Why Does Arie Luyendyk Get Blindsided On Tonight’s Episode of ‘The Bachelor’?

Jacqueline The Bachelor 2018, Jacqueline Trumbull Photo

Instagram (Pictured: Jacqueline Trumbull)

On tonight’s episode of The Bachelor, Arie Luyendyk tells the cameras that he feels blindsided, but there are several reasons he could be feeling this. Now, before we get into the big spoilers on tonight’s episode, THIS IS YOUR SPOILER WARNING. With that out of the way, let’s get into what goes down tonight.

In ABC’s plot description for tonight’s episode, it states, “Jacqueline needs to decide whether she can totally commit herself to the handsome Bachelor and decides to lay it all on the line when she gives a late-night knock on Arie’s hotel door. What transpires turns his world upside down!” If this were not enough, Reality Steve previously reported that Trumbull decides to call it quits on tonight’s episode. According to Steve, “She eliminated herself … because apparently she felt it wasn’t a good fit anymore and things weren’t progressing.”

ABC News recently reported that Trumbull is shown confessing to the cameras that she has her doubts about her relationship with Luyendyk. Trumbull tearfully admitted, “I don’t know that we’re not compatible. What if we could be great together? I just don’t really trust myself to make these decisions. I don’t trust my instincts.”

When writing about tonight’s episode last week in his People blog, Luyendyk revealed that the show will feature its most dramatic moments of the season so far in this episode. Luyendyk wrote that, “I say goodbye to someone I potentially saw myself with at the end and have my most heart-wrenching goodbye of the season. The excitement and stress mounts because I have just one week left to sort out my feelings and relationships before hometowns.” Next week is hometown dates, so perhaps Trumbull just didn’t think meeting the family was the way to go.

Trumbull is a 26-year-old research coordinator from West Virginia and she has made a good friend with one of the other contestants, Kendall Long. In an Instagram post, Trumbull wrote, “Some of you have commented on my lack of airtime. The reason for this is that at this point in the process, I was in love with someone else. Kendall and I cuddled on the couch, cheers’d pee canisters, discussed the philosophy of magic and traded zoology facts with poetry. It is my dying wish to end up pickled in a jar next to Mugatu and Ping. I love you @keykendall88!!” While Trumbull does not make it to the hometown dates, her buddy Long does this season.

The other contestants who Reality Steve reports are included in the hometown dates are Becca Kufrin, Lauren Burnham and Tia Booth. Kufrin got the first solo date of the season and managed to get Luyendyk down on one knee during the limo arrivals on the premiere episode of the season. Tia Booth, a girl from a small town in Arkansas, has charmed Luyendyk and she also happens to be good friends with Raven Gates. Gates is a former Bachelor runner-up and a cast member from Bachelor in Paradise. As for Burnham, she’s had some trouble getting over her nerves, but an ABC promo video shows her confessing to Luyendyk tonight that she’s falling in love with him.