Last week, Jess confronted Colt about sending dick pics to a whole bunch of women — who then tattled on him to Jess.
In Season 5, Episode 14, Colt also comes clean to Jess about Vanessa moving in. It’s the final straw.
Jess meets up with Larissa for the first time ever.
Elizabeth’s family confronts Andrei with what they knew, and he admits that if he hadn’t left Moldova years ago, he might be in jail now.
Michael tries to calm Angela after her latest verbally abusive temper tantrum.
Paul tries the worst tactic ever to impress Karine with America and it backfires spectacularly.
Kalani tries one last-ditch effort to save her marriage to Asuelu.
And Tania and Syngin sit down with his family to talk about whether their marriage is making them miserable.
Colt Johnson and Jess Caroline
Colt is finally admitting how much he screwed up his relationship with Jess. He lied to her again and again. He reached out to other women. Oh, and he sent a bunch of women pictures of his dong. We don’t know how many women … but eight of them tattled to Jess.
It gets worse!
Jess knew about the dick pics. She did not know that Colt is now LIVING with his “friend,” Vanessa, the one whose continued friendship with Colt raised red flags for Jess. Remember, one of his biggest lies was faking texts that he allegedly sent to Vanessa to end their friendship. He did nothing of the sort, but just lied to Jess so that he could keep banging her — and filming with her.
Jess wants him to cut the BS
Vanessa may sleep in the third bedroom, officially, but this is a massive betrayal of Jess’ trust. And the fact that he didn’t tell her before she arrived to Vegas tells Jess that Colt knew that he knew that she’d break up with him for good once she found out.
Jess can’t trust him
Looking at who he is and his track record, she points out, he’s the kind of guy who sends his dong to strangers on the internet.
He’s a horny guy
If he’s going to do this while still “trying” to make a relationship with Jess, is he really going to turn down sex with Vanessa?
Nope!
Jess’ predictions are not inaccurate — Colt reportedly cheated on a later girlfriend with Vanessa.
Even Debbie feels sorry for Jess
Either that, or she just wanted to save face and dodge the “reality TV villain” label. It’s a little late for that after her mischief in Brazil.
Jess explains to Debbie
Debbie is always going to be Team Colt, of course, but Jess hopes that Debbie — who had previously mistakenly believed that Colt’s lies had only been lies of omission — will see her son for who he really is.
Awkward!
Debbie does hug Jess, who needs a lot of comfort right now. Jess is angry, but she’s also genuinely hurt because she had poured so much time and genuine affection into Colt.
Ding ding ding!
“I thought Colt loved me but he doesn’t respect me” could be a somewhat wordy name for a support group of Colt’s exes.
It’s over!
Jess and Colt have had mini-breakups before this, but now it’s over for good. She can move on and hopefully find someone honest.
Okay, so
Before we move on to Larissa’s story, where Jess also appears, we have to show you this clip of Colt fessing up to the camera about why Jess is so angry with him. The delivery and substance of his words is just … it’s a lot.
Larissa Lima
Jess meets up with Larissa during Larissa’s segment, which … may make her the first person to appear in two different stars’ storylines in the same season, right?
Larissa warned her
She told her that Colt was a “demon,” that Debbie was a “wolf,” and that Colt would have a bunch of other girls in his phone. Jess, at the time, did not believe her.
Now, she knows it to be true
She explains to Larissa that she feels like Colt was using her, maybe even to make Larissa jealous. She cannot help but notice that they’re both Brazilian hotties.
Larissa is sad for her
Early photos of Colt and Jess — notably, the first one having been shared by Debbie — were full of what seemed like genuine affection!
Jess tells her what went down
Again, we don’t know how many dick pics Colt sent out — only that eight of the women informed Jess. Colt has infamously done this before, during his marriage to Larissa, so some fans were on guard for his shenanigans. But what fraction fo the recipients kept it to themselves instead of telling Jess? How many dick pics DID he send out? We’ll likely never know.
Colt is just horny
Larissa uses, like, 2003 language to describe it, but we get the idea.
OUCH
They then imply that his penis photos are really not that impressive. It’s fair for them to vent, but making fun of someone’s body isn’t really the way to go about it.
Ah, schadenfreude
Larissa does tell the cameras that she’s not exactly sad that Colt is sad and alone, because it’s what he deserves.
