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Tag: Erich

Bloated ‘Bachelorette’ finale ends with just one engagement

Gabby Windey, Erich Schwer, Tino Franco and Rachel Recchia on the “Bachelorette” finale.
PHOTO CREDIT: All photos Craig Sjodin/ABC via Getty Images

Tuesday’s “Bachelorette” finale was supposed to be the most dramatic ever, but it reminded me of a sitcom.

It’s not that I think there was anything funny about Rachel’s breakup with Tino, or the way he kept trying to make his cheating her fault, but tell me you didn’t watch his tortured attempts to explain away his transgression and think of the “We were on a break” plot line from “Friends.” (If you never watched the show, one character slept with someone else and tried to justify it to his girlfriend by saying repeatedly, “We were on a break.”)

As for Jesse Palmer’s claim that this would be the most shocking finale ever? Give me a break. The dirt on Tino kissing another woman and splitting with Rachel was on social media days ago, as was the intel about Erich’s texts to a woman he’d dated just before he came on “The Bachelorette.”

But, at this point, I don’t feel like I can take anything about this franchise seriously.

We endured more than five hours of a finale — two and a bit last week, three on Tuesday — that could easily have wrapped in the usual two hours, plus a one-hour “After the Final Rose,” all so ABC could sell as many ads as possible. And we were sold a bill of goods about how unprecedented it was going to be to make the boring filler easier to swallow. But I’m still choking on it, personally.

“Bachelorette” and “Bachelor” alum Kaitlyn Bristowe, Catherine Giudici, Sean Lowe, Becca Kufrin
and Michelle Young were in the audience to help pad out the live “Bachelorette” finale.

What did we get for our extra time on Tuesday? Endless, obvious questions from Jesse to Gabby and, especially, Rachel; commentary and advice from the three past Bachelorettes and one Bachelor (and wife) in the audience; the introduction of the next Bachelor (ho hum, it’s Zach Shallcross), followed by Zach “starting his journey” live onstage with awkward introductions to five (mostly blond) contestants; a ridiculous interactive stunt in which viewers voted on Twitter to award one of the women a rose; an extended “Bachelor in Paradise” promo.

I suppose we can take a couple of wins from the night: Gabby’s and Rachel’s friendship is as tight as ever, and Gabby got engaged to Erich and was still with him as of Tuesday night.

As for all that nonsense about how we’d never seen anything on a finale before like Tino’s and Rachel’s breakup? Well, we have, even though the circumstances were different, if you count Arie Luyendyk Jr. dumping Becca on camera post-proposal. And that was worse because Becca was blindsided for the purpose of making “good” TV.

On Tuesday, we were more than nine minutes into the “live” finale before we got a glimpse of the actual finale — you know, the stuff that happened in Mexico — picking up from last week with Gabby upset that Erich didn’t seem ready to propose. But then she went back to his suite, and they kissed and made up, and agreed that they wanted to work things out.

Next up was Rachel’s last evening in Mexico with Tino, when she spilled the beans that Tino had won, essentially — to which he had a curious non-reaction — but who even cares? Even if you hadn’t read last week’s tabloid gossip you could tell from the expressions on Rachel’s and Big Tony’s faces in the insets at the bottom of the screen that it wasn’t going to end well.

After yet more time-wasting filler we got to Proposal Day.

Tino proposed to Rachel, blah blah blah, although I guess you can find some grim humour in Rachel telling Tino how “selfless and gentle and supportive” he was. Vowing to love Rachel forever, Tino put a Neil Lane ring on it and they trotted off on a horse as the studio audience applauded.

Rachel and Tino in Mexico before it all went to hell.

So what happened then?

Rachel told Jesse that she and Tino had been having “difficulties” in their post-show relationship and then Tino “cheated” on her, by kissing another woman at a bar.

Look, stuff happens. Kissing someone else isn’t necessarily a hill to die on. What did seem shady was that Tino tried to keep Rachel from finding out and then, when he got caught, tried to justify it during their on-camera meet-up by reading a bunch of supposedly incriminating quotes from Rachel he kept in his journal.

Rachel said the quotes were all taken out of context, and they flat out disagreed about whether or not Rachel had said she wanted to give her engagement ring back. Tino claimed he thought they were “pretty much done.”

