Down to the Wire: Bachelor 27, Episode 7 Recap
Zach deciphers if he’s ready to meet the women’s families.
Hello good people! I have to be honest, my brain can only handle so much pop culture news and shows and the Tom/Raquel Vanderpump Rules drama has had me in the tightest of chokeholds and is making it hard to focus on much else. But, I did my best tonight, especially since we are on the cusp of Hometowns.
We are in Budapest, Hungary, an absolutely beautiful city. Zach is walking around, pondering the next steps in this journey and which women he wants to take to hometowns and the women are doing the same.
Jesse and Zach grab a coffee and Jesse shares that Greer is COVID-free and headed to Budapest. My question is, why? What’s the reason? When Logan got COVID, he went home. So why not just book Greer on a flight back to New York? It’s likely because she got the first impression rose, but she’s pretty much disappeared since then.
The women are in their hotel discussing the importance of this week when a date card arrives for Kaity. The card mentions falling in love, which has the women shook, but we already knew Kaity is his wife (as in he is clearly into her the most).
Falling in Love in Budapest
Kaity is very regular to me. Actually amongst the women left the only reason she stands out to me is because of how much Zach seems to like her. I think the two of them make a delightfully solid, somewhat boring couple, and I mean that in the nicest way possible.
Zach really drives home the plainness of this union by suggesting they share small details about themselves with one another throughout the day. So, we learn Kaity’s favorite color is purple and that Zach is mostly British. Two boring facts we could have easily guessed.
They walk up to a random typewriter and decide to write and share love notes with one another. As I said, delightfully boring.
Back at the hotel, a second date card arrives. It’s a group date and Katherine is devastated to be going on it. She’s feeling insecure from Zach’s comments last week and hoped they could have special one-on-one time to deepen their relationship. Instead, the second one-on-one date will be going to Brooklyn.
Going into the night, Kaity is scared of how strong her feelings are for Zach, but she’s also aware that she’s not in this competition alone, nor does she want to repeat the patterns of toxic relationships of her past.
They both keep saying their date was unreal. I’d love to know what was so unreal about it because, besides the fact that they were in the beautiful city of Budapest, it just seemed very boring.
Zach asks Kaity what she wants out of life right now and she shares that she wants a marriage and to have a family. She then shares about her strained relationship with her father and how awkward that relationship has been for most of her life. She also tells Zach that along the way, a secondary father figure came into her life, but then left. Both these moments of abandonment hit her hard.
I’m not sure what it is about this season, but these women seem to do more trauma dumping than in previous seasons. Maybe it’s the lack of petty drama amongst the women, but I’ve been so aware of the sharing this season and Zach’s grace-filled responses. Despite what is “expected” during a one-on-one all the sharing has felt awkward. I understand oversharing during the individual dates is somewhat of a formula on this show, but if we’re going to uncover these deep childhood traumas, we could at least get the full context of the conversation so it doesn’t feel one-sided. I’m sure in these moments, Zach said things to relate to these women, show us that!
Meeting a Mentalist
On the date: Ariel, Charity, Gabi, and Katherine
Greer is back and trying to convince herself that she and Zach are going to pick up where they left off. They most certainly are not.
The rest of the women arrive at this beautiful theatre with a magician/mentalist that is going to attempt to read their minds. The women sit with Zach one by one and answer questions from the mentalist as he essentially psychoanalyzes them. Y’all, was this shit real, or were we bamboozled? I rolled my eyes when I first heard that they were meeting with a mentalist, but this dude was scary good. Or at least that’s what the edit made it seem like. The date leaves most of the women feeling emotional and Katherine especially seems like she’s about to spiral.
The women are still shaken from the day portion of their date. Charity and Katherine are especially emotional with just how vulnerable the date forced them to be.
Going into their individual conversations, Zach lets the women know that he’s using the individual time with each of them to suss out whether meeting their family makes sense. His first conversation is with Ariel, who continues to be confident and cool. We learn more about her Ukrainian and Jewish family (I would love to see more of that!).
Next, Zach speaks to Charity and she explains why she was so emotional earlier in the date. I’ve seen people online try to dismiss Charity’s experience with infidelity because she was so young, but I’d actually argue it hurts more when you’re so young before you’re sure of yourself, or have a ton of dating experience under your belt. It’s so unfair to belittle her experience with cheating just because she’s young.
I’m still not confident in the relationship Zach and Charity have. I think they both feel a bit of safety with one another and I think they’re drawn to that in one another, more than actually drawn to who they each are and could be in a relationship together.
Gabi is feeling insecure about what the mentalist said. She’s confiding in Ariel and worrying that she’ll be too much for Zach. She says she has ADHD and struggles to process things. As she sits down to talk to Zach she’s worried that he wouldn’t be willing to give her a chance and be patient with her or understand her brain. Zach’s response quells her fears, but I was unimpressed. She was struggling and trying to explain how she struggles to process things and his response was basically ‘but you’re so fun.’ That’s not helpful or constructive, but ok.
