This week is hometown visits & we meet the families that made the girls who they are today. Ya know, the type of girls who go on National TV to find a husband. First up is Single Mom who lives in Laguna Beach & I think they made a big mistake by not playing the Hillary Duff "Coming Clean" song.
We open on Ben looking out in deep thought at the ocean. He's supposed to look like Prince Eric but instead he looks like Peter Brady's son; he's also wearing capri pants.
They run towards each other on the beach, him holding his tennis shoes, she's holding her top up because when running in sand & jumping a shoulder less, braless option is always the best way to go. I don't know how to describe this "top." I am hoping her kids made it & that's why she's wearing it & also that her kids are blind. It has what are either detached sleeves or huge bracelets. I can't tell. Between the top & the minuscule jean shorts, she looks like she's trying to be a stand in for Britney Spears in Crossroads but even 2007 Britney wouldn't have worn something this bad. Do your bad life decisions never end Chipmunk?
She says how her kids are going to come meet them at the beach and Ben asks what kind of stuff do they like to do - "they love to be chased!" Oh great, have a strange man that they've never met before chasing them - fantastic parenting!
She also says that her children have big personalities - so it's now official. Potato & them will have nothing in common.
She says how she's never been away from them for more than 4 days. You just spent 4 days in Pawnee alone and like 13 weeks on this show!
Some PA brings the ragamuffins who are of course wearing matching outfits to the beach & she runs to them while the whole time having to hold her top up. Jesus! Potato did a costume change from Capri pants to shorts. Why couldn't you do the same?! The kids are already crying & I'm not sure if it's because they finally get to remember what their mom's woodland sprite face looks like or if it's because of all of the cameras in their face or the fact they are having to run in the sand while wearing dresses, floor length cardigans & child GLADIATOR sandals all the way up to their knees. I don't know why they're dressed like Suri Cruise on Easter brunch while they're at the beach but terrible clothing decisions - like mother, like daughter. Well I called the inevitable building sand castle scene last week! I know every other woman in America's ovaries are bursting right now watching him with children, but all I'm wishing is that we were back on Pignado beach because I can't take this shit.
BTW Potato is great at talking to them, "You look beautiful! It's so nice to meet you! I've heard great things!" Super natural. Why don't you ask them who they're going to vote for?
This car ride is a fantastic birth control commercial
They go back to meet Single Mom's parents & the kids are screaming bloody murder the whole way there in the car - ok so we both feel the same way about what's happening. Ben brings the parents a bouquet that looks like they sent a PA to Trader Joes & said, "Get whichever is the cheapest one." The parents ask whats wrong with the girls & Single Mom & Potato say they just spent a whole day at the beach chasing seagulls so that's why they're upset. UM I don't think it would have mattered what location they were at all day because it wouldn't have changed the shirt or lack of shirt their mom was wearing. I think that's what's upsetting them most. Or it could be the huge stranger who keeps kissing their mom, or the 3 camera men, 2 boom mic operators, 4 assistant producers & lighting people following them around, but who knows. It's probably just those damn seagulls! When SM & Potato go to put the kids down for a nap, SM's dad says that, "Ben has sort of a deer in the headlights look about him." You catch on quick, Dad. Her parents keep asking if he's ready to be an "Insta-dad" which sounds like the worst app in the whole world.
The girls keep screaming & you see Potato's face start to look more & more stressed out. At least when he visited the elementary schools he could just leave whenever he wanted.
The car comes to pick Potato up to go to his next girlfriend's hometown & he kisses Single Mom a tight lipped kiss goodbye & tells her to say goodbye to the kids for him. I'm surprised you couldn't hear the tires screeching away as he tells the driver to fucking gun it.
Next we visit Lauren B-asic in Portland & the first thing she tells him when he gets there is, "Fun fact - Portland is the city of roses!" (So apparently she doesn't know the definition of "fun.")
Their date is just going around to different food trucks because size 0 Basic keeps reminding us how much she LOVES to eat, "I dont know if I've told you my love of butter, it's my favorite food." Ok Paula Dean. This goes to show you that Basic & him ARE perfect for each other because her favorite food is butter & what goes better on a baked potato?.
He then feeds her a grilled cheese sandwich doing airplane noises because get it? She's a flight attendant? And because he's a doofus? If a grown man tried to feed me like I was child I would act like I was a child and smack it out of his hands & start cry screaming at the top of my lungs. They spend 2 minutes just talking about cheese because what else are 2 WASPS going to talk about? In a city whose motto is "Keep it weird," the weirdest thing about these two is that they somehow tricked producers into thinking they were fascinating enough to be on National TV.