“Never once did we ever say we are broken up, we are not engaged,” Rachel protested.

The most telling moments came when Tino ducked into the backyard — he did that twice — and complained to a producer that Rachel was throwing him under the bus and making him look bad. These do not seem like the words of a man who’s going to love a woman until the end of time.

Still, Tino claimed he wanted to spend the rest of his life making it up to Rachel, but she took off the ring and that was that.

When Tino finally made it into the hot seat on the live part of the finale, he started out by saying how sorry he was and how he wanted to own his actions, but then he ruined it by alluding to something he and Rachel had discussed in private that she said was “deeply personal.” What it was, we don’t know, but apparently something you don’t want discussed in front of a live studio audience.

Maybe Tino genuinely loved Rachel or at least thought he did, but his way of trying to communicate that was abysmal. In fact, as a couple, their communication skills were dysfunctional AF based on what we saw on Tuesday night.

But the fact that Tino came off as more concerned about how he looked than Rachel’s feelings doesn’t justify the stunt the producers pulled on him.

Aven Jones swoops in after Rachel’s final confrontation with Tino.

After Rachel and Tino wrapped up their confrontation, Jesse announced that someone was demanding to talk to Rachel. Her runner-up, Aven, strolled onstage and invited Rachel to leave with him to “catch up.” “I would love nothing more” Rachel exclaimed before she and Aven walked backstage to chat, leaving Tino to just stand there confused as Jesse broke for commercial, making glib comments about how “awkward” and “weird” the situation was.

Yes, it was awkward as hell and obviously the only ones demanding that Aven speak to Rachel at that very moment were the producers, just so they could have a “gotcha” moment.

Finally it was time for Gabby’s ending. And despite all the drama about whether or not Erich was going to propose he did indeed get down on one knee, telling Gabby, “It’s you and me until the wheels fall off.”

So did they fall off? That was the question.

Gabby and fiancé Erich seemed to be in a good place on the finale.

As Gabby and Erich cuddled on the hot seat, Jesse brought up text messages that Erich sent to a woman he was dating before filming started, saying basically that he didn’t think the show was real, but he was going on it to figure out what else to do with his life.

Erich did a better job than Tino of expressing his regret, saying he hadn’t seen a long-term future with the other woman, had led her on and had taken the cowardly way out by using the show as an excuse to end the relationship.

Gabby said he’d told her about the text messages long before they came out on social media, that they had “hard” conversations about them, but it helped improve their communication. And even though “you were kind of an asshole to her,” Gabby was standing by her man.

And that’s good enough for me. They seemed genuinely happy on Tuesday night; I liked the playful, humorous way they related to each other; and Grandpa John is “tickled pink” about the match. So let’s just leave them the hell alone and let them get on with their lives.

And that’s it. I don’t have anything that I feel like writing about Zach, beyond that he was the boring, predictable choice for the next Bachelor. I was Team Ethan or Team Aven — well, I was before I knew Aven was going to try to rekindle things with Rachel. Although he might not really be trying to rekindle things with Rachel. That might just be producer nonsense. And we do know that she’s on “Bachelor in Paradise” because we saw her in the promo, so maybe she hooked up with someone there?

Speaking of “Bachelor in Paradise,” although I am eager to watch along with you all, I won’t be doing any recaps until mid-October. I am going on my first real vacation since 2019 and will be in a different time zone as of the middle of next week, so I won’t even be tweeting with y’all on show nights.

But if you’re planning to watch,  Citytv will have the first episode next Tuesday at 8 p.m. And as always, you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo

More pain in the fantasy suites as Bachelorette doom awaits

“Bachelorette” stars Gabby Windey and Rachel Recchia. The smiles might be deceiving.
PHOTO CREDIT: Gizelle Hernandez/ABC

Is this chaos what happens when you give people — well, OK, men — choices?

The men of “The Bachelorette” were given a choice of two women and now some of them are choosing to blow up the order of things.

Oh, trust me, I know how ridiculous it is to expect people to get engaged after mere weeks of acquaintance under the most unnatural of circumstances, but this is what we expect from “The Bachelorette.”

