If you're wondering why nothing happened on this week's episode, look no further than the six minutes and fifty-five seconds worth of "previously"s that my notoriously diva attitude once again precludes me from recapping. Oh, fine. Previously: Guys wore skullcaps and consumed alcoholic beverages we can both literally and colloquially describe as "fruity" because of how damn gay they are. Like, as in they come with a slice of pineapple. And a frilly umbrella. And some hot man-man porn.
Also, previously. Ian is a spy.
Meredith "The Turtleneck And The Hair" Phillips wanders dreamily through a riverside skyline. The color palette of her outfit is taken from the special "Pacific Northwest" edition of Crayola crayons, and the specific shade of Meredith's jacket is known to locals as "The Steely Portland Sky That Shapes The Tragically Dark Sensibility Of Those Who Spend Their Formative Years Shackled In By Its Unrelenting Cloud Prison." Children rendering this image on construction paper might be encouraged by the nearest optimistic adult to offset Meredith's camouflaging by coloring her pants in the far warmer "Seasonal Affective Disorder Heat Lamp," rather than the dire black she's actually wearing. Anyway, I've heard it's a beautiful city.
"I'm here in my hometown of Portland, where I'm bringing home two great guys," Meredith says by way of introduction, without explaining, in that case, what that means happened to Ian and Matthew, har har hardy hardy har. Thank you. I'm here all week. Try the veal. "It's really difficult," she continues, "that I have such strong feelings for Ian and Matthew." Oh, I know. The poor thing. Waking up every morning on those three-billion thread count sheets in a mansion and brushing your teeth with coconut milk and drying off after a hot shower by slipping on a robe made only of the finest baby flesh. But at least all of these amenities -- not to mention the attending television cameras -- give a clear indication of what her life will be like with the person she chooses. So. Y'know. There's that. "I'm torn between which path I want to go down," her inner monologue continues on, the voices in her head thankfully filling her head with cheap Frost-ian metaphor rather than a command to listen to The White Album and then smite all of her enemies. Good thing that hasn't happened. YET.
But for right now, we know just which path Meredith will walk down. She strolls on some kind of dock near a bridge, still on the water ("Portland! It's the Venice of Portland!" So say all the brochures, anyway), and meets Matthew. The two trade a big-ass, tenderizing hug, and they stroll hand-in-hand toward a two-story yacht-like thing called "Crystal Dolphin," sketched along the back with what must have been thousands of dollars in retainer fees for Portland's only "Edwardian Script IT" calligraphy expert.
"I want to meet her family," Matthew confessionalizes from the top of the boat, sporadic shots doubtlessly filmed between inconveniencing rain squalls. "I want to find out how this girl has become who she is." By hitting all six numbers in the genetic Powerball, complete with supplementary bonus numbers, is how.
Back on the boat, Meredith and Matthew coo and smile and hold hands and review for our edification who Matthew will be meeting today: Meredith's mother and father, and her brother, Matt. "That's why I call you Matthew!" Meredith chirps, and the collective audience -- save a few V.C. Andrews fanfic lovers -- shudder with the societal of stigma of it all.
"I'm ready to consider marriage, but I want to know if that's what she wants," Matthew tells us in his never-ending stream of declarative first-person statements. Inside the Crystal Dolphin (which sounds like it would be title of a Court TV exposé about the decline and fall of full frontal Vegas strip clubs), Matthew has his arm around Meredith, and she doesn't so much know what to do with her hands on account of not having a drink in one of them. Oh, wait. There it is on the table. He tells her that he wants to know what's going on inside of her head real, real bad, but he knows she can't always tell him. "You're a smart man," she replies with certitude. Hey. There's no reason to talk down to the dude just because he's from Texas. Matthew replies with an honest "I don't know," and flashes teeth so blindingly bright they shine like lanterns, and suddenly visible is the spray-paint on the back of his head that I can see through his eyes reading, "No. No, I'm not." Meredith, meanwhile, has some further, vaguer thoughts of her own, when she tells us, "There's a fine line between saying too much and saying too little." And here we go again with the gag order that the producers put on the final episode, to keep us guessing right until the very end, even if Andrew had already made up his mind about choosing Jen over that other pointy girl, gotten engaged, and broken up with her, all before the episode has even aired. It's a dramatic gambit that makes any educated viewer combat the sheer longness of these two hours with the airtight logic, "Well then, what's stopping me from just tuning in five minutes from the end, then? Nothing. NOTHING! Oh, look! There's an 'outside,' now! My grandmother always told me she used to play there when she was little, but I thought she was talking about a computer game or something."
