A little delayed due to Jocelyn asking me to watch Monsters, Inc. with her last night. I ended up falling asleep and there was not enough Pepsi Max in the world to help me rally for a two hour trip through these ladies families. Hooray for lunch breaks and ABC Streaming at my desk! Let's get it on!
We start with....cows. Kansas City is known for its cows? Nikki doesn't seem like a Midwest girl to me, I never picked up on that. She seems pretty Northeasterner to me. Let's go. Nikki says "it could be the one and only time my parents get to talk to him." Not the most confident statement.
I get the cow thing now...the barbeque. I love that most famous BBQ place in Kansas City is called Oklahoma Joe's. Not Kansas City Joes? The best place is named after a neighboring state? Kinda shaky, KC. After eating some ribs, it's time to ride a mechanical bull. "After making me dance in Korea, I'm going to make him ride a bull in KC. Nikki's an experienced bull rider? I'm confused. Nikki is impressed at how hot Juan Pablo is on a mechanical bull. "He's a lot more cowboy than I thought!" So eating some ribs and riding a fake bull in a western bar makes him a cowboy? In that case, Nikki, I guess that makes me your huckleberry too! High five for riding the bull tandem slowly then fake falling off so you can make out on a beer stained padded floor! So romantic. In fact, it's so romantic, Nikki can't bring herself to tell Juan Pablo she loves him. The empty country bar where single people go to find people the want to forget hooking up with the next day just didn't cut it I guess.
Moving on to Nikki's house - and Jesus does it just seem to you that a majority of contestants on this show come from an impressive amount of money? Granted, real estate prices are probably lower in Missouri, but still that's a NICE house. Nice touch by Juan Pablo to bring flowers for the mom, nice touch by the dad to tell him he's family because he sat down to dinner. Everyone seems pretty nice in this situation. I like the little bit about how the girls flew coach to Korea while Juan Pablo rode first class. Just another way that ABC makes the ladies feel like he's a huge catch and he's somehow above them. He's a star, you're a bit player, so you'd be lucky to have this guy pick you. Just awful, ABC.
Nikki and her mom talk, and she tells her mom she's in love with JP. JP and the dad talk, and the super awkward conversation where Juan Pablo says "hypothetically speaking, if I were to ask your daughter to marry me, would you be OK with that?" Papa Tom says "well I trust my daughter," and then gives the obligatory "if it's not real for you, cut her loose" statement.
Dad then sits down with Nikki, and grills her on the step-mom thing, which she seems ready for. Then we get the touching "I love you, you're smart and I support you in everything." Maybe it's a little contrived and cliché, but now that I have a daughter myself, those little moments hit me a little harder. All in all, this was about the most standard, cookie cutter hometown date of all time. Nikki kisses him on the porch, Juan Pablo prods her to tell him she loves him, she hesitates, he lingers, she still hesitates, he gives her the "well I've gotta go" ultimatum, and she still balks. That was pretty much her last chance, and she didn't do it. Pretty sure she doesn't love him, which is fine. Telling someone you love them when you really don't is about the worst mistake you can make. However, waiting for the "exact perfect right time" is a bad idea too. The right time is whenever you say it. If you say it in line at a Starbucks, that's the right time. If you say it while cooking a burger on your grill in the backyard, that's right too - so long as you actually mean it. Sometimes the perfect setting (say sunset on an exotic beach just a flock of dolphins starts jumping in the bay) will make you think "Holy shit, this is like a movie! I LOVE HIM!" when you're really not ready and then you have what should be a fantastic moment in your life tarnished because you said it to the wrong person and now every time you see a dolphin you hope it gets its stupid little nose stuck in a plastic six pack holder and dies a horrible death.
Off to Atlanta for Andi's hometown. Juan Pablo shows up for their "date" wearing what basically looks like a warm-up shirt for baseball practice. He sees Andi and says "you so preeeeety!" Andi says "I've got a surprise for you because you've made me do some crazy things." Juan Pablo asks "what crazy things." To Andi, crazy stuff is soccer, dancing and karaoke. So far we've learned that riding a mechanical bull and eating ribs makes you a cowboy, and dancing and playing soccer makes you crazy. Doesn't take much to impress these ladies, does it? No wonder they're swooning over his first class plane ticket! Andi decides to take him to shoot some guns. Clearly, all Andi and I share in common is a name. Guns creep me out, and I have no desire to ever shoot one, hold one, see one. "You want to prove a little manhood in the South, you hold a gun right." I am not a Southern man. "We're in Georgia, we're gonna see how he handles a gun." I am never going to Georgia. Juan Pablo apparently won't be welcome in her home unless he hits the bullseye on the target. Strangely, on his first shot, Andi flinches like she's never been around a gun in her life. What was that? She's blasting away with automatic weapons, but the sound of a pistol firing at a gun range when you're watching the guy pull the trigger makes you jump? Guns are weird. Let's just move on.
