Spectator

Same. Although I didn’t see it at first, I now find Brett to be the most beautiful woman on the show, inside and out. I think when she said she had repeatedly been made to feel that she was not enough, it was so raw and so sincere, she instantly became my favorite. Plus, her genuine emotion, coupled with her strength and resolve regarding sweet little Baxter drove home the point that this girl is the real deal. She’s not afraid to be vulnerable, but she’s open in a way that doesn’t make it seem like she’s exposing those vulnerabilities to try to garner attention or sympathy whatsoever. She’s so much more real than what we normally see on this show. I am a huge fan and I am super confident that she will find someone who thinks that she is so much more than “enough” and will absolutely cherish all of her awesomeness.

First and foremost, they need a man on this “expert panel” who could add a different perspective. I was shocked when all of the panelists were on the same page regarding Michaela and Zach. They seemed to fully exonerate Michaela and placed all of the problems in that relationship on him. Huh??? I know Zach isn’t perfect but come on…at least one person should have seen that there is another side there. Michaela has a rather short fuse and exhibits some pretty extreme over reactions, which is tough to live with. Getting over that hurdle sounds like it might be even harder for Zach given that he’s had bad relationships with similarly explosive women before. I don’t think it’s fair for Michaela (or Dr Viv) to get frustrated at Zach for not fully accepting her apology and returning to “normal” on her timeline. An apology is not a get out of jail free card, it’s just a starting point toward relationship recovery. And sometimes an apology just isn’t enough, especially if there is a repetitive pattern of this troubling behavior, which seems to be the case here. Time will tell. Regardless, producers, please add a man to the panel mix (other than Kevin…he lost me for good when he continued to slam Jake in favor of Hailey in this episode - seriously???? That was last season - let it go!!)

Yep. Same. Jose told Rachel to “get out” or “go” multiple times during their kitchen conversation when the producer was present, but when retelling the story he simply said Rachel called him by another man’s name and then “took off” or “disappeared”, so he locked the door (because he “always secures his property at the end of the day” as he so self-righteously told her…..ughhhhhhhhh) and ‘accidentally’ dead bolted it (?!?!). He completely failed to mention that he had actually told Rachel to leave, or that the producer had been there just before she “disappeared” (and that she might not have actually disappeared, but might have just been walking the producer out). Ughhh ughhhh ughhhhhhhh. Also, on unfiltered Jose cavalierly recounted that this all happened at “1, 2 or 3 am”. (The cameras showed her knocking on the other couple’s doors a bit after 1am, so at least the producers and the viewers knew what time it was!). The fact that he didn’t even know what time this all went down speaks volumes about his lack of concern for his wife. I would like to think that most men, no matter how angry they might be in the moment, would be extremely worried and hyper focused on the time if their spouses weren’t home safe and sound at a late hour. Yet Jose wasn’t even aware. The jig is up Jose…you have revealed your true self. Run Rachel, run.

Haaa! This!!! My parents did the same thing. And my mom would occasionally even throw the dogs name into the list! This was a totally forgivable offense in my book…most certainly not lockout worthy! Good lord

Yep. I think Johnny was definitely a bit harsh when he flat out said he was not attracted to Bao when she giggles and acts childlike. If I were on the receiving end of that comment, from my husband no less, that would really sting. No doubt he could have positioned that sentiment in a much less hurtful and more productive way, but I am starting to see what I think he meant. I feel like there is a spectrum for silly behavior - on one side there is playful silly, almost sexy silly, and on the other end of the spectrum, there childish silly. Bao seems to lean pretty heavily on the childish side and I think Johnny was hoping for someone with at least a little bit of sex appeal, especially when they were en route to the bedroom! Lol. Johnny seemed to want an easy going, sexually confident woman and he got a silly, hyper-organized perfectionist. I don’t dislike Bao, per se, I just don’t think they are well matched. So, chalk this one up to yet another mismatch this season. (Sigh) Baby goats = best part of this episode ❤️❤️❤️

Ugh…I felt like she stole that line from Doug in season 1, when he said he “grows on people, like a fungus.” It was such a cute line at that time, especially given Doug and Jamie’s start, so understandably the show played that clip a lot. I’m betting Bao saw it and wanted to replicate the “cuteness”. But it was a big fail in my book. It seemed artificial. So, yes, it didn’t play well with me either, but not necessarily because i was disgusted by it, but because it felt so fake, and most annoyingly, it felt plagiarized.

