Synopsis
“After all the roses and onions” Chris Harrison and a studio audience assembled to watch the dramatic final showdown between Whitney and “the virgin from San Diego", Becca. Andrea, Zack, Cosmo, Bailey, Melissa and I parked ourselves on the couch (our place, because apparently A to Z don't currently own a piece of furniture). Chris Soules went back to Arlington, Iowa to walk around his
farm in a nice jacket. Whitney came by after combing her hair in Dubuque. She
met the family and incited a rash of tears over lunch.
The farmer’s sisters had
him compare Whitney and Becca. He stuttered and stumbled for a while before
summarizing that Becca was “different than Whitney, and cool.” “It seems like
he’s struggling between the emotional choice of Becca and the intellectual
choice of…whatshername,” Zack said. Whitney said “don’t you dare forget how
much I love you,” on her way out and that she was “very confident I’ll be the
future Mrs. Soules.” “This could be painful,” Melissa said. “We could be
talking about this tomorrow morning,” Andrea added.
The farmer drank with his boys in a vast, well-lit toolshed.
“Whitney seems like she’s all-in,” some guy wearing a plaid shirt and down vest
noted. “Becca is keeping her cards closer to the vest," he added. "Kaitlyn took a bad beat, Britt busted out on a semibluff, and Carly was drawing dead preflop," he finished.
Becca brought cookies to the farmer on his gray, frozen,
windswept wintry farm. “It’s a beautiful day!” the farmer exclaimed and brought
her inside. The farmer’s sisters cross-examined Becca and she admitted that she
was falling in love with him but not in love with him. Then she said that she
wouldn’t be moving to Iowa anytime soon and that the relationship would be
“long-distance” for the meantime. “She’s a hard nut to crack,” one of the sisters
said. “No brainer, Chris,” Andrea said. Melissa concurred, Zack speculated that
the farmer might be “leveling America”, Cosmo jingled and Bailey snore/sighed.
The farmer’s mom gave Becca a hard time about the
long-distance thing and Becca started crying.
The farmer’s mom left convinced that Becca was in love with him but
didn’t know it. The wannabe poker-pro donned a new plaid shirt/sweater combo
and announced that it was “not an analytical decision” that the farmer faced.
The farmer’s dad, who looked and sounded suspiciously like an actor, said that
Whitney was the safe decision, but said that “he really likes Becca” with a
twinkle in his eye.
At “one of the biggest” Bachelor parties, Harrison and the studio audience watched the finale live. “There are bigger
Bachelor viewing parties?” Melissa inquired. “With more than 200 people?” The
farmer went to Dubuque to further question Becca about her feelings. “Why
don’t you feel like you’re in love, like me?” the farmer asked. “I wish I could
just give you an answer that’s honest with me and honest with myself,” Becca
said, but couldn’t. Becca admitted she was concerned about moving to Arlington
and the farmer acted surprised, as if he thought his barren, icy, windswept
ghost town was Paradise.
The farmer broke out his own plaid shirt/vest combo for a
frigid farm date with Whitney. The farmer’s dad drove them around in a huge
green industrial vehicle. “Tractor points,” I said. “Is that a tractor?” Andrea
questioned. “It could be an extractor.” Afterwards Whitney and Chris drove
around in his truck. Whitney could not believe how beautiful the countryside
was though it looked to me like a gray version of Erie, CO only with no
mountains or trees. The farmer showed Whitney all the farms he owned with his
brothers and cousins and whatnot. “Those aren’t your farms. Those are
Monsanto’s farms,” Andrea said. “Don’t fool yourself, farmer. They own you.”
Whitney and the farmer had a repetitive conversation about
their feelings in a Dubuque hotel room while a piano almost as high-pitched as
Whitney’s voice played some stark notes. “Honestly I feel like I’ve taken my
heart out of my chest and just put it in his hands,” she said. “Gross,” Melissa
said.
The next morning, in their Dubuque hotel rooms, the farmer shaved, Becca did
her makeup and Whitney sipped a teacup on the couch. A ring-selling dude came
to sell the farmer his ring and noted how cold Iowa was. They all got dressed
up (except for the ring-selling dude, he was already wearing a suit) and met at
a red barn. Andrea and Melissa complimented Whitney on her
asymmetrical-necklined dress.
