Photo: Craig Sjodin/ABC
Warning: This post contains spoilers from Monday’s episode ofThe Bachelor.
London called, butZach Shallcrosscouldn’t answer because he caughtCOVID.
Before getting sick, though, the 26-year-old Bachelor squeezed in a one-on-one with Gabi while in England.
A butler in a bowler hat beckoned Gabi, 25, downstairs to meet Zach and then they jumped in a town car where they sipped champagne. They started off at a perfumery that creates scents for theroyal family. Zach and Gabi smelled a mix of scents before deciding on the ones they liked to create their signature scent, which they named Zabi.
ABC/Ricky Middlesworth
From there,King Charles’s former butler Grant made Zach and GabiQueen Elizabeth’s favorite cocktail. They received a visit from corgis from the royal bloodline, and Gabi tried on designer gowns andtiaras. Gabi said she felt “wanted” because of Zach’s reaction to how she looked.
“This is the most special I’ve ever felt in my life,” Gabi told Zach.
Gabi came back to the hotel with two armfuls of shopping bags, including one filled with shoes fromJimmy Choo.
“I am jealous,” Mercedes said in an on-camera interview. “I just don’t see how that’s fair.”
Greer felt envious, too because she loves tea and Zach knew that, but he didn’t pick her for the date. She walked out in tears when Gabi regaled her day with Zach to the other ladies.
“That was like my personality to a tee,” Greer, 24, cried to Charity, adding that, “tea is like how my family come together and bond.”
Meanwhile, another butler delivered Gabi one of the gowns she tried on earlier so that she could wear it to dinner with him that night.
“I really like see you for you,” Zach said to her.
Gabi also told Zach he makes her feel “so safe and seen without even trying.”
He gave her a rose and they ended the night dancing to a cover ofElvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love.”
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GROUP DATE
Brooklyn, Kat, Aly, Kaity, Ariel, Kylee, Jess, Mercedes and Greer got invited on the group date, leaving Charity to take the last one-on-one. But when the day of the group date arrived, the women received a note from Zach stating that “I’m a little under the weather, but I don’t want to ruin your time here in London.”
So the ladies jumped on a double decker bus for a tour of London without the Bachelor. They also stopped into a pub and twerked in front of a royal guard soldier.
After attempting to make the most of the day sans Zach, the women remained hopeful that they’d see him at the cocktail party that night. But hostJesse Palmershowed up instead with an update: Zach had tested positive for COVID.
“When Zach got the results, he was absolutely crushed,” said Jesse, 44.
After hearing the news, Kaity, 27, delivered a gift basket to Zach’s hotel room and they chatted through the door.
Ricky Middlesworth/ABC
“I just wanted you to know I’m here,” the ER nurse said. “I haven’t stopped thinking about you.”
“I want you to know I have so much confidence in us,” Zach responded.
VIRTUAL COCKTAIL PARTY AND ROSE CEREMONY
Zach had to cancel his one-on-one date with Charity too — but in an effort not to lose more time withthe women, he decided to do the cocktail party and rose ceremony virtually.
First, he talked to Kat, 26, over a video call. The nurse told him she learned the word “snog” and asked if he wanted to virtually snog, so they kissed their screens. “Did it taste good? No, but it’s the thought that counts,” he said.
He and Aly, 26, did something similar when they both made out with oranges.
Greer, who’d been worried about her connection with Zach fading sincereceiving the First Impression Rose, tried to connect with him during their video chat.
Greer told Zach she liked that she couldn’t see her own video during their call because if she could, she probably would’ve stared at herself the whole time. Then the medical sales rep said she understood his struggle with COVID because “I work in sales, and so last time I had COVID was at the end of the quarter, like end of the year. And so I kind of know what it’s like to have a goal that you’re trying to reach and you’re stuck.”
Greer and Zach Shallcross on The Bachelor.Craig Sjodin/ABC
Zach did not think those two situations equated. “In a few short weeks I could be standing in front of my person and that means a lot more to me than the end of a sales quarter,” he told Greer.
She left the conversation in tears. “I didn’t mean to dilute the situation,” Greer said to Charity and Brooklyn.
Greer worried she wouldn’t receive a rose during the virtual rose ceremony, during which the women had to pick up their own roses from the pile on the pedestal.
“While this has been very unique and strange, I think we made the most of it,” Zach told the women via video chat. “Even if it was a virtual cocktail party, I felt like I had that reassurance, I had that clarity that I needed and that’s all I can ask for.”
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The Bachelorairs Mondays at 8 p.m. on ABC.
source: people.com
