Carry on like a pork chop

Love is Blind S4 Predictions, Christina's Lube, and Pope Coat.

Did you also think the Pope just happened to be wearing a cool coat or are you savvy?

The Low-Brow Lowdown

Christina takes the genie out of the bottle with new lube brand. She’s taken on the role of Co-Founder and Chief Brand Advisor for the sexual wellness brand Playground.

When I heard “Christina Aguilera” and “Lube Collection,” I immediately pictured her gaudy lace fragrance line from the 2000s, but these lubes are quite tasteful.

The White Lotus is headed to Thailand! I had been hoping Season 3 would take us somewhere snowy, and if the last two weeks have taught us anything, it’s that ski slope scandal sells.

Grimes & Elon pull a Kylie & Travis. Grimes announced that her daughter’s name has changed from “Exa Dark Sideræl” to the letter Y, to signify curiosity. They would have gone with a question mark, but California requires names to be limited to the English alphabet. Maybe the new celebrity baby name is really the celebrity baby name reversal.

Bachelor franchise creator exits after two decades. Mike Fleiss’s announcement came right after Zach’s snooze of a season came to a close, which leads me to believe that Mike was so bored he quit.

North West to become child CEO. Child acting is out. Child entreprenuring? In. Earlier this month, Kim filed trademarks for North-related skincare and toy companies, which of course has the internet up in arms about if 9-year-olds need skincare routines and yada yada yada.

And honestly, maybe they do?! Like, how is face wash for kids from a celeb they look up to a bad thing if it gets them excited about healthy hygiene habits? Just a thot.

The Octopus guy from TikTok signed with WME. If you haven’t seen OctopussLover8’s meteoric TikTok rise with modern-day reenactments of historical moments, you’re probably 45. And that’s okay! With WME by his side, he’s the latest overnight star to be catapulted to the upper echelons of influencerdom.

Tinder bans Fish Pics. In a cheeky move that either works to dismantle the app’s douchey reputation or solely exists for publicity, Tinder is effecting a ban on all photos of camo-clad dudes proudly displaying the 10-inch mackerel they caught, because by the year 2023, they should know that we know there’s no correlation.

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On Monday, I launched a new series, Celebrity Brow Barometer, where I compared the highest and lowest-brow works of Amy Adams’ storied career. If you missed it, check it out here to find out the 1940s slang I created for the vajeen.

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Love Is Blind: Revenge of the Mean Girls

I’m happy to brag that last Love is Blind cycle, I accurately predicted the fates of all of the couples who made it to paradise. This time, I’m upping the stakes by guessing at which point couples will break up during the process and by which hand.

Season 4, which features a cast of steamy Seattleites, feels like a crossover with Selling Sunset or Vanderpump Rules, due to the inescapable presence of The Mean Girls.

Filler-faced Micah and Irina took a wrong turn on the way to the Bring it On reboot auditions and found themselves locked in the Love is Blind pods. But don’t worry, they made the most of it.

The duo become fast friends, bonding over literally pointing and laughing like cartoon bullies at their castmates crying in the lounge after getting dumped. Through strategic manipulation and some smoke and mirrors, they both walk out of the pods with rings, despite having probably little to no interest in actually marrying a random at age 26.

But anyway, we’re not only here to talk about the Cunts of Monte Cristo. Let’s take a look at the rest of the couples struggling through their “honeymoon” phase.

Marshall & Jackie: Break Up at the Altar (Marshall Says I Don’t)

Marshall and Jackie are my least favorite couple this season — he’s basic and she’s extra. I mean, on day three she’s already sobbing in the closet for thirty minutes straight, like me when I failed my driver’s test at 17. Except for Jackie, there wasn’t even an inciting incident! And she’s 27!

Marshall is trying really hard to be a good guy despite the fact that Jackie is spinning out like a figure skater on angel dust, and I will say that out of all the contestants, he had the only good answer to his partner’s question about how he felt about seeing the other pairs for the first time — he tells her that “everyone has their own unique way of looking.” AKA, these bitches are ugly and I only have eyes for you. Bartise, pull out your little mechanical pencil or whatever corny-ass writing utensil you use and take some notes.

But this is all for naught. Once they leave Mexico, real world stressors are going to make quick work of their straw-man relationship, and Marshall’s life will flash before his eyes at the altar. Do I want to be footing the bill for this erratic woman’s Revolve crop tops for the rest of my life? he’ll ask himself. She’ll pretend to be heartbroken for the attention, but she’ll really be relieved that she can go find herself that tatted tough guy she asked for as God intended.

