Sophie reaches the end of the 25 hour flight from hell, which included a sprint across New York’s airport to make it to the gate moments before takeoff. The lack of sleep inspires her to abandon her luggage outside of a bathroom, hoping someone will stop by and snag it, or report it as a bomb, so she doesn’t have to drag it any further.

Rob the Knob’s not trying to brag, but he’s a wannabe actor with one IMDB credit, so he’s going method to prep for his audition to play Tedros in the community theater musical production of HBO’s most expensive mistake, The Idol. But that’s not all he’s been doing, since he’s managed to carve out the majority of the last 16 minutes to glance at a TikTok tutorial posted by an area retirement community in preparation for his surprise baggage-claim proposal.

“Oh, I’m definitely updating my social media to say I’m a dancer, definitely,” Rob takes his knobbing seriously.

“Stop!” His subconscious says to Rob, as Sophie finds the dark corner he’s selected for his performance. Sophie wonders WTF is going on next to the luggage trolleys, when the music starts, and Rob’s almost on-beat as he demonstrates an original dance move called Spread the Mayonnaise.

“I like to call it Miracle-Whip,” Rob interrupts, knowing full well that shit is mayonnaise.

“If a guy from my hometown did that I would think the bath salts epidemic was much worse than what was reported on channel 4,” Sophie admits. “But since it’s Rob, I believe it was intentional.”

“She thought that was the moment it was going to happen!” Rob has alternative facts. “I like to keep her guessing. Let’s take it 100 steps that way.”

“Will that keep her guessing, or keep her tired?” Production asks, but Rob has already advanced to the next greasy carousel under fluorescent lighting. Sophie nearly collapses under the weight of surprise when Rob knobs down to one knee to ask a question that’s already been answered. He still seems to require verbal confirmation, and for reasons known only to Sophie, she says yes.

“I don’t know why he chose the airport,” Sophie couldn’t make up the answer Rob is about to give.

“The way I see it, she has to say yes to me before she gets to enjoy LA,” Rob would like all of us to remember this line when he reflects on all the surprises he arranged. “I’m glad I could give her the romantic proposal of her dreams.”

Sophie tries to remember what dream he might be referencing, but a few should be crushed in the coming episodes, so let’s pace ourselves.

“Just remember to whittle away at her,” Bilal’s also doing anti-tourism for Missouri. “Is it too late to fake poverty?”

“Oh, I arrive with actual brokeness,” Rob’s planned ahead.

Sophie just wants to go to bed with mounting desperation, but in the elevator Rob pushes the “door closed” button until the elevator jams. Sophie then enters a state of claustrophobic meltdown, and they bicker over whose fault it is, with Rob insisting his name and “responsibility” should never be spoken in the same sentence.

“In my defense, I’m 23,” Sophie tries. “Which explains why I thought Rob would comfort me instead of getting defensive.”

“And in my defense, 32 is like 23 reversed, so,” Rob thinks this is a point, and also thinks what just happened was a surprise, so.

A voice comes over the intercom to ask if they’re stuck, and Rob waves Sophie off so he can say “we’re stuck” with several more words. Once freed from the set of Saw, Rob tells Sophie to wait on level one, and he’ll walk up to level four and then obstruct the flow of traffic near the exit. An airport worker with too much experience with clowns knows Rob has joined the circus, and tries to wave him towards the bleachers, but Rob is already standing center ring shouting that this top hat makes him the ring master, and that tiny car is fine because it fits all his friends.

Meanwhile, Sophie gets back in the elevator that works now that it’s holding less dead weight, and calls him to figure out which direction she should be pushing this luggage.

“You’re posing a threat to my vibe,” Rob has priorities.

“It’s just a c-section! Say please and thank you!” Stephen knows when his advice is needed.

Rob grew up on the mean streets of Kanye West, and prepares to make Sophie forget about his time in rural Oregon by driving in circles around his neighborhood on a quest for crime.