Matthew is sipping on some coffee-looking beverage out of glass mug (don't be fooled, America. That thing is dirty with the devil's poison), and he meets Meredith's eyes just as she erupts, "You are so cute!" Is one of the producers holding up a copy of Tiger Beat magazine featuring adorable moptop cover model Jonathan Taylor Thomas behind Matthew's head? Because you rarely hear an adult woman just bust out with that type of "squeeeee!" love unless she's full-on wasted. Matthew, for his part, gets all surprised and squints his eyes so hard I wonder if a racist children's rhyme has led to someone's putting pee pee in Matthew's Coke. He responds, bewildered, "What?" Meredith shakes her head with continued delight, and in a confessional, she shares, "There is nothing about Matthew I don't love." Except for "Matthew." She adds that he's the guy she's "always dreamed of," and of course they've snipped off the more revealing follow-up, "But now that I've found him, I'm wondering how much he can offer in the 'casually distant, emotionally blackmailing' arena."
Matthew carries flowers from the Phillips's front lawn up to the house. The first person to meet Meredith at the door of her home is the aforementioned brother Matt, whose responsibility it is that Matthew had to acquire an extra syllable whenever Meredith refers to him. And, having met this brother Matt before, it remains a wonder to me that a different Matt has been forced to add the illuminating letters "ew" to his name. Isn't it weird that Bob met these people? I don't remember Meredith even making it that far. Matthew is introduced to Meredith's mother (Evil Sandy Duncan, and her name is actually Sandy!), her father (Santa), her brother (the "ew" tolls for thee, Matt), and her Uncle Steve (Steve). Matthew confessionalizes that, to his Southern-friend delight, everyone was smiling. Nevertheless, he says that the early goings were "still kinda tough," and we land on Brother Matt, decked out in a pilly maroon scoop neck sweatshirt made by the original Chess King himself before he got a staff to help him out with the sewing and the pilling and things. Matt rolls up the sleeves on the Members Only jacket he's only metaphorically wearing and leaps right into the talking points: "What makes you think you're the best for Meradee?" First of all, stop calling her that. It's not a nickname if it's the same number of syllables as the actual name. Matthew responds that he's going to give an answer Matt might not be expecting, and I cross my fingers in the hope that he'll snark his way out of Sincerity Land in which he resides and just snipe back, "Because the law says you can't have her, punk." Instead he tells him, "I don't know," and in a confessional Brother Matt admits, "Why are there so many songs about rainbows?" Oh, wait. He doesn't say that. I must have gotten thrown off by the throaty, froglike timbre of his voice. Instead, he says, "My first impression was the term 'glamour boy.'" It WAS? Like, from the somewhat less famous Living Colour B-side? Good ol' boy? Yes. Glamour Boy? Not unless you're grading on a curb of "guys in room named Matt." Matthew is all, "I ain't no glamour boy," and then he screams, "I'm fierce!" and Matt reclaims the recapping thread with the continuing observation, "He had much more intelligence and personality than I first expected." Good news for Matthew. Now what do you mean my credit's no good?
Dinner. Some fantastically, um, "entrenched suburbanite" (trust me, that's a really nice way of saying something without me trotting out an expression no one wants to hear me use) casserole is spatulaed onto plates as we discover why ambiguous Uncle Steve has been invited: for his fantastic manual dexterity. (In fact, both myself and my friend Beth, with whom I watched this episode, didn't even remember that poor Uncle Steve was even AT the first dinner.) Santa kicks it off with questions, asking Matthew if his intentions were good coming into this whole mess. "I'm to the point where I don't really date casually," Matthew responds sincerely, furrowing his brow. Wait. Hang on. Just creating a macro for the words "Matthew responds sincerely, furrowing his brow." I've got a strange feeling I'm going to be needing it. Santa Dad asks what the "connection" is between the two of them, because reality television has become a meta-language unto itself at this point, like Esperanto or the plot of the "Toxic" video. And also, because he knew if he asked about Matthew's "journey," the poor boy would only see fit to respond, "You mean, from farm boy to Glamour Boy? Well, see, it all started on a simple scratch of land back in Friendswood, Texas." But instead, they sit rapt as Matthew responds sincerely, furrowing his brow, droning on about how he feels when Meredith looks at him. He feels very fortunate that he's stayed in the game even this long. "Because she can axe me any time she wants!" Even the usually pensive Uncle Steve gets a rousing chuckle out of that one. In the absence of knowing anything about him, I'm just going to ascribe random personality characteristics to Uncle Steve. Earlier, he was "usually pensive." Now I see him as "cautiously boyish." And later, "made of chunky peanut butter."
