The Bachelorette Recap: Episode 8 — Who’s Going Home? Everybody!

We’ve made it to hometowns! Rachel goes home with Eric, Bryan, Peter, and Dean (in that order). These are always kinda like four mini episodes in one (plus a rose ceremony chaser) so I will treat them as such.
Hometown #1: Eric in Baltimore
It’s Rachel’s first time in Baltimore, and one could argue at the start of the episode that she’s not really there yet — Eric and Rachel meet at the Inner Harbor, which is mostly made up of a mall of chain stores (but also a bomb-ass aquarium). “This is the…nice part of the city,” Eric says, which made me laugh. I actually like him now. I think his nervous energy has given way to exuberance at being with Rachel. Or maybe it was that all along.
They head over to where Eric actually grew up. I wish I knew what neighborhood it was (I’m from Maryland) — even the write-up from the Baltimore Sun didn’t say. But it was a mix of boarded-up and well-maintained homes. I have never spent a ton of time in Baltimore relative to how close by I grew up to the city, but in my experience going there with friends who were more familiar, it really can vary block by block. Like this block is safe to walk on alone/past a certain hour but the next is not, while in a lot of other cities north of “X” street or east of “Y” avenue you’re generally cool.
While they’re hooping it up on Eric’s literal home court, his bestie Ralph meets them. He’s just as you would hope a tight, longtime buddy would be — loving, supportive (emphasizing Eric’s youth of straight A’s and always being there for him), and also honest — Rachel asks when Eric last brought a girl home to the family, and Ralph says, “Prom?”

Actually, these three words sum up Eric’s family from what I see on this hometown date. So do these three worrrrrrds! My partner and I were squeeing away at the love that we saw, and the familiarity, both to us as black people with black families, and the way Eric’s family interacted.
“Within ten seconds I felt at home,” Rachel says in a voiceover. Not to stereotype, but to stereotype: Black people by and large are hella welcoming. I don’t know if it is because we are used to serving others, if it’s taking to heart the love-thy-neighbor stuff inherent in churchiness, or some other intergenerational, ancestral shit harkening back to the motherland. Part of it for Rachel was probably just seeing people who look like her, which is often a welcome sight for those of us who grew up mostly around white people, or hell, who have been in overwhelmingly white countries (Norway, Switzerland, the ABC production environment) for a long time. Even though his mom is not very outwardly emotive, you can just see and feel how much she cares for and worries for her son. They have a conversation where she says her seeming lack of support was what she perceived as the best way she could help him succeed. “There are great men in our family but they didn’t always reach their stars because they reached for what was next to them — their mothers,” she says. Though it may not be a choice everyone would make, (and who knows what you would do if you were in a similar position?), who could blame a mother who, in light of bringing a boy into a world wherein society has decided his life must be hard and he should be treated as less than, with inequitable options and opportunities, thinks it best to prepare him for the world by being hard and seemingly less supportive herself? Eric says he realizes that now — and that this has come after several such conversations with her, so it undoubtedly took time — and thanks her for helping her become who he is today. He says here and in a toast later that he appreciates and accepts all past experiences, good and bad, for helping him to be able to attract someone like Rachel.
“I guess dreams do come true,” Eric says later, when he is alone with her. He says that he had been thinking to himself, “damn, I really love this girl,” and what it means to him: caring about her wellbeing and what she does in life. It is so earnest in a way I only really also sense in Dean, but in a confessional Rachel is somewhat disappointed that he didn’t come right out and say “I love you, Rachel.” Seems nitpicky to me, but she does end it saying that she appreciated it and that she really likes Eric.
Hometown #2 Bryan in Miami

