The Bachelorette‘s Hannah Brown continued her search for love on Monday night — and uncovered “some little red flags” about one contestant in particular.
During the Memorial Day episode, Hannah had a one-on-one date and two group dates. The former pageant queen, 24, selected Connor S. for the coveted one-on-one and hinted that the two would be going sailing. The 24-year-old investment analyst said ahead of the date, “I feel like the luckiest guy in the world.” But the date didn’t go as planned after he received a note from Hannah.
“Connor, I’m so sorry but I have to cancel my plans for our date today. I’m not feeling 100 percent. Please come over to my hotel suite to keep me company. Love, Hannah,” read the message.
After stopping at the grocery store to pick up flowers and soup, Connor arrived at Hannah’s hotel to learn that she had spent time in the hospital after she “basically passed out” and “got pumped with some fluids.” When they spent time together in her bed, Connor revealed that his mom got into a skiing accident when he was 13 that caused her to have a stroke. Seeing how his dad cared for his mom during that time gave Connor a model of the marriage he hopes to have one day.
“That’s really what I aspire to have and the love that I want,” he told Hannah.
Miss Alabama 2018 then had to get back to sleep (“Doctor’s orders,” she said), so Connor had to leave — but not before he hid sticky notes for Hannah around her room. Back at the mansion, the other men noticed that Connor didn’t secure a rose. But after Hannah woke up and found the notes, which each listed a different thing Connor loved about her, she sent security to fetch the Dallas resident.
“I want to be able to have something for him since he was so sweet with me today,” Hannah said.
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Hannah, who changed out of her pajamas, immediately gave a rose to Connor when they reunited, and they enjoyed a private performance of “Love Someone” by Lukas Graham. They also shared a sweet kiss.
Luke P. tries to stake his territory
Connor S. left some of Hannah’s suitors feeling slightly disappointed and a bit threatened. No one more so than Luke P., who grilled Connor about Hannah’s condition with questions such as, “What are her symptoms?” and “Was she coughing?” and “What was she wearing?”
When the import/export manager, 24, ended up on one of the group dates — inspired by Hannah’s love of her photos with her two golden retrievers and the upcoming release of Secret Life of Pets 2 — he did his best to make sure Hannah could always hear his bark. Along with trying to get extra time at the photo shoot with Hannah, Luke P. uncomfortably offered to walk her to her dressing room afterward, at which point the Alabama native started to view his affection as aggression.
“Luke P. stole the show again but in a negative way,” Hannah said in an on-camera interview after the shoot. “I know he’s one of my strongest connections, but it’s annoying when he tries to flaunt our connection in front of the guys. There have been just some little red flags about how he carries himself that bothers me a little bit. It’s like this fine line of: I really think it’s attractive to it’s the most unattractive thing that I’ve ever seen in my life.”
RELATED: The Bachelorette’s Hannah Brown Calls Luke P. ‘Cocky’: ‘I Don’t Like That’
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During the second part of the date, Hannah confronted Luke P. about her mixed feelings towards him.
“I’ve been struggling a little bit with it because I feel like you already think that it’s promised to you and that bothers me a lot,” she said. “And like, I feel like your confidence in this kind of makes me irritated in a way. … I want you to like focus on me and you do that, but you also don’t respect that I do have other relationships here for me and that bothers me. I like confidence but it’s like cocky in a way. I don’t like that at all. I want it to change.”
Early frontrunner Luke P. didn’t like what he heard. “It doesn’t make sense to me,” he told the cameras. “I just want to continue to move on. I’m going to act like the conversation never happened.”
So for the rest of the night, Luke P. tried to interrupt numerous conversations and intercept Hannah before pilot Peter got a chance to talk to her. “I promise I’m going to talk you again but I don’t want to do this right now,” Hannah said when Luke P. made an effort to snag her again. “Let me talk to everybody, but like I want to call my own shots, okay? I want to call my own shots. I said I was going to talk to you and I will talk to you again.”
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In an attempt to regain some power, Luke P. declared to the other men that he had considered leaving and still would if he didn’t “feel strongly” that Hannah was his future wife. “I can’t stand this process,” he lamented. “Honestly, it’s tough for me. I would like to say I’m a strong guy here and that this is easy, but it’s not. I even had thoughts about leaving here tonight, about going home tonight. Just because I can’t say that I’m in love with her. I mean, if I did feel that way then I would be ready to get down on one knee.”
Before Hannah handed out the group date rose, she tried to get through to Luke P. once again. “I still don’t feel like you’re getting it, okay?” she told him. “You’re not the only relationship that I have a strong connection with and I don’t feel like you’ve respected that even tonight. So I just need you to work harder and fix this.”
This time, Luke claimed to have gotten the message. “I would feel robbed if you didn’t communicate that with me,” he said. “I’m really appreciative and now I know what I need to do.”
At the end of the date, Hannah gave the group date rose to Peter, 27.
RELATED VIDEO: The Bachelorette’s Hannah B Opens Up About Her Season So Far
Cam continues to Always Be Cam
Another early frontrunner, Cam, also seemed to be burning his own bridge during Monday night’s episode.
During the other group date, on which Jenny Mollen and Jason Biggs offered lessons on female anatomy and having a baby, Cam fought for time with Hannah by continuously interrupting the other men’s conversations with her. He even stood idly by while Mike confessed to Hannah that he had gotten an ex pregnant and she lost the baby in the second trimester.
Cam’s retort: He quit his job to come on The Bachelorette.
“If we’re going to talk about bold gestures, I actually had to resign from my job,” Cam told Hannah. “I want you to know that I chose to be here for you and I don’t want to let any other guys get in the way of that.”
Still feeling he didn’t get enough time, Cam, 30, declared to the rest of the men ahead of the tailgate party (which replaced this week’s cocktail party) that he needed to grab Hannah to “say something pretty serious.” The software salesman added that this “very personal” conversation “may be too much for her to handle and she sends me home even before the rose ceremony.”
As soon as Cam got the chance, he pulled Hannah aside and said his piece.
“Back in the year 2014 I was getting off work and all of a sudden my right leg locked up on me,” he began. “And all of a sudden I was running a fever and they had to rush me to the hospital. Essentially, they told me that I need to get an amputation. So life really tried to beat me down. The day before I got surgery, I got a call from my dad that my grandma had passed away. The most recent surgery that I had [in] November of 2017 hit me the hardest because I actually had a 10-month-old puppy at the time that I was super close to that I had to re-home.”
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Mike, 31, called bulls— and told Hannah that Cam confessed that string of sad stories in order to receive a “pity rose.”
“He was basically doing Dear John letters to the other guys, thinking that he was going home,” the portfolio manager said.
When Hannah questioned Cam about the validity of his story and his intentions, Cam claimed, “I would never compromise the integrity of what I’ve been through for a pity rose. Like, this is a serious thing.”
He did, however, confess to writing letters to his fellow competitors. “I was writing letters because I didn’t know how you would respond to this,” Cam continued.
But Cam didn’t receive any points for honesty. “This just feels really schemey and slimy to me,” Hannah decided. “It just feels really, really calculated. I’m having a hard time right now and I need to think about it.”
After mulling over her decision, Hannah sent Cam home at the rose ceremony, along with Jonathan and Joey. Tyler G. also “had to leave” earlier, Hannah disclosed, though she gave no reason as to why he departed.
The Bachelorette airs Mondays (8 p.m. ET) on ABC.