Bachelor 2016 Episode 11: The Finale
Hey, guys. I really appreciate all the well-wishes you sent my way last week while I was going through my kidney infection. You guys rock. Blogging is actually a lot harder than it looks but you make it worth it every week. So thank you all for reading my blog this season and inspiring me to keep writing with your comments and input. It makes me feel like I’m part of a community rather than just shouting into the void of cyberspace. I feel very grateful that people actually want to read my silly thoughts on this silly (but fun!) franchise.
Before I begin my recap, I want to take a moment to thank the Bachelor gods for not saddling us with a Caila season of The Bachelorette:
So, as some of you may know, I post links to my blog in Reality Steve’s comments section and I unavoidably found out the ultimate outcome of the show after the fantasy suite dates. I was able to skim through and avoid the spoilers when there were multiple women left but when there were only two, it was impossible.
However, there were points in the finale last night that I thought maybe Steve had been wrong (he did turn out to be wrong about Caila being the next Bachelorette – again, Hallelujah. Glory be. Amen.) and that JoJo was actually the woman Ben chose in the end. Ben and JoJo, despite my gut instinct that they simply weren’t a good match, seemed to be really close. But I think their relationship was ultimately much more of a deep friendship than a romance.
You’d think if someone had become your best friend in such a short period of time, that that would be the person you ultimately chose but true love doesn’t really work the way pop psychology dictates healthy relationships should form. There is something very different about true love than every other kind of love. Speaking from experience, you fall in love basically the second you meet the person and you just KNOW they are the one and the laundry list of things you thought you had to have in order to be happy goes right out the window. And the feelings are reciprocated. There’s no chance you will break up. It’s just a done deal.
Like Lauren, before it happened to me, I thought it was a nice idea but not very realistic. After all, I’m too analytical and neurotic to not question EVERYTHING. But it did happen to me and it sounds like it happened to Lauren and Ben.
But there were moments of closeness between Ben and JoJo that made me believe MAYBE the spoiler was wrong.
I still have no idea who Lauren is. I feel like I got a pretty good idea of who most of the women on the show were but she’s a complete mystery to me. But Ben’s happy and she seems happy so congrats to them.
I’m not going to get into the blow-by-blow of what happened on the episode. It was a fairly standard finale episode aside from the scene in the bathroom where Ben and JoJo seemed to be trying to avoid cameras and microphones so JoJo could find out what she was in for the day of the finale.
The only other non-standard part of the finale was that Ben was in love with two women but did we ever really think there wasn’t one he loved more than the other?
Ben’s hesitation at the Neil Lane ring selection ceremony seemed a bit rehearsed and vanished a bit too quickly to come across as genuine.
One second he was like, “I haven’t made up my mind and I’m really torn,” and the next he was like, “I know who it is and I’d like that ring, thank you very much.”
He’d been torturing himself for a week yet the second he sat down with Neil Lane, the clouds suddenly parted and Ben knew Lauren was the one?
One thing I will say is that even though it SEEMS like Ben and Lauren found true love, I didn’t feel it. I felt it with Molly and Jason, I felt it with Ashley and JP, I felt it with Desiree and Chris, and I felt it with Tanner and Jade but I felt nothing watching Ben and Lauren get engaged.
I have a lot of intuition about these things and the couples I don’t feel emotional about tend not to work out. I didn’t feel it with Juan Pablo and Nikki, I didn’t feel it with Chris Soules and Whitney, I didn’t feel it with Kaitlyn and Shawn, I didn’t feel it with Emily Maynard on either of her seasons, I didn’t feel it with Ben and Courtney, and I didn’t feel it with Sean and Catherine.
I know Sean and Catherine are married and have a baby on the way but I would not be surprised if they end up divorced at some point. Their relationship seemed rushed to me because of Sean’s vow of chastity. Their marriage seems much more like a religious and physical bond than a love bond and their religion may keep them together but I don’t think they’re really a love match.
I am waiting for news of Kaitlyn and Shawn’s breakup. It’s been almost a year since they got engaged and neither of them are talking about getting married yet. They moved in together in February but I really have my doubts that they’re going to go the distance.
So since my intuition about who makes it and who doesn’t seems to be mostly right, I do wonder since I felt absolutely nothing watching Ben and Lauren get engaged if they’re going to make it. Time will tell I guess.
Alright, since I’m praising my practically omniscient intuition, let’s take a look back at my night one predictions:
“Ben will get engaged.
