Matthew takes another sip of wine and voices over his family relations: "My parents are divorced." Well, no wonder it's so hot down here. It's because the poor bastard child is halfway to Hell! Of course, I kid. I too am the victim of a broken home, and I know it's no laughing matter, unless, of course, your parents are getting divorced and they're clowns. Because then the only thing that gets thrown are cream pies and dad's big, red nose isn't from long nights hitting the sauce when he didn't show up for three days and you'd start to wonder if it was your fault for driving him away when you asked for a pony for Christmas. Meh. I'll save it for therapy. Matthew, however, seems unencumbered by such knotty emotional entanglements, as he assures us that he's well-adjusted enough to see his parents' divorce as a learning experience, preaching, "It's made me be very careful about who [sic] I spend my time with." Meanwhile, two hundred and sixty miles north on Interstate 45, Lanny's mother involuntarily "tsks" so hard she accidentally knocks herself off of her chair.

Nevertheless, the parents are together in one place because it's always the mature route to do that bygones thing for the selfless cause of meeting your son's new girlfriend and, incidentally, appearing on television. As Matthew and Meredith approach the house, a group of four people...well, they done put down their muskets and their moonshine, and we meet Mom, Dad, Chris the brother, and Uncle Drew. Carol, the mom, tells us that she could tell even from a distance that Matthew was "beaming," and we cut to the group sitting around and doing the meet-and-greet thing. You've never been to Texas? Never? What about ever? Not even then? "How's the competition?" sassy Mom asks, and everyone laughs uproariously though awkwardly because this is always the point at which the mom asks that question and the rest of the assemblage laughs uproariously though awkwardly. One guy -- we'll call him Ol' Pappy -- brings up the inevitable "I just don't know how two people could know each other as quickly as you have, but you seem very comfortable around each other." Matthew says it feels like she and Matthew have known each other longer. Smiles all around. Meredith tells us she thinks Matthew's family are "salt of the earth people," which -- if you'll just give me one second to look up this translation right here in my Mason To Dixon, Dixon To Mason Dictionary -- means she thinks they're hicks.