Tough Love Miami Recap: The Death of the Dealbreakers

Hi again Gasmii readers! Welcome to the 6th episode of Tough Love Miami, where things started out slow but by the end crazy chicks do great, sane chicks go crazy and Steve almost made me cry. Woohoo! This is the kind of TV I want to talk about. And these are the kinds of pictures I love to post.

I’m pretty sure the really bad smell is the rotting flower on your finger, Christine.

So let’s get started.

The episode begins with the girls all talking after last week’s group session. Brigette is surprised that her date didn’t like her – she thought it was going great. I secretly suspect she doesn’t really care because she thinks this will mean she’ll get Anthony back for her next date. What is surprising to me is that it looks like she and Christine are now best buds.

Okay, so maybe you weren’t trying to poison and destroy me. Sorry.

 

This week, Steve decides to focus on deal breakers – that is – the absolutely no way in hell list of reasons for ruling a guy out.

He asks the girls to write down the things that they definitely don’t want in a man, as well as the things they would love to see in their dream guy. Then this shot comes up:

Thank goodness, because I have been really confused about the whole pen and paper thing for years.

Seriously, was their concern that we would be distracted by how they got their writing utensils if we didn’t get this establishing shot? Who absolutely insisted this shot had to be included? I could see if it was product placement but there are no labels. I know it’s not a big issue but I really was stumped by the inclusion of this element.

So the girls begin making their lists:

Must be James Cameron.

Must be part of Thunder from Down Under.

Must be Quincy Jones or JayZ. Oh, right. Just Quincy Jones, then.

Must love exercising, sluts and pouting teenagers.

Must be a conservative politician. Oh, and must be good with carpentry to build my trophy cases.

It would be good if he was from my planet. He absolutely cannot be a troll.

To give you an idea of the seriousness of their deal breakers, Chasity’s actually includes “no men with chest hair.”

Here you go, Chas. Either one of these should do.

 

Once their lists are complete, Steve takes the girls to an auditorium straight out of every woman’s best dream ever.

Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, Batmen!

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Hell no!

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Maybe. No. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Oh, hey, Kato – so you’re in Miami now…

Sorry – That may not have advanced our story but it was very necessary.

Anyway, our ladies are getting a cold hard lesson in how picky they really are.

The men will sit down when they no longer qualify for each ladies’ specifications. Avonte is up first. She does pretty good, keeping more than 75% of her men with her “must believe in God” criteria (she wisely does not specify which God).

Get yer Jesus freak on, girl!

But then her numbers drop with her mandate that her man must work out.  Then she nearly loses them all with her requirement that he make 90K or more per year.

Christine shoots herself in the foot from the get go with the hope that her match be previously married, like herself. In one fail swoop she has reduced her chances of a match to 18% of the original men.

Jane starts out with the request that her date be bilingual. That leaves her 2 men. The irony is she didn’t specify which languages.  She’s a good sport about it, though!

That’s alright, honey. I’ll figure out whatever language you got going on.

Claudia starts out with “no smoking please.” That loses her half the men. Next up is the desired salary of 90K per year (most of the girls said 90K – I think they thought this would prevent them from seeming like gold diggers).

And we’re down to three.

Chasity’s request that her man be smooth leaves her only 3 men.

Oh no! But hair is yucky and prickly. If I go lesbian, would that mean more tips?

Michelle says she wants a man who works out at least 3 to 5 time a week. When Steve tries to point out that her requirement that a man work out as much as she does means less men, we get this:

Don’t insult me, Steve. I work out way more than 5 times per week.

Whatever, Michelle!

Anyway her next criteria of  preferring a doctor has Steve asking for everyone without a doctorate to sit down. This strikes me as funny because people can get a doctorate in shit like poetry, ufo’s and adventure tourism. Anyway, that leaves her with one option.

Actually not bad, providing he’s not a research scientist studying cheating gorillas.

Brigette, who can convince herself to marry absolutely anyone, has surprisingly very specific requirements. First off, she wants a man who is between 5’10″ and 6′ tall.

Dear guy in the middle: This is not on-line dating. We can see you are lying about your height!

