Wonderful! - Episode 11: The Final Axe

Episode Date: March 15, 2016

The finale is here. A shocking twist. Startling revelations. Unbelievable emotions. Lives are changed. Lives are ruined. Anatomy is blurred. Two women enter. One woman leaves. All are axed. MaxFunDrive ends on March 29, 2024! Support our show now by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join.

Maybe, maybe you should go and do some contemplating. Right reasons, right reasons, being a good girl for all the right reasons. Right reasons, right reasons, being a good girl for all the right reasons. I'm the best rat and I'm rapping to your poolside. Here to find true love, one man's love. Although we've come to the end of the road. Eyes on me. I'm up here. Can't.

I'm up here. Can't. And you're right. No, listen to me. I want to do the low part. Okay, I'm going to be up here. Can't. You can come in and like.

Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't.

Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't.

Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't.

Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't.

Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't.. Can't. Can't.. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't. can't. Welcome to Rose Buddies, everybody. I'm Griffin McElroy. I'm Rachel McElroy. Oh, you know what time it is? It's time for Before the Final Bottle. I can't.

H-E-B, why do you seal these super waters up so much? They're like golden pirate treasure. You want me to do it? I'm gonna use my shirt. Come on, baby. Oh, I got it, got it, got it. Hey it hey welcome back he was opening a bottle of super water zero i don't want there to be any question about that satisfied noise he made people love to hear the oh they love that shit um welcome back to austin texas sorry for this late addition i was out of town i was gonna, but I'm going to go ahead and let you take the brunt of this

one, I think. I work at a community college that was on spring break so I was able to go home and see my family and watch this with Dave and Linda and my friend Ariel. We got some exciting Dave and Linda thoughts, reactions, hot reactions, but dang,

this is it. This is our first finale episode ever. um finale episode and after the final final rose uh just like opening thoughts i thought was a fucking club banger of a finale maybe the best one i've ever seen yeah probably the best finale ever to exist we we talked so much about the manipulation that goes on in this television program. Of the viewer. Of the viewer. Of every organism involved in the process.

You'd think Griffin and I would be experts because we have seen so many of these seasons, but every time we fall for it. Well, that's, I don't say every time. I'm saying this episode in particular was a fucking masterpiece of manipulation. It was. I started out feeling one way at the beginning of the episode, left feeling totally different. Setting the stage, we have been on, like, literally go back and listen, episode one. We're like, oh, Lauren B is going to win.

Yes. I think, well, back then we probably actually were like still probably Team Olivia. And we were like, Lace is probably going to be the bad girl. Some of that was off. But Lauren B definitely was going to be the winner. And that was so obvious really early on in the season. And in the final, the midnight hour, six minutes to midnight, JoJo comes out of nowhere. And all of a sudden, during this finale, I start thinking, oh, my God, Jojo might win.

And then I think, oh, my God, I want Jojo to win. I know. Which is fucked up. Like, every episode of this show I've talked about, like, oh, him and Lauren B are, like, actually kind of cute. And I'm kind of, like, actually weirdly feeling it. I felt almost nothing for Jojo prior to this episode. Like, last episode was a kind of turning point for her there were two there were two sort of linchpins and jojo becoming like separating herself from the pack and becoming

like an actual i mean the next bachelorette like that's we'll get to that later but like i would not have been crazy about that except for these two moments the first was pig date water pigs where she was like actually like hey i get it like it's tough doing this television show and like part of the kimono bit i was down with that but also when he said i love you to back to her and like her look of genuine surprise was like oh damn jojo i like you i think if it's not clear lauren b did win lauren b won uh and we're gonna do a deep dive just like let's set the stage lauren b1 the game of the bachelor yeah if you can call it that the neil lane diamond um no let's do this let's just get into it let's get into the business you've taken a lot of notes here yeah i took five pages of notes just if you guys were

wondering how much work goes into this it's five pages worth looks like and you watched it with your friend ariel and you watch it partly with David and Linda. Yeah. Ariel's a listener of the show. She's also active in the Facebook group. So it was a joy to watch with her. But yeah, so we kind of- Did she get nasty like our friends get nasty? She said like nasty, like, mm, look at her toes. Most of that was led by my mom, to be honest.

Okay, that's fair. But for those that have never seen the show, they make it like a live event. So the episode started with Chris Harrison in front of a live studio audience gathered to watch the finale together, knowing that at the end of the episode, immediately after, Ben will come out, the loser will come out, the winner will come out, loser will come out the winner will come out everybody will talk on the couch and then they announced the bachelor or next bachelor next bachelor but this episode had a twist because there was pastor cam holy shit they kept what kenny is that denny denny denny kenny the good reverend denny kenny no it wasn't denny this fucking dude they kept cutting to him for reaction shots for things that they did not need to cut to Ben's hometown pastor to react to.

