‘The Bachelor’ Recap: Annual Bachelor Bowl Causes Tension & Zach Sends Home An Early Frontrunner

SPOILER ALERT! This post contains details from Season 27, Episode 3 of ABC’s The Bachelor.

The stakes are only getting higher during week three of The Bachelor as Zach Shallcross continues to try to deepen his connections with the remaining 17 women. And, in a fairly surprising turn of events, he even sent home one of his early frontrunners after she became embroiled in some drama with her competition.

The episode begins with Zach soliciting more advice from former Bachelor Sean Lowe. He tells Sean he thinks everything is going well, but he’s still nervous about how this will end. Lowe’s sage advice is for Zach to focus on finding his best friend, which he seems to take to hear.

Back at the mansion, host Jesse Palmer checks in on the women after the second rose ceremony. This week, there are two one-on-one dates and a group date. Jesse leaves behind a date card with information about the first one-on-one, which goes to Kaity. 

Zach meets Kaity at the mansion and steals her away to the Los Angeles Natural History Museum, where they have the whole place to themselves. 

While Kaity is away on her date, the women back at the mansion receive another date card. It’s the group date card, which includes everyone but Aly. “I have a lot of emotions going on right now,” she says upon finding out that she’ll get to spend some uninterrupted time with Zach this week.

Back to Zach and Kaity’s one-on-one, the pair are sitting at a romantic dinner in the middle of an empty museum, and Kaity is opening up about how special she feels being chosen for this date. Zach tells her he’s looking for his best friend and asks her what she’s searching for. She says that after being vulnerable in her last relationship, she put up some walls. In order to bring those down, she needs someone who will make her feel safe and is willing to fight for a relationship with her. She gets pretty emotional as she tells Zach she wants someone to treat her right. Zach wins some brownie points when he tells her that she deserves everything she’s asking for and more. After sharing a kiss, Zach gives Kaity a rose. And because he doesn’t want the date to end, Zach asks Kaity to spend the night inside the museum with him. He takes her to a romantic candlelit tent where (two separate) beds have been set up for the pair to have an elegant slumber party. The beds don’t stay separate for long, as Kaity suggests they close the gap between them. 

The next morning, the other women are a bit confused when they realize Kaity still isn’t home. When she returns, she tells the rest of the group that they spent the night together, much to everyone else’s dismay. But they don’t have long to sulk, because it’s time for the 5th annual Bachelor Bowl.

Zach meets the women on a football field and, with the help of NFL legends Antonio Gates and Shawne Merriman, prepares them for a game of tackle football. The winning team will get to head to the afterparty with Zach. 

Immediately upon kickoff, Anastasia takes a pretty bad hit. After a moment of tension, she gets up and tells everyone she’s fine — but she still steps to the sideline to spend some quality time with Zach while the game continues. The ladies enter halftime at 7-7. But ultimately, the blue team (Christina, Ariel, Bailey, Brooklyn, Charity, Katherine, and Kylee) emerges victorious. After getting themselves cleaned up, those women headed to Clifton’s in Downtown Los Angeles for the rest of their date. 

While the other women are sitting at the mansion wondering how the cocktail party could be going, Aly finally gets her date card. Along with the date card, Zach sends a white dress (which looks suspiciously like a wedding gown) for her to wear. 

Meanwhile, the women at Clifton’s are waiting for Zach to give out the group date rose. Bailey approaches Zach to tell him she’s feeling a bit insecure about their relationship, especially since she hasn’t had much time to talk to him. In the middle of their conversation, Ariel interrupts and asks for some time with Zach, which unsurprisingly causes a little bit of tension. Eventually, Bailey steals him back to finish up the conversation. Zach tells her that he isn’t confident they have a future together, which leaves Bailey feeling pretty devastated. She leaves before the group date rose is given out. 

Tensions get even stronger when Christina quips that Bailey leaving was “inevitable.” Before anyone else can reply, Zach comes in to hand out a rose, first telling the women that Bailey went home because he couldn’t give her the validation she needed. He gives the rose to Charity. 

The sweet moment turns sour pretty quickly when Christina tells the other women that she’s confused as to why she didn’t receive the rose. Brooklyn and Katherine tell her to stop hijacking Charity’s moment, but Christina insists she’s only trying to be truthful. Charity leaves the room crying, and the other women make it clear they aren’t on Christina’s side. 

That’s enough of that for now, as it’s time for Zach to take Aly on her one-on-one. She meets him at the altar — literally. He’s wearing a suit and she’s in the gown he picked out when the limo drops her off in front of a wooden altar. But they aren’t tying the knot. Instead, they’re jumping out of a plane together. Aly takes the surprise like a champ, and the pair dive head first into a new stage of their relationship. Back on the ground, they spend the next part of their date sipping champagne in a hot tub. From there, they have a romantic dinner together inside the Bradbury Building in Downtown Los Angeles. Aly tells Zach she’s very Type A and likes to be in control, which manifests from her past relationships. In this new relationship with Zach, she’s looking for a safe place to land where she can let go a little bit. Zach validates her feelings and tells her that he wants to see more of who she really is, not who she wants him to see. It’s not much longer before she gets the date rose.

Lucky for the women, they all get one more chance to spend some time with Zach before the next rose ceremony. In lieu of a cocktail party, they’ll be having a pool party at the mansion. 

It’s all fun and games for a while, but Brianna expresses to Brooklyn that she still isn’t feeling confident in her relationship with Zach. She approaches him to have a conversation about it, and he reiterates that their connection doesn’t feel natural. She tells him that she’s been planning to leave, because she’s been having a tough time with him and also with some of the women in the house. Since she’s on her way out anyways, she tells Zach that Christina made Brianna and Charity cry and has been intimidating many of the other women. 

And with that bombshell, Brianna is gone. Zach is shocked that Brianna is leaving — and that Christina isn’t getting along with the others. Zach addresses the women after Brianna leaves, and he tells them that he’s not happy to learn that some of the women might have been making others feel uncomfortable. 

He pulls Christina aside for a conversation, and things go south pretty quickly. Christina starts to cry as she tells Zach that it would be a mistake to believe the others about her. He tells her he’s worried to keep her around if this is the drama he’s going to have to deal with, and he’s going to have to think about what to do next. He sends Christina back inside and asks Brooklyn to have a conversation next. Brooklyn tells him more about what happened at the cocktail party and why she confronted Christina for making Charity cry. Up next, Charity recounts the story to Zach from her point of view. 

Eventually, Zach ends the pool party and the women are told to prepare themselves for the rose ceremony. Understandably, many of the women are confused about where they stand. 

Because two women went home prior to the rose ceremony, Christina was the only one to be sent home at the end of the episode.  

The women who will be back next week are: Charity, Aly, Kaity, Jess, Gabi, Ariel, Genevie, Greer, Katherine, Kylee, Davia, Anastasia, Brooklyn, and Mercedes. 

The Bachelor airs Monday nights at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC and is available next day on Hulu.