In episode 8, Nick and the women make their way to hometowns. I always find these dates the most awkward because well, meeting an entire family for the first time is very weird. The hometown date rose were handed to Corrine, Rachel, Raven, and Vanessa.
The first trip was with Raven to Arkansas where mudding and four wheeling is what they do for fun. Raven tells Nick that she’s falling even more in love with him, and she tells him this on top of a grain bin. After their mud-filled romance, they head to her parents house. Nick’s first impression turned into Raven’s dad announcing that he’s cancer free. Raven’s dad became a Nick fan and her mom was wondering if Raven would be able to let her guard down for him.
The next hometown date lands them in Dallas where Rachel and Nick start their time at church. It is called out at that a white man is in a black church, but come on now, I think that was pretty obvious. Also, I think we all realized that Rachel and Nick wouldn’t be able to go anywhere since The Bachelorette announced that she’d be the next season’s Bachelorette. Nick converses with some of Rachel’s family members, which all seem like they aren’t very fond of him or Rachel!
Nick heads to Miami, where he meets Corrine. Corrine wants Nick to know what a normal day for her feels like, so they go shopping. Every store that they walked in, the owner knew Corrine and treated her like the princess that she is. Corrine drops more than $3000 on an outfit for Nick to wear during his meeting with her parents. With meeting the parents, Nick also meets Racquel, the nanny. Her mom explains that Racquel has been there for 17 years and is part of the family. Her family was very fond of Nick telling him that he’s welcomed in their home at any time. Let me just say now, he won’t be back.
The last hometown date with Vanessa takes him to Montreal. She takes him through her daily life; this doesn’t involve shopping, but meeting her students that she teaches instead. Nick gets a thumbs up from her students. Then, they head over to meet some of her family. All that her mother’s side of the family wanted to know is where Vanessa would live if Nick and her ended up together in the end of the show. There was so much crying in that house, I almost started to cry myself because I wanted it all to end right then. Then, they go to meet Vanessa’s dad and I guess stepmom. He gets her dad’s blessing, but her dad wasn’t very happy since he had gotten other blessings the past couple of days.
With the hometown dates finally coming to an end, all the women head back to New York for the rose ceremony. The four women arrive and so does someone else – Andi arrives at Nick’s hotel room. Andi is one of Nicks past lovers that left him. I’m not even sure what she was trying to do, but I guess we’ll figure that out next week.