“Something’s going down over here,” Rob’s excited. “Looks like a standoff of some kind.”

“We’re just trying to wake up a homeless guy,” the police clarify.

“He watches hood movies with me all the time, and swears Inglewood’s always up to no good,” Sophie reports Rob’s findings from time spent studying at the School of Dr. Dre.

They arrive at Rob’s rented bedroom, and the dinner he has set up suggests the set designers from The Bachelor have descended upon his yard. Sophie’s not sure where to stash the contents of her four suitcases, but Rob points out a chest of drawers waiting for her between his pop-up closet and grow tent.

“I’m running on two hours of sleep,” Sophie reminds us, as she sits down for dinner and wonders if there’s a shower in the outhouse.

“Eat that churro,” Rob Tedroses.

The next day they wake up and Rob details that his fourth “surprise” for the evening was guilt-tripping Sophie into sex.

“I had to put you to sleep,” Rob finally admits to being boring in and out of bed.

“Jasmine says that if the lady falls asleep during it, that’s bad,” Gino checks his notes.

“I was also already asleep, so technically you woke me up,” Sophie reminds him. “You were like, ‘please, I’m a man!’ and then you showed me your birth certificate and that really doesn’t count.”

“All I know is that was the icing on my insecure-dominance cake,” Rob feels his inner Andrew Tate starting to flower.

Sophie’s grateful getting it over with counts as intimacy to Rob, but it doesn’t help her navigate the special pain of trying to put makeup on in a bathroom plucked from the set of Gummo. She wonders if maybe they could park an RV in a Walmart parking lot for better proximity to indoor plumbing and overhead lights, or maybe repurpose the rusted-out file cabinets into a saucy outdoor shower that makes her forget they live in a garage.

“You have all these bougie demands,” Rob thinks bougie means basic. “It never rains in LA, outside of the occasional hurricane and monsoon. You’re used to houses in Dubai and Spain, and I’m down to earth.”

“Dubai and Spain are on earth, where are you?” The planet demands an explanation.

Rob and Sophie go to the beach where Rob points out tourist attractions in the distance. Sophie thinks living near the beach might be an amazing option, and Rob quickly googles “the beach is too expensive” and then reports an impossible price point.

Sophie says she’s been on her own since she turned 16, and worked as a waitress to land a little apartment in the country. This differs from Rob’s insistence that she relies on the fam for money, but let’s assume Rob’s lying, since he can’t fathom that becoming an influencer might be more lucrative for a 23 year-old with an affinity for butt-sculpting leggings. Plus, there’s this:

“If you really, really want to live here you could try and ask for help. If not, we can stay in Inglewood.”

Also this: “How much do you got on you?”

And this: “Well, when you can work, maybe, yeah.”

As they slog down the beach, Rob sometimes remembers to acknowledge the person next to him between suckles on his phone-teat, and Sophie looks over to witness him working through a Dora the Explorer kink.

“Some page you know how algorithms I don’t remember following and if you think about it,” Rob throws every excuse at the wall to see what sticks.

“How does this work?” Nurse Jasi has questions. “She is the Dora and you are the explorer? Is Swiper swiping?”

The shuffles around LA continue, as Rob takes Sophie to his favorite traffic median to pace back and forth with his poor limping dog. Sophie’s latest leggings present an unexpected shadow-toe, a close neighbor to the more prominent camel toe, which is kinda like looking at 3D pictures in the mall, never certain if you’re seeing a sailboat.

“He’s walking kinda slow. He’s got allergies, so I only walk him where they definitely spray Round-Up,” Rob is as much a vetrinarian as he is a dancer.

Sophie brings up the time a woman alerted her via the gram to Rob’s habit of sending sex videos to strangers, and Rob rewrites this as Jocelyn being the one manipulating Tedros the entire time, and escalates to getting mad.

