Wonderful! - Wonderful! 384: A Dip into BIP

Episode Date: August 13, 2025

It's Wonderful's once-a-year dip back into the murky waters of summertime funtime reality dating shows!Music: “Money Won’t Pay” by bo en and Augustus – https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoyaWorld Central Kitchen: https://wck.org/

Hi, this is Rachel McElroy. Hi, this is Griffin McElroy. And this is wonderful. Summertime. And the TV is nasty. welcome everyone to wonderful it's a podcast we're talking about things we like that's good that we are into this week's episode is a very special one we're going to talk to you about prescription the birds and the bees and birds and bees and also summertime television shows that we are

watching because have we done this before probably probably yeah definitely are we allowed to do it once a year we are contractually check the contract that you sign as a listener is said once a year you all can let your hair down and that's wild because we don't have particularly long hair in the first place we don't traditionally wear it out and when we say you we mean everybody we need we do mean everybody yeah and there's a lot of people like why don't you just still do rose buddies if this is and we're like we only want to taste it do you understand we don't want it to be our jobs but we do want to take just i just need a taste of it do we recognize that perhaps our show would be more successful if it was still rose buddies yes yes of course do we want to do the work and emotional and intellectual

labor to continue talking about and criticizing um shows where people fall in love and hurt each other on television no of course not do we want to get a taste of that once every 52 episodes yes of course we do. I will say if you miss that, Griffin and I will dip into love to see it. Yes, with Claire and Emma. Clare and Emma. Best in the game

at discussing dating shows. You may remember them they did here to make friends. They have been in the game for a while now. They're pros. Right. They do great takes on reality television. Yes. And

if you were missing that, I would recommend checking them out. Specifically this week, we are going to be discussing the new and improved Bachelor in Paradise and Netflix's own Bachelor in Paradise called Perfect Match, as well as a few other things. Maybe we start things off with a small one-D segment. I know we wanted to dip into just as long as we are doing the TV thing, we may as well tell people what we think about American Ninja Warrior this season. If you're new to the show, Rachel and I watch this one religiously and don't know anybody else in our lives who does.

And that is a crying and shame because, folks, it's at the height of its power. These obstacle goons are absolutely hogwild putting their bodies on the line for us day in and day out. And we sure do appreciate them for that. You know, unlike a lot of programs that have been on as long as Ninja Warrior, if you are a person thinking, I can't, possibly dip in now. I'm not familiar with the people or the obstacles. Actually, now would be a really good time to dip in. Not only does Ninja Warrior bless you with a like little spotlight package on a contestant over and over and over again so that you can become familiar with them. But they're doing these head-to-head races that are so dramatic. Yes. And like everything

lasts like each little obstacle run lasts like sometimes less than a minute. it. Yes. So you get a really nice little taste, super like fast-paced and like, I don't know. Exciting. Heart pounding. There was one episode this season where it's the semifinals, I think, or the final qualifiers. Well, the one I'm talking about, I guess it is semi-finals. There's a ten obstacle course. I don't know. And the very last one was called the invisible ladder, which is just like two suspended rings that you have to pull yourself up. And it's got like a, you know, a winch. when you raise up one ring it stays there and you have to climb no legs no nothing just your arms and watching these seasoned pros on their dozenth season uh crash at the with like a foot

remaining uh before hitting the buzzer heartbreaking moments uh thrilling soaring moments of victory it's just like folks it's good shit man it's really fascinating to us because there are a lot of people that have been doing this like I mean their whole professional career and when I say their whole professional career I mean they started when they were 15 yes and now they're 24 yeah and they own a ninja gym or they exclusively spend their time at ninja gyms and they don't know what the obstacles are going to be so perhaps they have been training all year on their speed or on their arm strength or whatever and then they get there and the obstacle is something they have never trained on and they have no ability.

How exciting. And it's silly. It's so silly. It's a show called American Ninja Warrior. And there's a lot of like Spike TV funk still that they have not grouted all. They have not scrubbed off of this thing. Yes. And it's like crazy whenever that shit rears its head when you're watching these people

who spend their whole lives training for this minute and a half of intense obstacle running, that objectively is rad, right? And then you get like, and here's the five funniest nutshots. Like, I get it. I get it. I understand. But the pressure is at the top for every single person who does this thing because they practice so much for a minute and a half of televised athleticism.

