Wonderful! - Ep. 28: A Single, Crystalline Tear

Episode Date: July 19, 2016

Hey, remember when we promised that a bad episode was working its way down the ol' Bachelorette pipeline? We found it! It was this one, the Hometowns episode, which was so full of manufactured trash that it literally made our brains bloat up with disgust. MaxFunDrive ends on March 29, 2024! Support our show now by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join.

Maybe you should go and do some contemplating. Right reasons, right reasons, being a good girl for all the right reasons. Right reasons, right reasons, being a good girl for all the right reasons. I'm the bachelorette and I'm rapping to your poolside. Here to find true love. Hi, this is Rachel McElroy. Hi, this is Griffin McElroy. And this is Rose Buddies.

This is Rose Buddies. It's a podcast where we talk about the bachelor and Bachelorette and Bachelor in Paradise. Got away from me there at the end, didn't I? I got so excited for Bachelor in Paradise, didn't I? You did. Sorry, I spent a lot of time in Burnett, Texas. Our neighbors to the east. Is it east?

Is that right? Yeah, you go out 71 east, you take that road. You're going to go past the airport, and you're going to stay on it about 30 to 35 minutes, depending on your speed of travel, of course. End up in Burnett, Texas. I don't think that's a Texas accent you're doing. Yes, it is.

It's me. I'm from Texas. So in that one sentence, there was Texas, there was Minnesota, there was Bjork, wherever she's from, Iceland. Tell me about this episode today, because it was terrible, I thought. It's funny, because I feel like I've been selling, like, terrible episodes are coming. And last week it didn't come, and then this week I feel like it was here.

I love hometowns. I love hometowns so much. Usually it's my favorite episode every season. Really? Really, dog? For sure. We've talked about this before. I love meeting the families because what you see every week is a very polished contestant. And what's nice about Hometown is you get to meet their families who often aren't so polished. But this week, everybody...

I'm going to say three out of the four families were a bunch of phony jabronis. Yeah. Everybody seemed very camera ready. I mean, not that they were all, you know... Oh, they were all super sexy. Like, super duper duper. They weren't all drop dead gorgeous, but they just seemed very poised.

Yeah. So, hometowns, if this is your first season, once we get down to the final four, the Bachelor or Bachelorette goes to the hometowns of each of the remaining contestants. That contestant plans a date, has a sit-down sesh with the family. The family either approves or doesn't approve. They trade off. The Bachelor talks to the family.

The contestant will talk to the family. And then there's usually a tearful goodbye or a confrontation and then yeah so you all remember jojo's season jojo had like the ultimate eventful hometown yes and then her mom drank wine out of the bottle and her brothers her brothers basically verbally attacked ben yeah um it was so great that was a really good one actually i'm thinking back on it yeah i don't remember who kayla 001 was in the final four jojo was in the final four and lauren b lauren b was in the final four i would give you a hundred dollars out of my wallet the fourth one was in the final four

i don't know yeah uh anyway uh it was i't know, didn't really do it for me. And I'll tell you why. I just don't really. Well, okay. I spent most of the episode just not giving a shit about any of these rat bags. But then at the end, what'd they do? They took it and they twisted it and turned it on me, didn't they? Yeah.

So also what happens this week is you have to drop down to one player. So if you're doing. Depending on the size of your league, it might have to happen. Well, but it makes sense to me if you're doing Fantasy League, no matter what, to drop down to one player so if you're depending on the size of your well but it makes sense to me if you're doing fantasy league no matter what to drop down to one uh just quick score update we thought we were killing it we did um apparently we were in second place uh and the team that was in first place took jordan who we also had so like we kind of had to default to it because because if we also took Jordan, we guaranteed lose. So we had to put our future behind Luke. Which I feel okay about.

Yeah, I don't know. Okay. Well, okay. Let's get into the episode. Okay. Who are we kicking things off with? We start out with Chase. No, see, like I actually knew who it was that we were kicking things off with.

I just couldn't remember his name or his face or anything about him. Yeah. You know what was funny was that we started out with chase on a mountain and our friends were talking about how he looked more attractive on a mountain and we all made the point that it's because there is nothing else to compare him to he finally so floating in a vacuum yeah in a completely vacant space he looks attractive because there is nothing else to look at there's probably some scientific principle that fuels that theory like the light is sucked away from him by other objects but because snow refracts the light like you can see you can finally see chase for what chase is can

i say something chase is in has been in a couple of the like post-show bloopers and in those there's like some personality there and it's the only time where i felt like i've known anything about chase up until this point because the one of the big angles of uh chase's day and this is something that i can't i've been watching now for a few a few years many seasons and i can't think of a um hometown where the contestant was a child of a divorced family where they went to two different family outings. Maybe it's happened before Ben Flajanik's season, but I don't think it's happened before.

And they certainly never talked this candidly about divorce. I don't know if usually, well, I think in past seasons, either the divorced parents still come together for the hometown because they're on good terms, or just one parent is totally out of the picture. According to Chase, it was a really bad divorce. He said there were lots of lawsuits and that the parents just like don't see each other. His dad, he says, is very important to him, but he doesn't see him that often. Yeah, and his dad apparently hurt his mother very much in the divorce. Yeah, so they hung out with dad first, and what all of our friends pointed out was the

model home from Arrested Development, essentially. They really accentuated it because there's a staircase right by the front door, and the staircase is without... Handrails. Yeah, without handrails, without any kind of carpeting or finishing on the stairs. And they're standing at that front door for a long time and you just spend all your time

because it's Chase looking at the stairs. It's seriously, no kidding, go back and watch it. It is literally the house from Arrested Development. Like I was half expecting I was half expecting Tobias funke to like come down the stairs and fall down them um um yeah so we meet his dad his dad and i don't know

if it was just the sound system we were watching on holy shit his dad is so muffled and and chase is muffled too but his dad we had, like a difficult time picking out particular words. And it's not that he wasn't, this is going to be really difficult to describe. It wasn't that he was mumbling. It was that his voice was so deep, it was vibrating the television every time he talked, so we couldn't understand what he was saying. Yeah. Can you do like an impression of it?

