Recap: Kate Plus Date "Somebody to Love": Stalagmite pizzas and falling beetles as we begin 10 first dates

Hi everyone. After a blessedly long two-year hiatus and two-year break from recapping new episodes for me, the bitch is baaaack. Kate, that is, in a form of a dating show nobody but her always wanted. TLC paid for the rights to play that great Queen song "Can Anybody Find me Somebody to Love"? Goodness, perhaps the budget on this show is slightly bigger than I thought.

Whoa, the set for Kate's interviews is some new studio, and obviously not her house. The carpet is a dizzying busy dark green with white swirly design with faux brick all throughout the back. Looks like a really janky basement coffee house in a snowy college town.

The sum of Kate's reasons for doing this show are money and fame. Just kidding, she is not honest about her real motivations of course, and claims she is dating now because she's lonely and doesn't want to be alone as kids go off one by one to live with Jon. to college. She texted Jamie once who couldn't talk because she was doing something with her husband and all her other unnamed friends were also doing things with their husbands that day, and felt that fear of missing out thing nagging at her. And I find some strange satisfaction in all of Kate's friends, which in actuality is probably just Jamie, blowing BFF Kate off for their husbands. As they should. On another note though, Jamie's husband DIED suddenly and recently. Perhaps it might have been a little bit sensitive of the editors to cut out the part about him and Jamie? Geez!

Since TLC hired their own dating "expert" who has absolutely no credentials in this line of work and should really be more properly labeled "wants to be a media personality in whichever subject comes up to hire me" I figured we at Realitytvkids have about as much expertise on relationships as they do. So here we go, my first rule of dating, do not date because you don't want to be alone. Bad idea. You are just looking for a man because you don't want to watch Game of Thrones and munch on popcorn by yourself, and are therefore nowhere near emotionally ready for the very real commitment a relationship brings, the unselfishness that will be expected of you to make it work, and the true desire to give of yourself and your life to someone else and find true meaning and rewards from that endeavor. First, be comfortable and confident with being alone, and be able to find happiness on your own. Only then can you be successful in a real relationship.

Why oh why are they showing us old clips of Kate Plus 8?! I can guarantee nobody watching this show hasn't seen enough of that other show, and I can also guarantee nobody wants to revisit it all again. I refuse to recap this. Refuse!

I'm not surprised Kate is taking this opportunity to subtly and not so subtly knock Jon. While she acknowledges she was a pain at times in her relationship with Jon, she explains that's because she had to be the person in charge. Basically implying Jon was just some big kid running around unchecked and if someone didn't take the reins things would fall apart. What complete and utter nonsense. While certainly Jon is a million times more laid back than her, there are numerous times documented right on film when she wasn't around that he was perfectly capable of running the household on his own and caring for the kids on his own. The truth is it was Kate's way or the highway and she wasn't happy unless she was in charge so when she was around, Jon let her be in charge to make her happy, which is what mature people are supposed to do in relationships, keep the other person happy. If Kate didn't like or want to be in charge, then Jon would have taken charge, it's as simple as that. And his full time custody today of Collin and Hannah, who are thriving in his care, is proof that Kate's perception of what was going on in that marriage is just that, her delusional perception.

Jon did not bring out her best self. Oh Lord, I think her best self got left on the side of the road somewhere in rural PA squished up as bloody roadkill around about the age of 16.

As I remarked in one of my comments, Kate says that dating is vulnerable (this is true) and she avoids being vulnerable in all aspects of her life. You know I think this is the most honest Kate has ever been? If you're avoiding things that make you feel vulnerable, you are avoiding life itself.

She banished Jon. She would have had to be vulnerable and face up to her shortcomings as a wife to make that work. She washed her hands of Collin and Hannah. She would have to be vulnerable and face up to her shortcomings as a mother. Various friends are long gone. She would have to be vulnerable and face up to her shortcomings as a friend. Family members are gone. She would have to be vulnerable and face up to her shortcomings as a sister, daughter, in-law, cousin. In ten years she has no dating life. She would have to be vulnerable and face up to her shortcomings socially. She doesn't work a real job. She would have to be vulnerable and face up to her shortcomings as a "career" reality star. Kate, get help. Because you're squeaking by now, but you can't squeak by forever with this mindset.

