“He reminds me of Robocop.” – Destin
In the opening segment, “Robby Love” of “roller skates are my ride’ fame (see: The Millionaire Matchmaker episode, “Robby/Brendan,” which is one of the most hilariously cheesetastic episodes of reality TV of all time, bar none) stops by The Millionaire’s Club office to make sure there are “no hard feelings” between himself and Patti Stanger.
They quickly get into an argument, and Robby ends up hurling at Patti, “You’re the millionaire matchmaker and you can’t even get married!”
Maybe defensiveness is Robby’s ride, as it turns out?
The Millionaire Matchmaker, Paul Davis & Alex Edelstein: client intros
Chelsea introduces Alex, 39, a Harvard grad and real estate executive from Las Vegas. In his video, his long blonde curly hair and overall vibe makes him look like an erudite road magician or saxophone player, perhaps.
“What’s with his hair?” Patti says. “It’s like Bozo hair, clown hair.”
“He needs to button his shirt,” Destin (he of the maximum goth lord-meets-Hot Topic look_ says.
Alex also says he’s a geek who is worth $40 million.
“He’s like boring… like hello, can I help you?” Patti says about this, like she’s pretending to be a robot, one can suppose.
Alex is seeking a beautiful, smart woman, he says. Then, just after telling us that he’s “actually a crusty bastard,” he busts out an acoustic guitar and starts singing a song about being sensitive.
It is horrifically offkey, and non-ironically so, it would seem.
Ah yes, another edition of The Millionaire Matchmaker has taken flight, my friends.
Destin then introduces the “giant” six foot, four inch tall Paul Davis, who lives in Los Angeles and plays for the LA Clippers.
The Millionaire Matchmaker specializes in bringing pro athletes on the show who played a little bit over several seasons, and who would be completely unrecognizable except for only the most hardcore of sports fans.
In Paul Davis’ case, he played 82 games across four seasons (the equivalent of one total NBA season) during his professional career, averaging 2.6 points, 1.9 rebounds, .4 assists, and .2 blocks. Also noteworthy in the modern NBA: zero career three pointers attempted.
So while it’s obviously a great accomplishment to even get signed to an NBA roster, “scrub” would not be an inappropriate description of Davis.
Meanwhile, Destin says of Paul’s intro video, “He reminds me of Robocop,” while Patti chimes in with, “He has no personality.”
Patti adds that Paul is a “complete dud” who never attract women were it not for his position as an NBA player, “’cause he’s socially awkward.”
Patti also mentions that Paul “relies” on his $35 million contract, which I must point out is wildly inaccurate. Via Hoops Hype, Paul Davis made a total of around $1.5 million during his entire playing career, with his highest yearly income coming in 2008 with $687,456 while playing with the Clippers.
The Millionaire Matchmaker, Paul Davis & Alex Edelstein: Patti meets the clients
Patti meets Paul at a gym, where he’s getting some training in.
During the little video montage at this point in the episode, replete with “rocking” metal-ish music, Paul relays that he hopes to earn a $35,000,000 contract over a five-year span. As I note above, this did not pan out.
I also must note that while Patti and Destin are obviously harsh in their assessment of Paul, they’re not wrong in that he has a very flat affect that is not interesting to listen to. Like if he said the same exact thing in a lovely lilting and engaging Irish dialect, we’d probably think of him far differently. Who knows?
Nothing interesting happens during Patti’s meeting except that they play a little stilted round of one-on-one, so let’s cut to Alex visiting The Millionaire’s Club office.
During Alex’s little video montage, he talks about helping to develop a $330 million project in Las Vegas called Manhattan West, which is designed to give “the average person in Las Vegas” a better way of life. Or something.
In their meeting, Patti gently (for her) asks to cut Alex’s hair so it’s “not so Sammy Hagar last year.” Also: she wants to change up his wardrobe, including his “Liberace” jewelry.
“Sweet Jesus,” Alex responds.
The Millionaire Matchmaker, Paul Davis & Alex Edelstein: the recruiting session and mixer
Highlights from the recruiting session include:
- Kimi, a healthcare professional, turns out to be comedy icon Jerry Lewis’ granddaughter. Inexplicably, Patti immediately asks her for her bra size (it’s… a large answer). Kimi is also a basketball fan and “super single,” so she’s deemed right for Paul.
- Marie, an attorney, is asked by Patti, “When do you turn 40?” “In five years,” Marie replies.
- Tracy, a 26-year-old in sales, gets told by Patti that if she doesn’t get a makeover that includes a blow out, that she’s going to “really pissed” and “blacklist” her.” Patti weirdly emphasizes her threats with, “These guys want love.”
Before the mixer, Patti gets angry at Alex for not cutting his hair, and tells him to “stop living in the ‘80s.”
The more I get to see of Paul, he reminds me on both a vibes level – and also something to do with his voice and accent – of Alexander Skarsgård’s Lukas Matsson character from Succession.
For the mini-date round, Paul selects Megan, a 21-year-old marketing intern from Ohio, and Kimi, Jerry Lewis’ “energetic” granddaughter. And Alex picks “interesting” Sydney, a green clothing line designer, and “very sharp” Krista, who produces musical scores for independent films.
