Props to Beth, and French fries for all.
Meredith stands stoop-shouldered and thoughtful in her bedroom at the manse, wondering why Heloise never added a chapter about folding an elaborate series of scarves and shawls that could have gotten her packed and us out on these home dates two weeks ago, wrapping up this season before the snow melted, the summer came, and Trista and Ryan's divorce was announced, enacted, and finalized. Oh, and televised.
"This week, I'm traveling to four hometowns," Meredith tells us, the budgetary constraints of Entertainment (and its parent company Burning Hellish Inferno LLC) laid bare in the locations we're traveling to, two of which are in New York and two of which are in Texas. And even though the dates are portrayed as taking place in an order that bookends Texas (oh, look! A sentence with "Texas" and "book" in it! Never seen that before) with two New York dates as their creamy nougat center, I'm hard-pressed to believe that they didn't just sequester Meredith, the poor dear, in God's Country for the length of two hometown dates. Poor, destitute Bachelor franchise. Where fate brings two people together in the most unlikely circumstance possible...as long as those two people are able to be serviced by Song Airlines.
As we're "treated" to shots of each of the guys pulling a bag out of his bedroom, Meredith spells out her itinerary, leaving out the unfortunate "I can't get there direct, I have to change in Atlanta" that I'm sure falls somewhere in the middle of this jet-setting dossier: "First, Houston to see Matthew. Then Buffalo to visit Chad's family; on to New York to meet Ian; and finally Dallas for Lanny." Man. If only there were some cut-and-dried, producer-enabled, Bachelorette-ready soundbites illustrated by an overactive inner monologue to let us know how our heroine is faring in all this. Hey, wait! Don't touch that cue card...here's one now! "I'm hoping to find some answers. Especially how these men act with their families, and who's going to open up to me. Because I'm going to open up even more than I ever have." If I didn't know Meredith to be the stoic, expression-free ice princess she's admitted being, I'd think she was talking about hot sex. But she's not. Because she is water dipped in Kelvin.
A plane we're supposed to believe someone we know is on takes flight in the blue, stock-footage sky, and touches down in the middle of a main highway. We're at "Exit 36," also known as the "City of South Houston." And such a pity no one thinks to call it "Soho." Though if they did, I'd probably be all, "And do you know what people from South Houston call the city? They call it 'Soho.' Oh, it makes me want to laugh in a condescending urban fashion! Maw haw haw haw. Anyone want to go to the Angelika? Me neither! That place is so The Piano, circa 1993. Anyway, gotta go. See you at Pastis for dinner at 11! Don't be late, they won't hold the reservation. Kiss on one cheek! Then on the other! By-eeee!" But anyway, that'd just be me.
Meredith montages through her Texas introductions, whiplashing from cows (they're just like furry, dumb people! Except they have four legs! And horns! And we eat them! They're nothing like people) to a street sign reading "Texas Ave." (named by a proud four-year-old, I guess, though the full name of the street would then be "Texas Pretty Mommy Uhhhhh Flowers Smell Nice Avenue," which didn't fit on the sign) to a city skyline (I spent a month in Houston once -- A MONTH -- and I think the only way they could manufacture an actual skyline among all that sprawl would be to pile all of the Applebee's one on top of another until they could be seen from a distance, so that skyline right there must belong to another city like South Texasville...or "SoTex"), and flat, rolling, constant, flatty flatness. But hale and hearty Meredith doesn't mind...especially because Texas is speeding past in a limo! "Today I'm an hour and a half outside Houston to see Matthew at his family farm," Meredith tells us with a barely suppressed look of thunderstruck horror as the subtitle welcomes us to the town of (speaking of named by a four-year-old) "Friendswood, Texas." Awwww, where everyone's your friend! Or, as is true of both participants of this date, made of wood.
A big red tractor sitting on the front lawn of a nearby house inspires a ringing verse of "Oh What a Beautiful Morning" to rise in my throat, but it is quickly stifled by the reality that such aberrant behavior would cause that tractor to spring automatically to life and drive me to Confession and then reform school until the lavish Broadway show tunes part of my personality was drilled right on out of me. And, also, because that's from Oklahoma! and no one, to my knowledge, has ever written a musical entitled Texas!. Once again, Meredith takes the opportunity to remind us, "I am a city girl, so I don't really know that much about farm life." Okay, seriously. Why milk the city angle when there's so much milking still left to do down on the farm? She's from Portland. Oregon. It's a lovely, lovely town, but she didn't exactly grow up in the urban jungle, running from street fights and drive-bys on her way to her job at The Department Of Urban Renewal in East L.A. Matthew, meanwhile, sits on his porch thinking about all the things that still need shucking when an SUV pulls up, and two big black dogs run to welcome Meredith as Matthew follows close behind. Matthew and Meredith hug in greeting as Meredith hands off a bouquet of flowers, because if that place needs more of anything, it's a shot of nature. Matthew kicks us to a confessional, telling us, "One of the things that I hope to see today is that Meredith is comfortable here," and Matthew hopes she can adapt to a place a little far afield from, his words now, "the business of life." Wow. Deep talk from the Deep South. "The business of life." Is that the sequel to "The Politics of Dancing"? And, if so, is this message understood?
