Taradise: Tara 'Tards
Well, here we are at last: the end of Tara Reid's European travel show Taradise on E!. Despite what network suits promised earlier, only 10 of the 13 planned episodes were aired. So be it. Let us shed no tears for Tara, as she makes clear early in the ep that she's happy with her own people: "We're all retarded, I think. We're a bunch of retards. Our IQ at this table right now is about 1." The finale concerns a brief jaunt through Marbella, Spain, and thence to Valencia and the town of Buñol for the infamous Tomatina tomato fight. There's a goodly amount of drinking, though nowhere near Tara's personal best. If the DVD collection ever comes out, I'll tabulate final booze results and release them in Excel for research purposes. First and foremost, after all, I'm a man of science. It's been an honor to chronicle this odyssey through the hottest bars and beaches reserved for rich folk, and fortunately I'm sure I didn't learn a thing about the world, accidentally or otherwise. So thrill to this last Taradise wrapup, and when you're done, I'll be at the bar.
Drink Report
Methodology: Drinks are counted when anyone on the show drinks any beverage or is shown holding a beverage (no attempt is made to differentiate alcoholic from supposedly non-alcoholic, i.e. clear fluid with lemon wedge). Tara Drinks are counted when Tara drinks a beverage on camera. Toasts and pours of beverages are the producers’ semaphore for further excessive drinking off-camera.
Drinks: 35
Tara Drinks: 8
Toasts/Pours: 8
Celebrity Cameos: Colleen Reid, Tara's little sis. That's all. Who knows what other D-listers were captured on footage that now will never air? I'm sure they're all breathing a collective sigh of relief.
Celebrity Antics: Colleen and Tara are very similar -- one of the best moments in the series is a quick audio montage of their almost identical hoarse snickering. Colleen might be a little more restrained than Tara, and maybe even a bit dimmer if that's possible, but she also appears to have gotten an even larger boob job. I mean, those melons are really prominent, especially in the plunging neckline of the girls' tomato-fight outfits. (And look, here's Colleen's own pre-op nipple slip!) However, when a paparazzi veritably thrusts his camera directly into her cleavage, Colleen goes ballistic and slaps the camera away, causing Tara to remonstrate with her sibling:
TARA: What the fuck are you doing?Not a good sign when Tara Reid is telling you to cool it. Colleen gets over her sense of violation in time to engage in some vegetable violence, declaring, "I'm a girly girl, but still ... I like to throw tomatoes at people!".
COLLEEN: He's taking a picture of my boobs. That's not real nice.
TARA: Don't start pushing people, Colleen.
[A clueless dude interposes himself between the sisters and asks, with the worst possible timing, "Hey, can we get a picture?" He is ignored.]
COLLEEN: They shouldn't get in my face then!
TARA: Then don't hang 'em [i.e. your breasts] out!
Tara in Danger: Tara indulges in a brief bit of hookah-smoking, putting her in danger from lung cancer and worse, ridicule. When she, Colleen, and friends stop at a gas station en route to the tomato fight, their skimpy outfits are greeted with drunken enthusiasm by the male customers. Tara reminisces fondly, "You could see the look in the their eyes, we were like, their dinner." Poor naive Colleen frets, "I'd never had an experience like that at a gas station." Truck stop or drunk tank, maybe, but a gas station? That was always a safe place for her. Concerned about the number of ambulances lining up near the tomato fight, Tara worries, "We're gonna get hurt. We're gonna get fuckin' killed, aren't we." Sadly, no.
Tara Mack Report: A big fat goose egg here. You'd think they could at least edit in some casual grubbing for poor Tara to end her show, but no. Therefore, as a gesture of goodwill, here's a bit of farewell grab-ass.
Cultural Moment: Well, the girls eat some paella. And they go on a tour of the Selwo Aventura zoo, which looks like a sort of Spanish Busch Gardens. There's confusion when the guide describes rhino horn as being a popular aphrodisiac, which confounds the sisters. Then they meet Manolito, the giraffe who has the power to predict if you're going to fall in love if he looks at you. Of course, he looks at both girls, since they're wailing like banshees. No on-camera love as a result, though.
Tara Self-Loathing Index: At this point, I think we need to make a distinction between two Taras. There's the TV-Tara on Taradise, a young lady filming her first headliner show a few months back, who seems chipper and happy and worldly enough to gush for the last 40 seconds of her canceled series about how she's "going to show you what the whole world has to offer" and "I think I'm in a good place in my life right now." Then there's the current Tara, watching her show In The Now with something akin to the horror we all feel. And the worst part is that she may have turned away from the sweet solace of alcohol the rest of us can still enjoy. At least she can finally get laid, which I think makes the world safer for everyone.
Episode -- and Entire Series -- in a Nutshell: We're all retarded.
Tomatina [Wikipedia]
Tara’s Baby Sister Slowly Learning The Art [The Bastardly]
Tarass [The Superficial]
Selwo Aventura [Official site, in Spanish]
Taradise [E!]
Previously: Taradise: Taranticlimax, Taradise: Tararepeat, Taradise: Taravengeful, Taradise: Tarahiatus, Taradise: Tarrafied