Yep. I can appreciate her unabashed love for the finer things. She totally owns that trait, which I respect. But I really struggle with her inability to compromise and her lack of consideration for whatever Gil might want or like (except for the one time when she gave him a plate of chocolate chip cookies on the honeymoon - that was cute). It’s her way or no way and that just won’t work in a marriage (unless you marry a doormat, which Gil most certainly is not). Gil was spot on when he called her “extra”.

Exactly! I loved when Pastor Cal claimed that Myrla saying that she was not attracted to bald men “was just her being superficial”. Lol! Exactly, Pastor Cal…and that doesn’t mean it’s insignificant and should be ignored! At least a part of attraction (arguably, a very big part) is superficial. Plus I think Myrla leans more toward superficiality, in general, than the average person (I’m sure she would be the first to admit that too) so all the more reason for the experts/producers to actually listen to her. To simply ignore certain requests and/or requirements of the participants is disingenuous. The show claims to match people that are “right” for them, and physical attraction is part of that, as is compatibility on finances, children, etc., other traits they seem to mismatch regularly. This show seems to be deliberately and increasingly ignoring the “deal breakers” of the participants, so it’s no wonder the failure rate is increasing. Case in point…Eric and Virginia should never have been matched given their difference of opinion on having kids and the importance that Eric, in particular, placed on that (as well as lifestyle, politics, their personal definitions of marriage, etc.). The decision to have kids is such a HUUUUUUUGE deal for couples, so to just ignore that incompatibility is irresponsible. These are real people with real lives and, as the show so often states, with ”real marriages”. The experts and producers need to be more mindful of that. They seem to be playing a game, a ratings game, but getting divorced can leave a sizable and traumatic wake behind for everyone involved. These repeated mismatches are sad and troubling.

Serious question…what’s up with the “no bills” in Samoa. Does everyone in Samoa live off the grid? They all have solar panels, windmills, their own livestock, farm animals, fruit orchards, veggie gardens, etc.??? I’m not sure if that’s super primitive or super progressive, but I’m intrigued. (unless, of course, man-child Asuelo simply just doesn’t fully comprehend that funds are actually required to live in Samoa, the way a small child might not understand that…never mind…question rescinded…)

Ughhhh…I could not help but notice that both Brett’s and Ryan’s table manners left a bit to be desired. Just after Brett exhibited the lousy table manners you noted above, Ryan stuck his fingers in his mouth and pulled something out that I assume he simply did not want to swallow and then presumably put the partially chewed morsel back on his plate. Yuck yuck yuck. Yuck yuck yuck. That ranks waaaay up there on my faux pas list. Jeez…if he absolutely just had to do that, at least he could have turned his head away, covered his mouth with his napkin and discreetly put the inedible item into the napkin (without using his hands/fingers…yuck!) and folded it into the napkin and tucked it away (without looking at it!). I think the producers love to show clips of stuff like this. They say so much without anyone saying a single word.

I don’t fault either Myrla or Gil whatsoever for their seemingly polar opposite lifestyles/priorities. This is ALL on the experts. Before the wedding, the show aired clips of each of them articulating exactly who they were and what they were looking for in a partner and the experts chose to ignore it. Gil said he was a simple, frugal guy who didn’t want an Instagram model. Myrla showed off her impressive closet and her wall of self portraits and wanted someone who could match her lifestyle, financially. Neither lifestyle is better than the other in any way, but they are completely incompatible lifestyles. What on earth were the experts thinking??? That they would look good together? Give me a break…if that was all it took to make a successful marriage the divorce rate in Hollywood would be 0% instead of 99.99%. They are both good people with individual qualities that could absolutely be appreciated by their respective partners, but this show completely whiffed when they paired them together.