I'm assuming that Juan Pablo hitting the bullseye one out of 25 or so shots is a pretty good metaphor for this whole show, and probably Andi's chances of getting a proposal at the end of all of this. Let's go have dinner with the parents! More bad omens - Andi is terrified inside, and she's still "waiting to fall in love." She feels her parents could be a tipping point in making up her mind for her. Never a good sign if you need someone else to tell you if you're in love. Dad's taking the hard line, grilling Juan Pablo about waiting until it's down to eight people to take her on a solo date. Andi's dad, who's name is Hy, is not digging this at all. He's taking the realist approach to this, openly acknowledging that his daughter is dating a dude who is dating three other girls. "We've been married for 30 years" he says, to which Juan Pablo replies "How's it going?" Oof dude. Like anyone on earth is going to just acknowledge on the spot that their marriage is failing. What a terrible question. Juan Pablo gets a reprieve by speaking to the mom first. He again puts his foot in his mouth by responding to the "what do you like about my daughter?" question by saying "first of all she's beautiful." That's worth saying, but to make that the primary thing you like about their daughter?
Dad gets his chance, and he asks why Juan Pablo is on the show. Juan Pablo actually has a pretty good response, saying that people who sign up know who he is, know he has a daughter, and know that he's looking to start a family. Kind of allows him to skip a few steps in the dating process I suppose. Hy seems content with that answer. Juan Pablo then asks if he and Camilla would be accepted into the family, at which Hy puffs out his chest and gives the camera the old "it's not about finding someone for Andi, it's about finding someone good enough for Andi." Uh oh. Is Hy going to shut this whole thing down? Turns out, he has the best answer ever to this question, saying "I'm not having this conversation with you until you're 100% sure she's the one for you." Hy just won this episode. However, he probably damaged Andi's chances of winning because he definitely didn't make Juan Pablo feel as comfortable as Nikki's dad.
Further belaboring the issue, Andi's sister tells her that she hasn't heard Andi say "he's the one." Andi just kinda shrugs and says "yep." Not a good sign. Andi then talks to her dad, and definitely doesn't sound like someone who's in love saying "if he dumps me, he dumps me." Actually ended up liking Andi's family more than I thought I would. They are intelligent, well mannered, logical people. Which begs the question as to how their daughter ended up thinking it was a good idea to go on this show. Andi says she found what she was looking for, and yet she isn't in love with him yet. "Very, very close though." Ugh.
Next up is Renee, who has no doubt that she is madly, crazy, in love with Juan Pablo. But, will she be able to say it? Time to start the date by showing up at Ben's little league game. Nothing makes a kid play well like seeing his mom canoodling on a blanket with some strange dude surrounded by cameras. Juan Pablo shakes the kids hand and then squeezes his shoulder and starts talking to him like he's four years old. He's not Camilla, idiot. I also love that Ben won't even look at Juan Pablo while they talk to each other. Time for the game to start - do you think ABC mandated that Ben pitch this game? I'm imagining the coach getting all huffy and saying something like "We're ONE GAME out of first and you want me to shuffle my pitching rotation for your GIRLY SHOW?" Then ABC shoves a little cash his way and all of a sudden he's "got a hunch" that Ben's going to go out there and throw the game of his life. Sorry, little Johnny Tucker, you're riding the pine today so Ben's mommy can have a good date before she gets dumped. Hope your grandparents didn't drive down from Knoxville to see you play today.
We start family time by having the grandparents talk about all the stuff that Renee missed - meeting the coach, the bracelets he's been making. Way to make her feel crummy, grandma. This whole family seems to like Juan Pablo, and I'm hoping they don't put the poor kid on the spot and make him answer questions about if he'd be okay with having Juan Pablo be his daddy. That's just not fair. Fortunately they didn't go down that path. We also don't get to see the "would you be OK with me asking your daughter to marry you" sequence, which either means that it didn't happen (UH OH!) or he asked, dad said "of course" and it was so boring that it didn't need to be shown. We say our goodbyes, and again the girl misses her last chance to say "I love you." I'm now starting to think this is an ABC mandate that you aren't allowed to tell him you love him before the fantasy suite. Hmmm...