It was Denny Wilson. Okay. And if you may recall, on Women Tell All, Ben was like, I would get married tomorrow. Immediately, everybody that produces that show started running around town, putting together this, let's do an on-site marriage. Somebody get Denny Kennyny on the on the reverend phone um yeah it was like you the whole time you're like so we know we know as an audience that denny is there to perform an on-site immediate wedding should it be requested but apparently bachelor ben did not know that that was coming as an option. Or he sold it really well. Yeah, I don't know.

But, yeah, that, yeah. No, that was probably the only, I would call it a misplay of this episode of The Bachelor. Because the rest of the stuff I was, like, kind of fooled by. But this was like, no, they're not going to. They kept cutting to him, though, over and over. Even getting rid of the intent of the newly engaged. This show is not going to throw away the opportunity to do another fucking two hour long special on somebody's wedding the the the producers wouldn't let this

happen i will say though that every time they cut to denny he was like ankle deep in a in a bible oh yeah he's getting deep in that second corinthians just like brushing up what i loved was there was one reaction shot where they announced who the bachelorette was and like the crowd went wild you saw that dude we re to Denny. You saw that, too? We rewound it and watched it in slow motion. Could it cut to Denny still Bible in hand, just like, yay, yay? Yeah, so yes, they set that up in the live environment, but obviously not. I actually think one of the structural issues with this show is the first half of the finale,

and they got around some of that in this particular finale, which is why it was one of my favorites. But usually it's the most boring fucking episode ever. Because the only interesting thing happens at the end when he breaks somebody's heart and gets engaged to the other person. Well, they meet the parents. They meet the parents. That's interesting. I guess it's kind of interesting. But like, it's kind of just the same shit that they do in hometowns.

And the parents are usually just kind of ambival same shit that they do in hometowns and the parents are usually just kind of ambivalent and like don't lean either way about it like very rarely are the parents over like you gots to go with this one and not this one um so like that i mean it's the same thing every year and then they go on a date and that's like it like it's not an especially i need a gimmick for an episode most episodes have at least one gimmick and the only gimmick at this one is like somebody gets like that episode of the Simpsons where Lisa. You need a Dr.

Love to come back, retest these two, find out if they are in fact compatible. Yeah. Um, I was, I was like, the only gimmick is the,

like, you remember the Lisa Simpson where she, the episode where it's Valentine's day and, uh, Ralph Wiggum falls in love with her. And then there's the bit where like he, rips his like literally rips his heart out. Like that's that was what we got this time. We usually get that most episodes.

But that's like the rest of the time. I don't know. I think it's kind of boring. But there's some really interesting stuff going on in the dates just based on the just how much that L word was getting flung. Let's get to it. Let's get to it. Okay. Okay.

Okay. So we're still in Jamaica. We cut to the ladies, both wearing cutoffs. What's that? Like jean shorts, like Daisy Dukes, some would call them. I just call them jean shorts or women's jort. Well, they're called cutoffs because they were formerly jeans and now they have been cut off from their pants prison do you call jeans like full still full on still full on non non-cuts

uncircumcised jeans so lauren tells us the viewer uh that the moment that ben said i love you changed my life and jojo me too mine too definitely mine too jojo says to us you know him saying it made me more confident and suddenly we're realizing like they are really going to play up the fact that he is in love with both these women and it's going to be every moment of this episode somebody in the group uh the rose buddies facebook group which you should absolutely be in because uh it's wonderful um somebody said uh hey can somebody remind me uh how many women i'm not a hun it's not they haven't made it explicitly clear uh and then we see ben going to his mom and dad who have flown out to jamaica uh and tight as fuck i didn't even think about

that that's like i know it's a nice trip i want to have a kid on the bachelor that like makes it that far and be like taking some trips to places well i guess except for chris souls is like their trip was like out to the barn yeah but then your child would have to be on the bachelor who cares man their personal brand is probably gonna explode brand that's what every parent wants for their child a good personal brand yeah absolutely uh so Ben's talking to his parents, and he's saying, I'm in love with two women. And the mom and dad are understandably surprised about that. And that's when Lauren shows up with a big bouquet of flowers to meet the fam. Both brought weird flowers. Both women brought some weird flowers. It's like a thing. You you bring something yeah but this these are some weird flowers yeah um brought some flowers

