Becca and "The Best Kisser in the Entire World"

We begin Hometowns Week in sunny California; Garrett is from Manteca, a Central Valley farming city that always makes me sing this song.  They ride around on a planter and try to plant tomatoes on Garrett's family's land.  Then they more successfully plant a rose bush.  Then Becca gets to meet Garrett's parents, older sister & husband, and twin brother & wife.  They are all protective of Garrett and don't want to see him hurt again.  They all like Becca though, so Garrett's pleased.

Next up, we go across the country to Buffalo, New York, where Jason brings her to a bar to enter a wing eating contest.  Apparently ranch is NOT a thing in Buffalo.  People chant "eat those wings" and they eat some wings.  People chant "kiss" and they kiss.  Next, Jason takes her to a hockey rink and makes all kinds of hockey/love metaphors mostly about teamwork.  They ride the Zamboni and make-out, I'm sure much to the chagrin of the Zamboni driver.  Jason's is the smallest family we meet: his parents and his brother & brother-in-law.  Jason tells his dad he's falling for her immensely, and follows up with, "it's insane that I'm saying that.  It's wild to think that's coming out of my mouth.  He sings his praises of Becca to his brother, who asks if he's told Becca how he feels (he hasn't, and his brother is like, what are you waiting for?!).  They all like her, Jason tells her he loves her, everyone is happy and supportive.

Another cold place is next: snowy Bailey, Colorado.  Blake inadvertently shares that he peaked in high school while they wander around saying hi to his old teachers.  They have a serous moment where Blake shares that his school fell victim to a school shooting when he was a senior.  To not end on a sad note before meeting the fam, Blake (but more likely the shows producers) has arranged a concert in his school auditorium.  It's Becca's favorite singer, Betty Who (that's not a question, though it kind of is... good thing Becca's favorite singer is concert-on-The-Bachelor level famous).  Then they go meet Blake's family.  They don't introduce the viewers to everyone, but it would appear that this meeting included both Blake's parents and associate step-parents and maybe his sisters?  Blake's mom has a reasonable response to Blake falling in love on this show: "That's crazy.  That's freaking crazy."  Again, though, the family is fairly supportive and are happy if Blake is happy.

Last, and kind of least, since he is the youngest, Colton gets to show Becca around his hometown of Parker, Colorado.  They buy some toys and visit a children's hospital and it's pretty cute.  Becca and Colton both thought the other was great with kids.  Colton then takes Becca home to meet 18 of his family members.  Colton talks about being a virgin with his mom, and talks to his dad about handling things like a man.  It's all kind of awkward, but the family seems to like Becca enough.  Colton admits to being in love with her and Becca says she's falling for him, too.

Back in LA, we get a girl chat before the rose ceremony.  Caroline, Kendall, Bekah M, Sienne, and Tia are back in a contrived situation so that Tia has a opportunity to stir up some drama.  Turns out she still has feelings for Colton.  Becca is frustrated since Colton is, like, sooo hot and also said he loved her, but also she doesn't want to lose a friend.  If only she had three other guys in love with her to fall back on!  Oh wait, she does.

The guys arrive one by one to the rose ceremony where Chris Harrison greets them and walks them in.  For some reason, Colton asks Chris Harrison advice about being intimate in the Fantasy Suite.  Scroll down and read this recap by Sharleen Joynt of Juan Pablo's season for the play by play.  It's pretty funny.  Anyway, Becca arrives, speechifies about how hard this decision is, and sends Colton home.  And no need to feel bad for Colton- he's off to Bachelor in Paradise with Tia waiting for him.

Becca and "a professional football player and a bunch of chumps"

It's a rainy day in LA when we begin this episode.  Colton is moody because of the he dated Tia situation.  David is still complaining about Jordan and how he spends his days putting together outfits.  Jordan complains about how David spends all day cooking eggs and trying to get under Jordan's skin.  Jordan claims not to fee threatened, but he sure lets David get under his skin anyway.

Group date #1 or "Cheers to being a bitch"

The first date of the episode takes Wills, Jordan, David, Jean Blanc, Colton, and Jason to a spa.  But surprise!  They aren't getting pampered, they're pampering Becca's friends, aka fellow contestants from Arie's season.  Kendall, Caroline, Bekah M, Sienne, and *drumroll* Tia are there.  Becca introduces them (though Colton and Tia need no introduction), and Becca forgets Jason's name (but he gets some smooches later, so it's ok).  While the girls AND the guys all get their fingernails painted, Becca and Tia step out to chat about the Colton situation.  Tia tells Becca the most they did was kiss, and sure he may have thought Tia would be The Bachelorette, but Tia hopes he's there for Becca.  I mean, Tia actually hoped she would be in Becca's shoes right now, but being cooperative now means more screen time for her and probably a good BIP placement.