Anyway, Brigette barely has anyone left after they meet her height requirement and her next must have in a perfect man: he must make over 90K per year. Guess how many men that leaves in Brigette’s dating pool…

Has Brigette found a correlation between height and income?

Anyway, of all our girls, you can imagine the idea of no men meeting her criteria is a bit of shock to Ms. Desperate.

Shit and here I always thought I’d be part of the 1%.

Best of all is Leilani. Girlfriend has thought this thing through. Besides the obvious ones “no one short, no one fat, no one ugly” (duh!), Steve knows Leilani has other criteria and he starts with financial. Her answer is so great I have to quote it here:

“That’s a complicated one because, how are you going to judge salary? It depends if they’re self employed, because then people do their own tax returns. It depends if they’ve got dependents or like children. Or if they’re looking after their brothers and sisters…”

Steve has to interrupt her to get back to the exercise. Essentially this sounds to me like Leilani requires an audit of financial statements for her men and she’s already come across this complicated conundrum in her dating life.

Regardless, it serves as a source of amusement.

Leilani’s still got some men left, so Steve moves on to her next important criteria: height and weight.

OK, I know Leilani is the expert on fashion and I don’t know anything about that crap,
but to me, in this outfit, she looks like a set of bellows. Or a rumpled midget.

“180 – 230 lbs. They could be over 230 lbs. if they were a professional athlete or something that made them, like, muscular.”

Leilani is serious, though, but her pickiness has left her three men.

Wait a minute, I know that guy…

You’d better be a professional athlete, Mr. Bilingual Dude.

By the way, Leilani, I appreciate that professional athletes can weigh more than 230 lbs.

Good for you, girl. Way to be open minded!

According to Steve, the main lesson the girls have to learn here is that if money matters that much, it’s their love lives that will be bankrupt. Clever Steve!

He points out that if they have a strong connection with a man, they should be able to overlook the things that might be on their no-no list but in the end don’t really mater. Case in point was that Chas almost lost out on a man who ruled her out because of her “career”. That made her feel terrible because there is more to her than just her dancing and the same thing can be said for quality men who get ruled out for stupid crap like hair color or astrological sign.

Steve then tells the girls they will be going on dates the next day and they are going to have to discuss their deal breakers with their new men. Brigette is bummed.

“I miss Anthony.”

No you don’t you delusional ditzhead! You just don’t want to go through the pressure of new dates anymore. Remember Anthony is hard to talk to, compared to Frankie who ran from you screaming?

Somebody smack this beyotch up!

On the way to somewhere (their clothes don’t match any of the events on the show, so not sure where they are going), we get a rare shot of the girls chatting. While we’ve seen them talking before it’s always been either in their bedroom or at the kitchen table. It’s nice to see them doing something different.  But for some reason there is a lot of make-up blotting going on.

As Chasity gets into the car, Leilani complains that Steve wants her to have a deep conversation with George and she’s not really sure she understands what he means. She asks Chasity if she knows what would be considered a deep conversation. Chasity wisely turns the tables:

“What did you all say was a deep conversation?”

Michelle offers examples of deep conversation topics such as abortion or the death penalty. Leilani acknowledges that she and George have talked about her belief in aliens, perhaps that is just as deep a topic. Chas is so cute – when she asks Leilani if she really believes in aliens, it sounds like she almost wants to believe in them too.

Take me with you, Leilani!

Just as a side note, I’m pretty sure believing in aliens would be a deal breaker for most men, except maybe this one.

 

I’m single too. Come to me, Leilani… come to me….

 

Date Time!

For some reason the girls arrive before their dates and have to wait. Maybe it is supposed to allow them time to mull over the deal breakers they’ve been assigned to discuss with their dates. In any event, they showed it, so I feel compelled to snark it.

Dear God, please let Arthur really like me.

Am I the only one who noticed the stalker behind Claudia?

Dear background person: you get one shot at being on tv.
Just one. And that very moment is the time you decide to pick your nose???

Suddenly I realize who else, besides the cockroaches, would survive the end of times.

 

Finally the dates arrive.

Avonte is with Trevis again.

