Welcome to The Bachelor Season 27 Episode 8, The Hometown Week, the week where everyone’s parents ask, “are you really into the guy? How did you get this far?” And all the women respond with “For the Money.”
So let’s take a look at our selection of daddies for the week, starting with… Is Zach in the shower again? No, that’s not what I meant. No, first off, for The Bachelor Season 27, week 8, we’re in Pittsford, Vt, for our hometown with Gabi, who, after seeing Zack’s distaste for Maple Syrup in Week one, thought it’d be a great idea for this time to go and have… “a full Maple experience.” Now, that’s a bold strategy.
So Zach and Ariel torture a tree until it cries sweet, sweet tears for my pancakes. And, well, eventually, Gabi has a test for Zach. He’s gonna pick out which of these bottles contains legit Maple syrup and which contains a fake batch. And Zach has no clue which one is fake and which one is real, and Gabi is like, “Is this really the man I am falling in love with?”
Alright, if this were the Canadian version of the show, I’m pretty sure he’d be in jail right now. And then my man Zach says he puts Mustard on his pancakes. And listening to this, Gabi was just questioning Zach’s existence in this world.
What Happened On The Bachelor Season 27 Episode 8?
Then in The Bachelor Season 27 Episode 8, it was time to meet Vermont Daddy, as Zach is introduced to Gabi’s mom, Dad, sister, and two brothers. And to Zach’s delight, the theme of this hometown is easy breezy, as pretty much everyone welcomes Zach in with no problem. Especially Gabby’s dad Kevin, who apparently is a hopeless romantic.
Gabi’s dad was like, “yeah… you can fall in love with someone in a day.” Finally, production has found a dad perfect for this show. They’re out here asking Kevin, “you really think your daughter could fall in love with Zach in like a month?” And he’s just like, “Oh, Hell Yeah.” But also, like, look at him. He’s tearing up seeing his girl. We always stand for emotionally available and supportive girl Dad.
But the one little bump in this date is that Gabi is simply afraid of being the first hometown of the week. Because Zach’s got three more ahead of him, and Gabi doesn’t want to be forgotten. So she goes on to say, “It’s hard to feel really happy right now because I’m really sad.” Profound words, girl, ‘I can’t be happy because I’m sad. I can’t be full because I’m hungry.
Zach Meet Ariel’s Family
So Zach departs, telling Gabi to trust in what they’ve got, and it’s now time to move on to Ariel’s hometown in the Big Apple. Here Ariel will be taking Zach around Washington Square Park before grabbing a slice from Zach’s favorite pizza joint. Then, after some zaa, Ariel takes Zach to a Jewish deli to enjoy some tongue-on-tongue action. I mean, they eat tongue sandwiches.
Eventually, they end up in a Speakeasy where Ariel tells Zach that her mom and dad fled the Soviet Union, where they were persecuted for being Jewish. So she’s very proud to show Zach some of her cultures and to have him meet her family. But it’s not her parents’ act should be nervous about meeting. It’s her protective brother, Bobby.
So Bobby shoots Zach with his basic bullet of questions, and Zach isn’t able to handle them. Bobby asks what Ariel’s birthday is and what her middle name is. And Zack has no answers. So Bobby puts Zach through the George Foreman special with this grilling, and Zach starts making his drama face, so you know Bobby won’t be getting a rose at the end of the night.
Then we move on to Ariel’s dad, Felix, who is also a skeptic, and Zach tells him that every week it’s a hard decision on who to send home. And he’s like, “well, how can I trust you when every week your mind is changing” Zach again makes his drama face, and it looks like Felix won’t be getting a rose either. But like a good bachelor dad, Felix tells Ariel that at the end of the day, he loves her and trusts her decision to do what will make her the happiest.
Zach Meets Charity’s Family
So hometown #2 is complete, and we’re now headed from New York to Columbus, Georgia, to meet Charity’s family. And this time, instead of heading right out into a date, Zach will be meeting the family first, where after a quick hello, everyone splits off into private chats to ask the question,
First, the family asks Charity if she is falling in love with him, and she says that “they have not said that to each other yet.” Yeah, that really seems to be the theme of hometowns this season. Instead of the classic “Yup, we’re in love,” after a month this season, we’re hearing, “I Could be falling in love soon.” “I am definitely falling for you.” “We’ve acknowledged the connection we have, but we have not said I am in love.”
So after a ton of extra Charity screen time alone with her dad and friends for the reason that we’ll talk about in an SEC. Then, we finally get to see Zach as he sits down with Charity’s brother Nehemiah, another protective brother. Because as we learned in Charity’s one-on-one, she dealt with infidelity in her last relationship, and now she’s with a man dating three other women.
Then we cut away from Zach again to focus on Charity’s story. Whoops, we really just wanna highlight Charity’s love journey for no reason at all and include these very touching shots of Charity and her brother crying over how much she deserves love.
Then follow it up with another section with Charity and her mom Vicki crying over the opportunity for someone to see her and love her for who she is. Eventually, it’s time for Zach to show up and for them to go square dancing for the night portion of their date, where at the end, Charity says that she is honestly falling in love with him.
Zach Meets Katie’s Family
On to the final hometown for the week, which is like a double hometown as both Zach and Katie live in Austin, Texas. So instead of coming up with touristy things to do, Katie’s like, “Hey, do you wanna run some errands together.” So these two go grocery shopping, hit up Katie’s home, have Zach assemble her furniture, and wait a minute. Has this all been a long con to get someone to help her move into her new place?
Zach thought she was here for love, but Katie actually really needed to move into her new house. OK, this is actually a big brain move. Get into hometowns and do some actual real-life stuff together. Everyone’s out here playing checkers while Katie’s playing 4D chess, which is totally working. I mean, after a series of drama faces from Zach in other hometowns, Zach is making a happy face with Katie.
So yeah, I think it’s gonna be smooth sailing for her. But now that Katie’s finished moving in, it’s time to meet Katie’s mom and her aunt, grandma, and brother. A tight-knit family that’s seen two father figures walk out of Katie’s life, which is a big point of focus for Katie’s mom as she wants to ensure the same thing doesn’t happen to her daughter.
She wants assurances from Zach, but you know the theme of the episode… the theme of the episode is to say that Zach thinks that he can see himself falling in love with Katie. But also, the same goes for Katie. She, too, is hesitant to drop the L word as she doesn’t want to use it lightly. While explaining her previous relationships.
Katie says that she definitely thinks that she stayed in her relationship a lot longer than she should have. And that’s because of the fact that her fathers did leave her, and she just didn’t want another man to leave her life. Then Katie goes on to say that, except for her brother, every man in her life has failed her.
But with mom’s stamp of approval, Katie can end the night feeling like things can confidently progress with Zach, and she can comfortably say that thinks it that she is falling in love with Zach and that it feels so good and scary. Well, at this point, Zach has a sit down with his bro FF Sean Lowe, and they recapped the episode we just watched for like 20 minutes.
So I’m not gonna recap the recap because this isn’t reception. So let’s just jump ahead to the Rose Ceremony, where Ariel gets the first rose, Katie the second, and this one comes down to either Charity or Gabi. And so Zach sends Charity home by picking up Gabi. But don’t feel so bad for Charity yet. She’ll get her time to shine.
Also Read: What Happened Last Night On The Bachelor Season 27 Episode 7? Who Gets The Hometown Rose?
