH HOW I NAIVE I WAS! As it turns out, last night was the unofficial debut of the "Bachelor in Paradise" multi-screen experience, and the drama unfolding on the show featuring Blake was just the start. 

But I'm getting ahead of myself; let's recap tonight's episode, starting with the return of the corny opening credits. YAY! Though I must report I was disappointed by the final product. There's nowhere near enough goofy props involved. Save for Gerard Butler getting a walker and Jane getting a bottle of hot sauce, everyone's mostly just generically smiling and posing for the camera. DISAPPOINTED! I demand a 75 percent dorkiness increase next week. John Paul Jones can have chicken nuggets as a prop, Nicole can have some Kleenex and Blake can have three tickets to Stagecoach!

Speaking of Blake, the drama mostly centered on him as more and more people on the beach learn about what happened between him, Caelynn and Kristina at the music festival. The verdict: He's a f*ckboi who slept with two women less than 24 hours apart and then called the former a "mistake" and tried to hide their rendezvous. CERTIFIED CRAPPY! Meanwhile, Blake's trying to behave like all is normal and well, taking Tayshia aside to let her know that he's going out on the date with Kristina. OH WHAT A GENTLEMAN!

Blake and Kristina head off on their date, which involves off-roading while wearing massive goggles and a bandana over their face like they're cosplaying "Mad Max." Because nothing says romance like post-apocalyptic road adventures. Somehow this actually is the most romantic part of the date, however, because Kristina uses this date to shiv Blake to death with facts. She grills him about what happened that weekend at Stagecoach (I know FAR too much about this stupid country music festival now), talks about how he and Caelynn's situation was a mutual thing and then tops the whole conversation with Kristina off with a "I value your friendship." It does not go over well. He doesn't seem to get what's annoying either of these women – and even when he kind of accepts his faults that weekend, he sets himself up for a triumphant zinger:

Blake: I've made my bed and I'm going to lay in it.

Kristina: So did you change the sheets?

Things don't get better for Blake when they get back, as Caelynn takes him aside to tell him that she's felt like crap about this entire situation and that she's had a bad time at "Paradise." And Blake's reaction is more exhausted and sigh-ingly tired of being harangued. Easy situation: DON'T BE AN ASSHOLE. Caelynn has a whole big breakdown in front of him, talking about how he's made her feel like this dirty gross secret – but that's not the fun part. The fun part is that everyone else on the beach is DEFINITELY hearing this all as well from the bar and making just absolutely delightful reaction faces. You know the picture-in-picture they do during the Men Tell All where you get to see the crowd reactions? I demand that during moments like this as well. I need to see Demi's gigglingly uncomfortable reaction in the corner while Blake's getting verbally eviscerated.

We don't get that, but in the end, Blake feels very bad because everybody hates him – including Tayshia as well because Kristina fills her in on the whole Stagecoach drama. (Boy, this whole thing either seems like the best or worst product placement for Stagecoach!) And in case all of this is not enough, multiple times Blake does weird stuff with his mouth that makes me VERY uncomfortable. In the end, Blake says he's gotta get outta "Paradise" – so our first elimination may come before we even get to a rose ceremony.

Well, surely that's the end of the drama, right? ODDLY ENOUGH, VERY WRONG! After making 27 more boo-boo faces at the camera, Blake determines that he won't seppuku himself off the show and not only decides to stay on "Paradise" but also to go after Hannah G. – who's been busy being adorable with the even more precious Dylan these first few days. So after blowing up his relationships with three women on the show, Blake decides to murder someone else's relationship after all. SOMEBODY'S MAKING ALL THE FRIENDS THIS SEASON! Before the rose ceremony, he takes her aside and talks about how he feels about her, and it all ends with a makeout session that makes Hannah VERY confused and Dylan VERY harrumphy – especially since he already basically had to deal with this with Wills trying to make a move on Hannah. That  eventually got spiked; this, however, did not. Meanwhile, Demi is there to pep-talk Dylan and make sure he knows that Blake is a loser. Demi's great – she needs to be the host of the show yesterday. 

So who will Hannah choose: Dylan or Blake? Well ... neither, because it's not her choice. The guys are handing out the roses this week. Weird way to frame this drama, "Bachelor" producers. But anyways, cut to the end of the episode. 

Surely THIS is the end of the Blake drama, though, right? As you might be able to tell from this very leading question, INCORRECT AGAIN! Even when the show ends, the drama apparently doesn't stop as Blake took to Instagram during this entire debacle to seemingly apologize for his behavior, to own up to his mistakes at this god forsaken country music festival that I WILL NO LONGER NAME, and to apologize for what he did to these women. All standard but appreciated ... until he starts talking about how ACTUALLY Caelynn is misrepresenting what happened. And to prove it, he's posting their text messages – aka he brought receipts. 

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A post shared by Blake Horstmann (@balockaye.h) on

On one hand, posting private text messages onto Instagram is awfully shady and a fairly crappy thing to do. That being said ... Caelynn does not come away from the text bomb well. She sounds totally fine with the "no cares" arrangement that Blake had described on the show and seems on board with keeping things a secret. But this could also just be some nicely hand-picked text segments and not the entire story – especially since this may have all taken place before she knew that Blake was with another lady just 24 hours before. SOMEHOW I BOTH HAVE MORE AND LESS CLARITY ABOUT WHO THE BAD GUY IS HERE. And somehow Dean weighed in on all of this on Twitter – and this dude and his gnarly-ass mustache haven't even arrived on the show yet!

All I know is that Hannah Brown can't be displeased about how this is all going for Caelynn ...