I’m not even going to broach the conditioning involved in being this invested in the heteronormative, gender role-reinforcing spectacle of a man getting down on one knee, but this is what we demand as Bachelorette fans: the catharsis of crying happy tears as people who didn’t even know each other eight weeks before pledge their undying love with a hunk of crystallized carbon. Sure, they’ll probably break up soon, but we’ll always have Mexico or wherever the hell they are.

Except host Jesse Palmer has raised the spectre of Gabby Windey and Rachel Recchia being denied their hard-fought happily-ever-afters. So shocking is what we’re supposedly going to see next week that he had to take a few minutes to gird us at the end of the episode while standing in an empty studio.

“You will all bear witness to the crazy controversy that’s about to ensue,” he said. “So take some time, get yourselves ready and prepare yourselves for the most shocking finale of all time.”

Good lord, what is going on?!?

Well, let’s take stock. Monday night, we watched Gabby cut Johnny loose since he wasn’t ready to get engaged and Jason bailed on her Tuesday night. Not only did he not want to propose; he didn’t want Gabby in any capacity. But Erich was still there and, after he and Gabby professed their love for each other, it seemed like one happy ending had come early. But wait, was that Erich in the promo saying he didn’t want to get engaged either?

And what of Rachel’s men? As she went into the rose ceremony Tuesday it seemed that Zach was about to get the heave ho after a troubling fantasy suite date. But Tino was the clear front-runner anyway, except the promo showed Tino saying he wanted out, Rachel arguing with Aven and an unseen somebody being accused of going back on their word.

Maybe it won’t be so shocking after all, especially since it seemed clear from Night 1 that this season was never truly about giving Rachel and Gabby romantic redemption.

Buckle up, I guess.

Tuesday’s episode began with Gabby’s date with Jason. Despite all the fun and games of tennis and splashing around the pool together, we knew that Jason had a bomb to drop at dinner and drop it he did.

Not only was he not ready to get engaged, he wasn’t even sure he could see a future with Gabby outside the “bubble” of the show. But still, Jason dangled the possibility of a “serious relationship” once the cameras were banished from their lives. So Gabby threw caution to the wind and took him to the fantasy suite.

The unslept-in bed told the story. There was no fantasy in the suite, just conversation that went nowhere and Jason deciding there was no chance for him and Gabby. She at least nominally got to send him home and to tell him, “I truly just want you to realize I’ve been led on.”

And she was. It seems mighty suspect, given Jason’s discomfort with the process from the get-go and his ambivalence about getting serious with Gabby during his hometown, that he’d wait until almost the very end to share these doubts. But wait he did.

Jason claimed he finally got “clarity”; Gabby got her heart broken.

“What is it about me that’s so hard to love?” she sobbed.

Speaking of clarity, maybe we’ll get some next week about what went on between Rachel and Zach.

They went from a lovey-dovey day in some Mexican town — hats! mariachi! Day of the Dead figurines! cricket snacks! — to Zach showing up teary-eyed at Jesse’s door the morning after.

According to Zach, he and Rachel were like two strangers once the cameras were off and Rachel seemed to put on a front, stridently suggesting that Zach’s age — he was 25 to her 26, although he seems older to me — meant he wasn’t ready to commit.

It’s tempting to think Rachel was looking for an excuse to push Zach away without actually dumping him. She did tell Gabby, after all, that she wasn’t “there” with Zach despite claiming in her date voice-over that she was falling in love with him.

But we didn’t get Rachel’s side of the story so we don’t really know. Zach had just pulled her away from the rose ceremony to talk when Jesse cut in with his warning about Bachelorette Armageddon.

Meanwhile, Gabby had cancelled her own rose ceremony and gone to Erich’s suite, where he was wondering if he’d blown his chance with her after his freakout about her maybe sleeping with other men.

Naw.

“You have taught me it’s OK to feel safe and wanted and loved in maybe a way that I haven’t and you’re the only one left,” Gabby told Erich. “I do know that I love you.”

Awwwww. The warm, sappy feelings engendered were almost as good as a proposal. Gabby declared Erich “the love of my life,” a love that will apparently be put to the test next week.

