Tonight on The Bachelor, Arie made the biggest mistake of his life.
Sure, his relationship with Seinne was not particularly thrilling and it was more than clear that she was both too good for him and for this show and she escaped on completely reasonable terms after a very productive conversation before things got too serious, but still, who would get rid of a woman like Seinne?!
That's just one of the difficult decisions Arie had to make tonight just before hometown dates, and he had to make them date by date, since the rose ceremony was officially canceled. Spoiler: there was a lot of crying.
Instead, the plan was to date everyone all over Tuscany (the perfect place to fall in love), and if they left the date with a rose, they were going to hometowns. If they didn't, they weren't, and too bad for them.
Up first was Becca, who Arie drove around in an old convertible. They saw some sights and chatted and whatever, it was fine. She got a rose!
Up next was Jacqueline, who didn't even wait for a date to go to Arie's hotel room to tell him that while she still had feelings for him, she was having doubts, and it made no sense for her to stay when she still had like six years of school left. She didn't want to end up married in Scottsdale with a lot of regrets, which, you know, same. She left without a rose.
Lauren B. and Arie then had a slightly less awkwardly silent date, bike riding (and bike standing) and ice cream-eating. They also climbed a lot of stairs, and to Lauren B.'s credit, she went up all those stairs without ever stopping to be like "nah, I'm good."
They also ate pizza, and Lauren toasted to "breaking down our walls," and before opening up a bit about being terrified but also falling in love with him. Arie had a weird look on his face, then got up from the table and said "BRB." It appears that he just went and stood in the woods for a moment, staring up into the trees, before returning.
"Sorry about that," he said, sitting down to tell Lauren B. how nervous he was about the fact that nothing is off? It sounds like maybe he claimed he had to go stand in the woods because he felt so vulnerable, and needed a moment before coming back to tell Lauren B. he was falling deeply in love with her. Alrighty then.
Seinne's ill-fated date came next and involved hunting for fancy mushrooms. We decided in that moment that Seinne should not be the next Bachelorette, but she should just get her own new franchise.
"I do dig Seinne, but can I dig deep enough?" Arie said while they dug mushrooms.
Then they got to meet the family of the truffle hunting man and eat homemade pasta and pizza, giving Arie another opportunity to bring up his wild past working at a pizza place. Seinne, meanwhile, showed off the bits of Italian she can speak and looked like an angel.
Arie sent her home anyway, but not through any fault of Seinne's. He made it clear that Seinne did nothing wrong, which is good, because she didn't.
The most interesting date was a three-on-one, featuring Kendall, Tia, Young Bekah, and only two roses to go around. Kendall proved herself to be a magical unicorn of a woman last week, and she got the first rose. Things got a bit dramatic between Young Bekah and Tia when Tia informed Arie that she didn't think Young Bekah was ready for marriage because, as you'll remember, she is young.
Young Bekah cried and cried and Arie comforted her with kisses, but he gave the rose to Tia, meaning Young Bekah cried and cried some more.
"It's hard because I don't see our lives fitting together, but I really really liked her," Arie said. "She made this fun and she captured my heart. You know, it just sucks."
Sucks so bad.
And that was it, meaning Arie is officially going on hometown dates with Tia, Kendall, Lauren B., and Becca. It's a pretty good bunch (for this particular sweater-wearing man) to be honest, and now all we can do is prepare ourselves for way too many dads being like "don't hurt my daughter!" during next week's episode. That's always a good/irritating time!
The Bachelor airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on ABC.