"Why Matt?" Brother Matt asks, forgetting the delineation of "Matt' and "hew," and stopping just before the cameras catch him giving voice to the heavily implied, "Why not ME?" Meredith responds sincerely, furrowing her brow (see? They're perfect!), telling the room that Matthew "is the kindest, most respectful" guy she's ever met, and that he treats her "like gold." When you care enough to do something really special for the woman you love? Pan for her in 19th Century California. You'll be glad you did.
Meredith and Brother Matt share a moment in the kitchen, where he enters and she whispers, "Do you like him?" Matt doesn't get the whole "indoor voice" aspect of private conversation, because he's either gomer-y enough not to realize when something isn't for publication or savvy enough to realize this is all going to air on television anyway, so he shouts back, "Rainbows are visions/ They're only illusions/ And rainbows have nothing to hide." And where'd that banjo come from? Fine. I'm saying he talks like Kermit the Frog. Matt admits that Matthew has got "a great personality," adding that "the only beef" he's had with Meredith's boyfriends in the past is that they haven't treated her right. Ew. Don't say "beef." Back at the post-dinner lovefest, Matthew thanks Meredith's family for having such a great Meredith in it, and confessionalizes, "You what I picture with Meredith? I picture going to the grocery store! And going to the movies. And riding my truck! And letting this very special thing that we have grow." And sittin' on a porch swing. And drinking a cold glass of something with bitters. And shucking. Definitely shucking. And losing to Ian.
Matthew exchanges an amusing amount of hugs with Meredith's family, considering they're only going downstairs. There's some unfinished rec room basement space that looks like a very inappropriate Calvin Klein magazine campaign is about to kick off, or like Fiona Apple is about to feel like a criminal. Whoo! Viva la mid-'90s touchstones! They sit down on a ratty couch which, considering the physical intimacy they're really able to cultivate in front of an attending camera crew, nicely bookends the first time Meredith was felt up over her clothes, which I imagine took place on the couch right there with a guy who wanted to go to the movies and ride his truck. And then, trouble from Meredith: "Since I met you, I would be, um, I would be honored if it ended with a ring." Matthew asks, "Really?" Well, provided it came from someone else. But I mean, still, yeah. She continues that it's hard for her -- y'know, contractually -- to talk about how she's feeling, "but I feel like I just gave you a big chunk." Pillow talk that Matthew picks right up on, answering, "Yeah. That's the biggest chunk anybody's ever given me." Oh, no he di'int! But still, Meredith. Tsk tsk. "That's not something small," Matthew ruminates in a confessional. No. A chunk that big is surely anything but. "That's 'I want you to be the father of my children.' That's 'I want to grow old with you.' No one's ever said that to me before." No, Matthew. And still nobody has.
From Portland, we have the luck to travel...to Portland! Meredith carries an umbrella (natch) to a location called "Union Station," and we're chillin' to some pretty train cars that must be blocking the limo that actually dropped Ian off. Ian runs up wearing a knit cap because he hates trains so apparently he skied up from Malibu. They exchange pleasant hugs, and an all-man confessional finds Ian admitting that he's "super-excited" about meeting Meredith's family. He knows that she wants "a formal proposal," but he feels like things have gone really quickly and that he's still just not sure if he wants to propose. After knowing her for six weeks. Sporadically. You MONSTER!
