'The Bachelor' recap: A sparkle in her eye(brow)

It's an important week for Sean Lowe: He's choosing the four women whose hometowns he'll visit and whose families he'll meet.

Luckily for him, the Tierra-ist isn't going to be one of them.

Tierra finally goes too far, and Sean finally opens his eyes to her shenanigans. As Tierra laments in the car ride home, "I can't believe I did this to myself."

While Sean was wary about Tierra's constant bickering with the other ladies, he was still enamoured of her "sparkle." It only took the advice of a woman -- his sister -- to wake him up.

Farewell, Tierra-ist. And farewell to your eyebrow, too.

The whole truth

Sean's first date in beautiful St. Croix is with AshLee. They swim and sail and hang on the beach, where Sean asks her to 'fess up: What's the deal with Tierra?

She gives it to him straight: Tierra's a different person around him than she is around the other girls. He thanks her for her honesty.

Later, at dinner, she decides to continue with the truth-telling and opens up about her hasty marriage at the age of 17. AshLee is visibly nervous revealing this, and keeps talking about how messed up and broken she is.

"I think you're perfect the way you are," Sean says. "I certainly don't view you as being broken."

That's enough of a catalyst to get AshLee to shout out her feelings: She's in love with him!

They kiss (and he probably would've given her a rose, but there are none on this week's one-on-ones).

Tierra del fuego

Tierra finally gets a long-awaited one-on-one date (remember, she got a two-on-one a few weeks ago). They do the whole "shopping in town/enjoy the locals" date, and Sean continues to have rose-colored glasses on when it comes to Tierra. She's so vibrant, so full of life! So full of B.S., though he doesn't know it.

Watch a deleted scene from Sean and Tierra's date:

Then he brings up the subject of drama and her defenses go up. She chalks up the other girls' reactions as jealousy over her rose that very first night. Sean seems perturbed, which Tierra notices at dinner that night. He admits that there is now a distance between them, and she realizes AshLee must've thrown her under the bus. We can almost see her claws come out!

But first, Tierra's got to make inroads with Sean, so she tells him she's falling in love with him. Sean, being Sean, is touched and decides he might not care if the other girls hate her. Oh, Sean … please, can't they give you DVDs of past "Bachelor" seasons to watch?

Sunrise to sunset

It's the middle of the night and Sean's sneaking into the women's bedrooms … ooh la la, a little hanky panky, Mr. Lowe? Sadly, no -- he wakes up Lindsay, Catherine, and Desiree for their group date. But first, he gets a few pics of them sans makeup. They are not happy (except for low-maintenance Catherine, who says she just "needs to pee and I'm good to go"). But at least there will be a rose on this date, so one of them will be able to breathe easy.

Sean drives the three of them to the easternmost point of the island -- also the easternmost point of the United States. They watch the sun rise, then Sean tells them they're going on a road trip to the other side of the island to watch the sun set!

The girls gush about St. Croix:

Along the way, they stop off to take in various local sights. Des is gunning hard for the rose, calling shotgun and stealing Sean away at a rainforest treehouse.

But Lindsay and Catherine aren't about to just let her monopolize him. When they get to the sunset viewing area, Lindsay talks to Sean about her wacky wedding-dress outfit that first night. Who would've thought she'd go so far? They laugh and continue to demonstrate their sizzling physical chemistry (aka make out like crazy).

Sean's conversation with Catherine is more serious, as she reveals that she's estranged from her father. If he visits her hometown of Seattle, Sean won't be able to meet her dad. He's moved by how open she is with him about such an emotional topic.

Des also lets her guard down, crying as she talks about her family and how much they mean to her.

So who does he choose for the rose? Lindsay! That wedding dress outfit may have been a little crazy, but guess you need to get crazy when it comes to love.

The time is ripe

Sean's final one-on-one of the week is with Lesley. He likes her, but isn't sure his feelings are as strong as they are for other girls. As they commence picking fruit, he notes that she isn't kissing him or showing much affection.

It seems Lesley is inside her own head. She wants to tell him she's in love with him, but talks herself out of it. Instead, she talks about how they could be best friends and watch football together. Ugh, Lesley, what are you waiting for? Go for it! But she can't … and we're worried that her snark won't be around much longer.

The award for best drama goes to …

Sean's torn between all his ladies, so he turns to a trusted source for counsel: his sister, Shay, who's visiting the island.

Shay asks if he can see himself proposing to anyone, and he admits that nobody stands out. Seriously, Sean, you can picture yourself getting down on one knee and asking Tierra to be your wife?!

He does mention that none of the other girls like Tierra, and Shay reminds Sean of some advice she gave him before filming started: "Don't end up with the girl nobody likes."

Sean offers to bring Tierra over so Shay can judge for herself, and heads for the house.

At the same time, there's a big blow-out happening at the women's house -- no surprise there. Tierra confronts AshLee for talking smack about her. AshLee explains that Sean asked her a question, and she answered truthfully.

AshLee accuses Tierra of acting differently around Sean than them. "That's because girls are jealous! Men love me," Tierra shoots back (ugh). Or even worse, that her parents told her she has a "sparkle" and not to let anyone take her "sparkle" away (double ugh). Oh, and if she looked cold and raised an eyebrow, well, "I cannot control my eyebrow!"

(Well, that's true. It has a life -- and Twitter -- of its own.)

Tierra storms off to her room, where Sean finds her sobbing very, very loudly. "This is just so hard for me," she fake-cries. "I hate confrontation like this and I hate getting emotional like this," Tierra sniffles. Oh really, then … why do you keep doing it?

He goes off to think for a bit, particularly about his sister's warning that a girl who can't get along with the others is trouble. When Sean goes back to Tierra, he gently tells her that while he's crazy about her and cares for her, it might be best that she go home.

"I just can't keep you here knowing how hard this is for you," he says.

(Yay!)

Tierra is whisked away by a car, where she starts crying. This time, it might be for real. "I can't believe I did this to me!" she whines, and it's probably the truest thing she's said this whole season. Really, Tierra was doing a very good job of playing on Sean's white-knight, good-guy persona. But she just pushed it a little too far.

Whatever, Tierra shrugs. "I just tell myself, 'Nobody can take your sparkle away.'"

Nope. We're sure to see your sparkle again on "The Bachelor Pad."

Hometown girls

As the other women arrive at the cocktail party, they wonder where Tierra is. Sean comes out and shocks them by informing them she left earlier. Des quickly smothers the look of glee on her face.

He also tells them he's not having the cocktail party; he knows what he wants. And he doesn't want a partner who brings a lot of drama. That freaks out AshLee, who kind of was part of the whole Tierra mess.

Watch a deleted scene of Sean telling Chris he sent Tierra home:

Sean comes back to give out the three remaining roses (remember, Lindsay already has one). They go to:

• Desiree

• Catherine

• AshLee

That leaves Lesley -- probably should've spoken up about being in love, honey. "Rejection hurts. Heartbreak hurts," a teary Lesley says. "It sucks."

But even she's not half as devastated as Catherine, who for some strange reason is sobbing her eyes out. If Sean cut Lesley -- who has more in common with him than Catherine does -- what does he really want?

Guess she'll find out in front of all her friends and family next week!

Check out Twitter reactions to the episode and Tierra's sudden exit, then sound off in the comments below!

Watch the full episode:

"The Bachelor" airs Mondays at 8 PM on ABC.