“It’s a small island with so much temptation.”
The following is some of what’s hurled at us as the new reality TV show, Grand Cayman: Secrets in Paradise kicks off:
- “The Cayman Islands, a beautiful paradise.”
- “What makes Cayman Islands paradise?”
- “Everything on the menu.”
- Cut to scenes of wild parties in “paradise for the rich and famous,” literal bottle popping, fancy sports cars and mansions flash by.
- But, we learn… “the past will always catch up with you!”
- Cut to scenes of a woman crying, saying “She doesn’t care, she was shagging him!”
- We also learn that “what was done in the dark will always come to light.”
- “It’s a small island with so much temptation.”
- “Gossip does spread like wildfire.”
- “This island, it’s small, and your reputation is everything.”
- “If you don’t respect the island or the people here, it’s not gonna go well.”
- “This is Cayman. This is not a place to make enemies.”
- “Paradise has a price.”
- “Can you keep up with all the sexiness of the Cayman Islands?”
And that’s all just within the first two minutes!
I’ll say this: the scenery on this show is drop dead gorgeous, which is obvs part of its appeal. And then it’s basically a smorgasbord array of sexy people doing sexy/naughty/stupid/drunken/dramatic things in sexy paradise.
Grand Cayman: Secrets in Paradise mostly seems to center around four women (in paradise) in the early going.
Elizabeth Chambers is the estranged husband of actor Armie Hammer after 10 years of marriage, and has three kids.
Accusations regarding Hammer’s abuse are splashed across the screen from the likes of Perez Hilton and other tabloids, with things like “cannibalism” (??) and “I need to drink your blood” (???) highlighted, for example.
Elizabeth explains that the “Cayman Curse” is when a couple breaks up after moving to the island. No word on how “cannibalism” and “I need to drink your blood” plays into this.
Meanwhile, she’s trying to open a store called Bird Bakery, which is far less salacious. Or interesting. Frank, her business partner, is opening a restaurant in Mikonos or something, wants to talk about Cass about doing marketing for it. The drama seems to be around Elizabeth not being into that notion. Also, Elizabeth blurts out something about someone’s boyfriend sleeping with her assistant.
More drama rolls in when Courtney – who seemed to be friends with Craig and the much tattooed Aaron – believes that Elizabeth was “behind the attacks” that accuse her of “being one of Armie’s chicks.” “You pissed off the wrong local,” Courtney concludes.
We also spend time with Chelsea Flynn, who says “you can put me in the category of having the ‘Cayman Curse.’”
“People come to the Caymans and they fall in love, and they fall in love with the beautiful people… divorce just seems inevitable,” she explains.
Chelsea is from Manchester, England and moved to Cayman in 2013 with her then husband. She then had her “island baby,” Siena, in addition to baby Jacob. Her marriage ended, when then lead to her meeting Tyson, who seems “problematic,” let us say. They were married eight months later.
It’s been a “rollercoaster” with Tyson, Chelsea explains, and also uses the term “on again off again.” Meanwhile, a friend of Chelsea’s thinks she’s been “f—matized” by Tyson.
We then learn that Tyson cheated on Chelsea. While she was pregnant. With as many as five other women.
We meet Tyson and initial vibes are that it feels like there’s a lot of fire next to that smoke, if you get one I’m saying. Tyson is described as a gallist: “Jamaican slang for a player or pimp.” Courtney puts it this way: “To be honest, I think he’s a f— boy.”
Chelsea says that Tyson was kind and sweet and knows how to take care of her… except for all of the rampant cheating perhaps.
“Behind the scenes he’s just soft and gentle and wants to cuddle,” she adds.
There’s one scene where we see Tyson being cute with the kids and kind to her, and Chelsea tells him, “Babe, I really love this side of you, and I really want to see more of it.”
Meanwhile, we also meet Selita Ebanks, who feels like the part of Grand Cayman: Secrets in Paradise that the producers don’t really know what to do with as yet.
Maybe she doesn’t have enough secrets? Or if she does have secrets, we don’t know about them – making them really good secrets, I guess?
We learn that that Selita Doe has s a Cayman or New York accent “depending on the wine,” and that she’s a Victoria’s Secret Angel. She’s also getting back to her Caymanian roots, and is into “Cayman Kind,” which are like rules to “be easy, be humble, be respectful… and you be good to go.”
Seltia is “40 and fierce,” and entering her “hot girl era 2.0.”
And then we learn the tabloid-y backdrop on her: we see news headlines such as “Selita Ebanks parties post Terrence J split” and “Model Seltia Ebanks and Actor Nick Cannon Engaged,” and we also see a picture of her next to Kanye West or Ye or whatever he’s calling himself these days.
So maybe she does have secrets in or around paradise?
There’s also some storyline about Seltia running a fashion show of some kind, but I kind of tuned out during those bits.
The entire episode seemed to lose its momentum as it went along, frankly, and then suddenly we learn that news comes out that “Armie Hammer breaks his silence” and “Elizabeth looks like a psycho,” Courtney says.
Elizabeth “has like these fake e-mails to attack people,” using fake Instagram accounts and such, it’s alleged, to ruin Armie’s name. And “she’s done the same thing” to Courtney.
Elizabeth won’t talk about it on camera, though. “Only I know the truth,” she says several times.
And Armie is not a part of the cast, it seems, to speak for himself.
Some stats and info about Grand Cayman: Secrets in Paradise, “Tropic Like It’s Hot”
TV SHOW – Grand Cayman: Secrets in Paradise
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 1, Episode 1
AIRED ON – April 9th, 2024
NETWORK/STREAMING SERVICE – Freeform/Hulu
GENRE – Docuseries, Relationship Shows, Trashtastic TV, Reality TV
CAST – Elizabeth Chambers, Selita Ebanks, Chelsea Flynn, Courtney McTaggart, Frank Schilling, Cass Lacelle