"So, tell my about your brother," Ian asks of Meredith at some seedy bar that I think is the same place Ian took Meredith in New York. Meredith laughs in an I-oughtta-ask-you- the-same-thing-buddy kind of way, and the bonding they experience over each having a freak brother (who can be freak-brothers-in-law!) must make for quite the connection. He hears that he's going to meet the whole family, and he kicks it to a confessional where we learn, "If I were to take back my hometown date, I would have wished I could have flown my parents up to New York City so you could have met them." No. Ian. See, the show takes care of the travel arrangements. They'll fly you guys to wherever your parents are. Are you missing the central conceit here? But back in the bar, Ian tells Meredith that he regrets not having flown up his parents to meet her, saying, "I kinda wished I had made a bigger effort." "Kinda"? But Meredith understands, telling us, "Knowing how complicated and private Ian is when he comes to his family," the fact that he had wanted (in the past tense in quadruplicate) to make a better effort was, to her, touching. And it will keep being so. As long as he keeps apologizing. And she keeps forgiving him. Ah, the cheap, tawdry Vulcan mind fuck that is love.
"I'm not stable and I don't have a career right now. I'm kind of in flux. I can see them being worried," Ian frets, knowing that "Chad, but hotter" does not a successful hometown visit make. "Do you feel like there's more of a risk with a guy like me, who's like...?" Attractive? Not a problem. Urbane? That's fine, if a bit quaint a word. Independently wealthy? Sign me up, preferably on a blank check! What's he worried about? I think it's the fact that he's a spy.
Nighttime in Portland! Ian and Meredith enter the house, Ian carrying a long cardboard box his body language relates to like he's got no idea what's in it. Like one of the producers was like, "You were supposed to bring something, you clueless spy moron." Tonight, Matt is wearing a shimmery silver shirt from the future which means he's only two roller skates, twelve years, and one verse of "Call Me Rusty" too late for the national touring company of Starlight Express. But in a confessional where Matt compares last night's Matthew date to tonight's Ian date (so we know they did air the dates in the correct order), Matt is wearing the first red sweatshirt thing from, now, two days ago. And while I've been wearing the same gray hoodie every single day since I bought at a Gap outlet in Rhode Island last Memorial Day weekend (I took it on our first date to see Down With Love), I'm not wearing that thing more than once ON TELEVISION. It's like this time in 1998 when I was walking out of Penn Station and I saw Star Jones walking out of Madison Square Garden, wearing the same silver, spangly number she was wearing the Friday night on Letterman. Now I'm CERTAIN I was wearing the same thing I'd been wearing the Friday as well, but what I am also certain about is that I had not been wearing it either time on TELEVISION. And stop looking at me like that. I totally don't watch The View.
"You're from...?" Meredith's mom asks, and Ian, seated to Meredith on a couch cushion still warm from Matthew's hot Texas ass, responds, "I grew up in Brazil." Meredith's mother sips her wine politely and with a barely-concealed look of "Brazil...What on earth is that?" He's been "in the States" for fourteen years now, and he puts the kibosh on this topic right away with an almost embarrassed, "So, that's a long story." Here's my guess: radical mom. Weather Underground. Defection to south of the border. Spy training for their little boy at the best South American spy school Sao Paolo has to offer. Present day.
"I'm gonna drop a dad bomb," Santa threatens, and everyone laughs as Ian looks bewildered. And it is a little bit of a foul expression, particularly because it reminds me of the dirty kid in my elementary school (you know that kid, right? The dirty one?) who used to tell people that if they didn't stop picking on him, he was going to give them something called "a breath blast." And then he would breathe on them, and that would be their karmic punishment for telling the dirty kid to take a damn shower because his hair mites were snowing all over their notebooks. Damn that kid. He was the reason I got thrown out of a class the single time I ever did anything bad in high school. I don't mean to be one of the bullies, but dude! Shower! Sigh. Kids can be so cruel. And other kids? Dirty. But anyway: "What's a dad bomb?" Ian asks. Way to play along, junior. Unable to explain, Santa just modifies the subject line, instead asking, "I want you to tell me why you're attracted to my daughter." Ian takes a cool, Bond-esque sip of something with flat tonic in it (you can still hear the dad's "Well, lemme check...I think we might have some down in the garage") and responds, "Look at her!" I think the thing is that Ian might be really funny. Every once in a while it seems like a really wry, normal personality is going to poke through the thick veneer of reality cheese that gets poured all over everything. If Ian is funny, don't you think showing it would be the best way to make us feel close to their burgeoning relationship? Why do we have to be so condescended to that Ian is reduced to the singular personality characteristic of "really likes Meredith"? We already know that. Fleiss? To you? A breath blast.
