To Rome For Love: Nakita Gets Her Groove Back

I am super excited to recap this episode based on the title alone. Nakita is my favorite of this bunch and I want her to get her groove back and meet her a nice Italian man. I am going to pretend like it is possible for these women with young children to move to Rome with their kids and live happily ever after because I am a hopeless romantic. For other people. Let’s just get right to it.

We start with Shay in the kitchen cooking a fabulous breakfast for the house while chatting with Nakita about the ridiculous “house meeting” from the last episode. The meeting was spearheaded by Ashley who has basically wrangled the other girls (except Nakita) to gang up on Shay. Basically, Shay is a morning person, so I get their issues there. I don’t want to be talked to in the morning either. She can be a bit loud and doesn’t always go along with the group. But she is far from the most annoying person in the house. I feel like Ashley is just pissed that Shay has the most options to choose from. She has gotten on well with almost everyone she’s been matched with and for some reason I can’t fathom, Ashley thought she was going to be the pretty princess in the house that everyone chased after. Sorry, girl.

Diann comes to check on how the dating situation is going. Shay is quite fond of Roberto. Ashley continues to hold a warped view about her date with Leo in which he basically said all of her ugly tattoos make her look like a criminal and she doesn’t have the demeanor to be a politician’s wife. Diann seems to think that is a cultural difference. Um, no. There was no miscommunication there. He was very clear.

Today’s outing is a promotional piece for a shop in Rome. On the way they talk about their insecurities regarding clothes. Mercedes, who is the one who needs to keep her mouth shut the most starts talking about the problem of having big boobs and a small waist. I get it. I was 18 once and overly well endowed. But these are not real issues.

Tonight, Diann is taking only Nakita in her beautiful dress to the apertivo. Diann is also looking for someone for Mercedes since she has finally admitted she wants a black man. They are also looking for someone for Gina because Ollie travels a lot and is out of town. Nakita meets Angelo and she really likes him and they exchange numbers and then Diann pulls her away, but not before they exchange numbers.

Back at the house Shay is cooking dinner. Now this isn’t like on Big Brother when no one really knows how to cook but there is one person who is better than all the others that don’t know how to cook, Shay is a trained cook/chef. She is also a fan of Gina’s former cooking show. Every time she tries to talk to Gina about her cooking and how much she admires her, Gina gets very rude. Gina finally says that she never wanted to be on TV. It was her husband’s dream. She thought it would be one episode and then they would go back to their normal lives. The show blew up and overtook the marriage. Her husband became nothing more than her business partner and ultimately ended the marriage. She has this weird resentment now toward cooking and cookbooks and cooking shows because it reminds her of all she lost.

Nakita and Angelo go to dinner and he buys her a rose and makes a big production out of the date. It seemed a little like acting for the cameras for me. He’s a bit much. But Nakita had fun and that is all that counts. After dinner they sit out on a piazza and listen to music and dance. Nakita really is getting her groove back. That’s great. I’m just not sure this is the one, but he is surely a lot of fun, and she needs that.

Oh, it’s time for the scripted scenes. Cece, the love assistant, is walking the streets of Rome with girl-child Mercedes and they just happen to pass this white guy on a cell phone striking model poses. It looks like he is shooting a catalog shoot. Shockingly, that is who Mercedes is interested in. I can’t with this nonsense. Cece asks him if he is single. He says no. She assumes he has a girlfriend. That’s a big assumption. He does get another scene where just so happens to track them down on camera to say he doesn’t in fact have a girlfriend. Then he gets dismissed. I’m so jaded I always envision these guys signing the release forms to be on the show.

Shay, the chef, meets Emiliano who is studying to be a sommelier and he has relatives in Chicago where she is from. Sounds like a good match until she pulls a Kim Biermann and can’t pronounce sommelier. I’m having cringey flash backs to her not knowing there is only one pope. Please tell me this is scripted.

Gina has a date with a new guy since Ollie is out of the country. Claudio’s opening line is “It may be a surprise to you, but I am 57 years old.” Not the best lead.  Gina seems to really like him. Claudio seems interested.

Drunk Shay gushes to Diann about Emiliano. Why doesn’t Diann help a girl out and teach her to pronounce sommelier? Diann sends drunk Shay back to the bar. Again, why doesn’t she pull her out of there and have her call it a night? That’s her job. Instead, Diann goes home. Then Shay pulls a Mercedes and starts chatting up other man in front of the sommelier she is supposedly so into. They have to round Shay up to get her in the van and she is loud as hell. Ashley gets into it with Shay again. She is escalating the noise. In the van, I see Cece with Shay, so it’s not like Diann abandoned her, she just assigned Cece to her.

Next week: Gina is attracted to her first white man, Claudio. Except she said the same thing about Ollie. Angelo takes Nakita on a second date. Shay has another date. I think it is Roberto, but y’all know me and my facial recognition skills, or lack thereof.