We then go to a whiskey library because the only things more boring than these two - whiskey & libraries. She says, "This is so romantic & I could sit here in complete silence & not speak a word & be more content than anything else in my life." It looks like Belle's library in Beauty & the Beast but instead of books, it's just old whiskey & instead of entertaining characters it's just them, in silence, staring at each other. Riveting. I would rather just go back to zooming in on the greasy skillets frying butter.
Potato goes to meet her family with another grocery store $20 bouquet; ABC spares NO expense. We meet her family, which the most fasnciating part of this family is that she has an 18 year old dog that has more life in its eyes than Ben does. Her sister takes Bracelet aside & grills him asking, "How do I know you're not just saying the same things to all the families since you're dating 4 girls? What is it about Lauren?" He says, "There's something about your sister that," and then breaks down into tears. I think he just panicked & pulled the tears out like a girl getting pulled over by a cop. And it worked! The tears were good enough for the sister! I really do think he loves her, almost as much as he loves his high school letterman jacket. I personally can't stand it when a grown man cries unless it's the death of a family member or animal related. Fucking lock it up.
Basic & her sister talk with their wine glasses resting on the bed like it's a Temperpedic ad. Basic said she's in love with Bracelet & she says, "He's her person," which reminds me of the Friends episode.
Next we go to meet Character Shoes who when she isn't practicing tap at the local rec center is apparently spending hours watching YouTube hair tutorials. Caila is dressed like she's shooting an outdoor apparel ad for Sears. She decides to appeal to his sense of glory day nostalgia & show him her high school & I pray she takes him to her drama department. But the big part of her high school she wants to show him is a bench outside of it.
"I always watched couples come to this bench & I always dreamed of bringing my boyfriend here & you're the first person I've ever brought here." - shocker.
I can totally see a young socially awkward, musical theater enthusiast Caila sitting voyuerstically watching other couples on this bench while she was behind a tree like
Going to the beach, food truck & now sitting on a bench - all these dates are so fucking poor. I'm waiting for the next hometown date at JoJo's to just be them watching Netflix. Jesus Christ ABC, how much money could that Muppets show possibly be costing you?!
Character Shoes has mentioned moving around almost as many times as Marshmallow has mentioned being a quarterback, but she never gives a backstory (not like I particularly want to hear it). Maybe they just moved around so much so they could enter her into as many Barbizon modeling schools as possible.
Turns out Caila is the Gretchen Weiners of the Bachelor - that's why her hair's so big! Her dad is CEO of a toy company. The company makes kids play houses & they are going to build a toy home together. Ben says, "Wow, I never expected this today. This is amazing!" I don't know if he's talking about making a toy house or the fact he wasn't expecting her to be rich; I'm guessing the latter.
They sit there and design their house & you can see Caila picturing what this will look like when they move into it in real life. "It's fun to think about that in our near future that Ben could be taking me into our dream home & I won't have to hold back & we could just make out in our kitchen, or on our front lawn - in are toy house or in our real house! Who knows!" because everyone loves to see people making out on their front lawns.
They makeout in the the toy house "they" made. He then carries her out Officer & a Gentleman style while the poor factory employees (who already had to stop what they were doing and put together a house for their bosses slutty, delusional daughter) now have to awkwardly slow clap.
We go meet her parents with you guessed it, another $20 grocery store bouquet. We meet her parents & we finally figure out what is her ancestory.com profile. Her dad looks like Robert Durst from the show The Jinx & he definitely does look like a toy maker. Her mom is Philipino with adult braces- I'm sure they met on a mail order bride website. The mom made all Phillipino food. Great, as if it isn't bad enough going over to someone else's house with different smells, now you have to eat their weird cooking? The most ethnic food Potato's probably had is Panda Exress at his local mall & even that was probably still too spicy for him.
He's just picturing all the new toy ideas he wants to make! And the bodies he can destroy in the machines...
"The fact that my mom told me that Ben might love me makes me feel great." —Caila
Oh honey.....
Next is JoJo, aka Brunette Isla Fischer. She walks up to her house to find a bouquet of red roses & a letter. She naturally assumes it's from Marshmallow & brings it inside & starts reading the letter out loud only to realize a couple sentences in that it's from her exboyfriend Chad. After doing some interest stalking (which is my best talent) I found out his last name is Rookstool. His name is Chad Rookstool. CHAD ROOKSTOOL. Which is possibly the douchiest name I've ever heard. I'm sorry but if you continue to talk to someone after they say, "Hi, nice to meet you. My name is Chad Rookstool," that's on YOU girl.
