Well, that didn’t turn out like I thought. I had assumed Graham had finally had enough of AshLee’s crap and was ready to get out of Dodge. Turns out he just ate a bad burrito and was getting flop sweats and blurry vision. Michelle Money rushes to see of he’s ok, brings him water, and generally tends to his recovery while AshLee waits patiently for the focus of the evening to return to her:

What is Graham doing? This is my time! He’s so selfish!

Graham steps back into the line-up, and when AshLee calls his name, he of course accepts the rose, because he has an inherent need to avoid any kind of confrontation, which makes Lacy want to throw up. Apparently, they shared the same burrito, which isn’t going to make AshLee very happy. “You should only be sharing burritos with me, Graham!” Being the soft, gentle, nurturing flower he is, Marcus begs Lacy to go the hospital, because everyone knows that feeling a little queasy requires an emergency room visit. At this point, even my Lovely Better Half thinks Marcus is ridiculous.

Chris Harrison gets everyone back in line:

Can we wrap this shit-show up so I can get back to my villa?

Michelle Money picks Cody – because he’s, like, there.

Sarah picks Robert – Yawn

Jackie picks Jesse – who gives a little fist-pump, because now he has another week to try to hook up with every woman within a country mile.

Which means we say goodbye to Kalon and Marquel. Good riddance to first guy, but Marquel – I’m sorry, man, this one’s on you. Danielle was cute and she LOVED you, but you kept going after the next best thing. As the old saying goes: live by the sword, die by the sword.

Let’s check in with Marcus and Lacy. It’s nice to see Marcus still wearing his rose, just so the hospital staff knows who he is:

You’re actually lying in the hospital bed with her? Come on, dude. I ask Lovely Better Half if she finds Marcus remotely attractive, and she snorts derisively and says, “What do you think?” As a point of reference, this girl had her tonsils removed using local anesthesia, and then walked herself back to her hospital bed after the procedure – when she was 10 years old. One time, she accidentally hit me in the head with a full-size dog bone (not a dog treat – a bone, from an actual cow). I fell to one knee and almost passed out; she doubled over in laughter and told me to “suck it up”. So no, this overly-sensitive babying crap would not fly with LBH. Have I mentioned lately how much I love this woman?

Back at the house, Cody and Michelle seem to be spending more time together, although I’m starting to think that Cody might be crowding Michelle a bit too much:

Dude, I’m trying to read….

Clare feels phenomenal about her connection with Zack, and their relationship seems unbreakable at this point. And, at this point in the season, we all know what statements like that segue into…let’s all meet Christy, from Juan Pablo’s season! Christy walks in, gives Zack a big hug, and says “Good to see you sober!” Hmm, sounds like an interesting backstory there. Sarah does her best to warn Christy away from Zack (and by default, Clare), but she asks him out anyway. In his defense, Zack does the right thing and declines, but not before Clare finds out the two of them went off to talk:

That’ll lead to a fun conversation. Zack tells Clare (most of) what he and Christy talked about, and she turns her frown upside down:

Clare: It felt really nice to hear that Zack turned Christy down because he wants a relationship with me.

Zack: Clare scares the shit out of me.

As for Christy, she still needs to find a guy, and Jesse is pretty much the only guy available.

Christy: My ex was a lying, cheating, two-faced douchebag. I really hope Jesse is nothing like him.

Jesse: Free alcohol, working on my tan, hooking up with a beautiful blonde – this is paradise!

Meanwhile, Marcus and Lacy cuddle in silence:

Christy and Jesse leave for Valladolid, where they walk around for about 2 minutes and then embark on an epic round of day-drinking. They do a tequila tasting, and then grab some beers and talk about their past.

Christy: My last boyfriend cheated on me. I caught him when I found a bra in our bed.

Jesse: That’s classic! No, I mean, that’s terrible. But I would’ve blamed it on my friend. You know – if I was the kind of guy to do something like that…

Back at the house, Sarah gets a date card, and challenges Robert to help her set a new standard for boring television. They go to dinner and make some useless conversation. Then they take a dip in the pool and dance their way around the most uncomfortable 1^st kiss in history. And there’s another 5 minutes of my life I wish I had back.

Here’s Marcus and Lacy cuddling some more:

While Cody benchpress Michelle Money, then paints her toes:

Watching these two hang out, you know it’s not going to end well. Cody is doing all the talking, and Michelle is doing a lot of nodding, which, as a guy, is kind of the opposite of how you want things to be. It’s great that he’s into her, but he’s like a love-sick teenager, where as Michelle has been around the block a few times and is a little more grounded in reality. Cody has his foot to the floor, and Michelle Money is doing all she can to slow things down to a manageable pace:

Cody: What if we fall in love?

Michelle $: Uh-huh. Can you believe how big your quads are?

Jesse and Christy come home with a full head of steam and run off to “get fucked up!” So, Jackie is pretty much out of the picture, then. Thanks for the rose, kid. While those two are drinking and mauling each other on a couch somewhere, Clare is still talking about Christy asking Zack out, which happened about 12 hours ago, and Zack looks like he’s ready to swallow a bullet.

Why can’t we just relax and have a good time?

Zack finally throws his hands up and tells Clare that, while he’s physically attracted to her, things seem to be getting intense really fast, and he’s wondering if a relationship would work. She gets pissed, tells him he’s either in or out, then storms off into the jungle. I get the feeling that Clare wants a guy who’s willing to get married by the second date, or she moves on. The problem is that no guy wants to get married by the second date, except for Cody, and he’s a little crazy. Maybe Clare should have hooked up with Cody to begin with; now that I think about it, they’re perfect for each other. They can get married next Tuesday and have lots of crazy little babies with amazing quads and serial-killer eyes.