For the evening portion of the date, we've mostly moved on from caring about the Colton-Tia drama, and instead get some excellent model vs chicken drama.  David just can't help himself from picking fights with Jordan, who we find out got 4,000 matches on Tinder in 2017 (which he claims was 100% a successful match rate).  David decides to tell Becca this, who thinks it's kind of funny and gives Jordan a sarcastic high-five.  Jordan call's David a bitch and goes to talk to Becca.  He gives her an awkward hug and tells her he's like a golden retriever in relationships.  Both Jordan and David think they've come out on top.  David keeps egging Jordan on who's decided to not talk to him.  David asks what look he's getting now:  "is this pensive?  Is this Clint Eastwood?"  Jordan finally breaks and rants about how good a model he is and how "attached to [him] is professionality.  It's [his] face."  The other guys are trying really hard not to laugh.

The date ends after Becca chats with Colton, who tells her he's there for her.  She believes him, kisses him, and gives him the group date rose.  Jordan is pissed because he thinks David lost him the rose and says, "karma is karma.  People who go up against me end up getting hurt sometimes."  I don't think Jordan knows what karma is.

1-on-1 Date: "You brought out my smile on a rainy day"

Chris gets the one one-on-one date this week.  Becca brings him to Capitol Records, where Richard Marx (a Grammy-winning artist, as they tell us multiple times) is waiting to help them write a love song together.  Chris is very uncomfortable with writing down his feelings.  Not 'cause he's a man and men suck at feelings, but because last time he tried to be vulnerable and write down his feelings, it was to try to reconnect with his dad who left his mom/him/sisters when he was 7, he never got a response and it was rough.  Becca gives him a pep talk and a kiss, and he writes a sweet emotional poem.  Richard Marx puts what they wrote to music and they make-out and dance to the song.

That evening, Chris tells Becca about the whole dad-letter thing and he gets the rose.  They then get a private concert by, you guessed it, Richard Marx, where they dance and make-out in front of him for the second time that day.

"There was an incident at the house last night."

Back at the mansion, David and Jordan are at it again.  Jordan, despite getting worked up about David every time, still thinks he's winning here, especially since he "talk[s] to God every day, and God know, if Jordan's got an issue with someone, phew, 86 him."  And I don't think that's how God works?  Though maybe I'm wrong, because that night, David falls off his bunk-bed onto his face and there was a lot of blood and he had to be taken away to intensive care.  Most of the guys are pretty shaken up about it.  Jordan thinks it's a good time to make jokes.  Chris Harrison visits Becca to let her know what happened, and she calls David to say hi.

Group date #2 or "It's gonna be some pretty bad football"

For the other group date this week, Clay, Leo, Christon, Ryan, John, Garrett, Mike, Lincoln, Connor, and Blake get brought to a football field where a couple of women from the Legends Football League run them through drills.  Clay, the professional football player, aces them.  Lincoln, not so much.  Then, of course, they split the men into teams and play a game in front of the most female dominated football crowd ever.  They play some football, Clay singlehandedly keeping his team from losing (they tie), but breaks his wrist while doing so.  He's taken off in an ambulance and the rest of the guys join Becca at an antique shop for evening drinks.

Becca chats with some of the men, kiss a few, and then is surprised by Clay returning!  Much to the rest of the guys' dismay, Clay gets the group date rose.

"I got hurt playing football on The Bachelorette"

Time for the cocktail party.  The main thing that happened here, is that Clay decides to leave.  He needs surgery for his wrist, and kind of needs to focus on healing to be able to do his job (ie play football).  Becca's bummed, Clay's sad, but knows he's making the right decision.  Then the episode just ends.  No cliffhanger, really, except the previews tell us David comes back for the rose ceremony and his face doesn't look too good (they don't show us his face though).  Pretty anticlimactic, really.

"But this is the Bachelor!"

Women Tell All this season should have just been called Women Rehash the Same Drama We Already Saw.  They really just had the women explain some drama, yell a bit, and then moved on to the next drama reenactment.

First drama to consider: glam-shaming.  As Brittany T said, "it's not a real thing!", but here we are.  The girls argue pointlessly about this, to no resolution.