Elizabeth Potthast and Andrei Castravet
Having spoken to Andrei’s loved ones, The Family Potthast confronts Andrei with what they know — about how he was basically asked to do bad things as a Moldovan cop and it would have gotten bad for him if he hadn’t left.
Andrei explains
Basically, he explains, he got asked to do some things that were “not correct.” Powerful, connected people play by different rules, and the police are part of what allow things to be this way. (If you were paying attention to world events this June, you know that this is not limited to Moldova). He says that if he’d stayed here, he would either be living the good life, driving expensive cars paid for by bribes and corruption, or he would be in jail, set up for something that he didn’t do because he didn’t want to play ball with crooks.
This is news to Elizabeth
While Elizabeth does her best impression of Fry’s “not sure if” meme while she eyes her husband askance, Andrei gets defensive.
He insists that he told her already
That’s allegedly not how Elizabeth remembers it. It’s hard to tell if this is a legimitate conflict or if this, like her family’s whole investigation this season, is just drummed up for deliberate conflict to give them a storyline.
Either way
The two have a heard to heart on the balcony.
They hug
This is one of those rare moments when you feel Team Andrei. It’s hard, after watching him turn down a job offer from Chuck to his face and insist that they move out of a free home, to be Team Andrei about anything, but it does sound like leaving Moldova was the right thing to do.
Angela Deem and Michael Ilesanmi
Angela is is unhappy because she decided to flip out when she perceived that Michael may have been looking in the direction of a (gasp) fully dressed woman when they went to a club. Angela’s insecurities might make viewers feel sorry for her if she were not also bombarding Michael with verbal and emotional abuse.
Michael wants to make it right
He feels a misplaced sense of obligation to satisfy Angela’s feelings — this is one of the purposes of verbal and emotional abuse. It always keeps the victim on their toes, walking on eggshells and working hard to take care of their partner’s feelings even when they have done nothing wrong.
Michael brings her flowers
Not just any flowers — these are the floral arrangements for the wedding. While the multicolored silk flowers are … one of the most hideous, tackiest things that many viewers have seen, it’s Angela’s wedding so they don’t have to be to our tastes or to anyone’s, just Angela’s.
It cheers her up
Angela is clearly very emotional. That’s not Michael’s fault; it’s her own doing.
This is even more evident the next day
Angela wakes up and she is feeling a lot of complicated emotions and is nearly crying multiple times.
Wedding day jitters are real
She wakes up anxious. Michael tells her to not worry, she is getting married to HIM, after all. Angela jokes that this is part of the problem. In these moments, if you forget everything else that you’ve seen and that you know about the couple’s toxic relationship, you can see the upside.
Angela phones home
Though she’s sad that they can’t all be there to witness her wedding, Angela can at least show off the floral arrangement.
She’s still nervous
Michael kisses her and leaves her to get ready
She’s so nervous
Angela, who continues to smoke literally wherever she happens to be at the time, as if other people do not exist, smokes in her wedding dress as tensions mount. Next episode, we’ll see the wedding itself.
Paul Staehle and Karine Martins
In real life, their story has turned very upsetting, with Karine’s name going on the list of Paul’s exes who have accused him of abuse and controlling behavior. On the Labor Day weekend episode, however, they went on something of a field trip … on a rainy day … to, and I cannot make this up, a water treatment plant. They go to a place where sewage is treated because Paul thinks that he can get a job there, and he also thinks that it will somehow impress Karine? This whole thing is weird. There’s no telling how much is Paul’s bizarre thinking or production being heavyhanded.
Gross, Paul
Karine does not like how it’s smelled. Paul refers to it as excrement (not the word that he uses) and the man “corrects” him, calling it “sludge.” You know that something is gross when the preferred euphemism is “sludge.”
If Paul “knows so much” about this stuff
… Karine says that he should find a job as a plumber. That’s actually a great idea! Though plumbing is also a job that often involves going into people’s houses, and Paul’s criminal record could make that a real problem. (We know that, in many cases, a criminal record unfairly stops harmless people from getting safe jobs … but given everything that you’ve heard about Paul, it’s not impossible to imagine a woman being uncomfortable with him fixing her shower)
Enough is enough
Karine gave him two months to get a job — it didn’t even have to be a good job, just *a* job. Instead, he’s wasting their time with a tour of what smells like sewage.
How can they stay there?