There are rules to this stupid game? Lol. Kate will be going on dates with 10 men (ten, oy! That's a lot to recap!) and then choosing two of those to go on a second date with. I hope they give her a rose to hand to them when she chooses them. A nice thorny one! What if she doesn't like two of them to go on a second date? What if they all stink? Or what if she likes three or four of them? No second date for the third and fourth guy? And hey, that casting call advertisement didn't say nothing about committing to no second date! Bait and switch. And what happens after the second date? Are the guys off the hook then or does she get to choose one to marry? So many questions, no answers.

Mady and Cara appear on the couch to give some lame commentary, or shall I call them Annie Sullivan and Helen Keller. You can guess who is doing all the talking here, and who is just sitting there like she doesn't even understand what water is.

The teens awkwardly sit on Kate's bed, which is a place I stopped hanging out after about age 6 (not Kate's bed, my mother's), but okay. They are charged with filling out a questionnaire about Kate. Which in light of the Casting Call, is so stupid, because clearly they were just looking for some actors with money, maybe their own company, and more or less in her age range. (Apparently being pretty unrealistic about the fact that most actors don't have money or their own company, but they scrounged up ten suitable candidates somehow.)

Mady wants to put down Kate "watches T.V." in her free time, which is hilarious because it's probably true. Kate protests vehemently. And it's not that she is disputing that's what she does with her free time, but rather, she just doesn't want to sound boring. Heh. By all means, don't be honest on a dating questionnaire about yourself and what you honestly do with your time, just let the guy find out who you really are six months in. Good plan.

Kate says in her natural life she won't meet someone. What's natural life? Does she mean outside of a TV show? Goodness, how did all the rest of us manage to meet our partners in natural life? She won't try online dating but won't say why, but I think it's because she's a judgmental little snot who I guess thinks such a famous person as her couldn't possibly be able to date online (False. Famous celebs have met very nice boyfriends and girlfriends online, including Amy Schumer.)

Has she tried church, socializing with other parents at school, meeting people at work (she'd have to get a job), or meeting through hobbies you enjoy like a running club or if she likes TV so much join a film society or something. She's so stupid and helpless and an insult to women.

They seem to settle on her requested age range being 47-53. Hey, that's very different than the Casting Call, which requested 35-55. Heh! Of course she's an old fashioned snob who can't possibly envision her knight in shining armor being younger than her. Also Jon was marginally younger than her, an age difference not even enough worth noting, but that's her subtle dig at Jon that she doesn't want another boy toy. 

Kate's got a diet coke and a huge glass of red wine and a cup of coffee. Um, I don't think it's a good idea to mix those three. Also her bedroom as per the usual is cluttered with junk, open books, a jar of pens, remotes, a hairbrush, some other random pieces of junk I can't identify. Can't be bothered to even straighten up a bit for filming, hilariously lazy. 

Mady says Kate is a four out of ten on the affectionate scale. And Helen Keller signs she's a "two." Well, we knew that. Still, that's sad. Even people that don't really like to be all mushy mushy with their romantic partner all the time are at least still capable of smothering their kids. As we know, Kate isn't. And studies have shown kids actually suffer serious emotional harm and even cognitive difficulties from that lack of consistent physical touch.

We next get introduced to Rachel DeAlto, an intimacy coach and relationship expert. Intimacy coach?! I can't even imagine. How does that work, does she stand in the corner of your bedroom and say okay now move your hand down a little lower, now kiss him, you got it, go, go, go! 

And in case you're wondering exactly what degrees one gets to become such an expert, Rachel went to Syracuse University and got a degree in "communications" which is code for undecided. Am I right or am I right? Syracuse is Mady's future alma mater, interesting, wonder if Rachel suggested she give it a look. Which if true, is probably the only thing of true real value Rachel brought to the table in this entire endeavor. Rachel then got her J.D. from Seton Hall, another respectable school. See, I told you we were just as qualified here at Realitytvkids! Also a J.D. was smart of Rachel, for when her snake oil business gets sued eventually. Rachel is also a hypnotherapist of all things. Cool, maybe she can hypnotize us into thinking she has the first clue what she's talking about.

Finally, Rachel does have some sort of "coaching" training, which, wait for it, was all of a nine day program, assuming she did both module one, two and three. Haha, so great. 

Rachel claims to have been a litigator for eight years, before she became a matchmaker. Nobody leaves a likely lucrative career in litigation for "matchmaker." Except Rachel. 