She does a great job of bringing up the subject of deal breakers right away and asks Trevis what his are. He wants a girl who has ambition, a good outlook and isn’t ghetto. Avonte thinks she might just fail in all three areas.

I’m a little worried for her and Trevis. She tells him she wants a stable man (implying good income) and Trevis tells her of his aspirations to ref NBA games. Right now, doing freelance ref work, he can make up to $150.00 per night. Quick math: that equals $900 per week before taxes which means about $45K per year. And that’s if he works 6 days a week and does multiple games. How many basketball games can possibly be out there?

Despite how cute he is (and he’s grown on me since the last date), I don’t think he’s gonna make the cut. Also, I think he has a problem committing to a look:

 

I see a bad boy chest tat, a GQ shirt, a candy striper tie and a cosmopolitan.
Hmmm…. maybe there is a bigger issue here…

 

Michelle is with … well I don’t know how to spell his name. Shan-on. That’s my best effort. Michelle is also put off by his name and keeps repeating it to herself over and over to remember it.

 

Shan-on. Shan-on. Shan-on.

OK, bitch, it’s really Shannon. It’s an embarrassing name, so I say it pretentiously.
Please stop repeating it, cause it makes you look weird. Just call me Shannon. Please.

Brigette has a date with Richard. I like Richard – he is well spoken and sweet. Brigette is doing her assigned task and they are talking about deal breakers. When he says he wants kids but not right away, I start to fear the look she’s radiating.

Oh no, girlfriend. Reign it in! Reign it in!

And suddenly the crazed look is gone. Instead she jokes that she’s never even changed a baby’s diaper.

I’m sorry, what?!?! You are insanely psycho about getting married and having a baby and you don’t even know what you’re in for? The readers of this blog are right – you’ve got bigger problems and that kid won’t be solving them. Dear God in heaven, please get your head on straight before you bring another human being into this world!

Righteous indignation aside, I must say, Brigette did a PHENOMENAL job moving away from her area of neuroses and saving the date.

Well done, Brigette!

Jane is on another date with Arthur. He wants to know what superpower she wishes she had. She says she wants to be a mind reader but Arthur rightfully points out that would probably drive her nuts.

What you want, Jane, is to see a future where this boy doesn’t break your heart.

She can barely stay in her skin – she’s so scared and freaked out abut the potential of a relationship with Arthur. She decides she wants to run away with him.

They escape to the parking lot.

Jane confronts Arthur in the parking lot, demanding to know what he thinks he’s doing with her. It’s almost going to be a confession of love but it looks like a Reno 911 trailer park brawl.

Jane: Why do you like me? Arthur: I don’t know. I just do. I’m sorry.

This is the moment I fell in love with Arthur. Jane still has fears, as you can see.

 

Arthur tells her he wants to kiss her.

 

Panic ensues.

Jane tells him she can’t – she’s about to lose it and fall for him hard and she knows it would be smarter to take it slow. Good for her!

Leilani is back with George again. I am a little taken aback by her greeting.

Maybe some daddy issues?

She’s trying to get below skin deep and is telling George that she can be bratty and stubborn but it’s okay if someone puts her in her place. And then George drops a bomb on her. He tells her he has Tourettes.

Holyfuckingshitthatissoawesome!

Ew!

Damn, it’s only a mild form that reveals itself with facial twitches if he’s stressed. Leilani regroups and despite eating every one of her finger nails, she claims it doesn’t worry her.

 

Damn he seemed so perfect. Should I put freaky twitching on my list of deal breakers?

 

I’m proud to say our shallow girl rallied from this blow. In fact, in confessional, she even bestows wise words upon us (for which she gets the usual scooby snack trade).

 

“If you can’t accept somebody at their worst, then you don’t deserve them at their best.”

The potential storm has passed and George cracks a joke. Leilani delights me by saying, “Good, now I can go back to being superficial.” George agrees and grants them both permission to be as shallow as a puddle.

 

Maybe this is a good match…

Christine is on another date with Frank, her cheerful, always up for a fun time dorky date from the samba episode. He greets her playfully once again, but then makes the mistake of taking just a moment to be serious and asking her for a brief 5 minute history of her life. She starts at her childhood.