And the drama that just happens behind that, the characters, Sean Bryan, the papal ninja, who's like some sort of monastic tradition. He's also 40 years old, and he kicks ass for the Lord. He's just so fucking fit and fast. But he's racing against, like, this little kid that grew up that was two years old when he first appeared on Ninja Warrior and idolized him. Now he's having to race his heroes like 10 times an episode. There are, there are literal introductions that are like, this competitor could be this other ninja's son. Yeah, Naxa Garemore, who had a 91 obstacle.

streak without falling, racing against his training partner and mentor R.J. Roman, the Super Fest, hard rockin ninja, just a fucking clash of the Titans. Guys, it's so exciting and so thrilling and so good. There are a lot of, I mean, it's just interesting to see the variance to, Griffin and I talk a lot about these ninjas that are parents and have clearly, like, taken time away from their family, you know, and their young children. for us for us for me for us it's all for me to compete for what amounts to you know a few minutes uh and perhaps they like slip on a balance obstacle and then oh they start over again for next year you get to know these obstacles really really well which is one of the fun parts of watching as much of the show as we have

And there was a race this season where this young guy had to do this obstacle where there's two bars suspended from these hooks and you have to take the bars with you to swing it onto the next hook and then you take the bar behind you. So you're doing monkey bars, but you're bringing the bars with you. And on his way up to that obstacle, he accidentally kicked one of the bars into the water. So then all of a sudden he had to just take the one bar that he had and just kind of skip it, just kind of hop it from hook to hook. And it was the craziest shit. He ends up winning that race coming from behind. And at the end, he, like, is speaking to the person with a microphone at the end, whose name is Zuri Hall. And he says, actually, I had practiced that once in the gym.

Yeah. And I can't believe it worked. It's fucking crazy. Good, good show. I would change so much about it. I would change so much about it. We have so many questions about how these people, like, what is their, what is their diet? These little packages they get at the beginning on like, oh, and now I'm into playing the violin, too.

Like, what goes into that? How do they decide? Like, how are those produced? They have these names, like these nicknames, like, I'm the cake ninja. How was that decided? How stuck with that are you for the rest of your ninja career? Some of them have branded T-shirts? Like, what goes into that?

Like, I have so many questions that are never answered and will never be answered. given the format of the show. Yeah. And it's such a shame. And it'll be like, this is the Rubik's Cube Ninja. His hobby is cubing. Uh, no, his hobby is American Ninja Warrior. I've seen what he does on the course.

You cannot tell me he spends more time manipulating colored cubes than he does, practicing his long lichets on the wing nuts. No fucking way, man. Also, there is this, it is hysterical to me. the horniness with which this show kind of deifies the people who compete on this show

who have any kind of social media following whatsoever. There's a family called the Ninja Kids who have a YouTube channel that's apparently very popular. There's some other folks who just like have TikToks of them doing stunts or whatever and every time one of those people come up like, surely there are millions of fans

will want to tune in for this one. Like calm down guys. You sound so thirsty. I think that is ultimately why they lowered the age range of the competitors that are allowed in. And I think it's funny, they still put that in parentheses. Like, if somebody is under 18, they will put their name up on the screen and then in parentheses put 17. 12. Like, we know.

We know they're young. And here's their age because we're aware of it and it's allowed. And there's a whole generational kind of like quiet war that is happening of like these young guns are so, they're, I've learned a lot about kind of like muscle to like body weight frame size ratio watching this show because the children who weigh 95 pounds and our 100% muscle can fling themselves around this course. Like it's like watching a little flea circus. And they don't tire out. They don't tire out because they are they're 15. Like all they have is energy.

They have too much energy. Yeah. Anyway, it's been a genuinely thing. thrilling kick-ass season of a show that I still feel pretty embarrassed that I watch. But speaking of, let's get it. And that is 25 minutes of our small wonder. Yeah, I'm welcome. We're going to, I think let's start by talking about Bachelor in Paradise. And then we'll talk about perfect match. We wanted to talk about these shows because they are the same show and different in some ways. But Bachelor in Paradise, we're on season 10 of this is a 10th season. We have not watched the past few, maybe. We watched. We watched

all of... So, yeah, we kind of stopped watching because we don't really watch the Bachelor and Bachelorette anymore. Right. And the conceit of Bachelor in Paradise is they bring back some of the most beloved contestants from the previous seasons of The Bachelor and Bachelorette. And so in our head, it's kind of like, well, what's the point of watching Bachelor in Paradise? We're not going to know anybody. But they had teased the contestants from the Golden Bachelorette and the Golden Bachelorette were going to be participating. Which we very much watched in. Yeah, I was like, well, we watched both of those.

