“Chicago’s dried up and now they want another city.” – Patti Stanger
The Millionaire Matchmaker, “Matt & Jimmy”: client intros
Client #1 is Jimmy, 31, who “owns a club in Chicago” and is good looking and “like a fast talker, you know?” says Patti Stanger’s staffer, Chelsea, VP of Matching and Vice Admiral of the Pan Dimensional Dating Universes (or something).
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Then Destin lets us know that we also have Matthew Hatchette, 34, an ex-NFL player who has “kind of segued into producing, acting, modeling.”
“He’s got his crap together,” Destin adds in a ringing endorsement.
Call me the Bill Simmons of dating show recappers, but I felt compelled to look up Hatch’s NFL career stats. Matthew Hatchette was a wide receiver who played for three teams (Minnesota Vikings, New York Jets, and the Jacksonville Jaguars) over six seasons from 1997 to 2003, and caught 60 passes for 887 yards and six touchdowns during that span.
So not an all star by any means, but any career in the National Football League is an exceptional achievement. And fun fact that Hatchette got to play with Randall Cunningham in Minnesota in the late ‘90s, so there’s that.
In his intro video, Matt says he prefers “short girls.” Patti thinks this is because tall athletes don’t want “freak tall” children. He also says that he’s a very impatient person. Patti interprets this as Matt is a “jokester” who needs “a calm energy female” to balance him out.
Jimmy turns out to be Jimmy D a.k.a. Jimmy D’Ambrosio a.k.a. Off Brand Scarface, who also appears in the episode of The Millionaire Matchmaker called “Jimmy D & Mateo” in Season 3.
“I’m the pulse of Chicago,” Jimmy D says in his intro video.
“Then why is he here?” Destin asks.
Patti’s take: “Chicago’s dried up and now they want another city.”
Also, it’s important to note that Jimmy D feels that he can “get any woman” he wants and, quote, “I’m a male whore. A playboy.”
“He’s a man whore,” Destin says to the monitor.
Jimmy D notes too that he’s both “hardheaded” and yet “ready” for love.
“See you Mr. Cock, take your cock with you,” is Patti’s reaction to this. Also: “He’s gotta take the cock out of cocky.”
The Millionaire Matchmaker, “Matt & Jimmy”: Patti meets the clients
In the little montage and interview we see with Jimmy D as Patti heads out to meet him, he talks about how he’s an “opportunist” in putting together real estate packages that range between $15-$50 million.
We also see him partying, and it looks like he’s doing Scarface cosplay.
Jimmy D tells Patti that he’s “sick of these women using me for sex.” He then refers to himself in the third person, which always amuses me, in saying, “Jimmy’s a real fun guy but I can’t have them prostituting me out like that.”
What’s truly incredible is that Jimmy D says this without an ounce of irony or self-awareness.
I laughed out loud when Patti advises Jimmy to tone down the “wrong side of Chicago” aspect of his personality when he meets the ladies she’s going to find for him.
We also learn that “it’s been a Polish year for Jimmy,” meaning that he enjoys dating Polish American women, apparently.
Matt then visits The Millionaire’s Club office, where we’re reminded that he’s a movie producer these days. This prompted me to check out his IMDB profile, where I did not recognize any of his six producer credits (four of which are for podcast series). The Take from 2007 has a great cast that includes John Leguizamo, Bobby Cannavale, Rosie Perez, and Hatchette himself (as Agent Forest Baxter) but looks like a straight-to-DVD release that didn’t have very much fanfare.
Matt says he’s very busy in the entertainment biz these days, and therefore he’s looking for someone with a career so that “things balance out.”
Matt and Patti get into a weird argument very quickly over whether or not women expect men to be “chivalrous” these days, and Patti tells him that “women won’t spread unless you do it.”
“I don’t think so,” Matt responds, shaking his slowly.
The Millionaire Matchmaker, “Matt & Jimmy”: the recruiting session and mixer
Normally, I offer up highlights from the recruiting session, but there was absolutely nothing interesting about it except that Patti declared the entire thing a “bust” and that she’d have to go back to her vaunted “database” to dig up women for the mixer.
Cut to the mixer, and Matt is dressed up pretty and dapper while Jimmy D looks like he was out carousing (and who knows what else) with Henry Hill and Jimmy the Gent from Goodfellas all night and just rolled into a Queens diner at 7 am (on May 11th, 1980 give or take).
Oh! And Jimmy D is sporting a cut under one eye that goes completely unexplained. It’s the perfect cherry on top of his look, my friends.
Normally, one or both of Patti’s clients are shy, awkward, or just strange around the ladies at the mixer, but in this case both Matt and Jimmy D are very comfortable and each carouse with the ladies as though they were born to be the center of attention as the only guys at an all-women party.
For the mini-date round, Matt goes for Nadia and Maya while Jimmy D selects Cara – who aggressively pursued her guy by telling him she’s Polish and is also taking Italian lessons.
For his second choice, Jimmy D opts for “the twins” – Jessica and Johanna, both engineers – and in one of the most bizarre moments in Millionaire Matchmaker history, Patti doesn’t even blink and accepts this as normal.
