It's not a motorcycle, baby, it's a chopper. When we meet Eugene, it's inside a confessional clearly shot on German Tourist At The Gay Games theme day, which I'm sure is huge in Alaska. He's wearing a periwinkle -- and I don't mean to go so 64-Crayola on you, but that's exactly what it is -- mock turtleneck (which, as its name indicates, exists wholly to be mocked) that's tighter against his skin than Mary when she's ovulating. He tells us that after he and Kelly Jo came down from the glacier, they "had a few moments to take a hot tub in the middle of the Alaskan forest. Which was very lovely." And sure enough, as so often happens in the middle of the Alaskan tundra, Eugene and Kelly Jo come upon a basin of steaming water. Good thing they just happened to be in their swimming duds at the time, eh? And what is he wearing NOW, for crying out loud? It's the same black sweatshirt, unzipped to his navel! With nothing under it! And blue, floral-patterned Jams! Why? WHY? And who says "take a hot tub," anyway? Ack! My brain! It's exploding! They're joyriding around the Alaskan frontier and I'm Pacino in Insomnia. Can't sleep! Must sleeeeeeeeeep!
Champagne in a hot tub in the middle of Alaska. People, is there anything technology CAN'T do? Kelly Jo and Eugene toast the end of culture and talk more about themselves. Eugene asks Kelly Jo if she wants to have a family, and they agree, "I love kids." Kelly Jo doesn't love kids. Kelly Jo is kids. Carry an egg from Home Ec around with you for a week and let's talk again after this unit is over, okay? I know a lot of our parents had us when they were in their early twenties, but Kelly Jo...well, she's just saying that she wants a family because that is what people say. Because it sounds better coming out than "I want to be a barren spinster." And because at least it's the one kind of lip service that she can breathe out of her mouth during.
Meanwhile, Kelly Jo fesses up to us, confessionalizing her most opportunistic strategy yet: "I feel like I do have a little one-up, because I think other girls who are older are thinking they want to start a family right off the bat." So Eugene's inability to commit is going to be the thing that most informs his decision to commit? And, nice diplomacy, Kelly Jo, not naming which girl you mean when there are only two other girls left to choose from. It is true, though. There is quite the age gulf between Kelly Jo and Mary. Like, that one of them was born in the '60s, and the other one was probably born in the '80s, with Eugene not exactly smack in the middle of the two of them. Honestly, from an age standpoint, Eugene would be better off choosing Mary, so that at least certain cultural touchstones would be shared in common. Here are two scenarios:
Eugene: I love this episode of Speed Racer.
Mary: Oh, dios mio! Me, too, Bobby! Let's name our child Racer X and put a "Baby on Board" sticker on the back of our powerful Mach 5!
Or it could've happened this way:
Eugene: I love this episode of Speed Racer.
Kelly Jo: What's Speed Racer?
“ We learn that his day with Mary is going to involve kayaking down 'the river,' and then, at the other end, 'a picnic lunch.' And then back to your cabins for a lights-out ghost story and a late-night panty raid with the girls' bunk across the lake! Camp Guiney is the best! Except it never stops kissing me! ”
Oh, goody. Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Now, I've spent more than my fair share of time in Wyoming (don't worry, I made it home by spending most of my time there in a movie theater, watching Notting Hill and finding it charming), but I've never been to Jackson Hole. And I really should go, because, as I mentioned in the recaplet, everyone I know who has ever been there bows at the cult of Jackson Hole. It is the food? The cultural? The music? I think it's the "absence of feeling like you're in Wyoming." The same reason people love Austin because it's not like the rest of Texas. Either way, it's a damn cult, is what it is. We montage our way past the gates of town as an ersatz down-home kuntry twang kicks up on the soundtrack, past a sign reading "Jackson Hole" written on antlers, past a field with some sort of extremely tip-able looking animals grazing, past a stagecoach that's taken them on a fantasy date into the past, and finally to a shot of snow-capped mountains looming over a large body of water smack in the middle of this landlocked state. Jackson Hole really is a magical place! We find Eugene standing on the shores of this Lake Fake Lake, wearing the same sunglasses he was on his date and, oddly, what seems like an entirely short-sleeved version of his questionable Alaskan ensemble. We learn that his day with Mary is going to involve kayaking down "the river," and then, at the other end, "a picnic lunch." And then back to your cabins for a lights-out ghost story and a late-night panty raid with the girls' bunk across the lake! Camp Guiney is the best! Except it never stops kissing me!
Eugene confessionalizes by way of confessional, "Mary and I certainly have a wonderful chemistry together." Meh. "Chemistry" moves up in the ranks as the show's most overused catch-all word. But it does prove an accurate point, seeing as when you mix his primary periodic chart element (#129 - odium) and hers (#134 - oldium) together, the result is a frothy mixture, one that smells of hair gel and rank desperation, but possesses absolutely no real substance to speak of whatsoever. Case in point: "Mary's at a point in her life where she wants immediately to have a family, and I don't know that I'm at that same stage in my life at this point." That is such bizarrely evasive language to say, "She wants kids, me not so much. She's done." Such a sad aquatic irony that they'll be spending the say going down the river when I believe the words they're looking for to describe Mary's chances are actually "up a creek."
"Hey, Mary!" Eugene girlfriend!s in his highest obbligato range as Mary steps out of her car. She's wearing a big-ass cowboy hat because they are on the range, baby. She leaps out of the car and into Eugene's arms because she never touches the ground when they're together, and she confessionalizes over this that she's "scared, but very hopeful." I feel that way too, Mary, except for anything that involves the vaguest chance of you not losing.