um i'll be 100 honest during the parents meetings i was eating el pollo reggio our favorite nearby chicken restaurant i was partying on a couple drumsticks um and i was more focused on the chicken meat that i was consuming that spicy chicken meat i used some of that green salsa oh that's spicy it's spicy but i was feeling dangerous so i didn't necessarily pay attention to this part of the show uh at my parents house just in case you're curious my mom had a large bottle of skinny girl margaritas which is she loves that stuff yeah a real housewife tip uh 90 calories holy shit so not bad and some popcorn and then my friend ariel brought some sour patch kids hell yes ariel from downtown i know we were at the wrong we should have switched parties that

all sounds like my jam um we had cookie cake made by steffi, and for my friends, I brought Lick ice cream. Got that fucking goat cheese thyme and honey, and I got that olive oil and sea salt caramel. Sounds good. That was a slam dunk noise. Anyway, what are we talking about? So, Lauren is talking to the parents. The dad says, you know, I see a twinkle in Ben's eye when he talks about you. He's pregnant.

Isn't that what that means traditionally? No. You never hear like you were just a twinkle in their eye? No. Well, okay. I guess it's more of a figure of speech, right? Because the eyeball is not typically involved in the conception process really at all. We got some work to do.

I don't know. So Lauren does the thing that both women are expected to do, which is she just pours her heart out, says how much in love with Ben she is. The dad gives a very lobotomized, well, thank you. Wait, he says thank you in response to her? Just totally vacant expression, says, well says thank you in response to yeah just just totally vacant expression says well thank you do you think that's like when you like ask me to like put my shoes in the in the front door closet and i'm like um and i just i just say like thank you to that because i wasn't really listening to what you were saying it was more like he had really prepared himself for what was going to happen

that day and had no emotional reaction if that was my kid and said i've told two women that i love you yeah and i'm bringing them both to this house to meet you today like a poker play my reaction would be like well fuck no don't do no ben don't do that well and that's the thing because the parents do ask they say ben do these women know that you're in love with both of them? Ben says no. So the parents all day are just like stone-faced. Like, maybe he likes you too. Ben, I love you so much.

You're my beautiful son, and you've got a beautiful sort of glow about you. But you've goofed this up desperately, my boy. Yeah. My boy, no. I thought I taught you better than this my son child uh and then lauren's talking to the mom and uh talking about how ben is is perfect and too good to be true and that's when ben's mom says have you have you seen his darker side though do you miss that i i was so deep into into my poultry adventure that I completely missed out on his dope lines.

She's like, have you seen Ben's side where he's really critical and hard on himself? I mean, dude does call himself unlovable, which is dumb. And then Lauren, ever the problem solver, says, I have a little bit. How can I help him? Like, how great is that? It's good stuff. It's like when an interviewer asks you for your weakness, you're supposed to reveal it and then immediately say how you worked to overcome it. That's exactly what she did.

Or you say, I want to talk about your weakness, Gregory. And then you, like, turn that shit on. That's, like, the number one thing. It's like, where do you see yourself in five years? It's like, in your seat interviewing somebody else, Gregory. I'm coming for your ass, Gregory. And then you take their candy dishes on the table, and you throw it against the wall as hard as you possibly can. You should tell our audience the last time that you interviewed for a job.

Oh, fuck. It was for Chris at Joystick fucking eight years ago. Like 2000. 2007, probably. Which back then, yeah, you did. You turned it on. It was nine years ago. Yeah. Jeez., yeah, you did. You turned it on. It was nine years ago. Yeah.

Jeez. But yeah, I did that. I took... Chris Grant. Chris Grant had just built a chair, and I just fucking took it, and I... Bashed it on him? Well, no, I slowly disassembled it. Which is even more imposing, because the whole time he's like, stop, stop, stop.

Stop, please, please. Stop. Stop it. But the mom responds to Lauren's question, says, you know, he can get dark sometimes. You have to help walk him through the hard times. Which

she keeps alluding to this suggestion that there are a lot of hard times that need to be prepared for, which makes me think there's a darker past in Ben's history than we know about yeah yeah you think what do you think like like he's on some dexter shit like pulling the wings off flies or what well does he have siblings that just haven't been on the show

do we know anything i don't know i mean if they did they would have been in last year's hometowns right he went to home no they didn't do they didn't do hometowns in Caitlyn's season, did they? Remember? Because they jumped something. They skipped something. They did something last year where maybe they sent – she got down to final two for hometowns is what it was. Yeah, so Ben didn't make it.

