Alapaki

Things I learned from a re-watch: 1. While Ashley probably gets a pregnancy-pass on this, she really should not be filmed without make-up. Because, the way she looked at the nail salon? Ouch. 2. If I heard correctly, Whitney's "hand-me-downs", which I take to mean sizes she plumped out of about a thousand frappucinnos ago, work for 9-month maternity-wear for Ashley, who wasn't exactly small when she wasn't pregnant. I really can't wrap my mind around just how large Whitney is now. 3. That brief flashback clip to her original fat-girl-dancing video prompted me to go back and watch it. The edits are even more apparent in retrospect. But it's remarkable to compare her mobility then and now. I don't believe she can lift her feet anywhere near where she did in that video (which wasn't that high to begin with).

Talk about casting a pearl necklace before swine.

Check and check. I do believe that Whitney most likely didn't realize Roy was gay. Otherwise she'd have been pushing the "ow, woe is me, I drove a man to become gay, whatever will I do!" storyline.

The symbolism is unintentionally quite rich. And I bet Tony and Mykelti are just glad they didn't tell pawn-guy they met while picking tomatoes!

To be fair to FT, the frisbees were the idea of the sketchy porn, um, pawn guy with the frosted tips who's officiating this travesty.

He was firmly on the famewhore TLC-teat gravy-train. Did you hear when Maddie was sort of mumbling about why they're moving back he talked right over her with the production company line "and we want the baby to be born around family"

When Whitney is sitting in those confessionals with the red shirt, waving her pudgy arms, all I can think of is: (with apologies to Ursula, who has both more charisma and mobility than Whitney)

I despise all of the people on this show. And Glenn claiming his "work bonus" is sending them to Hawaii shows just how far down the famewhore rabbit hole he's gone. But, I'm giving him a pass on this little bit of tough love, to which I say "Preach, Glenn!" Whitney's always whining about how she's never going to find a husband and never have a chance to have children. But, by her own admission, she's not exactly fishing in the guys-looking-for-commitment pond. She refers to herself as a "whore". She brags about all the sex she's supposedly getting, strongly implying that it's all on a no-strings-attached basis. She's created this entire fake Avi scenario just to have a storyline for this season. I can totally see Glenn snapping and saying "Jesus Christ woman, grow the fuck up!"

I'm kind of hoping that Buddy and Avi are sharing a swinging bachelor's pad with a parade of skinny women coming in and out. But, is this really worth dragging out over multiple episodes? I have to say, as a cat person (and a male cat person at that (don't judge, so was Marlon Brando in The Godfather)) I found that cat a bit on the mangy side. I didn't think it was possible for kitten to not be adorable. What's worse though, is that it was extremely irresponsible for Whitney to thrust the cat (literally and figuratively) on Babs without running it by her first. Now apparently Whitney is stuck keeping the kitten, who now has to integrate with other mature (and neglected) cat(s). I guarantee the other cats are going to be spraying and marking the whole house. Because Whitney certainly doesn't know how to properly integrate a new cat into a house with existing ones. The whole thing was a disgrace. Glenn is a lefty, and it looked like he was letting Whitney use one of his left-handed drivers. If you look close, she was hitting the ball with the rear of the driver head, with the face facing backwards. Glenn and Babs are proud to be featured in some rinky-dink neighborhood newsletter? Wait until it's time to renew their country club membership!

Does anyone else think those watches that Kody gave Maddie and Caleb "with the entire New Testament written microscopically" is like a flea circus? You know, just random scratches that they convince people are the New Testament written microscopically?

Even a busted tit is right twice a day, you know.

I think TLC and Whitney are (no pun intended) insulated from liability there because it was fat Nada (whom I now entirely convinced is nothing but a famewhore) was the one to post the pictures that Newsweek includes in the story.

I'm a few weeks behind, and I'm working through the threads. Has Tony demanded a Mariachi band yet? I'd like to think that Tony is trolling these grifters into feeding every Mexican-American in Nevada, Utah and parts of California ("Umm, yeah, I used to rent garage space to a guy who used to live down the street from a lady who used to go to Church with a dude who taught Tony how to play chess. Where are my tacos?" Otherwise, if Tony's for real. Do Mormons believe in karma? I don't have a problem with a groom wearing jeans for an outdoor wedding if the bride is on-board. But FT should never wear jeans with a tucked-in shirt. My goodness, there's a whole bakery worth of muffin tops oozing over that belt. This would've been a perfect occasion to wear a nice suit with suspenders so that his pants could sit at the right level. He might've actually looked presentable. As it is, just awful.