You won’t be able to watch it Tuesday on Citytv, but you can tune into ABC at 8 p.m. And you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo

The fantasy becomes a nightmare for Gabby on The Bachelorette

Rachel Recchia and Gabby Windey toast to the fantasy suite dates to come.
PHOTO CREDIT: All photos screen grabs

After watching Monday’s fantasy suites episode of “The Bachelorette” — excuse me, the first of two fantasy suites episodes — it’s hard to see how we’ll end up with a “shocking ending nobody is gonna see coming,” as per host Jesse Palmer.

Let’s start with Rachel.

She told Gabby within the first minutes of the episode that she wasn’t “there” with Zach and presumably will share that information with him on tomorrow night’s date. She told Aven she was falling in love with him but was already exchanging “I love you’s” with Tino — his parents’ hostility notwithstanding — so it would take one hell of a twist for her not to end up engaged to Tino.

(Mind you, the conspiracy theorist in me can imagine the producers flying Papa Joe to Mexico to slow Tino’s roll.)

As for Gabby, well, Johnny was clearly there for a good time, not a long time, and left sans fantasy suite. And Jason, who hadn’t had his date yet, told Jesse what he already told his mother during hometowns, that he wasn’t ready to get engaged. That would seem to leave Erich as the last man standing — assuming he gets over his jealousy about Gabby’s other overnight dates. And if Jason tells Gabby sooner rather than later that he’s “not quite” falling for her, there won’t be any other overnights for Erich to obsess over.

But I know, I know: this is “The Bachelorette” we’re talking about, and the editing can make black look white and up seem down, so I suppose anything’s possible.

In the meantime, as we slog our way to the finish, let’s recap.

First off, Gabby and Rachel reunited in the Riviera Maya for some Champagne and girl talk. The main point of this, besides reminding everyone which men were still hanging around, was to allow them to bring up the week on Clayton Echard’s season when “everything went haywire,” in Rachel’s words.

“I never want to make anyone else feel the way that we did,” Gabby said.

“We get to rewrite what this week means and make it into something positive,” Rachel said.

But does anyone ever get to rewrite fantasy suite week? I don’t see how, unless they refuse to play the stupid “I’m falling for three men/women at the same time” game.

Gabby had the first date, with Erich.

Erich Schwer helps Gabby psych up to jump off a “lovers’ leap.” The sign says: “Love gives you wings.”

I can only assume Erich really is (or was) into Gabby since he left his dying father behind to be with her in Mexico.

They certainly seemed very close as they cavorted and smooched at a “lovers’ leap,” so much so that Gabby told Erich, “I wish I could crawl inside you” and what the hell does that even mean?

He told her later over an uneaten charcuterie board that he loved her and she repeated what she said at hometowns, that she was falling in love with him. Then they headed off to the fantasy suite — and can we please stop pretending the fantasy suite cards are a surprise? — to “really feel each other’s love,” in Gabby’s words.

The next morning came one of the longest goodbyes in fantasy suite memory as Erich lingered, conflicted about the idea of Gabby spending the night with other men. Gabby seemed conflicted too, about whether she wanted to be engaged to Erich, although she did say in her voice-over she thought she was in love with him.

Next up was Rachel’s date with Aven and it was a perfectly generic overnight date.

Aven Jones and Rachel chill on a yacht.

There was a yacht with a hot tub; there was Champagne and smooching; there was talk about how much Rachel and Aven had grown on their journey. And I’m sorry, I like Aven, but it all felt kind of rote to me.

Rachel and Gabby had made much ado about how they didn’t want to carelessly throw around the word “love” like Clayton had. But Rachel told Aven that, knowing how much the word meant to him, she was comfortable telling him she was falling in love with him too.

It was the only overnight on Monday’s episode in which we actually saw the couple in bed together the next morning; clothed, but still.

“It’s definitely really important to explore your physical connection and Aven is the full package — the full package,” Rachel said with a twinkle in her eye, laughing.

Can’t wait for Tino’s parents to watch that.

And speaking of Tino, his date was next up. We already knew how hard he was jonesing to see Rachel since we’d been subjected to footage of sad Tino saying how gut-wrenching it was to have to wait around, knowing his girl might be sleeping with other men.

He even got a special visit from Jesse so he could moan about it some more and also so Jesse could bring up the hometown from hell with Tino’s parents. Since there was so little suspense in Monday’s episode, we had to be led to believe that Tino’s hometown was so scarring for Rachel that she might not be able to get past it.

