The Bachelorette : Rachel Recchia Sends a Suitor Home After He Compares Her to His Dying Dog
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This post contains spoilers from Monday's episode of The Bachelorette.
After changing up the rules, Rachel Recchia and Gabby Windey's remaining suitors reflected on what went down at the rose ceremony — and afterwards when Rachel let James, a.k.a. Meatball, stay after he rejected her rose.
The decision to allocate a group of men for Gabby and another for Rachel came after Hayden declared he'd prefer to pursue Rachel, 26, because he found ICU nurse Gabby, 31, "rough around the edges."
"I don't think I did anything wrong, to be honest with you," the leisure executive, 29, told the guys.
ABC
Hayden claimed Gabby had used those exact words to describe herself, so he didn't see an issue with using them too.
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"I don't want to just settle," Hayden continued to the disengaged group. "I can tell you right now, I don't see how any guy in here can be like, 'I want to f---ing marry these girls.'"
PARIS ONE-ON-ONES
Host Jesse Palmer informed the men that the next leg of their journey would take place in Paris, beginning with Rachel and Gabby each going on a one-on-one date. Rachel picked Tino for hers, and Gabby selected Jason.
Gabby and Jason, 30, got their heads measured for berets (Gabby was a size small, while Jason was an extra large). Meanwhile, Rachel and Tino, 27, wandered through the rainy streets of Paris, taking plenty of opportunities to make out.
"Kissing Tino in the rain, I feel excited again after a really hard week," Rachel said in an on-camera interview.
ABC
After the daytime portion of their dates, the couples met up.
"I haven't had that much fun in a while," Jason told Tino.
Rachel thought things went well with Tino too. "We had such a great connection and today it was just so amazing," she told Gabby.
Rachel admitted in a confessional that she had "strong" feelings for Tino.
"To feel feelings this strong this early on, it's terrifying because I have been through so much rejection in the past, and if Tino does the same thing to me, that would just be 10 times worse," she said.
RELATED: The Bachelorette's Rachel Recchia and Gabby Windey Are in for an 'Unsettling' and 'Unhinged' Season
Rachel and Tino enjoyed drinks at a cathedral and continued getting to know each other. The flight instructor began by recounting to Tino how her last boyfriend thought all pilots cheated and didn't think he'd be able to have a family life with Rachel given her schedule. Tino felt differently.
"Your passion for your career, it lights me up inside because I need somebody who has that kind of devotion," the general contractor said.
Tino added that his own parents always worked full time and made sacrifices to be with him and his little brothers. "There's always a way to make it work," he said. "With the right person there's just no other way around it."
Rachel confessed to Tino that she already had deep feelings for him. "I really like you and that scares me because it is really early," she told him. "And I want to makes sure that we are on the same page."
Tino assured, "I wouldn't keep accepting roses from you if I I like wasn't willing to go to war for it and didn't see that potential."
They kissed and Rachel offered him a rose. "This is the easiest rose I've had to give," Rachel said.
Gabby's dinner with Jason unfolded nicely, too.
Jason opened up about his experience with therapy and Gabby appreciate that. "Through therapy I've like figured out to speak up for what I want," he said. "It's helped with everything in my life, like work, friends and relationships — every aspect of my life."
Gabby shared that she had "a little bit of a similar experience" because of her estrangement from her mother.
"When I left for college, she washed her hands of me and didn't want anything to do with me," Gabby told Jason. "But through a ton of therapy I've kind of had to learn how really how to allow people to love me because I never had an example of receiving it as a child."
ABC
Gabby admitted that she founding dating challenging because "I have a lot of fears." Still, "it's really great to meet a man who appreciates therapy," she said to Jason.
The Bachelorette felt overjoyed to have followed her intuition about Jason. "I feel like this is all the validation I need," she said.
And of course, Gabby offered Jason a rose before the night ended.
"I never thought I would be able or deserving to find someone," she gushed to the cameras. "And like now it's right in front of my face."
GABBY'S GROUP DATE
The rest of the guys boarded Virgin Voyages' Valiant Lady cruise ship and Gabby and her other guys embarked on a French boxing date. Coaches Karim and Haïfa told the men they'd be going head to head with one another and the winner won dinner with Gabby.
The men warmed up with squats, burpees and some shadowboxing. Then Jesse introduced "The Bachelorette's Battle for Love."
Before each match, both guys competing needed to confess to Gabby why they wanted to fight for her heart. Rachel and her suitors watched in the audience, but Rachel felt like none of her men even wanted to make eye contact with her.
"No one cares," Rachel told the cameras. "Today just made it that much more apparent to me that I just have no idea where anyone is."
ABC/Craig Sjodin
Spencer won the belt and had dinner with Gabby at Pink Agave aboard the ship. Spencer, 27, and Gabby, who comes from a military family, bonded over his service in the military.
"There's a lot of things people can do to better the world around them and that was just kind of my path," Spencer, now a venture capitalist, said of why he enlisted. "I felt like kind of indebted to."
Rachel still felt disappointed by her guys, though. In fact, she thought Clayton Echard even paid her more attention on his season. "He made me feel more wanted than these guys feel," she told the cameras.