"I'll tell you about your daughter," Ian responds, and says that Meredith makes him laugh and smile and dance and frolic and love. "I'm not here to learn about an experience. I'm here because of your daughter." Meredith's mom actually clasps her hands together in rapturous joy at this speech, and in an excellent confessional, she tells us, "As much as she likes Matthew -- I mean, she adores him -- with Ian, it seems to be he's sweeping her off her feet." Right on, Meredith's mom. Like we learned last week "Matthew is the kind of guy you take home to your family." But nobody ever said if that's a good thing.
Dinner. Again. Ian talks ambiguously about the end of his job and life in New York City, telling them, "Everything that I own is in storage." Meredith's mom even makes an inside joke and says, "That sounds familiar!" Why is it so suave when Ian said it, but when Chad said the same thing everyone was all, "Allowance for mowing the lawn is not a job, Buffalo Boy." In the nation of Meredith, Ian is the cool but slacker New York, and Chad was the earnest but overly-industrial Buffalo. In a confessional, Ian frets on, "I think that her parents probably hoped for a guy who was very home-grown, grounded, has a steady, focused career...that worries me." Ian. Dude. THEY LOVE YOU. You could totally be like, "You know what tastes of chicken? Endangered baby seal tastes of chicken. The more endangered, the chickenier" and they'd all squeal, "That sounds familiar!" And Meredith unpacks the very fallacies on which the show is based, and Ian charms them into airing it. She tells her family, "I don't need a faaaahntasy suite. I don't need an exotic date." Don't you? "I could be in a shoebox and be fine with Ian." Not much spying to do in a shoebox. Except on that old lady, to learn how she seems to be producing so many children without the help of a man.
Meredith again retires to the kitchen with Matt and her mother. She sets up her central conflict for this episode: "It would be two different lifestyles for me. Stable, living in Texas...you know me. You know how much I love to travel and have that type of lifestyle." And Ian is so "loving and caring" and would teach her Portuguese. Meredith's mom finds that "exciting," and pretty much clears the room with her A-material: "I've been married forty years. I'm ready for excitement myself." Oh, my god. Ian makes them young again. He tells us in a confessional, "The last thing I usually think about at night is Meredith, and sometimes I wake up with her on my mind." "Usually"? "Sometimes"? This is the language of utter commitment. Outside, Ian takes Meredith's head between his hands and kind of shakes it back and forth, which I've seen him do a bunch of times now. Back in the house, Uncle Steve finally gets a line in, saying that Ian is "a breath of fresh air." Meredith tells us in a confessional how much she needs her family's input, but everyone just agrees that it won't be an easy decision. "You picked the two best that you could possibly pick," says Meredith's mom, and Meredith expresses nervousness at how this is going to end. She didn't know her feelings were going to be so strong. She's ready for a proposal. But what's more important is finding the right person. I know. It's so fresh and daring it's like a show you've never seen before. I literally feel exactly the same way.
And back to L.A. we go. Well, it sure does look like Trista (I'm so, so, SO sorry to evoke the evil that is She Who Must Not Be Named And Who Is Probably No Longer Married, but I swear it's important and you and I have a connection, so don't be mad, okay?) and her wedding worked out a sweet deal with the Tacori people, because Harry Winston is out as the resident Ring To Be Hocked Later Shop and Tacori is in. Meredith enters the place and sits down with her very own Mr. Tacori, just as you or I would. She picks out a three and a half carat princess cut diamond, which, he editorializes, "is fit for a princess." Which is why it's not called a three and a half carat walrus cut diamond. Stick with me. It's almost over.
