Spectator

Watching the replay of Mikaela’s freak out made me wonder why the producer was actually holding Mikaela back at the end of the clip.Zack was gone at that point so his safety was not at risk. And knowing this show they would have loved to have filmed her exploding even more. So I’m guessing they restrained her because she was on a such a destructive run that they were afraid she was going to cause serious damage to the rental house. That sort of destructive violence against objects is a very short ride away from violence against people. Again, if Mikaela had been a man, I bet the show would have removed her from the show after that episode, fearing for the safety of her partner. But on this f-ed up show, they do the opposite and encourage Mikaela and Zack to hold hands and talk about things. Good god.

So this show is trying to get us to believe that Jose never once asked Rachel where she went when he locked her out??? Seriously? I’m not buying it. I would think that that conversation would have happened as soon as they made up, not a month later in front of doc pepper. No way. Jose is a control freak…he’d definitely have wanted to know where she was. Especially since he already didn’t trust her because she cheated in a past relationship. Actually I think almost any husband in that situation would have wanted to know where his wife spent the night, not necessarily because of trust issues, but because most husbands would want to know that their wives were safe. So I’m getting major “producer driven drama” vibes from this. Either Rachel didn’t even spend the night with her ex and the producers just fabricated it for the drama, or she did but she and Jose hashed it out long ago. I’m thinking the producers probably feared that these two had been getting along too well leading into decision day snd they needed to manufacture their typical “1 week to go, so let’s bring up some crap” drama. For whatever reason, the show is not happy just letting the stories unfold naturally - they want us to have doubts about the decisions. I don’t understand why. Do we really need to question what will happen on decision day with every single couple? Wouldn’t it be fine to just go in knowing the ending but watching simply to see what the couple says and does? We always knew scooby do and the crew were going to solve the mystery at the end of every show and we still watched.

Me too! And I love when Gil cutely mocked her words. Adorable. It is really obvious that Myrla and Gil are older than the typical MAFS couple. i assume they both have decent dating experience and that experience shows in how they communicate. Neither of them flip out (or flip benches!) if the other one does or says something less than complimentary. It’s so healthy. I hope MAFS continues to cast at least older couple every season. These 20 somethings who haven’t had a serious relationship for 8 or 10 years (or ever!) can be very hard to watch.

There was a scene in Mikaela’s and Zack’s apartment when Mikaela was sitting at a table and Zack complimented her on her natural hair and natural look. He was right. She looked great that day and I’ve never seen her sport that look since. Her hair was styled plainly around her head, without extensions or the hair bands and clips that make the “poodle ‘doo” she’s been showcasing lately (where her hair is basically pulled flat as a pancake on the top of her head then breaks into a huge puff at the back….Not good). I think her hair would benefit from a lot less tension. funny enough, so would her personality and demeanor, for that matter. Almost every guy I know prefers women with a natural look. All the time and money we ladies spend on our hair and makeup, and men seem most attracted to us when we are chilling out, hair down and make up-free, in shorts snd a t-shirt. Go figure. Lol

Michaela’s sister sure does put up with A LOT by having michaela as a sister. I’m a big fan of family supporting family, but there comes a point in time when enough is enough. I think that point came a long time ago with regard to these two. I have a feeling her sister devotes an extraordinary amount of time putting out all of Michaela’s fires since Michaela seems to drag her into her muck regularly (and there seems to be a constant flow of muck in michaela’s life!). Just in the last two episodes, the sister had to cancel the planned zoom call with Zach’s family when Michaela was too deep in her breakdown to do anything herself, including just cancelling the meeting. More recently, she was the one on the receiving end of Michaela’s late night phone call from the ranch as Michaela was having yet another one of her childish outbursts. Michaela seems to bitch to her sister seeking support in an effort to validate her routinely over the top feelings (and thus excuse her bad behavior). Plus Michaela has become accustomed to her sister cleaning up whatever mess Michaela has made as a result of this bad behavior. Sadly, functioning as Michaela’s life crutch in such a manner has led to reduced accountability on Michaela’s part, so the bad behavior continues relatively unchecked. Dr Viv and the rest of the MAFS team aren’t helping either, as they, too, are regularly trying to explain away her bad behavior. I would never try to diagnose Michaela from afar based on TV show clips, but it is crystal clear that the girl needs serious help. I hope she gets it.