For the full-blown master date, Alex ends up opting for Krista, while Paul goes with Kimi. In both cases, the choices are those that the dudes had a legitimately good rapport with.
Side note that it took me a while into the episode to figure this out, but Alex looks a lot like a tall, younger Dave Foley of Kids in the Hall fame wearing a shaggy blonde wig.
The Millionaire Matchmaker, Paul Davis & Alex Edelstein: Alex & Krista’s first date
Alex flies Krista into Vegas for their date and picks her up in a convertible in front of her hotel. Their destination is a spot called Restaurant Charlie (which apparently closed many years back now).
Krista is very self-assured, and naturally and good naturedly rebukes Alex for saying he had fun meeting her the previous day along with “all the other women.” I realized too that she reminds me a bit of actress Elizabeth Moss.
It’s clear that both Alex and Krista are quite bright, and they connect well and seem to also have solid initial chemistry.
“She’s smart and sassy and doesn’t put up with any of my crap,” Alex tells the camera in a way lets us know that’s into her.
After dinner, Alex takes Krista to a small concert venue where they sip from enormous margarita glasses. Then Alex gets called up on stage, who then announces from the microphone that he’s going to sing a song for his date… and then he performs the same awful song that he sang for Patti.
Krista seems into it though and maybe only seems slightly freaked out, so who am I to judge?
You can’t say that Alex isn’t bold after that, but then he goes further and tells the audience that he believes that the performance deserves a kiss. And his boldness pays off, because it works! He hops off the stage and kisses Krista, to cheers and applause from the audience.
A true Vegas romance is brewing here… maybe?
The Millionaire Matchmaker, Paul Davis & Alex Edelstein: Paul and Kimi’s first date
Against Patti’s advice, Paul takes Kimi on a bowling date at a spot called Lucky Strike. However, Patti warily relents because Paul rented out the entire place for the two of them.
In a montage, it’s clear that Paul’s athleticism extends to some extent to his bowling game, and it’s funny to see him get kind of competitive with his date. Kimi is all bubbliness and light though, and her personality matched with the activity seems to genuinely loosen Paul up to a great extent.
It’s a fun contrast from Alex and Krista’s classy date at a chef’s table at a relatively high end restaurant to then cut to Paul and Kimi playing beer pong at the bowling alley. Kimi seems absolutely game for it though.
It’s possible that Paul can do no wrong for her at this stage, but she is into it for what it’s worth. Paul himself is somewhat more enigmatic by nature so it’s hard to tell how seriously he’s taking the entire endeavor. He does tell her later in the date that Kimi was the “realest” one at the mixer, and that be thinks their energy levels balance each other out well.
The Millionaire Matchmaker, Paul Davis & Alex Edelstein: post-dates upshot
Kimi stops by the office, who says the date was the “best she’s ever been on.” Paul followed by sending a winking emoji text right after the date, which is seen as a promising sign (I guess?).
Paul later arrives at the office, and agrees that Kimi is “a lot of fun” but immediately follows that up by saying that “it’s definitely more of a friendship kind of relationship.”
Patti urges Paul to call Kimi to “let her down gently,” and Paul kind of agrees.
It seems like things were going to end there, but we then cut to Kimi back on the phone with Patti because it turns out that Paul never did call her.
“Once a player, always a player,” Patti concludes, which seems like it’s based more on her feelings about NBA players in general versus what we’ve seen from Paul (who was pretty polite with Kimi, if a bit immature and lazy afterwards).
Patti then calls Krista from the road, who says that she’s gaga for Alex. Patti then arrives at a café, where she tells Alex how great his hair looks… although it’s styled in exactly the same way that she’s been bagging on relentlessly throughout the episode.
Alex tells Patti that he feels a real connection with Krista and loves that their conversation never lagged during their date.
The end of episode credits then tell us: “Alex and Krista went on one more date. Unfortunately, on the date he focused on business more than Krista.” And: “Patti immediately dropped Paul from The Millionaire’s Club because he mistreated Kimi. Paul is still playing the field.”
And as I note above, that’s not the only club that Paul Davis gets dropped from soon enough.
Some stats and info about The Millionaire Matchmaker – “Paul & Alex”
TV SHOW – The Millionaire Matchmaker
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 2, Episode 8
NETWORK/STREAMING SERVICE – Bravo
AIR DATE – April 2nd, 2009
GOOGLE PLAY DESCRIPTION – Patti shoots the cover of her new book, “How to Be Your Own Matchmaker,” before she heads to the office to see this week’s millionaires: Alex, a 39-year-old real estate developer from Las Vegas and Paul, a 23-year-old NBA player for the Los Angeles Clippers. Patti is typically outspoken about Alex’s outward appearance, telling him he needs a makeover and that he doesn’t know how to cultivate love, since he has been treating it like a business for so long. When Patti meets Paul, she encounters a player on and off the court. She tells him that NBA players don’t have the best track records with women and wants him to make sure to respect her girls.
GENRE – Reality TV, Dating Shows, Trashtastic TV