A limo takes Emily home so she can have a completely sweet, spontaneous reunion with her daughter, just one that there are multiple cameras filming and people off-camera who Emily checks with, presumably to make sure they got the shots they needed. There's something different about Emily in the talking-head interviews we see with her (we saw a couple of them last week too). I don't know what it is. A change in her makeup, maybe? Her eyes don't look quite so dark.
She rehashes the duds who are still left in the competition. It's ridiculously boring, and really only notable because she tries to tell us that "Jef" has a bit of an edge. Edge? He's safe as milk. Oh, wait! Arie also has "that bad-boy edge." There's also Sean. We led off with Chris, and I forgot to mention him, but maybe that's because we already know Chris is going to be on Bachelor Pad this summer -- which apparently I will be recapping, although I think Amnesty International may be intervening on my behalf -- so can we safely ignore Chris, since that obviously means he's not winning?
Speaking of Chris, we are now in Chicago, where Chris is standing around waiting for Emily to show up. He looks awfully twitchy. Anyone observing him would think he's about twenty seconds away from pulling out an automatic weapon and firing indiscriminately at bystanders.
So they wander around Chicago for a little while, as Emily burbles about how happy it made her when Chris said he's falling for her, and Chris makes assumptions that Emily will uproot her daughter to come live in Chicago with his Polish family. So they sit down and drink beers and make awkward small talk, with the purpose of getting their relationship back on track, at least for the two hours. Two hours, incidentally, is how long their conversation seems to take. Here is their conversation:
CHRIS: I was all like a dick and I'm sorry I was all like, you know? At the Rose Ceremony? And that was all like tense and whatever.
EMILY: You will be fine, provided you continue to act like a tongue-tied lobotomy case as long as it is in service to singing praises to my beauty.
Chris talks about his family, and Emily's looking forward to meeting them. Dinner will be primarily regurgitated worms.
So they go to Chris's family aerie, which is in Hanover Park, and he thinks his family will be pumped to meet the future daughter-in-law. Chris's family is sweet and kind, as families generally are when they appear on this shitshow, although I think Chris's mom overdoes it when she says it's an "honour" to have Emily over.
Chris's father, John, takes Emily aside for a chat. He doesn't want to see his son heartbroken, which I presume is because they all know what a hair trigger he's on. Emily talks to John about her daughter, and asks him if he thinks Chris would be ready for that. John says he will do his best, like the father is going to undercut his son on this show. "Basically, my son is awesome, so if you're not looking for something awesome, Chris isn't for you," he says. Just once, I'd like to see the father hit on the Bachelorette. Just once!
Chris has a conversation with his mom, and he refers to himself as a "hot mess" which means I'm just going to skip ahead to the scene. Chris's mom, Rose, gets a little teary-eyed as she tells him she loves him very much.
And now Emily is telling with sister Renee, who has the traditional "He could be heartbroken, so if he's not the one, cut him loose sooner rather than later." I hear ya, Renee, but since that's the whole POINT OF THE SHOW, I wouldn't worry about it.
Eventually, the evening ends, and Chris tells Emily that she makes him feel "crazy good" and he's not just falling in love with her, but in love with her, and they kiss. Unfortunately, the evening isn't over: apparently, Illinois' entire Polish community gathers on the back deck for dancing and singing, while Chris is already mentally compiling a list of possible venues for their wedding.
up, St. George, Utah, at "Jef"'s family's ranch, the Holmstead Ranch. She sounds annoyed that he didn't tell her how rich his family appears to be, or something. They go for a ride in a dune buggy. "He's a little more country than he wants people to know," she says. Because nothing says country like riding around in your rich-boy dune buggy, product keeping your hair completely immobile, before skeet shooting. He's just like the Marlboro Man. And then Emily nails the skeets, with both a shotgun and a handgun, and we learn she takes gun lessons at home. Each seems aroused by the other's prowess with a gun.
Then they sit on hay bales while "Jef" outlines the hundred or so siblings he seems to have. His parents aren't going to be there, because they are doing "charity work," and I'm a little creeped out by the fact this show doesn't appear to want anyone to say "Mormon mission."
So Emily meets the whole gang, and Emily explains that all these people are related to "Jef." I would like to thank Emily for explaining to us that "Jef"'s family are all related to him. She's really nervous, because the last time "Jef"'s family didn't like his girlfriend, he broke up with her. She seems to feel like that's a lot of "pressure," whether I would argue it's more like "bullshit on 'Jef''s part." Emily sits down with brother Steve, one on one, and then with "Jef"'s three sisters. The sisters hem and haw when Emily asks if they think "Jef" would be ready to be a father, but at least the women want to know who's moving where if she and "Jef" wind up together. Emily's responses are, in the main, vague and non-committal. All of the sisters seem to like her, and we continue the season-long theme of people judging Emily to be an amazing mom on the basis of nothing more than a five-minute conversation.
