'Beach Blanket Bachelorette' Recap

Bringing UP Bates "Beach Blanket Bachelorette"

• A few weeks before Tori’s wedding, Kelly and her daughters (minus Whitney, who isn’t able to make it) check into a vacation rental on an island on the Gulf. Carson joins the ladies as the only guy. “I just could not stand to leave Carson behind,” says Erin. “Me and him are like inseparable. We do everything together.”
• During their first excursion, a boat ride, the Bates are thrilled (literally jumping for joy) to see dolphins.
• Later, they go for a walk on the beach. After seeing tons of jellyfish lying in the sand, no one wants to go swimming. The adults sit on blankets so the kids can play. The married daughters offer up marriage advice for Tori. “It’s survival of the fittest,” says Alyssa. “There is no advice. It’s, do your best to survive.”
• Tori shares the details of her apartment, which is two bedrooms and almost 1,000 square feet. Kelly considers that to be huge, given that she and Gil lived in an 800-square-foot house with eight kids. When they were first married, Gil and Kelly could fit all their things in a small closet.
• Next on the agenda is painting sand dollar ornaments at a local boutique. Tori, who says she isn’t artsy, sits this one out. “One thing I’m learning from this is that art was not my talent,” says Kelly. Josie paints a Volkswagen hippie van on her sand dollar. 
• After their art project, the ladies get ice cream. “Everybody in the family knows, Katie’s biggest love is ice cream,” says Kelly. “She tells her sisters, ‘Y’all get your boyfriends. I’m going to stick with ice cream.’”
• That evening, everyone gathers back at the beach house to give Tori some personal care items, including plenty of lotion and perfume, with which the sisters say Tori is obsessed. 
• Back in Tennessee, the younger guys help Bobby move his belongings from the camper into the apartment that he and Tori will share once they are married. “Man Bobby, you have a lot of stuff,” remarks Judson.
• Gil, Lawson, Nathan, Bobby, and Kelton spend an evening at Veloce indoor go-kart speedway. The go-karts are able to reach speeds of up to 50 miles-per-hour!
• Kelton ends up winning. “The plumbing man brought home the trophy,” says Nathan. “Kelton drives a plumbing van every day from house to house doing service calls. Unbelievable.”
• During the commercial breaks, viewers go behind the scenes with the Bates. Gil and Kelly introduce everyone to executive producer Matthew Hightower, as well as the rest of the crew.
• Matt interviews the family about the show:
• “I never though it would make it through the first season, much less, here we are looking at shooting the eighth season,” admits Gil.
• “When we heard that [UP’s] goal was to be uplifting and encouraging to other families, we said, ‘That’s something we can support,’” says Kelly. Matt reads comments from viewers about how much the show means to them, and the Bates are touched.
• Matt asks Chad, Whitney, and Bobby what it was like to marry into the Bates family and become a part of the show. “I still…don’t think I’m comfortable around cameras, but it’s definitely an experience, and we’ve had a lot of fun doing it,” says Chad.
• Matt sits down with Lawson, Carlin, Josie, and Katie and talks about what they think of filming relationships that may or may not end in marriage. The kids say they knew when they agreed to do the show that all of that would be fair game. 
• “If y’all are down for 100 more episodes, so are we!” says Lawson. “That’s up to the viewers.”