 

She continues (slowly) with her education.

This doesn’t look good. In fact, Steve decides to time her.

After 11 minutes, the story starts to get very dark.

My marriage was failing….

And then I almost died when I had my baby…

 

Christine, you managed to literally suck the joy out of Frank.

She talks about herself for 23 minutes! Steve tells us rule #75 is Zip it! – don’t let your mouth do all the talking. I can tell from the way she is looking at Frank that she is desperate for him to see her as strong and deep – more than just a bronze trophy.

Look into my eyes and love me.

Oh, Christine, what have you done?

I am not at all surprised that there is nothing on Claudia’s date. She’s been overlooked all season. I was however surprised by the teaser of the next episode that says she has a secret to share and it has everyone crying. What do you think it could be????

I am surprised that we didn’t see an ounce of Chasity’s date with Al. He didn’t even make screen time. What’s up with that?

After the dates, we are treated to another light moment with the girls. They are all reminiscing about their dates. Michelle found out that Shan-on does not want to have kids and she’ discovering that this is a deal breaker for her. For the first time in her life, she is ready to admit that she really does want to be a mother. And so we meet Milly, personality #4.

I really want to nurture and raise a baby into a blossoming (fit) human being.
And hey, at least I know how to change a diaper!

Poor Brigette has been trapped

in a leopard sandwich.

Avonte is telling the girls how Trevis doesn’t like ghetto and she’s a ghetto girl. She and Trev threw around another term but I’m too vanilla to catch what it was. Something like Bood Ghetto. I’m pretty sure it can’t be booty ghetto, which is all I found on You Tube. Anyway, the girls argue with Ms. Hot Stuff, so she gives them (and me) a lesson on how to be ghetto. It involves leftover pieces of tin foil.

To look cool, you gotta have bad teeth in the ghetto.

Best of all, Leilani participates in the lesson and joins Avonte! I love that Leilani is willing to lampoon herself. Damn if her adorableness isn’t going to work its way under my skin. MUST….STAY…..STRONG!

For Beverly Hills ghetto, this cap would be platinum.

I also found it amusing to watch Avonte realize how much she has learned. When Michelle complains that it sucks that Shan-on doesn’t want kids because he’s SO HOT, Avonte calmly states, “yeah, but that wears off after six months, anyway.”

Did those fool words come out of my mouth? Steve, what have you done to me?!

The next morning, we see Christine and Chasity sitting outside on the inter-coastal, soaking up the sun. Apparently, Christine has not stopped talking yet and must have been up all night recounting her life right up until yesterday’s date with Frank. We walk in on her boring Chas to tears. Chas is such a sweet and patient good sport. How is it Christine doesn’t realize what a droll conversationalist she is?

Bad Christine! Put down the chips.

GROUP TIME

Steve recaps the lesson that should have been learned this week. He emphasizes that the girls will hopefully now be thinking about why a man could be their match, instead of why he shouldn’t be. And yet again, I pine for time lost without this excellent advice.

Listen to this man, girls. He will save you years!!

I hope you’re sitting down for this next bit, because it’s a shocker. Guess who did the best this week?

Are we in Bizarro World?

Brigette acknowledges that Steve has been right and she felt great after her date, because she kept a lid on her insecurities. She thanks Steve and he’s as surprised as I am. I think this might be the first time any of the girls have expressed gratitude to him.

As a result of her good performance, Steve is going to give Brigette another date with Anthony. She is happy about it because she feels there was a connection with Anthony and she wants to explore it. I sure hope she realizes now that he’s a bump on a log who was moving way too fast.

Avonte is confused. She’s in tears already when Steve turns to her next.

I want to save this boy, but then again, I don’t.

The problem is that Avonte really likes Trevis. But Trevis is only gonna be able to afford gas station sunglasses and bubble gum rings. So Avonte can’t want Trevis at her ripe old age of 36. She has to think about her future, which she envisions in a mansion with a second home in Bora Bora. She’s considered sucking it up and calling a few of her NBA ex-boyfriend’s to try to get him the gig of his dream, but then again, why should she be pulling a man into her future with her?