Maybe if I put myself behind something like, well, you know, your mother and do, like, an impression of it? Maybe if I put myself behind something, like, Well, you know, your mother and I, we, uh, you know, we, hold on a second. You know, your mother and I, we worked really hard on our relationship, but, uh, it just didn't. I mean, you're laughing at him describing his divorce, so what's so funny about that, Rachel? I'm laughing because you're speaking into a small case of nintendo

3ds cartridges yes well you could probably tell that when you listen to the audio yeah yeah i bet some of our fans that mario and luigi paper jam vibrating i knew um uh yeah his dad kind of i would say like uh maybe threw himself on the sword a little bit yeah it was a weird thing and it must have been motivated by the producers because chase jojo and chase's dad sit on the sword a little bit yeah it was a weird thing and it must have been motivated by the producers because chase jojo and chase's dad sit on the couch and chase what seems like the very first thing he says to his dad is like so what happened with mom and his dad is basically just like yeah i goofed it up and um you know probably probably goofed up my son a bit too in the process and in fact jojo actually asked him on the mountain, like, do you think that's why, like, you don't exhibit any emotions or opinions or any. Or interests or expressions.

And he's like, oh, yeah, that's actually exactly, yes, exactly, yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah. So they have a quick hang sesh with the dad and then go to the rest of the family. The dad tells Chase, chase yeah she's got a real head on her shoulders about jojo i don't know what that means yes didn't even say like a good head on her shoulders as the expression typically goes just she has a head and it's right there sits on a neck that is attached to her shoulders um the the rest of the family included chase's uh sister and her yeah so nighttime belongs to mom they go to mom's house um the night belongs to mama oh i should say that the

dad is remarried and the mom is also remarried uh and so when they go to the mom's house, it's his sister and his sister's husband, his sister's son, and what I called new dad. New dad who did not get much camera time. No, did not. By which I mean literally none. No, we spent a lot of time with Sandy, which was his mom. Him and Sandy had some nice interactions. They both elicited a single tear from each other yes yes at which his mom seemed really disappointed by his mom goes on to say you know that she's so

proud of him and you know that he's the most amazing son and one tear falls out of his eye um and she's like you suck that tear right back up into that duck yeah she said something like oh you know we don't this isn't our style crying yeah um i made the joke that after that one tear chase had to recuperate for 48 hours and drink a gallon of water yeah you had to like slam a gatorade just to rehab from that one moment of expression if you'd captured it in a crystal vial you could have drank it to dispel any poisons. Or save all the petals from falling off the rose. Mm-hmm.

That one too. It's weird because his sister said the same thing. Like, you know, we don't really have emotions or talk about them at all. I wonder if that's why I find Chase so, like, unmemorable or if it's just that, I don't know. Well, he just doesn't ever seem especially excited or upset or amused. When he was talking about, like, coming from a family divorce and, like, how difficult it was for him, I was like, I think this is actually the first thing I actually know about Chase.

And it's a horrible thing to say but like it's the first like foothold i got in mount chase because i didn't know i i couldn't have told you literally anything about him up to that point well i mean think about how much we know what's his job what was his job oh it probably tells us at the bottom of the screen this is what i'm saying but we don't even bother to look. I'm not saying he's a bad dude or whatever. I'm just saying, like, and maybe it's just all been in the edit. Like I said, some of those bloopies is real fun.

Well, and it's not like we know a lot about the other guys, but when I think of the other guys, I can kind of figure out why she's into him, or into the guys in particular. But with Chase, it just seems like she must be attracted to him like i can't think of another thing she has to grab onto there um who next though was there anything else that happened on this date they said i mean they they traded the well yeah the

only thing i wrote down because we found it funny is his mom is kind of debriefing with chase on her impressions um and about jojo she says uh jojo loves dogs hates fish as if that was like i don't know how that came up but his mom seemed to like that about her um i will say wherever they were was the most romantic place i've ever seen. Oh, yeah. The house. It's somewhere in Colorado, so it's all snowy and nice and pretty. And they had this little outdoor ski lift turned into a bench that they were sitting on.

Yeah. It looked really nice. We gotta get to Colorado, babe. I know. Well, I know why you want to go to Colorado. Why's that, babe? Chiefin'. Oh, I get it. Chiefin' the doobers yeah i could also then

why don't i want to go to washington or you know any of the other places where that's legal maybe well you're also a big snowboarder i love three things getting high and snowboarding while listening to john denver is john denver from just going to say, you're making a leap there. Is he from Colorado because his name is John Denver? Probably not, right? Yeah, I don't think that can be true. Hey, but I, hey, for real though, can I tell you something, my bride?

I've thought that my whole life. Like, I've always thought of like, Jimmy Buffett is from Florida. Duh. From Buffett, Florida. No, he's just like he is florida he's a human manifestation of the state of florida john denver is from colorado anybody else oh i'm desperately trying to think of somebody right now me too george washington was from washington so that one's an easy one that was a that was a i thought we were just doing singer songwriters oh um okay

um michael jackson was from jackson mississippi yeah that one's good i think that might be it paul simon was from you know simon there's probably a city called simon somewhere yeah um that was it for Chase. Chase. I genuinely forgot, too. I did, too. I had a few beers. Next up, though, was Jordan.

