Charity Lawson headed to New Orleans to figure out which men she wanted to bring to hometowns.
She met her six remaining men at Café Beignet and announced that Joey would receive the first one-on-on date of the week.
FIRST ONE-ON-ONE
Charity and Joey, both 27, headed out on a horse-drawn carriage and she hoped the day would be “super easy, like it always has been with Joey.”
The pair ate some Louisianan cuisine and explored the city, stopping to dance in the street when they walked by a group of musicians playing outside. “I just adore everything about him,” Charity said in an on-camera interview about Joey.
The tennis pro agreed that their connection felt “natural.”
“I was with my girlfriend. That was what it felt like,” Joey told the cameras.
Joey and Charity sat down with a poet who asked them questions about their connection and views on commitment. The poet then wrote a poem for each of them, which Charity and Joey read to one another.
“Inside of my heart is the happiest it’s been in so long,” Joey said in an on-camera interview. “Today was 100 percent one of the best dates I’ve ever been on.”
Charity found the date “reassuring.”
“This man could be my husband and I see a forever future with him,” she told the cameras.
At the dinner portion of the date, Charity and Joey talked about meeting his family, as well as the potential of being in an interracial relationship. “I’ve never dated a Black woman,” Joey said to Charity. “And the idea of bringing you home, I know my family, they understand that love is love, they truthfully look at what’s on the inside.”
Joey also acknowledged that he couldn’t understand Charity’s experience of being a Black woman.
“I don’t think it’s something I’ll be able to learn until we try to conquer that together,” he told Charity. “And I do see you for the entirety of who you are.”
That brought Charity to tears and eventually led to the child and family therapist giving Joey a rose. He responded with an honest admission.
“I would be crazy not to tell you that I am falling in love with you,” Joey told Charity.
Charity said “thank you” and kissed Joey before they headed home in the horse-drawn carriage.
TWO-ON-ONE DATE
The next date card revealed that Sean and Tanner would be going on a two-on-one date. “I’m trying to gauge between like, someone who could be a boyfriend versus someone who could be a husband,” Charity explained in an on-camera interview.
The three of them embarked on a swamp tour and checked out crocodiles from a boat before digging into a low country boil.
“Today was not ideal,” Sean, 25, told the cameras.
Charity went into dinner worrying that she’d send the wrong person home. “I want to spend tonight getting that clarity that I need,” she said to Sean and Tanner, 30.
Sean grabbed Charity first and she told the software sales rep, “I don’t really know how I’m feeling right now.”
When Tanner spoke with Charity, he recounted his last relationship, in which his girlfriend of three years walked out after one argument. The mortgage lender told Charity he “fully got ghosted” and as a result, “put my walls up” to “protect my peace at all costs.”
He’s since realized, “That’s not what I want forever.”
Charity didn’t have any realizations about what she wanted, though. “I’m getting a stress rash because I don’t know,” she told the cameras of who she wanted to give the rose.
So she decided not to give one at all. “The best decision for me in this moment is to not hand out a rose tonight,” Charity said to Tanner and Sean.
That didn’t mean both guys went home, though. Charity promised to spend more time with each of them in New Orleans.
SECOND ONE-ON-ONE
Dotun scored his second one-on-one date, which surprised the other men.
For their second consecutive one-on-one date, Dotun, 30, and Charity partook in the Crescent City Classic fun run. Charity brought tutus and boas for them to wear for the race. They did a mix of jogging and walking throughout the 10K, mingled with other racers and Charity grabbed a beer.
“My heart is saying like, this is the person that’s probably for you, but the head is pretty much saying, ‘It’s all happening so fast. Be careful,’” the integrative medicine specialist said in an on-camera interview.
They changed and sat down to dinner, where Charity wanted to ask Dotun’s thoughts on hometowns.
“I’ve been excited for them to meet us since Day 1, but the truth is, it’s scary as hell,” Dotun said to Charity.
Charity admitted “I’m right there with you when it comes to the fears,” but said she wanted to move past them and be happy.
“I’m really working on just listening to my heart more and letting it open up,” Dotun said.
Listening to his heart more entailed telling Charity how he really felt. “My heart is pretty much screaming that I’m definitely falling in love with you at this point,” Dotun said to Charity.
The reveal made Charity glow. “My whole face and body just lit up, like you don’t understand,” she said to Dotun. “I feel so good.”
Charity extended Dotun a rose and felt certain about her future with him.
“Dotun does feel like that person who could be exactly who I would navigate this life with,” Charity told the cameras.
Before the group date with Sean, Aaron, Xavier, and Tanner, Sean paid Charity a visit to her hotel room to ask her where she stood on their relationship.
Charity said she felt “a lot of conflicting emotions and still very much am processing all that and trying to make sense of it all.”
Sean confessed he felt “sad” and “disappointed” not to receive a rose on the two-on-one. “I’m totally in the process of falling in love with you, and that’s why that rose meant so much to me,” he said.
Unfortunately, Charity didn’t think she could get there. “What you want from me, I can’t give,” she said to Sean before walking him out.
Charity entered the group date telling the guys one of them would go home.
Aaron, 29, told Charity it had been “painful having to watch guys get their chance” at one-on-one dates with her while he missed out.
Tanner tried to convince the Bachelorette that he could see her coming home with him. “I can see it being an amazing time,” he told Charity.
Xavier, however, said he had reservations about committing to forever. “I know I want to get engaged, I want to married, it’s a question of if that’s you,” the biomedical scientist, 27, said.
But Xavier assured, “I think I can get there if you’re the one.”
Charity gave the date rose to Aaron, but said she still couldn’t decide who to eliminate. “This is actually the hardest thing I’ve had to ever do,” she said to the men. “And for that reason, like, I won’t be giving out a rose right now.”
Later, Tanner went to Charity’s room to hear that she decided to send him home.
“To your family, and to you, it’s just not fair,” Charity said to Tanner. “And I mean, if you really look at … it’s like, in three weeks, someone’s getting on their knee. And it’s like, does that make sense?”
Tanner accepted his fate, which left Charity to inform Xavier about his.
“Quite frankly, I don’t have to give this rose out,” she said to Xavier. “But it something that I want to do, I want to meet your family.”
That meant Xavier would be joining Aaron, Dotun and Joey at hometowns.
The Bachelorette airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.