So if nothing else, we'll know those people. The Goldens have had a light presence on the show, a late presence on the show. I'm actually surprised that they made it more than one episode. Yes, I thought for sure it was going to be like, and now we're going to bring in all of these 60 to 80-year-olds, and they're going to drink Maitis on the beach, and then we're going to ask them to please leave. They'll count, it'll be like, you know,

when they used to bring back like the couples, like we brought in Jared and Ashley I to do one day and counsel you on what love looks like. I thought that was what the Golden Bachelors are going to be. Nah, man, they're there. They're handing out roses. They're competing. They're as much a part of the fabric of this season of Bachelor in Paradise.

Yeah. We have not watched this show in a while, and it's interesting that this is the one we kind of came back to because they didn't do BIP last year. They took a year off as they, as we now know, really changed the face of the show quite a bit. It has gotten a, and I don't think this is an oversimplification, a like extreme Netflix makeover. There is a new showrunner on the show. I suspect like some of the production sort of behind the show has turned over as well

because it just like I mean every part of the production of it is kind of different like the cinematography is different the location is different the vibe is different it feels especially in the like confessional bits like a bit less spontaneous it feels less shaggy

which I do I do I'm enjoying BIP okay this season, but I do miss the kind of, I don't know, how it felt so roughshod as compared to the more refined Bachelor and Bachelorette kind of product. Yeah, there was something, like the Bachelor Mansion, for example, like has more or less been the same for like over a decade. And it's not the nicest place anymore. No, it really isn't. And Bachelor in Paradise was similar and that it was like kind of like a summer camp

beach like it looked kind of like the place that you could potentially afford to go over the summer you know they're like we're sleeping in bunk beds like everything looks a little run down like all sleeping in two rooms like it yeah yeah like the the food didn't look that great like the places they hung out didn't look that great like it looked like they were kind of roughing it um and and so you weren't i don't know you kind of felt like if they really did find like love like it was against all odds yeah it was a little miraculous but now it's like in a very fancy resort everyone has their has shares a room with only one person which is they it's like a hotel it's they are staying at a very very very nice hotel and and it also kind of incentivizes

them to stay more than maybe previous bachelor in paradise sometime in bib when people get sent home they're like I can't fucking wait to get back to my apartment my air condition department People would opt out a lot in previous seasons of Bachelor in Paradise. They don't as much this time. No. So, you know, we get like three episodes. The episodes are a million hours long. And I would say our hit rate of knowing who the people on the show are, not counting the

Golden's, is maybe like 20%. Like I really, really didn't know hardly anybody. If I did recognize someone, it meant that they were pretty seasoned. let's say Yeah, there's Dale from Claire's season

Claire left with Yes, well, yeah calling it Claire's yeah, calling it Claire's season is kind of wild because she only

made it, I think three episodes in and it was like I'm gonna pick Dale by and then Tasha took over

that season. So I recognize and Tails one, Dale, Tails, Miles Tails Prower from Sonic

is on this season which is like crazy I thought he was Dale Dale is one of the older contestants like all of the

women on the show speak of him as if he is the representative man on the show. Which is really funny because then considerably older gentlemen do eventually show up. And then I think Dale does lose a little bit of his sort of social currency. But yeah, for the most part, it's people who have been in the past few seasons. We recognized obviously people, the women who were on Ben, what was the season we want? Joey's season. There's a couple women from Joey's season that we recognize.

But the big thing, oh no, I'm thinking a perfect match. I'm getting my universes mixed up. Yeah, this is going to be hard for us. Folks, this is the fucking hard thing. We are watching the show. They are airing concurrently. They are both on the air right now.

I think a new batch of episodes for perfect match just dropped and Bip is like maybe halfway through the season or something. And because Bachelor in Paradise worked so hard to become more like a Netflix show, it is very difficult. It would be so much easier to tell them apart if Bachelor in Paradise was like old format.

But since it has picked up Netflix speed, it's like really difficult. It really feels like a season of a very tame and modest season. Thank God for the Goldens because otherwise, like, it would look exactly the same. Yeah, exactly. Let's talk about the Goldens. Eventually, they do show up. And it is, I think, like three or four women from Jerry, Gary's, Jerry. Gary, Gary, Gary, but it's spelled like, G-E-R-R-Y or something.

