Nancybeth

They say you should only eat oysters in months with the letter R -- so if they were filming between May and August and using local oysters (i.e., from warmer water and not imported) they probably weren't the best. Sam was definitely a shit stirrer...it came to a head in part one of their finale in Hawaii when he spoke up for the group and accused Marcel of not cheating, exactly, but being a dick. And hilariously, the judging panel was all, "Who the fuck cares, grow up," and eliminated Sam AND Elia, leaving Elan and Marcel in the final 2.

The TV show "Sisters," (Sela Ward, Swoosie Kurtz, all the sisters had mens' names) also had an episode about cults in the early 90s! Teddy's daughter joined one and all I can remember about it is that they said "Praise Nature," a lot, which my best friend and I still use to this day. Apparently there were a LOT of cults recruiting members in those days.

Overall I liked this episode. I especially felt for Kate, because I've been there...you've broken up with someone, and suddenly a person that was a huge part of your life is gone and even though maybe the breakup was your idea, losing that person you can text or talk to or share jokes with is HARD. I don't think we're done with Toby yet. I think it's problematic to say that an adopted child should feel [THIS WAY] or an adoptive parent should or shouldn't do [THIS], because no two adoptees or adoptive parents are alike. I have a good friend who was adopted at birth, as was her younger brother. He has, from a very young age, had a lot of negative feelings about his adoption and grieved for his birth parents. As soon as he was able to, he tracked them down. My friend, on the other hand, has no interest in finding her birth parents and has never felt the same things her younger brother did. And they were raised in exactly the same family structure with exactly the same conversations about their adoptions.

I didn't mind Maci's dress, except I thought it was a little too droopy in the front. There was a tad too much decolletage on display and she's going to spend her entire wedding tugging that thing up. And I liked the style of the bridesmaid dresses, but didn't think the blue worked with her pale pink dress. I think it would have been nicer to put them in deeper pink or maybe a neutral shade? Farrah has to be financially supporting Debra at this point right? If not, why the hell else would Debra put up with that treatment, including having to ask for "time off"? It's ridiculous. And I have no doubt that she treats Sophia that horribly as well, but just manages to hide it from the cameras.

The format for this whole thing was whack. They should have cut it down to one hour, spent a few minutes with each couple individually and then pulled them together at the end for some topics that would concern the whole group. I don't need to know what every other couple thinks about Jorge and Anfisa! Does Chantel have lockjaw? Seriously, it's almost painful to watch her talk. I suspect the rule about the US citizen sponsoring and having to prove they can financially support their fiancee is to make it harder for foreigners to "buy" citizenship. Let's say someone is very wealthy in their country but wants to become a US citizen. They could simply find some willing guy or gal on the internet (say, Nicole) and either pretend to woo them, throw a lot of cash their way and have them initiate the K-1 process, or just flat out say, "Here's $25,000 to cover expenses and something extra for yourself, pretend to be my fiancee." Some of that risk is removed when the American partner has to prove that they can support someone.

Shallow observation, because I like Alla, but I hated her wedding hair. The dress and makeup were great, but the weird asymmetrical hairstyle with the random orchids stuck in it was driving me nuts. I think she and Matt have turned out to be my favorite couple this go-round!

This is all so very awesomely horrible:

So sad to hear that Santino is really leaving! I'm hoping we'll see him back occasionally, at least. His song this week (It Was a Shitshow) is maybe my favorite all season. Did anyone else think Rebecca looked like Kate Gosselin after her makeover??

What happened to Paola's shoe company she was running with her brother? She seems a little...flighty about her passions.

I'm wondering if Loren really wanted to be included in this series and decided to manufacture or amp up the drama?

I know other people have said this...but Paola doesn't HAVE a modeling career yet. She has some halfway decent portfolio pictures and an agency that's willing to send her out. Maybe she should see if she gets any bookings before insisting upon moving to Miami for her career.

Also, Ben doesn't have a sous chef or a prep cook or anything...except for an occasional assist from the interior, he's going it alone. So he's got to figure out his schedule for the day, to include prepping for the next meal and planning the one after that. I realize that these guests are chartering a yacht and should be able to get whatever they want, but I think Kate could be a little more, uh, directive about scheduling meals. And putting out a buffet, or being more proactive about saying, "We'll do snacks now with dinner at 9," or whatever would help. For what it's worth, Ben and Emily are both posting cutesy photos of themselves together on social media...who knows whether it's real or whether they're just trying to carry out a storyline.

I can't believe I forgot to mention Emily's charming phone call with her family. From the way they call her "Rabbit," (which, she kind of does look like a rabbit) to the way her dad wanted photos of Ben, it was seriously the cutest! Such a change from Rocky's calls home last season.

