Nevertheless, the parents are together in one place because it's always the mature route to do that bygones thing for the selfless cause of meeting your son's new girlfriend and, incidentally, appearing on television. As Matthew and Meredith approach the house, a group of four people...well, they done put down their muskets and their moonshine, and we meet Mom, Dad, Chris the brother, and Uncle Drew. Carol, the mom, tells us that she could tell even from a distance that Matthew was "beaming," and we cut to the group sitting around and doing the meet-and-greet thing. You've never been to Texas? Never? What about ever? Not even then? "How's the competition?" sassy Mom asks, and everyone laughs uproariously though awkwardly because this is always the point at which the mom asks that question and the rest of the assemblage laughs uproariously though awkwardly. One guy -- we'll call him Ol' Pappy -- brings up the inevitable "I just don't know how two people could know each other as quickly as you have, but you seem very comfortable around each other." Matthew says it feels like she and Matthew have known each other longer. Smiles all around. Meredith tells us she thinks Matthew's family are "salt of the earth people," which -- if you'll just give me one second to look up this translation right here in my Mason To Dixon, Dixon To Mason Dictionary -- means she thinks they're hicks.
Dinner. As they sit down, Ma Matthew asks right off, "Can I make a toast?" And this part of the family dynamic I can totally understand, because the members of my family are all inveterate toastaholics. We always feel the need to clink glasses, as my mother stands up and tries to tell us how happy she is to have the whole family in one place together, but she usually only gets through the words "I'm just so..." before she inevitably starts to cry. But it's totally ingrained my siblings and I with this need to toast whenever we have a glass of liquid anywhere near us, whether I'm opening a Capri Sun for my niece or drinking Diet Pepsi from a novelty plastic cup with the Mets' 2003 schedule on it at Shea Stadium with my brother. So what's special about Ma Matthew and her toast? Well, for one...Ma Matthew's toast rhymes, people. It rhymes. She puts on her glasses and takes out a piece of paper, and at least avoids the line that usually follows the rapid-fire glasses-and-paper sequence: "I have so many people to thank and I just didn't want to forget anyone." Instead, she reads her toast aloud:
What a joy to see two young happy faces
Brought together by an unusual fate from faraway places
Use your head and your heart
As you're off to a really fast start
I'm not sure where you're going
But for now you're both glowing
May this day be a step towards making your dreams come true
Our heartfelt wishes are for love and happiness for both of you.
“ She still has a lot of questions. Questions like, 'Do Chad and I have what it takes to go into the future together?' Do you have shimmery silver spacesuits? Everyone wears those in the future. ”
Awwwww! Cute Mom reads a cute poem sure to get her a "check" at her Introduction to Poetry course down at the Learning Annex. Nay! A "check plus," indeed! Everyone toasts, and the audience is charmed. Except for one person who, somewhere in Vail, mumbles a put-out, "Oh, shove it up your Shamu, rhyming lady" before being interrupted by a shrill "Honeeeeeee, come massage my feeeeeeeeet," as he lunges for the remote and considers his life in a world where rhyming couplets had never been invented.
And, it's over. Don't you know you're supposed to wait forty-five minutes after you eat before going on a swing or a montage? Ignoring both of these golden rules, Matthew and Meredith are now on a giant porch swing outside of the house, Meredith observing, "I've been on two swings today." Did they just neglect to show us the footage of Meredith playing the Jane to his Tarzan, or is she doing a where-do-you-end- and-I-begin thing about her sudden soul-mate-y relationship with Matthew? They rock on the swing, Meredith telling us that being on it, out there, with Matthew, made her feel "like a grandma and grandpa." Nana? She continues by telling Matthew that she feels "much better about Texas," about which I'm sure Texas will be incredibly relieved.
