‘The Bachelor’ Recap: Season 28, Episode 9

SPOILER ALERT! This story contains details from Monday night’s episode of The Bachelor.

In the opening teaser for tonight’s episode of The Bachelor, we’re met yet again with the clip we’ve been wondering about all season.

As he returns to his room post-date during Fantasy Suites week, Joey finds a note tucked into his hotel room door, which reads “Joey, we need to talk,” and promptly freaks out. “I don’t understand. What is this?” he asks, fearing that his “worst nightmare” might be on the verge of coming true.

As it turns out, we’re in Tulum, Mexico, where Joey is weighing a difficult choice between his top three picks: Daisy, Kelsey, and Rachel. At this point, he confesses, he’s falling in love with all three women. Still, he continues to struggle emotionally, as he gets closer to the finish line, worrying that the woman he chooses in the end won’t choose him in return.

Joey’s first date of the week is Rachel, who before their rendezvous, is visited by The Golden Bachelor‘s Susan for a little motherly advice, and admits that she’s in love with our Bachelor. When Rachel speaks to her past experiences of being cheated on in relationships and her fear that the pattern will repeat, with Joey picking another woman over her, Susan encourages her to let her guard down, having rediscovered on The Golden Bachelor the importance of loving herself.

Ahead of the date, Joey shares that Rachel brings out a different, more silly side of him, and while she’s at times not been as emotionally available as the other women, every experience he’s had with her has been special. On their date, the duo take a leap of faith, jumping into a cenote, or sinkhole pool, from platforms at different heights. All is well until they jump from the highest, and Rachel hits her face so hard, there’s concern her jaw is broken.

After a visit to the hospital, Rachel turns out to be just fine, and at dinner, she expresses her disappointment that the day’s date went sideways, as well as her fear that she didn’t open up to Joey enough early on. Joey affirms that he knows who Rachel is, and feels the same connection she does. The pair end up going to the fantasy suite, where in the morning, Joey says that Rachel opened up even more while off-camera. She shares that Joey has opened her eyes to the kind of relationship she wants, and Joey tells Rachel that he’s falling for her.

Leading up to her date with Joey, Kelsey is visited by Leslie of The Golden Bachelor fame, bonding with her quickly, given their shared experience of losing their mothers at a young age. While advising Kelsey to be open and honest in the fantasy suite, and to make use of every second, Leslie tells her to prepare herself for the possibility that she won’t be chosen in the end — as happened in her case. In her experience, she relays, it’s best to move forward with an openness to the prospect of an engagement, but not an expectation.

Joey shares before the date that he doesn’t yet know if Kelsey feels the same way he does about her, and hopes that he’ll soon get clarity. On their date, the pair goes out on a boat ride and swims with stingrays and turtles, and dinner, Joey gets vulnerable with Kelsey, confessing that he was 100% certain The Bachelorette’s Charity Lawson would pick him, and that he fears getting hurt once again. Kelsey shares that she’s in love with him, and he reveals the feeling is mutual. The next morning, Kelsey is telling Joey that she loves him, full stop, and Joey is glowing so profusely, it seems he’s found his person.

Hovering over Kelsey, though, as Joey leaves, is the message imparted by Leslie, which loops in her head while Joey is heading to his date with Daisy, as she realizes she’d be totally devastated if he proposes to someone else.

In a similarly emotional headspace, Daisy is greeted prior to her date by The Golden Bachelor‘s Sandra, sharing that she’s totally in love with Joey, as our Bachelor reflects on the fun and sense of adventure Daisy brings into his life. At dinner after a quad ride together and a glass of champagne, Daisy tells Joey that he makes her feel seen and safe to open up in a way no other man ever has. The experience has been so foreign to her, she adds, that it’s taken some time to trust it. Joey then opens up even further about insecurities based in past experiences, sharing that a relationship in Hawaii left him with the fear that people tend to fall in love with the idea of him, rather than the person that he actually is. Daisy says that Joey has changed her life, opening up parts of her that she didn’t know existed, and changing the way she looks at herself. Joey then confesses that he’s falling for her, and the pair heads to the fantasy suite, where things continue to go well.

Panicking while Joey is out with Daisy, Kelsey leaves the note at Joey’s door, telling the viewer that there’s a conversation the pair needs to have before the rose ceremony, and she doesn’t want to blindside him. She’d rather leave now, she says, than have her heart completely broken. When Joey returns to his room and reads the note, he says that it would “derail everything” if Kelsey were to leave, reaffirming the fears he’s carried with him all this time.

Sadly, we’ll have to wait until next week’s Women Tell All episode to find out how things play out between Kelsey and Joey. Tune in next Monday at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.