Jordan. Jordan, the old reliable. Jordan currently lives in Nashville, but we go to his hometown of Chico, California. And what do we do first thing? We go to his high school. Of course. Much like Ben. Didn't we go to Ben's high school?

Probably. I don't know. Yeah. So he played for the Pleasant Valley Vikings. And we meet his JV football coach. We meet his Spanish teacher. They go to the library, and they kiss. They go to the gym and look at pictures of Jordan

as a football player up on the wall. So they also reference but did not show pictures of Aaron, Roger. Yeah, JoJo gestures towards one wall that's off camera and says, oh, isn't that your brother? And Jordan's like, oh, yeah. And that was it. We didn't get to see the picture. This was the date where, like, I feel like Jojo was trying to get this thing to come to bear, like, this Aaron Rodgers thing going to meet the family man it was maybe their tersest most

uncomfortable most like most jordan shutting shit down interaction yet yeah where she was like so aaron like isn't gonna be there and he's like yeah he won't be there but it won't like he kept like trying to get one sentence ahead of her and every they're sitting out on the bleachers outside of the high school and she like tries to bring it up again and he's like he says quote it doesn't need to be a topic it doesn't need to be the top it doesn't need to be a top he just like said it like over and over again um and he was like oh it won't come up i'll tell them that i told you about it though yeah like what the fuck is happening in this family our friend ch Chris thinks that this is all conspiracy theory, that there's been some. I mean, I haven't done too deep a dive on the Bloids since this big revelation.

Yeah, me either. But he says that there's been some social media pictures of him and Aaron just training together, hitting the gym. Yeah, I think Chris saw something on Jezebel that made it seem like this is all a big hoax and that Jordan and Aaron are actually close. But then there's also information out there saying that like Olivia Munn has driven some kind of wedge in their family. I mean, there's any number of things Aaron Rodgers has yet to comment on it. He tweets weird things during The Bachelor. Do you know about this? No, I don't. I will also say, when they do get to the Rogers' home, they're sitting near a family photo, and there's a face blurred out. And we couldn't decide if the blurred out face was Aaron, and that they had decided to remove him so much from the episode that they weren't even going to show his face in a family photo.

He tweeted at the fictional Twitter account account for shooter mcgavin who is of course i'm pretty sure the golfer from um oh happy gilmore happy gilmore uh about uh something about going to sizzler during while his brother was on national television dragging his fucking name through the mud it It's like, bro, turn on the TV, bud. Check it out. Yeah. Yo, A-Rod. Put it on Channel 8, dog.

I want to tweet at him and just be like, bud. Put it on ABC right now, dude. Because your family's on TV and they're talking mad shit about you, dog. And you're tweeting about Sizzler with a fake fictional Twitter account from a movie character that Adam Sandler did. From what I can tell, JoJo never talks to the parents about it, really. She does talk to Jordan's brother. Luke, whose name is also Luke, which is very confusing. Yeah, whose name is also Luke.

And he says something like, we don't talk about it. And he says something like, we don't talk about it. Can you imagine if, like, Justin or Travis was on The Bachelor and saying, like, oh, we don't talk to Griffin anymore. Not since he stole our family's diamonds and sold them for crack and then gave the crack to kids. That would be more of an explanation, though. But then the whole time I was tweeting, like, dude, just watch the craziest diners drive-ins and dives that would be more of an explanation though like if they gave any kind of acknowledgement as to why this rift had occurred uh so we meet his mom and his brother and his dad uh and i mentioned she talks to the brother a little bit about... Is his other brother not a footballman?

I don't think so. There's never been any suggestion that he played football. That must have been a fucking horrible rearing. Yeah, right? Like, let's get into that rearing. I want to know more about Luke, the false Luke. But Jordan has a lot of confidence in Lukeke's opinion says that luke reads people really well um and luke seems pro jojo can i be honest with you this was the part of the date i

didn't really watch very well because for my friends oh yeah for your friends what did you make my friends what did you make tonight i'm glad you asked what you what i made for your friends? What did you make? For my friends. What did you make tonight, Griffin? I'm glad you asked what I made for my friends. No big deal. Just a blueberry cobbler. Put a little bit of Jenny's ice cream. A little bit of lemon blueberry buttermilk. Ice cream on the side with a cobbler.

Sweet, sweet, buttery cobbler on the side. That's what I made for my friends. It was delicious. Everybody raved friends it was delicious everybody raved about it everybody kept raving about it and they did it in like a waterfall where somebody like that was really good and i said thank you and somebody else would be like that was really good like thank you and i feel like they were harassing me but for my friends i'll allow myself to be harassed i don't think i like jordan ro anymore. Hey, Griffin, though, that cobbler. Thank you, baby.

It was really good. Thank you. I don't think I like the contestant on The Bachelor at Jordan Rodgers anymore. I feel like I didn't like him for a while because I thought he was being, I thought he was like the weirdest person ever when confronted with anything, and then I started to like him more because I thought

he was funny and charming, and now I think he's the, like, really, really a big, big weirdo when confronted with any sort of friction whatsoever. Yeah. At the end of the day, Jojo brings up the point to us, the viewer, that Ben, like Jordan, told her everything that she wanted to hear. And that still didn't result in her you know getting the relationship and so she just still seems kind of skeptical of jordan and he even goes the extra step to comfort her when she's leaving and saying don't doubt this um and and she's like well i just you know i'm just scared of being hurt and then she's driving away does this little monologue of just like

i don't know what else to do i don't know what else to tell her yeah you can calm down it it's like you know how it seemed like they had so much chemistry at the beginning now it just seems like there's this weird assumption that they're going to end up together and neither of them is particularly excited about it anymore yeah that's a good way of putting it. It's just like, oh, well, I guess this is it for us. I guess we're getting ready to start a relationship. But not only that, I didn't care for this date so much because Jordan is like this big pseudo-controversial figure, right? And this was the most boring date by like...

