Goodbye Season 20. We'll miss you.
Goodbye Season 20. We'll miss you.

Bachelor 2016: Episode 11 Recap

ATFR

Chris Harrison teased all night that there was going to possibly be a wedding for the first time in Bachelor history on After the Final Rose. I almost thought it was going to happen because why else would they go to the trouble of flying out Ben’s pastor and the women’s families?

JoJo’s family must have felt like it was a waste of time. There’s no way they didn’t know she wasn’t the one Ben chose in the end. They could have just said that the family of the woman Ben chose was waiting in the wings and not shown them on camera. But I guess when The Bachelor says jump, everyone asks, “how high?”

I’m sure the fact that JoJo’s family undoubtedly also knew JoJo was going to be The Bachelorette was extra incentive to get them to show up.

It was also kind of a waste of time for Lauren’s family and Ben’s pastor too since they ultimately decided not to get married right then and there. Hopefully, they got to do some fun stuff while they were in L.A.

I don’t blame Ben and Lauren for not getting married on the ATFR. It’d not be much better than a Vegas wedding. That floral arch they set up was pretty cheesy and they didn’t have their friends there to celebrate with them. You have to have at least one grand wedding in your life so you know why Vegas-style weddings are better. Grand weddings cost too damn much, you’re too busy the whole time getting your picture taken to enjoy them, and there’s a high likelihood you’ll get divorced and you’ll have wasted the money.

But I wouldn’t know anything about that or anything…

Mr. Bean

The best part of the ATFR for me was when Chris Harrison said they were going to announce who the next Bachelorette was and it might not be who we thought it was. I suddenly had hope again that we were going to be spared a Caila season because the rumor has been floating around the blogosphere that Caila got the gig.

When JoJo and Ben were sitting on the couch together and they were both making it seem like they’d both moved on and were practically strangers now, my hopes grew even higher. And when Chris Harrison announced that JoJo was going to be The Bachelorette my reaction went a little something like this:

Guy jumping for joy

And then this:

Jimmy Fallon Happy Dance

And then this:

Relieved

And, finally, this:

Jennifer Lawrence smug

Because it just had to be JoJo. All is right with the universe again.

Alright, dear readers. Another season of The Bachelor franchise has come to an end and with that I must bid you adieu. But before I do, it’s time to take off my b*tch cap and perform the seasonal releasing ritual of the cast from their prescribed roles as the good, the bad, and the batsh*t:

Cast of Bachelor Season 20,

I hereby release you from your reality TV personas. Whether you were loved or hated on your season of the diabolical Bachelor franchise, reality TV is not reality. I’m sure you’re all fine people with something better than your 15 minutes of fame to contribute to the world. Take comfort in your friends and family because they are the ones that truly know you and love you for who you really are. Get therapy if you need to. May you be wise and return to the shadows of ordinary life where you are judged on the content of your character rather than the context of your edit. Should you choose to remain in the limelight, do it for the money and never forget who you really are when the cameras and microphones aren’t recording your every word and gesture. Live long and prosper.

 

Priest exorcising demon with cross

 

See you next season, readers! I love you all!

Feeling loved emoji


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Check out these other blogs I think you’ll enjoy:

Therese Odell’s blog – Spoiler free and if you like snark, you will love Therese.
OfficeStace.com – She does a nice, short and to the point spoiler-free recap.
IHateGreenBeans.com – Thorough, spoiler-free recaps by Lincee. Super nice lady too!
Some Guy in Austin – Spoiler-free guy’s perspective on the shows.
BachelorBurnbook.com – A compilation of the funniest tweets about all things Bachelor.
Reality Steve – SPOILER ALERT! Reality Steve is pretty caustic but love him or hate him, he’s entertaining and he’s the only truly accurate source for spoilers and “dirt” on contestants.
Sharleen Joynt’s Blog – Sharleen Joynt is the absolute bomb. She’s by far my favorite former Bachelor/ette contestant of all time. So glad I was finally able to find her blog to share with you guys. She is unsurprisingly the most insightful blogger about the Bachelor/ette/IP franchise.

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10 thoughts on “Bachelor 2016: Episode 11 Recap

    • 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! 🙂

  1. 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.

  2. 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

  3. 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. 🙂

  4. 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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