And that's when things start to get a little weird. We montage well northward to Buffalo, four hundred miles and millions of light years from her upcoming date with Ian, and 1,500 miles and millions of degrees Fahrenheit away from her date with Matthew. Utilitarian architecture from the design era known as "Municipal Parking Structure" abounds, and a blue sign reading "Buffalo: All-American City" makes all of America wonder why its average temperature is "mostly snowy with a 90% change of crippling seasonal affective disorder." ["That's funny, because the sign you see when you approach it on the Thruway from the south reads, 'An All-America City.' Not grammatically correct, yet distinctly Buffalonian." -- Wing Chun] Meredith emerges from (natch) a plain-looking building that looks like a bus station -- did they put her on The Friendswood Express? -- and she walks into the blinding city cloud light wearing a searingly bright pink jacket and a scarf striped with the same color pink. If she had been wearing a hat, she would have thrown it up in the air by now and we'd all know that she intends to "make it after all." Turning the world on with her smile in a confessional, Meredith reminds us that her last (and, like, only) date with Chad was totally dreamy, but that she still has a lot of questions. Questions like, "Do Chad and I have what it takes to go into the future together?" Well, let's see. Do you have shimmery silver spacesuits? Everyone wears those in the future.
“ 'Obviously she's my mom, but I think I told you, when I send her a card and stuff, it's roommate. Because we just have that tight bond.' Well, at least it makes me feel less weird about buying Mother's Day cards for my female roommates. ”
And, of course, Chad is a bubbling cauldron of misgivings in his own right. And why not? In his confessional, his information shows up on the bottom of the screen as, "Chad, 32, pharmaceutical sales, Buffalo, NY." By the end of Meredith's visit, so much of that information proves untrue that I could probably be convinced that pharmaceutical sales is a sham job entirely! Even for people who are actually employed in it! Let's start with this: "Having Meredith come here to Buffalo sends different feelings through me," Chad stammers. Obviously, I have a lot of excitement, but also some anxieties as well. Probably the biggest thing is that I live with my mother." Please note that, should you see any misspellings throughout this recap, it is because my touch-typing skills are not good enough to support me typing while my head is elsewhere, hung down to my knees in shame.
Not that there isn't a perfect reasonable explanation for all of this. Y'see, Chad's father died "a few years ago," so Chad couldn't just up and move out on his mom when she was going to be alone in the house, now, could he? And not that I'm going to be the one to point out the fact that this meant Chad was still living at home when he was, like, twenty-seven or twenty-eight, because every family situation is different and it is absolutely none of my business. And besides, "Obviously she's my mom, but I think I told you, when I send her a card and stuff, it's roommate. Because we just have that tight bond." Well, at least it makes me feel less weird about buying Mother's Day cards for my female roommates. Which I don't do. Because of the BOUNDARIES. Anyway, Chad's almost done. With this speech about his mother, and with his chances with an actual girl: "I'm thirty-one years old. She can't expect me to live at home forever." I thought he was thirty-two. She can expect you to live at home forever.
Over at Chad's sister's much, much, much nicer house, we meet Chad's mother, two sisters, and their husbands. In a truly eyebrow-raising confessional, Chad's sister Darcy tells us a few revealing things: "We are huge Bachelor fans. I mean, we saw the last show. My sister and I had a party for that last show. And the whole time, knowing that my brother was going to be on The Bachelorette, I was just hoping that it was Meredith." Okay, someone help. Besides the creepy Notting Hill vibe I'm getting of them only wanting to chill with Meredith because she is a quote-endquote-celebrity, I'm also missing the point somewhere with who knew the Bachelorette was Meredith and when. I mean, obviously, it was announced to the world during the filming of it or right at the end, but as Chris told us at the very beginning of this season, and I quote, "When Meredith was sent home by Bachelor Bob, we got emails, phone calls, and letters from single men across the nation." So all of the men wanted to go on the show just to meet Meredith. So unless Chad was contractually gagged -- which would be weird, because he would already have told everyone that he'd sent emails, made phone calls, and wrote letters to Chris Harrison to express his love for Meredith and Meredith alone -- I'm just saying it pokes a hole in the "men perfect for Meredith" thing if the guy was getting out of the limo not knowing if he was going to be meeting Meredith or Kelly Jo or a guy in a pumpkin costume yelling, "I'm the Great Pumpkin! We have a pumpkiny connection that makes for pie or delicious seeds!" I'm just saying: not fate.