Ben didn't make hometowns. We don't know that. I don't know. There's probably a couple Higgins that's out there. Although, if they were, they would have been at this thing i think i think he might be an only an only child um so you're an only child too i'm not saying only are like like inherently twisted no i'm suggesting maybe there's like a sibling with an issue that hasn't been uncovered yet and that's the dark times that his mom seems to keep worrying about.

But anyway, after they meet both the girls, they talk to Ben. They say, you know, either one is great. I can't believe you haven't figured it out yet. How could you fuck this up this badly? I can't. This has been the worst, most uncomfortable day of my entire life. I can't believe you put me through this. You're supposed to be my loving son.

Now, this is where I'll insert some Dave and Linda feedback. Oh, please do do an impression of your parents while you say their words okay well do an impression of your parents as you say their words uh there's a new segment on the show called rachel does an impression of her parents as she says their words please please go ahead okay uh just some backstories so my parents have never watched the show before and they could not fathom that ben was in love with two women at the same time and the heart has four ventricles so i think you got enough room in there to love four women at once so after ben talks to the parents and he's like so undecided, my mom says, quote, as Dr. Phil says, he hasn't reached the dedicated stage.

He's in lust. That's probably true, Linda. That was, by the way, it was, that was, I got chills from how good that impression was. So Jojo has flowers. Jojo seems. Jojo brought those flowers in a weird ass conch shell like a little shell of wicker i don't know anyway sorry uh so she is talking about how they've had moments together that she'll never forget and she's very very

nervous which seemed even more nervous than lauren b well. I think maybe JoJo knew she was in second place. I don't know how she would know that except for her interactions with Lauren B. You remember that time where that one woman who made up the shit about Lauren B. What was her name? Leah. Leah.

Leah made up the shit about Lauren B. She said that she was like different in the house than she was around Ben. And then there was that scene where, that scene, that part where Lauren B was like crying in her bed and there were all these women like around her, like reassuring her,

like, oh babe, don't worry about it. Your relationship with him is so great. I felt like that was sort of emblematic of the other women in the house recognizing like, you're the, don you're the front runner like you're the wifey like don't don't even worry about it you're still gonna win this thing I feel like that's probably like that happened that has to happen that has to happen like well yeah and Jojo seems just more hip to the fact that she's got real competition just seem very cognizant of like the way the show works more than any other woman. That's why I actually really liked that about her even before like she won me over as a final two.

I really liked that JoJo. I really like an audience surrogate. We talked about this before but Michael Gagliart he was one of the brothers Michael Stagliano oh stagliano stagliano not gagliano michael stagliano he was i only saw him on bachelor pad but what was really great about him is he'd be

like so this is how the bachelor works right like he would get like a fucking superman tanner was kind of like that on bachelor in paradise jojo shows up um and uh then they they start exchanging this like weird anecdote about the hoover dam and and they're kind of laughing and they're like well we didn't really get to see it it was jojo and ben and then the mom was like oh uh too much cuddle time? There was this weird. A weird sexual energy about Mrs. Higgins. Yeah. Well, JoJo just came out and they were real familiar and touchy feely, like more so than Lauren was. Well, that's the, yeah, that was true the entire season. Well, yeah.

And then, and I think the parents noticed that because later they say Lauren B., they call her very polished, which makes me think like, oh, okay. Like they recognize like Lauren. That's shady. They're throwing out some tea. A little bit. Yeah, a lot of it. Most of the bit. But JoJo, this is when I started to think that JoJo was the front runner.

Because JoJo goes off to talk to the dad and gets very emotional. And just how much she loves Ben and how much she cares about him. And Ben's dad says, you know, I can tell by your emotion, you know, how much you feel for him. And I really appreciate that. And then the mom talks to Jojo. And Jojo talks about how she feels so safe with ben and the mom is like you know that is so funny he said the exact same thing about you and she seems so like tickled by that and so like like these two are really on the same page um there's also some things that we're not going to even be able to talk about because this show is for the most part superbly edited like an an edit in this show can like

make you think i feel like that was maybe half of it it's just like the editing and the music the way that they do this the soundtracking of this show like it can psychologically make you think like this is they have a love theme. Yeah. And usually only one woman gets that love theme. And that's how you know, like, oh, this is real. I also, just full confession, on my way to St. Louis, I got a, like, an Us Weekly. And in it, there were no spoilers, but they said that Ben's parents preferred one of the women.

And that is how Ben picked. So when I was watching the show, I had an extra reserve in my head of, oh, well, they like JoJo better. It must be JoJo. But how the fuck can you trust Us Weekly after they led us down the primrose path on another thing? Anyway, okay.