That puts the entire Avi storyline in an extremely suspicious light. I suggested in one of the episode threads that Whitney either took one of her casual fuck-buddies (or specifically solicited a fuck-buddy) and twisted it into looking like a cheating situation just to have a story line for this season. We now know that's precisely what TLC was looking for. The only question now for me is how much TLC supports Whitney's vigilantism against this guy.

That Newsweek article reads like a TLC press release (and I'm sure that's what it's based on). No attempt to seek comment from Avi. But they did do a good job of taking shots at Whitney for missing red flags, saying "most people would . . . ", etc.)

I'm a few weeks behind, and I'm working through the threads. Has Tony demanded a Mariachi band yet? I'd like to think that Tony is trolling these grifters into feeding every Mexican-American in Nevada, Utah and parts of California ("Umm, yeah, I used to rent garage space to a guy who used to live down the street from a lady who used to go to Church with a dude who taught Tony how to play chess. Where are my tacos?" Otherwise, if Tony's for real. Do Mormons believe in karma?

Welp, only last week I posited Whitney's Razor (that "Whitney lying about shit in order to create a story line for the show" is always the most likely explanation for any of her behavior), and this week she provides a textbook example.

It may simply be that he doesn't want to engage in a debate or argument with this lunatic Whitney (who's gone full Fat-al Attraction at this point). Maybe he's heeding the maxim to (no pun intended) "not feed the trolls', recognizing Whitney as doing nothing more than trolling his actual life. At the same time, assuming he's not a completely made-up and scripted "character" (which is not out of the range of possibility) his defense that "you were all nothing more than fuck-buddies and ATM's to me", while completely defensible if he was honest about it (and I suspect he may have been honest enough) doesn't exactly cover him in glory.

And let's not lose sight of the absurdity of that whole trip to the Retreat in the first place. They went there to "cleanse" themselves of Avi because . . . . Avi had mentioned it to them and suggested that they should go there?!?!?! What am I missing? Too bad he never suggested they go . . . on a diet. Hey now! I'm here all week. Remember to tip your waitresses.

I'm afraid that I've come to the conclusion that both Glenn and Babs know exactly what a vulgar failure Whitney is. They've just decided that it's more fun to play along, and bask in whatever reflected pseudo-fame they feel they're getting, than to put their foot down and really push Whitney to change her lifestyle.

But this is precisely the way she was acting, and the sort of things she was saying to Babs when they went antique shopping after that lunch where Roy told her that (obviously) he had no interest in her. Either Whitney is an absolute bunny-boiler (tm Fatal Attraction) or she's deliberately overstating these interactions to gin up grist for the mill of this show. I'm inclined to think it's the latter. But, either way, knowing nothing more than what we know about Whitney, I believe that any guy who she claims "did her wrong" deserves the strong benefit of the doubt.

BUT, Whitney also said that Avi told her he was a "commitment-phobic" and that he's "broken a lot of hearts". We also heard her say, both to Todd/Tal and to Buddy that Avi would disappear and go incommunicado for long periods of time. She didn't want to call him after her "panic attack" because . . . . I still don't understand her explanation. She said in Seasons 1/2 that she was extremely leery of chubby-chasers, to the extent that she would not date anyone whom she thought was a fat-fetishist. Now she's bragging about how Avi said he loves to date "fat women", and when she asked him if he was only dating him because she was fat, he said "no, I just love your fat stomach" (again . . . . . . . ?) He's never met her parents. He's obviously never had Whitney over to his house (otherwise she'd know where he lived and be staking it out 24/7). If Whitney honestly took "hinting at marriage" from all of that, then she's even more delusional that she seems.

I thought she was talking about having been on one of those meal-replacement-shake diets and something-something England. It wasn't clear to me that she was spending a long-term time in England, as opposed to maybe ordering the replacement shakes from there and possibly going for periodic check-ups? I think this is exactly what we have to conclude based on what we've seen. We know he "meets" women online. We know he tells morbidly obese women that he only likes to date fat women. We know that he "disappears" for periods of time in which he's out-of-touch to them. Everything else that we know about him is coming from Whitney and is contradicted by those other things that Whitney has said.

While I'm automatically suspicious just by virtue of her participation in this farce, it does seem to me that there is something naive (or may just plain not-that-bright) about Nada. She's obviously overwhelmed personality-wise (and not in a good way) by Whitney. But it really seems like Whitney was pushing/manipulating her into being involved in this whole thing.

You can be "a hugger". And you can be "sweaty". But, for the love of God, don't be both!