TheFinalRose

Pretty sure we won't have two Jessenias this season. Or ever again.

"It's a lot" seems to be the new it phrase of this franchise. Tayshia said it, now Matt and Chris Harrison tonight.

I know someone who was trying to get cast for Matt's season and she had to talk about how her faith was important to her because Matt wanted that in his cast of characters. So, on that account, he seemed sincere. This Nemacolin resort is where JoJo went with her cast so we've been here before.

That's it? An old-fashioned love story ending? Does. Not. Compute. With. This. Franchise.

Never saw Chris Harrison forget his poker face before upon greeting the F1. But this time he definitely did.

Wow Zac. Listening to the whole "I'm not going to run" talk I was actually feeling that Tayshia is a lucky woman. I hope he is real, he seems real. Ben hasn't been on this show for the past hour, has he?

I thought it was going to John Paul Jones knocking at the door, asking for another chance.

"What do I do with that?" said Tayshia, pointing towards Ben through the closed door. No way is he Final 1 being called "that."

Wow. It's Ben! Chris Harrison's surprise face is not convincing. At. All. He probably had to re-shoot the scene several times.

I doubt it was the ring date that put Brendan over the edge. Maybe he was glad that it looked like the producers set him up but Tayisha seems pretty composed the next morning so no big deal, right?

Tayisha also can't read the room as she is gushing and Brendan is sweating and looking for a puke bucket. Brendan is looking as scared as Momma Barb Webber was when she thought Peter had proposed to Maddie.

It would have been better tv if they had gone ahead and installed a revolving door to the men's hangout.

That was boring. The Men Tell All? More like: Less Than Half of the Men Say a Few Dull Things.

Gosh, at the beginning of the Tayisha/Blake date I thought they'd wandered onto the set of Midsommar, and that if Blake didn't get the rose it wouldn't be a limo out of there ... he'd have to climb up to the top of the cliff and you know what.

Reality Steve has rescinded his original spoiler of Ben as Final 2. Apparently, Ben is eliminated at the hometown/LaQuinta hot patio dates rose ceremony. So basically, his sources weren't correct so who knows how this ends, although he did not rescind the Zac as Final 1 prediction .... yet.

Shannon is like Veruca Salt grown up. It was only around 9pm when they got back to their rooms after the staged and fake vow renewal that apparently didn't include any dinner food ...so why couldn't she and John order fresh room service for themselves, instead of 1) eating the cold old food 2) having a meltdown the next morning over her eggs because she was so hungry?

I confess, I did not know how much I depended on the helicopter rides, walking down a European city street scenes, the screaming jumping on the beds at the "amazing" new hotel, etc. etc., until this season. How I could go for a visit to a hand-made puppet shop, circa Emily & Jef, or a dinner in a glass igloo, ala Sean and Catherine, or a quick helicopter departure as the dumpee from the 2 on 1 is left on the island, sobbing alone, ala Olivia Caridi on Ben's season. I swear I can feel sweat droplets running down my forehead just looking at the steamy, outdoor scenes in this season. I can feel the heat shimmering off all that concrete as the sun bakes down on them. But now we have poor Tayisha having to resort to pretending the floor is lava for entertainment. SIgh. All I really got out of this episode is light interest in getting the real story on Bennet's pre-wedding breakdown. I expect the jilted fiancee will be surfacing and telling her story on People or Us soon enough.

Yes, he is totally Aaron Buerge's younger brother and kudoz to you for remembering Aaron Buerge, who is so far back in the Bachelor stratosphere I'm not sure we even had the internet back then when his show aired.