Top 4: Lauren B., Amanda, JoJo, and then the fourth spot I think will go to one of these four: Jennifer, Becca, Olivia, or Caila.
Based on first impressions, I think Ben will choose Lauren B. but that may change in the coming weeks as I get to know the women more and how they interact with Ben.
I think the next Bachelorette will be either Amanda, Jennifer, or JoJo. Amanda is super cute and sweet but seems to lack the backbone that former Bachelorettes have had. She’s also really young. Jennifer seems like she’s got her act together and could definitely keep 25 men in line. JoJo seems like middle ground between Amanda and Jennifer.”
Okay, okay. My night one predictions were spot on but then there were those couple of weeks when I swore that Becca was gonna get the 4th slot in the final four and that she and Lauren were going to be the final two and that Ben was going to have a change of heart at the last minute and choose Becca.
And then when Becca got the boot, I thought Caila and Lauren were going to be the final two.
Can we just forget I said any of that and pretend I never said anything after night one? You’d probably be thinking I was freakin’ Nostradamus right about now if I’d just kept my mouth shut.
Next Up: After The Final Rose
Thank you for your funny recaps! I look forward to May and Jo Jo!!
Thank you, Caroline! My finale recap was a little lackluster but I really started losing steam toward the end. Blogging about the Bachelor shows is actually a really time-consuming endeavor for me and takes a lot out of me. I got tired so I just put in what I could. The best part of the finale was finding out JoJo was going to be the Bachelorette. Everything else was fairly predictable. Hard to find anything too funny in what seemed like the same finale I’d seen a thousand times already.
I’ll see you in May! 🙂
I enjoy your recaps but not the jokes about suicide. This is a very serious, devestating act and not something to joke about. This recap contained the second suicide joke I’ve read from you. I considered writing after the first one, perhaps I should have. Any more and then I will no longer read your blog and you’ve lost a fan. . . hope you consider what I’m writing, thanks.
I’m sorry to have offended you, June. Suicide is a serious issue but it should be obvious that I’m only kidding. I deal with suididal ideations due to having chronic illness and I’ve lost an uncle to suicide due to his chronic illness. If you have lost someone due to suicide, I’m sorry.
I’m happy to have you as a fan but I can’t cater to every person’s issues they find offensive. I’m not politically correct and I balk at the notion that I can’t make light of dark issues. Life is too short and full of absurdity and pain for me to take myself or the hard aspects of the human condition too seriously. It saps the joy out of life.
I’m not going to censor myself beyond what I find appropriate to discuss. If my thoughts don’t adhere to social convention and people get offended, so be it.
If you choose not to read my blog anymore, I’ll be sad to see you go but those are the breaks of exercising one’s freedom of speech in a public forum.
Some people will like what I write and others won’t. There is simply no way to please everyone.
Whatever you decide to do, I wish you well.
🙂 Emily
Suicide is an extremely serious issue that affects all too many people (and a devastatingly increasing about of young people), which is why no one should be joking about it. It is tragic and heartbreaking and completely inappropriate.
http://www.meant2live.net/2012/06/no-making-jokes-about-suicide-is-not.html
It is most certainly not an “issue”, anymore so than other topics most people due not joke about (or should not). I find it hard to believe that you find joy in life by making light of people taking their own lives. Why is this topic appropriate to you? Would you also joke about rape? Disabled people? Homosexuality? Genocide? To avoid these topics would ‘sap the joy out of life?’. Think about what you are saying.
You have proven yourself more than capable of writing a funny, insightful commentary without resorting to jokes about tragic ways to die. I’ve ready many of your posts until these. I hope you don’t sell yourself short by thinking you can only be funny by being blase about tragic deaths or similar devastating topics. It would be a real shame.
June,
I read the article you posted and I’m sorry but I simply do not agree with the author. The world has become too politically correct, in my opinion, and I’m not going to dance around people’s sensitivities.
I have extensive experience in my life dealing with the subject of suicide. I’ve been sick since I was 25 years old. I am now 40. I have such a severe digestive disorder that I can barely leave my house. I have had to deal with matters of life and death for 15 years. I have had to come to terms with what it would be like to die and if I would be okay with it because there are times when I’ve been close to death and other times I was in so much pain I wanted to die.
I have traveled a very difficult road in this life, beyond what most people could endure or comprehend. The insight and humor and all the things you like about my blog come from the things I’ve learned from continuing to look into the darkness and find the light in it.
