Welcome back, Rashomon. Our Perfect Match couples are starting to feel a little comfortable in their matches, and Netflix can’t have that. This week, everyone’s loyalties are being tested, leading to several contradictory retellings of the same events. Sure, the stakes were a little higher in the Akira Kurosawa film that famously features unreliable narrators; in Tulum, we’re trying to find the truth about kisses and flirty conversations, not a murder. But hey, the answers to these investigations definitely have the potential to kill some relationships. Let’s get into it, yeah?
Wrapping up last week’s cliffhanger, Kaz waits until the last minute to pick Micah over Holly. He apparently likes that she brings out his more subdued side. Our couples are unchanged:
- Jessica and Harry
- Micah and Kaz
- Tolú and Chris
- Elys and Justin
- Alara and Stevan
Despite being named the weakest couple in the villa, Micah and Kaz easily win the compatibility challenge, which involves the women guiding their blindfolded partners through tangled yarn. On their victory date, Kaz tells Micah he “100 percent” sees potential for their relationship to progress outside of the villa. I’m not so sure. They haven’t really addressed the logistics of maintaining what would presumably be a long-distance relationship between someone from Seattle and someone who accidentally calls the Space Needle the Space Seal.
The boardroom offers co-ed options this time, so Kaz and Micah decide to test both Alara and Stevan, who seem to be the strongest couple. They send them on dates with their respective physical types: Too Hot to Handle stars Nigel and Brittan. Alara and Stevan give good reviews back at the villa but hearing Stevan compliment another girl brings Alara to tears. (Nick Lachey definitely sees her crying on his way out, but you can almost see him decide that he’s not being paid enough to do anything about it, lol.)
Stevan confesses to Alara that he kissed Brittan at the end of their date. Holy shit. Fair play to Netflix for not showing us that because we get to experience Alara’s shock with her … and also her relief when he reveals that he was just joking. “I was literally about to slap you,” Alara says.
They kiss and match, and she suggests in a confessional that she is “probably the most happiest girl right now on the planet.”
This means Brittan and Nigel have no choice but to try to interfere with existing matches. Brittan hits it off with Kaz, who thinks she’s from the country of Hawaii. (She says it should be a country, and a post-credits scene explains that Hawaii is America’s 50th state. It would have been cooler to include context about why its annexation is controversial, but I digress.) There’s some chef’s-kiss framing with Micah in the background as Brittan and Kaz laugh together. Kaz does tell Brittan about his connection with Micah, but Brittan either forgets or doesn’t care when she talks to Elys, who obviously supports anything that might mess with Micah. With support from both Justin and Harry, Elys directs Nigel to flirt with Micah. “If this works, I’m gonna be fighting the urge to piss myself laughing,” Elys says.
Micah rejects Nigel, but does manage to plant some doubts about Kaz. When Micah and Kaz compare notes, they wonder if the inconsistencies are because people want to break them up. Kaz eventually confronts Elys’s little crew for plotting and talking shit and walks off angrily. Micah follows him to tell him not to give a fuck about other people, which is a little confusing because she clearly cares what those other people tell her about Kaz. It’s a bit tense, but they still match for the night.
Harry and Jessica match, which isn’t surprising. Earlier in the episode, we saw him scatter handwritten notes on their bed. Some are genuinely sweet (“You’re an incredible mother,” “You make me want to be a cool dad”), but there are also some … Harry-isms (“I would drink your bath water,” “I wanna eat your bum”). He now says he’s falling in love with her, and casually brings up marriage. “You have to ask me properly,” she teases, reflecting in a confessional that things have gotten very deep, very fast. Oh, ma’am, we can tell.
Tolú and Chris match, as do Elys and Justin. Too bad Brittan can’t just match with Nigel! They both end up leaving, which means that for the second night in a row, there are no new matches. If the show was really about fostering genuine relationships, it would leave them alone now. But this is a competition with a luxury vacation on the line, so of course Netflix is gonna stir the pot.
The next morning, Nick Lachey informs the couples that they will be splitting up for girls’ and boys’ days. Of course, there’s a twist. The remaining contestants — those who were eliminated or never picked — are joining them in a final fight to be chosen. No wonder it feels like Melinda is leading troops into battle when she tells the single women to follow her in.
The men are mingling with Melinda, Brittan, Dominique, Xanthi, Holly, and one new girl: Christine, a six-foot-one Too Hot to Handle baddie who probably has the best flirting skills of the entire cast. Chris makes a move on an unimpressed Xanthi, while Christine fails to get a clearly tempted Kaz to kiss her. But the biggest incident involves Harry, who is carrying Melinda around under the excuse that the rocks are hard on her heels. She definitely chooses a flirty way to lock her legs around him, and we also see her sitting in his lap. What we don’t see is whether he kisses her during a trip to the bathroom. Since there conveniently seems to be no footage or witnesses, it’s her word against his. He calls it a “deepfake” in a confessional.
Over at the women’s mixer, we’ve got Bryton, Nigel, Izzy, Jake, Dom, and one new guy: Trevor, who seems to have largely been edited out (I assume this is due to his Love Is Blind sins, despite the fact that he insists he’s here to redeem himself). For me, the most interesting moment is a platonic chat between Dom and Jessica about family. Dom’s dad left when he was 2, and you can tell he really roots for Jessica and her daughter.
As far as matches go, though, there are a couple of key conversations. Micah tells anyone who will listen that she and Kaz are constantly fighting, and she can’t trust him. Bryton senses a weakness but also sees potential with Elys. It’s sinister how effortlessly he messes with women’s minds. He tells Micah that he knows firsthand that Kaz wants to explore another connection. Elys has described her connection with Justin as a slow burn, but Bryton makes her question if there are any sparks at all.