“ Chad returns to the house, has a warm glass of Postum, puts on his Speed Racer footsie pajamas, and when the karmic backlash finds me living with my mom in five years, y'all can drive out to Massapequa and laaaaaaaaaugh. ”
"We all think we know Meredith and we've known her," Chad's mom tells us, inadvertently underlining the inherent sociology behind stalking and its root causes. The two sisters talk about how sad they were when she got booted from the show, and tell us in a confessional that she's even prettier than she was on the TV. But screw the ass-kissing. It's time for them to blow it in front of this comely TV personality. Let's hear it from Mom! "Meredith, you're self-employed?" Yeah, aren't we all. "What did you see in this unemployed person?" You can practically hear the needle being ripped off the record as Meredith tells us she didn't know about Chad's current unsold not-so-pharmaceutical non-sales. But stress no more...it's time for a toast! Let's do this one ourselves, shall we?
What sadness to see where Meredith's joy went
When she discovered her engagement ring was bought with checks of unemployment
Trapped in a life in Buffalo
Don't drive out of there too quickly, it's starting to snow!
Chad still lives with his dear old mother
But really she isn't too much bother
At dinner he gets a booster seat
And on steak night she cuts his meat!
Chad and his mom retire to the kitchen, where she shares, "She's great!" And the financial viability of splitting the rent three ways is, well, I just can't even tell you! And then, in the dining room, Chad's mom and Meredith share some moments together, during which Meredith talks about how genuine and sincere he is and Chad's mom is all, "I'LL STAB YOUR EYES OUT, PUNK!" Except she actually says that she hopes Chad and Meredith will end up together. Outside, Chad whispers, "You really make me feel good," and he and Meredith kiss smackily and she tells us that he's someone she can picture spending the rest of her life with. She hops into an attending vehicle as Chad returns to the house, has a warm glass of Postum, puts on his Speed Racer footsie pajamas, and when the karmic backlash finds me living with my mom in five years, y'all can drive out to Massapequa and laaaaaaaaaugh.
New York City! Surely there has never been a city so rich in reality-show history. Besides the city of "Wisconsin," which certainly seems to house a few reality refugees itself, for some reason. Meredith strolls with heavy security past the corner of Avenue B and East 10th Street and meets Ian on the eastern side of Tompkins Square Park, away from where all of the "civilization" is. So, if you're curious as to why the smoking barrels are disappearing right before your eyes and then showing up as gleaming fire hydrants the very time they show the same shot, it's because the twee new caf behind her is selling big, heaping mugs of gentrification-o-ccino, and she's walking right through the middle of it. Just saying.
“ The day Ian is our standing icon for pure Latin machismo feels a lot like the day Antonio Banderas left his role in Nine and was replaced by John Stamos. ”
The two meet on a bench, Ian handing Meredith one of those signature "It Is Our Pleasure To Serve You" blue New York coffee cups. Dude, at least get her the large. He tells us in a confessional that Meredith did the thing most unexpected last week for The Bachelorette and -- wait for it -- wanted to talk about her feelings. He hopes that, rather than talking, "Meredith learns what [Ian's] about by meeting [his] friends and family tonight." You mean your "friend and one member of your family," pluralization bandit?
Ian escorts Meredith into a pitch-black bar with black leather couches and a pool table that does not read well on television. They take sips of enormous liquory beverages I'll just call a Gentritini, while Meredith muses over the fact that she won't be meeting Ian's, y'know, family on these, like, hometown family dates. Ian: "I don't know how comfortable I am with you meeting my whole family at once." He adds that they're "out there" and "kind of not super-warm" and "not easy" and "we don't actually talk about things." So then, his parents are the wolves that raised him or he was cultivated in a Petri dish. Whatever it is, it's bizarre. So, instead, we'll be meeting Ian's brother, who is younger but understands Ian and takes care of him and knows what it was like "growing up in Brazil." Hi. Don't be throwing the random shit at us to make sure we're still paying attention. We don't have any choice but to pay attention. And we'll remain riveted through this sentence, custom-designed for the Bachelorette gag reel but here passed off as utter, heart-rending sincerity: "I'm not just, like, an American guy who knows how to speak Portuguese. Or Spanish. Or whatever." Meredith responds that that's what she finds most attractive about him. Whereas I think it's his Portuguese accent. Or Spanish. Or whatever. Yeesh. The day Ian is our standing icon for pure Latin machismo feels a lot like the day Antonio Banderas left his role in Nine and was replaced by John Stamos.