I hate when people bring a contestant back to their high school it's so much it is so telling look at all the pictures of me that there are on like this town is bullshit you know where i'm gonna bring you the place that made me who i am your high school like is there nowhere else to go in your town? Wasn't it like a skate park you used to get drunk on 40s with your 18-year-old friends with? Plus, you're in your mid to late 20s now. Did nothing in between happen that seems also telling about who you are as a person? Like, is this... Not only that, it's like the first person you meet is coach.

Yeah. And I'm not saying... And JV coach, too. yeah and i'm not saying jv coach too yeah like i i'm not saying that like sports can't be of course sports is like a hugely influential thing to your upbringing or whatever and if that really is like the biggest thing you got going for you that's fine but like i can't decide does jordan want to seem like more than a footballman or does he recognize that's the biggest thing he has to offer? Do the producers of The Bachelor ever want him to seem like more than a footballman? Because they plan no fewer than three football dates. Yeah, I don't know. I am definitely less

excited about Jordan. I mean, granted, he is... I feel like we're all just getting force-fed Jordan. Everyone is just force-feeding us Jordan with this weird glaze of, like, his strained brother, his strained relationship with his extremely famous brother. And that's a hard sell. And I don't know that there is a way to sell it. I started to wonder if, I don't, I'm really curious about it. Usually at this point they start grooming who the Bachelor is going to be. And, you know, I kind of speculated, you know, Jordan doesn't win, maybe it's Jordan.

But I almost feel, see, either they're setting up this family drama so that we can explore it more in his season of The Bachelor. Or they're just trying to get us to cool on Jordan because he doesn't win and they want us to get over it. I mean, here's my, here's where I'm at. because he doesn't win and they want us to get over it i mean here's my here's where i'm at i think jordan is of no entertainment value to anybody if he wins this season of the bachelorette i'm gonna go on a limb right here and say jordan does not win this season of the bachelorette if he is chosen by jojo he walks away from it or something. Something happens that will keep Jordan from winning. Why do you say that? I think he's got humongous potential and wants to cash in on the potential of being the next Bachelor and being on television for another season and being the focal point of another season of television.

I'm saying that has to be the logic. So what? Jordan wins and then they date for two months, and then split up? Yeah, and you know what? It'd be such a potentially explosive season, because women would come from all over the country and get really excited about him being the Bachelor. Yeah, for sure.

He'd look good on the front of a magazine it's just like but i just like him less and less i know we can't be the only ones because like you and i fucking hate that like you're i i don't like being i'm i'm totally understanding this show is you know reality he's the anti wells there's a reality writer behind it right that is like not so much telling them what to say but coordinating the events in a certain way and like we understand that and sometimes i think that's delightful if it is coordinated in a way that is amazing or like the show gets away from those coordinators and you have to like watch them scramble to try and put something back together that's fine but this is just fucking

lazy like to to put it in non-reality television show terms jordan everything that is happening to jordan right now ultimately ending in his ascension to the throne of the next bachelor is lazy fucking writing yeah and that's what we have like no that's very possible they spent a lot of time building the love story and then they felt like okay that's done now i guess we should focus on the other guys to make it seem like he has some competition and they just stopped doing anything for jordan yeah i don't know i'm i'm i i could give a shit anyway let's let's get on to robbie uh in the one we've all been waiting for in florida robbie with his florida ensemble and his florida lifestyle and his florida horse and buggy what yeah yeah the date opens with him asking jojo to whistle and when she does a horse and carriage

shows up that's what they have for uber in florida they yeah they ride in the horse and carriage and saint saint well they start out in saint aug Augustine and they end up in Jacksonville. I guess the proximity is reasonable. Named for Randy Jackson. We already did a Jackson one. We did. Damn it. You and I both noticed that when they were sitting in that horse and carriage situation,

their hands were very close to his his genitals ding dong like really tugging feverishly at it he like was holding her hand but strategically holding her hand in his over those those robbie nuts is that like a is that like a guy's trick that you learn it's a pervert's trick yeah for sure but you learn like i'm gonna get this girl to hold my hand and i'm gonna put her hand maneuver it towards the business no It's a pervert's trick. Yeah, for sure. That you learn, like, I'm going to get this girl to hold my hand and I'm going to put her hand. Maneuver it. In the spot. Towards the business.

No, that's a sex. That's like not good. That's not a good thing to do. No. Like ethically, morally, legally. Legally. It's really bad. But I don't know.

Then they go to a restaurant on the water. And this is when Jojo is going to dig into the breakup that he had very recently. Very recently, y'all. So what was the time? At what point of the year, like what month, were hometowns being filled? It is July right now, realistically. Like, what? Well, there's snow in Colorado.

Is there always snow in Colorado? Yeah, in certain places. Okay. It's July right now. It could not be any earlier than April, right? Yeah, okay. April to May, let's say. Okay, this is grim.

The only time that I can think of that we have an absolute definitive pin was the season where the guy died. The guy died in the hang gliding accident. Yeah. Because we found out about that. Was that Caitlin's or no? It was. It was Andy.