Chris Harrison moves on and tries to bring up the Bekah's age drama by calling out Tia for telling Arie she didn't think Bekah was ready for marriage.  Bekah gets defensive and starts to lecture Krystal, which just turned into everyone yelling at Krystal, so she gets brought up to the hot seat.

Krystal basically doubles down on defending her behavior and everyone else just gets more and more worked up.  Caroline yell-cries at her, Bekah makes a lot of faces, and Krystal concludes by changing the topic completely and saying her homeless brother saw her on the Bachelor and didn't realize people cared for him and is now getting help.

Sienne get's pulled up to the front to be complimented, basically.  She tells Chris Harrison she's single and dating, so if he knows anyone he should send them her way!  To which Chris Harrison replies, "it is what I do!"

After that nice little interlude, it's back to the drama with Bekah M, to yet again defend her age.  If Bekah didn't get so defensive and wasn't so hyper, I'd almost believe her.  She's perfect for Bachelor in Paradise though, and Chris Harrison agrees.  After bringing up the crazy story of how Bekah ended up on a missing persons list in Humboldt County (she went to a pot farm, didn't have reception, and her mom freaked out), Chris Harrison makes Bekah call her mom on speaker phone and tells her "there's a good chance she'll be missing for two weeks this summer."

Tia, being the last girl here that got sent home, gets brought up to the hot seat to audition for the Bachelorette talk about how Arie broke her heart but that she's ready to find love again.

Last up, Arie has to face 18 of his ex girlfriends.  They allude to some DRAMA yet to come, with Caroline ominously saying to Arie, "I know what you did.  And I don't know how you could do that, and I just really don't understand."  More on that presumably next week...

Before we move on to Bloopers, Krystal inserts herself back into the hot seat to ask why Arie's goodbye was so cold.  Arie responds that looking back (after watching her on the show), his goodbye was pretty appropriate.  Oh, and apparently she told the other girls that Arie has a small penis, which wasn't clear because they kept bleeping something, but context clues leads me to believe the words were "needle dick."  So that happened.

Then we actually get the bloopers which included lots of girls scared by insects and Arie messing up in interviews and saying "merp."  After the bloopers, we are inexplicably joined by John Cena, who we shortly learn is there with Leslie Mann and Ike Barinholz to promote their new movie Blockers.  Then they try to make a Bachelor crossover of women getting "blocked" from stealing Arie from other girls.  It's a bit lame, but the movie they are promoting also looks a bit lame, so what can you do?

"If you hurt her, I can find you on Google"

Arie meets four girls' skeptical families this week on The Bachelor.

"Kendall is not your average girl"

Arie and Kendall return to LA for Kendall's hometown date.  And since Kendall's the quirky taxidermist, she takes Arie to a warehouse full of taxidermied animals where they taxidermy their own mice, dress them in little wedding clothes, and put them in a Paris diorama.  Arie was a bit creeped out, but pushed through because he might get to sleep with this blonde chick next week in an exotic location.

Kendall then introduces Arie to her mom, dad, brother, and twin sister.  Kendall's mom tells her to follow her heart, Kendall's dad can't give his blessing to Arie, but says if Kendall wants it, she has their support, Kendall's twin, Kylie, thinks it's a problem that Kendall's response to Arie saying he's falling for her was just to kiss her and tells her she needs to tell Arie how she feels.  She does.

"To Airy and Tia maybe"

Next Arie meets Tia in Arkansas, and just in case you hadn't realized she was southern, they raced cars on a muddy track.  Then Tia introduces Arie to her parents, brother, aunt, and cousin.  They've all been surfing the web and grill Arie on being a playboy.  Arie asks the second dad for his daughter's hand, and Tia's dad says he'll trust Tia on that front.

"Is Becca the real deal or are we wasting our time here?"

Moving back west a little, Arie meets Becca K in Minneapolis, MN for some apple picking and talking of a dead dad.  Becca's family are protective, especially Pastor Uncle Gary who took over father figure duties when Becca's dad passed.  Becca's mom tells Becca she'd be sad if she left Minnesota, but just wants her to be happy.  Since dad's not around, Arie asks mom for her blessing.  Becca's mom says she'll honor Becca's choice.  That being said, she tells Arie, "I really like you and you've really done well with my weird family."

"I trust Lauren.  I have to have faith in that."

