-We immediately opened the show and they laid the groundwork for one of the major underlying episode themes, and that was that Brendan is being a bit shady and some insinuated he’s waiting for Pieper to come on. Natasha is the one who connected with him right away, but this is news to her, so she doesn’t know how she feels. It is really hard to believe that Natasha, someone who has her own podcast with Joe and Tayshia, someone who seems pretty dialed in and has a lot of friends with the franchise, someone who lives in NY (like Pieper), had never heard one thing about Brendan and Pieper seeing each other pre-show. Possible? Sure. Likely? Probably not. But now the groundwork is laid for what’s to come later. Brendan = shady. Brendan – waiting for Pieper. Brendan = awful at keeping a poker face.
-Demi arrived. Took Brendan on a date. Brendan wanted to keep his options open afterwards.
-The other major storyline was Victoria P., someone I really don’t understand at all. We all remember the bizarre behavior from Peter’s season where she claimed to barely know Alayah, yet there was mounting evidence pre-show of how much time they spent together, even taking a Vegas trip at one point as state winners for Miss USA. And some other things that have still gone unreported. It was truly bizarre all around. So now down in Paradise, the rumor is Victoria has a boyfriend back home, and up and coming country singer. She says they dated from Feb. to May but then broke up. His name is Teddy Robb. That’s not really a secret at this point since there are numerous pics of them out there from a few months ago.
-This idea of was it or wasn’t it a relationship, and were they with each other the Thursday before she left for filming – hell if I know. Seems like she’s just trying to get off on a technicality at this point. Maybe they weren’t an official exclusive couple when she left to go down to Paradise. But it seems like he was definitely still in the picture and not someone she had completely wiped clean. But since she’s not with him now two months later, I guess that’s why she fought back so hard. But it’s not like Tammy and Kelsey are two randoms who accused her of it. Both were on Peter’s season with her, Kelsey is friends with her, and even SHE was calling her on it. I just think Victoria’s track record doesn’t bode well for her here and must be taken into consideration. The whole thing is suspect.
-Not to mention the defensiveness immediately when James approached her wanting to ask her about it was totally off. Immediately jumping at James and saying he was being aggressive? What? Did I miss something? It seems like Victoria’s defense when being questioned on anything (Paradise, Peter’s season) is to immediately deflect on to the person doing the attacking to make herself innocent. And then now she adds on a new tactic of making sure she throws in therapy mumbo jumbo talk to make you the viewer know she’s above all of it. The whole thing was so oft putting as James did nothing wrong by going to ask her about it. The reaction itself I think pretty much told you all you needed to know.
-Now, I do think it’s a legitimate conversation to have about whether or not Tammy and Kelsey should’ve gone to Victoria FIRST before telling James, since they’re her friends. Tammy did admit to wanting to call her out on her shit because she does that with all her friends. Should they have gone to her first? It’s possible. It’s also possible, and there are numerous examples in past seasons, where production won’t let you confront someone first to amp up the drama. When Victoria did confront Tammy and Kelsey, Tammy said she had no problem calling her out even though they were friends and had receipts. 2 things: 1) I wish we would’ve seen these receipts or been given detail about them. 2) I wish the statement of “she was just with him this Thursday” would’ve been brought up to Victoria in that conversation because I wanted to hear her answer. It just seems like Tammy and Kelsey’s side is more believable than Victoria’s in that, there was definitely still something there with Teddy Robb, and it wasn’t like she’d wiped herself clean of him and she was 100% down in Paradise ready and willing to be in a new relationship.