So far I don't like Rachel, but the jury's out (hehe!) once I hear her dating advice. Her comment about the law is that she is much better at putting people together than breaking him apart. Is that what she boils the law down to? Maybe she should have gone into a different area of law then before leaving a great career behind for nonsense like this on TLC, because only a tiny subset of law involves "breaking people apart." In fact, many of us lawyers here actually work at bringing people together, whether it's helping a nice old couple make sure all their money is left to the grandkids, helping a family start up a business, mediating a custody dispute so that everyone is happy with a fair outcome and doesn't have to go to trial, working in legislation to craft laws that make our lives better, or lawyers who are involved with family reunification in the foster care system or doing adoptions. Of course there are many more examples of what lawyers do that generally are all positive. It's sad when people have one slice of an experience with something (let me guess, Rachel, you did family law) and then write off all the whole rest of it for all time, and it shows great ignorance.

And also, assuming she is referring to family law, she of all people should know that by the time someone walks into your office wanting to hire an attorney, the relationship is usually doomed. I worked for a family law attorney, and on the rare occasion any of her clients indicated they were thinking of not getting divorced after all and trying to work it out, she would close up the file and instruct them to go back to working on it and call her in six months only if they still needed her. She made a lot of money off people's divorces, but I admired her for never ever trying to get someone divorced who wasn't sure. Family law is messy and pretty terrible, but it's not all bad people in it, Rachel.

Kate arrives in a limo, hehe, in some unknown city, to meet Rachel at an empty hotel bar. Kind of strange. Doesn't Rachel have a nice office you could go talk to her at, or do media personalities not really have a home base? Even stranger is the crowd of tourists standing outside the hotel watching Kate pull up. Most of them look like they're frozen in confusion. What was said to them? A famous celebrity is about to pull up, look excited? They look like they're mostly wondering when the camera crew is going to clear out from the sidewalk so they can keep walking to whatever museum they're trying to reach.

Kate lies and says her last relationship was her marriage. Wow, she really has quite the ego there, saying there's no need to go any further on that topic as "everyone knows." Yes, Kate, like the pope, or Brad Pitt, your marriage needs no introduction. How does she know what this Rachel woman does or doesn't know about her history? I'm going to take a wild guess that not everyone is a Gosselin historian like some of the fine folks here! And Rachel never said she was some big fan of Kate or something. Sure enough, I don't think Rachel knows much about the divorce as she even has to ask how long ago it was. I'll answer Rachel: A long ass time ago. So long ago it's ridiculous to still even be talking about it. My second rule of dating: do not, under any circumstances, date anyone until you have completely processed and moved on from past relationships, including divorces and any other relationship you had that maybe wasn't necessarily marriage. It's not fair to you, but it's equally unfair to the person you are dating.

Does anyone else find it ironic that Rachel is divorced? Lol, maybe that helped make her such an expert.

How come Kate continues to insist she didn't date Jeff Prescott? From Prescott's mouth himself, they dated nine entire months in 2015, and not surprisingly he ran for the hills after Kate started orchestrating filming it all. It's so weird the way she insists that relationship never happened, as if that will erase nine whole months of something that sounded somewhat real? How cruel and disrespectful to Jeff.

Mady's a snide little sassy pants on the couch, saying Kate's a decent catch and that her best qualities are her kids. I mean, it's sort of true actually. Mady, like a typical young woman with absolutely no experience of any value in real relationships, wants a guy in his 50s without kids for Kate. When you start narrowing your parameters like that for men at that age, the pickings are going to be slim. Of who is left, there are often reasons they are still single that are huge red flags. And not having any kids by that age could mean they don't like kids or don't want kids, which is also not a good match for Kate. Not saying there can't be perfectly decent men at that age who never ended up settling down or having kids (it appears Amy Roloff's Chris is, hopefully, one of those single older guys who is single, childless, and decent), but I believe them to be pretty rare at that age simply because most people have long paired up by then or are divorced with kids. Even finding myself single in my early 30's, I found the pool of good, decent men that felt endless in my 20's when I wasn't ready to settle down yet had suddenly shrunk to a little dried up pond, and it was exceedingly hard to find anyone I even wanted to go on one date with much less call my boyfriend. Had I known this, I might actually have focused harder on settling down earlier or risk never finding anyone at all or settling for someone not right for me. The truth is you only need to find one and people do certainly find them at any age, but anyone trying to do this in their 30's or older needs to understand it's probably going to take serious actual work and time to do so, including being vulnerable and doing things nasty (and single) people like Kate scoff at like online dating.

Oh and by the way, Amy met Chris through a single's mixer event, a painting class. Sure she felt awkward as Amy usually does, but her girlfriends encouraged her to just go. I daresay she is way more famous than Kate, too. I believe it's clear Chris loves her, awkwardness and all.

