The Bachelorette Recap, Episode 9 — Skeptical Black Lady Looks Abound

The final three — Peter, Eric, and Bryan — are coming home with Rachel this week. Usually only the final two meet the Bachelorette’s family, so my antennae were up for this being another case of ABC guinea-pigging Rachel’s season (“Let’s have her meet some of the guys on the last episode of The Bachelor! Make sure the nice white ladies who watch this show are engaged with it from the jump!”), but Rachel says that her sister Constance is almost due to give birth so the producers have changed the schedule to accommodate for her.
Peter’s up first. Does he “set the bar low, really low” like Bryan hopes at the beginning of the episode? He is the only one to express reservations about maybe not being ready to propose. Peter wins over Rachel’s family with his seeming authenticity and deliberateness. There is an instance where introducing himself to one of Rachel’s family members where he’s like, “Hi, I’m Peter! Sorry!” Hamfistedly striving to win them over with an apology for societal sins committed by his skinfolk? Nopers — looks like dude maybe bumped into Constance. It was hard to tell. (Shades of his accidentally touching Rachel’s butt when he got out of the limo in the first episode.)
Before I go any further, I must say that this episode was a winner for Skeptical Black Lady Looks. By and large, we are nothing if not sniffer-outers of potential bullshit, particularly that espoused by our family and familyfriends’ potential partners. For example, when Peter tells the Lindsays about how his parents got engaged within a month of their first meeting, at ages 20 and 21.

Constance, who makes her share of SBLL, assures Rachel when they are talking privately that they’re only skeptical because she was happy with Bachelor Nick too and we all know how that ended up. Rachel’s mom wants to know if there are any red flags (and interestingly, bro-in-law Alex asks Peter a similar question, too). For Rachel, it’s just the usual one with Peter’s hesitation. (Peter’s red flag is that he doesn’t have any red flags.) Peter does further convey his hesitation to Rachel’s mom, who asks why he wants to propose to Rachel, and also his certainty about his deep care for her. Mrs. Lindsay likes that Peter does not want to ask for Rachel’s parents’ blessing before he knows for certain that she is the one, as long as their dating is “as serious as marriage” and he is not playing with her daughter’s heart.
At the end of his date, Peter is still talking logic about how this has helped move their relationship forward, but he does have a lovey-dovey look for the camera as he departs.
While Eric is on his date with Rachel, Peter and Bryan gossip about him and his not having met a dating partner’s parents in six or seven years (which he confesses earlier in the episode to us, so to be clear he’s just never been in love). Bryan wonders if Peter asked for Rachel’s parents’ blessing (Answer: no, he just wanted their approval to continue dating her), because he can’t want to show off their chemistry have them “go ahead and give me the blessing!” Peter counters by saying they all have different relationships with Rachel and he’s really not interested in spending time with one of her other boyfriends (Subtext: “so shut up, Bryan!”). And he actually does.

Back at the Lindsay ranch (I mean, everyone in Texas is a cattle farmer, right?), we get an early dose of SBLL from Constance.

But thankfully, there are no such looks when Eric discusses his family. So at least they’re not the kind of bougie that clutches at its pearls at the idea of someone coming from a family of men who worked the streets. Who knows, maybe some of their aunts/uncles/cousins are living or have lived similar lives. Eric and Constance interact straightforwardly — Constance says she thinks the two are on different paths in terms of relationship experience, and Eric is plainspoken in admitting he’s never been in love, even with his partner in his longest relationship (which lasted eight months, two years ago). At the end of it, she is a member of the Eric Fan Club (maybe not an officer, but an enthusiastic participant). Mrs. Lindsay joins up, too, and says she is impressed with him in a confessional. Eric asks for her permission to propose and tellingly she does not act like it’s her direct decision — she says she trusts Rachel’s judgment and would be supportive if things went on the marriage “journey,” as they say all the time on this show.
Bryan and Rachel kick off their date with a successful brunch with two of her coworker-girlfriends. So the next part of Bryan’s strategy is to talk excessively and glowingly about — his mother?

He turns it around at the end and talks about how he wants to be like his dad, loving one woman forever. And when asked by Mrs. Lindsay, he says if it came down to an issue where his wife and his mother were on opposite sides, his loyalty would lie with his wife…but he’d want them to work things out. But if they can’t? Bryan cannot bring himself to say immediately that he would still choose Rachel in that circumstance. Rachel has to put those words in his mouth. ([insert gif “You in danger, girl!”] The family thinks Bryan is too charmy and smarmy, and Rachel is “low-key annoyed” — er, pissed — about that, but maybe he wins them over at some point off camera? At any rate, Mrs. Lindsay gives him her blessing, not because of anything he’s said or done, but solely because she trusts her daughter’s judgment! (Novel!)
The rest of the episode takes place in La Rioja, Spain. It’s full of vino, a helicopter ride, and and an inability to reconcile what an engagement means to two people who are supposed to potentially get engaged really soon.
Other observations:
— Peter is ever logical; even when he talks about finally starting to give himself up to the experience, he still calls it “jumping in feet first.”
— Also, why does Rachel talk about Peter having small-town roots? His family lives in Madison, which is a decently sized, well-educated regional hub. And it sounds like his parents used to live in Milwaukee, which has close to 600,000 residents.
— It was a bummer to not see Mr. Lindsay, er, Judge Lindsay, but apparently he is not allowed to be on the show (and also apparently, at least one of the guys met him).
— It was cute to see that Rachel’s uncle had been closely following the show from the preview episode (where Eric was introduced).
— I am kinda afraid for Rachel’s life and wellbeing if she does marry Bryan. Especially since he had a bit of hesitation to put his wife over his mother. Plus, Mama Bryan did say if you messed with her baby, she’d kill you. We don’t know where on the spectrum lies the beginning of killing offenses — is it cheating on him or not cutting his steak into tiny enough pieces?)
— Bryan: I love your family already.
— Constance: But it’s only been an hour and a half!
— Damn if brother-in-law Alex doesn’t seem hella comfortable and condescending with Rachel! Especially for a white dude in a black family. The way he came at her for kinda disrespecting Mrs. Lindsay made me wonder how long he’d been around?
— Finally, my definition of an engagement is more like Peter’s than Rachel’s (and ostensibly the producers’). When I get engaged, it’s going to be because I’m ready to marry him right then and there and the only delay is planning a wedding. This instead of using the engagement to say I am deeply committed to my partner and want to further cultivate a serious relationship with them.