Mustard Pancakes!

[00:00:02] What You Want, When You Want It, Where You Want It. This is The MESH. Welcome back to My Dad Watches The Bachelor. I'm Meredith and I'm here with my co-host, My Dad. Hey Meredith, how's it going today?

[00:00:26] It's going well. So excited to talk to my dad about all of The Bachelor dads. I know. This show when we have our visits to families, I always feel bittersweet in that

[00:00:41] I can empathize a little bit with the dads and the families but part of me is always wondering why would you let your kid do this? Why would you let your kid on the show? And why are you participating in this event? I don't know.

[00:00:56] What kind of dad would you be if I had a hometown date? Would you be the supportive dad or would you be the what the heck are you doing dad and be really mean? I don't know. I could see that going either way.

[00:01:11] Part of me would say I'm disgusted with this process, with this show. I'm not going to participate. I'm out and part of me would say I think it was Ariel's dad that said look, I trust you to make decisions and you've proven that you're a smart, intelligent person.

[00:01:31] I will support you. But why the hell did you go on this stupid show? I think that's what I'd also be saying, Meredith. You'd have the angel in the devil on your shoulder trying to decide who to be.

[00:01:42] That's right. So I found it interesting that three of our hometown dates seem to have parents that say that they'd been married for 30 plus years and very, very stable households. Yeah. There were some good families. There were.

[00:02:03] I think I would be fine joining any of them except maybe Ariel's because her brother seems a little scary. Well, let's hop into the highlights because Ariel's brother was a highlight for me. Brother Bobby who struck me as a stone cold killer.

[00:02:23] I doubt that you have watched the important movie The Godfather. Correct. And you should, but he struck me as Michael Corleone type guy that this guy might be really a Ukrainian Jewish mobster in New York. I could see that as his vocation. He does have the look.

[00:02:52] Yeah, he was like wearing black. He looked very mobster like and maybe he's just trying for that intimidation factor when somebody's dating his sister. I'm not sure. But I mean, I came away from that conversation thinking that Zach could be in danger if he dumps Ariel.

[00:03:12] This guy might be coming for him, but as we know often the person that gets chosen, they don't end up together.

[00:03:22] And I'm just thinking that if he chooses Ariel, he better stick with her because if he tries to dump her, it's going to be even worse for him. He'll be swimming with the fishes. Yeah. I've got more to say on Ariel's brother later on the show. All right.

[00:03:39] All right. Well, and I also liked Ariel's dad. He's very nice. Felix, I think was his name. I didn't keep up with many of the parents' names. And he was the one saying that he trusted his daughter's judgment.

[00:03:54] He has some skepticism about the process, which I would as well, but he said that you've proved hundreds of times that you can see things differently than I can. So I support you. So I thought that was very nice. Also, Ariel, very, very intelligent woman.

[00:04:15] You got to trust her. She knows what she's doing. I trust her and I have enjoyed her very much. I have too. Ariel for Bachelorette, baby. Maybe. Maybe. I don't know. Okay. Hi for me. Vermont in the fall. What a great place to go on a hometown.

[00:04:36] Beautiful, beautiful. So many leaves on the ground, all the colors. Like I've only been to Vermont in the winter and as someone who does not ski or snowboard would not recommend.

[00:04:49] I have never been to Vermont, but I would like to go to Vermont and I would think that the fall is the time to go. Of course, I would think that fall there might be August. I don't know.

[00:05:00] I mean, I imagine that once winter hits, it's pretty messy. It's not pleasant up there. I believe the hometown dates were recorded or filmed in November. And it didn't, I mean they were wearing like jackets and stuff, but it didn't seem too, too cold there yet.

[00:05:17] It didn't look brutal. No. And I think that you and I would appreciate more the maple syrup of Vermont than Zach seems to.

[00:05:27] He won, did not enjoy Gabby's like limo entrance where she forced him to drink maple syrup and he didn't seem to enjoy it that much more second go round.

[00:05:41] Well, and she was trying to drill into a tree to actually get the maple syrup out, which didn't seem to be working too well. I mean, I'm more of a domestic domesticated maple syrup guy. I don't really need to get it in the wilds.

[00:05:55] I'm happy to get it out of the bottle. But I guess I would prefer the authentic although I have to say I'm more of a butter on my pancake kind of guy than a syrup guy. What about mustard? No, no, no, that's weird. Yeah.

[00:06:11] Zach's family likes yellow mustard on their pancakes and I think that's pretty repulsive. I thought he was going to say ketchup. So I guess mustard is just a tick better than ketchup on your pancakes. I disagree. I don't think either is a good way to go.