The last hometown is back east at Virginia Beach.  Lauren B. and Arie ride horses on the beach and toast with crab legs.  Arie is the most nervous about this meet the parents.  He barely makes it minutes into dinner before having to go mop sweat off his brow.  Lauren's dad is a veteran and Arie thanks him for his service and talks about a goodwill tour to Afghanistan he and some other race care drivers went on in 2008 (side note: Lauren was 15 when Arie did this).  This wins dad over.  Asked for his blessing, dad says he trusts Lauren.  And it's four for four of the parents telling Arie their daughters are not for them to give to them!

"Who is he deciding between?"

Back at Bachelor Mansion one last time, Arie has to send one of the girls whose family he told he was falling for them home.  He can barely get the words out.  He pulls Kendall aside to ask if she thinks she can get to engaged in the next two weeks.  She doesn't say yes, but doesn't say no either...  The other three girls are confused and nervous.  They come back and Arie gives roses to Becca and Lauren.  Chris Harrison makes his obligatory appearance to inform the girls of the last rose, which is then given to Kendall.  Arie walks a sobbing Tia out.  Which just rolls right into the previews for next week, which is just sounds of girls sobbing.

"I need to talk to you about this week and take a sip of your wine."

This week brings the remaining 7 ladies and Arie to Tuscany, a region in Italy.  Chris Harrison greets the girls to inform them that there is no rose ceremony at the end of the week, rather, all of the roses will be handed out on dates: three one-on-ones and one group date.  Three of them will go home, and the other four will also go home next week, but with Arie in tow to meet their skeptical families.

First up: Becca K, who we really haven't seen much of since she had the very first one-on-one this season.  They wander around the cute Italian city of Barga, buying bread and cheese and wine for a romantic picnic.  They chat and kiss and then at dinner Becca says all the right things for Arie to be "really, really, really hopeful" for them and give her the rose.  They kiss some more against a stone wall, because that's what Arie is good at.

Later, at the hotel, Jaqueline's been having doubts, and decides to go talk to Arie.  She knocks on his door, Arie lets her in, she immediately takes a huge sip of his wine.  Jaqueline tells Arie she was swept off her feet last week, but she knows she doesn't have the confidence the other girls have for bringing Arie home to meet her family.  They hug and kiss a ton, and then Jaqueline says goodbye.  Arie is sad, but respects her decision.  Jaqueline feels like she sucks at being happy, and goes to say goodbye to the other girls.

Next up: Lauren B. gets a one-on-one two weeks in a row!  They bike around Lucca, Arie shows off some tricks he did in high school, and like their date in Paris, Lauren says very little.  She does observe that Lucca, an Italian city, is "very Italian," so there's that.  They eat pizza, and it's clearly too boring for national TV, so the producers bribe some kids to throw a soccer ball at them so they can "spontaneously" play some soccer with cute Italian kids.  That evening, Arie tries yet again to get Lauren to open up.  She admits to falling in love with him.  He stares for a second then excuses himself to wander off.  He comes back to tell her he's falling deeply in love with her and give her the rose.

Sienne gets the last one-on-one this week.  They go truffle hunting with Giulio and his dog Miga, and are then invited over for lunch.  They make pizza and pasta from scratch with Giulio's family, who grill them both on love.  After eating, the nice Italian family chants "bacio" at them, and they indulge them and kiss.  That evening they chat some more and Arie tells Sienne he just isn't feeling it.  Sienna goes home.

And it's time for the last group date.  Bekah M., Tia, and Kendall go to Villa Reale- an estate once owned by Napoleon's sister.  Anyway, Kendall and Arie chat and kiss.  Tia tells Arie Bekah isn't ready to settle down.  Tia tells Bekah she told Arie she's not ready to settle down.  Bekah cries and goes running to Arie.  He soothes her, they kiss, and Bekah shows off her gray hairs.  Arie gives Kendall a rose, and sends her off to have a two-on-one date with Bekah and Tia.  He talks to them both again.  Tia says she's still falling in love with him and Bekah asks him to have a little faith in her.  Buuuut, he doesn't keep the faith, and Tia get the rose.  Bekah cries.  The end.

"I wasn't hiding in my room, I was investing in myself."

"Did you guys go to the beach?" Dad asked, arriving home from work on a hot, summer's day.
"We rode bikes!" his children replied as a chorus.

Wait, I got that wrong.  Let's start over.

"Did you guys go to the beach?" Arie asked, arriving at a hotel to pick up one of his 13 girlfriends for a date.
"We rode bikes!" 13 twenty-something girls replied as a chorus.