Wow. Tiffany and Ronald couldn’t even get out of the therapist’s parking lot before getting into yet another huge argument. So much for agreeing not to criticize each other (although apparently Tiffany doesn’t see her comments as criticisms, she sees them as “truths”, thus it’s ok in her eyes - news flash Tiffany: you don’t need to be lying to be criticizing someone…you, most certainly, are criticizing Ronald almost every time you open your mouth!). Ronald is not without his faults (to say the least!), but at least he seems to recognize his shortcomings. On the other hand, Tiffany really thinks her sh** doesn’t stink. I think it was a mistake for them to see Ronald’s relative for therapy instead of a neutral third party - it seemed in an effort to appear unbiased toward Ronald, the therapist treated Tiffany with kid gloves. She’s not self aware at all, and has no accountability for her part in their marriage troubles. That is a critical obstacle that she needs to overcome in order to improve their relationship but obviously that therapist made zero headway on that front. The therapist really needed to spell out for Tiffany that her constant nagging, complaints and negativity is, in fact, “criticism” and it is very destructive. She doesn’t see her part in any of this, she thinks she’s all good. At the same time, she doesn’t see any of the good in Ronald, most notably, how fortunate she is that Ronald treats her son as his own - not all stepdads are that accepting, especially when the child is an ocean away. In a nutshell, she isn’t the prize she seems to think she is. I also loved how Ronald finally broke down and said what so many of us have been saying all along - that it seemed that Tiffany just wanted a vacation in South Africa. Plus that all of her crying about doing everything alone in the US wasn’t true because her mom was essentially serving as full time help for her. Naturally, she couldn’t tolerate hearing any of that and stormed off. I guess she forgot her own philosophy toward criticism - that if what you’re saying is true, it’s ok to say it. The holier than thou attitude is just so painful to watch. I’m very ready for these two to call it quits.

I can only assume that Brandon’s friends were all trying to figure out what Brandon saw in Julia until she mentioned installing the stripper pole in the kitchen…then suddenly everything made sense. Lol.

This! I suppose I do need to give her some credit though for either not reading or reading and subsequently totally forgetting all the negative posts about her on social media since her season aired. She still seems entirely oblivious to the fact that a notable percentage of MAFS viewers don’t find her to be the cute, charming, witty girl she seems to think she is. I thought she was unnecessarily rude and mean to Jake during all but the first few days of their marriage (you can find someone unattractive and still be polite to him or her), and she invested far too much time trying to recruit people around her onto her “Jake sucks” team. That was completely unnecessary and actually shows how insecure she truly is - she clearly needed validation from others that her decision to treat Jake with such contempt was well founded. She even mentioned on this dumb Kevin show how the opinions of others during the process made her second guess her own position. Friends, family, etc. must have told her that she was being a judgmental bi*** and that she wrote off Jake too fast, especially given the nature/structure of the 8 week experiment. It’s not that hard to just be nice to someone. Plus her competitive side left a lot to be desired…it’s hard to be a bad winner and a bad loser, but she somehow managed. Anyway…why they had her on this show and why Kevin still seems to support her and protect her from scrutiny is beyond me. It’s too bad - I had completely forgotten all about her but seeing her on this episode brought up all my frustrations with her crappy behavior all over again. Note to MAFS production and Kevin: I think it’s safe to say that Haley is NOT a “fan favorite”. Quit pretending that she was. Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

I kind of wondered about this…so many of these Americans fail to meet the income requirement to sponsor their spouses on the K1 and they need to rope in poor family members or friends to fall into these train wrecks with them as co-sponsors. Tiffany, Kalani, ‘Pole’, probably David too (I don’t remember, but I know his buddy essentially paid for everything, including his in-law pay-off and his deluxe accommodations at the storage facility), etc.. I suppose that’s why these people agree to be shredded by TLC viewers - they are desperate for the money. Speaking of that, it’s funny how Tiffany preaches about financial responsibility when she herself is clearly not knocking it out of the park in that department either. She had to guilt her dad into co-sponsoring Ronald because she was too broke to swing it herself. I’m so sick of the holier than thou attitude. Her expectations of Ronald are extraordinary given the guy’s history, history she knew all about when she married him. She can’t snap her fingers and expect price charming to suddenly appear. She doesn’t want a husband, she wants a maid, a babysitter, a cook, and anyone else that can facilitate her plan to do absolutely nothing, ever, because she “neeeeeeeeeds a breeeeaaak”. Ugh. Separately, if I never have to hear Angela scream into her phone again, I will die a happy lady. She gives Americans SUCH a bad name, living up to every horrible stereotype in the book.

