Week 8, The Hot Moms

Just one of many indignities suffered by the
state of Minnesota this week....

Let's hear it for the well-prepped families, huh? Not only were they a particularly well-turned-out bunch (and I think we need a special shout out for Nick's mom, Mrs. V. That did not look like a woman with 10 kids much less a woman who had 9 kids and was within spitting distance of getting them all out the door when she was blessed with a late-in-life happy accident. If that was me, I would be raising Bella instead of showing, not raising her while walking around looking like a Chico's model), but they also clearly knew exactly how this game was to be played. They revealed only the most charming of their sons' and brothers' flaws, asked Andi only the gentlest of questions about a process worthy of a dose of heavy skepticism, and ultimately, spent more time praising the remarkable woman hellbent on destroying 75% of their progeny than they did their own offspring. Less well prepped however, was Andi because:

• Poor little Bella is not 6 and Andi wasn't there to give her a high level overview of the birds and the bees. The kid's questions were amazing and, short of replacing her "r's" with "w's," Andi could not have been more condescending. No wonder the child didn't bother to take note of any of Andi's answers to report back to Nick.



That's right - the World's most dangerous polka band - from
a bar in Minneapolis. Polka is NOT a Wisconsin dance, Nick.
Minnesotans and Polish people everywhere agree!

• Saying you "grew up in the suburbs and have a lake house" isn't a terribly persuasive argument for being country.
• Sometimes, when you are a guest in a paramour's family home, the conversation isn't entirely about you. Andi truly was a bit of a brat with Josh's family. I'm sure they'll all love seeing the footage of her calling everyone but his kid sister immature, and I don't understand why she was acting like the opportunity to travel around the country and take in free NFL games wasn't totally amazing. Even if she doesn't like football, she's definitely not thinking clearly about the delicious stadium snacks.
• She couldn't even muster up the strength to pretend that she wasn't totally turned off by Marcus' overzealousness. While I can completely respect that (I was so very pleasantly surprised when his was the last visit instead of Chris), I really doubt Marcus' sister did.

Finally, obviously no one was prepared for the death of Eric Hill, and while I found myself somewhat disgusted by their coverage of it, I'm not really sure how else they could have handled it. Andi and Chris Harrison kept commenting on how this was real life which made it feel like a new level of hypocrisy that they kept the cameras running throughout and plugged it in the preview scenes as if it was just another aspect of the drama. And watching a group of virtual strangers mourn his death seems to somehow cheapen the grief enduring by his true family and friends. That being said, obviously this really happened and Andi and the gang have every right to be effected by it, so I'm not sure that ignoring or minimizing it would necessarily have been a better approach. I guess, ultimately, like everyone else, I'm sorry that he died; sorry that his death is now somehow inextricably linked to shallow discussions of vaguely trashy reality TV; and sorry that instead of celebrating his life, we're focused on how a group of people who barely knew him are coping with his death.