"Jef" then sits down with Steve, who lifts a quizzical eyebrow at the way his brother is apparently suddenly OK with being a father figure, despite not ever having expressed that sort of desire in the past. "Jef" is basically "Do too!"
Then Emily and "Jef" sneak off so "Jef" can write down all the things he loves about Emily, which he wrote on the plane back from Prague. I kinda wish Ryan had thought to do that, because at least he would have used phrases like "slammin' ass" and "wicked cans." She glows the way she only does when she is being told how amazing she is. She says it's the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for her, and I think she may have just been remote-inseminated.
To Scottsdale now, where she'll be seeing Arie. What she has with Arie is awesome, you guys! She meets him at the Phoenix International Raceway, and of course she has to stand there and watch Arie go around the track before he can bothered to meet her. She says he looked "stupid hot" and she is obviously only half-right. And then she gets in the car and goes for a ride and it's boring and pointless and I'd just like to point out that I seem to recall racetracks being too much for Emily to handle when she was on Brad's season, but this time around it's sweet of Arie to share this world with her again. Or something.
Anyway, Arie's not kidding around with this racing stuff: his dad won the Indianapolis 500 twice. I guess Arie told her his parents aren't like other parents, and I suppose that is technically true. My dad has won barely ANY Indy 500 championships, for example.
There seems to be some concern over whether his parents will like her, which is a bummer because Arie is one of her favorite guys. Well, as long as she explains to Arie's parents that Arie is one of her four favorite boyfriends, how can they not love her? He advises her to be herself. He loves her, therefore they will, is his theory.
Arie's parents are Dutch, and his mom busts out the language while they're sitting around having cocktails, which is rude, but at the same time, I don't mind seeing Emily dealing with a family that isn't necessarily kissing her ass from the moment she walks in the door. Arie eventually puts a stop to it, at which point his mom pulls Emily aside for a chat, where her main question is, basically, "You and Brad: What happened?"
Emily speaks in bachelorette-ese, which means she babbles vaguely about not asking the questions she should have, I think. The only reasonable conclusion Arie's mom is going to be able to draw is that Emily appears to have suffered repeated blows to the head. Then they share some racing-car-wife bonding.
Meanwhile, the two racing Aries are chatting, with junior saying he can see himself proposing, and senior saying she's got a lot of great qualities. "I hope you make it to the end, buddy," says Dad, and he and his son hug.
She thinks things went great, but that's because she, unlike us, didn't have to hear Arie talk about "Emily and I's" relationship. He says he's definitely going to marry her, which I think means he's not really familiar with how this show works.
That leaves just Sean, waiting for Emily at White Rock Lake in Dallas. He's got a couple of dogs with him, and he says it's been a couple of years since his family has met a woman he's dating. Emily says she's excited to meet Sean, because he's got every quality a woman could be looking for in a husband and father, but by this point we all know that Emily's only criteria are 1) handsome and 2) abs, so whatever, Emily.
He lets his dogs roam around off-leash, and I really hope that's an off-leash park, because otherwise, cram it, Sean. They sit on a picnic blanket and drink while Emily asks an obviously planted question about how many women he's introduced to his family. He doesn't really answer but says he's only been in one really serious relationship. He weirdly says he promised himself that he wouldn't allow a woman to give herself to him if he couldn't reciprocate. Wow, that's ... big of him? To make that promise to ... himself? What the hell is going on here?
Then they make out, and by this point of the hometown dates, I always wonder what brand of tongue disinfectant this show uses. Missed marketing opportunity, for sure. She blathers about how perfect she expects his family to be. That's scary for her because she's not perfect, and what if they expect perfection? Just how Aryan does she think Sean's family is?
So the family estate is in Colleyville, and we are a perfect four-for-four in terms of the bachelors coming from money, and Sean introduces Emily to his family, which includes his niece Kensington and his nephew Smith, and Emily must have taken solid etiquette classes because she doesn't say, "I'm sorry, did you say his name is 'Smith'?" And Kensington has a place in the backyard that is bigger than my first apartment out of university, for god's sake. I know this is just how it's edited, but it's a little unfortunate that Emily appears to take in these indicators of wealth and status and equates them with Sean's family being perfect.
