The Bachelor 2014 – Finale & After The Final Rose Recap

Reviews, Top Story

So I’m just sitting here, staring at my screen, sifting through my four pages of bullet points from last night’s episode, and honestly, I don’t know where to begin.  The range of emotions I experienced last night can only be likened to that scene in Tangled where Rapunzel escapes her tower for the first time and alternates between extreme remorse and guilt for disobeying her mother, followed by an unparalleled state of euphoria and joy over experiencing freedom for the first time.  Fine, the emotions themselves were not exactly the same, but the zig-zagging between them was.  And if you haven’t seen Tangled, you really should.  Flynn Ryder is hot.  Just sayin’.

I am feeling very alone in my responsibility to convey just how fucked up last night was.  Is it possible for me to capture it?  Should I do some sort of top cringe-worthy moments?  Should I divide it up by women?  I am truly at a loss.  I almost feel like I can relate to Juan Pablo in how he must feel trying to express himself with such a limited vocabulary.  Because really, are there words to convey the disaster that was the worst finale in the worst season of The Bachelor EVER???  Are there???

I suppose in some ways, I should thank Juan Pablo.  Finally, an episode where I experienced (any kind of) emotion other than boredom and the occasional tear shed over Clare’s dad.  I actually laughed out loud – like three times.  Fine it was at the complete expense of others or out of pure shock and disbelief, but nevertheless, there was laughter.

By the time last night was over and done with, I’m sure the entire studio needed physio therapy from shaking their heads in shock and dismay like bobbleheads for three hours.  Let’s go back to where it all began – with Juan Pablo opening the episode with three little words.  Or is it one word?  Or even a word at all?  In any case, he said ‘ayayay’.

Let’s give the guy the benefit of the doubt and assume that maybe he’s not just a douchebag, but also completely stupid.  Like hollow as the inside of a soccer ball stupid.  If we can suspend our disbelief and allow him this small grace – the fact that he’s an actual extremely stupid person – maybe we can cut him some slack?  How else can one person come up with some of the lines we got fed last night?  How else could he have executed what I’ll call a ‘strategy’ for the After the Final Rose episode?  How else could he have felt that some of the things he said were enough?  Or Okay?  Or normal?

I could go on like this for hours.  Not actually saying anything because I can’t bring myself into the details of last night, but choosing rather to skim only the surface of the idiocy that was last night.  But alas, I should really move on, right?  I’m 500 words in and haven’t really said anything yet.

Let’s just pick the lesser of two idiots and start with Clare.  Sigh.  I don’t know what struck me as a more odd way to start the family date off with Clare.  The fact that after all he’s been through with Clare all he could tell us upfront is that he ‘likes her a lot’ and that she basically gives him a permanent boner, or the fact that he starts out the date telling us not how excited he is to finally bring Clare into meet his family, or Camila but that’s he’s interested in observing her and keeping an eye on her with his family, like he’s assessing her for special needs or something.

I don’t know if it was Clare’s nervous energy, but I think she actually kicked off the intro to his family with a “wazzauuuup“.  Is it just me?  Did anyone else catch that?    She seemed barely able to hold it together- even for Camila – and his family didn’t really do anything to help her out.  When they weren’t giving her the silent treatment, they were throwing Juan Pablo under the bus and pointing out all of his flaws to her.  The only thing I found weirder than his family’s treatment of her (except for that one moment with his dad when he told her she would become his daughter at which point I was forced to bawl my eyes out) was the annoyingly distracting screen on screen action of audience members reacting to the episode.  First of all it was so dark, you could barely see any of them, and second of all – who cares? As for his family, it seemed like the only time Clare and his mother really had a breakthrough moment was when they were bonding over his emotional abuse.  By the time she left, in a frenzy of upspeak and a rowdy routine of what I like to call the ‘ besito mambo’ – when your head and neck seems to be doing some weird teasing dance routine as you try to kiss while simultaneously holding back kisses –  Clare was visibly sweating.  And that was just the family date.

And then it’s Nikki’s turn.  Sigh.  She shows up sporting a whole lot on her face – looks like someone spent a bit too much time sunbathing and not enough time developing standards for the type of man she’s willing to settle for, hmmm??  I can’t tell if she had a really bad sunburn, a horrible argument with her blush brush (the brush won), or a straight up case of rosacea.  Either way, this nurse needs a boatload of doctors, STAT.

After he recycles the most said line of the episode – you look so pretty today – we’re treated to yet another afternoon where each family member pretty much pulls her aside and begs her to run, run, as fast as she can, away from the big bad Venezuelan.  Though his dad’s matter-of-fact way of explaining JP – “He’s not an easy guy”, was perfect for the man of few words, I sorta like the picture Mama Pablo painted more.  She was basically like “if you like staying home and watching TV for the rest of your life, then Juan Pablo is your man, yessiree…”  Um…great?