Ditto. I often wonder what kind of damage the participants do to their careers after showcasing their “crazy” on this show. I would think in Michaela’s case, the damage to her real estate career will be devastating. Who wants a loose cannon negotiating on their behalf when making what will likely be the biggest purchase of their lives? Answer: no one.

Omg! Why do Jamie and Dr Viv continue to excuse Mikaela’s behavior??! The issue of her cancelling the call with Zach’s brothers came up again on unfiltered. It sounds like she didn't call in at the scheduled time so her sister eventually called to cancel it, seemingly in the middle of or after the appointment. So after Zach explained this on unfiltered, Dr Viv asked Zach if he knew why she skipped it (with a very aggressive and accusatory tone). Zach stated that apparently she was having some sort of a mental breakdown. So theeeennnnn, Dr Viv actually said that that “sounded like a good reason”, as if that made it all ok. Omg! Why is it that instead of encouraging Mikaela to get help for her obvious mental issues, all these people seem to just accept it and expect Zach to accommodate all of her explosions??? Not only could she not handle participating on the call, she couldn’t even manage to cancel it in a timely manner??? That’s just rude, disrespectful and selfish and that sort of behavior just doesn’t fly in the real world. How many times will people excuse her bad behavior because she’s been “triggered” or is having yet another breakdown????? This is really pissing me off. The girl is sending out major signals that she needs serious counseling and all of the people in a position to actually help her are completely ignoring them. Instead they are blaming Zach for not being understanding of her issues??? Wtf??? I’m willing to bet that no mafs participant, Zach included, sign up for the show expecting to have to navigate serious UNADDRESSED mental health issues with their spouse. Zach didn’t sign up for this so the show really should not criticize him for reacting to her repeated outbursts. I would have been out of there a long time ago if I were Zach.

Man, between the pink shorty shorts and the highly visible wife-beaters beneath his t-shirts, I think it’s safe to say that Johnny is in desperate need of a stylist.

Why would anyone with a hurricane-prone personality ever ever ever think going on a reality tv show would be a good idea????

I hear you, but in a way I don’t really blame him…look at everyone else on the show - everyone else is pretty much a total train wreck. We’ve got highly critical/god complex Johnny; hot tempered Jose; over emotional Zach; half dead Ryan, fifty screws loose hurricane k; overselling self/victim Bao; oblivious to red flags Rachel and doormat Brett. They all continually make unforced errors to further implode their relationships. By comparison, Gil is worlds above these people. To his credit, he has successfully navigated (so far, anyway) a relationship with an arguably challenging match (at least at first) through patience, communication and humor. He must be doing something right.

Margaritas, martinis…whatever it is, if it’s legit then Houston is pretty much the best city ever! Lol

By the way….can someone please enlighten me as to where you can find 25 cent martinis. I’ll be in the first plane to Texas…

