'Bachelorette' star Jillian Harris cuts two more bachelors, Ed returns

Two bachelors were eliminated and two others unexpectedly returned during last night's The Bachelorette broadcast on ABC.


Michael, a 25-year-old break dance instructor from Astoria, NY, and Jesse, a 27-year-old wine maker from Carmel Valley, CA, failed to receive roses from Jillian Harris at the season's seventh Rose Ceremony, bringing their The Bachelorette experiences to an end.

Only one bachelor was originally scheduled to be eliminated at the ceremony however two men ended up going home after Ed, a 29-year-old Chicago, IL technology consultant who had quit the competition before the season's fifth Rose Ceremony to avoid being fired from his job, returned to the show and convinced Jillian to give him a second chance.

"I'm sad. I feel like sh-t right now, this sucks," Jesse said after his elimination.  "You know, someone pulls the rug out from under and tells you [that] you have to leave, it's a tough pill to swallow.  If I was a betting man, before tonight I would have said I'm making it, I'm getting a rose.  Maybe this is why I don't bet."

"For a girl that just dumped me, that just broke my heart, I can not say a bad thing about the girl," Michael said as he departed the Rose Ceremony.  "There are just a hundred thousand small things between me and her that I love, that made me fall for the girl.  I'm not going to get to see her, and yeah, that is not going to go away for a while." 


The Bachelorette's seventh fifth-season episode began with Jillian leaving the Banff Springs, Alberta resort town which had hosted the season's sixth Rose Ceremony and embarking on hometown dates with each of her five remaining bachelors.

The first four hometown dates all seemed to go smooth, with Jillian visiting Michael and his family in Valencia, CA; Jesse and his family in Carmel, CA; Reid, a 30-year-old realtor from Philadelphia, PA, and his family in Philadelphia; and Kiptyn, a 31-year-old business developer from Encinitas, CA, and his family in San Diego, CA.

However things hit a rough patch when Jillian visited Wes, a 32-year-old musician from Austin, TX, and his family in Austin.  After spending some time meeting Wes' bandmates and listening to them perform, Jillian returned to her hotel to get ready for dinner with his family. 

"Doing this with Wes here today went better than I could have ever possibly imagined," Jillian gushed.  "He is probably the most incredible guy, the most talented guy, I have ever dated.  I can't stop thinking how excited I am to meet his family."

But while she waited for Wes to pick her up, she got an unexpected visit from Jake, the 31-year-old commercial pilot from Dallas, TX that she had eliminated at the show's previous ceremony.


"Since I left Canada I've been heartbroken [but] I'm not here to get a rose back, Jillian made her decision about me," Jake explained before meeting with Jillian.  "My goal is to protect her... Wes is a deceiver, that guy will say whatever he's got to say to get his agenda done.  I need to tell Jillian that Wes has a girlfriend.  It's not fair that Wes came here and has been playing with Jillian's heart and so I'm going to put a stop to it today."

Jillian was understandably surprised by Jake's visit, and even more surprised when he revealed that he wasn't there to ask her for a second chance.

"It's okay, just give it to me," Jillian urged Jake after he struggled to explain the reason for his visit.  "Wes is here for his career, Wes doesn't love me, Wes is gay -- like I don't care, just tell me what it is, I just need to know."

"Wes has a girlfriend," Jake replied.  "Her name is Laurel.  We're talked about Laurel more than three times."

Jillian seemed hesitant to believe Jake's claim.


"So are you confident he has a girlfriend?  Like 100%?" she asked Jake.

"I wouldn't be here to tell you something I 'thought.' Wes has a girlfriend," Jake answered, adding that Wes would attempt to tell Jillian that Laurel was only a former girlfriend he was still good friends with.  "He's real quick on his feet."

The additional details seemed to briefly convince Jillian that Jake was being truthful, however that changed once Wes arrived and she told Wes about Jake's accusations.

"That's crazy," Wes.  "Here's what I told Jake: I had a girlfriend, we've been broke-up but we've still stayed friends, she's still one of my best friends to this very day.  I told Jake that but I would never, ever go back to her because I can't, because I can't go backwards."

"The fact that Jake would say that is crazy," he added.  "I'm not here to play any games, I'm really not.  I'm being as honest with you as I possibly can.  I'm not that good of a liar, honestly.  I think that you should be able to look at me and tell whether I'm telling you the truth or not."


Unsure whom she should believe, Jillian then called Jake -- who had previously offered to confront Wes directly if she wanted -- and asked him to return to her room to "clear up" the matter with Wes.

However neither man backed down during their face-to-face discussion of Jake's accusations.

"Well Jake, a man of character," Wes said sarcastically as he opened the door and let Jake into Jillian's hotel room.  "I guess we need to talk."

"Yeah we do," Jake replied.

After sitting on a couch with Jillian in between them, Jake made his accusations directly to Wes.


"Can you look me in the eye and tell me that you didn't tell me on multiple occasions that you're in a relationship with Laurel?" Jake asked.

"I told you we've been broke-up for a year," Wes replied.

"So when you told me that you had a girlfriend [when we were] in the hot tub," Jake began to counter before Wes cut him off.

"She's always going to be one of my girlfriends, always," Wes said.

"And then when you thumped me hard as hell in the back of the head when Tanner spoke up?" Jake said.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Wes said.  "What are you talking about Jake?"


"It's a lie," Wes told Jillian.

"Jake, I don't have a girlfriend," Wes said.  "I told you I had a girlfriend a year ago and we dated and we're still good friends.  I never told you I was in a relationship right now.  I never told you I have a girlfriend right now.  I never told you that not one time.  Obviously you're trying to ruin my character and integrity as a man."