I can see why she’s torn and she’s right. She has to make decision based on what she thinks is best for her right now and let Trevis save himself (although, truth be told, there’s nothing wrong with Trevis or his aspirations.) Anyway, I think originally Steve was going to lambast her for grilling Trevis on his salary, but when he sees how torn she is in wanting to bring Trevis up to her level, he actually gets choked up.

I’m blown away by the side of you I’m seeing right now.

Jane is still a little white-eyed with fear. If Arthur is for real, then that could mean her dreams are coming true, which means eventually something will come along and crush them. Damn, girl – how terrified you must be of the single you just released:

if you’re song makes it, someday you’ll be a has-been. Ahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!

Arthur tells us in feed-back that he’s really into Jane but she has to open up already. Jane is not very eloquent in expressing her fear, but we get the point; “You know how you want something. And you finally get it. You’re freaking out, ’cause you’re like, what’s going on? What’s happening? Is this really happening? Is something gonna happen right now to just take all this away?” She says it’s really scary for her and right now she’s doing this:

Fear = jazz hands

Who told Jane it’s not okay to be scared? Roll with it, girlfriend. Acknowledge your fear and then step across that line into the open arms of this:

You better give this boy a chance, girl.

The next time Arthur tries to kiss you, you better pucker up! I swear to God, if you let him go out of fear, I will come to Miami and kick your Cuban ass! I’m from New York and grew up pushing around cows that weigh nearly a ton, so I could totally do it.

I’m coming for you, Jane!

Nothing on Leilani (who deserves to be commended for overcoming the Tourette’s bomb), Chasity (what’s up with Al?) Michelle (no bigee, we saw her revelation already) and of course, Claudia. It should come as no surprise to anyone who is in the hot seat.

Your life story is not going to get you laid.

Christine already knows she’s in trouble. When Steve asks if she wants to see the look on Frank’s face during her performance, she pleads not to have to.

Look what you reduced happy Frank to. Bad Christine!

She tells Steve she didn’t want to tell Frank those things, but he asked and then before she knew it she was spitting it all out. I think she was thinking if she got the “For Better or Worse” part over with, this thing could advance quicker. Steve tells her to change the subject. Take a turn to Positivetown. I laugh my ass of when Christine responds by saying, “I want to go to Positivetown!” I love it. I’m gonna start using that.

Which way to Positivetown?

Christine defends herself by saying all she knows is standing in front of people and talking about herself for an hour. Really? I guess I’m glad I’ve never been to a beauty pageant because I would kill myself if I had to listen to every girl talk about herself for an hour. The bikini portion would not even be worth the torture.

And then I nearly died… Please vote for me for Ms. Congeniality!

She admits she wanted to present an exaggerated version of herself to Frank. I think she was going for Christine the Survivor. Steve has to tell her once again to drop the pageant look, the pageant dress, the pageant personality…

What is Steve doing?

Ah, he’s doing Destiny’s Child – this is how you tell someone you’re a Survivor.

Christine is totally blubbering and raving on about how sorry she is, but she doesn’t know how to date, blah blah blah. She’s kind of losing it. So Steve softens up and tells her he wants her to see herself as he sees her, a beautiful woman with a lot to offer.

Steve’s right. If she understood she doesn’t have to put on an act – that real Christine is actually far lovlier than stage version Christine, she’d have no trouble at all with her future background political life. This is good stuff. Then Steve demands Christine say she’s beautiful. She actually seems like she can’t get the words out of her mouth.

 

Say ‘I’m a beautiful person.’ Say it, bitch!

She should be shouting it to the roof tops!

Whew! With that, Steve gives Christine a hug and sends her back to the other girls. What is surprising is that right now, Christine needs comfort and Jane, sitting next to her, has just discovered her own arm must be rubbed at this very moment.

Looks like a cold dis to me.

This episode has given me hope that things are going to pick up. Maybe the next 4 weeks will be electric, like this one started to become. Definitely it looks like there will be some serious drama from the previews. What is going to go down with Claudia?

I can’t wait to find out.

Oh, and to be fair to Jane, just as group comes to an end, it occurs to her to comfort Christine.

There it is. Good Jane!

See you all next week.