“All I did was respond to somebody after not seeing each other for seven months.” Rob hopes Sophie doesn’t remember that she busted him because the other woman had video receipts of him being the origin point.

“How old was she when you two started doing this again?” Reddit’s timeline wizards are ready to graph.

“When are you gonna let it go?” Offense is Rob’s only defense.

Rob continues to talk about the thing he did as something that just happened to him, and summarizes the incident as a time he “responded to the wrong person.” With shouting her down out of the way, Rob’s ready for phase 2, The Pivot. He brings up her recreational use of Bumble, and Sophie says she told him she uses it to meet friends various places, and showed it to him on her phone.

“I’ve been loyal, that’s the difference,” Sophie tries.

“I’m just saying we both have reasons to be suspicious,” Rob knows he can be blameless here.

Sophie says this is basically the only way Rob responds to accusations of any kind, and finds it impossible to apologize for anything when it can be turned around to blame someone else. Accurate diagnosis and continuing to eat shit is a rare combination, so I think we can all agree that there’s a four-alarm self-esteem fire burning in LA, and we’re going to need to send everyone.

Ashley is freaking out en route to the airport, because every deity whose favor she’s curried is screaming in her ear just for lulz.

“Pick me! Pick me!” Buddha/Ganesha/Hecate/Freya/Apollo all scream in unison.

“I cannot even handle life!” Ashley speaks for everyone.

“You’re a boss babe!” Ashley’s sister Sienna tries her best to banish mounting hysteria. “Write yourself in cursive on a wine glass! You’ve got this!”

“My makeup my makeup!” Ashley cries, until someone throws a red bag at her windshield.

Ashley finally arrives at the airport with a gallon jug of water in case she spontaneously combusts, and Sienna’s there, tasked with holding the welcome poster and anchoring Ashley in place. After a very brief wait Manuel descends the escalator wearing the official post-flight expression of travelers everywhere.

“No more tears from these pretty eyes, okay?” Manuel says to soothe the crying Ashley, and they kiss while Sienna awkwardly posters in the background.

“I wish we had 120 days,” Manuel’s marital excitement is palpable.

Ashley takes Manuel on a tour of Rochester, where he’s pleased to see trees and cute houses are permitted to exist within city limits. She assures him that one of those houses is hers, and she’s done what she can to make it as dark as possible inside.

“Not everyone has to paint their house like Candyland to survive winter,” Ashley directs her gaze at everyone snorting rails of Vitamin D under grow lights in the PacNW.

Manuel acknowledges Ashley’s meditation spot is the whole house, so he asks where to put his bag without offending a spirit, and Ashley insists he drag it from room to room as evidence of his willingness to sacrifice. He greets her dog, Rico Suave, but recoils from her cat Lyra.

“I don’t like cats,” Manuel audacities. “In Ecuador they catch mice. In New York, they are just a pet that needs to be fed.”

“Should I tell him?” Lyra’s a savage.

“They don’t do anything,” Manuel refuses to acknowledge Lyra’s talking over here.

“I can do two things you can’t: Say ‘Grandma’ in English, and lick my own butthole,” Pogue the Cat chimes in, (and yes, he watches this with me).

They arrive at the bedroom, and Manuel wonders about the door, and Ashley explains it’s being repurposed as a portal cover so Rico Suave and Lyra can come and go as they please.

“We don’t have thumbs,” Lyra points out.

Manuel objects to this arrangement, and insists he doesn’t want to wake up to Lyra smothering him to death by applying her full body weight to his face. Ashley reminds him that he shouldn’t have talked shit then, and he might not be used to it, but he’s also not used to anything else happening right now, so maybe stand down since he just fucking landed.

“That dog has been with me through a ton of partners,” Ashley takes a stand. “They leave, and guess who stays? Rico motherfucking Suave.”

Ashley provides helpful toilet paper guidelines and reminds Manuel not to flush his tampons, and when she finishes plating up dinner she’s ready to tell him she’s a witch. Neither one of these two can grok a world where more than one definition exists, so Ashley insists Manuel’s perception of devil-dealing evil-doers is false, and her soup of New Age gibberish with a prosperity gospel twist is legit.

