Why Can't Jamie's Siblings Teach Her How To Manage Her Expectations Of Their Mother?

How much were you let down by the payoff of that cliffhanger?

Even though I knew in my heart of hearts that Cortney's coming home to a completely empty apartment was going to end up being nothing, I was still annoyed when I turned out to be right. I can see the fun of setting up Cortney with this joke, and then surprising her with the fully unpacked, apparently bigger (...if you say so, dude) apartment next door, except for the fact that Jason wasn't even there to witness her reaction, which just made it weird.

How long, in hours, before Cortney craps this apartment up as bad as the last one was?

My heart broke for Jason when I saw the apartment so carefully unpacked and neat as a pin, because it's obvious he likes things orderly and she's the slob. Sorry, Jason: nothing gold can stay. You should have rated "organization" higher on your wife questionnaire, Jason: you might have ended up with someone who wasn't satisfied, before your wedding, to live in a room divided by a bed sheet hanging from the ceiling.

Will Jamie EVER hear Doug when he tells her he's not ready to have a baby?

I guess we can all mark off "Shopping For A Christmas Tree" on our "Circumstances Under Which Jamie Will Awkwardly Mention How Much She Wants A Baby" Bingo cards!

What was with that ham-fisted Carmax ad?

It's lovely of Doug to want to surprise Jamie with a car for Christmas. Too bad the Carmax product placement went on so long -- and over multiple segments! -- that one might reasonably assume that Doug got the car for free in exchange for promotional consideration.

Is anything more basic than a boudoir photo shoot?

Hmmm, let's see.

Using a firefighter's helmet as a prop makes the answer here a definitive NOOOOOOOOPE.

Didn't Monet have this exact conversation with Clay in the last episode?

We don't need a recap of the guys Monet's been dating: no one is casually tuning in to this show seven episodes into the season. Subjecting us to a whole scene just to tell us she's been texting some much younger guy from another state who's coming for New Year's Eve is excessive given that noooooooo one cares.

Can someone tell Jamie you don't deck the halls with "balls" of holly?

Before next Christmas, please. Particularly if she and Doug do have a baby by then: I would hate for her to pass on that mistake to the next generation.

Why can't Jamie's siblings teach her how to manage her expectations of their mother?

I might stop harping on this except for the fact that, in this episode, we see so much of Jamie's sisters and brother, and every time she anxiously asks whether they've talked to their mother, the rest of them are all like, "[shrug] No." Jamie seems to be the only one among all the kids who bothers getting excited about their mother participating in family events, whereas the rest of them clearly just assume she's going to flake, and based on what we've seen on the show, they're usually proven right. In a Diary Cam entry, Jamie blubbers, "Like, I'm not an idiot: like, if she loved us and missed us then she would reach-- she would call us, she would come to these events....I legit tried for a full week, though, reaching out to her, every single day, and I'm like, 'Oh my god, is she dead? Did I, like, just miss out on, like, the last time I could tell my mom I love her?" Given Jamie's mother's history, this might not be an overreaction to Jamie's mother's apparent incapacity to keep a cell phone operational. But the more Jamie keeps replaying the same disappointment over and over again, the more I suspect it's mostly for the viewer's benefit, and/or to make us excuse some of Jamie's own less-appealing qualities, if we write them off as the consequence of her bad childhood.

What was that fight between Jason and Cortney even about?

Bizarrely, the scene of Jason happily opening and inspecting Cortney's boudoir pics is followed by the two of them, apparently on another day, talking about traditions Jason had with his late mother. Jason tells Cortney his mother's whole Christmas morning routine -- breakfast first, then presents -- and then when he segues to his estrangement from the rest of his mother's family, Cortney offers to broker a reunion with them, at which point he gets mad at her for making the suggestion, and then she gets mad at him for not being receptive to her idea? And then later the fight continues with her getting upset with him for not wanting to discuss the matter in-depth? I mean, on the one hand, this is another great example of why you don't marry someone whose history you don't know; I have biological relatives I'm not in contact with, and my husband knew well before we got married that I wasn't ever going to be. But also, has it seriously not occurred to Cortney that this is an issue he might want to keep on the surface tip while they're surrounded by cameras? You'd think Cortney would be a little sensitive to the possibility given that her own parents have been behaving like they're afraid fyi's camera crew's going to steal their souls.