Something about Noah's looks/expressions was giving me crazy Tom Cruise jumping on the sofa vibes, even before he jumped over the barrier (I refuse to call it a fence and give rise to Colton comparisons). Ed had a perfect math score on the PSAT but Bennet is acting like the smartest guy in the room, until he's actually forced to display some quick thinking. That's when I start thinking that Bennet is a legacy admit from a family that writes big fat checks for Harvard every year. I like Ben, but I'm pretty sure the producers were telling him that he's made a big impression on Tayisha already and he should let the others who were more on the fence talk to her first before the rose ceremony. They probably said the evening will go until 11 so you have plenty of time and then Tayisha sits down at 9:30 and says "But the evening is over, Ben!" He won't make that mistake again.

This is the perfect description of Dale since he stepped out of the limo. He has such a frozen face when he's in repose. As for the rumors, Deux Moi Instagram is full of Dale with other women sightings. It's a private account but anyone can request to follow and read up for yourself. The tips keep flowing in of people seeing Dale out and about with other women. At the least, he doesn't care if he looks like he's moved on.

I don't get the appeal of Spencer, at all. I like Tayisha as the lead. But wow. Did that date on horseback look boring, just clip-clopping around the deserted resort. I was waiting for the blooper at the end that showed Chris Harrison with a giant pooper-scooper to pick up the horse droppings but maybe that will come at the end of the season.

There's a lot of gossip online that Dale has moved on, it was all "too fast" for him. Quelle surprise!

Inquiring minds want to know. I'm on the fence about whether this was planned by production or not. For one, Chris Harrison just cannot abide a normal season of this show anymore. I've said it before and I'll say it again, it's Harrison who is encouraging all these dramatic shenanigans because he's aging and needs to keep this job going, so he pushes the "we've never had this happen before" antics every single season now. Those producers are in the lead's ear all the time encouraging them to jump the fence or cancel every cocktail party or blow up the show. We need an explanation of how, in the middle of a pandemic, they had a fresh Bachelorette wiped down and ready to go. Maybe she didn't do a full quarantine but they tested her and she was negative and all the cast/crew had to sign a waiver releasing ABC from responsibility. But two, on the other hand, Clare was actually crazy and laser-focused on Dale and you could see the whole show going right into the trash bin early on. On a similar note, never realized how thirsty Deanna was to get back on the show. She would have had to leave her kids and quarantine for two weeks just to appear for the four minutes of screen time smelling Dale's shorts last week. Mother of the year, there. As for our fairy tale twu-love story, Dale had this deer-in-the-headlights look that is typical of a contestant who hasn't yet learned not to look right into the blaring lights from the set. But when he opens his mouth and speaks, he seems all in. Weird. What I want to know is what is with the proliferation of stories on this show about parents who met once and married three weeks later and were married for 42 years? That doesn't mean that they didn't regret that rash decision sometime during the ensuing marriage. But if you have two willing parties raised on that kind of romantic, hitchhiking kind of display of love, then that is the petri dish in which we grow a Dale and a Clare who are destined to meet and repeat the whole process. What I think is really more interesting is if we could hear some stories about some young 'uns who fell in love but were never able to live that perfect fairy tale life together because the poor guy was murdered as he hitchhiked his way to her. So we get a Clare and Dale version of After the Final Rose next week. That tells me that ABC wants the happy ending on the sofa visual but isn't sure that there will still be a Clare and Dale by the time scheduled programming ends in December.

This is good news; she thought she was so above it all--Jill Zarin syndrome, but she was just mean and out of control. Now maybe she can find some inner peace. Maybe a redemptive return in a year or two?

I was so pro-Chantal and was really wishing Brad would pick her, but saw the writing on the wall with Emily, who was just alright. I did love Emily's season, however, because she had really fun guys and the Jef/Arie/Sean bromance was so fun. Pilot Pete should have done what Brad did and pick no one, but PP doesn't have the balls to be honest. It took guts for Brad to be completely honest and watching him get slapped for it on the first night of the next season didn't feel right. I'm glad Brad has a new girlfriend, although with the way Chris Harrison led up to the announcement I half expected the new love of Brad's life to be a dog. And, having watched all these Goat episodes, I'm wondering does every single ex-Bachelor peep live in a totally updated kitchen? ]