“ We learn that the massage featured, in fact, 'honey and apricots.' As if there weren't enough reasons to steer clear of him, now physical intimacy with Eugene can actually make you diabetic. ”
This is that super-active date that always makes me feel so bad for the girl who's on it, where they're all encumbered with big microphones in their mouths while riding helicopters or covered from head to toe in protective space gear while planting an American flag on the surface of the moon. Cut to Eugene and Mary in a kayak, their entire upper selves completely covered by bright orange life preservers, and their hands taken up with huge oars. It would be a huge blow to their date, but Eugene's just pretty happy that, in this position, sitting as far away from Mary as he possibly can at this moment, there is no way that he can possibly get Mary pregnant. Because she wants to have kids. And she wants to start soon. And she wanted you to know.
They row, row, row their boat, gently down the stream. Merr---no, see, that's where you were supposed to come in. Back there. At "gently." Want to try again? Okay, here we go. Row, row, row...NO. Oh, it hopeless.
Ah, the Snake River Lodge & Spa. Right in the middle of the Tetons, and get your mind the hell out of the gutter. Eugene and Mary doff their clothes for a massage, Mary wearing a white bikini that you do have to admit looks kind of awesome. For an old lady. Like the true gentlemen he is in so many ways, Eugene, upon seeing her, notes, "Ay, carumba!" And the only thing sadder than being catcalled from The Simpsons Book Of Pick-Up Lines Written By Ten-Year-Olds is that I'm sure Mary wouldn't hesitate to eat Eugene's shorts, were the opportunity presented. And then they're lying to each other on massage tables, as licensed professionals (for this is what they are) brush honey all over Eugene's naked body. Uch. I'll be using sugar in my tea from now on, as it is the sweetener least involved in this sick charade. We learn that the massage featured, in fact, "honey and apricots." As if there weren't enough reasons to steer clear of him, now physical intimacy with Eugene can actually make you diabetic. Awesome. But Mary, greased up and mentally decorating her first child's room, narrates that "[Eugene] hopped off of his table and started to massage my feet." Get back on that table, you animal. People are paid to do that well. This is a breach. I can't take it anymore. And neither can they, as we cut to them in a shower -- like, a double shower -- and Mary admits from the safe confines of a confessional she taped while hanging out with the wardrobe department of Flashdance, "I felt very tempted. You have water and honey trickling down your body and you have the man of your dreams washing it off, it's a very tempting moment." A tempting moment for what, exactly? I'm not kidding. What was she really planning on doing here that wouldn't have gotten them duly removed from the Snake River Lodge & Spa? I'd like to know so that I can avoid it if it starts to look like it's going to happen.
Nana?
“ All we need now is for Mary to step up and level with him, telling him, 'I don't think anybody really knows what their timeline is.' No! NO!!! Please! This is only the seventh week we've ever known Mary, and even we know how to say 'hot flash' in Spanish. ”
In an identically-colored though slightly less mock-collared shirt, Eugene prefaces dinner by telling us that he's "excited" for their night ahead but also "unsure as to what to do." Well, avoiding meaningful conversation with either of the other two girls he might ask to marry him seems to be working fine, so what not just Control-C, Control-X, and Control-V and run with it? Can't have our expectations as viewers challenged too much, can we? Or...can we? Let's go see!
"The thing that does concern me a little bit," Eugene tells Mary in the Serious Guy voice that failed to convince Trista and now fails to convince us, "is your timeline might be a little different than mine." Why Eugene, whatever do you mean? "I remember you saying" -- yeah, that one time she might have mentioned it -- "that you wanted to have children immediately and wanted to have a family. And it made me think. I was curious what you think about that." Like it's her opinion on NAFTA. Okay, good, though. He's laid it out there. All we need now is for Mary to step up and level with him, telling him, "I don't think anybody really knows what their timeline is." No! NO!!! Please! This is only the seventh week we've ever known Mary, and even we know how to say "hot flash" in Spanish. She wants kids. She knows she wants kids. We know he knows she wants kids. If he's not the guy who can give them to you then he's not the guy. Too bad they spent the whole day kayaking when Mary's most practiced mode of transport is clearly the backpedal. That. Is. Annoying. "I don't want to wait five years," she admits. "I don't want to wait four years, five years." Those are two different things? What is that, the length of Nana's funeral on Jupiter? Ten, fifteen minutes = four, five years?
It seems too that Eugene's been briefed that Mary might have some of her own reservations about this whole affair. She wrings her hands and launches right in: "Obviously, you're going out with two other girls." Math is hard! She tells him in no uncertain terms that the thought of Eugene being "intimate" (as the seventh-grade health-class terminology would have us understand) with either of the other girls weighs heavy on her rapidly deteriorating mind. She dances around it, though, and Eugene is forced to ask if Mary's asking if he's "been intimate" with either of the other women. She tells him that she doesn't know if it's right for her to ask that, but, while she's asking, yeah, that's kind of what she's asking. Eugene hems with the hawing for a moment, and settles on cyclical diplomacy: "Whatever moments I share with you are no one else's business, just as the moments that I share with them, at this point, are not anyone else's business either." And there it is, right there in Mary's eyes. A flicker that tells us she knows she's blown it. It's all adding up: between the jealousy, the inappropriate questions about the other girls, the suspicion, and the asking Eugene to start being a baby maker the second that ring is on the finger? She's toast. Just as long as she's not "eggs," too, because she's got only so many of those left over to spare.