[00:06:27] Well, I think I do enjoy the pancake syrup, but I also enjoy the maple syrup. I think I would be able to tell a difference between them. Okay. Another high for me.

[00:06:41] One parent interaction that I think Zach handled well when he was talking to Gabby's mom, he asked something along the lines of how can I be the best person I can be to support her? I thought that was a good question.

[00:06:57] I thought it might have been a little bit of a kiss-ass question, but yeah, I think that's the sort of question that a parent would appreciate hearing from a suitor, yes. Do you have?

[00:07:09] I think he could have asked that question to any of the parents and maybe he did. Of course. Maybe he did. Who knows. But I thought it was good. Like maybe he put a little thought into that.

[00:07:21] More thought than he did when, than he has about why someone should marry him. Well, probably because that was Bobby and there was a gun pointed at him and that makes a guy nervous. Okay. Another high for me.

[00:07:35] I liked watching Zach going through the Jewish rite of passage with Ariel just having to try all of the Jewish foods. I am dating someone who's Jewish. I have not tried gefelta fish. I also don't eat fish. I don't know if I would try the tongue sandwich either.

[00:07:56] Yeah, I mean, I've had both and yeah, I mean, I don't really want to think about what you're eating when you're eating the tongue sandwich. You know, because it's not bad. You know, it's sort of like red meat, but gefelta fish is certainly an acquired taste.

[00:08:13] I think I'm going to stick to my matzah ball soup. All right. And that's fine. No, that's good. That's pretty much all the highs for me. Well, the only other high I had was I thought that charity made a very graceful exit.

[00:08:34] You know, charity was the odd person out of this show. We still have Gabby, Ariel and Katie. And I think this was a difficult decision for Zach. I mean, he really seemed to enjoy all four of them and he's doing some agonizing.

[00:08:56] And charity was about as accommodating as one could ever hope in that situation and didn't put him through the ringer and blah, blah, blah. And I thought she handled things very gracefully. Yeah, I think she did too. I think that's pretty typical though.

[00:09:20] There aren't going to be a lot of people like throwing tantrums, especially like these four were very graceful. And I think that's the reason why women, you know, they're actually they seem like a good group of four. No one's too dramatic or crazy.

[00:09:32] You expect like a pretty classy exit. Yeah, I mean, if she could be saying, what did I do wrong? Why me blah, blah, blah and she didn't pursue those angles. So anyway, kudos to charity. We wish you the best. I also enjoyed charities, brother. Nehemiah?

[00:09:51] I felt I enjoyed the Nehemiah charity relationship much more than the Ariel Bobby relationship.

[00:09:59] And I thought Nehemiah was pretty, I'm going to say hard on Zach, but I mean, I thought he was pretty upfront with Zach and obviously he and charity have a very strong relationship and it was very sweet how they got along. It was sweet.

[00:10:19] Let's get into our lows. Okay. Starting the episode off with yet another scene of Zach showering. I'm really tired of it. I'm pretty numb to it at this point in time, whatever. It's sort of feel like it's a requirement, but whatever. Watching Zach do country line dancing.

[00:10:40] Big low for me. I don't know why I just I feels very wrong. Okay. I mean, I he seemed to be trying. You know, I mean not everyone can be a good country line dancer. So, you know, I appreciated the effort.

[00:10:57] I, yeah, that was I didn't I actually didn't see charity as a country line dancer, but she seemed to be enjoying herself. Yeah. I found it interesting.

[00:11:09] I don't know if this is a low, but found interesting that Katie has only lived in Austin for a few weeks, which you know, that's where Zach currently lives.

[00:11:20] It just seems weird to me one that you move somewhere and potentially buy a house like she's showing us that she lives in a house buys a house goes on the bachelor for 10 weeks comes. I don't know. I think that's what I thought.

[00:11:39] I mean, I think that's why I didn't see charity as a country line dancer. I mean, I think that's what I thought was interesting to me. I only lived there for a few weeks and it's where Zach currently lives.

[00:11:49] Are you theorizing that to improve her chances that maybe she said, oh, if I moved to Austin that would facilitate me getting together with this dude. I'm like, hmm, is this rigged?

[00:12:01] Because if I were the bachelorette and I was down to like two people that pretty even to me one lives across the country. One lives in my town. I'm picking the person that already lives near me. So and Zach sort of goes between California and Austin.

[00:12:18] I guess he says he lives in Austin. Yeah. He's from like Southern California, but he he lives in Austin, I believe. Okay. And the other three hometowns were in Vermont, Columbus, Georgia and New York City. Right.

