Reality TV Time: 'Too Hot To Handle' Episode 5 Replay!

With the first half of the season done, I decided to not spoil my long weekend and gave this godawful show a break. Going back to work (even if it’s virtual) after a long weekend sucks, and being the bundle of joy that I am, I decided to compound my misery and launch into Episode 5 today. Here’s what happened.

We ended last time’s episode with Sharron and Rhonda forming a ‘genuine connection’ and being rewarded with a night in a private suite, with the kicker that they, of course, couldn’t do anything other than talk, breathe, sleep, you know the usual boring stuff that the rest of us do. Everyone else is jealous AF, though they try to masquerade that as being happy, and are wondering what exactly ‘Sharronda’ got up to in the suite. Bryce, bless him, thinks they probably just held hands all night. Kelz, the accountant, hopes they haven’t lost HIM money, which is a rather selfish way of thinking.

Continuing this selfish vein is Rhonda, who ‘doesn’t care’ about money when she’s looking at Sharron, which is sweet and everything, but not the point of the show. They saw each other in a different light last night apparently, and Sharron tells us what we all want to know, Rhonda got to see his ‘woody woodpecker’. Yay!

Chloe and Bryce AKA David Cameron meanwhile, manage to find the time and energy to flirt while brushing their teeth. They must be in love because they tell each other they look perfect while their mouths are full of toothpaste. He’s not her usual type, says Chloe, but who knows, he might be a ‘geezer in disguise’, though living on a boat might not be her thing because she gets seasick. Bryce makes us all sick by declaring that he has had some pretty racy dreams, and is thinking of calling her ‘#Bhloe’. This show truly scrapes the bottom of the barrel of human decency.

It’s not just Bryce though. Harry has started ‘looking at the fish differently’, but almost immediately says he is beyond meaningless sex, and now wants to just make love, which for some reason he finds absolutely hilarious. In a display of tremendous emotional maturity, he then says he wants to ‘fuck a wall’, which I’m sure gave Donald Trump that warm, tingling feeling.

Proving that life is just totally unfair, Francesca is pining for Harry, she thinks she messed up with the whole Kelz situation, but Harry is the one who’s in her head ‘always, always, always’.

But that can all wait because Sharronda are out of the suite! Like a bunch of excited teenagers, everyone wants to know ‘what they did’. The boys get to hear from Sharron first and get disgustingly excited when he tells them how big….the bed was. In fact, Bryce gets a ‘weird sensation downstairs’, so hopefully, there’s a doctor on set. Unfortunately, though, they didn’t have sex. Sharron has totally transformed himself in the space of 3 days and didn’t want to stop his growth as a person. The guys are dumbfounded but then rally around him, with Harry saying ‘they’re paving the way for the whole retreat’. He’s not going to grow up himself though, he needs Francesca to apologize to him for her behaviour.

Know who else doesn’t give a shit? Haley, whose presence on the show is getting less and less relevant after that failed sabotage attempt in Episode 3. She showcases her impressive skills of saying about 100 words without drawing a breath, and whines about how everyone is boring AF. No one cares though, because they’re all too busy revelling in their newfound wisdom, led by Chloe, who says "This experience is so deep man like we’re in sexual rehabilitation". Yes, welcome to Episode 5 of the show!

Unfortunately, though, Sharronda’s actions have cost everyone money. Lana rattles them off though certain words are *bleeped* out, which I really don’t think is necessary around this lot. Anyway, Sharronda broke a bunch of rules last night, and everyone is poorer by 16k. No one except Kelz seems particularly annoyed by this, because of ‘deeper connection’ and all that.

More time is spent on the Harry and Francesca saga. Francesca is super impressed (and perhaps jealous) by Rhonda, and needs to know what she did to make Sharronda happen. Rhonda tells her basic shit like ‘tell him how you feel’, ‘if you don’t tell him, you’ll never know’, ‘don’t be afraid’, which stresses Francesca out, but hey at least this time, she didn’t feel like puking. Baby steps.

Harry is struggling too (Good!). He tells Sharron how upset he was by Kelz’s behaviour, and how he’s going to ‘tear him apart in front of everyone’. Lol okay. Kelz doesn’t care, he still thinks he’s the King of the Jungle, which is now starting to get irritating, especially since he got dumped in the last episode (or was it Episode 3?)