I can't remember. I think it was Andy's season. Evan was the guy? I cannot remember the guy's name. No, I don't remember. I think it might have been eric um but he passed away in a hang gliding accident and he had been on the show very very recently and so we found like america found out about it because this guy died and then there was a period of like four or five weeks right like four or five episodes and then

they found out about it on the show yeah it was it was a big special episode. So maybe it's even less time. Maybe it's like a month and a half or so, like maybe two months behind. Yeah, I don't know. He says at this point, where these hometowns are being filmed, that it had been four months since his relationship, right? So it was three months. Regardless but yeah that relationship ended and then the show fucking started yeah thinking about the casting process the casting process has to take a month at the very least right it's hard to believe that he didn't begin the casting process before he had broken up with his girlfriend that's what it seems like like to to send in the VHS, you know, tape. The VHS, mm-hmm.

They talk more about the timetable later on, but it's like, it is mind-boggling to think about. Like, because he's like, no, no, I didn't break up with her for the show. It's like, are you sure, dog? Because like math tells me that you maybe did. Yeah, Robbie keeps saying, oh, oh, it's very much a part of my past and it's staying there. And she's like, yeah, but it's so recent.

It's not the past, bud. Yeah. And he's like, oh, that's not going to come up. It's not going to come up. And so she doesn't exactly seem satisfied by this. And so, of course, it comes up again several times. Later on, yeah. But we go to his house.

We meet his mom, his dad, who he calls Coach Hayes. That's good. That's just good, clean fun. His two sisters and his two brothers. He says the most upsetting thing. It's a big family. He says, I love to watch JoJo interact with my family. I find it so attractive.

Yeah. Did you find it attractive when I met your family? Yes, this attracts me, I said, as you shook my brother's and dad and stepmother's hand. Yes, I am attracted. Shake their hand slower is what you said. I thought it was weird. It's like, why is he saying that? Salutate one another.

Make small talk. Pass her the mustard. Pass that dirty mustard. Oh. Yes. No. No. Scoop her out some some potatoes i'm attracted to all of this tell her your parents names

i'm attracted is that a horse, Winnie? Mm-hmm. Yeah, that sounds right. So they drink out of these big plastic goblets of wine. Oh, these are so good. Which are fun. I think those were Tervis tumblers. My dad and grandmother on my dad's side were obsessed with these cups called Tervis tumblers.

And they were just little cups that had like a cup inside of a cup and it was like see-through so you could see through it and the like inner chamber in between the two cups was vacuum sealed and so it like kept your drinks colder longer oh i think that's what it was except they're these like weird goblet versions of it and i think it makes sense because i think turvist tumblers are made in florida wow a lot there this show is brought to you by turvist tumb. We don't own any. We might. I think I might have gotten rid of the couple that I had.

But they keep that ice in there going forever. You should keep your Vitamin Water Zero in there. Yeah, so I'm working on Vitamin Water Zero. We have a good... Until I break down my relationship right now with my beverage, I feel like things are going really well between me and Vitamin Water Zero. Last week, I met Vitamin Water Zero's brother, beverage like i feel like things are going really well between me and vitamin zero um last week i met vitamin water zero's uh uh brother which was like a pink lemonade vitamin water zeros with like strawberry flavors and i i enjoyed it i enjoyed it i enjoyed it yeah things are going

well there we didn't have that like instant spark that i had with super i should put the bottle outside if i'm gonna talk shit about it but like with super wise here was just like all passion all like it was just burning white hot there's your luke it was my luke yeah um but then luke's family killed him by which i mean hgb canceled the product that i adored so much tell me about robbie's family like how Like, what even are they? Well, so JoJo talks to Robbie after their convo and says, Hey, Robbie, I think you should know that there's this rumor out about your ex. Oh, can I say one thing about JoJo and Robbie's mom's conversation?

Yeah. JoJo tells Robbie's mom that she's falling in love with Robbie. She does, you're right. And that's buck wild. Because you're not allowed to do that to the contestants, right? Even though Ben did it to JoJo and Lauren B last season. It was very convenient because I didn't think that Robbie had a shot at all until that moment happened. And then I was like, oh.

I was like, yeah, what? Well, maybe. that moment happened and then i was like oh yeah what well maybe it was so weird because it's the first thing we've gotten from jojo with with mentioning her like affection towards these boys and like no uncertain terms and like she laid it all out on the line for the mom which to me seems like an even rougher maneuver than just telling the contestant outright because now you're getting the family involved in like a real big way you know what i mean like i would rather tell a contestant like i think i'm falling in love with you then tell their dad like hey i think i'm falling in love with your son and then like a week later be like i guess not

oops yeah that's a big move yeah it was weird okay anyway the rumors the boys anyway anyway so and it's unclear what motivates like whether there's a tabloid out at this point or something on the internet at this point that his mom has seen but his mom says oh you should know that there's there's rumors out there about you having broken up with your ex to go on the show and she's like you know we know that's not true but i just wanted you to know that i feel like they didn't even say rumors. Like, this season has been the season of them not knowing how to handle the fact that people are talking about this show outside of the show. Except for the one episode where they did literally pick up a bloid while they were all getting their haircuts and confronted JoJo about it, which was very meta.

haircuts and like confronted jojo about it which was like very meta but this this like i think that's what bothers me the most about this aaron rogers thing is like they have to tiptoe around the fact that this is a television show and that there's real things happening in the in the world and like everybody knows who aaron rogers is and this was the same situation where they were just like there's just something out there but they can't say like there's been rumors in u.s weekly in people in it's usually called us weekly i do that every fucking time that's that's like the third time i've done that on this podcast yeah i know it's kind of cute though i like it but they're covering the americas there's something out there on p-e-o-p-l-e magazine well i'm not an imbecile of course it wouldn't be called that um yeah i it just smacks of producer involvement it just seems like so

weird like oh my son's in town with this woman he's dating i'm gonna pull him aside and i'm gonna tell him this specific drizzling with bloid. Yeah. But Robbie gets really upset about it and so he leaves the conversation with the mom and goes and interrupts sister chat with JoJo on the bed and says, you know, I need to talk to you. I would have loved to be a fly in that Tervis Tumblr. What, in sister chat? In sister chat.