She calls him & they have a conversation that consisted mostly of song lyrics: "Since you've been gone..," "I realized the meaning of being lonely," " I want to know what love is, I want you," "There were so many times you didn't look back, even when I begged you to stay"
JoJo you're already writing your next hit single during this phone call! Conveniently, Potato's car pulls up RIGHT when she's on the phone with Chad Rookstool (LOL) & she says she has to go & hangs up crying. She wipes her tears away, takes a dramatic pause & opens the door with a fake smile like she's on a soap opera. Which a soap opera would be less produced than what is happening here.
Ben wants to know why she's crying & she explains the whole ex drama & how she thought the flowers & letter was from him. Well JoJo, the flowers looked expensive so that should have been your clue they were not from Ben.
JoJo says she's very confident with her & Ben's relationship and that today is going to go great with her family. It honestly would have gone better if they had just gone over to visit Chad Rookstool.
We go to meet Jo Jo's family who live in the house from the movie Clueless. Based on the in laws houses alone, Potato should definitely choose JoJo because this one is way nicer than the Bachelor mansion. As soon as she opens the door her two brothers maul her. Her dad looks like a shorter, fatter Dr.Phil, or at least the guy who runs the lie detector for Dr.Phil. I already love the mom. She has loud costume jewelry, is clearly on Xanax & has botox that has't quite settled in yet. We sit at the dinner table and her brothers look like they're more interested in eating Potato than steak.
Ben is left alone with the brothers while JoJo & her mom go upstairs & sit on the bed with their shoes on - gross. The brothers are just baking Potato & he is not doing well under pressure. C'mon, I thought you were quarterback! Apparently it was for a powderpuff game. Meanwhile upstairs, JoJo starts quoting Jessi Spano again with, "I'm so.. I'm so..I'm so SCARED!" & her mom goes, "There's nothing to be scared about, you're beautiful." I'm so insulted my therapist has never once said this to me.
The brothers try to talk JoJo out of being in love with Potato & ask why she's putting him up on a pedestal because he doesn't deserve it - very true. The steroids brother also says that he doesn't seem as emotionally invested as she is because he is dating 3 other girls - also true.
They all go to the kitchen where the brother who looks like he isn't on steroids tells Ben that he brainwashes these girls & that he feels like Ben rehearses these staged answers & Ben doesn't deny it or say anything at all.
Meanwhile, the steroid brother just stands there looking like an unsuccessful Keanu Reeves. Side note, this brother went on Eva Longoria's dating show a few years ago & proposed to a girl & broke up with her 2 weeks later. Probably because he realized he was in love with his sister.
The mother meanwhile is auditioning for her spot on The Real Housewives of Dallas & giving us the best scene to happen this whole season where she just takes a swig right from the wine bottle because what else are you going to do when your son is confronting your gorgeous scarf model of a daughter for falling in love with a baked potato cooked at 0 degrees giving her a 7-11 rose? And then the husband telling her to put the bottle down, don't listen to him you do you boo!
The brothers look at Potato like he owes them $500, & I'm starting to think it was them, not the producers, who tracked down Chad Rookstool (LOL) and asked him to write that letter just to break her & Bracelet up! These guys are protective over their sister. They're like the Texas version of the Sopranos. Bracelet manages to escape the mansion without his legs being broken but not before JoJo's mom giving us this last gem:
We are back at the gaudy spanish style mansion in California for the rose ceremony & JoJo looks A-MAH-zing in a red dress that her brothers would NOT approve of. Lauren Basic & Caila get their roses & now it's down to JoJo & Single Mom. Chris Harrison decides to earn that multi million dollar contract & step in and say, "We're down to one rose," & then walks off. They honestly should just give this job to Lauren Basic's 18 year old dog.
He eliminates Single Mom because two brothers in love with their sister who hate you are still way better than 2 small kids. Single Mom is crying & I get it; it's really sad because you're never going to get that long of a vacation away from your kids again for at least the next 18 years. That sooooks.
Talk to me kittens, which one of these girls do you think is going to get stuck carrying around this sand bag of dead weight for the rest of their lives & by rest of their lives I mean 7 months or 8 US Weekly Covers, whichever comes first!