“I’m so confused. Are you saying that if I cheat on you we are going to Sweden to eat mushrooms and Maypole dance?” Manuel asks the right questions.

“Yes!” Ashley’s glad he’s finally all caught up.

“But do I have to wear a bear suit?” Manuel watched the WHOLE movie.

“Only if I dance the longest!” Ashley needs a break from this debate, and tucks her cell phone into her bra to smoke outside.

“Is she trying to invoke me now?” Angela rasps. “You’ve got to say ‘we’re done’ three times in the mirror before I appear. And then we will never be done. Ever.”

The next day Ashley reports they closed the case on their fundamental differences by fucking, and rouses Manuel from his dog-kissed slumber so they can stock her bare cupboards and prep for dinner with mom and sis.

Manuel knows an American grocery store is going to be an experience, but he’s not quite ready for adult carrots to be separated from their children. He barely survives this encounter, only to be ushered down endless aisles populated with frozen and heavily-processed sodium-enriched vegan crimes against cuisine.

“The vegan sections are the ones that are fully stocked,” Ashley points out.

“Ashley says that some of the sausages don’t have meat, and some of the milk doesn’t have milk,” Manuel reports his findings. “I don’t know why these things are not called different words. Like almond spit, or wheat log. Maybe corn paste.”

“Cornhole is already a game,” Ashley beats him to it. “One word, one definition!”

Manuel left Ecuador without telling his mom he’s leaving the country to marry an American, which apparently bothers Ashley, but not enough to call this whole thing off. He also has two teenage sons, and Ashley isn’t even sure they’re aware he’s engaged.

“So is it a priority to meet them before you get married, or nah?” The producer is confused by Ashley’s decision to leave herself out of this fuckery.

“We’re focusing on Manuel here,” Ashley says. “I’m the Gino.”

Her mom is very excited to meet her future son-in-law and unfurl her expectations for immediate crotch-fruit; it’s unclear whether she knows Manuel’s have already dropped. They arrive at the restaurant with Sienna and her husband, and mom has google translate adorably at the ready, before surrendering her phone to daughter Sienna for her superior texting fingers. Mom says she’s concerned with his decision to avoid telling his mom, and kinda appalled that he chose to fully-lie instead of just dodge and weave.

“He didn’t say, ‘I applied for a visa and I’m waiting’ or that he didn’t know when,” Mom outlines. “He said I have a job somewhere else. The man won’t be working for the next three months. Shouldn’t they be made aware of this?”

“Opinions are like assholes,” Manuel also has thoughts. “And my opinion is that your mom wants a baby too much.”

The next day Ashley reports that Rico Suave and Manuel arrived at a truce, and agreed that Rico Suave would camp under the bed on cast-off clothing while Manuel and Ashley thrash around each others genitals.

Manuel busies himself cooking up some food for Ashley, and Ashley thinks it’s time for him to tell his mom the truth. Out comes the computer, and Manuel calls his mom with Ashley hovering beside him.

His mom (Blanca) greets him warmly, and Ashley chimes in, calling her “mother-in-law,” which Blanca fully ignores. Manuel reports the news, and Ashley announces she’ll leave so they can talk alone, prompting a second reference to “mother-in-law” that Blanca ignores.

“So you two basically hate each other, and you wanted to rub Manuel’s surprise relocation in her face?” Production wants to get everyone on the same page.

Blanca asks Manuel not to forget the family he left behind, and says she loves him and looks forward to seeing him again one day. The connection abruptly ends, so either Ashley rebooted the wifi or mom hung up on him, and Manuel is even more conflicted about his decision to relocate, even if he feels it will benefit his family in the long run.

​

part 2 coming in basically an hour. This will be the only double recap this season, friends, because Wall of Text.