Rachel on her date with her potential Mr. Forever, Tino Franco.

And listen, it’s not that I’m saying that hometown wasn’t awful. Tino’s folks totally disrespected Rachel, especially his father. But I also expected exactly what happened to happen: which was that after Tino told her that he loved her (once again circumventing conversation about his parents’ rudeness) and she said it back — so much for not throwing the word around — Rachel bought into his assurance that his family would come to love her too.

I’m not personally convinced they will, but perhaps that’s a topic for “After the Final Rose.”

In the meantime, we didn’t even get to see Rachel’s and Tino’s morning after because we had to rush onto a boat ride with Johnny and Gabby.

Gabby clearly thought Johnny was hot, fine, but I was somewhat mystified by her assertion she could see a life with Johnny after the show. I don’t think anyone else could, including Johnny.

Whereas other men were talking about being or falling in love, Johnny said, “Gabby is the dopest girl I think I’ve ever hung with.” That says it all right there.

Johnny DePhillipo gives it to Gabby straight: no engagement for him, not on this show anyway.

When Gabby told Johnny straight up she was ready to get engaged, Johnny replied that was “a hard thing to think about,” even though he claimed he could see himself falling in love with her. But with proposal day just a week or two off, Johnny sensibly told the truth about not being ready and Gabby just as sensibly walked away without taking him to the fantasy suite.

(There are spoilers out there, not that I was looking for them, about Johnny coupling up with someone else on “Bachelor in Paradise.” Apparently ABC even ran a “Paradise” promo with Johnny in it before we’d watched him break up with Gabby. Nice timing that.)

Gabby consoled herself with the thought that Erich and Jason were both ready for an engagement and . . . uh oh.

There was Jesse, like a harbinger of doom, paying a call on Jason.

“Do you feel like you’re falling in love with Gabby?” Jesse asked.

“I would say I’m not quite there just yet. I would say I have strong feelings toward Gabby,” Jason replied.

Sorry, son, but you don’t pass go on this show with mere strong feelings.

Jason Alabaster gives Jesse Palmer the goods about his inability to commit to Gabby.

It probably goes without saying but no, Jason could not see himself at the point of engagement in just two weeks.

But hey, Gabby still had Erich and . . . uh oh.

As Gabby was back in her suite, still brooding about Johnny, there was a knock and a note at her door: “I need to see you, I’ll be waiting on the bridge,” with no signature.

But what was initially an affectionate reunion with Erich ended with Gabby in tears, feeling ambushed.

Referring to the night they had just spent together, Erich said, “I’m now sitting here picturing the girl that I’m in love with doing that with somebody else. That kind of crushes me . . . I’m having a really hard time.”

“We talked about this off camera,” Gabby said tearfully. “Like, I feel like we were able to have an honest conversation about it in fantasy suites. So you brought me here to tell me it again.”

Erich insisted he hadn’t, but it went downhill from there. The episode ended with Gabby walking away from Erich, questioning whether Erich was her guy after all, and the “To be continued” chyron on the screen.

So where will it all end up? Who knows? Since we’ve seen promo footage of both Rachel and Gabby on proposal day, somebody must stick around to put a ring on it . . . or not.

It appears that Rachel will “blindside” Zach on tomorrow’s episode with her lack of fully developed feelings for him; ditto Jason with Gabby and that Gabby might skip the rose ceremony. Beyond that, I don’t have a crystal ball and I don’t read spoilers.

You can watch Fantasy Suites Part 2 Tuesday at 8 p.m. on ABC. I don’t know when Citytv will air it. And you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo

The Bachelorette hometown dates go from good to sad to bad

Tino Franco’s mother, waiting to shoot down everything Rachel Recchia says on “The Bachelorette.” PHOTO CREDIT: All photos screen grabs

What is real on a reality dating show like “The Bachelorette”?

Was Erich Schwer bringing Gabby Windey home to meet his dying father real?

Was Rachel Recchia crying her eyes out because she sent Tyler Norris home without meeting his family real?

Was Rachel’s discomfort as she got grilled with hostile questions by Tino Franco’s parents real?

All of those moments felt pretty real but, according to Tino’s mom, Sandi, what happens on “The Bachelorette” isn’t real.