"I'm on a dreamboat, but I'm also with a dreamboat!"

Arie and his girls are now in Fort Lauderdale.  Chelsea gets the first one-on-one date this week and they go yachting and jet skiing, conveniently in view of a telescope on the balcony of where they are all staying.  The other girls get the opportunity of seeing Chelsea straddle Arie on a jet ski and make-out with him, which seems incredibly unsafe.  In the evening portion, surrounded by a bunch of old cars for some reason, they talk about Chelsea's ex, aka the father of her kid who left her when the kid was 6 months old and is now married and has a kid with the other woman.  It's sad and Arie gives her the rose.  They then just happen to wander over to where some band called Tenille Arts is playing for them.

"Hurricane Krystal"

For the group date this week, Arie takes 11 of the girls bowling.  Which was going fine until they threw in a competition.  Per usual, the winners of said competition would get to go to the evening portion of the date.  And per usual, the lead invited the losers anyway.  Pretty standard Bachelor storyline, which would be nothing to talk about, except other seasons did not have Krystal.  Krystal is on the winning team and is absolutely furious that Arie invited the losers.  She apparently throws a fit on the bus ride back to the hotel (transportation is apparently not recorded), and everyone is pissed while preparing for their evening with Arie, none more so than Krystal, who straight up refuses to join the after party.  Many of the girls comment that they don't want this day to be all about Krystal, yet none of them stop talking about her.

The group date girls minus Krystal join Arie at the hotel bar, I guess, for the evening.  He doesn't even notice Krystal isn't there, and some girl immediately points it out.  So much for not making this date about Krystal.  Arie, being a gentleman, goes upstairs to check on Krystal.  She kind of whines at him about feeling hurt and he lectures her and puts her in time-out before returning to the other girls.  We get to see Arie talk to four of the girls:

• Kendall tells Arie about her past relationships and says that this on is different because the process is making her take things slower, which is completely baffling considering this show requires you to go from strangers to engaged after spending like 3 days worth of 1-on-1 time with someone spread over 10 weeks.
• Arie is still scared of Bekah M, but mostly just wants to keep kissing her.
• Arie takes Becca K into his room and presumably talks to her, but we just see them make-out.
• Lauren B, whose favorite color is burgundy and likes her coffee with coconut milk calls Arie basic for taking his coffee with cream and sugar.  Sure, LB.

During all this, Krystal decides to make an appearance right as Bekah M is mocking her voice.  The girls grill her for a while, and she ends up leaving without seeing Arie.  Arie gives Lauren B the group date rose and that's that.

"I've been waiting for you to push me against something."

Tia gets the second one-on-one date this week, and because ABC doesn't believe in stereotyping, she and Arie go to a swamp and eat fried things.  They go to an "old nautical antique place" for dinner where Tia told Arie she was falling in love with him despite not being able to make eye contact.  This gets her the rose.  We learn a couple of things about Tia on this date: she has a doctorate in physical therapy, she goes frogging, and he definitely watched Emily's season of The Bachelorette.

"That was glitter.  Glitter."

Three things of note happen at the cocktail party:

1. Kendall has a book of 100 questions she's compiled to get to know someone.  Arie picks 99, which is, essentially, given some circumstance, would you eat human flesh?  Arie's a no, and Kendall (the taxidermy collector who thinks the Bachelor process is taking it slow), is a yes.  Yet she still makes more sense than Jenna, whom I have yet to hear one coherent sentence from this season.
2.  Jaqueline is a contestant on this season.  She's pretty and I'm pretty sure just showed up tonight.
3. Krystal talks to some of the girls and says she feels hurt like seventy thousand times.  No one has a successful conversation with her, and Bekah M shows her age by relentlessly mocking her voice.  She does talk with Arie, who seems to be over her.  She tries to explain her actions with some story about growing up in a bowling alley and that's somehow related to her trust issues and why she threw a fit on the group date.  She also tries to be cute and tells Arie this is their first fight.  "It could be our last fight," Arie responds, surprising everyone with an interesting line for once.

Time for the rose ceremony.  Krystal gets the last rose, annoying everyone who seem to forget that villains must stick around for dramatic two-on-one dates, and we have yet to have one of those.  Girls we lost this week: Maquel, who was flown out to be flown home, plus Marikh and Ashley, because we know a white girl's gonna win this thing, so why keep up pretenses of diversity?

The credits rolled over Arie being grilled by a team of bowling grandmas who were suuuuuper into the fantasy suites.