-This is considered “Hometown Week,” even though hometowns aren’t technically until next week – in real time. Next week is actually still left overs from this week (Michael’s self elimination), and then the “Men Tell All” show. But you get what I’m saying. Katie is gonna narrow her 7 guys down to 4 by the end of the episode. There are two guys of the seven who haven’t had a 1-on-1 date yet, Mike P. and Brendan. For those that don’t know, Brendan is a contestant on Katie’s season and has somehow made it to her top 7 without us ever being shown any of his alone time with her for more than a few seconds, without ever getting a 1-on-1, or without doing one thing memorable all season. So when the first date card arrives, naturally, it goes to Greg. “Lets see if this can really work” says the card. If you’re on this show, and one guy has gotten his second 1-on-1 before you’ve ever gotten your first, and we are at the episodes right before she’s choosing for hometowns, the writing is on the wall. You ain’t long for this show.
-Greg’s date is up first and Katie wants to recreate what it’d be like to be in Seattle. Which should be soooooo easy as they’re sitting in the middle of nowhere in Bumblef**k, New Mexico at a resort that, lets be honest, hasn’t come across great on television. I’m sure the resort is nice when you’re living on it, but it is not aesthetically pleasing on television, there’s no denying that. And I say that because none of the actual dates they’ve been on have featured anything about the resort. Nothing about it’s culture, history, etc. I can’t think of one. So many dates outside on a field of grass, or in the woods, or in a room somewhere. We haven’t seen anything the Grand Tamaya has to offer, yet, here we are on Katie and Greg’s date and they’re saying, “Hey, we haven’t shown you anything about the New Mexico culture, but lets turn this place into Seattle.” Can the Grand Tamaya get a refund or something?
-First re-enactment of Seattle is Katie wants to take Greg to Pike Place where they throw the fish around. I’ve been to Seattle once in my life and I was there less than 24 hrs. I’ve seen the fish throwing enough on TV in my life to know what they were doing, but I’ve never understood why they do that. We saw them do this on Catherine’s hometown date with Sean I believe. But it didn’t quite have the same effect with Katie and Greg as much as they tried. Greg chucked a giant fish at her and Katie dropped it. Does that mean 7 years of bad luck, or, what happens? Or is it nothing? Anyway, yeah, I’m not familiar with Seattle. I can tell you exactly when I was there. Two days before Christmas 1996. I was broadcasting the basketball game for my college and we played at UW on Dec. 23rd. I flew in the 22nd, arrived at night, we played the next night, and I flew out the morning of the 24th. I never even got to go into the city at all. Campus was nice from what I remember, but even that I didn’t see much of. We got killed. Todd McCullough and Patrick Femerling destroyed us. I just googled the score: 85-60. Full beatdown.
-Katie and Greg also ate some oysters, which, aren’t those supposed to be some kind of aphrodisiac? Then they played a little football because according to Katie, “football is big in Seattle.” And I use the term “played football” verrrrrry loosely on this date. Why? Because they were on a patch of grass, with a makeshift goal post, Katie had a football in her arms, and she just ran trying to avoid Greg. We literally saw :05 seconds of football. They did Seattle proud I tell ya’. That’s 12th Man stuff right there. You mean they couldn’t fly Russell Wilson out to New Mexico to surprise Katie and Greg? Maybe have Pete Carroll give them a pep talk? I guess they were too busy folding laundry or something.
-In between clips of this date, they showed Michael A. on the phone FaceTiming with his son James. This was clearly done to set up his departure next week. All I heard was the quote I reposted yesterday about Michael which was that he self eliminated this season and it had to do with his son. My guess is meeting family got a little too close to real for Michael, it sinks in next week, and he realizes maybe he’s not there with Katie so he leaves. Now you’re probably asking, “If Michael can’t be away from his kid for a month because it was so hard, how is he gonna do it for two months?” Well, we still don’t know if he’s for sure gonna be the “Bachelor” yet, so there’s that. Secondly, I think it’s an easy sell if it does end up being him. He’ll say basically what all the others say. It’s a process that now that he’s gone through it, he knows it can work. And I’m sure they’d make accommodations for his son in some way.