Back at the house, Meredith decides to forgo her usual store of Venus Fly Turtlenecks for a lower-necked jobby I thought was better, but which caused Beth to observe, "Nah. That neckline looks like it's trying to run away from her." So true. SO true. Ian's car is soon to pull up, and he enters Meredith's manse to great big hugs. He takes off his coat to reveal a black t-shirt with diagrams of knots on it. I know. Go back. Read it again. It will say exactly the same thing. A black t-shirt with diagrams of knots on it. His last night to woo her and he shows up wearing a Boy Scouts training manual on his front side. He throws cheese all over a pizza they're cooking together and tells her about his summer in Greece. You're debonair. We get it. Suddenly, he brushes Meredith's hair off her face and kisses her. There should be rules about that posted somewhere. Y'all should both be netted. Ian goes to retrieve the pizza, which is all stuck to the brick thing and is burnt as hell. Meredith decides to make the best of it by retiring to the bedroom, where she asks Ian if he has worry or anxiety about anything in his life, and he considers his current state of affairs -- "I am rich and beautiful" -- and announces that the scan has come back clear of stress. He tells Meredith, "I have no responsibility right now." Yeah, actually, that would probably keep me from feeling too much anxiety either. But that means he wants to continue on the slacker path, and he worries that a wife and kids might lead to his getting tied down. He suggests, "We can just be complete bums for a while. What do you say?" She says nothing. She needs "someone who has specific goals." Like, for example, how to tie a clove hitch. He plays with her hair and tells her how easy she's made this process for him, but admits that it's hard for him that this could be the last night that they spend together. She tells him that she's "taking it one step at a time," and he laughs off the bullshit reality rhetoric with an incredulous "The step is two days from now." In flashback, she asks if she should go for what is "stable" or what is "passionate." Just go for one-dimensionality. It's the only way to define you. As long it's good TV. Or whatever this is. Outside, Ian does the head-shake thing to her and offers a "goodnight, baby" as Ian's car pulls away. Forever.
Knot.
Please kill me.
And, Matthew. In the kitchen at the manse, Meredith's Venus Fly Turtleneck is in full, snappish effect, and the fact that she fed it some burned pizza before we got back from commercial is pretty much the only reason it isn't insisting, "Feed me, Seymour." She proclaims tonight's date with Matthew "important," because she has a big decision to make. Outside, Matthew confessionalizes that he's approaching their last night together "without fear." He finds security in the fact that she told him she wanted a ring (without specifying from WHOM) and pulls out a small box containing, as he tells her, "something sweet." And I don't know what it is, but I will say it looks as though it could contain the biggest chunk anybody's ever given her. Meredith has cooked dinner, apparently, and she feeds him adorably. Matthew celebrates how fabulous Meredith's family was, and continues with the biggest puppy dog eyes in the whole pound what a "blessing" it would be to call them his in-laws. And without going into the knotty semantics of my never having seen the words "in-laws" and "blessing" in the same sentence before, it also brings to light what Meredith is looking for. Let's do a sample breakdown of the average conversation between Meredith and each of her remaining suitors:
Matthew: "Your family is wonderful. They are a blessing."
Ian: "I've been to Greece. And I can kill a man with my mind."
Whatever. I'd make the same choice. Sincerity is for Coke commercials and simpletons.
Ooooh, this is creepy. Apparently, Meredith and Matthew decide to take a little drunken tour of the house, and she takes him into the Gloom Room. Matthew hilariously takes Ian's picture and places it face down on its perch. I guess it's a success for this show that I had always pictured that place as a totally detached entity, existing in no temporal dimension humans can touch or feel. I kind of pictured the two of them walking in and discovering Chris Harrison wearing a Phantom of the Opera mask and playing an organ, cowering and hissing, "You should not have brought him here, this rogue!" when they walked in. Maybe they just edited that part out. But this I warn them both: don't y'all stand beneath the chandelier on the ground floor, if you know what's good for you.
Matthew's confessional tells us that they had a fabulous time, even "when there's nothing exciting going on...for me, that's what life's all about." Well, that's exactly the problem, isn't it, Polite Knievel? Upstairs in Meredith's bed, Matthew pines on for the glory of Meredith, promising that he'll be there giving "whatever it takes" if it means they can be together. "Everything else seems to disappear" when they're together, according to him. He believes that this is his "fairy tale." He wants nothing more than to end up with Meredith. He gets the same "bye, baby" Ian was offered, and he tells her before he gets in the car that he can't wait to see her again. Which he will do. On television. Or, as the most famous shrew in Shrewville put it on during another incarnation of reality television, "See you at the top of the charts!" Oh, man. That reference makes two O-Town references in two days. I guess Jacob Underwood withdrawal is a lot more slow-acting than professionals had previously hoped.