She even tells the camera that Jimmy D’s rationale for this selection is “more headlights.” Make of that what you will. Finally, she adds that “obviously Jimmy can pick one of them.”
Highlights of the mini-date round include Jimmy D jokingly (I guess) telling Cara that he noticed her checking out his ass and that he’s “not a piece of meat.”
Jimmy D finally lands on Cara to take on a full-blown date – the “predictable choice” in Patti’s view – while Matt picks Maya, who Patti believes “balances him out.”
Cara notes that she loves the “mental stimulation” that Jimmy D provides her.
The Millionaire Matchmaker, “Matt & Jimmy”: Jimmy D and Cara’s first date
Jimmy D picks up Cara in a limo and takes her to a restaurant called il Carpaccio.
When Cara talks about how breaking into the finance industry in New York City because interviewers would simply stare at her legs instead of take her seriously, Jimmy D quips that “they were probably staring at your butt too.”
Our esteemed Mr. D’Ambrosio seems to be a butt man, and lucky for him that Cara didn’t simply splash a drink into his face.
Instead, she yells, “Yeah!”
Cara later tells the camera that Jimmy is really funny, and adds “I’m a really mental person, so I loved that.”
Jimmy D asks Cara if she works out, and she says that she doesn’t but that she “takes care of herself in a million other ways,” including:
- Chiropractor
- Tanning
- Beauty salon “every two days”
- Manicures
- Pedicures
Jimmy D tells the camera that “the salon every other day is a little much… I’m looking for more than a pretty face.”
Back in the limo, more champagne is poured, and it seems like Cara is well into the tipsy zone because she repeats “Malibu” a solid 9-10 times while trying to explain to Jimmy D where they are.
What’s interesting too is that they pass a sign for “the Getty,” which is not close to Malibu, California.
Soon, Jimmy D gets a little exhausted from the conversation, and you can see his facial expression shift fully from excited to depressed around the time Cara asks him how the iconic Hollywood sign “stays white.”
And that’s before Cara reveals that she’s a Scientologist.
“You might be insane,” he tells her.
“That was rude,” she responds.
“That’s me,” he adds. “That’s Jimmy.”
“I just thought she was one of the biggest airheads I ever met,” Jimmy D concludes to the camera.
The Millionaire Matchmaker, “Matt & Jimmy”: Matt and Maya’s first date
After being sent off to an etiquette coach, Maya appreciates when Matt shows up and opens the door for her to get into his car.
Their destination is Chefs Inc., where Ryan Scott from Top Chef is set to give the couple a cooking lesson.
Matt shows some wisdom in telling the camera that he wanted to take Maya out on an active date so that they could see from the start how they might work together as a team. And the early read is they do work well together, easily joking and bantering as they cook their dinner under Chef Ryan’s tutelage.
Ryan then serves the couple the dinner they prepared, and they exchange a high five over the work they put in.
“So… I may get to see more of you after this?” Maya poses as a question.
“That’s the plan,” Matt replies.
They then toast to new company and “a next time.”
An insanely different ending versus the other couple’s date, in other words.
The Millionaire Matchmaker, “Matt & Jimmy”: post-dates upshot
Patti calls Maya first, who relays that the date went “really well” and that Matt was even chivalrous.
“Keep doing what you’re doing,” Patti advises, and then encourages her to keep dating other guys at the same time to keep Matt on the hunt (or something, I guess).
Matt then stops by the office, and he agrees the date was great. He says that he’s planning to ask Maya out again, and Patti tells him that he can tell that his energy has “shifted.”
We then cut to Jimmy D in the office with Patti and Chelsea, and our guy immediately starts off with, “The girl’s crazy,” and then adds, “She was hammered.”
Patti gets short with Jimmy, but admits that when “alcohol is involved, all bets are off.”
“I need a girl that’s more than salons, spas, and Scientology,” Jimmy D says, adding, “I bring a lot to the table.”
Patti ends by telling him that it’s no problem and that they can find someone else, but we then smash cut to Patti telling the camera, “I hate cocky millionaires.”
“Women want gentlemen, not trash talking assholes,” she adds to Chelsea and Destin.
The end of episode captions then tell us: “Jimmy D’s date with Cara made him realize that he wants to stay single. He still refers to himself in the third person.” And: “Hatch and Maya went on another date. He continues to open the car door.”
Some stats and info about The Millionaire Matchmaker – “Matt & Jimmy”
TV SHOW – The Millionaire Matchmaker
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 2, Episode 7
NETWORK/STREAMING SERVICE – Bravo
AIR DATE – March 26th, 2009
GOOGLE PLAY DESCRIPTION – Patti takes her staff to Napa Valley for an employee retreat before they get back to the grind and meet this week’s millionaires: Matthew Hatchette, better known as “Hatch,” an ex-NFL player who now works as a film producer; and Jimmy, a club owner from Chicago. Both are millionaires who have seen it all, done it all, and are now looking to settle down. At the mixer to meet potential dates, Jimmy D and Hatch spend more time trying to entertain the women than getting to know them, so Patti is forced to step in and introduce them to specific girls she had in mind for them.
GENRE – Reality TV, Dating Shows, Trashtastic TV