If your heart wasn’t melting watching the “hometowns” episode of “The Bachelorette” on Tuesday night it’s possible you don’t have one.
This was one of the sweetest, most emotional hometown episodes we’ve ever seen — without anyone going near an actual hometown.
There were no obnoxious siblings, no overbearing parents, no taxidermy collections, no fake autopsies: just four nice guys with nice families who seemed to really, really love them, which just made it all the more heartwrenching when Tayshia Adams had to send one man home.
The mood was set in the early minutes of the show when host Chris Harrison arrived to tell the finalists which of their family members had made the trip to La Quinta Resort in Palm Springs, Calif., and they got teary-eyed (except Ben, who apparently doesn’t cry) and all hugged each other.
Tayshia has talked about what a great group of guys she has and now that she’s got rid of dead weight like Bennett and Noah I couldn’t agree with her more.
Normally, Tayshia would have travelled to each of the men’s hometowns to meet their families. Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, the families had to come to her, not just showing up, but quarantining and taking who knows how many COVID tests at the resort.
And the suitors had to create little slices of their hometowns at La Quinta, which to be honest felt kind of refreshing compared to the show and tells we usually get.
Brendan started things off with a recreation of a small-town carnival, the kind of thing he’d attend in his hometown of Milford, Mass. And if that idea wasn’t adorable enough he had his niece Aliyah join him and Tayshia to play games like ring toss, win stuffed animals, eat popsicles, dance, ride toy horses, cavort in a bouncy castle and show off their secret handshake.
So the date was already screaming “keeper!” Then Brendan upped the ante with an emotional reunion with his big brother Daniel, whom he told Harrison was “the closet thing I had to a father after my father passed.”
“I feel like I haven’t told you enough, or at least in a long time, how much you mean to me,” Brendan told his bro. I mean, is that heartwarming or what?
The good feelings just kept flowing, with Tayshia getting encouragement from Daniel and his wife Christi that Brendan was ready to get married. At the end of it all, Tayshia declared, “I really am falling in love with him. I truly feel like Brendan could be my husband.”
After that date, us too. But there were three more dates to go.
Zac Clark, whose hometown is listed as Haddonfield, N.J., took Tayshia to “New York,” where they walked around in a cardboard taxi (once Zac had taught Tayshia how to hail one), ate bagels and pizza, then took in a view of the “Hudson River.”
Tayshia later met Zac’s parents, Douglas and Beatrice, and his brother Matt.
“They saved my life,” Zac said. “They believed in me when I had a pretty gnarly drug addiction that could have taken me out at any time.”
Matt was a little skeptical, though. He asked Tayshia point blank how her feelings for Zac compared to the other three guys and she didn’t answer him — which Matt pointed out — although she did say she was falling in love with Zac.
But Douglas and Beatrice were on board.
“I haven’t seen him smile that much in a long time,” Douglas told Tayshia, “and that’s something that’s really making me happy.”
Zac’s smile also came up in an emotional chat with his mom. “I would not be alive if it wasn’t for your strength,” Zac told her. “So nothing means more than for you to see me happy tonight and see me smiling and see me at peace.”
So I think we’re all agreed: another keeper, right?
Next up was Ivan Hall, who instead of taking Tayshia to a hometown, took her to a kitchen where they made Filipino “lumpia,” or spring rolls, coached via video by Ivan’s adorable niece Kehlani.
Ivan and Tayshia were cooking in more ways than one in that kitchen as they laughed and kissed and danced. Then Tayshia met Ivan’s father Clarence and his mother, whose name I don’t think we got.
Mom was skeptical given how fast everything was happening but told Ivan she’d welcome Tayshia with open arms if he chose to be with her. Clarence bonded with Tayshia over the fact they both had marriages that didn’t work out (Ivan’s mom is his second wife) and both married young; Clarence at 24, Tayshia at 25.
“I’m really impressed with the young lady,” Clarence said. “She and Ivan could be a good match.”
There was one more family member for Tayshia to impress. Ivan’s brother Gabriel, the one he told Tayshia about who’d done time in jail, made a surprise appearance, which had Ivan in tears. Then Gabriel teared up talking to Tayshia about how loyal Ivan had been to him. Like I said, it was an emotional night.
By the time the date was done, Tayshia had passed muster with the fam and Ivan said he was falling in love with Tayshia.
Last but not least, Ben took Tayshia to “Venice Beach,” even though he was raised in Indiana. Things seemed to be going great. Tayshia said she was smitten with Ben and he said he’d never been happier. Ben’s parents weren’t able to make it to La Quinta because of the pandemic, but Ben’s sister Madeline, the one he told Tayshia saved his life, was there along with close family friend Antonia, and they both seemed delighted with Tayshia.
Tayshia, who earlier in the episode expressed unease about not knowing how Ben felt about her, asked for and received assurance from Madeline that Ben wasn’t “hiding” anything. It’s too bad Tayshia couldn’t have overheard Ben’s conversation with Antonia because Ben admitted to Antonia that he was in love with Tayshia.
He was all set to tell Tayshia, too, but he clammed up when they were alone together and she asked him how he felt.
When Ben walked into the rose ceremony it was with the idea that it might be too late to tell Tayshia he loved her. But we’ve seen instances where an inability to clearly express feelings was used as a red herring just to make viewers think that person wasn’t getting a rose, so it was hard to tell if Ben had really blown it.
Honestly? I had no idea who Tayshia would send home. She seemed to have strong feelings for all four and had also had deep conversations with all of them about real stuff, whether it was Brendan’s previous marriage, Zac’s former drug addiction, Ivan’s experiences with racism or Ben’s suicide attempts.
This season has certainly had its share of silliness, but it’s also had some of the most meaningful interactions I can recall. Maybe being quarantined during a pandemic was a reminder for at least some of the men of what was really important in their lives.
Unfortunately for Ben, he never got the chance to tell Tayshia how he felt. Would it have made a difference? We might never know. Tayshia did say that she couldn’t keep putting energy into pulling things out of Ben so perhaps a declaration would have been too little too late.
In any event, Ben put his walls right back up after Tayshia rejected him, brushing it off with “I’ll be all right. I’m always all right.”
“He couldn’t give me one ounce of emotion,” said an upset Tayshia after he left.
But Ben clearly wasn’t all right. “I’m still in love with her,” he said, looking stricken in the back of the SUV. “I’m not sure how I’m supposed to fall out of love with her.”
For Ben’s sake I hope he figures it out and that he’s got that therapist who helped him after his suicide attempts on speed dial.
Tayshia is moving on, with fantasy suite dates and maybe a proposal next week.
(Update: it sounds like Ben is going to be back next week to ask Tayshia to give him another chance. I’m skeptical it will work, but it will be good for the drama.)
It airs Monday and Tuesday at 8 p.m. on Citytv.
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