Wow, Mikaela’s lack of self awareness is quite alarming, especially considering that her outbursts are so common that she has acquired the nickname “Hurricane K”. I get it that Zach is a little too tightly wound for a show like this, but I am dumbfounded that Mikaela (and dr Vivianna, Jamie and all those panelists from that side-episode a couple weeks ago) continue to place all the blame on him. What am I missing???? Mikaela goes from 0 to 60 in under 3 seconds. She turns an argument or a small disagreement or even just a statement that she doesn’t like into grounds for a full breakdown. She overreacts to almost EVERYTHING and it just elevates every problem into something so much bigger. Examples: 1. Zach doesn’t leave a note one morning and she flips and actually moves out, then cancels the party (then uncancels it when she cools off). Whew…quite a roller coaster for something so inconsequential (especially since she previously warned Zach not to wake her in the mornings) 2. They both agree that they aren’t yet ready to say yes and commit to a lifetime marriage (she herself admitted things had only been good for about a week!) but, even though she agreed, she immediately shut down and put up her protective walls again (recall her walls went up during her childish refusal to salsa dance too) and told him to sleep in the other room. But when he didn’t do exactly as she wished: to sleep in the other bedroom but to still stay in the apartment, she wigged out yet again and yet again cancelled her show commitment - this time she cancelled her call with Zach’s family (on unfiltered she claimed her sister cancelled it and that she wasn’t aware of the call…huh??? How would her sister have known about the call to cancel it, but somehow Mikaela didn’t know about it???? Uggghhhhhh…If she’s going to try to lie to cover up or shift blame for her poor behavior, she at least needs to concoct more logical stories!) Again, the girl overreacts to everything. Then she desperately tries to explain away or undo her bad behavior (cancelling, uncancelling, gaslighting, blaming others, etc.). I think she has an even worse temper than Jose (which has been a focus of the experts and others), but I’m guessing because she is a woman, the experts, panelists and Jamie don’t directly address it whatsoever, and instead focus on whatever Zach is doing to trigger her. I don’t care what Zach supposedly does to “trigger her”, Mikaela’s response to seemingly anything and everything she doesn’t like is totally unacceptable. The girl needs to work on herself and her anger issues before even trying to work on a relationship. If she were a man, I’m willing to bet many people would be asking that she be removed from the show given her extreme physical outbursts.

This season has really proven to me the theory that beauty is on the inside. Even in the very beginning I didn’t find Johnny to be particularly attractive, but the more he reveals his true character on the show, the less and less physically attractive he has become to me. I now find him absolutely revolting - just looking at him repulses me, and I fully acknowledge that that revulsion is much more heavily driven by his abhorrent personality than his actual appearance. On the flip side, I didn’t find Brett attractive at all in the first couple episodes (I hate to say it, but I was getting serious Carrot Top vibes), but I find her increasingly attractive as her kindness and vulnerabilities have been revealed (although, admittedly, she seemed rather weak in this episode…not attractive Brett…stand up for yourself, girl!). Anyway, score one for inner beauty (or inner ugly, in Johnny’s case!). 😝

Wait, so moving into an RV is the massive, life-changing “big announcement” that Jamie was hyping in a recent social media video? Jeez, the way they were building it up and selling it I thought they might have been selected to be the first human family to colonize Mars! Nope. Not quite. They bought an RV. Ok.

I got to thinking, even though Brett’s messiness is an understandable issue for Ryan, I think it was pretty uncool of him to take their personal handheld camera into “her” bathroom when she wasn’t around to film (and narrate) the video of her mess. It seems like such an invasion of her personal space, especially knowing that that footage could be aired on TV for everyone to see. If he cared about his wife the way he claims, he would never have put her in such an embarrassing position. It’s just mean. Not. Cool.

Man, I sure hope Bao stopped sleeping with Johnny after hearing all the awful things he said about her…like he doesn’t want his family to meet her because he doesn’t even like her or that he would rather have been matched with virtually anyone else on the planet. Yikes! If not, I fear we have another Luke/Kate situation on hands where the abuser has broken the self-esteem of his wife to such a point that the weak shell of her that still remains continues to have sex with her abuser.

Poor Bao - her body language when Johnny became unhinged and screamed from the other room while she was speaking to the camera spoke volumes. She wrapped her arms around herself for self protection. Nervously rubbing her arms up and down. That was so sad to see…this show has dropped this poor girl in a very volatile environment. It’s getting scary. I hope producers are keeping a very close eye on the two of them and extract her from this nonsense if they think there’s even a chance Johnny might extend his mental abuse into physical abuse. Enough is enough.

