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Remember this?
Hey ‘Gasmii! I bet you forgot that this show was still on! I almost did! I mean, they swamp us with episodes one week and leave us in the lurch the next. And now we’re supposed to act like everything’s all normal again? Wait, it IS all normal again? Oh, okay.
Let’s hit it.
Our cold open this week is a regular day at the office. Destin’s letting Patti know that they’re probably getting married in NYC. (Destin and Rachel, that is. He’s not somehow alerting Patti that SHE is marrying him very soon. Wouldn’t that be a hoot? “Sorry, Sin Halo! Daddy needed to marry the boss!”) Nothing in LA made ‘em happy, reception-wise. Patti scoffs at that. And then we get to the credits! (Also, they got married this week! Did y'all hear?)
So, the theme this week is apparently “nice guys.” Remember Ayinde from two seasons ago? He went on a helicopter date with someone from America’s Next Top Model, and he was just the nicest guy. Patti remembers another thing about Ayinde, though, that he seemed to be a bit of a commitmentphobe. For this very reason, she’s skeptical about him coming back for a second round.
Destin introduces the next dude as being really good looking, in a way that makes me wonder if Destin wants to marry HIM in NYC. Anyway, he’s Mitch, and we get right into his DVD.
Looking for Daryl Hannah?
He’s not THAT good looking. I mean, he’s fine, but that jaw is a bit much. He’s an internet entrepreneur, a business-flipper, if you will. (Buy a business, make it grow, then sell it.) He’s divorced and has three kids. Then he tells us that his ex used to stray, sleeping with ex-cons and drug addicts. Wow, thanks for sharing! There’s other info, about an ex-girlfriend (post-divorce) who was also divorcing her pro-football playing husband, yadda yadda. Anyway, Mitch thinks he has no game.
Patti’s like, “Um, he overshares. THAT is his problem.” And she’s right. He needs to let some of his info be a mystery for a date to unravel, and he shan’t unravel it too quickly. Holy shit, I just said “shan’t”. First time, I swear. (First time ever in my life!)
Destin and Patti head off to meet with Mitch personally. Patti says it’s because Mitch is a guy’s guy, but I don’t know why that matters. We hop right into his official intro, where we learn he played college football and “rugby, all over the world.” He has an MBA. So what, so do half my friends. He’s got two younger daughters and a son, all under 10. He drives a four-door Maserati, because it was the only super-car that would fit all the kids. (What, no Porsche Panamera?)
Okay, that's cute.
Why love now? Well, because he feels like he’s a better person overall when he’s in a relationship. Aw, that’s sweet. Patti apparently also feels this way. He’s got 50/50 custody of the kids. I tear up a little for this guy when he tells Patti that the REAL reason things broke off with the post-divorce girlfriend was that “she didn’t love me as much as I loved her.” He chokes up a teensy bit when he says this, too. Awwww.
So, Patti doesn’t want to overwhelm the guy with a gigantic mixer, and she doesn’t want to turn him into a player. No, they’ll do a smaller mixer for him and let him really “qualify the girl”. He agrees. Late 20s and into her 30s, and athletic, that’s the goal.
We’re back at the office now, and Ayinde comes strutting in. He’s got a goatee and quite a bit more swagger than he had the first time around. I remember him last time as being a total sweetheart, a nice guy, a humble guy, someone who respected women. (Remember that.)
We get right into his official intro for a second. Oh yeah, he was doing some internet radio thing, right? Still is. And he used to play beach volleyball or something. Now he’s into sailing, too. Expensive hobby, sir. Wait, they show him sitting in a patio chair on top of the boat, reading the paper. THAT IS NOT HOW YOU SAIL. Oh, and it was Ayinde who met with the kooky therapist two seasons ago, to get to the root of the commitmentphobia.
Totally a show-shot from two seasons ago. Check my old recap. Go ahead, I dare you.
You don't sail by sitting on a K-Mart patio chair atop your boat. In case you weren't "intellectually curious."
DEFINITELY looking for a mermaid. Not a whale.
So, Ayinde’s apparently been pretty popular all this time, but he’s still having trouble locating the “and.” That’s the pretty AND the smart AND the accomplished AND the…well, whatever. So, Patti needs to find him the “and.”
Patti’s a little guarded in her meeting with Ayinde. She KNOWS that he’s been throwing back perfectly wonderful women because he’s a commitmentphone. He will never find the “and,” not even if God himself brought her to him on a silver platter. So, his drivel about “deserving” a woman who’s got it all kinda makes Patti sick to her stomach. Oh wait, that’s just me, and that’s not all Ayinde, that’s a little bit of “too many candy corn pumpkins with my lunch”.
