Paradise Hotel, August 27: One Down…

Dave lays out in the sun, attractively swaddled from neck to ankles in white towels, and lifts himself up to watch Keith and Charla flirt. Again, he implores Holly to tell him what he’s supposed to say to Charla. Holly tells him directly and without hesitation that he can’t say anything, or he will look like an idiot. Looking for any possible loophole, Dave clarifies with Holly that he can’t say anything to either of them? “Yes, you’ll look like an idiot,” Holly confirms. “Just let it go. Act like it doesn’t bother you.” Charla wriggles on Keith’s lap and squeezes his neck, and Keith nibbles and bites her and holds his hands above her body. Dave dramatically breaks for the water so everyone knows he’s pissed.

Back at the hotel, Scott goes to see Dave to talk about his jealousy with the Charla-Keith situation, and tells Dave not to grill either Keith or Charla about it; like Holly, Scott tells him not to say anything.

Charla and Alex are in their room, and Charla calls Dave, who appears to be perched next to the phone waiting for it to ring. Like she was supposed to, she noticed that he was upset on the excursion – so she calls and tells Dave that she’s worried about him and wants to check to see if he’s okay, because she cares about him. “Okay,” says Dave curtly. They hang up. “Psycho,” mutters Charla. Alex says that Dave needs to loosen up, because he takes things very seriously. Charla says that it’s surprising, but who would have predicted when Dave came to Paradise, that the two of them would end up being friends.

Tom and Desiree are having drinks by the pool, and Desiree says that there are a lot of tight bonds among the guests. Tom notes that it would be practically impossible for them to be able to persuade the others to vote their way; they have no real power because they are both the newest. He hopes that the game throws them some really unexpected twists and turns, because without that, they are both out. Desiree tells Tom that he definitely has her back because she has his, and he says that they are going to help each other all the way to the end.

Back in their room, Alex tells Charla that because they’ve been at Paradise the longest and are the youngest of all the guests, they’ve learned the most – that you can’t take things personally, although people do. He also thinks that there have been people in the hotel who were really callous, but not now. Flashback to the moments that Alex must be less than proud of: him telling Amy that he wasn’t in the same league as the others, calling Charla boring, saying that male model Keith has the IQ of a peanut, that Holly shouldn’t do everything Scott tells her, that Scott shouldn’t do everything that Dave tells him, and that Dave shouldn’t act like a child all the time. Alex tells Charla that he hopes that everyone is a better person when they go back home after being at Paradise.

It’s sunset, and Alex asks Charla what she thinks is going to happen. She doesn’t know. Alex says he thinks it’s going to be either Keith, Tom, or him who’s going home – pretty astute, seeing as Scott can’t be voted out, and Dave doesn’t seem to have his head on the chopping block this week. Charla stares at the phone. Alex says that he’s never even asked her how she’s going to vote. Flashback to Charla telling Desiree and Tara that she won’t do anything to help Alex win the game because he’s been plotting against her for a long time. Alex tries to find out if she’d be even willing to discuss it by asking whether she likes people asking her about the vote-off – she doesn’t.

While the guys are eating, Keith receives an envelope – there will be a night of moonlight dancing so the men can show their devotion to the ladies. Tom states that he’s a dancing freak.

The guests arrive and the dancing begins. Scott slips effortlessly into pick-up mode, asking Holly if she believes in one-night stands and telling her that if he got hold of her she wouldn’t know what had hit her and he’d make her eyes roll back in her head. “My last boyfriend was 31,” she replies. (Huh?) Everyone dances, and Dave gets jealous as Keith dances around Charla.

Back at the hotel, Dave walks Charla to her room and acts upset. Charla asks if there’s anything he wants to talk about, but says there shouldn’t be, and Dave gets up to leave; Charla asks if he’s mad, but Dave won’t answer. He presses her to reassure him that their alliance is still tight, and she tells him to stop asking her that. She asks him if he trusts Keith, and he says he does, but he doesn’t trust anyone more than her. She seems exasperated with the way the conversation is going and tells him she wishes it wasn’t so hard between him and her – there’s always things he needs to “discuss” with her.

Meanwhile, Scott tells Keith that if Keith values his friendship with Dave, he should know when to back off with Charla. Keith brushes it off as Dave getting overly sensitive when he gets drunk, and that it’s his problem to deal with – that nothing is happening between him and Charla, and Dave’s blowing it out of proportion. Scott tells him that Dave is more fragile, and maybe Keith shouldn’t be acting the way he has been with Charla lately.

Dave explains to the camera that when he first met Charla, he had a crush on her, but she obviously had no similar feelings for him. He says she’s intelligent and beautiful, and, swallowing to keep from tearing up, he says he feels stupid for picking someone to like that is essentially unavailable, at least to him. Poor Dave.