Look, I get it: having your son go on a TV show only to come home after six weeks to tell you he’s met the woman he’s going to propose to, it must feel weird and scary.

But asking rude questions, stating your opinions as facts when you don’t really know what the f**k you’re talking about, and being so aggressive you almost make that woman cry . . . well, welcome to the Hometown Hell Hall of Fame, Tino’s parents.

In what’s been a rough season, Monday’s hometowns episode was rough and I don’t just mean around the edges.

It started out encouragingly with lovely dates with Jason (Gabby) and Zach (Rachel), started to slide a little with Johnny (Gabby), who seemed not at all ready to commit, and then just got sad with Tyler and Erich. Then we had the shit show that was Tino’s hometown. We didn’t even get to Aven’s. His gets sandwiched in with “Men Tell All” next week.

But we’re in the home stretch. Just a few more weeks and we’ll know whether the experiment of having two Bachelorettes was a complete failure or whether we’ll even have two Bachelorettes by the end of the season, given the promo. But let’s rewind.

Gabby meets Jason Alabaster’s father on their hometown date.

After a completely unnecessary bit of B-roll of Rachel and Gabby packing on the Good Ship Bachelorette and then telling host Jesse Palmer about their expectations — we’ve got seven dates to get through people, we don’t need this crap! — Gabby got the ball rolling with Jason in New Orleans.

We’ll skip the street musicians on Bourbon Street and throwing beads off a balcony — this isn’t a travelogue — and go straight to Gabby and Jason meeting his dad Michael in a park. He seemed like a warm, decent human being who tearfully described Jason as “a good kid, a good man” and welcomed Gabby with open arms, flowers and beignets. By the time Michael told Jason, “If it’s the real deal I want to be the best man at your wedding,” those beignets were getting a little soggy.

The love-a-palooza and tears-a-palooza continued at Jason’s mom’s house (she and his dad are separated) where sister Kelsey and Gabby got on like a house on fire, and mom Karen said Gabby and Jason were “really, really cute” together.

But Jason confessed to Karen that he wasn’t ready to get engaged and she tearfully warned him not to lose a good thing because “you’re so distracted by everything around you,” i.e. the cameras, the other men, etc.

After the date, Gabby said she was falling in love with Jason.

How long did Rachel and Zach Smallcross have to kiss until that plane crossed the sky?

Next stop: Anaheim, California, where Zach had a surprise for Rachel: a couch set up on a rooftop where they could watch planes take off and land from the airport — a callback to their first date when they talked about going plane-spotting with their dads as kids. It was perfect.

Zach also gets points for being the only hometown with a famous family member, his uncle, actor Patrick Warburton of “Seinfeld,” “NewsRadio,” “The Tick,” “Rules of Engagement,” “Family Guy” and lots more.

We’ll forgive Zach’s dad, Chapman, for saying that “You go to the most romantic places on Earth and you’ll fall in love with a monkey.” By the end of the visit, he and Zach’s mom, Megan, were ready to welcome Rachel into the family.

Zach told Rachel he was in love with her and she said, in voice-over, that she was falling in love with Zach. Forget Tino, honey: snap up Zach!

Johnny DePhillipo with Gabby. Did we mention he’s “super hot”?

Gabby’s next hometown was Palm Beach, Florida, with Johnny, who she said was “super hot” and . . . um . . . well, a good kisser, I guess.

His dad John and mom Elizabeth were all in on Gabby being with Johnny, if that’s what Johnny wanted — but about that. Johnny told his mom he could see himself falling for Gabby, but he wasn’t ready to get engaged, which might come as news to Gabby. As she and Johnny went for a cruise and a smooch, we heard Gabby saying, “It feels so good and so easy being with someone who I know is ready for the next step.” Uh oh.

Rachel shares some hard truths with Tyler on the Jersey Shore.

When you put the Jersey Shore on reality TV, can you expect anything less than turmoil?

Rachel’s date with Tyler in Wildwood, New Jersey, started out with fun carnival games and rides and fried food and smooches on the boardwalk. But by the time Tyler started introducing Rachel to all his friends inside the Hot Spot Restaurant, the wheels were coming off. Next thing you know she was having a breakdown in the time-honoured refuge of the women’s washroom.