So now Zack is commiserating with Graham (of course), and Clare is shouting at the raccoon in the jungle again.

She has a complete melt down, and then packs her shit and tells the producers she’s leaving. Michelle Money tries to stop her, but Clare is adamant, saying she didn’t come to paradise for drama, she came here for this:

Really? You came to gorgeous and sunny Mexico to lie in bed 23 hours a day like an invalid? Sounds awesome. Personally, I prefer Jesse’s approach to Paradise over Marcus and Lacy’s, but hey, what do I know? Anyway, Clare wakes Zack up to get one last rant in before she leaves. Zack, who suddenly looks five years younger, doesn’t exactly fight to keep her around. In Clare’s defense, he probably wasn’t that into her, so kudos to her for recognizing it early and pulling the plug. She says she’s tired of being hurt, tired of crying, and then she delivers the best line of the season, and something that perfectly encapsulates the mental trauma this show inflicts:

This is why I just wanted to do Dancing With the Stars

Bravo, Clare. Bra-vo.

On to the next day, and we have another new arrival! It’s Lucy the Hippie girl from Juan Pablo’s season, or as Jesse likes to call her, “What’s-Her-Nuts”. She takes her clothes off to properly entice potential new suitors and asks Jesse if he’d like to join her on a date. He looks directly at her boobs and says ‘Yes”. Lucy: “Great! Want to go in the water?” Jesse: “Sure!”

This show is amazing!

They visit Chichen Itza, and then they drink beer, come home half-loaded and make out in the bushes. And by make-out, I mean hand-jobs all around.

Meanwhile, a date card comes for Michelle Money, and she and Cody go to Dreams Tulum for a photoshoot…for a wedding…complete with wedding dress and all. The producers are so cruel, it’s not even funny. Michelle is divorced, she’s trying to slow things down, and they put her in a wedding dress? Not cool…Cody, however, is on cloud nine:

What if we do get married? I hope these pictures are on our wall someday!

Uhhhh…Do I really have to wear the wedding dress?

Somewhere in all of this, AshLee and Graham have a date. They drive sports cars around a track. AshLee can’t drive for jack. Graham makes a relationship analogy about getting more comfortable with AshLee the more he drives her (?). Yawn.

Cut to the nightly bonfire, and Christy tries to spark up some conversation with a truth-or-dare style game, but the Two Most Boring Couples Ever are locked in an epic showdown of Extreme Cuddling:

Cut to a visibly frustrated Christy:

There’s so much booze here, and no one is drinking it!

Next up, something happens with Marcus and Lacy, but honestly, I fast-forwarded through the whole thing.

Jesse and What’s-Her-Nuts come back from their date/hand-jobs, looking lovey-dovey, and Christy is confused and depressed. She sits down with a barely-upright Jesse to find out what’s going on, and he slurs his way through a heart-to-heart talk, managing to assuage whatever fears Christy may have had. So, naturally, they go to her room to hook up. And, just as naturally, What’s-Her-Nuts decides to join them for what is, as far as I know, the first threesome in Bachelor history. I don’t know what I can say about Jesse at this point other than ‘Well played, sir; well played, indeed’.

Next day, we see a beaten down and very depressed Zack:

He did the right thing and turned Christy down, and all he got for it was a truck-load of drama. Meanwhile, Jesse drank himself cross-eyed all day and had a threesome. Truly, no good deed goes unpunished. He does put it behind him, though, and decides to pair up with Jackie, who’s all too happy to stick around another week.

You gotta love the awkward day after! Jesse is in a pretty tough spot here. Seriously, who do you pick when you’ve just slept with both of them at the same time? Can you petition Chris Harrison to make them a package deal? I don’t know. I do know that What’s-Her-Nuts turns slimy real fast, and does everything she can to throw Christy (supposedly her ‘friend’) under the bus. This is why I can’t stand hippie-chicks. They act like they’re enlightened, and they’re all about peace and harmony and love, when in reality the majority of them are narcissistic, sanctimonious assholes who would just as soon stab you in the back as lend you a hand. Sure, Kalon was a douche; but at least he wasn’t a hypocrite.

Anyway, Chris Harrison shows up: “Welcome to another rose ceremony…and this one better go smoother than last time, or I’m replacing every last one of you clowns next week.”

Robert picks Sarah

Graham picks AshLee

Cody picks Michelle Money

Marcus picks Lacy, but not before giving a mind-numbingly inane speech, then making out with her for 5 minutes while everyone yawns and checks their watch. Even Chris Harrison hates Marcus at this point.

Zack picks Jackie

Jesse surveys the scene for a few moments and then picks Christy. He looks genuinely smitten by this girl, by the way. I guess all it took to tie him down was a girl that loves booze and has a bisexual streak. You kind of have to stop looking for someone at that point, right?

So, it’s goodbye to What’s-Her-Nuts. And suddenly Jesse, who she previously described as handsome, funny and intelligent, has turned into a complete prick, which doesn’t make her look bitter at all. See what I mean? Hippie-chicks…

Next week: cracks are forming and relationships are starting to crumble. There might even be trouble in Marcus/Lacy Land (gasp! The horror!) See you then.

Now, let’s watch Michelle Money kiss Marcus’s hairy nipple.