It feels like Joey Graziadei’s season of The Bachelor just started, but in reality, we’re already almost to the halfway point.
Season 28 started with 32 women vying for Joey’s attention, but he quickly chopped that down to 22 after the first episode.
While Joey has certainly been playing Mr. Nice Guy and hasn’t made any enemies on his season, he has sent plenty of women home each week.
There were two episodes this week, and we finally saw Sydney go home after weeks of drama between her and Maria.
In the rose ceremony in Malta, he sent two more women home – Edwina Dorbor and Allison Hollinger.
Then, in Spain, he sent Autumn Waggoner and Madina Alam home.
Joey and his 10 remaining women are headed to Canada
Episode 6 of The Bachelor is coming up next week and will take the cast to Canada as Joey continues to work out which of the ladies is his person.
The 10 remaining women with Joey are Maria, Daisy, Jenn, Kelsey T., Lea, Lexi, Katelynn, Jess, Rachel, and Kelsey A.
Their first stop will be in Montreal, Canada, before Joey moves his international search for love to Alberta.
After that, it’ll be time for the Hometown Dates, which will take place in cities in the US and Canada, depending on who is left, at that point.
Then, The Bachelor will finish up in Tulum, Mexico, where Joey will enjoy his Fantasy Suite dates and hopefully hand out his final rose and make a proposal.
This means that Season 28 is left with just five or six more episodes, depending on how they drag them out, and this season feels like one of the fastest we’ve experienced since The Bachelor franchise started.
The Bachelor viewers are team Maria as she begs them to be kind
As The Bachelor season hits the midway point, viewers are still rooting for Maria, who has been through a lot over the past few weeks.
In Episode 2, Sydney took aim and was relentless in trying to get Maria sent home. It backfired on her, and she got sent away after a two-on-one with Joey and Maria that didn’t work out how she had hoped.
Then, Lea stepped into the villain role after Sydney left, which baffled viewers and made them cheer even harder for Maria.
Maria took the high road as The Bachelor villains were inundated with hate following the latest episodes. She asked everyone to be kind and again asked them to not send any hate.
That only made everyone love her more – leading to a call out for producers, whom they believed had been instigating this drama. It’s unclear how much of this is a producer-driven storyline, but some even think Joey is being forced to keep mean girls around and send home the nice ones.
The Bachelor airs on Mondays at 8/7c on ABC.