Baking for the Bach: Is there a Twist?

Here comes the finale! Hometowns were last week and man were they crazy... as crazy as you can get when you have to recreate the guys' hometowns in the middle of a desert.

Blake's date was first, and he apparently called up Serena from Matt's season for her exact set-up, with the addition of drinking maple syrup straight from a shot glass, making Bachelor nation collectively gag. He also seemed to think he needed to steal Andrew's dates and create his own question game.

They then go into the middle of the resort for an attention-grabbing moose ride, because apparently he has experience riding a moose but not horses. Why is this date outside Greg's window, you ask? So did Greg.

He leads her into his family-meet by "reassuring" her that she doesn't have to be great, just be herself. I get what he meant, but has he met a girl? The immediate question in her mind that follows a statement like is likely "wait, am I not great?"

Blake's mom is fantastic and reminds me so much of the actress Kathy Najimy, sense of humor and all, and his sister is even better, absolutely railing him for jumping into this season in the first place. The date ends with Blake chickening out on saying I love you which seems kind of suspect considering he had the balls to jump right into the middle of Katie's season after just having been on another.

Justin's date is next and I feel for the boy. His parent's are flipping their position faster than a fish out of water and the producers really phoned it in for his hometown recreation. Who thinks Baltimore and says graffiti wall and horse and buggy? And the best editing they could muster was a conversation where he basically breaks out the sparklers over their mutual love of bleu cheese.

We—and by we, I mean Katie—meet Justin's friends who say the typical "he's never acted this way with anyone" and "you have to tell her how you feel", and Justin tells Katies he's falling in love with her with the same excitement I had when I found out I had to get my wisdom teeth out. I could practically picture the producer's groans and the director yelling for him to put some feeling into it.

The fact that we weren't even at the halfway point when Greg started his date meant we were in for some finish to the episode. Greg recreates the "Jersey Shore", where he's not actually from, with tandem bikes (not really a boardwalk thing) and Italian Ices, which somehow Katie has never in her life tried. I don't think any fact has surprised me more this season.

They follow up the saddest looking boardwalk I've ever seen (reminder: they're in the desert) by playing basketball on a tennis court because of course this hotel doesn't have normal basketball hoops, and a little produced rain again, which Greg seems to love and Katie seems to think only really exists in Seattle.

But after she meets the family, that's when the big fight comes in. We apparently only see a sliver of that actual back and forth and miss out on the yelling match that went down. My initial thoughts were that Greg does seem smitten with Katie and very sure of their connection. They already talked about moving to NY and Katie all but tells him he won this, but he still flipped a switch. He keeps pushing her like she's a five year old in trouble, asking her why she thinks he's upset.

The next day he basically does the same thing. The only things I think Katie could have done better was to reassure him that shw was heard by mentioning something about how she's over the moon that he told her how deeply he feels for her (like other leads have done) and probably not to say she would leave the show with him when she wasn't planning to. And oh, we also got a post-fight, end of episode breakup montage as if they had passed away, which was weird and uncomfortable for everyone watching.

But the question on everyone's mind is, what comes next? Is there going to be a twist where she ends up with Greg after all, or as some are speculating, Michael A? Does she end up with Blake or Justin? We'll have to watch and find out, but in the meantime, I had a little twist of my own, in the form of a mouth-watering babka.

For those unfamiliar, babka is a sweet dessert that is kind of a mix of bread and croissant with sweet fillings like cinnamon and chocolate and twisted together to seal it all in. Pretty Simple Sweet has a recipe that works wonders, and despite the process there is to make it and the time it consumes, the results are well worth the effort—especially if you share with friends and get compliments in return. Maybe there will be a twist for Katie and maybe there won't, but this twist will help you stress eat while you wait to find out.