With a lot of departures last week, Gabby and Rachel are down to their small final groups and are heading to hometowns this week. Gabby has only three men remaining, Johnny, Jason and Erich while Rachel has four remaining, Tyler, Tino, Zach and Aven.
The first hometown of the week for Gabby is with Jason in New Orleans (ironically I’m drinking a beer from there as I watch this, check out my review). As they happily start their date out on Bourbon Street (I think), Jason admits that he’s happy that he decided to stay after originally considering leaving early in the season. Jason’s dad meets up with them to meet Gabby and it goes excellent with his dad supporting everything. Next they go meet Jason’s mom and sister. That goes fantastic as well and his family all accept her. That is, until he talks to his mom one on one and Jason tells her that he can’t see himself getting engaged yet in the next two weeks. Obviously he hasn’t told Gabby that yet though and in here confessional she admits that she’s falling in love with him.
Rachel’s turn for her first hometown date with Zach going first in Anaheim. The last time he saw her, Zach told her that he’s falling in love with here. They ride bikes to a building, climb up on a rooftop and watch planes take off. Very romantic idea with their shared memories of watching airplanes. Next Rachel meets Zach’s parents, aunt and his uncle, who’s actor Patrick Warburton. All goes great as Zach’s family accepts Rachel and just want him to be happy with her. Afterwards, Zach tells Rachel that he’s in love with her. In her confessional, she says she’s falling in love with Zach as well.
Gabby’s in Palm Beach, Florida next for her date with Johnny. They start off right away with meeting Johnny’s family. Their meeting all goes well. He admits to his parents that he doesn’t know if he’s ready yet to get engaged but they both encourage him and give him advice. Afterwards, Johnny and Gabby go boating around, which the producers didn’t think was interesting enough to bother showing us. But to be fair, there are seven hometown dates this season instead of the usual four.
It’s Rachel’s turn again as she goes to the Jersey Shore for Tyler’s hometown of Wildwood, NJ. They have a whole boardwalk to themselves and play some games, eat some food and ride the rides. Rachel meets some of Tyler’s friends but is still a bit uncomfortable with how much farther behind her relationship with him than it is with her other guys. She gets super overwhelmed before going into meeting his family. Prior to that, they sit down to talk and while Rachel is super overwhelmed that she’s not at a point yet with him to be comfortable meeting his family, he tells her that he is in love with her. No way this goes well at this point and it’s so uncomfortable watching this knowing that its going to rapidly fall apart. She tells him that they’ve had the most incredible day but she’s still not feeling 100% confident in their relationship and doesn’t know if she’s ready to meet his family. She says she feels like there’s something missing and doesn’t know if she can get there with him. Have to feel for both of them as they break up like this. After their breakup, Rachel’s crying in the car confessional that he’s so great and doesn’t deserve to get broken up with the way she just did but that she knows she can’t get there with him. Meanwhile, Tyler goes to see his family, who are waiting for him to come with Rachel to meet them and he fills them in on what happened. That can’t be easy.
Gabby has her last hometown in New Jersey with Erich. For their date, they go to meet his family first. Meeting his family is quite emotional with the added factor of that his father has a rare form of terminal cancer. After they leave his parent’s home, Gabby and Erich go get a drink at a local place. He tells her that he’s falling in love with her and she tells him that she always wanted to be with someone like him but didn’t know if it was possible. She then tells him that she’s falling in love with him too. Especially with the way Clayton left things with her, this has to be it for her journey. It’s Gabby and she says in the confessional leaving, that today’s hometown date with Erich “could have changed the rest of my life”. ALL. THE. FEELS.
Rachel still has here final hometown date in Santa Clarita, CA with Tino to meet his family. Tino tells his parents that the plan is that she sends the other guys home and in a few weeks he proposes. A lot of confidence from him that his parents are immediately skeptical about, especially his dad. His dad pulls him aside and asks how in five weeks is he so sure that he’s ready to be married to her outside of the “fairy tale” scenario of being on The Bachelorette. Meanwhile, Tino’s mom asks Rachel about their relationship and she also shows some skepticism about how they are so connected within just a few weeks. Next, his Dad grills her with questions that she doesn’t know how to answer just based around how quickly everything is progressing between her and Tino and how they could know that they’re actually right for each other outside of the whole bubble of the show. In her conversation after with a producer, Rachel says that she felt like Tino’s family hated her. Afterwards, Rachel and Tino talk outside and right away she tells him that she didn’t feel like they liked him at all and that especially his dad didn’t give her a chance. Tino tells her that he’s so sure of them and that he’s falling in love with her and doesn’t want a future without her. She tells him that she also feels like she’s falling in love with him. In her confessional, she is still quite a bit scared from meeting his parents though without the approval from them.
Next week, we have Aven’s hometown with Rachel along with the Men Tell All.
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