When you take a date home, you never know what you're going to get—especially on the Bachelor franchise.
Sometimes you get JoJo's mom downing wine, and sometimes you get JoJo's overbearing brothers really laying down the law for Ben. That was intense at the time, but compared to some of the dates tonight, that was downright delightful. Bryan's mom literally threatened to kill Rachel if Bryan was ever unhappy, and while Rachel laughed, we kind of don't think she was joking.
We also witnessed one of the most awkward and intense family reunions we've ever even imagined thanks to Dean and the very interesting father he hadn't spoken to in two years.
Meanwhile, we also learned something wonderful: Peter is secretly goofy. Corny, even. We haven't witnessed it for ourselves yet, but we can see it in our dreams, and that's almost enough.
Anyway, where were we?
First up was Eric, who walked Rachel through the Baltimore of his childhood. They walked into his house to a round of applause, and while Rachel definitely had a lovely time meeting the fam, the visit really seemed to be more about Eric having serious talks with both of his parents about how he didn't feel that they showed him enough love growing up.
His mother had some strange logic about not wanting him to become too attached to her, but she was very proud of him, and his dad is a person who gives toasts like "To opening doors that no man can shut and closing doors that no man can open."
Despite all of the emotional breakthroughs Eric seemed to have made throughout the visit, he still couldn't quite get to telling Rachel he was in love with her. There are feelings of love and he really cares about her, but no falling quite yet on Eric's part.
Up next, it was Bryan's turn, and Rachel headed to Miami. We don't know how else to describe Bryan other than smushy. He's just always smushing his face up against Rachel's face or smushing his body towards Rachel's body or smushing his words in Rachel's direction, and while it's unattractive from the outside, Rachel seems to f--king love it.
From our outside perspective, Bryan's family also seemed...smushy, but in more of a scary way than a gross way. Rachel called Bryan baby, and Bryan's mom also calls him baby. His mom is downright obsessed with him. Everyone kept saying Bryan's last relationship ended because the girl didn't get along with his mom, and Bryan's sister kept referring to the break up as "her demise," but we kind of think the girl was literally chased out of Bryan's life by his mother and her threats of murder.
Anyway, while we would have left a long time ago, Rachel seemed totally into all of it, and totally into every single thing about Bryan, which is very nice for Bryan.
In his hometown of Madison, Wisconsin, Peter did an excellent job of continuing to steal our hearts, despite Rachel's feelings that he's holding back too much. He introduced Rachel to his lovely friends (who explained that Peter is apparently goofy and corny) and played with his adorable niece, and he also expressed thoughts that we'd expect every rational person to have on The Bachelor/The Bachelorette: How can he be ready to propose when he doesn't know what Rachel's like in any other context besides this TV show?
This is why we love Peter (or like, one of 10,000 reasons), but that's probably not going to work for the girl who's looking for a guy to propose to her in like 3 days. That fact both devastates and thrills us, because that means he's available to be the next Bachelor! Or just available. Either way, we will take it.
And then, Dean. We have no words for Dean's hometown date, and yet we have so many words. Rachel basically had to drag him to his dad's house where we were introduced to Man Whose Name We Cannot Spell, and his wife, Woman Whose Name We Cannot Spell. They gave themselves those beautiful names when they converted to the Sikh religion.
Basically, after Dean's mother died about ten years ago, his family split up. His dad eventually found a new religion and a new wife, and took to playing the gong and cooking with mung beans. He also took to taking zero responsibility for the fact that his son felt completely abandoned. At first, he seemed like a jovial bearded man, but he denied all of Dean's feelings and walked out of their conversation.
He also walked out of a conversation with Rachel, basically implying that he felt insulted after he welcomed her into his home only to find that she and Dean were just there to air grievances.
It was all very weird and sad, but it ended with a beautiful moment where Dean and Rachel laid on the floor. He said he was falling in love with her, she said it back, and it was nice...until the rose ceremony, where Dean got no rose and had his heart ripped out.
Rachel said she meant everything she said, but she wasn't sure Dean was in the same place she was, and that was the end of Dean and Rachel and the emotional roller coaster that has been Dean's life up until now.
Will that roller coaster continue on Bachelor in Paradise? Only time will tell, but we got so invested in Dean during tonight's episode that we sure hope time tells a lot.
The Bachelorette airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on ABC.