Ok, there is no getting around it that Johnny just plain sucks. And while I’m not a huge Bao fan either, I truly sympathize with her. No one should have to tolerate this sort of mental abuse. All of that being said - I beg to differ when Bao repeatedly refers to her “gourmet meals”. I’m sure they’re fine, but you can tell a lot about someone’s culinary skills by the way they work their kitchen prep tools. Everything from Bao’s abysmal knife skills to just the way she stirs, the girl is not a gourmet chef. I applaud her effort for sure, and Johnny should be waaaaaay more appreciative, but one of Johnny’s issues with her seems to be that she tends to oversell herself and her efforts. This is one of the times where I can see what he’s saying - calling these gourmet meals is definitely a stretch. Again, that being said, Johnny is so grossly unappreciative it’s just plain awful. I don’t care if she made him a peanut butter sandwich, he should be appreciative! It’s one less thing he has to do himself. Ughhh, these people!

“Four weeks ago I didn’t even know a man like Jose could exist”. Me neither, Rachel. Me neither.

I totally agree. I think both Johnny and Bao think they are close to perfect (to clarify, that they themselves are perfect, not each other). Johnny wants his wife to follow a precise script written by him (‘pursue me, initiate sex with me, but not as part of a routine, it needs to feel spontaneous, but it needs to be frequent. And it needs to be vanilla sex, and my wife needs to be the aggressor. Oh, and my wife needs to be sure to have showered first, and doesn’t giggle and serves as the “big spoon” when we’re done.’). Whereas Bao has deluded herself into believing that the wife she wants to be is the wife she actually is (that she is the one trying so hard, cooking gourmet meals, baking, etc.) plus she has lofty expectations for her ideal husband as well (Nobel Prize winning!?!). They both believe they deserve better than what they got from the MAFS experts. So now they are just trying to show the viewers that they are the “prize” within the relationship. They both feel like they were matched with a spouse that is not worthy of their own perfection. Doomed.

Yep, they’ve both been on unfiltered before (I was sure Michaela had been as she wore a rather memorable dominatrix-ish outfit…it seems like Michaela desperately wants to be labeled as the fashion maven that Amani was, but she regularly misses the mark, in my opinion, and her clothing choices just look weird, or cheap, or both).

Rachel Rachel Rachel. Girl…what are you doing??? Jose showed his true colors, specifically that he was much more focused on making his (totally asinine) point about her calling him Johnny, than on her safety. That’s a pretty bad look for a husband. Actions speak louder than words and so far, his self proclaimed goodness is all talk - his actions spoke volumes. Volumes of crud. Plus, if someone needs a flash card as a reminder to not lock his wife out of the house, I think that’s a pretty clear sign the wife should just run. Run very very fast. As an aside, Jose’s multi colored, bubble lettered flash cards look like something my nine year old niece would make. That was just plain bizarre.

I’m think Ryan would have really liked Amber from season 7 (?). Long blonde hair (real or fake…I don’t think he’d care as long as it was blonde). Goes yo the gym all the time. Yep, that pretty much rounds out his lists of legit requirements. As great as Brett is, I don’t think Ryan will ever see it.

I was laughing out loud at Gil and Myrla’s winery date. They’re hysterical. She bitches about EVERYTHING (the blindfold glasses, walking blindfolded, not wearing enough sunscreen, etc) and he just carries on as if she’s not complaining. Then he totally slams her (that she’s dramatic, bratty, etc) and she completely lets it roll off her back and they both end up laughing almost the whole time. Imagine Mikaela, as an example, being on the receiving end of any of their jabs - she’d almost surelyfreak out and start slamming paper towels around, but these two just laugh. It’s kind of awesome. They have a super entertaining dynamic. Plus Gil said wine needed to breathe because it apparently has lungs, and you need to swish it around like it’s listerine. Freakin hysterical. Not in a million years did I expect to say this, but I am loving these two. As for Gil “auditioning” for a full time slot on the show - I’m all for that. He has such a way about him that he can be super direct and even critical and yet somehow it comes across as charming (and often funny). He would be tremendous at calling people out on the show without it feeling like a full on assault. That’s an art and he’s great at it.