Everyone is hesitant to trade notes when they return to the house after the mixer. Harry is upstairs crying. He confesses to Jessica that he wasn’t the best representation of her or her daughter, Autumn. She has to take a moment to compose herself before she can grill him. Harry only confesses to carrying Melinda because of the rocks, and Jessica tells him no one feels bad for him because he’s a grown-ass man. She warns him that it’s worse if he’s only telling her the partial truth. I think she’d get along well with a fellow short queen who once said, “Heartbreak is one thing, my ego’s another. I beg you, don’t embarrass me, motherfucker.” Jessica’s not happy, but says she isn’t going to be “inhumane” to Harry and ends up giving him a hug.
Kaz tells Micah about Christine’s attempted kiss, but kinda has to fish for information about her chats with Bryton. When Micah says she doesn’t think Kaz is sure about them anymore, he only shrugs. It’s not the best timing for them to be upset at each other, because the singles are now arriving at the house, and everyone is fair game.
Melinda reveals in front of all the girls that Harry kissed her twice — and that she apparently kissed him back for a third time. After some shocked group silence, Jessica asks, “Are you proud? Do you feel like this was the most respectful setting to share that?” Still, now that it’s out there, she calls Harry over to ask for clarification. He denies everything and makes a hasty exit.
Jessica and Melinda start having two separate arguments. Melinda feels like she’s being slut-shamed and blamed for a man’s infidelity, and also takes offense to what she feels is Jessica’s condescending tone. Meanwhile, Jessica feels like Melinda was trying to embarrass her publicly and isn’t letting her get a word in. Throughout the back-and-forth, Melinda keeps dropping details that Harry never mentioned — that her makeup was on Harry’s nose, that Harry chuckled at the idea of it working out with Jessica given that they live on opposite sides of the country. Jessica, showing Harry a level of respect that he definitely did not have for her at that mixer, tables the topic until she can have private conversations about what did or didn’t happen.
Harry tells Dom that Melinda actually tried to kiss him, and he turned away. Just seems like something he should’ve mentioned to Jessica earlier, if true! Dom urges Harry to think about Jessica’s daughter when making choices, adding that he remembers every person his mom dated when he was growing up. “You could really fuck that kid up, ’cause it fucked me up,” Dom says. But Harry insists that he really loves Jessica. And look, I do believe that he cares about her. I just don’t know if he’s capable of caring in the way that she and her daughter deserve.
When Jessica asks Harry to be honest for the sake of her daughter and their potential future children, he apologizes and admits to playfully looking at Melinda’s stomach and saying she would look good pregnant. I feel like this is enough to call it quits, but detective Jessica decides to go do some interviews while Harry vomits upstairs at the thought of losing her. Both Dom and Stevan insinuate that Melinda is the type of person who would make something up for clout. Melinda says she has no vendetta. She also brings up the pregnancy comment, but frames it as Harry crudely saying he wanted to put a baby in her.
Except for the blissfully happy Stevan and Alara, who match with no hesitation, all of the original couples are also struggling tonight. Kaz feels that Micah is holding him to a double standard, which appears to be a trigger from a past relationship. He decides to fully explore other connections. During a drinking game, he decides to make out with Holly (perhaps because he was feeling petty about Christine kissing Nigel when it was her turn, which is silly — he hadn’t even joined the game at that point). He and Micah also officially call it quits after she walks up and sees him and Holly. Kaz, who didn’t get a “tingle” from the kiss, matches with Christine.
Meanwhile, Justin is earnestly confessing his feelings to Elys. Netflix takes some creative liberties with a slow-mo edit that suggests that she’s fantasizing about Bryton. I don’t know if she genuinely likes Bryton, but she does end up matching with him. It’s not lost on me this has the added benefit of pissing off Micah. “Sometimes you’ve gotta grow a pair of balls and do what you want, no matter what people might think after,” Elys says, which is certainly not the attitude she had when Harry dumped her. Justin leaves without letting Elys explain her decision. Good for him, honestly! I think he could sense that she just wanted to apologize to make herself feel better, not him. With Bryton off the table, Micah matches up with Izzy. “This is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me,” she says immediately afterward, which is probably not the ideal thing to hear from your crush. But Izzy’s played the long game and seems too thrilled to care.
Tolú and Chris are the last couple that we see match up. Xanthi, a true girl’s girl, immediately told Tolú that Chris painted her to be his back-up at the mixer, which Chris denies despite the fact that we watched him do it. At first, it seems like a disappointed Tolú is finally gonna kick Chris to the curb. But she somehow ends up comforting him while he cries and tells her not to let him guilt-trip her. I’m with Xanthi: These boys deserve nothing. Tolú gets vulnerable and says she wants to be with someone who likes her back. Honestly, he should do the decent thing and just break it off now. Instead, he continues to insist that he has genuine feelings, and they match. “He’s my man, I’m ‘bout to stick beside him,” Tolú declares in a confessional. I’m sick on her behalf.
How are we already at the finale? Next week, it’s time to vote for this season’s perfect match. The options are Tolú and Chris, Stevan and Alara, Bryton and Elys, Micah and Izzy, and … maybe Jessica and Harry? (We don’t get to see what she says when he asks her to match, but if she says yes, she’s either a saint or stupid.) Stevan and Alara are clearly the most deserving winners. They’ve gotten a great edit this week, and it was nice to occasionally take a break from the house drama and watch them say romantic things to each other. But with strategies and new pairings in the mix, who knows what’ll happen?