Karine tells him that here, there’s nothing, no support. In Brazil, she has family who can help with childcare.
Kalani Faagata and Asuelu Pulaa
They’re back in Utah but, Kalani explains, that trip was the worst of her life. She and Asuelu are still reeling from the fallout of the trip. As you may recall, Asuelu’s mother demanded $1,000 from them, then suggested that she should just take Asuelu back to Samoa where he can labor and then pay her the proceeds of that labor. She said that she doesn’t “care about the kids.” Asuelu’s sister also tried to attack Kalani. After all of that, Asuelu got annoyed that Kalani had spoken to Kolini about Asuelu’s family and her marital problems.
Mom is here
Lisa Faagata chats with her daughter, confirming that the current situation is unacceptable. Kalani doesn’t want to just get a divorce (please remember that anyone can get a divorce or otherwise end a relationship at any time or for any reason; you don’t need to meet some imaginary threshold to stop being miserable) because she wants to one day tell Oliver and Kennedy that at least she tried other options first. Kalani … really sounds like she’s given up in her mind already.
Here is Lisa’s take
“I think that when Asuelu was in Samoa, he was a good actor. I think he fooled my daughter into thinking he was something he wasn’t and was going to be something that he never intended to be,” Kalani’s mom opines. “But at some point, he has to make a decision if it’s worth him adjusting to life in America or just wanting to go back to Samoa and live the way he’s comfortable with.”
Asuelu knows that things are bad
He says that he thought that the issue would just die down once they got home, and seems confused that the drama from their trip did not magically evaporate when they crossed state lines.
Kalani has a suggestion
They should do couples counseling, she suggests. Asuelu is new to this. He says that the closest thing that they had to therapy in Samoa was just speaking to the pastor. That is religious counseling, which is not really the same.
He asks if it will be “white people”
He wants a male Samoan therapist. On the one hand, we can understand any minority or marginalized person wanting a therapist who truly understands their perspective. At the same time, it sounds like Asuelu may want a therapist who will simply agree with him for cultural reasons.
They reach a compromise
Kalani was not able to find a Samoan therapist in Utah, but did get a translator and specifically sought out a male therapist because Asuelu will feel more comfortable speaking to him.
They get right into it
After sharing a bit of their backstory, Asuelu complains because he feels emasculated that Kalani is a whole person, and not his property. That’s not how he says it but it’s what he means.
It was actually an encouraging session
They’re told to write down their expectations of each other and … even though Kalani basically meant for this to be her due diligence before a divorce, it looks like this could save their marriage.
Tania Maduro and Syngin Colchester
Tania and Syngin sit down to have wine with Syngin’s family … and they are still feeling awkward after their big fight in front of his family.
It’s time for damage control
It’s not just that they want to assure The Family Syngin that they’re not always like this, but his family wants to talk with them about, well, being happy and sorting out their differences.
Marriage was a big change for Syngin
He went from having great sex with an American tourist to being married to her, living in another country on another continent. That alone is a huge change even before these expectations come up.
Syngin feels like he got whiplash
He was living a fairly carefree life as a bartender living with his bros and now Tania wants to catapult him into being a more responsible person. She sees it as his personal growth, but that does not make it so.
Some VERY good advice from his stepdad
Syngin’s stepdad points out that they should simply not be arguing all of the time. Marriage is about loving each other, not petty disagreements or debates or frustrations. If they keep arguing like this, wouldn’t they be happier if they end the marriage? (This is SO sensible; I wish that he’d talk to every couple like this. Michael Ilesanmi especially needs to hear it)
Later …
Syngin, this time with Tania, meets up with his extremely former-roommates-in-any-sitcom buddies, Andrew and James. There, Tania explains that she did see things about Syngin at the time that made her wonder if they would be compatible, but she ignored them.
It’s denial
They say that Tania told herself what she wanted to believe about Syngin and who he was. (Also yes, I WILL be using this screenshot as a reaction image)
Syngin says that he supports all of her choices
But when he says that he’s totally onboard with her being a housewife if she wants, she exclaims — and not unreasonably — that she can’t be a housewife if she’s partnered with someone with no interest in giving her a house. Yeah, okay, point taken.
Next week:
There’s a lot going on in this preview, and we’re especially hyped to see Kalani’s family face off with Asuelu’s, but … is Larissa going to die? (We know that she lives but this is still scary)