Farewell, Season 15, we hardly knew ye. That’s fine, since nobody wanted to know Luke P.
Tonight’s finale purportedly floweth over with intense drama that’s even more unexpected than a press conference on the White House lawn, although both could include a helicopter. The question on everyone’s lips is whether Hannah will actually choose either Jed or Tyler to propose to her. We do know she’ll have skinned knees in the last minutes before then.
Anyway, what’s the big deal if she rejects both of them? Can’t a gal just enjoy the single life for a while, like Mary Richards, Elizabeth I, and my seventh-grade gym teacher? If she does choose one, what other development could be so dramatic that Chris Harrison has to hose himself down with liquid Xanax every time he thinks about it?
According to sources like ET and people on Twitter who love Jesus, Hannah might not have gotten answers to the many questions that remained after last night’s episode, such as what product Tyler uses on his hair, and whether Jed’s jingle was for a quality, grain-free dog food. There have been ugly rumors swirling around her, too, but nothing like what they’re saying about Dershowitz.
Alas, the drama is no more interesting than a group date to Kohl’s. Reality Steve reports that Hannah went with Jed, who offered a life filled with financial struggle and denim, but they’ve already split. Viewers tonight will get an inside look at their fraught break-up, which will be more boring than the Democratic candidates’ debate, but with fewer references to prescription drug prices.
The producers ought to watch more 80’s night-time soaps if they want plot lines that will keep us glued to our screens. I, for one, would like to see a bachelorette wake up to find one of the guys she sent home in her shower, or a cocktail party catfight with one woman throwing another in the pool.
Dear Lord, Tyler calls his choice of Neil Lane ring “loud and proud.” Jed would probably pawn his and give her a cigar band, though. Chris opens the show by saying not even he saw the massive displays of destruction and betrayal coming. It’s the Pearl Harbor of the Bachelorette franchise.
Hannah reflects on her experience thus far. She now has a different perspective on what she needs in a man, which includes a diversified portfolio. she knows her future relies on the choice she makes. I feel that way when the market has two flavors of Talenti I like.
Meanwhile, the men choose their rings. Both are more faptuzed than a drag queen’s boudoir. They then don their suits in preparation for the big moment, assuring us a final look at their rockin’ bods. Thanks, Obama!
But Hannah remians conflicted in her heart. The two men are so different, although both are equally vapid. One has a beard, the other doesn’t, and uh, well, probably they have different zodiac signs, and maybe prefer different toppings on their pizzas.
As Hannah is being driven to the site, she suddenly asks the driver to pull over, then starts to walk away and falls splat in the road. A crew member rushes to her aid. “I really can’t do this,” Hannah says. Pretty fishy that the off-white fabric of her lacy dress is clean and not ripped after her fall on the pavement.
Her elbow is scraped, as is her heart. Both will recover with a Band-Aid and a bottle of wine. Meanwhile, Hannah stares into the distance at the Grecian peaks that rise skyward, like my blood pressure while watching this nonsense. The lone rose glows from the little table. “Give me to someone!” it fairly screams.
Dramatic music swells up as the first man approaches in the limo. How will she tell him he’s not enough, when it’s not true? Furthermore, the one she’s going to send away is not going to expect it. Smug bastard.
Now Tyler greets Chris. He raves about Hannah like Sluggo getting all bug-eyed over Nancy, who is also one-dimensional. He then goes to embrace Hannah before launching into his Hallmark speech. He has grown emotionally and spiritually, and found love, and-. She interrupts, possibly because she’s as bored as the rest of us.
Tears blur her eyes. Tyler is crestfallen. She insists she was falling in love with him, but alas, she loves someone else’s quads more. And she is so sorry. Tyler nevertheless wishes her the best. “You guys will be great,” he suggests affably. Maybe don’t ask him to give a toast at the wedding.
As he drives off, chin in hand, Hannah is left behind to hang her head over sad, but hopeful, music. “I thought this was it,” Tyler murmurs. At least he learned to open up with someone, and also to enjoy authentic baklava.