"This is excruciatingly hard," Meredith confessionalizes with a shaky voice. A bad moon rises over Malibu as she stands up in the middle of a confessional and wails, "I'm not doing this. It's just not right." Upstairs at the manse, she just wants to be alone is all. "I love them so much. I can't do this. I didn't know it was gonna be like this." She tells us that she doesn't want to choose, and that if she stalls any more a constitutional amendment legalizing polygamy will actually be debated, signed, and ratified before the end of this episode and she won't have anything to worry about. Trust me. It's coming. Just kidding. No, it's not.
Meredith recaps the men in mental montage, and Matthew steps out of the limo in gauzy flashback at the very same moment the lead story for tonight's local news appears on the bottom of the screen, reading, "High Price Of Cereal: Eyewitness News, 11 PM" and the story that appeals to me less is not immediately clear. God, I love a good bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Matthew walks into Tacori and sits down with the same gentleman Meredith met with some days before. "This is an oval," Tacori says, and a bellowing chorus of "UNLIKE YOUR HEAD" follows in beautiful, simultaneous harmony from my house. A somewhat intricate conversation ensues:
My Friend Beth: See, but with Matthew's perfectly square head and Meredith's perfectly round head, it will balance out with their children.
Djb: But my fear is that their children's heads will also be perfect geometric shapes, rather than a good mix of the two.
My Friend Beth: Oh, no. Like a rectangle head?
Djb: They'd have to name their kid Trap E. Zoid.
My Friend Beth: C'mon, kid. Don't be such a square.
Djb: He'd have to take the rhom-bus to school.
My Friend Beth: Okay.
Djb: Pass the gummy hamburgers. My god, what made you buy these things? They taste like a pillow.
My Friend Beth: Impulse buy.
When we return to our delicious bowl of Honey Grahams -- nay, for they are too expensive! -- we discover Matthew ruminating on how he feels about the ring he's not ever going to see again: "I was picturing us, maybe walking down the street, me holding her hand and me seeing that on her finger." His fantasies are so mundane. I kind of love it. "I can just imagine us ordering Coke and getting, like, a Coke."
Ian, too, will be ring shopping.
My Friend Beth: Why's he even buying a ring?
Djb: Because he wins.
My Friend Beth: No, he doesn't.
Djb: Muh-huh.
My Friend Beth: Even if he does, it's not like he's going to do anything with it.
Djb: The gummy bun and lettuce is actually better than the gummy bun and patty.
My Friend Beth: Dan, they're exactly the same.
"I made a promise to myself and a promise and to my brother that I wouldn't be proposing at the end of this journey. But I can't tell you how strongly I feel about Meredith. Right now, I am torn." But if you feel so strongly now, surely you still will in six months? If you just wait and don't do anything too...ah, forget it.
Oooh, she needs a total makeover. Meredith is blathering on about choosing a guy who's right for her blee blah, but she's having her hair done, and the stylist pulls it all the way back and against her head and she looks just like Yoanna!
Holy pecs, Farmer Ted! Matthew steps out of the shower and into an International Male catalogue, shaving and coiffing. He is excited for Meredith to tell him that he's all she wants because she has Horribly Misguided him. Ian? Hairy.
The screen splits and splits again, and each of the men is shown getting into his limo. Wow! These effects! Did Mike Fleiss produce my video yearbook?
Selfless, cold, and composed once more, Meredith sits down with Chris "Emb" Harrison up the Gloom Room. She cops to being "nervous" but "excited," explaining that she's looking forward to its being over. She tells Chris that she's definitely "in love" with someone, and that she expects that it will last "forever and ever." She worries about the honesty she'll need to tell Matthew...er, I mean, "the failed suitor" the truth about how she feels. Chris shakes her hands and tells her, "I'm happy for you," but he's so cynical about the whole process that he's already downstairs welcoming season's crop of women.
