What a finale! Let’s just pretend there was a great introduction right here and get to it.
I didn’t know the Brad is brothers with the dude from Rascal Flatts?! I bet the comments from the wifeys on how Emily’s a mother “so she gets us” could get under the skin of some. Not all single people close down bars every night and view children as aliens (just like not all mothers slave away in the kitchen to provide a nutritionally balanced meal for their children, read Swiss Family Robinson to them, tuck them in, kiss them on the forehead, shut off the lights, and go downstairs to knit every evening). If we are not red states nor blue states but rather the united states (raawr!), then we can also have mommies, daddies, and those (scared) kidless all get along. Right friends?
Chantal’s map and letter received a round of applause … from herself. I knew she was doomed when the Brad called her “Channy, channy, channy.” If the nickname I have for someone reminds me of the flat-chested, low-voiced, muscular individual in a skirt and lots of makeup who checked me out at the Lake Street Cub Foods the other day, then I’m not proposing to that person.
The Brad’s heart to heart with Emily on their date was sweet and kinda comical. Where was he going with the “I don’t want to be her step-father, I want to be her REAL father” stuff? Does he want to have some DNA re-engineering done on a 5 year-old?
The Brad’s breakdown made no sense to me. I didn’t see any reasons for his defensiveness nor his “shot down” and “defeated” response. To be honest, it made me question his intelligence a little bit, too. (Sorry if anyone considers that blasphemous.)
Not gonna lie, I let out a “Boom!” when Chantal got out of that limo first. You never know what kind of curveball this one’s going to throw at you.
There is one word that keeps coming to mind for me in this episode and in the “After the Rose,” and that word is “story.” For me, that’s what is missing for Chantal in the closure department and is a struggle for Emily in the commitment department. People sometimes fall in love with their own stories as much as they fall in love with a person. Special, the one, chemistry, I knew, meant to be, etc. are easier words to swallow than choice, commitment, sacrifice, etc.
Chantal created a love story in her head with the Brad. When he broke up with her, that story fell apart. What I read in her questions to him was that she really wanted him to validate her experience. I didn’t see that she still wanted to be with him or anything like that, but rather hear that her reality was, to as much as the Brad was willing to admit, a shared experience. He didn’t really give that to her.
Understandably so, as his unwillingness to admit much in the feelings department to Chantal is a way to build up Emily’s story. We all know that Emily LOVES her story. It’s tragic, it’s heartwarming, and we’ve heard it a bunch of times. She is trying to make the Brad her story too. It’s not very romantic to hear “the judges have reached a decision: winning, on a score of 3 to 2 with beauty, motherly, and sweet over chemistry and adventure … is Emily!”
So much of dating is stories. If it’s about good food at a good price, every man should take his date to their living room for a pepperoni Tombstone. You take them to the rooftop hotspot with the tablecloth for the story. If finding a mate was about getting the best genes, you wouldn’t care about where or when else those genes were spread as long as you got yours. You want the love, hope, belief, and faith that are built through the story. That’s the powerful part.
Another issue for the Brad and Emily to sort out is the balance of power. For the longest time it resided solely in the Brad's court. She couldn't call him out for his interactions with other girls because he was the Mao Zedong of Bachelorville. Now, she has to pick him as much, or probably more, than the other way around. There isn't a harem drinking his koolaid for him to fall back on. Welcome to equal footing, good sir.
Will they make it? Who knows. I hope so. Lots of issues came up in the After the Rose, but they’re still at the table with a chip and a chair. Brad and Emily hold the pen with the book open to the next chapter.