Anyway, we're all sitting down now for a meal of edible gold and kidney pie made from the kidneys of the world's poorest people, and Sean tells Emily he's got a confession to make. "I still live here," he says. It takes her a few seconds to recover, at which point she deems that "cool."
He hastens to reassure her that he doesn't need to live there, but just does because he likes it. She -- displaying Romney-esque casualness -- says she'd love to live there too because the place is so great, but she tells us that she's now rethinking everything.
Things get worse when he shows her his room, which is full of stuffed animals, half-eaten cookies, and he says he wishes his mom had picked up. So at this point it's fairly obvious to anyone watching that he's pulling her leg. Meanwhile, she's telling him that she can clean, instead of giving him shit for expecting his mom to.
Then he awkwardly explains that it's all a joke, that of course he doesn't live at home, because that is only for poor people.
And now Emily is pleased to see that Sean has a sense of humor and can make fun of himself. I'm not sure how that joke makes fun of himself as much as it's based on Emily being gullible, but that's just me.
So they go back outside -- Sean's family still sitting around -- and everyone has a good laugh at the joke, but since Emily talked about how cool it is that he lives at home and now much she'd love to move in, she can't go back on it too much without appearing to be full of shit, of course.
Sean sits down with his dad, whom he speaks about in almost reverential tones. Although I do think his dad's a little off the mark when he says when love happens this fast and comes so easy, it's real. That's actually terrible advice. "I realize now there's something magical here," he tells us.
Sean's dad sits down with Emily, and he wants to know how she "felt that first connection" With who? Presumably your son, I suppose, but it's really important to specify. Anyway, she talks about getting Sean to open up, which is something his family has had trouble with in the past.
Meanwhile, Sean's mom is reminding her son that Emily's looking for a commitment and a father for Ricki, so if he pulls out a ring on the last day, she'll know he means it. Sean's mom tells us that she was skeptical at first, but after meeting with Emily, she knows what a super-duper lady she is, or something, and she can tell that things are genuine with Emily and Sean. I kinda wish the families would be shown clips from dates with everyone else, and then we could see how genuine they think things are. Anyway, she can see herself and Ricki blending well into this family. Better figure it out soon, so the family can get the necessary permits to build Ricki's house in the back yard.
At the end of the driveway, they kiss and say goodbye. Sean whines about how when she leaves, it means the moment is over, and then he decides to go running down the street yelling at Emily, like WHAT IS HIS DEAL WITH RUNNING AROUND YELLING 'EMILY,' and the SUV stops so he can get one more kiss. But then of course THAT moment is over, so I'm not sure what the point was. Well, besides showing how completely spontaneous and love-wanting he is, I guess.
And now Emily is at a hotel in Beverly Hills, sitting down with Chris Harrison for one of those deathly dull conversations where she talks about the stupid dates she had, which we JUST WATCHED.
So let's fast-forward to the Rose Ceremony. That means if Emily shared some particularly revealing insights about someone opening up to her, or becoming vulnerable, or any of the unceasingly tedious things she says during these chats, I missed it.
Three roses, four guys. "I missed y'all very much, this week," Emily says when she struts out in front of the lineup of the four guys in dark suits. She for some reason explains that she's basing her decision tonight on where she sees the future going with each of them. Isn't that what she should be doing every week?
Anyway, Arie gets the first rose, and you'd have to be a moron to not know the one is going to "Jef" so she can hesitate over whether to choose Chris or Sean. Not that it's a surprise (even for someone who doesn't know about Bachelor Pad, which is a blissful state of existence no longer an option for me) when she eventually picks Sean.
Chris bro-hugs the other guys, before going outside with Emily to sit on a bench. "I don't know what to say," she says, and he tells her he's not too shocked. But he asks for an explanation anyway. She doesn't have one, and then says she felt her other relationships were growing stronger, faster.
"I don't understand," says Chris, who reminds her that he said he loved her, and how much faster could it get than that? He makes a "whatever" face, and she gets a little scowly and then eye-rollingly says she wishes he could see how hard it has been for her. I can only imagine being dumped by someone who then wants me to feel sorry for her for HOW HARD IT WAS TO DUMP ME.
Anyway, he says goodbye with a peck and a hug and is banished to the exit limo. He says it's hard to say goodbye to someone you love. "Everything seemed like it was perfect," he says, adding that he "loved the girl" and he thought she loved him back.
Fortunately, Emily's got three guys left who are still willing to comfort her over how hard it is to dump people, which they'll be doing in Curacao week.
In the limo, Chris has moved on to slagging the other guys, saying he's ten times the man any of the dudes back there are. "She did break my heart. I still don't understand," he says. Chris gets credit for this, though: No tears.