[00:12:38] So you got some of the East Coast bias there and then Texas. Texas. Well, I as a wrong reason I did. You're the expert when it comes to this, but this is presented to us as the girls get together with us.

[00:12:56] They get to sort of plan out their hometown dates and Katie's Austin hometown date consisted of we're going to go shopping to fill up my pantry. And I need you to put furniture together for me. Yes, pretty terrible date if you ask me.

[00:13:18] Yeah, that didn't show Austin at its best. No. I've lived here for three weeks. I know nothing about this place like what else are we supposed to do at this point?

[00:13:27] And so we're going to grocery shop, which also doesn't make sense because she's about to have to go back to California to go to the grocery. I hope she didn't get any perishables. They did get a lot of flowers.

[00:13:39] I don't know if those were given out to Katie's mom. It doesn't look like the same flowers to me, but you know they're going grocery shopping even though she's about to go back to California, get a rose and then go to,

[00:13:51] whatever beachfront location the rest of the season is going to be. So all those groceries, garbage and then sacks building Ikea furniture. Been there done that. Not a lot of fun.

[00:14:05] Yeah, I think that you know they're so early in the relationship they should still be doing the fund dates. You know, you've got so much time in your relationship to build furniture. Yeah, so that was definitely a low. That was definitely a low.

[00:14:22] I've always wanted to go to Austin ever been to Austin. I hear it's got a really cool music scene in Austin, but I can't believe this was approved by the Austin Chamber of Commerce. And I'm not do they really have that much say?

[00:14:36] Well, I think if I'm a new person in town and looking for a way to have a fun date, I might be reaching out for some help. If all I've got is I'm going shopping and putting furniture together.

[00:14:47] So, you know, whether it be the Chamber of Commerce or somebody, let's let's let's see. I'd like to see Austin and I didn't get a chance to see Austin. I've heard very good things about Austin.

[00:14:59] This podcast is sponsored by Jackson Creative, a custom communication agency located in downtown Hickory, North Carolina, specializing in online content creation. To learn more visit the Jackson creative dot com. Jackson creative. We tell your story. So I have a hot take for you.

[00:15:21] Oh, in terms of a low and I really enjoy Ariel and I think she would be a cool person to hang out with but I just found her during the date and maybe this is just her style that she's just a bit too cool and a bit too aloof.

[00:15:39] And I and I and maybe she's as I certainly wouldn't blame her for trying to protect herself a little bit during this process and not really open up and let go. But I just I just feel like she's not really totally there for some reason.

[00:15:59] So I particularly during the day this day to just sort of struck me and I just made note of it that as I was sort of sort of ranking the way these days when I sort of downgraded her a little bit just because she sort of felt like she was she was just a little little too aloof.

[00:16:18] I think that's her personality and I think maybe she has to tone it back a bit because I think she's just so much smarter than everyone else on this show that she has to be like, let me bring it back a bit like, and she's got that like air of mystery to her like, I, I'm so intrigued by who she is as a person.

[00:16:38] I agree with you, but I think that she's also got to show a little bit more warmth.

[00:16:44] And I guess I just am not I'm not seeing that yet now and that's and that just might be her and I don't I'm just just worries me a little bit that the connection might not get as strong as it could be because of that.

[00:17:00] Well, I definitely don't think she wins. This is Katie's to lose at this point for me. You know, when I watched the each of the hometowns.

[00:17:10] I probably felt that way and then when I got to the rose ceremony and I guess I guess he picked Ariel first and then Katie and then and then Gabby was Scott got the last rose. I don't know I put a little stock into that.

[00:17:27] And here's a question for you bachelor person, you know, a red flag for me. And I think that would be if I'm watching this show and I see Katie with her mom basically saying, you know, I trust you. You're my best friend.

[00:17:44] If you don't like him, he's out. Basically she seems to be delegating the a lot of responsibility to her mom and Katie is the one person left who does not have a father figure in her life.

[00:17:58] She's had bad luck with men is basically saying that, you know, my take on what she's saying is that all the men in her life except maybe her brother have have stunk and she's basically if she gets in this relationship, she ain't letting go.

[00:18:19] And I don't know there were some red flags that sort of came up during her private conversations that I assume Zach does not see until after all this show is done.

[00:18:33] But if I was watching the show in real time, I would be sort of scratching my head and saying, man, I think that Katie's mom is going to be an issue somewhere down the road because you know whatever she tells Katie to do, Katie's going to do.