“That was difficult to watch,” Chris intones mournfully from the otherwise silent studio He’s obviously never seen Love Story. He adds that so many people are devastated at this outcome that was 50 percent likely.
A bereft Hannah wanders through the area, voicing her hope that Tyler will forgive her, and her gratitude at having reached clarity. Here comes Jed to bring her the happy ending she always wanted.
Jed has brought his guitar, possibly to write a tune about a Southern boy, his truck, and the Aegean. He and Hannah kiss, then he starts yapping about wanting to know the deepest part of her. No G-spot jokes, please.
Then he starts strumming and singing. This whole thing is such a shameless audition, it makes Lucy Ricardo look dignified. Hannah is delighted, though, and plants a big one on his kisser. She hasn’t got a song, or even a dirty limerick, but she wants to say some stuff the writers came up with. She spent her life spent praying for this moment, in between pageants, auditions for reality shows, and getting her nails done. He’s had 25 years without her, and now that torture ends. He kneels and proposes.
The final rose is inserted into his lapel. Jed seizes her in his arms, and they declare their love for each other. The studio audience claps joyfully, but then Chris harshes their mellow with an announcement of coming broken promises and shattered hearts. “Jed is about to face the music,” he chortles.
Next comes a video made by Hannah and Jed. They seem happy enough, but maybe they just had a load of ouzo. Hannah tells the camera what fun they had in Greece, and she was so happy to find someone sweet, sincere, and honest. Narrator: That was not the case.
Jed had told Hannah about a girl he was “hanging out” with before the show, but insisted he broke it off before filming began. Then Hannah found out from People magazine that he really hadn’t done that. Imagine learning you’re engaged to a jerk in the check-out aisle at the Shop Rite, next to the Kit Kats.
She must confront Jed about a lie that was so blatant, she didn’t even have to Google him to find out. The studio audience claps, possibly in support of Hannah, but it still seems odd.
She is brooding in her room when there’s a spritely knock on the door. Jed enters and follows her to the sofa. “I don’t even know where to start,” Hannah says. Jed explains that he was single and dating around, and this one woman didn’t “feel like a relationship.” Hannah wants to know what that means. So do I. He describes a couple of dinners and some sex and watching a movie. Hannah bristles.
“I was never, like, ‘this is my girlfriend,'” Jed says, treading into treacherous territory. She did meet his parents, but it was just a fluke, a coincidence. She threw him a birthday party and her parents gave them a trip to the Bahamas. He even slept with this chick the night before he left for the show. Narrator: This was, in fact, his girlfriend.
Hannah buys none of this feeble attempt to dismiss a person he’s seen naked as meaningless. Even worse, her family is getting text messages about it. Other girls are DMing her. Cheating is not easy in the digital age. Jed pleads to make it up to Hannah. Maybe she can get her hands on that device that imitates labor pains.
Hannah stalks out of the house, where cameras and mics are at the ready. Jed watches her from the window. The studio audience is quiet. Then Hannah returns to the room. Jed insists he loves her. How does she want him to grow? Where does she see him lacking? Maybe an MBA would help.
Hannah hammers him about his feelings that first night ate mansion. How did he reconcile knowing he had a girlfriend back home? By the Fantasy Suite, though, it was too late to tell her, and he really wanted to shtup her. “I am so not proud of it,” Jed tells Hannah lamely. The little inset box shows the audience’s resentment.
Hannah tells him how hurtful it was that he went home and told his friends he “won the show,” as if he’d been on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? She is not a check with state and federal taxes taken out.
She is convinced now that her decisions were tainted. She could’ve married Mike, for God’s sake. Jed insists his love is real. He’s deeply sorry, and wants to be a better person. The audience thinks this is grand, but they’re blinded by his abs. While Hannah does have grace for Jed (Jews don’t know this stuff), she can still be angry at him (Jews do know that stuff).
This is dragging out too long, but they need to fill two hours. Hannah doesn’t know what to do. How about a show called The Bachelorette: Hannah’s Betrayal. Chris wonders if her love for Jed is broken forever, like my toaster, and says we’ll have the answers when we come back after ads for T-Mobile, State Farm, and Ritz crackers.