"You have no idea what I went through coming down here," Jake told Wes.  "And you've going to lie to my face, man?  That's the first time you have ever done that Wes, ever. I'm really disappointed."

"I'm disappointed too, I really am," Wes replied.

Realizing that the discussion was going nowhere, Jillian said goodbye to Jake, who broke down in tears after leaving the hotel room.

"Today has been an emotional rollercoaster.  I care about Jillian, she's just an innocent girl trying to find love and Wes is in the way," he said.  "He should be ashamed that he's still here.  She's been giving him a rose when it needed to go to somebody else."


"Honestly, I don't know what to believe right now," Jillian said.  "Do I trust the all-American perfect guy or do I trust the all-Texan bad boy?"

Once Jake left, Jillian and Wes discussed the awkward situation further, with Wes once again insisting he didn't have a girlfriend.

Afterward, Jillian and Wes proceeded with their original plan to meet with Wes' family.

"I'm sorry we're so late," Jillian told the family before she and Wes proceeded to tell them about Jake's return visit.

"He's just jealous because he got kicked off and you're still there," one of Wes' sisters said.

"Guys are always going to be jealous of you Wesley, it's always been like that," another sister added.  "Just because you are who you are and they wish they could be like you."


The visit with Wes' family eventually led Jillian to the conclusion that although Tanner had previously also told her the same thing before he also eliminated, Jake's claims weren't true.

"His family told me that Wes was definitely everything what I believed him to be," Jillian said afterward. "If he was untrustworthy, if he was a Casanova, I think that they would have been more concerned."

"Wes' family really verified to me that he does not have a girlfriend.  Wes wants to be loyal, he wants to be a one-woman man.  That's what I needed to hear from them.  I have always followed my heart and sometimes I've been burned but I've never regretted following my heart.  I really like him so I have no choice but to put all of this girlfriend stuff behind me and start from where we started at the very beginning."

"I think Jake is who he is... a back-stabbing piece of sh-t," Wes said afterwards.  "Jillian likes me and that's really what matters."

However Jillian found one more surprise waiting for her when she returned to Los Angeles for The Bachelorette's next Rose Ceremony: Ed, who had quit the show despite already having received a rose from Jillian before the season's fifth Rose Ceremony.

"I realized that I made a huge mistake, I got home and I could not stop thinking about you," Ed told Jillian after he surprised her in her hotel room.  "I felt like I need to re-prioritize what I'm doing and I think I need to be here with you.  I want another shot."


"Are you kidding me?" Jillian replied.

The pair then proceeded to discuss how much Ed's departure had bothered both of them, resulting in Jillian eventually telling Ed that he should attend the night's Rose Ceremony but noting that she wasn't sure whether it would be "fair to the other guys" if she allowed him to return to the competition.

"You did miss a lot," she said.  "But I think that you should come to the Rose Ceremony tonight."

"I don't even know what to think right now, I have no idea," Jillian told the cameras after Ed departed.  "Ed has already let me down once before and seeing him I get so many butterflies but I'm scared.  I also need to think about how much time he took away from me and how much he put me through and how far behind he is now and I need to think about the other guys.  I can only bring four guys with me after tonight and now there are six guys."

Jillian expressed similar thoughts during her pre-Rose Ceremony interview with The Bachelorette host Chris Harrison.

"The only negative feelings I had was it's not really fair to the other guys who are here who have stuck it out and I think that my relationship with a lot of the guys is farther than it is with Ed right now," she told Chris.  "But I do remember how crazy I was about him and still how I feel about him."


Chris also noted that Ed's absence meant Jillian had missed the opportunity to meet his family, which she acknowledged could be an issue.

"There's something about meeting the family, I'm a huge family girl and I'm not sure if I could accept a proposal from Ed without at least talking to his family," she replied.

During the conversation, Jillian also reiterated how much she had enjoyed her hometown visits with all the bachelors.

"[The families] were all so welcoming and so warm," she said,  "I had a great date with Jesse, an incredible date with Kiptyn.  Me and Reid, our relationship went to new heights, a new level.  Michael, of course his family made me laugh the whole time.    I was waiting for that family where I left the house and said 'Oh, I don't fit there' and there wasn't one family that I thought that."

"I asked Wes straight up and he told me he didn't have a girlfriend and I feel like out of principle I owned it to him to trust him," she added about her final visit with Wes. 

"[But] I'm not going to say I didn't have any doubts in my mind still after that.  There's a lot about him, some major conflicts, that I don't know if I'm going to be able to get over and I don't know if he's going to be able to resolve.  But I felt like I would rather make my own decision and be wrong and get burned than follow somebody else's lead and be wrong and hurt somebody else."


Chris then surprised the five bachelors with the news that Ed would also be joining them for the Rose Ceremony, causing several of them -- particularly Michael -- to become even more anxious than usual.

Michael's anxiety later proved to be warranted when Jillian proceeded to offer roses to Reid, Kiptyn, Ed, and Wes -- resulting in Michael and Jesse being eliminated from the competition.

"I was very surprised to see Ed tonight and he took away my shot," Jesse said after his elimination.  "Wes is a musician so of course he's going to exploit that.  Yeah, he's here for the wrong reasons.  I've had my fair share of obstacles and hurdles to get over and this one hurts right now more than anyone but I'll find a way."

"Oh man, I straight up loved that girl, didn't I?  I have no doubt the next time I saw her I would have told her I'd loved her and I'd have been down on my knee pretty quick," Michael said.

"If I could tell Jillian three things if she was standing in front of me the first thing would absolutely being and probably always be that she was beautiful.  The second thing would be I am going to miss you and the third thing would be be happy, because that's all I wanted to do, is make her happy.  I'd hate to think that this would be the case where you don't recognize something until it's gone but now that I know I won't get to see her again."






About The Author: Steven Rogers