Well, we made it to hometown dates, kids, which means we’re almost at fantasy dates and eventually (probably) a proposal”but not without some tears first.
- Former Bachelorette Andi said it best:
- Amanda let a guy she’s known for mere weeks meet her children (who are damn cute, btw) in her hometown of Laguna Beach.
- And then Ben got a taste of the unglamorous side of parenting, like dealing with screaming kids, and Ben seemed unsure as to what he’s getting himself into. While he told both Amanda’s parents he wouldn’t step in unless he was completely sure she was “the one” (we’ve heard this before), he was pretty good with her kids.
- Next up was Lauren in Portland who, like many Bachelorettes past, was waiting until hometowns to drop the L-bomb. But first she took him to a whiskey library! A WHISKEY LIBRARY. So cool. But then Lauren’s sister Molly grilled Ben hard and he got all choked up, which seemed to win her over pretty well. Unfortunately, Lauren’s (LoLo’s) dad couldn’t get past the idea that he was doing the same thing with three other women, causing LoLo to leave her love to herself.
- Then it was off to Caila’s hometown in Ohio to meet her family (and hopefully awkwardly bump into the ex she left to go on The Bachelor). Caila took him on the most awkward (for us) date to “build a house” at the toy factor her dad is the CEO at.
- Ben is obviously into Caila, but Caila’s like reeeeeally into Ben, which she squeaked out (literally at moments) to her dad who tried to calm her down in his alarmingly bright mustard-coloured pants. After Caila and her mom spoke to each other and her mom said she does, in fact, think Ben is also in love, we realized where Caila gets her overly bubbly-bordering-on-naive character comes from.
- Right before JoJo’s date with Ben in Dallas, she received a love letter (thinking it was from Ben), but it was actually from her ex “Chad,” which totally upset her and made her say the most perfect line “it’s too little too late.”
- And when you thought shit couldn’t get worse for JoJo on her hometown date, her
doucheyprotective brothers made dinner hella awkward and uncomfortable by basically interrogating Ben about his relationship with JoJo and they expressed their issues at length to JoJo in the least compassionate way possible. Then they took to Ben, accusing him of being untruthful and “brainwashing” the girls. Way to go guys. - Her mom, on the other hand, didn’t quite seem to grasp the concept of the show, saying things like “you’re not going to get hurt, you’re beautiful.” Oh and then she drank from the champagne bottle, so we now know where that comment came from.
- After one of the rockiest series of hometown dates we’ve seen in a long time, the remaining four girls met back at The Bachelor mansion for the rose ceremony, which sadly ended with Amanda heading home to her kids alone. Guess he wasn’t ready to be a stepfather after all.