Chris notes the rumors that claim Jed and Hannah are over, and also that 29-year-old Jana Duggar is still single for nefarious reasons. Where does the relationship actually stand? Hannah is here to discuss it. She is being cagey, though, all tight smiles and vagueness.
She explains that she first learned a hint of the trouble the day they got engaged. Jed warned her that there was a girl he had been seen with. She asked to know more, and he said he’d ended it. That was disappointing enough, but the People article was a punch in the gut, although not as damaging as the Enquirer scoop on John Edwards’ love child. She circled items in the article and sent it to Jed, along with Chrissy Teigen’s recipe for twice-baked potatoes.
So she and Jed are no more, but People‘s circulation is up 14 percent. While Hannah is hurt that her special day was taken from her, she is relieved that she didn’t end up in a relationship that was not based on trust. Also that she doesn’t have to download his first album.
Now Jed will come out to rub salt in her wounds for the fans’ entertainment. Hannah hasn’t seen him since she broke it off. The audience barely claps as he enters the room stiffly. Chris invites him to speak.
“From the bottom of my heart, I am sorry,” Jed tells Hannah, whose frosted lips tremble. He apologizes for withholding from her, and ruining the love they found. He’s even sorry for hurting Bachelor Nation, largely because he’ll lose all those album sales.
Chris wants to know why Jed didn’t fess up immediately upon their engagement. He was scared to lose Hannah, he claims. Hannah appreciates his apology, and acknowledges that this hasn’t been easy for him either. She hopes he can learn to be honest, grow into the man she knows he can be, and have a hit single as big as Achy Breaky Heart. Maybe he and the girlfriend will get a show called A Story ‘Bout a Man Named Jed.
Jed is still in love with Hannah, he reveals. Chris confirms it, in case we just missed him saying it. But Hannah’s feelings have changed. When that trust was broken, her love disappeared like the content on a faulty hard drive. She warns the dimwit audience not to clap at this juncture. Jed accepts this as politely as he can, even after Chris reminds him sternly that he brought this grief on himself. Somewhere, Luke P. is laughing.
What is going to happen in the next 20 minutes? Bloopers? Announcing the new Bachelor? Those could be the same thing. Jed has left when we return from commercial, giving Hannah the opportunity yo repeat how difficult this all was. She’s proud of herself, though, because when she saw dishonesty in this relationship, she told him to take a hike. She wants a husband, but she doesn’t need one. I am Hannah, hear me roar.
Next Tyler will visit us. But first the set-up. Hannah describes how she grieved ending that relationship. The feelings for Tyler didn’t go away. Chris pretends to be sensing something deeper in between the lines.
Tyler strides in and embraces Hannah. Everyone claps and screams. Face it, we all preferred him. This is the first time they’ve seen each other since that day in Greece, says Chris, although I suspect they’ve FaceTimed naked. Tyler was looking forward to this day because he loved watching her be so strong and powerful. He feels so strongly about it that he has to be bleeped.
Tyler says he felt Hannah would be in good hands with Jed, so that was a letdown. Chris reminds him how great that last day was, up til Hannah rejected him. Tyler agrees.
What does Hannah think about all this? She points out that Tyler has always been supportive and respectful, and their relationship was real and special. “I still have feelings,” she blurts out. She blathers on in generalities for a while, then tells Tyler he’s an incredible guy and she’s a single girl. Everyone screams as she invites him out for a drink. “As long as I’m the only one,” Tyler replies. He isn’t that witty, so let’s credit the writers for that one.
“You just asked him out on a date?” Chris announces for those of us in a coma. They can have a show called Hannah’s His Boo and Tyler, Too.
“What a crazy night it’s been,” Chris exults, although not as crazy as the president claiming African-American people have been calling to say how happy they are with him.
Bachelor in Paradise begins next week, and it’s also the most dramatic of any season before. Thanks for being here, my friends. I hate drinking alone.
