Last night was the three-hour finale of ABC’s The Bachelor. With that extended running time, you know something crazy went down. So what happened on The Bachelor finale last night?
You read that right, last night’s finale was three hours. To put that it into perspective, that’s just as long as Mel Gibson’s war epic “Braveheart.” When I was a kid, you had to watch that on two separate VHS tapes to finally get to the scene where Gibson’s junk gets ripped out by the British. The average game of football is just over three hours as well, so maybe the execs were thinking the electrifying conclusion of The Bachelor finale could be treated as “the Super Bowl of Reality TV”?
I can’t go as far as to say that, but I will say that sh-t got pretty wild on The Bachelor finale last night. After nine weeks, it was time for our titular hero, Arie Luyendyk Jr., to make a decision and present a rose to one of his suitors, either Becca Kufrin or Lauren Burnham.
After about an hour and a half of Becca and Lauren getting to know Arie’s parents and going on trips to Machu Picchu, it was time for Arie to get down to the brass tacks and choose his new game-show wife. So let’s unpack it. Strap in, it’s about to get wild.
What happened on The Bachelor finale last night?
This year’s “The Bachelor” finale seemed pretty standard by all accounts at first. To no surprise, Arie gave the final rose to Becca and offered up a pretty sappy speech confessing his undying love for her.
“I am very lucky that you’ve been on this journey with me. And through all of it, you’ve given me so much confidence along the way. Because of that, my love for you is immeasurable,” said Arie before taking a knee and proposing to Becca. “This morning I woke up and I thought about you,” he added, “and I thought about you and our kids together. I thought about us when we’re old. I choose you today, but I choose you every day from here on out. I love you so much.”
Becca was thrilled and said “yes” and this year’s finale had a winner! So why was there another hour left of the show? Well, this is where it got interesting and probably why everyone is talking about what happened last night.
For the rest of “The Bachelor” finale, the show jumped forward to show the viewers a glimpse inside the couple’s life outside of the competition. And things were not going well … at all.
Arie’s decision weighed heavy on his guilt-ridden heart. He ultimately realized that he’d made a mistake and that his best decision would be to break up with Becca and to hunt down Lauren to see if she would be willing to take him back.
All in all, it was a pretty bonkers twist. But was it really worth sitting through all of it to get to that final conclusion? As someone who watched all thee hours of this year’s “The Bachelor” finale, I’d say: of course it was.
[Photo Credit: Disney/ABC Television]
