‘Are You the One?’ Recap: Jacy Tries & Fails to Reform the ‘Bad Boy’

We’re officially gearing up for the end of the first season of Are You the One? and the contestants are getting closer to finding their perfect matches. At least hopefully they are.

Last week, the cast members got 7 out of 10 perfect matches. Not too shabby, but that meant that they only had three more tries to figure out the remaining duos.

So this week, after all of the house guests performed in an impromptu lingerie show (don’t ask, I quickly turned away), we saw Ethan finally apologize to Amber for hooking up with Kayla. As you remember, last episode showed the explosive fight between Kayla and the rest of the house (no joke, it was literally her vs. 15 people), but Ethan had yet to admit to the truth. This week, he finally came clean.

And just in time to compete in the challenge, which was aptly named “Getting All Up in This Beach.” The basis of the game was: in couples, the teams had to transport the most sand from one part of the beach to the other. The catch: they could only use the clothes on their back (read: their swimsuits). So after some interesting ahem, stuffing and accidental flashes, Ethan and Amber, Adam and Shanley, and Jacy and Chris S. placed in the top three.

The winners’ date: going on a scuba diving adventure with sea turtles. All right, is it seriously too late for me to join the cast now? Because that’s amazing.

But before they could embark on their underwater escapade, Ryan Devlin invited the entire cast to a beach party. Clad in all-white duds, the cast partied. Some, a bit too much.

Still upset over Jacy choosing Chris S. for the challenge, John‘s evening wasn’t too fun. “But hey, that’s what alcohol is for,” he said. And then ended up wading into the Hawaiian waters.

The other couples at the party had a bit of a better time. Chris and Shanley exchanged ‘I love you’s and Wes and Kayla kissed for the first time. Can we all aww together now?

During the party, Ryan also dumped some interesting news on the cast: the couple that would be sent into the truth booth did not have to be one of the three couples who won the challenge. Whoa, game changer! Any couple in the house was now eligible for the nomination.

The next afternoon, the three winning couples left for their adorable scuba diving date, and Jacy took it upon herself to finally give Chris S. some much-needed constructive criticism. During the date, not once did he offer to hold her hand when they walked on the blocks or pull her chair out for her at the restaurant.

Let’s take a moment here. I don’t expect a guy to gingerly walk me everywhere or wait on my every move (hello, I do have working appendages), but some gentlemanly manners would be nice. And good for Jacy for reminding Chris S. of that. Ultimately, it didn’t matter. He blindly shook his head and said, “yep, yep” and he pretended to scribble her advice down on a napkin. Face it, girl. Seems like those words fell on some very deaf ears. This is, after all, the same guy who admitted to tricking Paige into a hookup, so it looks like there’s no reforming this self-proclaimed Brooklyn “bad boy.”

When the winners returned from their date, we found out that the cast chose Wes and Kayla to go into the truth booth, who, drum roll please … were a match! So when it came time for the matching ceremony, there were already three confirmed matches! The rest of the cast paired off: Jess and Ryan, Simone and Dre, Jacy and John, Shanley and Adam, Brittany and Joey, Ashleigh and Chris S.

While most of the matches weren’t major shockers, Jacy choosing John instead of Chris S. spoke volumes. Even though they had their one-on-one time, Jacy didn’t think Chris was her perfect match. Can’t blame her there.

And we’re finally getting closer to the prize: the cast had eight correct matches! With only two weeks left, that hopefully should be plenty of time for them to each walk away with a nice $50K in their pockets. 

What did you think of the episode? Did Chris S. take anything Jacy said seriously?

Image via MTV

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Does Lindsay Lohan Make Oprah’s Network Relevant or Desperate?

By Brendon McCullin, Hollywood Staff

We don’t normally think of Oprah Winfrey as being desperate. The Queen of All Media is one of the most powerful women in the world and could buy several small countries if she so chooses. But, as any number of entertainment executives could’ve told her, cable television is a whole different animal. Winfrey’s OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network) has been around since 2011, but is only available to about 73 percent of the viewing public (for comparison, cable giants like TNT and ESPN reach about 86 percent). For a cable network to grow, it needs buzz and, with only a few exceptions, OWN has had very little. So, how does Winfrey’s network go about generating some excitement?

By hitching its wagon to Lindsay Lohan’s flaming star.

Winfrey interviewed Lohan when she was fresh out of her sixth stint in rehab for substance abuse last August and almost immediately began filming the actress for a docu-series called simply Lindsay. Presumably, this was to chronicle the struggles that a recovering addict faces. Of course, that’s how VH1 tried to sell Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, too.

In reality, what it amounts to is filming someone drowning. During the initial interview with Winfrey, Lohan came away sounding like she was poised and in control. She also sounded like she had been coached and was still carrying a healthy amount of denial.

The premier episode of Lindsay showed just how far the actress has to go to really become a contributing member of society. She refused to go to a scheduled Alcoholics Anonymous meeting because she didn’t want to deal with paparazzi. She backed out of commitments to promote her movie The Canyons, causing director Paul Schrader to call her out to the media. (Not that Schrader is all that innocent; he used Lohan’s extensive nudity in the film to help market it.) And, she backed out of a commitment to help a friend promote a lingerie line… which was the right move, but brought into question her judgment for agreeing to it in the first place.

Worse, it was clear that the people around Lohan are still afraid to tell her when she’s wrong. She berated a real estate agent over the phone because he wasn’t giving her what she wanted during an apartment search in Manhattan… and it seem that mostly what the guy didn’t want to say is that no one wants to rent an apartment to Lindsay Lohan. Her sober coach let her off the hook for skipping the AA meeting. And, her personal assistant seems sick of dealing with her and appears to just be sticking around for some screen time.

In a clip that OWN released last week to promote the show – and subsequently took down – Winfrey herself pays a visit when Lohan begins avoiding the camera crews of her own show. Winfrey tells Lohan that she needs to cut the bulls**t. That’s a great start, but in showing Winfrey confronting Lohan and separately stating this is what everyone said was going to happen as she’s riding to the meeting, it comes across as Winfrey trying to make sure that there’s damage control if the show really goes south.

Lindsay doesn’t have the kitschiness of The Anna Nicole Show on E! and its subject isn’t teetering quite so close to the edge as Bravo’s Being Bobby Brown showed Whitney Houston to be, but it does share something in common with both – a participant that is in a downward spiral and clearly has no idea how to stop, surrounded by people with seemingly little interest in actually helping. Just as with those shows, the process of being filmed for a reality series becomes just another enabling mechanism. It might be better for their personal well-being for celebrities to disappear while they try to straighten out their lives, but it’s not better for their finances.

As with its predecessors, there are moments of Lindsay where you want someone besides Winfrey to step out from behind the camera and try to talk some sense into Lohan. The previews for future episodes promise not just more of the same self-involved prattle from the actress – in one clip she’s confronting her assistant about his tone – but also appearance by her sycophant parents.

OWN is getting plenty of publicity for Lindsay and has made it a social networking opportunity, playing up tweets from viewers with their comments about the show and Lohan. It might even help Winfrey’s channel get added to more basic cable packages and reach more viewers.

Winfrey, however, started her network with a promise of providing uplifting and empowering entertainment. With Lindsay, the network is choosing the same kind of attention grabbing programming as every other cable broadcaster. There’s nothing wrong with that – it is a business, after all – but if you’re going to set yourself up as being above the fray, which Oprah has, then there’s going to be collateral damage when you jump in with both feet.

Lohan has dragged down plenty during her continuous descent… it will be a shame if Winfrey’s and OWN’s integrity joins the list.

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