Just sisters talking about stuff. Yeah. Robbie gets very, very defensive. Just like gets very and very very quiet like robbie shares what he calls chatter um about this this ex's roommate there's been a little bit of um scuttlebutt and i know that you've been upset by this flimflam in the past so i just really wanted to get out ahead of it uh and so joe's just like you know it scares the shit out of me all i have is my trust and then she's like come come forward now did you break up with her to come on the show you know just tell me now uh and robbie says no no no

no his okay he doesn't exactly just say no what he says is our relationship ended nine months ago and it just kept going so it's like okay i totally like i get it he explains that like they got in an argument and she slapped him and like that their relationship had not been the same after that which like yeah i totally get but it also introduces this new timeline of like okay so there were nine months that actually makes way more sense did you like put in the tape during that nine month period yeah that's what it sounds like if you did if it was just like i was in a relationship that i realized was bad and i thought i needed to change and so yeah i put in the application tape thinking it wasn't going to happen. But then when I did, I thought it was a sign.

And I thought, like, this is my opportunity to get out of this abusive relationship and into something much healthier. Fucking say that. Say that. I know. And that's the thing about Robbie is that it always seems like he's holding back, you know? And so she continues to be a little bit suspicious.

And he, even though he always denies it never really makes me feel better i what's weird is i think there's something like romantic to if that's the truth i think there's something sweet about that like yeah i was in a shit relationship and so just like i on a whim i tried out for this show and then when i found out i made it i left this horrible relationship and just thought i'd give this a chance. And it worked out. Look at us. That's really romantic. Yeah.

Say it. If it's true, say that. If that's the situation, say it. I don't get it, man. I don't get Robbie. I do not get Robbie. He gets, like, both times that he talked about this ex with her, he got, like, really terse, like, Jordan terse. talked about this this ex with her he got like really terse like jordan terse well and jojo makes this great point because she's like you know when i came out of a four-year relationship

and presumably went on the bachelor myself she's like i wish i had taken some time for myself you know to really process what had happened um and it just seems like robbie gets so defensive and uncomfortable like it's very clear that that hasn't happened for him either yeah he hasn't he hasn't figured out how to feel about it that's a weird thing that happens sometimes on this show where like it it's undeniably real and bad like the thing that has happened to this person is like genuinely real and bad and it's not play acting happened to this person is like genuinely real and bad. And it's not play acting for the cameras.

And it's not a producer like cajoling the situation. Like Robbie is still very, very upset about this thing. And it's not like a, a make, a make believe story time thing. He's very upset about it. And,

and, and I don't know, it's weird to watch the producers try to produce their way around like what is essentially like a real um i don't know rough thing that happened to this real person yeah so she she leaves robbie's town uh and it's they seem to have kind of patched things up yeah um but we're still not sure how much that interaction impacted her and her feelings about him. Yeah.

So, so far, we've seen three families that have been, like, they've been fine. The only thing I liked up to this point was Chase's, like, little moment with his mom. That was genuinely very sweet. Yeah. Yeah, it was nice to see Chase have a human emotion. But I will say, yeah, there's no loose cannons.

There's no colorful family members. There's no, you know, inappropriate moment. Yeah. Just pretty basic stuff. And then we get to Luke. And then we go to Burnett, Texas to see Luke. Burnett, Texas, just down the road. 40 men and it's down off 71.

You're really tapping into something, I think. Rachel and I basically got married in Burnett. That's not true. Basically. In Pastrup. Oh, shit. Oh, this whole time I felt completely confused, haven't I? Yes.

Oh, ding dang it. Where's Burnett then? That's what I was asking you. Oh, shit birds. Fuck. Probably like West Texas, right? I don't know. It's not far from Central Texas

because I feel like it shows up on highway signs when we're driving. Yeah, Burnett, Texas. It's about a 45-minute drive northwest of here. All right, I was wrong, okay? Puppeteer's near a fig. Oh, there it is. So we see Luke. He's walking down a railroad track

we see a shot of a train moving and then we see a shot of luke walking down a railroad track which is maybe the clumsiest edit of the season because everybody in the room like instinctively was like no luke get out of the way move uh jojo comes out uh wearing uh her denim and her boots the boots that he gave her yeah the boots that he gave her which i didn't even make the connection at first but i thought was sweet um and then they have just like a uh what do they do first they just like get in a truck and drive around they quote stroll around the square yeah andett, Texas. And then they get in a big truck and drive up on the grass to an outdoor picnic. It's like a season out of Unreal. And the outdoor picnic, the family is there.

So the date is come hang out with my family and literally everybody that lives in Burnett, Texas. Yeah, we find out his mom, dad, sister are there and quote 50 friends. And I loved it, man. I like it was so I was so charmed by it. Like he knew everybody at that party and like went through just like explaining like who everybody was to her. He sat down with the dad of show. Dad of the year. Yeah.

