Mel Owens only has one more rose to hand out on season 2 of The Golden Bachelor.
The 66-year-old NFL player-turned-lawyer visited the hometowns of his final three — Peg Munson (Las Vegas), Debbie Siebers (Denver) and Cindy Cullers (Austin) — on the Wednesday, October 22, episode of the hit ABC series.
Peg, 62, was up first and her daughter, Dakota, was not afraid to grill Mel about his feelings for her mom.
“I’m not in love with your mom – yet — because I don’t know If I’m at that stage yet,” Mel began. When asked if would “get there” with Peg, Mel admitted, “I don’t know”
Dakota subsequently told the cameras: “I’m asking Mel some pretty direct questions, his responses aren’t necessarily putting me at ease.”
“But if you don’t get there with any of these women, are you going to say, ‘Would you still like to date after this?’” she asked Mel before pressing: “The goal at the end of this is you’re supposed to get down on one knee and propose to someone.”
“My goal is to find someone — that’s the goal,” he replied. “Whatever that means.”
When Dakota asked again, “Are you actually looking for someone?” Mel tried to assure her: “If I wasn’t serious about it, I wouldn’t be here.”
Mel traveled to see Debbie in Colorado next, with the fitness professional getting deep during their trip to Red Rocks and revealing that her last relationship in her early 50s ended in tragedy.
“I knew he had a little bit of depression, but he hid a lot from me. Within, maybe, six months, I just started seeing this behavior and it was pretty heavy. I had tried breaking up with him a couple times, but I could never because I loved him so much,” Debbie explained to Mel. “It was like I couldn’t live with him and without him. I was completely conflicted.”
Debbie and her then-boyfriend saw his therapist together and she ended it with the professional’s help. “The horrible thing is, he took his life,” Debbie recalled to Mel. “It altered me forever.”
Mel supported Debbie at the time, assuring her that there is no way she could have predicted what happened with her ex.
Mel’s final hometown date was with Cindy where he met the retired biomedical engineer’s three daughters. While her son-in-laws were more interested in talking about college football with Mel, one of Cindy’s daughters took more of a cue from Peg’s daughter Dakota.
“She’s dated and she’s had some really great guys, but they’re just not ‘the guy.’ It’s really important for her that whatever is next is for the rest of her lifetime. Do you see that with my mom? Is that kind of where you guys are at in the experience?” she asked Mel.
“I don’t know. I like your mom a lot. I don’t know what’s going to unfold in the next few weeks or months or whatever,” Mel confessed. “I’m letting it come naturally.”
Worried that Mel was being a little “tight-lipped” or “unsure” about his future with her mom, she admitted in a confessional, “I don’t think that he really gave a lot of straight answers. I’m a little bit worried about the long-term relationship that I know my mom wants.”
Cindy, for her part, got emotional while informing her daughter about her strong feelings for Mel.
“I’m not going to big L you unless you’re there with me,” she cautioned.
She later told Mel, “I just want you to know I really, really am falling for you and I see how you and I can forge something precious moving forward.”
When it was time for Mel to pick his final two, he began with a message for the three women.
“When I first spoke with the group regarding the podcast, I had my own personal mea culpa,” he said at the rose ceremony, referring to the comments he made about casting women 45-60 before the season started airing. “I thought that I wanted a certain type of woman and I still do and they’re right here before me: beautiful, accomplished, brilliant, spiritual. But I have a very, very difficult decision. It’s not one that I take lightly and I stand before you humbled with an open heart.”
Mel ultimately gave roses to Peg and Cindy, sending an emotional Debbie home.
“It is very upsetting but I knew coming into this that this was a possibility. Of course I thought or hoped …” she told Mel through tears.
After Mel assured Debbie that she “touched my heart in more ways than one,” Debbie left Mel with a final message: “Take care of those girls, OK?”
The pair kissed goodbye twice before Debbie went into the car.
“I put myself out there in such a giant way only to have yet another disappointment,” she said. “It’s beyond painful.”
While Mel’s journey continues with the Women Tell All on Wednesday, October 29, he gave Us Weekly exclusive insight into making his final choice — which included making a pros and cons list — in his Us cover story.
“It was tough, and I’m just trying to figure out who is going to be the best fit for me, who I would enjoy,” he told Us. “The hometowns are all great. But there’s that magnetism that pulls you in that direction no matter what, and it’s a little bit more toward one person than the other, so I went with my gut.”
He added that the ending is emotional — and unexpected.
“You won’t believe how we get there, not mechanically, but how we get there emotionally,” he said. “There’s some movement and twists and turns.”
The Golden Bachelor airs on ABC Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET.