Yeah, no, it's more than that because remember, like, it gets down to like three golden men and it's a big issue because there's like six golden women. And then, yeah, some dudes, some, some precious special dudes. Yeah, I think it's like eight and eight or six and six or something like that. I forget. But like the dudes who are coming back, we're talking about Captain Kim, who came up with a whole fucking. A weird, like, Pirates of Penzance-style song, that he wanted all the men to sing. There's, there's, uh, Jack, Jack, who was definitely a radio DJ at some point in his life. He's from Chicago.

Chicago Radio Jack. Yeah. And it is fun because they're all staying on the same beach, right? But the show is so fucking weird about it. The show is so, so, so weird about it. Yeah, there's definitely, like. They don't handle them as your typical Bachelor in Paradise contestant. No.

You are constantly being made aware of how novel and cute it is that these older people are trying to be young people. Like, and these two older people will kiss and all the young people are there like, oh, how cute. And it's like, those are people. Those are you in 25 years. Yeah, they're like playing the part. Like they're wearing swimsuits. wearing makeup like they're dressing they're great sports they're like doing the activities it's not like

they showed up in like nursing home attire like they are very vital participants but anytime they do anything that any participant would do it's like wait what a lot of hugely just like weird and inappropriate are they kissing in the pool in the pool wells i feel like is a particular offender in this department there was one bit where uh uh uh i I think, April, one of the... April or Kathy. I think it was April or Kathy, yeah, I don't, I can't remember. Did like a body shot or something off one of the younger dudes.

And it was like, you know, played for laughs. And then Wells says like, I don't even know if this is possible, but you might be pregnant. And it's like, I don't know if you can still get pregnant, but I think you're, and it's like, fucking holy shit, dude, you can't talk to another person that way. Anyway, the big thing that is just now happening in the show. as of our recording this. As of our recording this is that the format is now changing halfway through the season. No new people are showing up. Part of the show where, you know, people are swinging from lover to lover like Tarzan on a vine is over. Now all the couples are set. And now guess what? It's fucking Bachelor Pad, folks. They backdoored a reboot of Bachelor Pad into Bachelor in Paradise, which Jesse, the host of the show cleared up in a clearly ADR bit where he's like introducing the concept of you guys are going to play. games for money and then like it's like bachelor call because they knew that people would be like you're just doing fucking bachelor pad again bachelor pad was the precursor to bib it was bachelor and bachelorette contestants you know from different seasons it was not it was not about finding love

it was not at all if that happened it was whatever you found a partner you competed with them all bachelor summer long yes trying to get money and then at the end you Stanford prison experiment them to see if you guys split the money or if one person keeps it and Yeah, it's, uh, that's what it is now. And they, and they decided to do that again this season. And we have just started watching under that new format. And it has revitalized the show significantly. So good. It's, it is, uh, with the first challenge is like some real devil's plan. Like, wager a set amount of chips on whether you think these answers your partner gave are higher than lower than the answers will show like crunchy stuff. Yeah. Like, like, uh, your partner wants to have. sex this many times a week, like, and we're saying the answer is four. Is your, is your partner's answer higher or lower than four? Really? They have to wager. You really see the cracks in the foundation start to show up. Well, we got to see a lot of them studying beforehand, which I appreciated

the like transparency of all of them like asking each other questions beforehand, trying to like prepare for what they thought might be the, which is wild because a lot of them were like, what's your favorite color like what do you like to eat for breakfast like do you really think that's gonna be and then jesse's gonna be like how many fluid ounces do you nut and it's like jesus christ jet like really really really really intrusive shit uh yucky at times quite yucky at times i will say that is part goes with the the territory some of the dudes brian in in particular is just a real uh shithead and so like i don't know it's not immune to that it is not a fully unproblematic watch But as much as I do miss a lot of the, I don't know, charm of the original production of this show, I don't, I do wish they would roll that stuff back a little bit. I do wish it didn't look like every other reality show on television. But I am excited about the potential of Bachelor Pat coming back. Yeah, it still has the flaw. And I was telling Griffin about this that once a couple hooks up, once two people get together, they stop getting any camera time.