So once Nikki leaves, I started getting pissed off.  Because this is where he becomes a real dick.  He makes a joke about picking both and seems so totally unaffected or even interested in figuring it out, that I wanted to throw something at him.  Usually at this point the family gathers around, and they talk out their opinions of each, and the Bachelor looks to his family for support as they try to weigh the options objectively.  I don’t even think anyone on his family cared either way!  There was no front runner.  There was no nothing.

Chris Harrison is basically about to throw himself onto a lifeboat for women and children only at this point.  You can just tell he is so done with the season and desperate for it to be over.  Clearly they filled two whole rows of seats with Bachelor Alumni to boost ratings or to make it look like people were actually interested in the outcome of this season, but even they looked totally bored (with the exception of Sharleen who looked absolutely terrifying thanks to her side bouffant and goth lipstick.)  When in doubt, make a sex joke about poor Sean, right Chris?  Because he saved himself for Catherine guys.  Cuz they’re in love.  Works every time.

Let’s sink a little bit further into hell, shall we?  Hell on a helicopter, if you will.  Before ‘the incident’ happens on the helicopter we get to listen once again, to JP tell us how hot he thinks Clare is.  Apparently what went down is this:  In the private moment with no cameras, Clare says to him – just tell me you love me!  Tell me right now!  And he responds with ‘Well, I like fucking you.’  Not sure if this is before or after he tells her he doesn’t know her at all and she doesn’t know him, but does it really matter?  True story.

So fast forward to later that night.  We know Clare is pissed and she’s talking like she may have a set of balls hidden somewhere in the perfect little bikini body and we’re hoping that third time will be a charm.  First Sharleen, then Andi – will Clare be the third bachelorette to pick up and go?  Will she???

He arrives at the door and immediately turns into a pathetic puppy begging for a besito the way my kids incessantly bug me for a snack five minutes before dinner.  Every.  Single.  Night.

I don’t even know how she stomached sitting on that couch with him, as I seriously wanted to punch him in the face.  I am so sick of his defensive attitude, his complacency, his indifference, his blank stare and his face-picking obsession.  I don’t know why she is even giving him the chance to explain himself – his actions sitting on that couch should have been more than enough information to confirm her need to get the hell out.  She admits that he doesn’t know her.  She realizes she’s just a piece of ass to him.  And then, when she tries to have a conversation with him, he somehow – SOMEHOW – brings it all back to Korea and accuses her of not only basically being a whore (once again), but also ‘blames’ her for breaking her own ‘no kissing rule’.  This is probably when I started actually talking out loud to the TV?  I believe my exact words were ‘are you fucking kidding me???’

Somehow, amidst all of this, despite the fact that the viewers in studio and likely all over the world have their mouths hanging open in disgust and shock, Clare decides that whatever he has said to her meets her bare minimum requirement for reassurance and she resumes her spot in the crook of his neck, while he rubs her impossibly smooth thighs and serenades her with ‘their’ song.  Dodged another bullet there, didn’t ya, JP?  Onto the next, right?

Nikki’s unattainable goal for her date with Juan Pablo the next day is to – wait for it – discover how he feels about her.  Within minutes he is picking at her face (which I’m sure doesn’t help her skin problems whatsoever).  She tries to call him out on being guarded – he says that no, he’s not guarded, and that when he wants to open up, he will.  And that’s pretty much that.  Out the window goes Nikki’s resolve to get some sense of his feelings for her and just when she couldn’t get any more insecure, she realizes that not only is he unwilling and unable to express feelings for her, but also, the awesome life of adventure he has planned for them consists of him watching baseball either in bed, or in his home office.  And sometimes she can watch too.  This is what fairy tales are made of, right guys?

Even though you can tell by the far off look in Nikki’s eyes that she is absorbing what’s about to become of her life, much like one would look if they were slowly falling off a building and approaching a huge slab of concrete, she tries to convince herself ‘not to stress about these things now.’  Um, really Nikki?  If not now, then when?  This is precisely the right time to be stressing about this stuff.  He catches on that she may actually be forming an intelligent thought privately in her tiny brain and kicks that to the curb quickly with the reassurance of ‘It is what it is, and it’s great.’  And somehow that make it okay.

When she gives him her card later on, you can actually hear crickets outside it’s so damn awkward.  He leaves.  She cries but yet somehow wakes up refreshed and able to get engaged.  Makes perfect sense to me!

