It’s time to meet the parents! Joey Graziadei embarks on The Bachelor hometown dates with Daisy Kent, Maria Georgas, Kelsey Anderson, and Rachel Nance in the eighth episode of Season 28, airing on March 4 at 9/8c on ABC, and he says this experience was “1,000 percent” different than his hometown date with Charity Lawson on The Bachelorette.
“That’s the difference of one hometown to four hometowns,” Joey tells TV Insider. Rather than being daunted by the change, Joey is visibly excited by it. Could it be because they go well? “People are going to have to wait to see if they all go smoothly,” he tells us, but what he can guarantee is that “there are four amazing women that go to hometowns, and it’s an important part of this whole entire thing.”
Indeed, this is a make-or-break moment for many couples, not just the ones in dating experiments on television. “Meeting someone’s family is not a light thing, and I think that people will enjoy seeing how those dynamics come about,” Joey says of his four hometown dates.
The tennis pro has often stressed over the fear of letting people down this season. He’s gotten more accustomed to making difficult, potentially heartbreaking decisions throughout filming, but the hometowns present a new issue. Where the season has been all about his connection with these women, now it’s about whether their families connect with him. That’s always a tall order on these shows where families are watching their loved ones go through an unusual dating process that sometimes provides more hurt than it does romance.
It seems like through committing to communicating his true feelings with each woman in the cast, Joey was more confident than ever by the time the hometowns came around. He prepared for these high-stakes dates by knowing he had to “come in with dropping your guard and understanding that you’re there to try to gain understanding and respect.”
“They might not understand or respect you at the end,” Joey tells TV Insider, “but all you can do is go in and be yourself and explain why you’re there today and what you see in their daughter. And that’s all I try to do each time.”
The Bachelor Season 28 hometown dates will take place in Minnesota (for Daisy), New Orleans (for Kelsey), Honolulu (for Rachel) and Ontario, Canada (for Maria). As the trailer for the episode teased, emotions will run high on Rachel’s date.
The Bachelor, Mondays, 9/8c, ABC
This story originally appeared on TV Insider