Patti’s totally no BS when she asks Ayinde for his three non-negotiables. Like, cutting him off as he explains himself. For the record, those three things are “intellectually curious (good education),” “spiritual but not religious,” and “has business acumen.” Alrighty then. Patti warns him to not be all business-y on the date or else the woman’s vagina will dry right up. And he’s all, “Cool, you’re going to help me,” and she’s all, “Yeah, but your penis needs to pick someone, too.” Like, she’ll provide the smart women who have it all, but he’s gotta get an erection about one or more of them too. I love talking clinically.
He’s definitely coming across as a douchebag this time around, by the way. Am I the only one?
Time to find some dates! We need athletic women who want to settle down with Mitch, and we need smart women with business sense and a soul to be with Ayinde. The first woman is a small business owner that I surely thought they’d pick for Ayinde, but she’s meant for Mitch. Really?
And then the next girl they talk to, Yves, is a small business owner, and that first woman is standing RIGHT THERE when they cheer on Yves for being an entrepreneur. But so is that other lady! So weird. Oh, wait, maybe Yves isn’t the one, since she didn’t even go to college (derailed by a boyfriend, ugh).
Livia, the girl from two seasons ago who didn’t go out with that guy who called her a “spinner”? She’s back, and Patti likes her for Mitch. She rags on Livia’s dress and shoes, of course. Another girl standing nearby is gigantic, and I learn she’s only 5’10”, which is two inches shorter than me. I am gigantic. I always forget how tall I am until A) I see myself in photos with regular sized people or B) I see another woman my height and go, “holy shit, she’s tall.” Anyway, they discard her because Mitch is “tiny.” HA! They do like some 5’2” girl named Tova, though!
We get a batch for Ayinde, which includes Bracha. That “ch” is pronounced like “shh”, though. She’s tall, is a professional chef, and has a business teaching cooking classes. I think she’s working on a book, too. Some other woman gets the softer side of Patti’s criticism, where Patti alerts her to her roots, damaged hair, and bad dress without being an asshole about it. The third girl in this batch is also pretty awesome (as was bad dress/bad roots), so all three get in. Basically, Patti feels like if Ayinde can’t get a super hardon for one of these, she can’t help him, period.
All mermaids.
Back to finding women for Mitch. There’s a nice woman who’s the right size and body-type, has a good job, wants kids, etc. But she’s not “J.LO” enough (that’s Mitch’s celebrity crush, though he also mentioned Anna Kournikova and Britney Spears), so Patti’s asking her to dye her beautiful red hair brown (OF COURSE) and jazz up the way she dresses. Here, Patti’s being way more insulting than necessary. Is it just because she has red hair? Man, Patti really needs to get over this. And I really want to know what her big fucking deal is. (And I say this as a perfectly awesome redhead who’s found a wonderful guy who loves her for everything she is, red hair included!)
Oh, and there’s one more awesome woman in the mix for Ayinde. She’s tall, gorgeous body, went to Brown, has her own business…so she’s perfect. Ayinde’s going to hate her.
Time for the mixer! It’s not really a “mixer,” though, since it’s really just a small collection of women with whom each millionaire will get a 10-min mini-date with. But right now, they’re all standing around having a drink, so I guess it’s a mixer.
Funny, all of Mitch's matches are standing in front of Ayinde's. Cuz Mitch is short.
Patti gives Mitch some really good advice, something I have never heard before. He is to ask two questions of his date for every one question she asks him. Then she’ll know he’s interested. Ah! That’s good advice! Ayinde? He’s told to not be a dick about his business.
The mini-dates. Let’s not get bogged down. Summary starts NOW:
- Ayinde and Tiffany (slammin’ body, went to Brown) chat, he likes her eyes (they’re an unusual color, and they’re natural), and she comments about her boobs being natural too. He asks about schooling, and she’s got the Brown slam-dunk, even though she kinda sounds like a bored Valley Girl. Then he asks if she likes radio. “What kind of question is that?!” Yeah, Ayinde. Shitty question.
Patti’s totally listening in and is like, “hey, idiot, stop doing that.” (Tiffany, to her credit, isn’t cowed by Ayinde’s money or anything. She’s kinda like, “um, you’re weird,” and dismisses him, pretty much. Yes!) He says, “I’m looking for my Mrs. Huxtable,” which is actually kinda sweet, and he’s got a point, but Patti dismisses that line of thinking. You can’t go into a romantic partnership in a business-like way. You just can’t.
- Mitch and “spinner” Livia. Poor Mitch just wants to connect with someone SO BADLY, that’s why he’s so TMI all the time. He asks Livia what she does, then he launches into a mopey sad-sack story about being divorced. Livia listens politely, but you know her vagina isn’t making lubrication.