whatsoever right it's like the show decides like oh they're done like the drama with them is over right like nobody's interested in them anymore and you stop learning anything about them and that's kind of unfortunate yeah um because there's like a couple for example uh Spencer and Jess yes who get together literally episode one and then and we have not seen them on camera but now they're a fucking yeah big target because now all of a sudden on Bachelor Pad, you can kind of try and angle to get those people out if you think they're stronger than you. Yeah, everybody knows that they're a huge threat because they've been together so long. So they have definitely identified themselves as a threat, which hopefully means we get to see more of them. Because I do like, I would like

to see these couples. I like to see nice functional romances happening on these shows. Yeah. That's BIP. A lot has changed, but we also want to make some space for a perfect match, which we will do after this break. Can I steal? you away. Perfect match is Netflix is Bachelor in Paradise. Yes. They pull pretty explicitly. Yeah.

They look at their and not even just their programs. That is a big thing for this season. So they take. I don't know if they used to just do Netflix programs. I think yeah. So this is the third. third season of perfect match. It is still a fairly new show. We really like the first season. I think we fell off the second because like we don't watch the ultimatum. We don't watch dated and related. So like we don't know who those people are. And there would be a lot of them. Sometimes you see like someone from the mole come in and it's like, what are you doing here? Sneaky Pete? But it was all Netflix people. But for this, the third season, they do bring in a lot of too hot to handle. They do bring in a lot of love is blind. Is there anyone from the circle?

I don't know that I've seen anyone from the circle. It was heartbreaking. I love the circle. And then there's like one perfunctory, dated and related guy that they just like put in there. But then they put in people from a love island, from a Temptation Island, a lot of islands. From a Bachelor? Yeah. Not just from Bachelor, The Bachelor.

The Bachelor. They bring in Clayton. Nobody knows who he is. No one knows who he is. Maybe one person. One person clocks him as like, there's no fucking way. That's The Bachelor Clayton.

A season we didn't watch that ended with him dumping both final two women to go after a woman. Well, and then he had like a big public scandal afterwards too. He did. Yes. He had some allegations made against him that were, there was a big court case against it that was, that was settled. Apparently it was cleared.

Yeah. But he also, also on the show is, the runner-up from Clayton's season and they end up in the house at the same time together. Very savvy, by the way, on the part of casting for...

Which is just wild because I kept thinking like, if the Bachelor gets back together with the runner-up from his season on perfect match, how does the Bachelor universe talk about that?

I know. Is it canon? I don't know. It's not unusual for the Bachelor franchise to kind of wash their hands of couples that develop kind of outside of their parameters. Right. You know, like if it is not sanctioned in some way, they will kind of not endorse them publicly. Clayton fucks up so bad on this show, too.

Like, absolutely. The time is a flat circle. My man cannot stop fucking up. Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. Well, yeah. I mean, I don't want to get into spoilers. I just wanted it. I feel like people hear that and they're like, wow, is this season all about this one dude?

No, he just kind of fucks. up and then he scutes. But because I think they have broadened the net so much and they have stopped pulling like people exclusively from one or the other Netflix reality show, the cast, I think, is very strong. By which I mean everyone here is pretty fucking good at making reality dating television. Yeah, the sound bites are perfect. The camera presence is natural.

The like performance and challenges is like. like impeccable, like everybody, like, everybody is exactly where they are supposed to be. And it's like, it is trashy in the kind of best way, I think, where it's like, you know, people being kind of naughty and like kind of fun about it without like, without too much like full blown yuckiness kind of thing. Like a lot of, I don't know, there's one challenge where people like they were asked questions like what is your like kink or whatever and one of them is like a vibrating butt plug and it's like kind of played for like yeah yucks but not like that's disgusting and you should be ashamed it's just like a way different vibe than what bachelor

in paradise is yeah well and i think that's kind of too hot to handle really kind of open In the playing field, yeah, like, it created space for shows like perfect match. Right. Because a lot of these people recognize, like, if I go on perfect match, like, I'm going to have to talk about my butt plug. Yeah, and there's, yeah, there's a level of consent that is there that is kind of refreshing. I don't know, man, it's, it's, it is hitting for me much better than, than BIP is. And I think that a lot of that is that it feels.

a little bit more like it's not taking itself seriously really at all the concept of the show is also I think a little bit more compelling there are challenges every episode if your couple wins the challenge you get to go into the boardroom where you then get to bring new people into the house and put them on dates with other pre-established couples in an attempt to break them up so this like element of you know testing these relationships is so like endemic to the structure of the show in a way that I think I don't know it feels more organic than on Bachelor in Paradise where they just like bring new people in randomly and they can try and stick their nose in to try and like get a date here or there. But the person might, you know, say no, they might, you know, I don't know. I find that element to work a lot better and perfect match than in Bachelor in Paradise. Yeah. No, I have been enjoying it. I mean, it's still uncomfortable to watch.