[00:18:47] I haven't I didn't think about it that way. I just thought of it more like if I brought someone home and you guys really didn't like him, that would probably be a deal breaker for me. But they do seem to have a very close bond.

[00:18:59] But her mom seems very nice. She doesn't seem like a crazy mom. I know crazy moms and she doesn't strike me as one. Well, I hope you're right.

[00:19:11] I just I just I had I had some concern that that they were just so tight that that could cause some issues for Zach at some point in time. My last low giving more advice from Sean Lowe. He not helpful at all for stuff.

[00:19:31] Second off, we are wasting like 10 minutes having to get a recap of what we literally just watched. Like let's just cut the show down 10 minutes. Like we don't really need this. This is useless.

[00:19:47] Well, I was I was concerned because I think it was like 920 or 925 and there were still another 30 40 minutes left in the show and we had finished the hometown days. I was like, Oh, what are we doing for the rest of the show?

[00:20:03] So yeah, Sean Lowe was Sean Lowe. Is that who it is? I know his name is Sean. I don't know his last name is but last name is Lowe. You seem rather you in the low category.

[00:20:12] Not very helpful now basically, you know, the I guess I guess we're trying to find something for our bachelor family characters to do and we bring Sean back and oh yeah, I was in that situation too. It's really hard. Good luck. Have a nice day. Not helpful.

[00:20:31] Yeah, try and make the right decision. Only two of us bachelors are still with our ladies. So good luck. Yeah. Yeah. So not helpful. Do you have any other lows? No, I mean, I put down, you know, not you probably shouldn't be doing shots of maple syrup.

[00:20:48] I don't think that's the appropriate way to assess maple syrup. I am not an expert, but I would avoid shots of maple syrup. I think they're worst things to take shots of there are, but that's not the best way to evaluate the maple syrup. Okay.

[00:21:08] So who's your right reason? I gave my right reason to overprotective brothers. Nehemiah and Bobby, you know, Bobby might be crazy.

[00:21:22] I'm not going to use my real name on the podcast because I don't want you to come looking for me, but I appreciate the fact that you're looking out for your sister. So my right reason goes to overprotective brothers this week.

[00:21:39] My right reason I I'm giving it to Ariel's brother Bobby simply because of the fact that I'm not going to use my real name on the podcast because I don't want you to come looking for me.

[00:21:45] I'm not going to give you any of the questions he was asking, such as why Ariel should pick Zach and Zach having really no good answers. And like there's a long pause and and Bobby's like, oh great answer.

[00:21:58] You're doing great here and Zach's like, well, I've got a big heart and I'm a good cook. That's all he's got. And then, you know, asking Zach, what's Ariel's birthday? What's her middle name?

[00:22:10] Don't you think you should know these things about a person if you want to get engaged to them which like pretty good points, Bobby. I mean, you know, fair points.

[00:22:20] You and I both know and I'm sure Bobby also knows that like this has been this has been a whirlwind meat grinder and it's not like you're memorizing birthdays but point point taken. But that leads me into my wrong reason which I'm also giving to Ariel's brother Bobby.

[00:22:39] Okay. He's really overdoing the protective brother in a way that seems like Ariel can't take care of herself like she needs a protector because she's like a child or his property or something.

[00:22:53] And I just got like really intense creepy vibes from him and I think he could take some lessons from charity's brother on how to walk the fine line between like protective brother and overly invested creepy brother.

[00:23:08] Well, when we get around to watching Godfather 2 arguably better than Godfather 1 you'll really see some overprotective brother issues coming from Michael Corleone. So anyway that's something that maybe Godfather 1 and 2 great Easter movies maybe when we're together over Easter we can be watching those. Can't wait. Can't wait.

[00:23:35] Who's in the wrong reason?

[00:23:37] What's my wrong reason to Katie just because I really felt that she was relying too much on her mother to make these decisions and seem to be, you know, I'm all for strong Godmother, childmother, father relations but I just got the sense that she was giving up a good portion of her independence there.

[00:24:02] And I just worry that she might be too overly reliant on her parent. So anyway, that was my concern there. So I had to say Katie this week. My MVP kind of goes against that. My MVP is like all the sweet family bonds that we got to see.

[00:24:23] I feel like we normally don't get as many as we did.

[00:24:27] You know, I thought Katie and her mom like both of them crying talking about how much they loved each other was very sweet and like charity and her brother, like them crying while talking about like her getting hurt in the past and how he wants the best for her.