The farmer stood in the upstairs of a barn/freezer/gallery
pondering a rose on top of a barrel. He said “I’m not sure what I’m going to
do,” right before Becca came upstairs. Then he told her he sure liked her a lot
but she didn’t love him so that meant curtains. He stammered but it was unclear
if that was because he was sad, nervous or hypothermic. Becca left in a limo without shedding a tear.
Then Whitney met the two Chrises at the barn/penthouse/lamp
gallery. The farmer told her he loved her and asked her to marry him
and she squeaked agreement. “I don’t want to forget this moment. Ever,” Whitney
said. “Luckily it’s on tape,” Melissa said. Whitney and the farmer sat on a
windowsill of the barn/stained glass
veranda/mezzanine and suddenly the sun was
shining, the wind was calm and all the snow covering the farm had miraculously
melted.
After The Final Rose
Becca came on and talked about how hard an experience it was
while Andrea & Zack did stuff on their phones. “Is that true, that you’ve
never really been in love?” Harrison asked incredulously. “Is that frustrating
to hear, that it may have been a lost cause from the start?” The dull interview
eventually wrapped with A to Z both still furiously drumming away on their
phones.
Whitney came on next. “How much do you love this man?”
Harrison asked. “I’m the happiest girl in the entire world. Honestly!” she
squeaked. Cosmo searched for a spot on the couch but Bailey was hogging it as
usual. Finally something interesting happened when Whitney said she hadn’t
watched the show, but she was unable or unwilling to provide a convincing
answer as to why. We talked about whether the farmer had sex with anyone in the
fantasy suite. I thought no one, Andrea thought he “alternated”, Melissa said
she wasn’t listening and Zack thought he banged them all.
They showed some old footage from the barn/rustic gift store/studio of the farmer’s mom and the actor who played his dad. Then then
asked Ashley S if she was coming on Bachelor in Paradise and couldn’t get a
straight answer. Jimmy Kimmel came on, inspiring Zack to tell a pointless story
about his less funny brother (Kimmel's brother, not Casey Sanders, who is funnier than Zack, at least compared to that boring story). Jimmy cracked a few jokes and gave Chris and
Whitney a cow named Juan Pablo.
Harrison then made a legitimately surprising announcement
that there would be two Bachelorettes for the next season – Britt and Kaitlyn –
sending Bailey into a snoring/wheezing fit of convulsions, giving the two new Bachelorettes some last-minute bonus points and landing Bri &
Doug’s team in the basement where it belongs.
Standings
2. Whitney: 45
+1.5 last team standing bonus (tie)
Whitney's Russell Westbrook-like fantasy performance climaxed with fourteen more points by my count - four cries, a tractor ride, the last woman standing, an accepted marriage proposal and reception of a rose. We may never see a player score this many points again - let alone a second-round draft pick - and we may never see a team accumulate this many. What a stunning performance from A&E, who had struggled the pool's first two seasons. I'm hiring a private investigator to see if Big Eric Schwartz had any contact with Reality Steve in January.
Kelly & Phil: 41 points
Becca actually posted a donut in the last episode, I believe. As close as she got, the Virgin couldn't even muster a tear on her way out. It didn't seem like she got any consideration for next Bachelorette either. As pleasant and respectable as she is, Becca may indeed need to reevaluate her intimacy issues.
I'm not sure how this double-Bachelorette thing is going to work exactly. They made it seem like the guys are going to choose between Britt and Kaitlyn the first night, but they also made it seem like both will be around for a while. Seems like they should just give them, say, 9 roses each if there are 20 dudes and have them switch off until they're out of roses. On the other hand, Zack noted how intriguing it would be if the guys gave the Bachelorettes roses in the first episode, and then the surviving Bachelorette would know which guys had "voted" for the other girl instead of her.
+1.5 last team standing bonus (tie)
I gave both Britt and Kaitlyn the full four-point bonus for "becoming the next Bachelorette." They're both Bachelorettes, after all. I'm not sure how this is going to work, but I do know I'm intrigued. Pretty brilliant production move, no matter how it works out. I think the vast majority of viewers are on #TeamKaitlyn, but Britt would be a pretty entertaining lead as well. It could be half-decent.