So Rachel confronted her men about her feelings.
"I was really looking forward to the next time I saw you guys," she began. "You did accept my rose. You did tell me you want to be here and I do want you all here, but you really made me feel hurt and unseen. I want you guys to want to be here for me and I didn't feel that tonight at all."
Some of the guys felt bad about the situation. "It's not a good feeling seeing the person you're dating with tears in her eyes, feeling like she wasn't noticed," Ethan said in an on-camera interview. "It was a poor reflection one everyone and I take full responsibility for that."
RELATED VIDEO: Kaitlyn Bristowe Reacts to The Bachelorette Having Two Leads: 'Why Are We Doing This Again?'
RACHEL'S GROUP DATE
"It was tough for me today to show up," Rachel told her men at the start of the date. "And I really want to move forward and I want to get past this."
Rachel and the guys walked in on a couple making out and eventually the pair introduced themselves as Flora and Boris, romance experts who would take the men through tasks to help them seduce Rachel.
First, the guys had to flirt with Rachel. Zach started by wrapping his arms around Rachel; Jordan asked to kiss her; Ethan, 27, crawled on then floor towards Rachel, which earned a laugh from the Bachelorette.
ABC/Craig Sjodin
Then the guys had to French kiss their own fists before Rachel took a whiff of their armpits to sniff out any pheromones.
Last, the men read poems they wrote to Rachel. Tyler said he actually wrote one prior to the date. He cried while reading it to Rachel and it touched her so much that he invited her to the private afterparty.
"Everything you did truly touched me, especially down to the poem and the fact that you just had it in your pocket," Rachel told Tyler, 25, when she got him one on one.
The small business owner said he wrote it because "I just had a lot of feelings from last night."
He proceeded to talk about a previous relationship in which he found himself to be super committed — Tyler even purchased a house for him and his significant other — but then she bailed on the relationship "out of nowhere."
"It hurts like hell but that love, that unconditional love that I was able to feel was the best feeling in the world and I want to give that to the right person," Tyler told Rachel. "I'm not scared of getting hurt again."
Rachel understood that sentiment. "I feel like I see so much of myself in you," she said.
Tyler said that ultimately, he wanted "to be somebody's rock."
"I am so excited about Tyler," Rachel gushed in an on-camera interview. "He is so unafraid of love. He truly did make me realize that this is working for me."
Elsewhere on the ship, Logan sat down with Jesse to divulge that, despite accepting a rose from Rachel, he actually possessed stronger feelings for Gabby. "I don't see how I can move forward without bringing it up," Logan said.
RELATED: Bachelorettes Gabby Windey and Rachel Recchia Tease This Season's Fantasy Suite Dates
ROSE CERMEONY
But Logan never got a chance to talk to Gabby like he planned to because of some other drama that went down at this week's cocktail party.
Hayden used the time to show Rachel pictures of his dog Rambo before revealing that Rambo had been diagnosed with a brain tumor that didn't give him much more time to live.
"I want you to understand I wouldn't be here if my intentions weren't to try to obviously further our relationship," Hayden told Rachel.
"I know how much it probably takes for you to be away from him," Rachel responded.
Hayden even brought along the duck toy that his dog took to cancer treatment. But then Tino interrupted the tender moment to try to score some time with Rachel and she obliged.
"What I would've expected from Rachel is to, you know, give me a minute," Hayden complained in an on-camera interview. "Let me finish this conversation, not get up quicker than she sat down."
Hayden regrouped with Meatball. "It's very difficult for me to feel okay walking out of that conversation and feel comfortable saying, 'That's the person for me,'" Hayden said.
After hearing this, Meatball, 25, figured he should tell Rachel everything Hayden had been saying about her.
ABC
"There was a conversation I had with Hayden at the mansion and it was pretty unpleasant," Meatball told Rachel. "It was after the rose ceremony in L.A. He said that you and Gabby were both overreacting to what he said. He made a vocal comparison about you and his ex. It was something about breasts. And he also said, 'I don't trust these bitches, referring to you and Gabby."
Rachel immediately confronted Hayden, but he denied saying anything Meatball mentioned.
"I don't speak like that," Hayden claimed. "That's not my character."
Rachel told Hayden she trusted the person who brought the accusations to her, so she'd have to walk Hayden out. "I feel really stupid for giving Hayden the benefit of the doubt," she told the cameras. "He just lies and I feel very taken advantage of."
Hayden didn't care too much about being sent home. "I'm ready to see Rambo," he said in an on-camera interview.
Jesse let the guys know that Rachel felt "really hurt" after the talk with Hayden and would be canceling the rest of the cocktail party and going straight to the rose ceremony.
ABC/Craig Sjodin
Gabby extended roses to Nate, Erich, Johnny, Michael and Mario, while Rachel gave hers to Aven, Meatball, Zach, Ethan and Logan. Logan accepted Rachel's rose despite his reservations.
"I feel like the bad guy," he told the cameras. "I feel selfish, but I wold be a fool not to accept a rose if it means I get to talk with Gabby."
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The Bachelorette airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.