Oh, and I also know that I need the After the Final Rose studio chats NOW. We can stop the show now; I need these two sparring this out for my entertainment immediately. Nobody cares about what's gonna happen to Cam or Bibi. I DEMAND BLAKE/CAELYNN FIGHT NIGHT!

I suppose there is a dozen other people on the beach, so here's the rest of Tuesday's drama. Dylan was talking about how happy he was about how well things were going for him on "Bachelor in Paradise." DOES NOBODY HAVE ANY SELF-PRESERVATION SKILLS ON THIS SHOW?! Saying something like that is just asking for a meteor strike of sadness and singledom. So yeah, then Blake happens to him. I hope we learned a valuable lesson here today. Meanwhile, Wills and Derek are synchronized swimming together, which isn't important but was adorable.

I demand a full routine by the end of the season, my elegant swan boys. 

In other athletic news, Clay's working out on the beach – and his handsome muscly body appears to break Nicole's brain. Her face is locked in a 404 error message while he's all flexing and such on the sand. So she's into him – but so is Bibi. But while Nicole eventually goes over to chat with Clay and flirt a bit, Bibi stays by the bar with Wells to feel bad about herself. Wells tries to give her a polite nudge to be more proactive, but it doesn't work. Unfortunately those daiquiris are just too tasty – and even more unfortunately, when Clay gets the latest date card, he chooses Nicole, the person he's actually had conversation with, over Bibi. Sorry, but you may be bad at this game, Bibi. At least there's alcohol though. 

You'll need a lot of alcohol, too, to help get through Annaliese's half-assed attempt to cause her own drama Tuesday night. She seems to have taken it upon herself to be the Defender Of Clay's Ex's Honour (yes, we're rolling with the pretentious British spelling), because his ex – "Bachelor" alum Angela – is her friend and she says they just broke up and were even discussing getting a house together way back when. So right before his date with Nicole, Annaliese takes Clay aside to say that she doesn't think he's there for the right reasons – and to add insult to injury, she says it's because his football career didn't really happen. WHOA, PERSONAL FOUL – UNNECESSARY ROUGHNESS!

Clay, meanwhile, holds firm that she's misinformed, that they broke up months before the show – the timeline tracks with the research I did, and boy, is nothing more embarrassing than having "Bachelor" research on your Google search's history. Plus, the guy's single; he's allowed to date around. There's nothing saying that he must become a monk after a breakup; people move on at different speeds. In conclusion, Annaliese is being A LOT – which is her whole thing on this show. So much so that the Great Truth Teller Demi calls her out on it. Annaliese talks about their confrontation and about how she felt bad that she did it right before Clay's date with Nicole, to which Demi smartly asks, "... So why did you do it right before their date then?" THE BEST! Annaliese stumbles around an answer involving how she needed to get this off her chest, but Demi accurately concludes that she's got no reason to be involved with this tangental drama that has nothing to do with her. Plus, it's not like Annaliese has the finest track record of choosing dudes on this show anyways. MAH GAWD, DEMI; SHOW SOME MERCY! (Actually, don't; it's very entertaining and exactly the truth bomb Annaliese deserves.)

Oh yeah, Clay and Nicole's date is nice and cute, too. But that's not important; MOAR DEMI BEING KWEEN, PLEEEEASE!

Somehow, with all this drama, we STILL haven't had a single rose ceremony yet – but thankfully Tuesday night inches toward that with the first cocktail party of the season. There, Cam publicly expresses his thoughts that his future wife could be in the palapa – and he has a rose to hand out, so ladies should talk to him. Cam, are you ... threatening women into talking to you? Everyone nervously laughs – but apparently the line works on Caelynn, because she decides that she's going to move on from the Blake drama with him. Woof. Cam is like a Kyle Mooney character on "SNL" but with none of the charm and all of the painful awkwardness. He's guaranteed to write you a rap song, and when that happens, you have no choice but to walk into the ocean in shame.

Meanwhile, JPJ and Onyeka are an item, but that doesn't stop Hot Sauce Jane – who is, in fact, someone on this show – from trying to make a move. And that move is making him tacos. Smart play; food is the key to a man's heart, and nobody doesn't like tacos. Except maybe monsters. What could go wrong? In case you're not catching on to my sarcastic and rhetorical questions theme this article, EVERYTHING! It seems like Jane maybe lacquered the tacos with too much of her hot sauce, because JPJ starts to die, coughing everywhere and then puking into the ocean. And then puking some more into the ocean. And then maybe a few more times, just straight into the Gulf of Mexico. WHY DID YOU SERVE JPJ A PLATE OF DEATH?! Anyways, it's hilarious, and JPJ nicely laughs it off instead of turning it into some weird Scallop Fingers mean joke.

Oh, and also Annaliese is hitting on Gerard Butler with a stethoscope, but nobody cares. 

Which brings us dramatically to ... not the first rose ceremony. Yes, somehow after four hours of reality television, we didn't get a rose ceremony or even a single elimination of any kind. I'll admit that this was a very entertaining episode, but I'm going to need a little more forward momentum than this, "Bachelor" producers. At least we've got a whole bunch of social media drama unfolding with Blake and Caelynn (and ... Dean?) to watch while we wait – because as it turns out, the actual show may be the least dramatic part of "Bachelor in Paradise" right now. 

Matt Mueller Culture Editor

As much as it is a gigantic cliché to say that one has always had a passion for film, Matt Mueller has always had a passion for film. Whether it was bringing in the latest movie reviews for his first grade show-and-tell or writing film reviews for the St. Norbert College Times as a high school student, Matt is way too obsessed with movies for his own good.

When he's not writing about the latest blockbuster or talking much too glowingly about "Piranha 3D," Matt can probably be found watching literally any sport (minus cricket) or working at - get this - a local movie theater. Or watching a movie. Yeah, he's probably watching a movie.