Though it seems like Matt James just had a full house of women, he has suddenly come down to the final four in his season of “The Bachelor,” premiering Monday nights on ABC. Like Tayshia Adam’s “Bachelorette” season last year, the hometown dates are in the same town as production due to travel restrictions. This gives the girls a chance to incorporate some of their own hometown aspects into their dates while still in Pennsylvania.
Matt is also given the opportunity to meet the women’s respective family and friends, who get to ask him serious questions. Thus far in his season, Matt has grown used to giving the women robotic, neutral and seemingly scripted answers when discussing serious relationship matters. Going into this episode, it’s expected that he would do the same to their families, but unlike the contestants, they are more skeptical about Matt being the perfect man for their daughters. Shocker.
The dates begin with Michelle Young, the last standing newcomer who came in during week three. Right off the bat, she and Matt fit together naturally. She was picked for a one-on-one soon after her arrival, which boded well for her, as she clearly caught Matt’s eye. Their hometown date begins with a bike ride around the forest and leads to Matt meeting some of Michelle’s elementary students over Zoom. Michelle is clearly family-oriented and good with children, and she asks Matt during their bike ride about kids in his future.
However, Matt doesn’t seem to be at the same level as Michelle, judging from his apprehensive responses to the serious questions from her students. Questions about his feelings for her, his readiness for children and his relationships with the other contestants were posed, but he relied on his classic awkward laughter for each response. All around, Michelle is a great contender for one of the next Bachelorette seasons.
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Next on the round of dates comes Rachael Kirkconnell, which was highly anticipated considering the commercial for this episode shows her practically dying. During her date, she decides to surprise Matt with skydiving, because somehow that’s a taste of her hometown in Georgia. Though the parachute opens and everything seems okay for the pair, she suffers a bit of a harsh landing. However, any scratch or bruise that she got from her fall was quickly covered by the makeup team.
Comically enough, the scene cuts from Rachael with a bloody nose and messed up hair to a picturesque scene of the two on the ground, as if she magically straightened her hair and applied a full face of makeup in seconds. What’s even funnier — or perhaps concerning — is that when she tells her parents about the accident, her mother simply responds that she also wants to skydive. When Rachael pulls her mom to the side to have her separate conversation, she brings up the accident again and says that it was actually a pretty rough and scary experience. Again, her mother only responds with laughter, which was a tad unsettling. Rachael has said in a previous episode that she was falling in love with Matt, which is a sentiment he reciprocates. She seems to be the clear frontrunner in this race, especially considering his reactions to the other women when they told him their true feelings.
After surviving skydiving, Matt is taken off-roading with Bri Springs as a callback to their one-on-one date, which also happened to be Matt’s first one-on-one of the season. Since she was chosen as his first date, Bri was a frontrunner from the beginning, and for good reason. Like Michelle, Bri seems mature and ready for marriage, seeing as she put her entire life on hold to meet the bachelor. She has a very genuine character and connection to Matt, but the relationship seems a bit one-sided.
At the end of the date, Bri decides to finally tell Matt that she’s falling in love with him. Matt pulls out one of his most trusted lines: “Thank you for sharing that with me.” Although it’s been said that the bachelor or bachelorette isn’t allowed to tell any contestant that they’re in love with them before the finale, this rule has either been broken or loopholed with phrases such as “I’m falling in love with you.” Therefore, if Matt did share those same feelings, he easily could’ve said so, like he previously did with Rachael. People have already begun creating ships between Bri and past contestants from “The Bachelorette,” so seeing her as a future contestant on “Bachelor in Paradise” in the summer wouldn’t be surprising.
Photo provided by The Bachelor @BachelorABC/Twitter
The last of the hometown dates was with Serena Pitt, who Matt clearly has a strong admiration for, considering she’s been the only contestant to get two one-on-one dates. However, in this relationship, it’s Matt suffering that unrequited love. On their date last week, Serena showed signs of not being as emotionally invested as Matt, and perhaps it was his poor date choice of tantric yoga that turned her off. Either way, the date this week went smoothly, and her choice of what to do was very on-brand for a “hometown inspired” date.
However, by the time they got to the family portion of the night, Serena was able to reflect on her true feelings for Matt and realize he may not be the one, as predicted. Overall, she was one of the best contestants of the season because of her honest and easy-going personality, and we’ll probably be seeing her in a future season of “Bachelor in Paradise” where she’ll hopefully have better luck.
This hometown week came much sooner than the audience expected, considering there hasn’t been much screen time between Matt and the final four women, due to all the unnecessary added drama. Since the producers decided early on that “Queen” Victoria and other dramatic contestants would be the main focus for the majority of the season, fans haven’t gotten to see that much romance on this season of “The Bachelor.” From bringing in five women in week three, to allowing Heather Martin to come in last week for some reason, it seems like the producers weren’t counting on Matt’s journey towards love to keep their viewers interested. However, they should’ve learned from last season’s Zac and Tayshia that the audience actually likes seeing real romance, which should be the point of the show after all.
This post was originally published on the New University website. To find the original article, click here: https://www.newuniversity.org/2021/02/25/bachelor-hometown-dates-already/
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