- Ayinde and Yves chat a bit, and he doesn’t like that she comes from a family that started a commercial cleaning business, that she’s been a cleaner all her life. Idiot.
- Mitch and Carla sit down together. She’s a blonde twenty-something from Bakersfield. (Californians, what does that mean? Earlier when Destin said she had a softer energy, she said, “Because I’m from Bakersfield.”) She’s got a pretty nasal voice, which you hear a lot of when she talks about loving “anything outdooornns” and “playing spornnnts”.
- Mitch talks with Erika, the pageant consultant that I would have chosen for Ayinde but Patti chose for Mitch because she’s mmmmmaybe Latina? Her body language is horrible. She’s facing almost away from Mitch and has her legs crossed away from him, too. No bueno.
Ayinde really needs to blink sometimes. He’s creeping me out.
- Ayinde chats with Crystal, the one with bad roots who went to Chapel Hill. He’s impressed, until he not-so-slyly asks about grad school and learns that she didn’t go to grad school. Eyeroll. They keep talking, about movies and volleyball. Crystal’s into volleyball, used to play. That information is ignored so Ayinde can ask if she’s read Malcolm X’s autobiography. He keeps making these challenging faces at his dates, as if to say, “HA! You aren’t my Mrs. Huxtable.” And guess what, dick? She can tell!
- Next Mitch meets with Tova. They seem to have a perfectly nice conversation. She’s cute. She does brain management and marketing. Wait wait wait, BRAND management and marketing. I need to get my hearing checked.
- Ayinde meets with Bracha. She’s pretty! She doesn’t seem dumb, but she’s not really coming across totally whip-smart, either. She can say “no” in two languages (English is one of them), and Ayinde’s like, “Right, I can say ‘hello’ in eight languages.” And I can tell you to fuck off in one, how’s that?
- Mitch’s last mini-date is with Nikki, the one Patti rudely forced to dye from red to brown. She doesn’t look nearly as cute. They seem to connect well enough. (She’s going to New Zealand/Australia soon; he used to live in Australia.)
- Ayinde’s last date is with Monique. He starts off by complimenting her looks, and she thanks him. Then he asks if she moved to LA to be an actress/model. Nope, an engineer, jackass. OH SNAP, YOU GOT TOLD. She’s not totally athletic, but she’s a good sport and would go watch. Seems like this is a good match for Ayinde, if you ask me.
Except she missed the memo that "nude" shoes mean something different to a black woman.
Time to pick the master dates. I’m annoyed that with all the interviewing and standardized-testing Ayinde put the women through, he concluded with his choice by saying, “I was most physically attracted to…”. I mean, I guess there maybe was some editing involved here, maybe.
Anyway, Mitch chose Tova and Ayinde chose Bracha! Bracha theatrically announces that she doesn’t want to sweat on the first date. I don’t want to sweat either, so that’s cool, but her manner of speaking is a little annoying. I wish he’d picked Monique. Nikki looks crestfallen, by the way. It’s okay, go back to red, you were doing fine without Patti’s help.
The “We’re Back! No, We’re Not!” segment this week is about Patti lecturing her millionaires pre-mixer, about the two-drink maximum and about no-sex-before-monogamy rules. Ayinde jokes around. Har har. Also, every time I type up that intro to this paragraph for every recap (The “We’re Back! No, We’re Not!”), my goal is to type it my normal speed without having to use my backspace, which is tough because there are a ton of capital letters and quotation marks and whatnot, and I have never, ever, ever succeeded. Every week I try, though! I try.
Time for the dates!
Tova meets Mitch at some winery in Malibu. They’re both smiley and excited. They talk about wine, they talk about traveling abroad. (Tova lived in Spain for a year.) Mitch starts talking about going to Italy, and then he starts oversharing how it was when his wife was pregnant with their first kid. Zip it! He realizes his mistake pretty quickly, I think, and they both rush to change the subject. Tova makes it easy on him and asks about the kids. She wants kids of her own and comments that Mitch “got the party started” already.
I bet it's hot. I bet Mitch's pits are damp.
"Thanks for oversharing, may I please chug this wine?"
The winery also features a small zoo of sorts, with camels and zebras and other stuff like that, so they head off to pet animals. Then they talk about why Mitch went to Patti, and Tova explains that she thinks she’s better off when she’s in a relationship. AH! Something Mitch pretty much said earlier! I have no idea if they actually have a connection yet, but at least they’re kinda on the same page.
Threesome!