Next up is his chat with Katherine, who is still bothered by the fact that Zach said that they were off last week and that the mentalist uncovered some ‘taboo’ truths about her experience on the show. Earlier in the data, Katherine admitted to wanting to leave the process early on and to being unsure of Zach meeting her family. Zach is scared by those responses. He wants to be sure that she is ready for marriage.
I’m not too interested in defending Katherine, she’s annoyed me the past few weeks, but I thought her responses with the mentalist were realistic and honest. Her not being sure if she’s ready for him to meet her family when she’s competing with several other women, and they’ve spent ~8 hours together is a normal reaction to have, even within the context of this show. I’m sure that honesty might have been hard for Zach to hear, but I’d really respect the fact that my potential spouse had enough integrity, to be honest with me. Despite starting off rocky, they end their conversation on a good note.
Zach returns to the room with all the women and offers the group date rose to Gabi. This choice surprised me, I thought it would go to Katherine, especially after they cleared the air.
Greer’s Goodbye
Greer is going to meet Zach for the first time since they both had COVID and in her voiceover, she’s saying she’s excited about him because “Zach embodies a lot of qualities my parents would be excited about.” Ma’am, this is not a reason to keep seeing this guy. You and your camel coat need to go home. This is another example of a young contestant’s age showing. Greer is 24 and she’s excited about Zach because of the qualities in her parents would like. Baby girl, you have to date him too. Do you care about that? Such a weird comment to make. It’s normal to care about what your family might think of your partner but to be excited about your connection because he has qualities your parents would like, nah.
Zach and Greer are catching up, acknowledging how much time has passed and how connections have grown with other women. Greer feels confident in bringing him home despite that, Zach does not and decides she needs to go home. Greer STRUGGLES to get some tears out and then starts whispering her goodbye speech to him. It was awkward and uncomfortable to watch.
Deciphering Next Steps
Brooklyn and Zach are biking around Budapest and using the day to decipher if it makes sense to get families involved.
They ride bikes to a hot air balloon where Zach says jumping out of a plane was less scary than being in the hot air balloon. That is a wild statement to make. I’ll take the air balloon over JUMPING OUT OF A PLANE any day. Finally, they end the day at a Hungarian bathhouse which seems cool, but there are so many people. The audio for the rest of their time in the bathhouse is pretty terrible, but we know Brooklyn is excited for him to meet her family.
As dinner begins, Zach asks about Brooklyn’s family and who he might be meeting. The biggest takeaway is the relationship she has with her father figure that stepped into her life as her biological dad was stepping out of it. Zach also asks if she has any worries about bringing him home and Brooklyn says she wouldn’t bring anyone home that she didn’t see a future with and she sees one with him.
Zach says he doesn’t take meeting her family lightly and he asks for some time to step away and breathe. I can appreciate his wanting to get it absolutely right in this journey, the level of genuineness in a Bachelor is refreshing. In his ITM he said he loves the way she speaks about her family, but he questions if he’s worthy of meeting her family and if he is ready.
When he returns to dinner with Brooklyn he admits he’s not fully confident or sure about her and that is why he can’t meet her family. He tells her she deserves the love he cannot give her and she breaks down and thanks him for his honesty. Brooklyn was such a breath of fresh air, I’m sad to see her go, but I’m confident she’ll be on our screens again.
Selecting the Final Four
Zach got a haircut before the night’s rose ceremony and he looks good! I was pleasantly surprised.
He tells Jesse he’s struggling with the decision he has to make because he has a connection with each woman, so having to say goodbye is tough.
He walks in and shares similar sentiments with the women. The first rose goes to Ariel and the final rose goes to Charity, meaning Katherine is going home. Every time Charity gets a rose she seems a little surprised and I just have to assume that’s because she’s a dark skin Black woman who knows dark skin Black women don’t get a lot of shine on this show. And they rarely make it to hometowns (I believe Rachel Lindsay was literally the last contestant to have a Black mom and dad at her hometown).
Before Katherine leaves, Zach checks in with her and offers an explanation. He says their relationship changed after the Bahamas and he began to feel a strain until eventually, he felt like he couldn’t get there with her. Both Katherine and Zach are really emotional about the decision, but honestly, I don’t buy it. The tears were giving exhaustion and frustration, not heartbroken.
Even though I feel like it’s Kaity or Gabi’s game to lose, I like that we’re going into hometowns and it really feels like Zach cares for each of these women. Maybe it’s genuine, or maybe it’s the editing, but either way, it’s refreshing.
Next week we’ve got Hometowns on Monday and Women Tell All on Tuesday. Buckle Up! Until then, ✌🏾.
Down to the Wire: Bachelor 27, Episode 7 Recap
Love your recaps - great combo of humor and insight.