'Bachelor in Paradise' Premiere Recap: 2 Sisters in Paradise

It’s hard to believe, Bachelor Nation, but it’s time for us to start another journey toward love, even if we’re still tired and hung over from that journey thing that just ended with Kaitlyn and Shawn #TrueLoveAlways. (BTW, I am subbing this week for the vacationing Bachelor expert Kristen Baldwin, who is taking some needed recovery time after that particularly exhausting Bachelorette season.)

There is something invigorating about Bachelor in Paradise, though. Maybe it’s the way everyone really drops the fairy-tale talk and starts acknowledging that this franchise is just a singles cruise sailing through a cesspool of fame-mongering. Maybe it’s the feeling I get that this show brings us a significant step closer to having Hunger Games.

Photos: ‘Bachelor in Paradise’ 2: The Cast Gets Tropical in New Portraits

This year’s Games will be in some beachy, resorty place in Mexico. Our first tribute will be Ashley I. Another nice thing about Paradise is how the contestants all but write recaps for us. Here she is, describing herself: “People best know me as the Kardashian wannabe who’s a virgin. I do cry more than your average individual.” True.

Jared is less good at this game: “I can’t be Love Man anymore,” he says by way of re-introducing himself to viewers. “That was for Kaitlyn.” Nice try, sir, but Kardashian Wannabe Who’s a Virgin beats Love Man. Next? Ashley S.: “I went on The Bachelor to find love and ended up finding a pomegranate.” That’s pretty good, but for some reason, she also tells us in her intro package that she likes to go to the farm? Didn’t we last see her styling hair in Manhattan’s East Village while giving advice to Kaitlyn? No wonder Ashley S. is so out of it. Her life is confusing to me, too.

Our next tribute, Tanner, tries to distinguish himself from the other dudes, something he never managed to do while competing on this past season of The Bachelorette. So he dresses up like Kaitlyn and does a little skit with himself for his introduction package. I have no idea what the point of this is. He is one-upped by Jillian, she of the omnipresent black box covering her exposed ass during Chris Soules’s season; in her intro package, she just goes ahead and gets breast implants.

Jade, who hails from the same Bachelor season as Jillian, is playing the chill card instead. She’s like, yeah, you remember me, I’m the girl who was in Playboy but is really just a small-town girl at heart. Because this is basically just a Soules Reject Reunion show, also present are Juelia and Carly the Cruise Ship Singer.

I see the appeal of having people on from the most recent seasons, because when this guy named Dan shows up claiming to be from Desiree’s season, I have to take him at his word. I have no idea if I’ve ever seen him before. Sure enough, he was. Not only that, but he is, or at least was, a beverage sales director with no tattoos who enjoys the work of Leonardo DiCaprio! Feels like maybe not the producers’ first choice.

Oh, hey, Tenley is back from like a million years ago, too. She dodged the bullet named Jake Pavelka on the 2010 Bachelor, then dated Kiptyn for three years after meeting him on Bachelor Pad. He’s apparently having a kid with some other woman now, and Tenley doesn’t remember how to meet people in real life, so here we are.

When everyone starts arriving, Jade and Jared are the first ones there, and they’re already holding hands on the beach when others start coming on down. Soon, everyone is hanging out at the bar and noting how good-looking their Paradise mates are. “You guys have some of the whitest teeth I’ve seen, like, ever,” Jonathan says. Teeth? Is that really what he meant?

Mikey T., of Desiree’s Bachelorette season, is less impressed with the men there: “I can get you all jacked like me in a month,” he says, obviously establishing that he is here to find love and definitely not to be a doof on camera.

Speaking of right and wrong reasons, Ashley I. has brought along her sister, hereafter to be known as Lauren I., who declares, “I don’t care at all if I’m labeled as a ‘wrong reasons’ person.” This is followed by a brief but intense attempt by the producers at overdramatization of this “extra person” being part of the show. They get a couple of the “contestants” to claim that it’s “not fair,” whatever that means. “Who cares if it’s fair?” Jonathan concludes. “Look at her.”

Related: ABC Orders ‘Bachelor in Paradise’ After-Show

Great. Moving on. Or, wait, not. Jonathan is still going on this, looking way too excited by the concept of two hot sisters of marriageable age presenting themselves together. He is hoping to have a “sister thing,” which he claims to have had before. Then when he hears Ashley is a virgin, he’s still not done: “I’ve had a couple of those. It’s a lot of fun, but a lot of work.” Lovely.

