Joey Demonstrates For Emma Why Some Teenage Newlyweds Should Not Try To Buy Homes

The point of a show with a title as loaded and provocative as Teenage Newlyweds is, of course, to reveal for its audience the kinds of challenges unusually young couples face in marriage that their more seasoned counterparts do not. And yet, this week's episode -- "Leaving The Nest," all about setting up new homes -- actually shows that these couples are further ahead than at least one of their counterpart couples on their fyi time slot neighbour Arranged: TN's Emma might be annoyed by the diminutive size of the house she shares with her new husband Joey, but at least she, unlike Arranged star Taylor, is not living in an actual camper and shitting on a device that looks like a Thermos without the luxury of a door to hide her shame. Still, Emma has determined that the time has come for her and Joey to purchase a home. And the episode's best moment comes when Joey unwittingly reveals that he's probably not ready.

To be fair to Joey: when things start out, Emma and Joey seem equally unprepared. They've made what appears to be a morning appointment with a mortgage broker, and the first thing Emma says is, "We've got to go. Like, we needed to leave twenty minutes ago." This she tells Joey as he's just poured eggs into a pan, so if she knows -- as has been established since the series premiere -- that Joey is irresponsible, then maybe it was on her to make sure he knew the schedule and/or have some situational awareness so that she could advise him not to start cooking anything that was going to make them even later. Of course, in an ideal world, Joey should be able to govern himself, but I also live with someone who has a hard time getting started in the morning, which is why I start the process of prying him out of bed ninety minutes before he needs to be on his feet, and yes he has an alarm on his phone and yes it makes me feel like his mother and yes I hate it, but the alternative is that everyone else will have to wait for him to start recording the podcast or whatever, so I suck it up. Emma knows what Joey is like; if she doesn't want him to embarrass her in front of a financial professional, she should make accommodations.

Emma continues not to look great as she starts going through the house trying to track down all the papers they need to bring to the meeting. Hey, here's a thought: if you have an appointment to get to as soon as you get up, to which you're going to have to arrive equipped with a whole sheaf of documents, maybe assemble them before you go to bed? I realize Emma works at night and maybe didn't feel like it when she rolled in at 1 AM, but she could have left a list for Joey to track everything down. True, Joey is lazy, but surely even he could accomplish this task in the seven hours between the end of his workday and the end of hers?

Since Emma did not have that much foresight, collecting everything they're looking for makes them even later, primarily because Joey's filing system for his old pay stubs is to shove them in random spots in his car. (Though, again, the fact that she doesn't know where her Social Security card is doesn't help.) Finally, they make it to the car. But they are not alone.

What we're looking at is not just four homemade Egg McMuffins. They're four homemade Egg McMuffins that Joey evidently made while Emma was running around the house looking for their old tax returns. They're four homemade Egg McMuffins he put on a breakable plate from their kitchen and brought out to the car. They're four homemade Egg McMuffins he plans to wolf down on the drive to the mortgage broker's office. So basically: told he was pressed for time, Joey didn't grab a granola bar or spread some peanut butter on a piece of bread to fold on his way out the door. He painstakingly fried eggs and ham and melted cheese and toasted English muffins while doing exactly zero to prepare to participate in a meeting about his financial future and what is almost certainly the biggest purchase he'll ever make.

Joey may never have the wherewithal to participate equally with Emma in the financial discussions that will mark the rest of their marriage. But he has four homemade Egg McMuffins. And no shame.