By now we all know that The Bachelor is kind of a nasty show. Nowhere is this more evident than during one of the franchise’s season finales: Even when everything goes perfectly according to plan and ends in a dreamy engagement, viewers can expect to experience an absolutely brutal breakup in between. Humiliation is a feature, not a bug. That said, Tuesday night’s finale and the “After the Final Rose” special for this season of The Bachelorette managed to be even more evil than usual.
The Bachelorette of season 21 was 26-year-old resident Jenn Tran, who was chosen as the franchise’s first Asian-American lead after being a contestant on the previous season of The Bachelor. By the time she got to the finale, she had whittled down her dating pool of 25 men to two: Marcus, a military veteran, and Devin, a cargo company owner who immediately drew comparisons to Pete Davidson. All three were at a resort in Hawaii. Jenn told both men she loved them, but Marcus’s difficulty saying it back seemed to lead directly to the couple’s downfall, and the way was clear for Devin, a cocky guy who nonetheless seemed to genuinely like Jenn, to be the last man standing. Jenn declared her intention to break with the show’s tradition and propose to Devin herself rather than simply accept his proposal. If things had gone differently, that would have been the news of the night.
Instead, the show’s host, Jesse Palmer, who was taping the finale in front of a live studio audience in Los Angeles, suddenly cut to the Hawaii footage. “I know exactly what you’re thinking right now,” he said onstage. “Why is Jesse interrupting this beautiful moment?” Wouldn’t we see Jenn’s historic — even feminist — marriage proposal? No, Palmer explained. “You won’t see that proposal. Because of what’s happened in Hawaii since that day, we decided it wouldn’t be appropriate for anyone to see it until we hear from Jenn.” He brought out Jenn, who tearfully recounted that she and Devin had broken up. In her telling, she’d tried to make it work, but Devin’s attitude had changed shortly after the engagement and he didn’t seem to want to fight for her.
Devin also came out, so that the two could see each other for the first time since their separation, and Jenn made further allegations: She was particularly hurt that he had broken up with her in a phone call and that he had followed some women on Instagram shortly after the separation, especially her former Bachelor Castmate Maria (who, before Jenn was named this season’s Bachelorette, was presumably in the running for possible candidates). It was awkward and looked particularly heartbreaking for Jenn, but it was also exactly the kind of season-ending finale or confrontation you’d expect from the Bachelor-Verse.
What really made this season different was what happened next. Palmer announced that they would now proceed with airing the proposal, the very footage that the show had, in a rare burst of restraint, deemed inappropriate just minutes earlier. (Now that I’ve re-watched the transcripts, I think he had previously said “until we hear from Jenn,” but still.) He even tried to portray the proposal as some sort of tribute to Jenn’s beautiful soul: “I know your love story hasn’t turned out the way you hoped or expected, and I’m really, really sorry for that, Jenn,” Palmer began, trying to strike a careful balance between portraying a being responsible for Jenn’s emotional destruction while also insisting that he was a very big fan of Jenn’s. “But I can also confidently say that while you may not have found the love and true love you’ve been looking for, you’ve also shown us all what a strong and powerful woman you are. Jenn, you weren’t afraid to speak your mind, and you weren’t afraid to go after what you want either. You’ve done that throughout the entire journey, including making history with a beautiful marriage proposal like we’ve never seen before. And, Jenn, no one can ever take that away from you. I know you haven’t seen the movie yet. What do you think – should we all watch it together?”
Jenn nodded sadly, the nod of a woman who’s signed a contract. “Do I have a choice?” she asked. No, not really, and she knew it. And as Jenn sat there on the couch next to the man who’d broken her heart a few weeks ago, they pulled out the video of her becoming the first Bachelorette ever to propose to her winner. During part of it, producers showed a little square of Jenn’s devastated live reaction in the corner, crying and drying her eyes with tissues. When that square disappeared from the screen, I wondered if it was because Jenn had stormed off the stage, which would have been a perfectly reasonable reaction to having to endure all of that.
The proposal airing seemed odd to viewers, and the decision has already drawn a lot of backlash on social media. It’s easy to see why: the show initially pretended to skip this footage, so returning to it felt like an unnecessary stabbing that served no narrative purpose other than to embarrass Jenn. Still, I don’t think this is the worst thing the franchise has ever done. Longtime viewers may remember the Season 22 finale of The Bachelorin which lead actor Arie surprised the woman he got engaged to on the show, Becca, with an on-camera breakup, while she thought it was a normal little reunion visit for the two of them. Remember how Jenn specifically criticized Devin for not breaking up with her in person? One should be careful what one wishes for – the call may have been stupid, but given the alternative of a personal breakup with a surprise camera crew, it might have been for the best. Given that The Bachelorette failed to secure this footage, whether due to conscience or bad luck, it makes perfect sense to me that the producers felt they needed something else to show themselves, another gruesome ordeal that Jenn had to go through. The show’s real mistake was not telling the story in a linear fashion. I doubt anyone would have minded if it had aired the marriage proposal and then had Jenn talk about the breakup, but by changing the order, the franchise made its bloodthirstiness too obvious. Viewers know deep down that this is a heartless show, but they’d rather not deal with It.
