foolish watcher

‘The Golden Bachelor’: Home is where the skeptics are

Therese Odell
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The Golden Bachelor
October 22, 2025

We now enter my least favorite stretch of any Bachelor show: the last stretch. We’ve got the Dreaded Hometowns, the Women Tell All, the Fantasy Suite, and, most boring of all, The Finale. I don’t know, these episodes just always feel rote and seem to unfold the exact same way, regardless of franchise, regardless of season. They’re boring, there’s no inter-contestant drama unfolding, and it just feels like a slog towards the conclusion.

But slog we must. So onto the Dreaded Hometowns.

Mel begins his tour of the West in Las Vegas to visit Bomb Peg. Bomb Peg meets him at her firehouse and prepares to introduce him to her co-workers. Mel promises to be on his best behavior; Bomb Peg encourages him to drop some F-bombs. Bomb Peg shows Mel her locker, the fire truck, the bomb robot, and makes jokes about her “career on the pole.” Mel genuinely seems to be having a good time in the firehouse, and why wouldn’t he? Isn’t this every little boy’s dream?

Bomb Peg informs Mel that she hasn’t brought anyone home to meet her family in four or five years. Bomb Peg adds that she has had “fireworks” in her relationships in the past; now she’s looking for a “fireplace,” because a slow burn is the “real deal.” And I’ll just note that this is an interesting contrast to Cindyrella’s comments last week about wanting to “fall in love,” not “stumble into love.”

Bomb Peg then brings Mel home to meet her daughter, Dakota, Dakota’s boyfriend, her mother, her brother, and his wife. Brother is the first to chat with Mel, and he demands to know if Mel is capable of loving his sister and being kind to her, and Mel is like, “Sure, I guess.” Mel assures Brother that he thinks Bomb Peg is, well, the bomb, and that he “really likes her.”

Meanwhile, Bomb Peg visits with Mom, and instructs her to give Mel her blessing if he asks her for it.

But the real conversation is between Mel and Dakota, who is clearly skeptical of this entire thing. Dakota asks Mel how he’s feeling about Bomb Peg, and when he says “great,” she wants to know why. “I love her spirit?” Mel offers, “She has a lot of energy?” Dakota demands to know what, exactly, about her energy he likes, and he nervously adds, “It’s alive?”

Dakota then wants to know if he’s in love with her mother, and Mel is honest: he’s not in love with her yet. Dakota is like, “Will you get there at the end of all this?” and Mel, again, is honest: he doesn’t know. He adds that his end goal is to “find someone,” whatever that means. Not even Mel is sure. Dakota openly scoffs.

Dakota is all, “Are you even looking to build a life with someone?” Mel insists that because he had been married for 20 years, obviously he’s serious about this, but I have no idea what those two things have to do with each other.

Neither does Dakota.

Dakota is like, “Sir, you seem like a nice man, but the thing is, my Mom has been through a lot and deserves to be cherished by someone. So if you can’t do that, please let her go sooner rather than drag her through this whole process, thanks.”

Dakota then sits her mother down and is like, “I just don’t want you to get hurt, and my biggest concern here is that you are not being given the appreciation you deserve from this man. That said, if he’s the guy, you have my support. I guess.”

Dakota and all of us:

With that, Bomb Peg walks Mel out to the car while he defensively narrates that he is NOT TAKING THIS LIGHTLY and HE’S BEEN IN LOVE BEFORE (once) and THIS IS SERIOUS BUSINESS, DAKOTA.

Mel next heads to Denver to meet Jazzercise Debbie and her family. Jazzercise Debbie meets him at Red Rocks because it’s a “healing, spiritual place” and makes this limpy man hike around with her. She finally allows him to sit down so as to reveal her tragic backstory: it’s been 14 years since she brought someone home. When she was about to turn 51, she was with a man who she knew was going to propose to her. However, he suffered from depression and was hiding things from her, and her therapist told her to walk away, so she did, and then he killed himself some two weeks later.

She moved to Denver to be closer to her sister, and it took her a good 10 years to really work through the pain, but she’s here now, so I guess she has the all clear.

Jazzercise Debbie then brings Mel to some sibling’s house: she has two brothers and two sisters — one of them, Donna, is her twin. It’s unclear whose house this actually is. But who cares: they’re grilling, they’re having a good time, they’re excited to meet this Mel fella.