A lot of me. you don't like seeing people's tongues. I don't like seeing people's tongues. Nick Lechay. Guys, holy shit, man. He is an old man. I mean, not old in the scope of time, but compared to these contestants, very old.

And he still comes in, like, the life of the party, and everybody still shouts his full name. And then he asks these people... Vanessa's nowhere to be seen. Vanessa's no. And I was telling Griffin, like, should Nick Lechay have to address the fact that his wife is not present?

because it's not like required for a host to always announce where his wife is. No, but it is when she co-hosts a lot of the shows. Yeah, she's on love as wine. And I tell you, a little bit of Vanessa would go a long way to stop Nick from coming off as the world's nastiest, most lecherous man ever. Episode one rolls up and he's got on like fucking blue blocker sunglasses and a big stogie and he's like, everyone kiss each other's butts. And it's like, holy shit, dude. that's so great there's one bit where in that same challenge that was very very much about sort of sex in general it was really great because it was structured like all of the women provided anonymous answers and the men had to guess like which women said what

but a lot of it just kind of came down to preference so there was one like what do you do for your man when he comes home from work and like a lot of them were like sex or dinner and sex and then one of them was like I would make him dinner and give him the best blow job of his life and one of the other dudes like

pick not that one and he was like I just assumed if we were having sex a blow job was implied and you could tell the gears were turning in this dude's head like he was working through it like an SAT kind of like problem

solving thing and Nicolet She proffers clearly you've never been married and it's like gross dude Nick, that's fucking yucky, man. You're a billion years old. Don't yucky.

Here's the thing. Vanessa's not here, man. If you think about typically the host of a reality dating competition, usually they play the role that is kind of like paternal or like older brother. You know, like if you think about like Bachelor, like there's this idea that like there, there is this kind of wise source of comfort. Nicholas Shea cannot provide that. He just comes across as this kind of like gross, sweaty uncle that like your parents

probably told you not to spend too much time with. And he doesn't have any kind of natural ease on camera. And he always comes in just full of effort. And it's just, I don't enjoy him. It's not a good, it's simply not a good thing. I think so many people could do a better job at hosting. I'm really surprised that they are so loyal to the Lechet, the Lechay brand, yeah. Yeah.

Generally speaking, I mean, how do you feel about these two titans of BIP versus BIP? That's a perfect match. It doesn't, it doesn't, it doesn't, yeah, just missing a vowel in the middle. They're great summertime shows. I think, like, seeing these attractive people dress and summer wear on, like, a beach locale is nice at the end, like, an August time. Yeah, sure. Like a July-August time frame. This is interesting.

I feel like it's too early to make a call on Bachelor in Paradise because as of our recording, it just changed to the game format, which I'm really excited about. Yeah. part of me is worried that like there will be a bit of a muddling of the motive of the contestants on this show right because bip in the past there was no cash prize it was just find love maybe you get engaged on a beach there's a point in the show every season where they would come up and be like if you're not serious about your match you've got to leave now how are they going to navigate all that's not going that's simply not going to happen right because now it's like leave the show And so you're removing yourself from the possibility of winning half a million dollars. Are people still going to get engaged? Probably not. I don't think that's... I imagine they're going to do a live finale, though, if they're going to do the Prisoner's dilemma.

This is what I'm saying is like the shows had two pretty fundamentally different objectives. And if they try to do both of them, it's going to be... It's going to feel pretty fucking weird, it seems like. It is cool that it genuinely seems like no one on that beach knew that this was going to happen, that it was going to become a game show. The morning after Jesse comes out and announces it, you see everyone like, so I guess we're on a game show now. Yeah. What does that mean?

Like, what does that mean for us? And so, like, that's kind of a cool angle. I don't know. Yeah. And Perfect match. You know, there's only six episodes out. It could get very, very gross. Perfect match just always feels kind of slimy to me.