Yeah, nope, don't like Rachel. She's spinning a tall tale of that old party line about how Kate needs to not think about the kids for once and put Kate first. Reminds me of the drivel Deanna used to say like that time she actually tried to convince us Kate's problem is she needs to forgive herself for taking 30 minutes out for herself. Oy! Rachel, I understand you don't know this woman from Adam, but trust me, putting Kate first is not her problem. Her problem is the opposite, her extreme selfishness is why she is alone.

Bring on the first victim! Stephen is a handsome silver-haired, blue-eyed IT salesman who's divorced. Stephen is looking for someone to challenge him intellectually. I'm afraid, Stephen, you are looking in the wrong place.

Kate sure is spinning the yarn about her past. When asked who her first boyfriend was she skips right over all the sex she had in high school and the abortion, and launches into the guy from nursing school and how hurt she was when they split. She doesn't name him by name, but the only guy she could be talking about is Adam Miller. Adam tells a slightly different version of the story, that Kate burned him big time by cheating on him and trading up for a guy with a Corvette. But sure Kate, you're the long-suffering victim used and abused by men throughout womanhood. 

Stephen meets up with Kate and Rachel on a boating dock to take a boat ride and not seconds into shaking their hands, he pulls Kate aside and starts whispering to her. Rachel freaks out and starts yelling "not off camera!!!", lol. God forbid something good not be filmed and mess up Rachel's meteoric rise to fame she expects after doing this show. Kate says, you're mic-ed right? Because I'm mic-ed. Haha! 

Not withstanding they are all still mic-ed and still pretty much on camera just with their backs turned, Stephen goes, so I have a question, you really lookin' to fall in love or is this just for the show? BAW!!

Oooo me me, pick me, I'll answer. It's just for the show, Stephen! Now go enjoy your boat ride and brief stint on camera before going back to real life. 

Kate dodges the question not really saying yes or no, just that there could be someone out there for her and she's not ruling it out. Stephen seems satisfied with that for some odd reason and they continue on as normal. 

Rachel is going to follow their boat in her own boat, an earpiece in her ear to listen in. Ohh, that's so fun, kind of like Miami Vice tailing a boat full of cocaine. I've always wanted to do that and then be the one to give the command to "move in!" and then all the undercover police boats swarm it.

I like that Stephen and Kate are immediately talking about kids, because that's huge in order for either of them to understand if they could ever possibly work. He has two adult kids and a 16-year-old.

Rachel insists Kate needs to show she has interests beyond her children, as if she is criticizing the two of them for launching into the kid talk right away. While that's probably true, I see this as a bad idea to not tackle this subject head on and early. So I'll call that one bad dating advice to act like whatever about the kids. I also think any man that doesn't appreciate that a single mom may be wrapped up in her kids isn't the right man for her. Plus Rachel clearly doesn't watch the show or she would realize that any outside interests Kate has are fickle and superficial, she has never stuck to one hobby or interest for very long before getting bored and dropping it. You got me how you play matchmaker with a person like that.

Stephen makes a point to say he knows nothing about Kate in the first place and didn't try to find out anything about her. Haha, I can tell by the narrowing of Kate's eyes it really pisses her off somebody doesn't know who she is. The world doesn't know about your divorce Kate and they don't know about you either, haha! But I'm afraid for that comment alone Stephen could be done.

Stephen did look up Kate's favorite flower. Huh? How do you look that up? I googled "Kate Gosselin favorite flower" and nothing came up that she likes, not even the amorphophallus titanium, that flower that smells like a corpse (or some say, vagina). It's not like she's a state and you can just find the flower on a chart. Stephen is .... different, shall we say.

Kate doesn't understand how sailboats work. They roll to the side at times, this is normal, but she doesn't like it. Stephen drags Kate up to the bow of the boat to do the whole stupid Titanic thing, a joke that got old twenty years ago. But is a good excuse to dig out my old Titanic graphic I made in 2012.

Yep, still works.

They have a mostly superficial conversation about their divorces, but it's clear from their talk that Stephen is in a much better emotional place about his divorce, as he seems to appreciate the time that he was in love with the woman and is understanding that they simply grew apart as they grew up. He has a healthy "it is what it is nobody is at fault" attitude about that relationship that will serve him well going forward. Stephen is ready to date again. Kate is not.

Stephen likes Kate's legs. Ew, those tree trunks?