Such a good daddy. Just a sweet old dad in a cowboy hat, just sitting on a porch, talking to his son about love. Just talking to him about how he knew when he was traveling a lot for work, and one time he traveled and he didn't come back for a while, and when he came back, he realized, like, this is the woman I want to spend my life with. He said, quote, gosh, I can't live live without her they've been married for 38 years he's got wearing this big white hat he's got this just soft sweet face he says i'm thankful for you and for who you are and that you served our country and that you got back safe and sound and then he started to tear up oh and he was like i love you oh and here like a country man

hearing two countrymen say that they love each other is maybe the best like words that could be talked by people all of a sudden luke stoicism seemed like just like stoicism not like it's not like boring it's not him being boring and like not interesting it's that he's like this like stoic ass texas dude like his dad like oh my god everything kind of clicked all at once this dad was primo yeah like one of those meaning him attracted me very bad they don't make dads like that anymore they just don't make them like this anymore yeah um they have a nice nice picnic play some bagos or as we say corn in the den corn in the haze in the barn i never heard it called bagos until i met you it sounds made up to me um i think it might just be i think chicago is where they call

them bagos there's like a place in in the Midwest they call them bagos. And once I found out that somebody called them bagos, it became exclusively the only thing I could remember. Okay, because they don't say it. Because you know why? Cornhole is so blue. I know, I don't like it either. Bagos isn't great, but it's certainly better than cornhole, which is essentially asshole, the game. Butthole.

Let's go play butthole. Bags in the butthole let's go play butthole bags in the butthole pigs in the castle pigs in the castle um man what a good dad so uh things wind down he says he's got one more surprise for her yeah they they get on horses uh becomes another horse date this little dog follows them out on the trail. It's a good dog, too. It's a real good dog. I think it's the dad is some sort of wood elf who can take on the form of a familiar.

Do you think maybe? Oh, probably. A lot of wood elves behind the pine curtain. That's to the east of us, isn't it? Damn it. Okay. I've lived in Texas for like four years. I don't know fuck all about it.

Five years. Five years, dang. Almost. Five years this month. Yikes. I just don't know anything about it. What's a big state? Yeah.

So they go out into this arrangement of hay bales that's been fashioned like a couch. And there's like pillows and a blanket on it. And maybe the prettiest sunset I've ever seen. Yeah. And he says things like, I'm sitting in front of someone I'm falling for. I want this future. I want us. And there's a sunset.

And she cries a little bit and says, having to leave you makes me so sad. It's just overwhelming. And then there's another location. A third location. There's flowers arranged into a heart and there's candles. And then they play some song that I guess is by Dan and Shay that was also played on an earlier date. We did a lot of research on that. We did a lot of Googling.

It's a weird thing. I have one more thing to show you. Look, I made a little heart in the ground. I gotta lay the flowers out and it makes a heart. Are you gonna tell me you love me? No, I am not. Yeah, he doesn't say it. There's flowers on the ground, though, and they make a shape.

And if you look over there, I made a star. And then here's a horseshoe. The music swellss and it just occurred to me in that moment nobody else got music why is why is luke getting music we thought he's gonna win the bachelorette we thought at first that this was luke singing this date was like the most interesting date luke's had it's the most character luke has had i like everybody in the room like you went around and it's just like, who are you rooting for now? Luke, Luke, Luke, Luke, Luke.

There's a good sales pitch for Luke, who will win the Bachelorette because Jordan won't, and Jordan will become the next Bachelor. Yeah, but that all comes into question in a few minutes. This next fucking scene, I am like, I've been pondering since we walked back over to our house, and, like, I literally can't, like... I know, I'm gonna think about it.

No, I'm not gonna think about it. I'm gonna,'m gonna like fuss over it because i thought it was so fucking stupid so it's rose ceremony time we're in an airplane hangar there's a suggestion that the final contestants will get on that plane and fly off to their next destination um but everybody's all dressed up. They're in their suits. And Jojo's really nervous. And she's telling us the viewer that she's sick to her stomach. And she's crying a little bit. And she says, I have these four great guys. It's really hard for me to side. And then she says, and I think I need to say goodbye to luke she says i think i know what i need to do i think i'm gonna say goodbye to luke which is like put a pin in that okay and think about how fucking bonkers that is for them to say before a rose like usually if

this happens they excuse them before the rose ceremony right if they've made up their mind they tell the camera then that person's gone they just send them home before the rose ceremony it's not what this was this is there at the rose ceremony and before right before she answered the rose just says who she's going to kick off okay we know like okay then luke's not going home right and and sure enough luke stops her and grabs her before she starts handing out the roses luke interrupts the rose ceremony and jordan's kind of peeved about it he's like you know you had all day the whole day something didn't go exactly perfectly my way. And then Luke says, I want to be sure that you know where I stand.

My heart is yours. And when you left, and this is a callback to what his dad says. Like, when you left, I've been thinking about you and thinking about us. And I'm in love with you. And it's been the only thing on my mind. And JoJo says, you know, I've been wanting to hear this from you. Thank you for telling me that and then she exits the conversation walks out into the runway and just seems to start freaking out

like what am i gonna do i feel sick to my stomach okay and then to be continued to be let's talk about the two possibilities that this scene sets up okay okay the first possibility i mean it's not the possibility this is what fucking happened because they don't shoot those in the moment interviews where she like the one where she said she's going to send luke home until after the thing has already happened that's just how linear time works and how production works right like it has to be because like why else would they say it why else would they say it? Why else would she say it, which has never happened before, without knowing that, like, something was about to happen that would undo the whole thing, right? That's phony, phony, fake bullshit.

It's not like she shot that ahead of time and said, I'm going to send Luke home tonight. And then Luke says, I love you to her. And she says, well, dang. What happened was Luke said, I love you to her. And then they folded in this whole thing of, well, I was going to send Luke home, but I don't know. But if that's the case, then the only reason she was going to send Luke home was because he hadn't said I love you to her. And if that's the criteria, what the fuck are any of them doing there? Is it just like he's the easy one to send home because he didn't say the password that you need to stay on the show?