Yeah. I mean, just because the challenges are always, like, quote unquote, compatibility. But then it's just, like, rub your butt on your partner. Sometimes the challenges are so unhinged and clearly. untested in a way. There was one where they were suspended on these big glass containers with holes in it

and the containers were full of big four square balls, dodge ball balls. Yeah, and Nick Lachet was so confident like, you're going to have to stand up there and twerk to get these balls to come out. And then it takes everyone like 30 minutes and they're like, we can't fucking do it, Nick! And it just seemed like they had this idea for a challenge

and didn't like put it through its places. And they realize like what it takes, unsurprisingly, is that they have to kind of run around the pole and it's not at all sexual like not at all they look pained and desperate and sad so then they start relying on the like the exertion noises as like and they try and start trying to present those exertion noises as sexual because they realize like they're not actually doing anything with their bodies that is like at all erotic no they're all like wailing uh it's it's it's it's been a good time for this particular

I will say the thing the thing with perfect match and you and I talk about this a lot are like the friendships between the contestants. Holy shit man. Ollie and Louie are like the best like buddy cop scenario and we've really enjoyed

watching their friendship blossom. Yeah. But Ollie on this show apparently it is just like known that he has married one of the women on this show and had a child with them, which is kind of fun watching this, knowing, like, this is an origin of this genuine romance, it seems.

It's why I don't know if they got permission or how Netflix does that. Like, usually Bachelor says, like, you can't talk about how you ended up until it is aired, but like... This was filmed a year ago. But like, and now they have a kid. The contestants on Perfect Match have already announced, like, hey, we're together and we're pregnant, and then the show started airing. Yeah.

And it's like, oh, I guess we already know. We'll see what happens, yeah. That's it for summertime TV. We've gone quite long. I will save audience submissions for next time. Wonderful podcast at gmail.com is where you can go to send those in. Thank you for bearing with us. As we got to vent the pipes from time to time.

You know what I mean? Thank you to Bowen and Augustus for these for a theme song, money won't pay. You can find a link to that in the episode description. And thank you to Maximum Fun for having us on the network. You can go to Maximumfund.org. Check out all the great stuff they have over there. You're going to find something that you like. I guarantee it.

We're not watching Love Island, and I'm sorry we didn't talk about it. I know everybody is watching Love Island. We are not. Yeah, and not for any, I guess, obviously, principle. Yeah, we're just not familiar with it. It's not familiar with it, y'all. I only have room in my, this is, summertime TV is like you transition to a different phase of your media consuming life and you have different needs and wants. until basically the hockey season starts back up again and then like four nights in a week,

you know what television you're going to be watching. You know, you know how that is? You know how you watch hockey? Do you think we're the world's premier hockey slash bachelor slash ninja warrior fancast? I believe so. I can't imagine there's anybody else. We've got merch over at macroymerch.com, some back-to-school specials. We got the raging, flaming, poisoning tea of not poisoning tea of doom.

in stock, just some of my favorite tea I've ever slurped on. And some live Mbim-Bams and Taz is coming up. We're coming to Atlanta at the end of the month for DragonCon to do some stuff there. And we're going to be doing a live Taz and a live Mbim-Bam. So, and then we're going to be doing some more shows later on in the year in Texas and California and Utah. Bit.ly slash Macroy Tours is where you can go for tickets and more information. That's it.

Thank you so much for listening. We hope don't watch these shows because of us. This is not a thing we really did responsibly enough in our time as Rose Buddies. It's like, don't listen to this and say like, well, I got to watch these shows. Look inside. Look inside your heart and see if you have room in your heart for one of these programs. Also, we have not finished either of these shows. Yes, holy shit.

They could and probably will get very bad. The last episode held the next episode, something very terrible may happen. Almost certainly will. Yeah, absolutely. The contestants we named Maybe terrible people Maybe and probably are But we wanted to talk about it

Mostly because one, it's kind of fun I think both of us listen to Emma and Claire I'm like oh man that is kind of fun to do that But also like I don't know It has been a while since both of these shows Have hit at the same time I mean it's never happened right The both of these shows

We haven't watched BIP in forever And as much as I don't love all of the big changes That they've made like we are watching it For the first time in a long time So there is something to that that. So, yeah, make the choice on your own. Please do not count us responsible for this. The shows still do endorse, and if not endorse, at least show extraordinarily problematic behavior. And that is not, you know, we're not fully signing off and endorsing that. So make

your own choices, folks. Look inside, but it is fun. It is fun to you. Choose or lose. Choose or lose, 2008. Bye. Bye. Maximum Fun A Worker-owned network Of artist-owned shows

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