So Virginia continued to try to rewrite history in this episode. Last week she said her drinking was never a problem and never would be a problem. Um, ok. Never mind that we all saw it. We all saw the impact it had on her physically and the problems her drinking caused her relationship. But according to Virginia there’s “nothing to see here”. Sure. For sure (thanks Ryan for my new, widely applicable MAFS quote for the season). And it’s too bad the experts didn’t address her drinking at all in their expert-only session. If nothing else, having a “professional” acknowledge the problem might have helped her to start to recognize it, which we all know is the first step toward recovery...she’s in full denial. Her drinking was a big issue throughout the season so the experts not mentioning it at the reunion left a huge elephant in the room. But I digress... Anyway, back to the point...this episode the spin continued as she tried to walk back her comments about passing out drunk on guys couches. Now she’s saying she never said she planned to continue that behavior when married?? Um, yes you did Virginia. You said exactly that. You guys fought about it, with Erik continuing to repeat his mantra of the season: “but you’re maaaaaarrrrried...”. Uggghhhhh. Did she forget these arguments were all filmed??? At the time she didn’t even seem to comprehend why Erik could possibly have an issue with her behavior since they weren’t “random couches”. And she looked totally floored when Pastor Cal said that he would not be ok with it if his wife were doing that. She just didn’t get it. And the fact that Erik even brought it up to Pastor Cal shows that he and Virginia had had previous disagreements about it in the past. But even in front of the expert, she was digging her heels in the sand, insisting this behavior was totally fine regardless of marriage. But now, at the reunion, she is saying she never said that? Ahhh, ok. Sure. You never said it. You guys never fought about it. You guys are the perfect couple. Sorry, I forgot. These two clearly planned how they would try to gloss over or completely undo their nonsense from the regular season during the reunion. They were so scripted. But I did get a kick out of it when faced with a Sophie’s Choice moment, Virginia said she’d keep her dog over Erik. That clearly was way off-script! Sorry Erik, I guess you’re still not her number 1...even Rocky ranks higher.

I’m wondering if the reason Chris and Paige immediately clammed up when Kevin brought up the new car for Mercedes is because maybe it was repossessed. If the guy couldn’t keep up the payments on his Subway franchise I’m assuming he also couldn’t keep up the payments on the car for Mercedes (and that assumes the car even exists…it could also be a part of a big fat sack of lies revolving around the supposed pregnancy). Or the third option: perhaps he is hiding the car from creditors on his bad debts and thus wanted to get off the topic as quickly as possible, in the hope that the car wouldn’t be added to his list of repossessable assets. Whatever the reason, the way the two of them both squashed the conversation so quickly was highly suspicious. The one thing I do know is after the way he disrespected Paige all season long, I’m definitely not buying his excuse that he didn’t want to talk about the car out of respect for Paige. Give me a break.

Why am I not surprised that Hailey couldn’t even be gracious toward Jake during the reunion show. Kevin even opened his question to her with “help a guy out”...but nope. Her competitive, must win at all costs attitude got the better of her yet again and she essentially threw Jake under the bus. Again. Complete with that demonic dr evil laugh. What guy is going to want to date that girl after this season?

This is ridiculous. Now Vincent is completely contradicting himself regarding the bossy comment at the wedding. During the regular season, in the midst of one of Vincent’s hissy fits, he told Brianna that the “bossy” label assigned to her at the wedding was a turn off and a trait he said he specifically did not want in a partner. Then in the reunion show he pretended he never said that and claimed he didn’t take the word ‘bossy’ that way and he thought it just meant that she knew what she wanted. Huh??? That’s definitely not what you said, Vinny... Again, don’t these people realize that their words were all caught on film??? Did he forget we ALL saw him tell her the bossy comments were a turn off. These reunion shows used to fun and fiery but so far it’s just a bunch of people trying to craft their PR images, presumably to try to position themselves as fan favorites and parlay their dreams of popularity into more MAFS gigs. So far, I’m not impressed at all.

