DC WRAP: Are You The One? Season 1 - Special Delivery

Following is an excerpt originally posted in the 'Pulse of the AYTO Season 1

baby shower from September 2014, re-posted here for the interest of readers

as cast members Adam & Shanley currently compete on AYTO Second Chances.

BY DC CUEVA                     

■ @DC408Dxtr  @ TW / IG / YT

As we look back on the last chapter on what has been a unbelievable and incredible ride that I've been lucky to follow from the very beginning, just a year ago the castmates of the first season of Are You The One? were famous only to their families & friends and were unlucky in the dating pool. Adam, Amber, Ashleigh, Brittany, Chris T., Coleysia, Dillan, Dre, Ethan, Jacy, Jessica, Joey, John, Kayla, Paige, Ryan, Scali, Shanley, Simone and Wes were all casted with absolutely no idea that this experience would change all of their lives. As a group of strangers who lived together in a mansion on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, they experienced a roller coaster of emotions, from the stressful search for their matches, to the tension, jealously & fighting they had in the house, to the fun of the numerous challenges and dates in their spectacular locale. And in the end of course, there was the joy of the moment that made them feel like champions: getting together with their perfect matches, going 10 for 10 and winning $1 million; not to mention Ethan proposing to Amber on the reunion.
   Just two days after that original reunion aired on April 1 - 181 days earlier, when they arrived at her Austin, TX apartment after a long drive from his native Colorado, she found out via a pregnancy test that she was pregnant, for which cameras then documented them at the doctor as she saw her little one for the first time. But instead of finding out about it in the room, they decided to bring everyone back once again for their 2nd reunion in several months to find out the gender, and Monday was the baby shower. We had the opportunity to watch them all get together in L.A. and relive the whole experience of living together, albeit just for a few days. With a swanky hotel on Sunset Boulevard as their venue with pool and all, it also felt like an intimate high school reunion of sorts in which everyone had the chance to reminisce on the experience they had and reflect on good times & bad. But although we didn't have a challenge, truth booth or matchup this time, everyone didn't expect that this reunion would be just as dramatic as the other times they've been together, and they had to confront some unsettled drama.

   The night's biggest drama belonged to that of a couple that wasn't a perfect match out of the gate, yet whose relationship was one that attracted the greatest interest among fans. Chris T. & Shanley experienced a bad breakup in the months after the show, and thanks to the awkwardness of being in the same place at the same time they did their best to avoid each other. He was at the heart of the drama with what everyone saw as questionable behavior. Obviously, it didn't sit well with the group and led the Panda to admit to how big of a psychopath he was, which made things awkward for everyone as he tried to cover himself up by saying "I'm chillin', I'm out here" and "just whatever." When the group went out to a post-shower party night on the town, Shanley was then told to face her demons. And thanks to having a bit too much to drink, Tophs finally had a chance to talk things out with her, but his "chillin'" stance stayed the course, even with her telling him of how bad she was hurt. Social media's great impact on AYTO also impacted Chranley, where Chris' disrespect of her in social world led to a strong hatred towards the ex by Shanley. Ultimately out in the streets of Hollywood after back & forth talk, he would say sorry for his actions, hugged it out and agreed to try to bury the hatchet and go their separate ways.

   For the lady whose plan to separate Chranley ultimately led the group to the winner's circle, Simone was also involved in a lot of drama too, not surprising given her being outspoken and being full of energy. Being a guest at an event whose guests of honor were the lone perfect match that stayed together and are about to become man & wife w/ a baby, it's safe to say that she has a lot of resentment towards Amber & Ethan. Feeling a bit betrayed by them for being unfollowed on Instagram, Simone fired back at their even by admitting that she didn't click the "like" button on any of their bump pics. And as you saw in the tweets above, she and the couple got into twitter words as well. And it wasn't just Amber & Ethan that Simone had some drama with; she also got into a heated argument with her perfect match Dre (who, just after cameras stopped rolling after the group's victory, also had a last-night session in Poundtown), which also had champagne involved too. If the drumbeat is right, AYTO may be a warm-up act for what might happen down the road.

   It wasn't long ago that I was on SpreeCast talking to the cast during the season with AK and Ashley Weitzel. In one webcast, Ryan popped up on Adam's chat with Ash while they roomed together in Virginia, but that seems all but a distant memory now. When they shacked up together in the District, it didn't take that long for them to find out, with no truth booth needed, that they weren't a match as roommates. We saw Adam compare Ryan in living in the same apartment to living with "a b!tchy girlfriend" as he couldn't stand living with him and they tried to talk things out, but the bromance has faded. Even before this, Adam also had some tension with the lady who had a love/hate relationship with in Hawaii, Brittany. But when they were at the club in a moment that even shocked me, the Hulk did a move that a friend taught him, which was of throwing a girl on top of the bar in a club and locking lips with her. That girl happened to be the Bostonian, and that turned out to be the only contact they had; when it was all over, Britt flew back home to the East Coast with Ryan by her side.

