An apple falls right out of the tree on ‘The Bachelorette’ hometowns

You could say the hometowns episode of “The Bachelorette” came down to an apple vs. a guy in orange shorts. Michelle Young tossed the man who will forever be known for dressing as an apple on Night 1 while the man who donned orange swim trunks on their date, the one we were meant to think she was having doubts about, maintained his frontrunner status.

I mean it’s hard to drum up drama when you have a final four that seems this benevolent, and not a mean brother or rude mother in the bunch among the families that Michelle met.

The closest we got to hometown conflict was when Nayte’s stepdad expressed doubt that Nayte was ready for an engagement, which set up the narrative that Michelle was “struggling” as she went into the rose ceremony with the fear that Nayte would break her heart.

But there was no way she was going to send the season’s frontrunner home; ditto for Brandon, since Michelle told him she was falling for him. And was she really going to ditch Joe after he threw her a prom?

So that left Rodney Mathews, the down-to-earth, good-natured fellow who wormed his way into viewers’ hearts.

I always figure you can tell a lot about a man by how he makes his exit. “I’m always gonna care about you, Michelle, like forever,” Rodney said. “You’re amazing Michelle, so thank you.” And he kissed her hand before he got into the SUV.

That’s class. And I don’t want to belabour the point, but like a lot of other people I’m wondering why we couldn’t have had Rodney for a Bachelor instead of Clayton Echard, whom ABC finally confirmed as its next male star.

While I had hoped we might get actual hometown dates this week, instead the men’s families came to Minneapolis.

First up was Brandon, who hails from Portland, Oregon.

The less said about the skateboarding part of the date the better. Whatever skills Brandon had gained from skating with his whole family deserted him with Michelle around and yes, it did make him look 14.

Skating around Brandon’s mother Carmen, father David and brother Noah was way easier. Noah was playing the skeptic of the group, but Michelle told him she could 100 per cent see herself with Brandon. She won David over by talking fishing and basketball. And she assured Carmen she could see who Brandon really was “and that’s why Brandon is still here, because I truly love who that person is.”

Speaking of love, Michelle told Brandon, “After today it is very clear to me that I am falling for you.” Combine that with the fact there was so much goodbye smooching that they were still lip-locked as Michelle sat in the back of the van and Brandon seemed like a shoo-in for a rose.

Next it was Rodney’s turn to take Michelle spiritually if not physically to Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., but they picked apples and Rodney fed Michelle apples blindfolded, callbacks both to the first night and their one-on-one date.

If you didn’t know any better it would be easy to think Rodney stood a real shot at a rose. Michelle leapt on him and kissed him and told him she missed him. She said Rodney could be the “best friend” her parents had told her she should end up with. We never heard Michelle say she was falling for him, however.

When his mom, Carrie, asked Michelle if she could create a life with Rodney outside “The Bachelorette,” the best Michelle could come up with was that Rodney was the type of person she’d want to be stuck in an airport with for five hours if their flight got cancelled.

So yeah, I get why Carrie was fearing the worst for her son with three other men in the running, but Rodney told her Michelle was worth the risk.

Perhaps Joe, on the other hand, already had a leg up, since he shared his hometown of Minneapolis with Michelle, but he had the best non-family date activity hands down. He took Michelle to prom at his old high school complete with fancy clothes, snacks, balloons, dancing, a photo booth, king and queen sashes and crowns and, with no chaperones, all the smooching they wanted.

This was a callback to Michelle’s group date spoken-word poem in which she said she was the last picked for prom, as well as the fact Joe had never gone to one.

“You’ll always be first with me,” Joe told her.

“Joe really sees me and understands me,” Michelle said.

The tough cookie at the family meet-and-greet was meant to be Joe’s sister-in-law, Hanna, but once again the family was putty in Michelle’s hands.

She told Hanna Joe was her “little slice of home away from home” and Hanna decided that Michelle had the kind of strength and energy that Joe needed in his life. Although she also said, “I hope this works out because we will see her in the grocery store.”

The last supposed obstacle was that Joe hadn’t told Michelle how he felt about her yet, but he rectified that: “I am falling in love with you and I feel like you’re that special person for me.”

Finally, it was the turn of Nayte, a Winnipeg native who now calls Austin, Texas home.

The paddleboarding was an entertaining enough diversion for Michelle, but the main event was meeting Nayte’s mom Leanna and stepdad Charles, who were divorced but had come together just to support Nayte — or Nathaniel, as they called him.

Nayte had warned Michelle that his family wasn’t into talking about emotions — “no heart to hearts, no I love you’s” — so it was pretty remarkable to watch Nayte and Charles do both those things, apparently for the first time ever.

Charles, who had come into Nayte’s life when he was in Grade 9, told Nayte what an amazing journey it had been to watch him “grow up to be you.”

“Never doubt that I’m proud of you . . . never, ever, ever doubt that I love you and never doubt that I’m here for you,” Charles said.

Nayte thanked him for everything.

“I’m gonna have a family one day and I want to be who you were to me for them,” said Nayte, with tears in his eyes.

“You’ll be even better than me,” Charles replied.

If nothing else ever comes of Nayte meeting Michelle, that’s a moment to treasure right there.

But for purposes of plot development, the important conversation was between Michelle and Charles when she asked if Nayte was ready for an engagement and Charles replied, “I don’t know if he’s gonna get to that point.”

Then again, who knows if that answer actually had anything to do with Michelle’s question, given the magic of editing, although Nayte himself told his mom he wasn’t quite there yet.

The day of the rose ceremony, Michelle had an extraneous visit from her former “Bachelor” mates Bri Springs and Serena Pitt, which boiled down to Michelle telling them it was going to be tough to send one of her final four home since they were “the best guys I’ve met in my entire life.” And maybe she’d get her heart broken at the end. Well, duh.

When the time came, Michelle handed roses to Brandon, Nayte and Joe and you know the rest.

Next week it’s back to a Monday night schedule with “Men Tell All.” ABC also promoted Clayton’s “Bachelor” season for the first time, which starts Jan. 3. My assessment, based on the clips, is that they’ve brought on some mean girls to compensate for what would otherwise be the deadly dullness of the season.

You can tune in next Monday at 9 p.m. on Citytv. And you can comment here, visit my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter @realityeo