To forget their problems, everyone gets together for a drink in the evening, except for Bryce and Chloe who sneak off to get some alone time. Bryce, who is easily the most boring guy on the show, seeks to woo Chloe by telling her how beautiful she is, even going as far as saying she’s too beautiful for him. Will she fall for it? Duh! Who doesn’t’ fall for cheesy lines? Especially if like Chloe, you’re only used to the ‘rough and ready’ guys of Essex. She’s not used to ‘proper, classy guys’, and just need to release the sexual tension. We’re spared more conversation as they kiss, which Bryce later says was the best 3 grand he’s ever spent in his life. (Remember: the penalty for kissing is 3 grand)

Sadly for Bryce, Chloe didn’t feel a spark though, so that’s yet another guy she’s going to have to let down gently. To make matters worse for him, he’s got Haley who is seriously on her own trip, telling him all about how she hates being fake and thinks everyone on the show is an idiot and wants to get eliminated if there is an elimination. Not sure what the producers were thinking with this, but it just seems weird and out of place, even on this show.

Harry and Kelz finally have their face-to-face chat, which turns out to be incredibly underwhelming after all that build-up. Harry says what he has to say, which includes thinking that Kelz sneaked upon him, and he thought they were ‘close’. Kelz is having none of it and says things like ‘I got the second leg, and I’m smashing it’, ‘You had your shot, you lost it’, and ‘There are levels to this shit’. Harry looks like he’s going to cry, though, in the cutaway sequence, he tells us that everyone is underestimating the alpha that he is, while still looking like he’s going to burst into tears.

Time for another workshop! This one is all about emotional maturity and is only for the guys. There’s a dude called Deva, The Heart Warrior Guru, who is going to help them ‘clean up their act’. The first step to this is, of course, to have all the women together in a room and not allow them to come out, so there are no ‘distractions’. Deva wants to awaken a part of their hearts that hasn’t been felt before. Harry doesn’t care about that but instead ponders about how sweaty Deva’s balls must be since he’s wearing long pants. Ah, the questions that keep us all awake at night.

Deva ignores that uncomfortable sweaty feeling and launches into a tirade about how we all come from the Earth, that’s what we have in common, and how they're going to use the Earth as a means to connect. He gives them all a scoop of mud, which they then have to smother all over their partner’s bodies. In case you’re interested, the pairings are Matt (Jesus) and Bryce, David and Sharron, and of course, Kelz and Harry for the ratings. After this awkward activity, the next step is then to yell as loud as you can, presumably to ease the trauma, however, Deva says it's for the heart to be liberated or some such thing.

They’re not done yet. They now have to write a few words on a canvas without thinking too much (that should not be a problem) about things they’re afraid of, and that have been holding them back. Bryce draws a clock, he’s a thinker and tries to think about the future ‘because it’s coming’. That’s some deep thinking right there. Matthew is afraid of fear itself, Kelz has trust issues, and Harry knows he’s a stubborn piece of shit. They now need to show their canvas to their partner, which is not a euphemism. Woah, it worked! In what can only be explained by the show being heavily edited, that one interaction makes Kelz see Harry as a ‘little brother, and not a puppy’, and Harry is finally crying because he realizes how much he’s learnt. What???

Now they all have a large stick in their hands, again not a euphemism. Their canvas with their ‘fears’ are hanging on a kind of washing line, and they need to run towards it, yell and tear their fears down. Cool.

The girls have had enough of pretending like it’s 1920, and escape from their confinement just in time to watch the guys wash the mud off themselves in the ocean. There’s a lot of ‘Oh my God’ being said, with yet another gem from Chloe, who says they all look like miniature men. What a hit to the ego.

Unfortunately, this is not where the episode ends, we still need to tie up that Francesca-Harry loose end after all the passive-aggressive build up to it through this episode. She musters up the courage to over to him and tells him she wants to chat. For the next minute, they impersonate goldfish. Finally, Harry wins the battle of the egos as Francesca tells him how she normally never chases a guy, but then again, can’t get him out of her head. Harry wants to jump in joy, but in a rare display of emotional maturity after all that mud smothering earlier, confesses to being stubborn as well, and tells her how much it affected him when she went off with Kelz. Boring. They’re probably going to kiss now and lose another 3 grand, but we won’t know yet! Much to everyone’s ‘disappointment’, this is where the episode ends. So till next time, we’re all on the edge of our seats.