‘The Bachelor’ episode 8 preview: Who confronts Nick Viall at hometown dates?

You’ve been waiting for this point on “The Bachelor,” and we’re definitely glad now that it is officially here: Hometown dates! This is a chance when some of these people are going to get to know Nick Viall better, and also a chance for us to hopefully get some new, interesting, and surprising drama.

Apparently, one other thing that we’re going to get a chance to see is a SURPRISE visitor showing up to speak to Nick at some point. Do we think that this is as big a deal as the promo for next week’s episode made it seem? Probably not, since it’s probably either a past contender from this season, or someone he’s been with on one of these shows like Andi Dorfman, Kaitlyn Bristowe, or Jen Saviano. It’s a way to get people talking about the next new episode even if the promotion more or less equates to a whole lot of fluff.

For the record, we also have a hard time thinking that we’re going to be seeing anyone else sent home for hometown dates. Every season in recent memory where we’ve seen these, we’ve seen a grand total of four people take part in them. We don’t know why the show continues to hype things up that are almost never going to happen, like “unpredictable” Nick sending home more people before we get around to the next point in the competition.

Eventually, the competition is going to be shifting over to Lapland, Finland, which is going to be the setting for both the overnight dates and potentially also the final rose ceremony. This is certainly a different setting than what we tend to see for the end of the show — the last time that we saw a wintry final rose was back on Ben Flajnik’s season, where he and Courtney Robertson got engaged. (Hopefully, this engagement ends up faring a little better, regardless of who is involved in it.)

What do you want to see on the hometown dates for the show next week? Share with a comment, and head over here to get our review for Monday’s episode. (Photo: ABC.)