I feel like Erik and Virginia came into the reunion show both totally rehearsed. Every answer was so generic and vanilla. They either glossed over or completely dismissed every unresolved issue that came up during the season, as if they’d both suddenly matured overnight. For example, Virginia claiming her drinking was never an issue and never would be an issue is ridiculous...did she forget that we saw it all on the show, including the arguments during the boozy nights, the arguments about the boozy nights, the hung over mornings, etc.??? Even Dr P expressed concern about her drinking and it’s impact on their relationship. So I guess my two take aways from these two are (1) that they are still sweeping the big stuff under the rug (the drinking, kids, politics) and (2) that their main focus at the reunion was to put on a show to appear as a mature, happy and well-balanced couple (I recall during the season that Erik complained at least once that Virginia embarrassed them on camera so it doesn’t surprise me at all that they would be focused on their image at the reunion). I found their portion of the show to be an absolute bore. As an aside, I have yet to see anything particularly fabulous about Virginia (is it possible she just got a really really bad edit?) so Erik’s devotion to her continues to confound me.

I can’t help but think that every friend and family member of Erik’s is shocked by Erik’s supposed “love” for Virginia and was secretly hoping he would want to walk away from this mismatch of a marriage on decision day. I’m imagining them all talking to each other behind his back, essentially saying “wtf???”.

Ok...I couldn’t help but notice. Haley arrived early and selected her own bedroom before any of the other couples arrived. Despite knowing she was going to be in the room alone, she picked what seems to have been the master bedroom all for herself (Jake was definitely in a much smaller room that was right off the living room with a smaller bed). Then when Virginia and Erik arrived she suggested they take the bedroom next to hers so they could share a balcony. Haley’s giant room had a king sized bed while the room she picked out for Erik and Virginia was tiny and had what looked like a full bed in it. Maybe a queen. Definitely not a king. Vincent and Brianna got a smaller room with a smaller bed too. What a bitch move. She’s one person - how rude to take the biggest room with the biggest bed. For only one person to enjoy! Rude rude rude! I’m not the least bit surprised though. It seems like her whole goal at the retreat was to try to recruit the other couples onto Team Haley by criticizing Jake at every possible opportunity. Jake didn’t help either on that front - they were both way too vocal about their issues when they were all having dinner together on the first night, but the difference was he wasn’t also supplementing that s***show dinner by trash talking Haley behind her back to the other couples the way Haley was doing about him for the whole rest of the trip. She found a way to weave in a criticism regardless of whether it was even appropriate to the conversation, be it while prepping dinner, sitting with the girls to recap their days, criticizing his early departure on their last day, etc.. Memo to Haley: no one wants to hear people complain about their relationship 24/7 while they are on vacation. It’s supposed to fun. Although, I’m not sure “fun” is in her vocabulary (unless it involves winning something...I think she actually had fun winning that couples trivia game). Man, are those two hard to watch!

It was when Haley and Jake were talking on the couch without Dr Pepper. I think they had just read their letters to themselves and Jake said he would have advised himself to return the bracelet. Then she rattled off a bunch of reasons why she didn’t have it or wear it, including that she didn’t think it was a big deal and that it didn’t cross her mind. She had a few others as well. Lol. I think I might need to pop a champagne cork the second these two announce they are done. Their interactions are so full of animosity at this point, watching them is just painful.