Brett & Tiffany: Get Married & Stay Together

If Brett and Tiffany don’t end up married with a baby on the way by the time After the Altar airs, I’ll eat my weight in bricks, and let me tell you that would be a lot of fucking bricks.

Brett is a shoe designer at Nike which, like, boner alert, and Tiffany has been the top salesperson in her org for a million weeks in a row. It’s all the trappings of a modern day power couple!

At first I was kind of out on Tiffany because I thought it was annoying that she was still bragging about her high school band winning nationals two decades after the fact, but I’ll let it slide in the name of love.

Kwame & Chelsea: Get Married & Divorce by the Reunion Show

I want to like Chelsea — she’s the very definition of “here for the right reasons,” in stark contrast to Micah, Kwame’s original first choice. But I still can’t shake the fatal attraction vibes she gives off, and the fact that she pulled out her baby blanket named Baba??? Combined with Zack’s stuffed dog Ralph, this season was really a win for adults with severe attachment issues.

And attached Chelsea is! Which is where the show gets fascinating. Because technically, you’ve both made sweeping declarations of love and gotten engaged, but now’s when your personal definitions of the word engaged need to reconcile. For Chelsea, she feels as legitimately engaged as someone who’s been living with their boyfriend for three years and has his mom’s secret carbonara recipe on file, while for Kwame, engaged is definitely hanging in some big fat air quotes. (And for Zach and Irina, who have already broken up, engaged was simply code for screen time).

Kwame is feeling smothered and trapped, and he’d rather be shacking up with Micah, but he knows that because Chelsea is so all-in, there’s no way to leave the situation without fessing up that “I’m just not that into you,” and coming off like a d-bag villain.

He’ll go through with the marriage due to the pressure of being on reality TV, but by the time the reunion rolls around, he’ll have filed a restraining order.

Paul & Micah: Break Up at the Altar (Micah Says I Don’t)

Where to begin with these two?

They’re one of the most interesting couples to watch because they’re engaged but not in love, yet at the same time, since they’re two of the better-looking people on the show and are relatively normal individuals, it’s hard for them to immediately pinpoint relationship-ending qualms that would get them out of the Matrix. It’s kind of like a game of chicken — who’s going to swerve first?

Paul tells the cameras that Micah is straight up not his type — he likes “witchy” kombucha girls with paint on their overalls who brew potions in cauldrons. But I fear he’s too much of a beta to be the one to break things off with an objectively good looking and kind of intimidating gal, which puts Micah back in the driver’s seat, where we know she likes to be.

Micah seems to regret choosing Paul, but she’s addicted to the power of knowing that she can have any man she wants, which is why she rejected Kwame’s proposal and pressured Paul into cutting things off with Amber — once she knows she has you, she loses interest.

She’ll probably want to continue to play games with guys for the next five or six years, so while she might appreciate the high of getting Paul to the altar and having him commit his undying love to her, rejecting him on the same stage will feel like snorting crystal meth, and who can pass that up?

Bonus: What happens to Zack and Irina?

As much as we might want to, we can’t close out this discussion without giving Zack and Irina their due.

This goes down in the books as one of the worst couples in the history of the show. Zack is a freaky weirdo, and Irina is a huge bitch. It felt like the class treasurer and the cheer captain — well, probably not cheer captain, like the cheer second-in-command — had to go to prom together and spent the whole time at their table staring at their phones.

After they combust, we find out that Zack is going to meet up with Bliss, the woman he rejected in the pods for Irina, to try to get a second chance. My prediction is that she’s gonna be like, “I tried to warn you bud, sorry it didn’t work out.” By this point, she’s back to her normal life in Seattle, so her brain has been deprogrammed and recovered from all the love-pilling, meaning she’ll be quick to realize that Zack is actually probably a worse option than the tens of guys hitting her up on Hinge, who she can grab a drink with without any commitment of marriage.

Irina, on the other hand, is in a trickier predicament. She is super horny for her “best friend” Micah’s fiancee Paul. It doesn’t seem like Irina is particularly Paul’s type either (she’s giving more MLM than community garden), so even if she does dare to make some sort of advance, it will be swiftly rejected.

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Prekend Wrapped

• Watching: Mae Martin’s SAP standup special (Netflix)

• Reading: “How Chain, B.J. Novak’s Concept Restaurant, Built a Nostalgia Factory With Hollywood’s Help” (The Hollywood Reporter)

• Eating: Just a PSA that the new Chipotle chicken al pastor is actually incredible.