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‘The Bachelor’ Recap: Madison Prewett Finally Opens Up to Peter Weber — But Is It Too Late?

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SPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not yet watched the ninth episode of Season 24 of “The Bachelor

And then there were three.

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Last week, titular bachelor Peter Weber survived a round-robin of meet the parents, and chose to continue his journey with three women: Madison Prewett, Hannah Ann Sluss and Victoria Fuller. After sending Kelsey Weier home, Weber was both upset by the elimination and excited about his final three. However, the moment was short lived because Prewett pulled him aside to confide that she was uncomfortable with the idea of him being intimate with the other contestants.

“So what are you saying? If I were to spend the night with someone else, that’s not something that you could do?” Weber said.

Prewett stayed silent for an uncomfortable few seconds before Weber piped back up to say, “So that’s a no?”

Weber verbalized that he didn’t really understand what she was asking, and he acknowledged that all he didn’t think what she was saying was fair to his other relationships, he didn’t want it to “get [her] down in any way or make [her] feel that I think any less of what [they] have.”

Weber did ask Prewett to clarify if she wouldn’t want to keep things going with him if he was intimate with one of the other women. To this she replied that she “in no way” wanted to give him an ultimatum, “but for me actions speak louder than words, and I’m just really big on that.”

Reflecting on how the other two women have already told him they are falling in love with him, Weber questioned if Prewett was on the same page as him because she has not said as much to him thus far. This made the impending trip to Australia all the more dramatic — especially when it was revealed that, for the first time in recent ‘Bachelor’ history, the final three contestants would spend the week living together. In the words of Fuller: “So awkward.”

Weber wasted no time diving right into his first overnight date, though — with Sluss. First they rode jet skis and then they sat down in a restaurant (but didn’t appear to actually order or eat anything), at which Sluss said she would rather walk away with her heart broken than with regret. Weber confided in her that her dad asked him not to say he was falling in love with her unless he was 100% sure — and he said he was: “I’m not going to hold that back, and I don’t want you to worry about us.”

The two retired to the penthouse suite together where it was certainly implied they slept together, while Fuller and Prewett discussed what could be happening between Weber and Sluss. Prewett admitted it was a “weird thought” that they might be spending the night together. She also confided in Fuller that lately, it the process of the show has felt like “a lot.”

Fuller added that it must be especially hard this week when Weber has overnight dates because one wouldn’t normally be OK with their boyfriend staying the night with other women. But, she also said she thought it was “so important” for him to get to do that because “you’re waking up to this person every day for the rest of your life, you need to see if that’s a good fit.”

To draw out Prewett’s tension further, she was left with Sluss, who stayed mostly tight-lipped about how far her date went while Fuller was the next one up for her date.

Fuller’s one-on-one time with Weber was front-loaded with a followup from their conversation in Virginia Beach during the hometown visits after his ex-girlfriend warned him to “be careful” around Fuller.

“I want you to know that I trust you, and I have your back, I have your side,” he said. “And I’m excited for us to have a clean slate now.”

Where he took Sluss to see Gold Coast by sea, he took Fuller by air — in a helicopter tour over the city before touching down by a waterfall in the Gondwana Rainforest. There, they talked more about the hometown date and his disappointment that he didn’t end up meeting her family. But, although he told the cameras that this has been his “most-tested relationship,” he wasn’t mad about that because it has taught him a lot.

However, there was still more to learn. When they sat down to dinner, Fuller said they needed to talk more about their communication. She said her issues with it stem from a past relationship in which she was never asked about her feelings. “So when you do, I get defensive,” she said. “Like, ‘why is he asking me that? That must mean that there’s something wrong.’ But really it’s just because you want to know. And that took me a minute to realize.”

Fuller asked him to spell out what he needs from her, and he said that is “100% confidence in knowing that I can always count on you and always lean on you. Even if I tell you something, and I say it the wrong way, you’re able to not have that piss you off in a way or it’s too much where you do need to get away. If I say something to you that’s not in the right way, you need to tell me that, and I’ll find a different way to get it across.”

They, too, went back to a shared fantasy suite.

Meanwhile, Prewett told Sluss that she expressed to Weber her concerns over him sleeping with the other women, this time going so far as to say it’s such a big deal for her, “it’s kind of a make or break for me.”

Sluss didn’t react to Prewett, but in her confessional interview she dismissed the issue, saying, “We knew what we signed up for. … It’s truly madness. It’s just madness.”

Prewett eventually got her time with Weber, and it included something that would only increase her stress level: climbing to the top of one of the tallest buildings in Gold Coast.

Back at the hotel, Sluss and Fuller discussed how Prewett had yet to tell Weber she’s saving herself for marriage. “Basically Madison told Peter her expectations for him as far as intimacy with her and probably us and that’s going to affect her decision moving forward?” Fuller summarized. “It’s kind of an ultimatum to question somebody, put him on the spot about other relationships that are private. I don’t know, that doesn’t really sit well with me.”

Finally sitting down to dinner, though, Prewett finally shared with Weber her decision to remain a virgin until marriage. She also said that she didn’t expect everybody to have made the same life decisions she has, but “I do expect, at this point, for us to be honest about the expectations we do have.”

She also admitted she wouldn’t be able to accept a proposal if Weber had slept with the other women. “I just can’t wrap my mind around, in a week from now, if you’re down on one knee and six days before that you slept with someone else,” she said.

Weber then returned the honesty and told Prewett that he had been intimate with the other women.

“I 100% can see you and I together at the end,” he said. “But I have to be honest with you, coming into this week I could see that with other people, too. I hate that I can say that to you, but that’s the truth, too.”

Feeling hurt that she had told him he could lose her “if he made certain decisions and he made them anyway,” Prewett walked away from the table. But Weber soon followed her and asked her not to walk away.

“I know I’m not perfect — I’m not even close,” he said, but he could still see them “together forever.”

He also said that he knew he hurt her and he was sorry for it. In the end, though, she walked off, leaving him standing, and eventually having to head back to his suite, alone.

The Bachelor” airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on ABC.

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