   And for another duo that turned out to be a perfect match when the confetti fell, there was Jacy and Scali, which also caused drama in Hollywood too. We first heard about what happened to them when she had a hotel room girl talk when they were supposed to meet up in New York, but he never got back to her. And when our fiesty Puerto Rican made her way for the Brooklynite at the after party, she scolded him for not calling her after the season ended. Then she laid a bombshell: she revealed plans of relocating from her tropical paradise up the East Coast to Scali's NYC home court. Though she made it clear that this move wasn't one just that she would live closer to him, her not being ready to make a commitment to him and will just wait things out, it appears that they might see each other down the road, given that the smooth-talker stated his plans to grow up for her and eventually settle down.

   But not everything in this reunion was all drama and tension: this was a chance to reflect on an incredible experience that bonded a group of strangers into becoming a newfound family, along with being one of MTV's most-beloved casts. And no intimate outdoor reunion would be complete without adding in a dose of humor and a chance to just relax and have a laugh. First off, there was Ryan dusting off his infamous journal, and a new entry which was a nice poem to the upcoming newlyweds/parents-to-be and saluting his entire cast (check out his twitter @RyanMalaty to read the whole thing). Then there was the group's resident comedian John, and as you would suspect his speech was just a roast of the entire cast. Everyone, for the most part, took his jokes all in stride until he made a secret and personal joke about the other two in the Jacy/Scali triangle he was in. But JJ ended it on a good note with the guests of honor (visit AreYouTheOne.MTV.com to see it in full).

   In the end, when you get to the very heart of it all, the reason everyone came to SoCal for this one final get-together as a whole team of 20 people was to celebrate Amber & Ethan and their forthcoming addition. Like most future mom & dad, one wanted a boy that would be easier to raise & don't grow up quickly, while the other wanted a girl who can resemble her mom. And with bottles of the bubbly and gifts galore, the duo opened a big box with balloons inside which told them by the color of pink that they will have a girl. With 007 (Ethan's nickname on his social media handles) saying, "I know it's going to be daddy's little girl, and I know that Amber is so excited to raise a little princess," they tearfully embraced and shared a group hug with the people who will now become aunts and uncles to what will now be their own 11th girl, though she won't follow in their footsteps to the AYTO house down the road if they have their way. Next stop for them: an intimate wedding in December - just around the time their princess will be born, followed by a full-scale one in summer of next year when their kid has finally matured enough.

For me, as someone who got behind the show and its cast the moment they were revealed in January, Are You The One? has had a greater impact on me than I ever thought possible for a show outside of the bubble of The Real World and The Challenge, yet has become a show that, with respect to the entire MTV family, now I can say is definitely one of my now-three favorites. As JJ brilliantly pointed out to me on twitter, I will be one of those people who will tell other fans that I will have followed the entire season 1 cast before the show even aired, before they started a journey that changed their lives, and before they etched their names in MTV lore winning $1 million. Just as was the case in following the past three Real World casts just as, or before, their seasons began, I also got to know them from the beginning through the social-verse. There, I've become great social friends with the entire cast, and not a week has gone by that the cast has interacted with me in social world, and vice-versa.
   It's because of Are You The One? that this site had a great deal of traffic coming in from all over the world who were driven to my coverage, whether it would be goggling AYTO or getting a tweet alert to one of my diaries - which amounts to now over 13,000 views. For my buddy Andrew, it's this show, not the Real World or Challenge, that gave him his biggest webcast audience when Shanley spoke to him after the EP6 drama. And for MTV, having a huge hit like AYTO, which garnered great buzz and kept most of its post-TM2 audience for its first season, has now given it reason to turn this into its next big reality franchise by, just as it did for Catfish, giving its sophomore season a one-hour-earlier timeslot advancement into the 10 Spot starting on Monday with a season that, if the trailers and promos are dead on, may match, even exceed, the excitement of this first go-around.
   In the end, this experience has produced a true love relationship that is rare in this world of reality TV couples, along with life-long friends among all the cast members and a bond among former strangers that is just as strong as that of family and friends in their inner circles. Nobody on this team would've accomplished that $1 million goal without any one member refusing to contribute their part, and this is an experience that they will never forget. With that in mind, we'll leave the last words of this edition of theWRAP to the season 1 dream team, and their parting shots as they say so long.

• "This whole experience completely changed my life. I have so many things going for me, and I am a new Jacy because of it." - Jacy
• "Are You The One taught me a little bit more about what I need to look for. I mean, Brittany and I are friends. I'm going back to Boston with her and see what happens. Ethan and Amber are proof that Are You The One? is real. It's not some fairytale story anymore, it's a happy ending." - Ryan
• "As a whole, we all experienced something. So, we do have a special bond, and at the end of the day, we're always gonna be family." - Shanley
• "Regardless of all the drama and all the craziness, all I really need is my Ethan and my new baby girl. I love you." - Amber
• "We're perfect for each other. I love you too." - Ethan

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 EDITOR'S NOTE 

As we are reposting this excerpt from our 'Pulse covering the baby shower reunion for the Season 1 cast as AYTO Second Chances is currently airing, DCBLOG is currently working on an ExtraTime In-Depth taking a look at the guests of honor of that summer get together, Amber & Ethan. Watch for that in the coming weeks towards the end of this MTV Trifecta cycle, along with a look at Season 4 alum Asaf Goren coming up soon, and a look back at Shanley's relationship with Chris T.

- I AM DC