Paradise Hotel, July 22: The Best Laid Plots…

When we last left Paradise, Tara had checked into the single room and the couples were living together as follows:

Charla and Scott: Yellow Room
Kristin and Alex: Bird Room
Amanda and Dave: Monkey Room
Toni and Beau: Blue Room
Amy and Zack: Butterfly Room

This week's episode begins shortly after the Pandora's Box game where Toni had unthruthfully accused Dave of saying he was smarter than everybody else. While Charla thinks it was wrong for everybody to gang up on Dave like that, the men choose to believe Toni over Dave. Dave and Scott have a brief chat where Dave assures Scott the accusation isn't true, but Scott tells him things get overheard. Charla advises guest Amanda to make up with Beau as both she and Tara want guest Amanda to stay. Guest Amanda responds that Tara and Charla are probably the only two people who want her to stay.

Charla then plots with Tara, telling her that if she picked Zack, Amy would go home. Tara replies that "crap would hit the roof." Tara then goes over to talk to Zack, much to Charla's chagrin. He tells her that she should make a decision and not feel bad about it. He says the other girls aren't mad at her. Hmm… well, last week, Toni wanted to kill her, so maybe that's not an accurate assessment. He tells her that during his first day, he never discussed roommates with anybody, and he ended up in a bad mood. Hmmm… if I remember correctly, he had initially wanted both guest Amanda and Kristin to pick him, but was the last man standing when it came time to pick and ended up with Amy. I don't know why he's complaining since they ended up having sex their first night together. We get a flashback of when he told Amy how surprised he was, though it didn't include his assertion that he was better than the guys guest Amanda and Kristin picked. Selective memory, huh, Zack?

He goes on to tell her that he and Amy are not a married couple, though Tara doesn't believe him. He says Amy doesn't know him (complete with flashbacks to his rant about her not knowing him). He is pleased that Tara will be staying and tells her she's absolutely gorgeous. Tara replies that he's a really cool guy. In confessional, Tara tells us she's learned that Amy thinks she's clueless. Well, she isn't, and she just might go after her guy just to prove it.

Now it's time for Charla and Beau to chat. Beau says he's the number one person who doesn't want guest Amanda to leave. (What? After all that business with Alex and Jason? Must be another case of selective memory.) Charla says she's there to help. She goes into the ladies’ room with Tara and guest Amanda and expresses her frustration that nobody will choose her to stay. She thinks she's smart and knows what's going on, then concedes the other two girls will do what they have to do. Guest Amanda claims Beau doesn't want her to pick him. Tara just thinks that the three of them need to stay. They have a group hug.

Toni and Kristin do their plotting via telephone, with Toni conceding she has no idea who Tara is going to pick. Tara, Charla, and guest Amanda corner Scott, and Tara tells him that she wants guest Amanda to stay. She's not thinking about this week; she's thinking two or three weeks ahead. She goes on to tell him that the guy she picks will determine whether Charla or guest Amanda leaves. Scott tells them that nobody is safe except Tara. The honeymoon is over and it's now truly a game. The original cast is going to get picked off one by one. People are getting together and plotting. The twists and turns are there, and the vacation is over.

The next day opens with a pillow fight between Zack and Amy. He tells her that he thinks there’s more punching and hitting between them than the average guy/girl relationship. It's more like a brother/sister relationship. Uh, I guess that would make it an incestuous relationship, then, Zack. He goes on to tell her he likes to play around, but not all the time. He can't give her a hug without the hitting and punching. "What kind of relationship is that?" he queries. "Are we like, physically attracted to each other, and we physically hook up, or are we just gonna punch each other, and like..." She tells him she's playful, and that's who she is. She also tells him he sometimes makes it hard on her. Amy, that statement has a double meaning, and both fit.

Guest Amanda tells us she can't be around people with whom she has friction. She's not going to be fake and pretend everything is OK. Toni tells her she's been a sourpuss recently. Guest Amanda disagrees, simply saying she was doing a lot of thinking. Toni tells her it's the last time for all of them to be together, but guest Amanda wonders why she should be around if some people want her gone. Toni says she cut herself off. Guest Amanda proceeds to talk about the Pandora's Box game and how she's never gone through anything like that before in her life. It hurt. Flashback to the game with her tears and statements about how she wants to stay. Kristin tells her that her boyfriend showing up was a big joke; they didn't see her during the time he was there, but as soon as he left, she was back on every guy at the resort. She tells her that the guys didn't like being ignored for two days only to have her come back and ask them, “What’s up?” as if nothing had happened. She's always hanging on to somebody.

Guest Amanda tells the girls that she thinks they believe she's hiding things, and Toni interrupts her long enough to tell her she does. Amy also thinks so and thinks guest Amanda is acting stupidly. She didn't think so before Pandora's Box. In confessional, Amy says that her friendship with guest Amanda was the strongest at one point, but she doesn't trust her anymore. Amy tells guest Amanda to her face that she doesn't trust her, especially after Pandora's Box revealed she wanted to rip off Alex's clothes. Flashback to the game, where Alex revealed that information, and guest Amanda told him she was joking at the time. Amy then reveals that she and Zack talked about it in bed, and he revealed guest Amanda had a dream about them together in an elevator. Guest Amanda denies the story and tells her the only sexual dreams she's had were about Alex. Amy asks her if Zack is lying. Guest Amanda says she doesn't know and again denies she ever said anything like that. There is no flashback to contradict her, so I think she's telling the truth. Amy tells her that stories don't match when it comes to her and outright calls her a liar. She says Zack wouldn't make up a story like that, though guest Amanda tells her he's just saying those things to cover his own ass. Amy proceeds to say that she thought she had made a connection with her, but now she knows she didn't. Her parting shots indicate that she didn't lose a friend, but guest Amanda lost a great one. Well, with friends like that, who needs enemies?