-Zach’s hometown was up next, and lets face it, we were all kinda waiting to see what Puddy had to say. With that said, did they ever specify whose brother he was, the mom or the dads? Not that it matters, I was just wondering if they ever did. And while Puddy was pretty much a non factor when Rachel and Zach showed up at the house (I believe we only heard him say one generic sentence), if you watched the end credits scene, it was all of Rachel talking to Puddy. And of course she asked him, “Can I get a high five?” Now, my burning question is, is Rachel a huge Seinfeld fan and that’s why she asked, or she was told by a producer to ask him that because they knew they had to work in a Seinfeld reference? I’d say it’s probably 75-25 in favor of production telling her. That’s just my guess. Still, they gave the audience what they wanted since he barely said anything on the date.
-During the day portion before they got to the parents house, the two of them climbed to the top of a building and watched planes take off, something they did on their first 1-on-1 in LA. However, the whole scene of them at the fire station that I had video of that day was never shown. Yet ANOTHER example of them skimping on hometown date screen time. Why wouldn’t they show that? I know they had 6 hometowns to get to this episode, but you still could’ve shown it. Why? Because we’d already seen them look at planes take off this season. Show us something different. Outside of maybe Ryan from Trista’s season, have we ever had a fire station portion of a hometown date? I don’t remember it if they did. Oh well. Another missed opportunity. Especially since video footage got out on my Twitter of it. Had Jason and Gabby’s dancing on video, which they showed. And had Johnny waiting for Gabby to arrive, which they showed. But no firetrucks. Boooooooooooo.
-Zach told her on the date he’s still falling in love with her. When Rachel spoke to his dad, the dad seemed to reference the format of the show and the quick time getting to know someone and said, “You’ll fall in love with a monkey.” Like, Marcel the Monkey from Friends? The monkeys from Project X? Quite the statement to make, pops. But hey, whatever works for you. Monkeys it is. When Zach’s mom asked Rachel if Zach is someone she could see herself with, Rachel didn’t directly answer it (probably because she knew she wasn’t gonna pick him), but gave her a, “our relationship is different.” It just goes to show that the format makes for some realllllllllly awkward hometown dates. Why? Because I guarantee if you ask any former lead, exactly zero of them will say when they got to the beginning of hometowns, they had no idea where their head was at, and all four were still a possibility of them picking in the end. No chance. I think maybe they’re struggling between two people. I doubt they’ve been decided between three, and never between four. But most of the time, they KNOW who they’re picking once they’re at hometowns. So yeah, to have to answer questions from families asking how much you’re into their son or daughter has got to be incredibly uncomfortable. You can’t give away your answer of no, but dancing around the question makes you seem like you lied. So awkward.
-There wasn’t a whole lot to unpack when it came to Johnny’s hometown date. If you watch @BachelorData’s IG story on it on Page 1, he only got 8 minutes of screen time. Enough time for him to tell us (Gabby’s second date in a row) that maybe he’s not ready to be there. Which, if you know the BIP spoilers, he maybe wasn’t ready to be married to Gabby, but he was to be engaged to Victoria Fuller. Now, BIP gives you WAY more time with someone when you’re down there to be with your other person. It’s way more conducive to actually lasting with someone because you can see them all day every day, and you can sleep with them every night if you want to. The show doesn’t come close to allowing that, which is why an engagement at the end is preposterous and it’s only really an engagement in name alone. But yeah, Johnny’s not there yet and you’ll see him eliminate himself in Mexico over it. Or at least express his hesitation with Gabby and she lets him go. How it actually goes down we’ll see.
-Tyler’s hometown was brutal. This was the one hometown as it was happening in real time, where the most pics and videos of it were getting out online. It’s like we were watching in real time. And as we were following, none of us could possibly tell where Rachel was in her head. Because it really wasn’t til hometowns that any real time spoilers started getting out. So seeing Gabby and Rachel on these hometowns was when we first saw them with their guys. So naturally, we see Rachel and Tyler walking hand in hand, kissing, having fun at the games, eating disgusting corn dogs, and meeting his friends, you wouldn’t have thought she was struggling. But clearly she was.