On a gentle sloping hill in an open field under an oak grove ("I've got a wonderful feeeeeeeeeeeeeling!"), Meredith and Matthew cuddle on a picnic blanket drinking wine. Hey, isn't this show way too classy for them to be drinking wine out of a box? Oh, wait. That's not a box of wine at all! It's just time for the perfunctory joke about Matthew's geometrically perfect square head. But box or bottle or Boon's or whatever, the devil's poison is quick to go to his head, and Matthew jumps off the blanket and makes his way to a nearby swing affixed to a nearby tree, telling us, "I want [Meredith] to see the real side of me that's going to come out at a place like this where I feel at home." He swings back and forth above her head and she laughs in that increasingly familiar Are You Being Punk'd kind of way. Matthew swings and swings without a care, reaching heights that might allow him to say, "Hey you know what? I could call my ma while I'm up here. Hey, ma! Get off the dang roof!" Or some such thing. In her confessional, Meredith tells us, "I could just imagine [Matthew] as a little boy." Do you think it has anything to do with his partaking of the activities of a little boy, perhaps? I'm just saying, Meredith, it's cute now, but when you're down to the wire and your main question is "Will you accept this rose?" and he answers questions with questions when he volleys back "You wanna build a fort?," let's just see how this makes you feel. And I would once have advised you to run. But that was before the other hometown dates. After which your only question might be, "Should the fort be made with pillows or blankets?" Both, Meredith. It should be made with both.
Matthew takes another sip of wine and voices over his family relations: "My parents are divorced." Well, no wonder it's so hot down here. It's because the poor bastard child is halfway to Hell! Of course, I kid. I too am the victim of a broken home, and I know it's no laughing matter, unless, of course, your parents are getting divorced and they're clowns. Because then the only thing that gets thrown are cream pies and dad's big, red nose isn't from long nights hitting the sauce when he didn't show up for three days and you'd start to wonder if it was your fault for driving him away when you asked for a pony for Christmas. Meh. I'll save it for therapy. Matthew, however, seems unencumbered by such knotty emotional entanglements, as he assures us that he's well-adjusted enough to see his parents' divorce as a learning experience, preaching, "It's made me be very careful about who [sic] I spend my time with." Meanwhile, two hundred and sixty miles north on Interstate 45, Lanny's mother involuntarily "tsks" so hard she accidentally knocks herself off of her chair.
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.
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.
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.
"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 café behind her is selling big, heaping mugs of gentrification-o-ccino, and she's walking right through the middle of it. Just saying.
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.
Flipping to the of the V.C. Andrews novel this sequence is clearly based on, Erik and Damian offer hugs goodbye and take their leave. But lo! Mere moments later, Erik returns and interrupts...dubbed over kissing sounds edited to make us believe Ian and Meredith were making a kitchen baby! But they're not. Really, when Erik walks in, they're standing like five feet away from each other. Anyway, Erik steals Ian away again, and the two brothers cut to a nearby stairwell, where Ian says he's trying to "take risks" and Erik asks, "How well can you really know somebody?" Ian tells him, "I promise you. I will not offer her the ring at the end of this." And, back upstairs, Ian returns, and Meredith's confessional tells us that Erik made her "uncomfortable." Ian tells us that he thinks he and Meredith would be "a great couple," but adds, "If Meredith needs a ring at the end of this journey, I'm not the right guy for her." Oh, wait! We never toasted at dinner!
If she had her way, if she had her druthers
She'd have met Ian's absent father, and also his absent mother.
Meredith feels something for Ian she cannot explain
To us this just explains why everyone thinks New Yorkers are insane.
I'm not sure where this is going!
But for now Ian as a boyfriend is blowing!
While she's just sincere amongst these scammers and schemers
She's the unfortunate top point in the love triangle in what seems to be the plot of The Dreamers.
