Welcome home!
That’s a sentiment we did not feel during tonight’s hometown dates on The Bachelor, because things got downright hostile as Ben tried to make nice with the families of the four different women he’s currently dating.
While yes, when you think about it, that’s preposterous and those families had every right to go into this with all the skepticism in the world. However, have they seen this show before? By the time Ben’s gotten to hometowns, there’s no going back. He can’t do anything about the fact that he’s on The Bachelor, and that his four girlfriends are also on The Bachelor, and this is how this show works. It may suck compared to how normal dating works, but normal dating sucks too. It’s all truly terrible, and we should all just give up and resign ourselves to a life of cats and Netflix.
Anyway, Amanda was up first. Ben met her on a beach in Orange County, and they were forced to awkwardly run towards each other on the sand. While we spent the next ten minutes trying to figure out how Amanda’s shirt was staying on, she and Ben met up with her two adorable daughters and played in the sand.
“They love to be chased,” she said of her children, which does not bode well for their future safety.
“Where’s Ben?” the children cried. “I’m shy.”
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While their time on the beach was fairytale-esque, reality set in as soon as they got in the car, and the younger daughter began screaming bloody murder from the backseat. The look on both Ben and Amanda’s faces said it all. As he realized he wasn’t ready for this, she realized she was about to go back to this for good as her bikini mansion days were coming to an end.
Ben accompanied Amanda as she put her still-screaming daughter down for a nap, and you could kind of tell he was done.
If Ben only kept Amanda around so we could watch him play with adorable children, then we thank him for that, but we think he genuinely just didn’t know what he was getting himself into. Despite his clear realizations, the sunburnt Ben still had to hang out with Amanda’s family, who actually went incredibly easy on him compared to the rest of the families, despite the fact that there are children involved.
Amanda watched Ben drive away knowing that she would be completely crushed to not get a rose, and we would be very surprised if Ben drove away without any inkling that she wouldn’t be getting one.
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Ben then traveled to Portland, where Lauren B had a stroke of genius and took him to a library of whiskey before they met up with her family. Her sister played tough cookie for a second, but after one conversation with Ben, she was almost totally sold, mostly because he cried.
Yep, he cried tears of luck as he reflected on his love for Lauren, along with an “I don’t know” or two or three. This guy is bad at articulating things, but it’s fine. He gets there eventually.
Lauren’s sister was actually tougher on Lauren herself (or Lolo, as her family calls her).
“Do you feel like you’re compatible, truly, like your personalities?” the sister asked.
“Are you asking if I’m in love with Ben?” Lauren asked in response.
“No,” we said to our TV screens, “she asked if your personalities were compatible, you doofus.”
Lauren is really in love with Ben, you guys, but she just hasn’t found the right time to tell him yet, and she wants her family’s blessing, and she’s scared, etc etc.
Meanwhile to Lauren’s dad, Ben admitted that he’s not coping very well with how many hearts he still has to inevitably break, and Lauren’s dad had to break the truth to his daughter Lolo: nobody’s perfect, not even Ben.
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She may be feeling great about him, but there’s a reality to this situation that can’t be ignored. For Lauren, it’s that three other women may feel the same way she does. For us, it’s that while hometown dates sound fun at first, they’re actually really sad and they only drive home the fact that other than the last 30 seconds of the final episode, this is a super depressing show.
Anyway, Ben then joined Caila in Hudson, Ohio to sit on a bench. Then, they designed and built a kid’s playhouse. Why? It was unclear, but it was cute, we guess, when all the kid’s playhouse builders in the kid’s playhouse building factory clapped for the happy couple for some reason.
Caila’s family introduced Ben to a spread of Filipino food for us to salivate over, and we became very, very afraid of Caila’s sharp-eyed father. There’s something unsettling about him, and we were happy to finally get out of Ohio after a relatively uneventful trip.
Up next was Jojo, whose hometown of Dallas, Texas brought enough drama for an entire night of hometowns. First, Jojo arrived home to find flowers and a letter on her doorstep, and eventually realized it was from her ex-boyfriend, Chad, because of course his name is Chad.
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The letter basically said that while she was on the Bachelor, he used that time to reflect and came to the conclusion that he wanted her back. While Ben was on his way to her door, she called Chad to tell him it was over.
“I know what love is!” Chad exclaimed into the phone. “You’ve shown me what love is!”
Jojo wasn’t having it, and she was in tears by the time Ben arrived, but she’s never been happier.
While that should have been the biggest derailment of Jojo’s hometown, it wasn’t. That honor went to her brothers, who have the angriest faces of any brothers we’ve ever seen.
They really love their Jojo, and are very attached to their Jojo, and have no desire to see her waltz off to Denver with a man she’s only been on two actual dates with. They also were pretty sure that Jojo is way more into Ben than Ben is into Jojo. On one hand, sure that’s all reasonable. On the other hand, of all the men who’ve ever been on this show, we’d probably say Ben is the least guilty of the “brainwashing” they accused him of.
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While the brothers talked, Jojo’s mom went straight for the champagne bottle, glasses be damned, and became our immediate favorite.
The whole thing was super awkward, but Ben recovered as best he could before he drove away from Jojo.
“I’m leaving Dallas slightly unsettled,” he said. “It just wasn’t the hometown that I would have liked.”
It was the hometown we liked, but not for any fun reasons. That was just painful, but if we’re not here for pain, what are we here for?
Speaking of pain, there was still a rose ceremony to be had, and the eliminated girl was no surprise. Ben’s not ready to be a dad, so Amanda was sent home, which was probably for the best. She can probably find someone who’s not 27 and who didn’t compete on a reality show to be a great dad to her two adorable screaming children. Or if not, there’s always Bachelor in Paradise.
Next week, we will finally reach the pinnacle of the Bachelor season: The fantasy suites! Who will have sex? Who won’t have sex? Who will cry? We’ll have to wait to find out!
The Bachelor airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on ABC.
Keep track of your Bachelor fantasy league points with the gallery below!
Keep track of your fantasy league points with our gallery!
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