Then came the painful breakup. Rachel couldn’t get a word in edgewise because Tyler kept babbling about how great everything was. She started telling Tyler he was “the most incredible person” — and everyone who’s ever watched the show knows the next words will be a variation on “but you’re not my person.” However, Tyler, oblivious, told Rachel he was in love with her and she was “the most amazing woman I’ve ever met.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” interjected Rachel.

Shaking and crying, Rachel finally managed to tell Tyler that she couldn’t meet his family because she didn’t know if she could “get there” with him.

Tyler, bless him, comforted Rachel, telling her that he still believed that “love that’s forever is real” and she was going to get it.

Then Tyler had to break the news to his excited family that Rachel wasn’t coming. Harsh.

Look, I know this heartbreak is going to put Tyler in the running for next Bachelor. I’d still like to see it go to Ethan, but maybe Tyler can find a nice girl in Paradise.

Erich and Gabby with his father, Allan.

Let’s be honest: taking a woman home to your family who you’ve known for mere weeks and been sharing with other men does seem absurd. But the fact that Erich took Gabby to meet his sick father, Allan, who died of cancer in July, belies Tino’s mom’s insistence that “The Bachelorette” isn’t real. Why would Erich put his dad and Gabby through that if he didn’t have real feelings for her?

It was a sombre visit to Bedminster, N.J. Allan was very frail and had obviously been through hell with the disease. Mom Donna was as welcome as you can be when your husband of 35 years is dying in front of you.

“We marry for life,” she told Erich. And to Gabby: “We don’t give up on each other, ever.”

Erich vaulted to the front of Gabby’s pack after the emotional day, with them telling each other later that they were falling in love with each other. But a clip of Erich telling Gabby he can’t handle the woman he’s in love with having sex with other guys suggests a rocky road ahead.

Don’t let the smiles on Sandi, Joe and Mateo fool you; Rachel got a rough ride from the Franco family.

Finally, it was time for the main event in Santa Clarita, Calif., as “The Bachelorette” saved the worst for last.

Even before Rachel and Tino walked into the house, his parents were dismissive of the possibility of them having a real relationship.

When Tino said he was going to propose in two weeks, his dad Joe scoffed, “What are you talking about after two months? We’re gonna have to have a talk.”

Rachel told his mom how much she admired Tino’s positive, giving outlook on life, to which Sandi replied, “If you met him outside of this, this isn’t real.”

“Well, it is,” replied Rachel, but Sandi wasn’t having it, calling the experience an “insulated bubble.”

And sure, it is that, but Sandi wasn’t there for any of it, so what the hell would she know? Unless there’s criminality or abuse involved, you should butt the hell out of your adult children’s love lives.

It went downhill from there. Joe, insultingly, referred to Rachel’s “second go-round” — as if the fact she got dumped by Clayton Echard should preclude her from trying to find love with someone else — and suggested she was out to get engaged at all costs.

“I wouldn’t put him in this position just so I could get married, I’m not that type of person,” Rachel said, but she might as well have been talking to the wall.

“I feel like they hated me,” Rachel fretted to a producer after the talk. Nonetheless, Rachel graciously rose above the rudeness of Tino’s parents and thanked them for asking her hard-hitting questions.

Outside the house, Tino told her his family adored her. And when Rachel told him she did not feel adored, he changed the subject and told her he was falling in love with her.

Giant red flag. Run, Rachel, run! Instead, alas, she told Tino she was falling in love with him too.

So here’s where things stand, with one hometown date still to come. Rachel’s falling for Zach and Tino, both of whom appear ready to get engaged although, as Rachel pointed out, “When you marry someone you marry their family.” I would not want to marry Tino’s family.

Gabby’s falling for Jason and Erich, and can see herself falling in love with Johnny, although only Erich seems proposal-ready and fantasy suites might screw that up.

The promo showed both Gabby and Rachel in tears — what else is new? — and Jesse telling Rachel, “Gabby will not be joining you. You’re gonna be the only Bachelorette here.” We’ll have to wait two weeks to find out what that’s about.

In the meantime, you can watch “Men Tell All” Monday at 8 p.m. on Citytv. And you can comment here, catch me on Twitter or chat on my Facebook page.

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