Texas! Again! Flatlands and trees bring us to a sign reading, "Entering the Aubrey Area," followed by "Horse Country USA," followed by "Aubrey Area Chambers of Commerce" -- which lets face it, is one guy named "Smitty" -- all topped off by a drawing of a horse's head. Like the one Fleiss has got in his bed tonight with my name smeared all over it. A windmill with a Texas flag gives way to horses (they're just like furry, dumb people! Except they have four legs! And horns! And we eat them! If the writer of Fast Food Nation is to be believed), which cuts to another road sign (show don't tell, Texas), which tells us we've arrived in "Aubrey City Limits, population: 1500." That is, until Smitty done have himself another kinderling and they gotta change the sign up one.
Because we're retarded, we have to listen to Meredith's confessional that she's on her way to meet Lanny. She tells us hopelessly, desperately, "I never saw myself on a horse farm in Texas. But, y'know, maybe I'll really like it." Me, I never went open-air market shopping in downtown Kabul during 2002, but sometimes you just know, y'know? Lanny saunters down a long driveway (Big Driveway Country! That's what they call it out here) and gives Meredith yellow roses for, as he drawls, "the yellow rose of Texas." Will he also offer her big and bright stars tonight?
"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.
Retiring to the kitchen, Lanny admits to his mom that he doesn't think Meredith was raised with as strong a religious background as he was, and Jeanne tells him, "By her answer, I just took it that she does not have a strong religious background. I don't want religious," she continues, like there's a line drawn I'm not seeing somewhere. But if her mania extended just to her faith, I'd certainly be taking it too far by mocking it. People believe what they want to believe, and I'm a-okay with people digging whatever god they find grooviest, as long as it doesn't infringe on anyone else's beliefs and make holy wars that destroy great nations. However, we're all back in the dining room now, where Jeanne continues on by dictating the terms of what her twenty-seven-year-old son finds best for him in a potential mate: "When he says 'I need you, I want you to be there whether you like it, or whether you don't'...He would be head of the household...you love him enough to honor and respect what he says...God first, your husband and your family second, your job third, and, of course, the individual's fourth." And, according to her sweater, needlework is tied for third.
Oh, Christ. We've yet to toast poor Lanny:
You'll fit in well, dear, you'll be just fine
Should you not consider any other culture but mine.
Those pearly gates you'll head right toward
If you learn my way of how we're all supposed to love the lord.
I'm not trying to be overly critical
But hear my words on matters from theological to political.
And if into this family yourself you should push
I beg of one thing more: for the love of god, dear, vote for Bush.
Meredith deems Lanny's mother's rant alternately "sweet" but "intense," but she doesn't hear this confessional because she's too busy making for the border: "He treats his mother with so much love and respect, that she can only expect many times more what he does for me." Lanny hugs her goodbye, and Meredith runs like hell.
"What a week!" Chris Harrison observes in the Gloom Room. Meredith tosses off a barely-concealing-her-horror "wow!," and Chris accuses her of having "a sparkle," which is the sparkle of clarity as to who's going back to Texas. No, not him. The other one. Thaaaaat's right. Meredith says that the home dates really do mean a lot, adding, "I could be falling in love. Time will tell." Chris leaves Meredith and goes to welcome each of the men, as she chills out with some video messages...of love:
Ian says something in a foreign language which sounds extremely close to how you say "go shit in the ocean" in Yiddish. Matthew has never shat in the ocean, trapped as he is in the mired of a landlocked universe, except for the Gulf, which is where the hurricanes come from. Lanny has never said a damn thing in Yiddish in his whole damn life. Chad lives with his mom.
Meredith descends, clad in her fishnets of doom, and launches right in: "My heart's beating really fast!" Hey, that's the first time she's ever elicited an exclamation point! And just at the same moment her Venus Fly Turtleneck threatens to engulf her whole. That is so sad! You know who's not sad? These three clowns:
Ian. Ian, will you accept this rose? week: Ian drowns Meredith in a well and still gets a rose! This motherless child with the V.C. Andrews brother can do no wrong.
Matthew. Matthew, will you accept this rose? What's that? He's still having trouble hearing her after he packed Meredith's things in his square head and stowed it in the overhead compartment.
Chad. Chad, will you accept this rose? Chad lives with his mom.
But Lanny...well, his mom lives in HIM. So that's that decision for you right there. She accompanies him outside and tells him, "I adore you." He tells her to do what's right or blah, knowing that the platitudes that they didn't get to know each other is bullshit and that his mom ruined everything. Though he is quite gentlemanly about the whole thing, and when he opens the limo door for himself and hops in, he disconsolately tells us, "I'm upset. I was expecting to get a rose tonight...it hurts, yeah. Definitely. But with my faith, you have to believe it was the right thing." Crazy. I didn't even know he was religious.
Back inside, Meredith toasts to the remaining heathens, and God plans a well-placed lightning bolt. Sooner than later, please. Not to tell you your business, Sir.