As they step off the boat Rachel accosts them about how the date went. Poor Kate and Stephen are like, it was good, fine! I mean, isn't this conversation supposed to occur one-on-one so they can both be free to be a little more honest? Geez, Rachel. Rachel insists the date is not over yet, they're going to go make pizzas together next. Blah, do we have to? Dating rule number three from Realitytvkids.com: keep the first date relatively short. Do one thing, like coffee or dinner or one activity. That way if the date is terrible you're not stuck with them your whole day without a good way to get out, and if you do like them, it leaves you wanting more on the second date. Or at least plan just one activity and then secretly have another activity planned for afterward if that first one goes really well and neither of you are ready to end it. The adorable marathon first date the Obamas had together was unusually successful and not generally a good idea for most couples. 

I guess this date isn't going so well for Kate because she seems really annoyed when Stephen can't get his pizza to roll out, and says she helped him as a means to an end as the sooner his pizza rolls out the sooner they can get this over with.

Yikes, I don't think Stephen is making the cut. Is he that bad? I suppose he's pretty gregarious, but I attribute a lot of that to just nervousness. Some people who are normally quieter or normally whatever act completely different on first dates because they're so nervous, which is why my fourth tip of the night for dating is you should almost always go on a second date, even if you think you probably don't like the person (unless there was some major red flag on the first, go on a second). You need to see the person after the nerves are out of the way before you can really judge whether this is worth giving it a try going forward. Any second date I've been on has always been way better than the first because people are more likely to be comfortable being themselves now that they know you don't have a big wart on your nose or a sixth finger.

Kate admits she had "cargo ship" loads of frustration at Stephen over this. Because he can't roll out some pizza dough? Yikes, her inner Gestopo is really coming out on this activity. I feel like if she had her own kingdom she'd chop off a hand for every time someone didn't roll out a pizza dough right. Stephen says he didn't feel any vibe that she was frustrated. Heh, typical man: You were feeling such-and-such? Oh.

Stephen does seem to be unable to stand in one spot and he's talking to the other folks in the class and looking at their work and basically bouncing off the walls. This is really disconcerting to Kate, and I have to agree with her there. I don't like when people jut about either. He drank too much coffee or speed or something and needs to just breathe.

They show a closeup of Kate's pizza and its a soppy mess, it looks like a stalagmite! This was the same woman freaking out over Stephen's less-than-Italian pizza-making skills? At least his pizza looks like a pizza, a square one, which is how the Sicilians make it so it's okay. It's one thing to just stink at rolling pizza, it's not an easy thing to do, but this woman claims to like cooking so much she wrote a cookbook. She's such a fraud. 

Rachel swoops in to offer something unhelpful like they need to have better conversations and flirt. Stephen tells Rachel to buzz the F off they can handle this, which is awesome. Heh! You can tell Rachel can't handle it when someone pushes back on her, and slips away quickly without argument. That was great.

Rachel explains to us dumb viewers oh so helpfully that Kate didn't want to ask questions because Kate wasn't interested in Stephen and didn't want to give him the wrong impression. Oh was that why? I thought it was because Kate doesn't ask questions of anyone because Kate is a narcissist who doesn't care or have interest in anyone else. But if the idea is that Kate isn't interested in this guy and likely never will be, why can't we just end the torture now? Why strut out there and insist that they keep at this pointless exercise? It's just painful. 

Stephen nicely compliments Kate's pizza as they eat and also can't believe Kate hasn't dated since Jon. Hm-mm, Kate insists, mouth full of pizza. It's not believable because it's not true, Stephen. You should have googled Kate more, beyond what flowers she likes, so you would know when she's lying and making a fool out of you. And by the way, he didn't even bring her flowers, so why was he bothering to research flowers?

Stephen is asking some good questions, like what is she looking for (she doesn't know of course because she's not really looking) and what was it she liked about Jon. She spoke very highly of Jon in many of the old episodes. Of course she's a tool who refuses to admit she did once love Jon and his many good qualities. The divorce was ten years ago! She doesn't need to date. She needs intensive therapy, and that's a show I could watch: Kate Plus Explicate. Kate has trust issues, feels burned by friends, family, and people she doesn't even know. What people she doesn't know? Of course she is the victim in all this and did nothing wrong to cause this apparent constant discord in her life. I hope Stephen is getting some big red flags now and if Kate doesn't call this off soon, he should.