I have no choice but to stare into the abyss of human experience every day of my life and the only way I get through it is by laughing at it as best I can and staying as positive as I possibly can. If anyone has a right to say anything about suicide, it’s me because I’ve actually had to face the possibility over and over and over again. There are far worse things that can happen to you in life than death.
I DO joke about disability and race and all kinds of politically incorrect things and none of it means I actually think negatively about the disabled (I am part of that group) or people with a particular skin color or homosexuals (I’ve been part of that group too). I got crap from someone a few weeks ago for comparing Olivia’s showgirl dancing in Vegas to cerebral palsy and I basically said the same thing to her that I’m saying to you now. I’m not going to censor myself because one person (or a whole planet of people) has a problem with something that I write.
The most important thing I’ve learned from being sick and facing my mortality is that life is way too short to not be your authentic self and that’s what I am being.
You say I am selling myself short by making light of something that YOU think shouldn’t be made light of. But I think I would be selling myself far shorter if I accommodated every critic who took offense at something I have to say. I will not be silenced or censored or apologize for who I am and what I think.
If people take the jokes I make to heart, there’s nothing I can do about it. It is simply impossible to please everyone.
I appreciate the time you took to write me and express yourself but in the end, I can only care about you as a human being, not your opinion of me.
“Whatever I do is done out of sheer joy; I drop my fruits like a ripe tree. What the general reader or the critic makes of them is not my concern.”
– Henry Miller
I just have to ask someone else since no one else I know will talk Bachelor with me…. When Chris H first announced JoJo as the B’ette (YAY!), I watched her and the crowd at first. But then I wondered what Ben really felt about it, so I rewound it and watched just him after the announcement. At first he was clapping and had a smile on, but then it panned back to him and he didn’t look at all happy about it. Did anyone else see that? Not that I think Ben doesn’t love Lauren and all, but he also apparently loved her too and I think it maybe got him a little, thinking about her and 25 hot men. And Lauren said they were going to watch, so he is going to get an eye full!
Hey, Jaime.
I didn’t perceive Ben’s awkwardness that way. I took it as an actual staging issue. It was awkward for Chris H. to announce the new B’ette was coming out and then fake that someone was coming from backstage and then have JoJo still sitting on the couch and Ben being up. Ben was probably told where to go and stand when they did that but I don’t think he got to rehearse it. So I didn’t really read anything in his face that said, “I’m sad it’s JoJo.” He definitely knew before taping started.
You have to remember that Ben and Lauren have been in an intense relationship since November and JoJo hasn’t seen Ben since then and they only knew each other for a few weeks and only had one-on-one time for a few hours. The Bachelor is a TV set. Even on the one-on-ones, there are people all around and they have lots of takes and breaks. When the participants aren’t on camera, they’re surrounded by producers who are in their ear manipulating them emotionally and being told where to stand and what to do. It’s very difficult to get to know someone on a deep level under those circumstances.
So I don’t really buy that JoJo and Ben were best friends or that Ben was as torn about his decision as the show made it seem. I’m sure there have been plenty of leads on these shows who have been torn about their final two, mostly because they don’t know either of them very well yet. It’s just for whatever reason, Ben was either told to tell the women how he felt or he genuinely thought that was the right thing to do. But I don’t think his inability to decide was any stronger than any other Bachelor’s.
In short, I don’t think Ben cares if JoJo is the next B’ette. He’s in love with Lauren and he barely knows JoJo.
If he does, well, then you’re right. He’s going to get an eyeful but them’s the breaks of being The Bachelor.
Thank you for your comment. Feel free to talk Bachelor with me anytime. 🙂
Thanks for all your hard work recapping this sometimes boring season! I, too, am very relieved that the Bachelorette is not Caila. JoJo should make things a little more interesting, and I think she deserves it after being told “I love you” by Ben multiple times.
Thank, Melissa.
I always appreciate your feedback. I’m SO glad JoJo is going to be the B’ette. I agree she deserves something for having to put up with Ben’s indecisiveness.
You’re welcome for the recaps. It was hard to find material sometimes this season because it was so generic but I kept on trucking the best I could.
I’m looking forward to some more action on JoJo’s season. Ben’s a sweet guy but not exactly the most interesting person in the world. JoJo seems to have a little more spice and depth.
See you in May! 🙂
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