“Miami screams Bryan — it’s hot, steamy, sexy, and sometimes says stuff to you in Spanish!” Rachel says. I wonder if it also screams, “Warning: dramatic, emotional mother who considers her son the love of her life ahead!” She does get a warning from Mama Olga herself though…. But first, some dominoes, arepas, and salsa dancing in Calle Ocho!
Now that that’s done: Bryan’s mom Olga is visibly ecstatic to see Bryan and nooope, just Bryan. He even has to finagle their embrace into a group one — “Hug both!” he says.
Joe, Bryan’s dad, doesn’t say much on this episode. Olga says enough. She weeps about Bryan being the most precious thing she has in her life under the guise of a toast. She grills him about meeting tons of women over the years but finding the one on a TV show. (Fair.) And she tenses up almost any time Bryan talks about being in love with Rachel. Speaking of Olga’s reactions, I wish we could see more of her face when Bryan answers her question of “Pues, cual cualidades” do you like in Rachel? Particularly when he says that obviously, her beauty is one of the qualities. Bryan’s family is damn near white-looking, and since colorism abounds in so many cultures, including many Latinx ones, she may be less than thrilled about potential brown babies. Other family members are pretty possessive of Bryan and his relationship to his mother, too. Bryan’s…cousin? (I thought they said he was an only child, but maybe their family is just not that into girls and it’s his sister, but please not with that mom) when discussing the dissolution of his last relationship, calls the fact that his ex did not get along with Olga “her [the ex’s] demise.” Oh yeah, and as for that warning, Olga says that if Rachel makes Bryan unhappy, she will kill her. Rachel laughs. Olga doesn’t. Later on, though, Bryan tells Rachel he’s in love with her and that he didn’t want to keep it inside anymore.
Hometown #3: Peter in Madison

Most of Peter’s friends are black, and apparently he likes talking about it. His friends like Rachel. His family likes Rachel. Peter is falling for Rachel.
Hometown #4: Dean in Aspen

This hometown was really difficult to watch, not only because of Dean’s impending reunion with his estranged dad, but also Rachel’s seeming impression that things with Dean’s dad wouldn’t be as bad as he was thinking, that talking things out would save the day. It seems like Rachel has reasonable, emotionally mature parents. I am fortunate to have the same. I’m also aware that a lot of people do not. I have been close to enough people with dysfunctional or otherwise toxic family members to know that no relationship with the stress-causing (for lack of a better term) person can be better than a shitty one. And also that if your friend or family member does not want to have contact with the person, you definitely shouldn’t encourage them to, especially if you don’t know much about the context. Even if you do, it’s better just to trust the person’s judgment, except in rare cases.
Rachel, before they meet Dean’s family, asks why Dean hasn’t talked to his two years. Dean counters, asking if it is his responsibility to reach out, answering his own question with an “I don’t know.” So far, so okay. But then when Rachel asks him, “Did you ever you say, ‘You weren’t there for me’?” When Dean says “no,” Rachel says, “Well…” as though that may be the key. (Unfortunately, it’s not. )
Things start out…not good, with Dean’s dad, Paramrup (a converted [white] Sikh and kundalini yogi), sarcastically commenting on how they were all waiting for “King Dean”. He even gives the couple each a big feather wrapped neatly in some kind of paper, saying that they are symbolic of Dean’s deceased mom Debbie. Paramrup asks for alone time with Dean, and Rachel positively lights up at the prospect.
It’s mostly for nought. Dean wonders if things have changed since their arguments in the years following his mom’s death, and wonders why his dad wasn’t there for him emotionally when he was most vulnerable. Paramrup says, “well, I didn’t have the arguments; you did.” He does acknowledge, for seemingly the first time, that he was angry at Debbie for leaving them and the wonderful family life she had built for them, and that he only knew how to provide for his family rather than to do essentially the emotional labor. But he then switches back into defense, angrily wondering if Dean feels like he didn’t love his son enough, and accusing him of being stuck in the past. He walks away, despite Dean saying that he loves him, and even is bitchy to Rachel, passive-aggressively blaming her for bringing strife to his home. Afterward Dean says he knows he’s falling in love with Rachel, but she decides it’s his emotions after seeing his family talking and does not give him a rose.