So I watched the episode again when they reran it at some obscenely late hour while I was awake for no reason - I noticed even more flaws and inconsistencies in Haley’s statements and positions: 1. She defended her behavior regarding the bracelet by telling Jake that she “didn’t think it was a big deal” and that it “didn’t even cross [her] mind”. Then shortly thereafter she doubled down on that position by telling Dr Pepper that it didn’t even cross her mind. Yet she then complained to her mom that Jake brought up the bracelet to Dr Pepper “yet again, for the 95th time”. So which is it??? I’m thinking if Jake brought up the bracelet more than once before (never mind “94” times before, lol), how can Haley possibly argue that she wasn’t aware that it was important to him or that it never crossed her mind? She even complained to her friend just 2 weeks into the marriage that not wearing the bracelet was “apparently a huge problem for him”. Yet she still said to Jake at week 6 that she “didn’t realize that it was bothering [him] so much”. Huh??? She seems to have a tendency to twist her story to support whatever argument she is making at the moment. The problem for her is the cameras are rolling for a lot of it, so the inconsistencies are indisputable. 2. She told Jake that she received the bracelet “3 minutes” before she went downstairs to walk down the aisle, yet the footage of her opening the gift shows her draped in a black cape, without any makeup or jewelry and her hair was yet to be done. Obviously it took a whole lot more than 3 minutes for her to finish getting ready, so her “3 minute” claim was quite a stretch. Did she forget that the cameras filmed that? Anyway, how hard would it have been for her to at least take the bracelet out of the box and try it on (and realize that it was, in fact, a bracelet) while people worked on her hair and makeup? I’ve heard that people on these shows are on their best behavior at the beginning because they are acutely aware of the presence of the cameras. I’m surprised she would allow herself to reveal such indifference and lack of appreciation so soon (unless she truly is so out of touch that she really didn’t recognize that that behavior was rude and unappreciative...if that’s the case then she has way bigger problems than a MAFS divorce on the horizon). It’s gotten to the point where the cameras have caught her fabricating enough stories that it’s hard to believe anything she says at all. It’s pretty ironic that, in an effort to bolster her arguments, she has lost credibility and has actually weakened them. All of that being said, in Haley’s defense, I think the production crew might have played Haley a bit in order to draw out some of the less than perfect behavior we see from her on camera. Don’t get me wrong, at the end of the day she was the one who said what she said, so it’s on her, but I’m thinking the production team might have egged her on. Here’s my thinking: She seems to have a tendency to seek support from others during her arguments, and when she thinks she has succeeded it fuels her to dig in even deeper. For example, during their group therapy session, Haley repeatedly looked to Dr Pepper for support (with her typical “see what I’m dealing with here??” wide eyed, tilted head and extended lower jaw expression). Dr Pepper didn’t bite so she backed down from the Jake bashing during that session. But I’m willing to bet the same thing has happened with the production crew when she was complaining about or making fun of Jake. I’m thinking the crew might have gone along with it, seeing an opportunity and hoping to inspire her to say even more on camera. If that’s the case, it worked brilliantly. As another example, you can see her dig deeper and deeper after she knew she had successfully recruited her own mom to support her during ‘bracelet-gate’ (I’m betting her mom has played this role throughout Haley’s whole life). Haley had a very satisfied expression on her face when she realized she had persuaded her mom to believe that Jake was wrong. Haley often has that same satisfied (“we are all in on the joke”) expression when she’s offering side commentary straight to the camera, as if she believes that she just successfully recruited the production team to see her perspective and she thinks they’re all making fun of Jake together. But what’s really happening is the production crew has just egged her on and baited her into being rude or mean or whatever on film all by herself. It wouldn’t be the first time a reality tv crew played the cast for the sake of “good TV”. ...just a thought (a long thought!)

I don’t blame Jake for being upset about the bracelet. For Haley to not even have it in her possession shows such a lack of appreciation. It was a thoughtful gift on an important day...even if it wasn’t her style, she should have at least made an effort to get it back and wear it once or twice. That’s the polite thing to do. Especially for someone who claims to be “trying so hard”. When Jake brought it up she should have just owned it and apologized, but instead she got defensive and critical of Jake. She is straight out of Psych 101. She has an absolute inability to accept criticism, she feels compelled to fire back regardless of the strength of her argument and the bottom line is she simply has to win. Whether it’s at go carts, golf, the batting cages, even a simple argument...she needs to win. And as a result she loses sight of everything else. She got so wrapped up in the competition at the batting cages (so much so that she showed up early so she could practice by herself) that she completely lost sight of the real reason for the activity (to spend time together and have fun). And she completely missed the point that Jake was hurt by the fact that, based on her actions, it appeared that she didn’t care about his wedding gift, which he presumably further interpretEd as her not caring about the wedding, or about him. But she just wanted to point out whatever he did that she felt was on a par so she could one up him. She needs to take a minute to stop and listen to what people are saying to her rather than just turning every conversation into a battle that she must win. Learning that skill would be invaluable in her next relationship (since obviously this one is a dead end).