SPOILER ALERT! This post contains details from Monday’s episode of The Bachelorette . There’s just one week left until hometowns, which means Jenn Tran has some big decisions to make in order to narrow down her pool of suitors from seven to four. The cold open at the beginning of Monday’s episode teases trouble on the horizon for Sam, who had seemed like a frontrunner after getting the first impression rose, as the group heads back to the States for a week in Seattle.
Before seeing any of the men, Jenn meets with Season 20 Bachelorette Charity Lawson to seek advice on how to know what she might need from each of her men to solidify their relationships. Charity says that, when she was leading the show, she would write down qualities about each of the men as she learned new things about them, which helped her reflect on what she needed and whether they could provide that. Jenn shares her thoughts on a few of her suitors, including Sam, who she thinks is holding back a bit.
She explains that he reminds her of her exes in the sense that their relationship began with a huge physical attraction but they’re not really making progress in the emotional sense. With Jeremy, she feels like her connection with him is lagging behind others. She also thinks Marcus is holding back and, although he already acknowledged that, she says it is hard not to close herself off in return.
While Jenn is ruminating, the first date card arrives. It goes to Marcus, which immediately weighs on Jeremy, who hasn’t had a one-on-one yet. As a bit of a cross-promotional stunt, Jenn’s date with Marcus has them following a yellow brick road to learn more about each other à la Wicked .
Jenn’s fellow former Bachelor contestants Daisy and Kelsey are there to help guide them through a series of either-or questions that will force them to compromise with one another and, in the process, learn more about each other. The choices include sweet or spicy, scream or whisper, passionate or playful, fast or slow — and then Charity is back, this time as the fairy godmother at the end of the yellow brick road to help them “burst” bubbles to uncover more important facts about themselves. Marcus gets a message from his sister Gabby encouraging him on his journey for love, and Jenn gets a letter from her mom, which makes her very emotional.
It’s a sweet moment for the two of them that ends with Trista Sutter — another Bachelor Nation alum — leading them to a hot air balloon ride. Later at dinner, Marcus opens up about he and his sister were born into a “rough situation” with parents who couldn’t really take care of them. He says they brought him and his sister to daycare one day and never came back.
They lived in a foster home together and there were a lot of times that they thought they’d get adopted and then didn’t. That experience made it hard for him to accept himself and, as he points out, it explains a lot of his hesitancy to be vulnerable. After opening up so much to Jenn, Marcus got the rose.
Meanwhile, back at the hotel, a group date card arrives, summoning Spencer, Jonathan, Sam, Devin, and Grant. Jeremy is very relieved to realize he will, in fact, get a one-on-one date to test his connection with Jenn. Jason and Molly Mesnick join for the group date on a radio show for a game that is supposed to show off how well these couples know each other.
It’s a game they played during Jason’s own season of The Bachelor , which is where the couple fell in love. This is when things start to take a bit of an awkward turn. Most of the guys use this opportunity to showcase how much they’ve been paying attention to Jenn throughout this process.
Then, there’s Sam. Jenn tries to give him several chances to speak highly of her and of their connection, but when asked to describe Jenn in three words, he instead just goes off on a tangent about how he didn’t know if Jenn was “capable” of showing the type of love that he knew how to give and he wasn’t completely falling in love with her from the first conversation. He says it took her saying she wanted a ferocious love to decide he was all in on her.
The other men are not enthused and neither is Jenn, it seems, that he didn’t really answer the question. The producers then choose one man whom they feel needs more time to get to know Jenn better to stick around for a more in-depth conversation, and it’s no surprise when they choose Sam. Sam and Jenn stay in the studio, and the other men leave to watch the rest of the interaction from another room.
Now, Sam and Jenn get to ask each other questions. Jenn asks “how was your first impression of me, and how has that changed over time?” Once again, Sam doesn’t really answer the question and instead speaks at length about how he almost didn’t even come on the show. He says he thought the Bachelorette was going to be Maria or Daisy and Jenn was not his type.
Naturally, everyone is confused, and Jenn is a bit offended. Sam keeps saying he’s trusting the process and he wants to have a family, but Jenn says that everyone wants a love that’s lasting and real, and that doesn’t mean the two of them, specifically, are compatible. She asks what it is about her that shows him that they could have a loving relationship.
He says her selflessness and she pushes back, asking how he knows she’s selfless. He says, “You’re either selfless or full of shit. One or the other.
” Once again, everyone else is pretty shocked by Sam’s response. The other men are frustrated, because they say they could easily answer Jenn’s question. Meanwhile, Jenn is realizing that Sam is not really answering the questions and he’s dancing around them.
Sam tries to de-escalate the situation by just interrupting the conversation to kiss Jenn, but she’s not having it. Later that night at the cocktail party, Jenn is still reeling from earlier. However, she puts it aside to have some nice chats with the other men and even tells Devin that she’s falling for him.
When it’s time to talk to Sam again, she asks him for clarity but he continues to be unable to provide that for her. In a moment where he appears to be floundering, he opts to tell her that he loves her, much to her dismay. She says he can’t back up that bold of a proclamation, because he can’t point to anything specific about her that he likes.
Jenn decides not to give out a group date rose. On her date with Jeremy, Jenn is clearly trying to test out the waters, because their relationship is not as far along as some of the others. They spend some time wandering around Pike Place Market, doing a palm reading, catching fish, and goofing around.
It all goes well enough, but Jenn is looking to ensure that she and Jeremy are capable of a deeper connection. They have dinner at an art exhibit, where they talk about their families, religion, raising kids, etc. and they aligned on so many of them that it encouraged Jenn to give Jeremy the rose.
There are five men without a rose, meaning that three are going to need to go home. Jenn decides that she needs answers before the cocktail party and she owes it to herself to have a conversation with Sam and get to the bottom of their issues. She goes to the hotel where the men are staying in hopes of getting some clarity.
When she confronts Sam, he apologizes for how the date went and doubles down on using the “L word,” which makes Jenn even more frustrated, because she isn’t sure he’s being sincere in expressing such strong feelings so early on in the process. He tells her that his strong suit is not “putting feelings into words,” and he wants her to keep him around for hometowns so she can see him around his friends and family to learn how he loves. But he still isn’t getting to the root of Jenn’s concern, which is that he doesn’t know enough about her, specifically, as a person.
Eventually, she leaves the room to collect herself and then returns to tell Sam that she’s spent too much time teaching people how to love her and prioritize her, and she’s put that chapter to bed. She decides to send Sam home before the rose ceremony, and she also skips the cocktail party. Devin and Jonathan get the remaining two roses, which means Spencer and Grant go home.
The Bachelorette airs Monday nights at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC .
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