Alright time for a trip to Claire's hometown of Crazyville, Insania. Get your popcorn ready! Kansas City is known for its cows, Atlanta had ducks, Sarasota had seagulls, and now Sacramento has honeybees! I'm learning so much about local wildlife. Juan Pablo and Claire get right down to the making out and hugging and holding hands. She kind of reminds me of Isla Fisher's character in Wedding Crashers. Juan Pablo says that he can't wait to meet her family, because "he can't wait to see why she is the way she is." Incredible. We're all thinking that exact same thing. Claire tells us that it's difficult not having him meet her dad - probably not as difficult as having Juan Pablo meet her dad, amirite? Sorry, bad death joke. She then tells kind of a sweet story about how she danced with her dad before he died since she wouldn't get to at her wedding, and you kind of almost want things to turn out OK for Claire. But then the next moment they're making out again and she's saying obvious things like "you're in Sacramento!" and I just want her to be off my television.
Time to meet the mom and sisters. She can't wait to tell them "everything." Will she bring up the late night romp in the ocean? Let's hope so! Is it concerning that Claire looks like absolutely nobody in her family? I need to know more about this. Moving onto dinner, and, yup, the midnight romp comes up right away. This apparently isn't surprising to anyone, because they just kinda shrug it off. "Oh, that's just Claire! She's always romping around in her bikini!" Moving on, Claire talks to sister Madeline - who apparently is the surrogate daddy for Claire. She seems to trust her the most. She also says she'd say yes "in a heartbeat." Time to talk with mom, and the angry sister Laura is kind of speaking for mom. Why are they talking as if mom isn't there? What is going on right now? Claire says that she'd be OK with him turning her down because of how strong she's become because of how her family has supported her. Laura is having none of it. She seems to think that Claire is somehow disrespecting her mom. I get the sense that Claire's mom doesn't speak the best English. Claire then talks to another sister about the situation, and it seems to be almost expected that Laura was going to torpedo this whole situation. Laura is loving her time on the TV, gently petting the puppy as she continues to pass judgment on the situation while simultaneously acknowledging that she doesn't know Juan Pablo. Yowza.
Juan Pablo goes out to talk to Mama, and Laura goes out and weasels her way into the situation, and again acts as Mama's interpreter...rambling on about Daddy and how important he was. I will say this, he must've been a great man to put up with all of these competing personalities. Laura gets her two cents in (or was it her fifteen minutes of fame?) and finally begs off to let Mama talk with Juan Pablo. Turns out that I was right in that English isn't her first language, but she speaks English just fine. Mama Claire seems kind of alright....sort of like the wise town elder in a Disney movie about a remote tribe of people that doesn't speak much but everyone respects. Claire says "if he can look past my crazy family, I would love to marry him." I'll bet she can't wait to move to Florida to be with Juan Pablo. She's like the cheerleader girlfriend of a star quarterback in a small, backwards West Texas town who is pinning her whole future on her boyfriend's NFL future. If she gets dumped, she's gotta go back to her house with her tail tucked between her legs, while Laura sits there in her Wal-Mart elastic waist sweats petting that stupid little dog and saying "told you so...now look how upset you've made Mama. Daddy would be so ashamed." Someone help her get out of this situation.
Alright, rose ceremony time. We know Andi makes it based on the teasers for next episode, so is it Nikki, Claire, or Renee? I think Nikki is safe. That leaves Renee, who is awesome but has a kid of her own, or Claire, who has a crazy family, but is smoking hot and Juan Pablo doesn't seem to be able to keep his manos off of her. (Google tells me manos is Spanish for hands). Sure enough, Nikki and Claire are safe, so that means Renee is left to wonder if ABC telling her she couldn't tell Juan Pablo she loved him did her in. Nope, it was probably your son, though nobody would ever admit it. I get it too - if it was just about Renee moving, it's not a big deal - but when you talk about pulling her kid out of his school, off his little league team, away from his friends...well, it's just easier to pick the hot girl who has absolutely no qualms following you to the end of the earth and leaving everything in her past behind. He took the easy way out. Once again, Juan Pablo seems to be taking it harder than the lady he just dumped. This has to be a first. None of these girls seem all that broken up to be departing. I mean, Renee just spent a whole hour of the show telling us how in love with him she was, and yet she seems totally fine getting excused. I'm fine with it too, Renee. I'm sure you will find someone way better for you and your family. And if you ever make it out to Oregon, I'm sure my wife would love to sit down and have a glass of wine with you. You seem like a cool lady.
Alright, time to take a 24 hour breather before getting back into the drama.
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