[00:24:41] It's very like heartwarming to see very sweet. And I think Gabby's dad was very sweet as well. I think the same was Kevin. He he's really into the bachelor vibes. He thinks you can fall in love with someone in a day.

[00:24:56] So he is the perfect dad for this show. Perfect dad for the show might not be the perfect dad, but perfect dad for this show. He's he's bought in. Do you have any fatherly advice to wrap us up?

[00:25:10] Well, I so so you know, Zach and our friend Sean did sort of beat around the but not beat around. But they were talking about making sure that you have a spouse that you can have fun with and a spouse that you enjoy.

[00:25:27] So I mean, that's that's good common sense of advice. I mean, I'm not sure that that it's it's not particularly her shattering advice. But you know, that's you're going to be spent a lot of time together. You better be able to enjoy one another.

[00:25:43] And and I will say that from Ariel's date I did take away. You should be willing to try new things and get to know your your significant other and throw some some caution to the wind. Whether that means trying to get filter fish or the tongue, what not?

[00:26:01] Don't know. But got to be open to new things willing to try new things experience your your partners background culture. So I thought that was good as well. So so be open to that.

[00:26:14] I'm glad that you're eating the monster soup and learning more about Judaism than than you did before you started dating your current person. So before we wrap up, I want two predictions from you. Who wins? You want it right now? Yeah, I would. So so in the previews,

[00:26:40] that's part of my second prediction. The preview is we see Zach being like no sex for me and it looks like he doesn't really stick to his guns there. It looks like a she devil seduces him and he falls off the no sex wagon at some point.

[00:26:57] I also want your prediction on who who really breaks him down and and tempts him and gets him who seduces him. All right, so if I have to predict the winner and I think any of the three that are left could be the winners.

[00:27:16] But I'm going to stick with one of them. The one left in my final four, Katie, just because I think she's going to meld herself into whatever situation to get her man. And I think that's what Zach wants out of a woman. I agree with your pick.

[00:27:35] I don't know if he does or not. And I'm saying this just from the previews and I have no idea which one's going to be the seductress. But I'm going to say Ariel.

[00:27:45] It's going to be the seductress and and it does look like we see Gabby and Katie crying and very upset. Gabby very, very upset. Well, it looks like they're everybody's upset at this point in time. So I don't know.

[00:28:04] We're definitely leading us to believe it's Ariel and I do feel like he is the most like intrigued and sexually attracted to her. And I do feel like she would be open to sleeping with him in the fantasy suite.

[00:28:17] I don't know why you say that as opposed to the other two. I think she's more free and like open with who she is. And she's just like, why wouldn't I like we've been dating for whatever weeks? Like if we're going to get engaged, like.

[00:28:31] I'm not sure that Gabby or Katie wouldn't do that as well. Although I agree. I think that if I were in their shoes and someone was like, yeah, this definitely isn't happening. We're not doing this.

[00:28:46] I think that would make me mad whether or not I wanted to do it. Someone just taking away my choice would make me upset. I know. But what was that big log? What's his name that slept with everybody and got everybody upset? Well, I think that many bachelors.

[00:29:00] His name is Clayton. Many bachelors do that. He just, you know, vocalized it to everyone. I almost got the sense after the Clayton season that perhaps that set the table for a new precedent of we're not going to do that. But I guess we'll see.

[00:29:18] I guess we'll see. And now, now at what point does, does, do we get to go see Zach's family? Is it after we go through fantasy suites? Yeah, that's when we get to final two. We haven't gotten any Uncle Cronk this season. I know.

[00:29:34] That's probably the season's biggest disappointment. No, no Uncle Cronk, no David Putty and hope. I think there's quite a few disappointments this season. Well, that's the biggest disappointment anyway. All right. That's where I'm at at this point in time.

[00:29:50] Although I would put Gabby as second, my second choice to be the winner. I agree. So we'll see.

[00:29:59] Now I did say last week that we were going to talk about the women tell all during this episode and I lied because we haven't watched the women tell all it's on tonight.

[00:30:09] We decided that if there's anything important to talk about regarding the women tell all will discuss it next week because I highly doubt that there's anything important, although it did look like we're going to get a Bachelorette announcement.

[00:30:22] Well, if you haven't seen it online, I guess we'll share it with you next week. Yeah, we've also seen spoilers so we think we know who it is. You think you know? I don't know. I don't see the spoilers, but yes, go ahead.

[00:30:35] We'd like to thank Dimash for hosting our podcast and if you like what you're hearing, feel free to give us a five star rating and subscribe so you never miss an episode. And join us next week as we discuss fantasy sweets from the right perspective and my dad's.

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