Then we see what Ayinde’s up to with Bracha. I hate it when millionaires do this. They plan some off-the-wall date and don’t let their date know, so the date shows up unprepared. There was the soup kitchen date two seasons ago, and there was the junk hauling date. Nevermind all the beach dates we’ve seen. Anyway, this time, it’s Ayinde in a t-shirt, ready to do some gardening at some home for fucked up boys or something. Bracha is wearing a one-shouldered cocktail dress that barely covers her hoo-hoo and big Clydesdale heels. Perfect for doing gardening with troubled boys, right?! This is not a date, Ayinde. FYI. Even your perfect woman (who doesn’t exist) wouldn’t be able to read your mind to pass this test.
She looks gorgeous, though.
Bracha is a good sport, though, and she high-fives Ayinde before accepting a t-shirt from him. She puts the t-shirt over the cocktail dress, which makes her look like she’s wearing a t-shirt, one long glove, and heels. That’s it. Good luck. I predict a charity home full of boys masturbating furiously this evening.
They plant heather and some other whatever plants in some flower bed. Bracha interacts well with the kids, which is something that’s important to Ayinde. (What woman on a televised date with a millionaire WOULDN’T be “good with kids” when put on the spot?)
"I'll masturbate furiously to this later, lady."
Back to Mitch and Tova. They’re having dinner atop a hill. It’s quite a nice setting, actually. Tova asks Mitch about how Patti prepped him for the date. Ah, discussing the meta stuff about dating while on a date, not unfamiliar territory. It’s common ground, it’s fine to discuss for a little bit, but you have to be careful with it. Anyway, he admits that he overshares and is too much of an open book, but Tova’s down with that. She pumps Mitch up, he’s doing well. He whines a bit about having the three-kids baggage, but Tova deftly navigates it.
In the end, Mitch asks to see her again, and she’s 100% on board. They stand and hug. Sweet.
Good date!
Ayinde has had enough of torturing Bracha, and now they get to go to dinner. She’s wearing a different very short dress. So she brought two dresses to wear on these dates? What did she think they’d be doing? Weird. Also, she says something about “him and I” doing something. “He and I.” Take out one of the subjects so it’s singular, see how it sounds. “I got to know him. He got to know me. He and I got to know each other.” There ya go, Bracha!
Ayinde’s demeanor during this portion of the date is more of the same testing and interviewing, and there’s just no romance at all. Bracha’s speaking style is also annoying, and it’s just irritating to watch. Bottom line, she’s not intellectually curious enough, I bet, nor educated enough. And her business isn’t established enough. And his penis didn’t engorge with blood. You win, Bracha!! I take back everything kind I said about Ayinde a year ago!
"Blink once in a while, motherfucker."
Okay, let’s be done with this. Patti calls Tova, who says she had a great time. Mitch comes in to confirm it. They’re going out again, yay!
Then Patti calls Bracha (whose name she keeps mispronouncing), who tells truth of the charity gardening and then of the interviewing. Ayinde comes in, saying the date ended with “no hug, no love, nothing.” Patti mentions that she already talked to Bracha, then asked what happened. Ayinde questions the match that was made. Patti is immediately in defense mode, and I can’t blame her.
"WHAT did you say??!"
His point is that he wanted the “and” and Patti didn’t deliver it with Bracha. Patti’s point, and I’m on her side with this, is that she delivered FIVE beautiful, smart women who could have easily been a match and HE chose one. And he chose one that wasn’t the absolutely brightest one of the batch. But HE chose her out of a great group of contenders. It’s HIS fault this wasn’t a match. Monique was clearly the better choice, or Tiffany. (Except he knew Tiffany wouldn’t submit to being judged the way he was judging.)
And further, Ayinde is a jerk when Patti calls him out for not being able to be fixed up. He rolls his eyes, agreeing sarcastically that it’s HIS fault that her service didn’t work. It is, jerk-face! It really is! And if you weren’t such a dick about it, Patti would probably allow you to have a date with a different woman from that same batch, to see if there was a better match, but now you’ve ruined it by being an asshole. And really, we all know nobody’s good enough for Ayinde, right? So, this is all moot.
"If you meet a woman named Ayinde-ette, though, I'd welcome your call."
Anyway, then Patti goes into shriek-mode, shouting “Are you kidding me?!” and “eat me!” and other immature nonsense. I really wish she’d kept her cool, recognizing that Ayinde is a power-playing jerk, and politely asked him to leave. Period.
Captions of Truth! Your job was taken from you yet again this week! Obviously, Bracha and Ayinde aren’t dating. And obviously, Mitch and Tova are! Right? Right!
Next week! It’s ugly twin men! Or just brothers! I don't care! They work out a lot, have broken faces, one has a sordid past or something. (They’re the Cruise brothers or the Cruz brothers. I guess we’ll find out.) Patti makes fun of a girl for being fat. Come back, we’ll cringe together!
(Also, if you like my recaps, tune in for recaps of Work of Art, Season 2, starting this week!)
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