We are informed that the men will hand out the first round of roses, and that, apparently to honor Jonathan’s sister fetish, the sisters will be a package deal, in a sense: If one of them gets a rose, they both stay. “This is great news for me,” Ashley I. says. “Lauren can slut it up, and I can stick around.”

People have already started pairing off. Carly likes this Kirk fellow from Ali’s season, because he is wearing plaid and she likes plaid. Ashley and Lauren both like Jared, but Lauren agrees to “give” him to Ashley in the name of sisterly love. No one seems super-excited about JJ, probably because his whole weird bromance with Clint on Kaitlyn’s season is too fresh in their minds.

The development of deep and mature relationships is briefly interrupted by a beach wedding for Marcus and Lacy, who met on last year’s Paradise. Because who wouldn’t want a wedding officiated by Chris Harrison on a random Mexican beach with a dozen or so horny reality TV contestants as the bulk of your guests? Juelia catches the bouquet, which obviously means everything.

Anyway, so all the guys already like Jade, which: In your face, Soules. And Ashley’s sister is already crying, which is nuts. Now that I’ve written those two sentences in a row, I realize that they may have been more related than was clear. That said, like many contestants in Bachelor history, the one having the breakdown is the one saying the most rational things: “I just don’t think like how this could be fun.” I don’t think that, either, Lauren. I really don’t.

She’s upset, she says, that everyone there is so old. “I’m 24, and I don’t like anyone here.” She continues, “I hate people. That’s like a problem too.” She concludes, “It’s like a whole catastrophe.” It really, really is.

She stalks off to bed and poor, dear Ashley I. has no idea how to make conversation with Jared, with whom she has decided to be besotted because she enjoys all the aspects of his face: his eyes, his nose, and his mouth. I truly worry about this girl. She’s in her late 20s, and she looks like a model, and she has no concept of interacting with other humans. I truly wonder what has gone on here. She actually starts talking to him about how much she loves Princess Jasmine. And she is proud of herself for doing this. I want to cry. I understand why she cries all the time now.

Then the Paradise producers really outdo themselves by giving her the first date card. She wants to ask Jared, of course: “I’m into his personality, I’m into his temperament, and I’m into his face.” Check, check, and check, I guess. Everyone knows she’s going to ask Jared, and he looks devastated. “Jared looks like he’d rather take a back alley beating with a plumber’s wrench than go on this date,” JJ observes.

As Ashley I. practices how she’ll ask him, her sister gives her the wise advice to pretend she’s someone else. Finally, she asks him, and he’s so nice that he says yes. As they go off on their date, Jade says she hopes they don’t have too much fun. I see so little chance of that.

They drive a car fast through mud for their date. Ashley I. explains that Pisces women (her) end up marrying Scorpio men (him) most often statistically. (I don’t know what those statistics are. But, well, hey, it sort-of worked for Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.) “Thank you for showing me how a one-on-one goes,” Ashley I. says as she picnics on the beach with Jared. I feel like she means this is her first one-on-one date in her life, not just within the confines of the Bachelor franchise, and it breaks my heart and scares me.

Back at camp, we learn that Tanner likes Jade, too, which is not a surprise since everyone likes Jade. The evil geniuses behind the scenes give Jade the next date card when Jared is still off with Ashley I. This is played for much more drama than the fact that, oh, by the way, ambulances arrive and take Ashley S. away. We’re not told what’s wrong with her, though we can see that she’s conscious.

Dan accompanies her to the hospital, and the part of this that seems most important to the others is whether it means Dan, like, like likes Ashley S. or he’s just being nice. Most importantly, Jade asks Tanner on the date. They have a way more romantic set-up, with a candlelight dinner. They have good conversation, acknowledge that whole Playboy thing, make out, and go swimming.

The rest of the crew is chilling out back “home.” Kirk and Carly are canoodling. Jared is kindly indulging in “conversation” with Ashley I., who likes angel hair pasta, but also: “It’s a toss-up between Wendy’s nuggets and McDonald’s nuggets.”

Then, the cliffhanger: Clare has arrived, looking smoking hot, carrying a date card, and crushing on Tanner, Kirk, and Jared. Jared needs you, Clare.

Bachelor in Paradise airs Sundays and Mondays at 8 p.m. on ABC.