Things are far more calm in Javen’s world and Jeffri even breaks into a mini song and shimmy to let us know that Javen is experiencing a monumental breakthrough: he allows Kayla to physically enter his bedroom and help him sort his clothing. (Is anyone else confused about Jeffri’s role on this show? Is she there to meet a guy or is she there to cheer on the women who are actually making connections with these men? In any case, Jeffri is pretty and I’ve never wanted to punch her in the throat so I say just give the woman her own f*cking show.) Kayla and Javen bond over which clothing should be ironed and the difficulties of errant eyebrow hairs, but since their time together doesn’t end with him declaring his love, all I want is to get back to The Evan-Morgan-Kaci Story, which will someday become a Lifetime TV movie that we should all refuse to watch because there is terrible and then there is Lifetime-TV-movie-terrible and it’s probably wise for us as a society to have some standards.
Mark shows up unannounced at the girls’ house, listens to them explain how anxious they are about what their boyfriends are doing, and then he makes everyone feel even worse by telling them there will be a Bonfire that evening. Kady is less worried about what she will see and more concerned about what John will see, but nobody is more freaked out than Kaci. She’s scared out of her mind and let’s face it: the producers have a big decision to make in deciding whether they should show her Evan and Morgan having sex or Evan and Morgan declaring their love for one another. Kaci doesn’t want any of the other girls to see even a second of the footage and she plans to stick the earphones in, close her eyes, and not watch the clip either. I’m not sure if such willful denial is permissible for the participants of Temptation Island, but this is Kaci’s plan and she will stick to it, even when a producer asks her question after question, even when she can sense that her five-year relationship is imploding from the inside out.
Kaci tells the other women and Johnny that she plans to forgive Evan for anything he does on that island, but that does not include him having sex. Sex is the line he cannot cross. Oy vey. My guess here is Kaci will eventually overlook even the sex that she initially declared a deal-breaker and she will do so because she feels responsible for the fact that they even entered this situation in the first place. And if I’m correct in this particular session of Armchair Psychology With Nell, I feel the need to caution Kaci that accepting blame in a misguided yet well-intentioned manner can only work for so long. Following that frayed acceptance will probably be a burst of resentment that will sting like a motherf*cker for a really long time and that stinging will begin the second Kaci watches this episode and sees Evan saying that he feels badly that his new joy will hurt Kaci, but he doesn’t regret anything that’s happened with Morgan.
Also: The look of barely-disguised repulsion that goes flashing across Javen’s face when Evan speaks of having no regrets might be enough to make Javen my favorite person on this show right now.
The men arrive at the Bonfire first and Evan admits his feelings have shifted in a way he didn’t expect and John says he’s hopeful that the separation he and Kady are experiencing will lead to her appreciating him more. When the footage is shown of Kaci dancing at her villa, Evan smiles widely. He’s so glad Kaci is smiling and having fun! She will not be smiling soon, but at least this mini clip will allow Evan to convince himself that being on that island is good for both of them. Javen also sees footage of his girlfriend dancing and the reason there’s so much dancing being shown to these men is BECAUSE THEIR GIRLFRIENDS HAVE REFRAINED FROM F*CKING OTHER PEOPLE. Javen’s more than cool with what he sees so it’s time to move on to the boyfriends of the two women who allowed other men to tuck them into bed. Karl is very upset watching Nicole and Tyler. He’s certainly not pleased when he sees Tyler touch Nicole, but mostly it’s the bed aspect of the situation that he finds disappointing because he could have done that also and he chose not to cross the line. John goes last and he is feeling great, or at least he was feeling great until he has to stare at his girlfriend floating in between Johnny’s legs in a pool and then scooching over so he can climb into her bed on what I imagine is usually John’s side. This footage has given him clarity, John swears. Kady cheating means their relationship is off and he can stop running potential proposal scenarios through his mind. “She just showed there that she’s weak,” John says. “I need a strong woman who can fight temptation.”
You’d think John’s crushed future would mean that the Bonfire has officially come to a close, but Mark has another plan: the men can record a thirty second message to their girlfriends if they choose to do so. They won’t be recording their messages right now, though. Producers know quite well that allowing them a bit more time to obsess and stew over what they should say in their videos will probably succeed in driving at least two of them bonkers and that always makes for good TV. Besides, now Evan has some time to consider whether or not Morgan should make a guest appearance in his video to Kaci because real love involves always being inclusive.
The women arrive next and Kaci is sticking with her plan of avoidance. She knows the one thing she really has to do right now is survive this island experience and she also knows that getting the clarity that her world is being decimated will only make her time there overwhelming. What she’s doing is not denial, she swears. It is self-preservation. As soon as they all sit down, Mark asks Kaci what will happen if Evan does fully cross the line. “Then I can’t be with him,” she answers. We’ll return to Kaci’s den of f*cking horror in a moment, but first Kady is asked how it feels to be connecting with someone in the villa. “It makes me feel guilty,” Kady says with tears in her eyes. “It makes me feel vulnerable and weak and selfish.” And now that two women have cried even before footage has been shown, Mark decides that Shari should see what Javen has been up to without her. She watches him laughing on a date and her only reaction is to say that she no longer wants to have any major reactions. She will wait to see what happens and then she will accept the outcome. Nicole gets to watch Brittany back her ass into Karl’s nether regions in a hot tub – and seeing him throw his head back just makes it so much worse – but she’s kind of okay about it. What Nicole is discovering through this process is that the relationship she and Karl are in is pretty surface level and not nearly as deep as the relationships of the other girls. Kady is up next and she is struggling. She chooses to watch the footage with the women she now considers family and what they all see is John briefly kissing Katheryn.
“Do you recognize who that is?” Mark asks her.
Kady shakes her head.
“That was the girl you blocked,” Mark so helpfully informs her.
“It’s painful,” Kady admits. “But growth is painful.”
And speaking of searing f*cking pain, Kaci just can’t take anymore so she accepts the tablet, shoves in those ear buds, and the rest of the girls respectfully avert their eyes while she closes hers entirely. She listens to Morgan and Evan breathe heavily, she hears Morgan say “That feels so good,” but she does not stare at so much as a frame of footage. You may all think that what Kaci’s doing here is engaging in some seriously hefty denial, but I think her strategy right now is brilliant. Why allow intentionally edited footage to f*ck with her sanity? She’ll have to deal with all this sh*t eventually – she knows that – and an off-camera producer attempts to get her to deal with it right now, but Kaci thinks she knows what the right move is here. For tonight, she will bury her head in the sand – and she will try her very best to not even conjure up a single image or entertain a single thought about where Evan is burying his own head for the evening.
An exclusive clip from next week’s episode shows Evan truly thinking he’s weak for breaking the rules he set pre-show with Kaci:
Nell Kalter teaches Film and Media at a school in New York. She is the author of the books THAT YEAR and STUDENT, both available on amazon.com in paperback and for your Kindle. Also be sure to check out her website at nellkalter.com. Her twitter is @nell_kalter.