I’m exhausted guys…this is taking a lot out of me and I’m really not enjoying reliving it, I have to say.

So finally, we’re nearing the end.  When Clare got off the boat, I was praying for some music to start playing – all of the background noise was just so heightened because of the awkwardness.  And then when JP is clearly waiting for her to speak, because he can’t communicate, she is forced to fill the silence.  Nice one, buddy.  His speech to her sounded to me more like he was updating a team of marketing executives on the progress of signage development than anything anywhere near heartfelt.

Though I gotta hand it to Clare for standing up for herself when he cut her especially when she hit him in the dad balls and referenced him being a poor role model for Camila (oh snap!), it saddens me to know how easily she would have gotten engaged to this douche if he had asked.  I couldn’t even believe what I was watching when he so easily dismissed her with an ‘I’m glad I didn’t pick her!’ while he (literally) kicked rocks.

And Nikki.  What is there even to say?  Well, her skin looked a bit better.  So there’s that.

Sure Nikki.  Hearing a guy tell you ‘I like you a lot’ and then reinforce that with an even stronger ‘A LOT’ is just as good as a proposal, right?  And the most we can say he did for Nikki in that ceremony was not dump her.  It’s not even like he asked her to be his girlfriend!  He basically tossed her the rose and then told her not to complain about how hot she was.  I was so embarrassed for Nikki at this point that I almost didn’t watch After the Final Rose.  Almost.

But there we all were.  Watching the drama unfold with our rose coloured glasses on.  I really need to get through this blog post so I can go get my kids, so here is what I have to say about how it all ended.

1)      Good on Clare for not allowing JP to come out and talk to her – and thank you.  If I had to listen to him talk one more time about how honest he is, and how he respects Clare, I would just have to end it right here.

2)      Juan Pablo playing the Venezuela card to get sympathy.  So not cool, dude.

3)      Could Chris Harrison’s complete disdain be any more obvious for Juan Pablo?  When he was on the couch and commercial breaks arrived, Chris didn’t even wait for the cameras to stop – he just literally got off the couch and walked away from JP and Nikki.

4)      I feel sick with embarrassment for Nikki.  Not cuz I like her or anything, but she is just so, so stupid!!!  Oy, when she had to quickly correct herself when she said ‘it’s very very over’ and the audience actually got excited?  Shame…I wanted to jump through my screen and wake her up.  I can’t think of any other woman in this show’s history who has looked like a bigger idiot than Nikki.  Not only is he never going to love you or marry you, but he is a vile, vile human being, completely incapable of loving anyone but himself.  Do you realize how dumb you look, sister?    You are making the average stupid girl look effing brilliant!  Watching her try so hard to believe the things coming out of her mouth – honestly, it just killed me.  What else is there to say?  Even watching their reunion was sad.  Usually when the couple is reunited for the first time they are glowing, filled with joy, can’t keep their hands off of each other, eager to share their news their plans, the ten figures they’ve been offered for their televised wedding..  This has to be the strangest After the Final Rose ever.  After this display, I even believe Dez and Chris have a chance!

5)      Poor Chris Harrison.  The guy is trying to pull some sort of nugget from JP.  What’s that you say about a surprise, JP?  Nope no surprise.  What’s that you say about some crazy sort of circumstance that happened near the Women Tell All.  Oh.  You can’t tell us (just so you know, the ‘drastic’ thing that happened that JP couldn’t reveal was that Dancing with the Stars dumped him once me made those homophobic comments.)

6)      I think I fell over the edge when Catherine told JP not to ‘slap’ the hand that feeds you and that had to be explained to Juan Pablo.  I actually said that phrase out loud while watching before Catherine did (except I used the correct term – bite, not slap) so I got a good laugh when she used it too.

7)      Favourite quote from JP of the night?  ‘This is real life.  You don’t say that you love someone in real life when you love them.’  Um, actually…you do.

8)      Second favourite quote – from Chris ‘I’d like to say you’re in love –but it’s just so awkward!’

You’re done with us, Juan Pablo?  Good.  We are SO done with you.

Stay tuned for next season, when Andi becomes the blubbering fool she is promising she won’t become.  A fool in a field.  A fool in a gazebo.  A fool holding a gun.  We’ll see it all.

This post may have hit somewhat of a downward spiral towards the end but frankly, I am proud of myself for making it this far.  In fact, I am going to offer myself my own final rose, and you know what?  I accept.

Till next time!

I'm a busy, working mom who loves nothing more than settling onto the couch with a glass of wine to harshly critique the unfortunate romantic relationships of happily-ever-after wanna-be's. Check out Reality Bytes