I spend a lot of time with various podcasts on my commute, which I really enjoy, and I recently listened to a bonus episode of Dirty John, episode 7 Live at the Ace Hotel, if you're interested. In it Patricia Giggins from Peace Over Violence, a domestic violence prevention charity, talks about educating young people on what a healthy relationship is and what you are looking for. What kind of relationship do you really want to have? Giggins thinks this is just as important as any other skill growing up, yet isn't taught in schools, and then people get out in the real world and end up in bad situations. Anyway, it made me think that if Kate genuinely doesn't know or understand what she wants in a man, which I don't think she does, then it's no wonder she has a string of failed relationships under her belt. I think Kate knows she does want somebody to be a huge contributor to funding her lifestyle, but beyond that she's pretty lost about what her own needs are in a relationship. Like I said, she should have gotten ten sessions of therapy first before even thinking about ten dates.

Dirty John by the way is a very good podcast I highly recommend, however it's stories like that that make people like Kate unreasonably paranoid about online dating. While it's true Debra met John online, John also terrorized a number of women before her, women he met offline like at work, some long before online dating even existed. In other words, someone can stalk, molest and even kill you even if you met them in the most benign offline way possible. So if your reason for not dating online is "there are a lot of bad people out there," you are being irrational. 

Kate declines Stephen's offer to dance, and mercifully the date ends. Stephen tries to give her a kiss that she dodges, and then Stephen saunters away with a glass of wine asking where the vodka is at. Oy, can't blame the guy. 

And in case you had any doubt that Kate is the biggest bitch ever, she doesn't blame Rachel for the disastrous date with Stephen because "Rachel had to start somewhere." Ooooouch! 

The kind of guy that would be good for Kate, says Annie Sullivan, as Helen Keller gazes into space next to her still unaware of what water is, is a guy who is ambitious, smart, but laid back and okay with Kate being in charge. See? Even the twins understand that Kate likes to be in charge, has to be really. Oooo, I know who would be good for Kate. There's this guy who lives nearby who just happens to adore children, hers especially, has his own successful business, and is also pretty laid back and fine with Kate being in charge. Mady does realize she's describing her father, right? Maybe not, as she has been estranged from him for years thanks to Kate. 

Rachel nonsensically explains that they are going to look for a guy between North Carolina and New York because Kate spends a lot of time in both places. The hell? It makes little to no sense to date a guy in just places you occasionally travel to, but it makes even less sense to find somebody "in between" those places, which is one hell of a huge area. It's not like you're saying let's find a guy for Kate between New York and Newark. Geez. You know what reality T.V. host I liked sooo much better than this dumb Rachel chick? Jen from Couples Therapy. She was firm but kind, intuitive, credentialed, and spot on most of the time in her armchair analysis of her subjects, including Jon. Rachel is just a big ball of doofus compared to Jen. Rachel so far has absolutely no grasp of Kate and how she thinks, what's going on in that pea brain of hers much less how to even begin to help her. Come to think of it I wish TLC had hired Jen to host this show, then I might actually enjoy myself.

Rachel finally at long last says something not dumb, about the two fancy rings Kate wears on each of her ring fingers. Rachel says it looks like she's taken, and it does, and that's why she wears them Rachel because do you still not get it that she does not really want to date??? This woman passed the bar, folks. Yipe. Kate offers very little explanation that's very revealing about the mystery rings we've long noticed on this blog, but she does say she got one in New Zealand and one in Mexico. Hmmm, incidentally Mexico is where she vacationed with Steve sans kids, and New Zealand is Steve's homeland and where she has also visited with him. Curiouser and curiouser. Conspiracy theory, she's secretly married to Steve. Boom!

Kate tries to defend the wedding ring as not looking like a real wedding ring which is just nonsense because wedding rings can look like anything as long as it's on the left ring finger. Although Rachel could be wrong here, maybe Kate is wearing a wedding ring to get more boyfriends, kind of like what George did in Seinfeld once. Naturally Kate ignores Rachel's advice to ditch those rings explaining they are near and dear to her heart. Oh I bet they are, schmoopy. Also I don't think Rachel was suggesting  Kate put the things on eBay, but how about at least store them safely away while on a date, or perhaps in a pretty gold chain around her neck? There is a compromise here somewhere that Kate could agree to, but Kate is too rigid to see it without help and Rachel is too dumb to think of it. 