There was some weird editing going on last night...there's no way the conversation about Kyle's sexuality happened right after Ben and Emily got back from their second date. On the date, Em's hair was curly, and by the time they got back to the boat, it was quite, uh, puffy because of the wind and the humidity. But when we saw them in the salon watching the laptop and talking with Kyle and Kate after they had changed out of their date clothing, it was straight again. You can't tell me she went downstairs, brushed it and THAT magic happened. Or that she took a shower and blew it out right before going to bed. I'm not shocked or anything, I know it happens all the time in reality TV, it was just super-noticeable. My guess is that they wanted that conversation to "happen" before the drag queen ep next week.

If you were playing a drinking game and had to take a shot every time Loren said "perfect," you would be dead. "It has to be perfect and I have to be perfect so everyone knows we're perfect together and doesn't hate me."

I worked with someone who's husband was a commercial diver (the subtitles definitely said DIVER not DRIVER). He made really good money, but was away a lot...he would go out on jobs that lasted several weeks. This is trivial but I hate Melanie's dark hair.

Devar could make good money as a commercial diver, but it will likely involve a lot of travel and weeks away from home at a time. I physically can't watch Brett rapping. It makes me so uncomfortable! As does, well, everything Danielle does, as well as the posed serious shots of her that they use to introduce segments.

A couple seasons back, they really started ramping up the whole "numbers" storyline. I feel like in earlier seasons, it wasn't so clearly spelled out that there were XX girls in training camp and X would need to be cut. But I feel like they wanted more drama, maybe, so that's when we started getting an almost countdown effect, where they made a big deal of Kelli doing a voiceover or interview in every episode about where the squad stood in terms of numbers, i.e., we still had 8 more cuts to make.

Could the DCC organization get in trouble for continuing to employ Yuko for not having the correct visa? That is to say, certainly it's her responsibility to obtain the right paperwork. But I think it would have been a risk for them, if they wanted to select her for the team, to not let her do what she needs to do to GET the correct visa. Surprisingly, Kellie Pickler didn't bug me all that much last night! I'm not sure she added much to the proceedings, but I found her inoffensive. And yet again this season, they have waited too long to teach the damn entrance. Also, I'm not a dancer or a dance teacher, but maybe they should focus first on the feet (i.e., the right pace/stride to go 5 yards in 4 counts) and then do the arms and then put it together??

I'm not always her biggest fan, but Loren and Alexei have, in my opinion, one of the most genuine relationship stories of any of these couples.

I totally thought Gabe had a prosthetic in the shot where you could see both legs. Then a second later, there was a side shot where you could only see the foot with Croc and I was all, "Huh, guess he just has super-skinny ankles." But there is something definitely looks different in that screenshot. People do all kinds of things wearing prosthetics, so it's entirely possible he was skating with one. Paola is not model material, sadly. She has a good figure but I don't think she's pretty or striking enough. I guess maybe local commercial modeling?

I'm really curious/confused about the timeline of GC pregnancy, and when they made the decision to write it into the show. Because at the end of the S3, she was still wavering about whether or not to go to Yale. If she knew she was pregnant then, but wanted to remain on the show after having a baby, they should have just sent her off to Yale, had her do a few random scenes of how homesick she was, phone conversations with Brandon, whatever, and then she could have dropped out/transferred. But she must not have found out about the baby until after filming on S4 began. Her relationship with Dan, breakup and then relationship with Jesse was sooo shoehorned in. Or maybe an adoption storyline could have been the way to go -- I could see her making that decision, in order to give the baby a better life.

I wonder if the situation with Natalie Wood and Yuko isn't something that happens more frequently than we realize? Perhaps there's an informal "arrangement" wherein alums offer up rooms for Training Camp candidates? I remember a couple other TCCs through the years staying at what looked like large, private homes and saying they lived with a family friend or something. Natalie's house looked GINORMOUS. When they showed the exterior I totally though it was a country club or something!

I seemed to recall that many Moroccans spoke French, and according to Wikipedia, "French retains an major place in Morocco, as it is taught universally and serves as Morocco's primary language of commerce and economics, culture, sciences and medicine." So it seems like Azan is probably well-educated...which again, you have to wonder why he's settling for Nicole!

OMG, Anfisa is TOTALLY Veruca Salt! And I thought there was steam coming out of the spaghetti sauce jar so I assume they microwaved it. What I didn't understand, however, were the chunks of mozzarella cheese she threw on the plate. I just can't with the new couple...there was something missing from their story.