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
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