Ian and Meredith take a rickety-ass elevator I haven't seen put to use since it was hideously soiled in that scene in Fatal Attraction, and I honestly can't even figure out how they got a shot of Ian and Meredith riding up it because there is literally nowhere for that cameraman even to go. Upon entering, they meet Ian's little, smaller brother Erik and their friend Damian. It's a pretty darn nice apartment for the New York real estate market, but the existence of money and complete lack of parents does nothing -- NOTHING -- to make me feel better about this increasingly squicky situation. Sitting around on some couches, Damian tries to ask Meredith what she thinks about Ian, but this shit doesn't work, so Ian and Damian disappear and Erik lets fly with some questions I wish made me a little less nervous in their delivery: "In your ultimate scenario, would you come out of the show with a ring or not?" She says she wants to get married someday, but she doesn't know when, and we kick it to Erik in a confessional telling us, "She's very nice. Everything you'd look for. In a girl." Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Ian tells Damian that in his mind, "on a personal, emotional level, she's my girlfriend." But, back in the living room at dinner, Meredith says, "I'm ready for a serious relationship." Furrowed brows and some dark secret about Ian's not committing because he's about to get called back to the mother ship or something abound, and Erik adds in confessional, "To go out and get married that quickly, it's a little bit of a rash decision." And then he tries to kill me with his eyes.
“ The senior Lanford asks Meredith if she has a big or small family. 'Smaller than the artificial vagina!' she'd say if she were truly interested in winning points, which she's not. ”
"Well, I have a mare that's in heat here," Lanny says, beginning his tour of the facilities. He shows Meredith what I can only guess is called "The Breeding Room," which is empty save for some hay and a giant horizontal pole through the middle which...well, I don't even want to consider what that thing is for. He continues explaining his daily vocation, using words like "sniff on" and "mount that thing" and, finally, "artificial vagina." In case this joke isn't already too spent, I just wanted to let the world know that I was officially releasing my first volume of memoirs, and that I have chosen for a title Mounting the Artificial Vagina. Pre-order today.
And, Lanny's family. His mother Jeanne, his father Lanford, his brother, and that brother dude's wife. "It's very important that I be part of my son's life, and therefore their wives need to be very special," Jeanne tells us. They sit around a nondescriptly large living room making the same idle chitchat, the senior Lanford asking Meredith if she has a big or small family. "Smaller than the artificial vagina!" she'd say if she were truly interested in winning points, which she's not. But then dear Jeanne takes over, asking all of the pointed, leading questions, first among them if Meredith thinks she could adjust to this environment. Meredith again offers the "little girl from a slightly bigger town" argument about Oregon, a word that makes Jeanne flinch because, as I'm sure she'd only say in private and to her church group, "Just 'cause it's cold, don't mean it's no closer to heaven." She then detours into Big Loon Country, explaining, "If I were to become your mother-in-law, I want to know how would I nurture you and meet your needs without making you feel that I was intruding into your life." What she means is this: "I am a meddlesome, castrating person, and my boys are my boys and not yours. You want control over a male, you go bear him some fruit. But not 'fruit' the way you colloquial northerners sometimes mean, because then, see, we'd have to have him sent away for a long time." Meredith seems to see through to this core of meaning, and hems uncomfortably. Lanny's sister-in-law -- the poor dear -- fills in some blanks for us and confessionalizes, "I'm sure Meredith could see Mrs. Lawrence stepping in and being present -- often -- as an issue, but that's just something she'd have to get used to." Not that that's a problem for the sister-in-law, of course. No, ma'am. She just loves her Mrs. Lawrence and referring to her mother-in-law like she's her second-grade teacher.
Dinner. At least there's wine on the table, so they're not completely mad. Oh, wait. Yes, they are: "What church do you affiliate with? Are you Baptist? Methodist? Catholic? Presbyterian? What is your preference?" Whoa! Hello, Scantron Sheet of limited religious options! Meredith keeps herself composed and responds that she's "open," adding helpfully so that Jeanne can wipe off the look like she's been hit with a sock full of communion wafers, "I definitely believe. If that's what you're asking me." Through the dead silence so loud it starts buzzing, Jeanne flings back, "I just, that's very important to me that my grandchildren would be raised in a Christian home. Lanny, excuse us." Yes. It actually happens that quickly.