Kate's next victim is Todd, a baby-faced 45-year-old who is divorced and owns his own gym. Seems like a nice guy, but when a guy says he's not looking for love he's looking for fun, believe him. All Kate can say about friendly and personable Todd is he's short, which, as a woman on the taller side, I kind of get. It's just awkward for many tall women to be with a short man, and is an admittedly stupid and shallow hangup that many legitimately can't get past. At the same time, if he checks all the other boxes I would hope most women would give him a chance. It's weird to me to see a woman I consider short (5'4) complain about a man being too short. You're short yourself, so who are you to complain? Try being 5'7 Kate, or even 5'11 like a couple of my friends. Then watch all of the guys around you who are shorter than you and are uncomfortable dating you, shoes that never come in your size, and a childhood of being teased for being the tall girl. 

Todd by the way is not impossibly short. He looks like Kate's height (5'4) in heels, so a good 5'6 or 7. Could be so much worse. It occurred to me this could be another knock at Jon, and sure enough when I looked his height up I was shocked to find the internet pegs him at 5'7. I didn't realize he was that short. It's laughable but sad that Kate makes a point in seeking out physical characteristics the very opposite of Jon, as if to stick it to him somehow. It's funny how she assumes since she's 12, he's 12 too.

Rachel is creepily spying on the date using a small production screen while they pick grapes at a winery. Todd has a 16-year-old beagle (16! What do you feed this beagle?!) and an 11-year-old daughter. Aw. Todd wants more kids. Does he mean biological or is he okay taking on step-kids? Eek.

They crush grapes with their feet I Love Lucy style and Kate is very proud of herself for coming up with the, Is this on your "bucket" list? pun. Hardy har har.

Next they do wine tasting, and Kate can stop swirling that stuff around as if she cares and just gulp it down like we know she wants to. She and Todd make some cute jokes about the flavor profiles in the wine, both poking fun at how they actually have no idea what they are talking about, and for the first time since Jon I see Kate relaxing in the presence a man. See Kate, it can actually be kind of fun to share life things with a guy. That reminds me of the last giggle fest I had with some family and friends, the kind of giggles where you just can't stop them. We were wine tasting with all our significant others and our dogs and we kept describing the wines as if the dogs were tasting it. Things like pot roast notes, aged in bacon, you get the picture. It was silly and goofy and we had a blast. It's fun to hang out with people you enjoy, Kate, and it's fun to pair up and do things with other couples. It's fun to be silly and make each other laugh. I'm sorry all your little hang ups have caused you to miss out.

Rachel awkwardly interrupts the wine tasting, of which it appeared they weren't even finished yet, to drag them to dinner across the vineyard. Why does Rachel need to do this kind of militant ordering about? Why can't they just finish up the wine tasting at their own pace and then wander over to dinner when they're hungry? Yeesh, this useless Rachel woman! Even Kate rolls her eyes at her, and for once Kate's right. I'm going to take a guess Rachel really doesn't have much on camera experience, because it feels like every time she wanders into the frame when nobody asked for her and interrupts things or tries to add her useless two cents, she only ends up drastically breaking up the flow of whatever was going on and embarrassing herself. You know what would be much more effective? Since these dates seem to be broken up into two or three parts, Rachel should meet with Kate in between the segments and go over with her aspects of the date that are working and aspects that are not. Offer tips to improve things in the next segment. For instance, he mentioned he has a child about the same age as your sextuplets, ask him more about her. Or, you were interrupting him when he was trying to explain something, so try to be aware of doing that and hold back on jumping in and talking over him. You were sarcastic with him there, watch that, too. Frankly, this is the format of almost every other "expert" show, from The Dog Whisperer to Supernanny. There's a reason that's the format. Because it actually works. TLC tried to get cute here and deviated from the standard format, and it's crashing.

Kate's commentary about all this so far is, oh good they're not all like Stephen. Yowser, what an unnecessary pot shot! She does realize Stephen might watch this episode right? And his family, his three kids? There was nothing wrong about Stephen, he was just too much personality for a sack of potatoes like Kate. So stop, it's just mean now. 

Todd's great, he worries he's being all dull and boring. Goodness, not at all, Todd! You're fun, engaging, and have a great smile. The problem is you are short, which unfortunately, you can't do anything about. Indeed as Kate and Rachel are conferring alone before dinner while hair and make-up touches up Kate, Kate can only talk about how Todd is just too short. 

This date's activities are like honeymoon material, which seems a little much for just a first date. They have dinner in a treetop restaurant. That's pretty epic. I think Todd actually thinks he might like her or could like her, which is unfortunate because Todd doesn't stand a chance on account of being too short and on account of Kate not really wanting to date.