So wait, you said there were two scenarios. Did you list both of them i think it was actually maybe one scenario because it has to be it has to be that luke's does that does this surprise i love you and then they artificially create this drama where she was going to send him home but now that he said the magic words then no you're right for the cliffhanger it's so fucking stupid. And it's the laziest ride. It's so lazy. Yeah, so we find out next week is going to be a two-night

um, what do they call those things? Like a two-night festival of roses. Race of time. Yeah, I don't know. Monday night is going to be an actual episode, and then Tuesday is going to be the Men Tell All. And just as a reminder, Men Tell All is when all the contestants come back and they air their grievances tell all the things it's going to be very live tv show type format so our next episode

will be a day late because we're going to watch both things um i just want to like elocute my problem with this episode with the ending of this episode i would rather have a boring episode like i would rather have a boring episode like i would rather have a boring straightforward just like send home chase send home robbie whatever send home luke even but this like this show is getting worse about this where it's just like every episode has to have every fucking episode not even a cliffhanger every episode has to have this big shocking moment which i guess is like maybe good because like then at least something happens in each episode. And it's not completely boring.

But when they whiff it like they did on this episode, I feel like fucking insulted. Like I don't usually feel bad that this show is constantly talking down to me. But like this is the most this is the worst I think it's been all season. Well, you know what I think has made us a little bitter, bitter too is that every season they try and build up this big conflict like the bachelor bachelorette is never certain who they're gonna pick until the very last minute last season was the first season where they fucking nailed it where they fucking killed it it was such a good season gave that to them ben gave that to them i don't care who does it like they they got it they got it on the camera and it was very very good this season they don't got it they super duper don't got it and only that they had these conflicting narratives it was like everybody they had this

huge swing episode for luke and everybody's rooting for luke and now all of a sudden he was like this weird sacrificial lamb and like how do you as an audience how are you supposed to root for luke knowing that she was about to send him home? But then he said, I love you. And it's like, well,

you said the, you said those three words and we're all idiots here. So that's unfair to her and Luke of just being like, oh, you, you were reduced to this, like 10 seconds here on the runway. Cause that makes me think like anybody could have gone.

If Jordan hadn't said, I love you up to this point. you didn't say it i don't care how long how well we get along and how much chemistry we have with you because i'm certain all four of them don't have equal amounts of chemistry but it's just like oh you didn't say the love words yeah and meanwhile jojo has never given us the viewer any reason to think that was super important to her you know like she wanted them to be open and share their feelings but she never was like i'm really waiting on luke to say those those l words this show has formulas and those formulas are immutable and but and one of those formulas is when do i say i love you to the person right and i feel like when those formulas are like way too obvious like they were tonight like

the words i love you can be be a ticket to stay on this show unless you're Alex. And tonight was just, like, it was just such a flagrant, I don't know. It was so stupid. Like, I already didn't really care about any of these relationships, and now we're just playing Calvin ball out there. So who do you think goes home?

I think Robbie goes home i think i think robbie goes home okay i think robbie goes home i think chase goes home next i think luke wins it i think jordan's the next bachelor it is the only thing that makes sense to me yeah i'm gonna agree with you i i i don't know if she's going to send Robbie home because of the ex-girlfriend thing. I know it's going to seem like that. But yeah, if she hasn't gotten rid of Chase yet, I don't know what about this week would have made her want to get rid of him. They just continue to be at the exact same place, and she seems to be okay with it. I would switch Chase and Robbie in the order if she hadn't told Robbie's mom that she was, like, falling in love with him. That's bonkers. Yeah.

Love-hate relationship with this show sometimes. I feel like it's been a great season, and I knew that the highs were going to be high and that the lows were going to be low, and this was a low for me yeah i do have sympathy for the show just in that chad gave them so much easy material and now they're really they're almost rusty in how they put together an episode it seems like it's well they don't but at this point you got to have that romance right you got to have romance at this point like last season i was genuinely i thought ben and jojo were cute together and that's like it's almost nothing but it's like enough and i thought like him and lauren b were cute together and so like part of me you got to have that element to it as stupid and silly as it sounds like as funny as we're having a lot of fun here folks but like that is a genuinely important element to this show.

Yeah, for sure. Anybody who says otherwise is like is lying to try and sound cool and cynical. Yeah, like you can play the fantasy game like we do where you're trying to get points, but ultimately. In your heart of hearts, you have a favorite relationship on the show. Yeah, you have a story you like. And there isn't one. No. And the only way, and this, what pisses me off is that this episode, they started to make one with Luke.

And then they fucking burned it with this stupid, completely artificial conflict in the last scene. So dumb. Yeah. So that was this week. Next week again, two-parter. So our show will go up on Wednesday. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. I'm from Barnett. Hey, guys, thanks to everybody in Boston that came up to me and Griffin and talked about how much they like Rose Buddies. Yeah, that was really sweet and really nice. Oh, we need to check the P.O. Box. We should do that on show days so we know how to thank people. Thank you all for all the things you sent us. Again, it's P.O. Box 66639,

Austin, Texas, 78766. Thanks to everybody who's been leaving a review on iTunes and talking about the show on Twitter and everybody in the Facebook group. Holy shit, like today, like one hour into the episode, Rachel checked the Facebook group

and the live Facebook thread had like 600 comments on it. Like almost 700. It was bonkers. Yeah, I don't even know where it's at now. The Rose Buddies Facebook group is popping off constantly. It's a great place to be. Thank you for listening to Rose Buddies. I'm Rachel McElroy. I'm Griffin McElroy. When you're ready.

Final Rose. Stay with us on this journey of joy. Spoiler alert! She is up with Soulja Boy!