The Bachelorette Recap: A Chaotic Rose Ceremony Leaves One Star In Limbo

We're into our third and fourth hours of The Bachelorette this week — we can do this, guys! — and while one Bachelorette may have found her man, the other has only found a big old mess.

As Tuesday's episode opens, Erich is still reeling from that unfortunate conversation with Gabby (check out our recap of Monday's episode for the full details), and he's worried he messed everything up. Gabby does come back, and they hug as he apologizes profusely, but it's still a bit weird between them. She recaps for us that she said goodbye to Johnny, and she was feeling great about Erich until he "f—ked it up." She vents to Jesse, telling him how pressured she felt by Erich. Now she feels like she and Erich are "very different people... I'm mad at him." She does still have an overnight date with Jason coming up... but Jason is also telling us that he realized on their hometown date that he's "not at a place where I'm ready to get engaged... it just doesn't feel right." Uh-oh.

So did Gabby and Jason find a way to work things out? And what about Rachel, who still has three men left in the mix and a fantasy date with Zach on tap? Read on to get the scoop on all the drama in Tuesday's Bachelorette, and be sure to hit the comments to give us your take.

Gabby and Jason's date

Gabby is hoping this date will help Jason open up, since he's such a private person, and a game of tennis, which he played in college, helps them to bond. (Gabby, though, just wants him "to actually hit me in the butt with the racket. So hot.") While Erich mopes in his hotel room, Gabby frolics with Jason in the pool, calling their date "completely effortless in every sense." She tells us she is "truly falling in love with him" and is hopeful about their future together: "After today, I just know it's gonna work for us." Did you just hear that ominous "dun-dun-dun" music in the background? No? Just us?

Gabby raves that Jason is "everything I ever wanted" as they head to dinner, but he knows he needs to tell her he's not ready to get engaged — and he's not sure how she'll take it? Pretty sure she's not gonna love it, buddy. At dinner, he tells her, "I'm into you" (how romantic), but as far as an engagement and love go, "I don't think I'm fully there yet." Does he at least see her in his future, though, she asks? "It's so hard for me to see that right now," he tells her, because she doesn't know who he is, and he doesn't know who she is. "I'm more of a realist," he declares — and she walks away in tears, wondering why he waited until now to tell her this: "Would've been good to know before now." He checks on her and says what they have "could turn into a serious relationship." She's not ready to say goodbye, so they agree to go to the fantasy suite to see if they can work things out away from the cameras. "A future with Jason would be full of surprises," Gabby says. Um, sure... but surprises aren't always good.

The (awkward) morning after

We enter the fantasy suite for the usual post-coital cuddling and giggling... but this time, the bed is empty. "I'm hurt, and I'm devastated," Gabby tells us, adding that in the suite last night, she and Jason were just "talking in circles" and she was "running out of patience." She told him maybe it's not meant to be, and he replied, "Yeah, definitely." (Ouch.) She goes to see him in his room and tells him she's not sure what they've been doing this whole time, if this is how he felt. He tries to apologize and tell her how amazing she is, but she tells him not to bother: "I want to be with someone who's ready to be with me, no questions asked, and that's not us." They hug goodbye — and yep, that's all, folks. She gets emotional as she tells the camera: "He never loved me, so what were we doing?" She sobs that Johnny didn't want her, either. She even asks a producer: "Is it me? I just don't know what it is about me that's so hard to love." Now she doesn't even trust that Erich will be there for her. Sigh.

Rachel and Zach's date

Hey, Rachel's on this show, too, guys! She catches us up, reminding us that she's falling in love with Aven, and then she told Tino she does love him. Now she's on a date with Zach, and she's falling in love with him, too! (Is Clayton smiling smugly somewhere right now?) She and Zach taste tequila and eat grasshoppers together, and they seem to be on the same page. But a tarot card reader tells Rachel that she's "very undecided" and she needs to leave past conflicts behind. She admits she's very guarded after what happened with Clayton and tells us she's under a lot of stress and "very confused." At dinner, she reveals to Zach that she's worried her emotional trauma from Clayton has been "tainting" this week, but she wants to start fresh with him, and they happily head off to the fantasy suite together. Happily ever after, right? Well...

Another awkward morning after

The next morning, Rachel and Zach seem cuddly as they sip coffee together, but she recalls the "tough conversation" they had the night before — and Zach actually looks pretty uncomfortable. He tells us Rachel grilled him about being old enough to get married at 25 (she's 26, for the record), and even though he said he was ready, she kept pressing the issue. It changed everything he felt about her, he says: "It's like we were two strangers." He goes to see Jesse and immediately tears up, confiding in him that everything between him and Rachel was perfect, but in the fantasy suite, it was "completely different." With no cameras, "it was very unauthentic, sometimes," and he felt "blindsided" by her questions. He thought he saw a future with Rachel, but now he's questioning everything. He wants to talk to her before the rose ceremony: "I need answers to accept a rose from Rachel." Whoo boy, buckle up, folks...

The rose ceremony

While Gabby is ready to get the rose ceremony over with — Erich is the only guy she has left, and she's afraid she could leave alone — Rachel still has three guys left and only two roses to hand out. Aven says he sees a future with Rachel, and Tino is feeling confident, saying that their fantasy suite date went "flawlessly." Zach, though, is feeling "sick to my stomach" as he arrives for the ceremony. He says his fantasy suite chat with Rachel was "the most inauthentic conversation I've ever had in my life" (!!!), and now it's his turn to sweat bullets. When Rachel arrives, Jesse informs her that Gabby won't be here, so she's the only Bachelorette. (Could ya maybe give her a few more details than that? Is Gabby OK? Does she need help?) Rachel says hi to her three men and starts to reach for her first rose... when Zach interrupts: "Rachel, can we speak?" He pulls her aside as Tino and Aven shake their heads.

Gabby and Erich

Gabby, meanwhile, seeks out Erich to tell him how she feels, and they're both nervous that the last talk they had screwed everything up. She sits him down and tells him that her date with Jason taught her what she deserves, and Erich has always made her feel loved and safe. "You're the only one left," she admits, adding that "I do know that I love you." They collapse into giddy kisses, and both of them get emotional as Gabby raves: "Erich is definitely the love of my life." So that's it? No final rose? No Neil Lane ring? He just won by default? We're happy for them and all, but ABC must be hating this. There are still two more episodes left!

Yeah, about that: We go back to the rose ceremony, with Zach pulling Rachel aside, and then we cut to... Los Angeles? Jesse explains that we won't see what happens next tonight because they want to drag this out as long as possible, um, we mean, give us time to prepare ourselves for "the most emotional finale in Bachelorette history." He adds that "we felt it was best to wait" until they could do it with a live audience, and he's really hyping this up, calling it "the most shocking finale of all time."

The preview does look juicy: Rachel is choking back sobs, and Gabby is crying, too, and wants to leave. Rachel tells someone (probably Zach) that he is "shattering everything that you promised me." Erich meets Gabby's family, and one of Rachel's family members spills the beans that one of the guys "was unsure there would be an engagement." (Gabby advises her: "I think you should definitely kick him in the [bleeping] [bleeps].") Even Aven gets snippy with Rachel, and she tells Zach that he "went back against what you said." And even Erich wonders if he and Gabby can just date before getting engaged! That sets her off on another spiral of feeling "unlovable." Oh, and Rachel confronts someone for "lying straight to my face." Oof, we hate just about all of this... and we'll definitely see you here next week to talk about it.

Got thoughts, Bachelor Nation? Share 'em in a comment below.

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