Kate is blathering on about something or other and mentions that she spends all her life on TV. She really does live in a fantasy where everything about her is filmed even when it's not. Her level of delusion is getting creepy now, in a Ready for My Closeup kind of way. Another excuse to dig out an old graphic! 

Note, the last episode of Kate Plus 8 was filmed over two years ago, for the sextuplets' thirteenth birthday. Two years, people. She is certainly not living her life on a TV show. In fact we know next to nothing about what's been going on with her over the past couple years other than I guess she lost a couple of kids to Jon, because up until last week she barely posted on social media either. Now I'm really wishing these guys knew something about her so that Todd could say, but you haven't been filming in two years. 

Todd is also freaked out about online dating. That's too bad, because online dating would be perfect for someone like him. He would get a lot of responses due to his good looks and that there's actually a lot of substance underneath that. And he's nice. Yeah, the guy would get a hundred people a day wanting a date. He would have his real pick of who to actually meet up with, which means he could be really discerning, which is ideal for online dating. Online dating doesn't work when there's no one suitable even interested in the first place.

Mady poo-poos online dating because it would be creepy if they are just going out with her if they recognize her. I can virtually promise her that won't happen. Men Kate's age do not watch this show and even if they had an old ex that made them watch, trust me, they weren't really "watching." This is too bad, because online dating could open up a world of possibilities for a shrew like her.

Todd's smart too. Astrophysics degree from Michigan State? Yowser! He left it behind and became a dancer instead, his true passion. And went to NYC and did musical theater, and traveled all over the world. And he's short. And now responds to a casting call, apparently. And has really, really white teeth. Um, is Todd gay and just doing this to make a quick buck? Sorry, but I have to ask because it doesn't look like the obvious has occurred to ole dummy ex-litigator turned matchmaker over there. Marcia Clark she is not. Kate interrupts this rather interesting story about Todd to scream over a beetle that fell on the table. Just brush it off and grow up, good Lord. It's not like it's an indoor restaurant and it's an OSHA violation. 

Kate's screaming over more bugs and a little wind. No, seriously, a little wind. Even nice Todd has to admit these constant freak outs Kate is doing are actually ruining the dinner. Yep, they actually are. It suddenly starts raining like crazy, but nobody packs up to leave because I guess you can't just stop filming something without finishing or your story would have no ending.

Todd's just too nice to be straight, sorry. He remarks what an absolute wonderful time he's having and gives her a sweet hug goodbye. They sure are making sure these guys are liquored up, which is probably wise, Todd is still drinking during his exit interview. Kate ranks these guys Todd first, Stephen second. Is there much point to ranking just two guys? Heh. And ranking them? She sounds like a college boy. Why not just say something mature, like Stephen was very nice but not for me. Todd was also nice, but I'm afraid I've got some terribly unfair personal hangups about his height that are not his fault but make me question whether I'd like to see him again. I know, I know, way too adult for TFW. You know for as far as so many smug women think we've come in the women's movement,  no longer being intimidated by men, standing up for ourselves, sharing our stories of past abuse, finding equality in relationships, no longer needing marriage or if we do get married keeping our names, switching roles so that we work and they stay home with the kids. Well, pull aside the tall ones, like 5'7 and up. Ask them if they would date a guy who is only 5'7 and they have to answer honestly. I'd love to see how that conversation would turn out. I'm guessing pretty darn hypocritically. We may have progressed in so many ways, but at the end of the day these women's lib zealots can't get rid of that inherent biological need to be protected by a protector, a big and strong man. And it makes no sense to our ancient brains that a protector can be smaller than you (after all, our ancestors didn't have big advantages that make a small person powerful regardless of height, like guns), so we reject that short person as a suitable mate. Yea science!

It's over at last. Only eight more dates. Which at the moment sounds endless. I listened carefully to this whole episode and I heard Cara say one thing. I'm not even kidding, one thing. About Kate being a 2 on the affectionate scale. Man, is she ever passive aggressive about this all.

Next time is the escape room we heard about months ago. I kind of do want to see her date with the rather interesting Rosario, the Italian opera singer who totally reminds me of a throwback to Carrie Bradshaw's Russian boyfriend Aleksandr Petrovsky. A guy that I thought was so terribly ugly and way too old for her, yet so terribly handsome because of the absolute sex appeal he exuded. Those suits. That apartment. The accent. He was so romantic, whimsical, artistic. And then he beat her, so nevermind. See you next time.