Meredith descends the steps of the manse as a stock footage limo makes its way into the driveway. Car. Car. Car. Car pulling up. Meredith staring. Chris walking. Chris walking down steps. Chris opening car door. Person stepping out. Matthew. Cue sad guitar. ALREADY? He approaches the house and tells us how in love he is with her. Standing at the front, Meredith does some quick yogic breathing and exhales sharply. He approaches the middle and asks her how she is. She tells him how nervous she is and takes his hands in hers. And, heartbreak: "I want to start off by saying that you are a wonderful man. You have been nothing but open and loving and taking care of me and I never, ever have had to worry when I'm with you. My family loves you. I love your family. I mean, there's nothing that I don't love about you. Absolutely nothing." He's, like, reaching for the ring. And she offers him a sixteen-minute silent gap in which he could do it. I feel like she just read off the wrong name for the Oscar winner, and Keisha Castle-Hughes is all halfway up the podium, like, "Who, MEEEE?" before she looks down again and is all, "Awww, crap." When she finishes a pause long enough to stuff full with what I hope was just Television Without Pity's first official reference to Keisha Castle-Hughes (judges? ["yup" -- Wing Chun]), she changes tacks a little: "There's a 'but.' And the 'but' is I feel more strongly about someone else and that's it." She starts to cry. Matthew tells her it's okay. "Breast Cancer and Weight: Eyewitness News, 11 PM." Now, if Cocoa Puffs were proven to beat breast cancer, there would be a lot of broke women watching the 11 o'clock news. Matthew tells Meredith, "I am blessed to have ever met you and to have you in my life for a moment has been so special to me. And I'm a better man because of it. But you're following your heart. And there's nothing wrong with that." Listen to your heart when he's calling for you. Listen to your heart there's nothing else you can do. I don't know where you're going and I don't know why. But listen to your heart before you tell him goodbye. Listen to your heart, Meredith. And listen to Matthew. But more than anything -- and I really mean this -- listen to Roxette.
Matthew is all fun times graciousness and tells her, "If you see yourself with somebody else, you shouldn't be with me." And then, he's gone, though Meredith walks him out just in case she finds a new position the knife has not yet been in or a small packet of salt from her Happy Meal she can pour gleefully onto his sleeve, where his heart is oozing six week's worth of lost Texas pride. "I don't want to remember you with a frown," he tells her, and proof that when people say they just want a nice guy means that people are lying hops into the limo and is gone.
"You don't say goodbye to Matthew, but I'm saying goodbye to Matthew because I'm in love with Ian," Meredith tells us. Meanwhile, in the limo, Matthew deems this "insane and crazy." He puts the ring to him on the seat of the limo, and America promptly forgets his name.
Meredith has said that she's "nervous" for the sixteenth time. Buy a Mad Libs. Choose a new emotion. Second it. Ian tells us that he still doesn't know whether he's going to propose, but that he'll know when he looks in her eyes. He's seems to be right in the thick of a genuine anxiety attack in the limo, and Chris opens the door for him, somehow managing to suppress the urge to look at his watch and wink, observing, "A bit LATER than usual, don't you think? Eh? EH?" Dude. He should know he's the winner. Can't he hear the happy music?
Meredith fixes Ian's tie and gets right on with it: "I'm very happy. And I've very happy that I met you. And everything that you give to me I never think I would find." So far her speech to Matthew was much, much better. "Ian, I want to be with you. And I don't ever see myself without you. And I am just absolutely so, so in love with you it's crazy. I have never felt like this before." She cries. He hugs. It's havoc on the body mics, which would make me believe they were getting engaged underneath a pile of carpet if this show took place on the radio. "I'm so scared, baby," Ian says, for some reason lapsing into a weird Elvis voice. He kisses her, and then there's a big twist. Can you guess? Can you? "The first day I stepped out the limo? I knew. I worried that everything has happened so fast." Meredith agrees, and Ian proclaims himself as scared again, but -- but? -- "I trust my instincts." And he's down. We have an Ian down! Repeat, an Ian down! "I cannot believe I'm doing this." Neither can your sense-seeking brother. He asks, "Will you?" Still haven't said the word, Ian. Still haven't said the word. He accepts the rose. They kiss. "Ian could have given me a ring out of a gumball machine." Just as long as he gives her a ring. Any fucking ring at all.