Mel first visits with the brothers, tossing a football between them. In fact, Mel pulls a little trick where he looks at one brother while tossing the football to the other, and the brother who caught the ball dies laughing as those this is the greatest, funniest thing anyone has ever done in all time. And you just know this sweet man is a deep well of Dad jokes and advice for when the check engine light turns on in your car. Mel tells Brothers that he’s attracted to Jazzercise Debbie’s sincerity and personality, and they seem to buy it.

Jazzercise Debbie, meanwhile, tells her sisters that she and Mel have a “natural connection” and that she felt at ease with him right away. Sisters then have their turn with Mel, who tells them that Jazzercise Debbie is “dear in [his] heart,” and they tell him they’re happy to hear that because Jazzercise Debbie has been through a lot in the past 10 years.

Jazzercise Debbie walks Mel out to the car,and tells all of us that if he doesn’t choose her, she’ll be devastated.

Finally, Mel goes to Austin to meet Cindyrella and her three daughters. Cindyrella flips the format of the date, taking him to lunch with her daughters first, and then promising that if there’s time, she’ll take him up to her downtown condo to get a head start on those Fantasy Suites.

At the restaurant, Mel meets Caroline, Sarah, and Emily, and some sons-in-law, whose names I did not catch, who cares. Mel and Cindyrella tell everyone about meeting Paula Abdul, which, apparently, was Cindyrella’s highlight of the season. She also talks about wearing a cheerleading outfit again, which made her feel like more than just a “mom” or someone’s “friend.” Somewhere, Bruce Springsteen’s “Glory Days” begins to play.

Cindyrella visits with two of her daughters (oddly not all three), where she tells them that Mel makes her feel “safe and secure,” which is something she hasn’t had in her life. She tells them that these feelings are “big,” and they assure their mother that he’s the lucky one. She also warns them that it’s possible she’ll move to California to be with him, and these two are fully on board.

As for Mel, he’s talking with Sons-in-law, telling them that he’s looking for compatibility, someone to have fun with, and wonders how Cindyrella will react to watching college football on Saturdays, to which Sons-in-law assure him that she probably knows more about college football than he does. Sir, this is Texas.

Mel then chats with Other Daughter, who asks how things are going between him and her mother, and warns Mel that it’s important he knows whoever her Mom is with next will be the person she’s with for the rest of her life. Does Mel see that potential with her? And Mel is like, “Dunno?” Mel goes on to say that he likes her mother a lot, but he doesn’t know what will unfold in the next few weeks or months. So, like, chill.

Other Daughter begins to try to ask him if he can see himself with her mother in 20 years, sitting on rocking chairs on a porch somewhere, and this man is all, “I WON’T BE IN A ROCKING CHAIR! I’LL BE ACTIVE, NOT INACTIVE!”

Sir, I’ve seen your shoes. I’ve seen you barely ride a horse, barely hike a trail, and barely play a carnival game. You will most definitely be in a rocking chair somewhere, and sooner than 20 years from now.

But as to the question, again, he’s all, “Uh, dunno. I’m just getting to know her.”

Other Daughter tells Cindyrella that Mel was “reserved” and wasn’t opening up or answering her hard questions, and let’s be real here, Mom, there are other women in the mix, and while she would very much like to see her happy, she’s not sure Mel can truly be present.

I like the cut of Other Daughter’s jib.

Cindyrella insists she feels “grounded” with Mel, “at peace,” before yammering about putting herself “back together” and “excavating” herself. She insists that she might be in love with Mel, and Other Daughter is like, “Great. But does he love you? Will he choose you forever?”

Cindyrella doesn’t have an answer to that because Mel doesn’t either.

At least not one she’s ready to hear.

That unpleasantness taken care of, Cindyrella brings Mel back to her condo, where they admire the view and make drinks to take out to the communal patio. There, Cindyrella tells him that her daughters thought he was great but are also worried that he doesn’t feel for her the way she feels for him. Cindyrella then goes on to tell him that she’s really falling for him, and can see them forging something precious together. She notes that she knows he has had other hometowns, but she was hoping to get a gut check from him. LOL, GOOD LUCK, LADY.

Mel mutters that it’s “complicated” and he has difficult choices to make. And with that, he’s like, “OK BYE!” and runs away as fast as he can.

And then we’re back at the McMansion for the final Rose Ceremony:

Rose #1: Bomb Peg
Rose #2: Cindyrella

Which means we must say goodbye to Jazzercise Debbie, but girl, I promise, that is a bullet dodged.

Here are the ladies who have been eliminated, along with their very not good nicknames:

Here are the women, along with their dumb nicknames, who are still “dating” Mel:

The Golden Bachelor airs Wednesdays on ABC at 7/8 p.m. and streams on Hulu.

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