Speaking of JoJo, because I wanted to bring this up before we forgot it. There was a lot of... So we talked last week about how at their waterfall date, or I can't remember what they were doing, but she was wearing a bathing suit. And they did that weird WetaWorks, DreamWorks, CGI Pixar blur on the side of her breast. I never noticed those things. I did not even see that. How did you not...

I don't know, maybe because I'm looking at her face. No. No. I'm going to call horse apples on that. Because the blur job is so bad. They just put a big opaque like purple circle on her. It looks like she has just like an M&M on her chest. Like it's so bad.

And they did that this week too of just like she was wearing a low cut you didn't see that she was wearing like a low cut v-neck thing where you could see like an iota of bosom and they blurred that shit out and that is even more it's like unnecessary bleeping how you can make something seem so much worse than it actually is like this shirt you're wearing this tank top you're wearing now like they would blur that out on jojo and it's like why are you that's that's like not even big bang theory amount of big bang theory i think that's something they do i'm talking about like daytime like the view if barbara walters was wearing a low-cut shirt like this that's what i'm talking about like i feel like they do that shit on the bachelor all the time like with the the unnecessary blur to make it seem like way more scandalous than it is because they did that to uh uh jillian jillian last year

where like anytime a fleck of butt skin was exposed they would blur out her entire ass and be like and then somebody else would be like i could see inside her asshole and it's like you probably couldn't but that's like that's like a weird thing that they do in this show i don't understand like it's gross and i guess like i'm talking about it now so in that sense it's a successful like way of generating drama but they did the judge got that treatment like and nobody else this season did that's true that's true and it wasn't even like she ever dressed particularly scandalous. No, no, absolutely not.

I think the point I was trying to make is that the blur job was so bad. I think it's bad on purpose to like make sure that you notice that and then subconsciously think like she's wearing a sexy little get up. Like she's not. She's wearing a bathing suit that like every other person there is wearing. But whatever. Where can I get the uncensored version of this episode right where can i get the tvpg version of this episode because right now it's like y7 for animated violence um the only other thing i'll say about the parents is that um ben's dad says you Jojo, quote, went there with questions before I did, seeming to suggest like, like, Jojo was such a stellar candidate that she anticipated everything I was going to ask and was ahead of it.

And then the mom says, I won't be disappointed with either. I'm super, super proud of you. At which point I have a dave quote uh impression please i've got to do a dave impression i'd be so angry at this guy if he was my son i need that i need that bronx accent i can't do it that rumble in the bronx give it to me you You do it. I read it already. It's that line. Your handwriting is... I just said it out loud if you were listening. I'd be so angry at that guy if he was my son.

Oh, my God. That's until I give it all. That's terrible. All right. Okay. Fine. Anyway. I'd be so angry at that guy

if he was my son that's literally zero percent what your dad sounds like I think I was the closest I have another I have another Linda quote oh yeah it's pretty good okay

um Linda said Jesus Linda quote It's pretty good. Okay. Linda said, Jesus, Linda. Quote. You gotta do it now. I know. Linda said, quote,

he's gonna ask his dad to sleep with both of them and help him decide. Put that in your podcast. What a dark idea what a twisted idea yeah that's not the only time that my mom would say something clever and then ask me to put it in the podcast excellent

after this we cut to the live pastor cam and the studio audience after Linda said that the pastor heard it and nodded his head. Yes. And then we go back and Ben is on a boat and LB or Lauren B. Not

LB. LB is a different one. Lauren motors out for their last date. On this boat, on some let's go ahead and call it fucking deep impact level choppy ass waters. What's with the water in the boats this season? Like, every time they get on a boat to go on a date, it looks like they're doing, like, white squall cosplay or something. I thought you were working on, like, a Jerry Seinfeld.

What's the deal with boat water? How was that Seinfeld? That was a good ass Seinfeld impression. You are incredible. Thank you. And this is a very awkward date. This is another reason, at least it seemed like an awkward date, and it's another reason I thought JoJo might win,

because they are on the boat, the two of them, and they are kind of quiet, and Ben is not very responsive, and she's asking him if he's stressed i think the awkwardness came from the fact that they very lightly touched on the fact that he had very serious feelings apparently for jojo as well but they didn't like really dive into it they didn't like get as deep into it as him and jojo got because jojo and him got the deepest into it and i think that was probably why like that day was either going to be awkward or it was going to be very sad. Yeah.

And I feel like she probably would prefer the awkward version. Well, and Ben also says, Ben's like, you know, it's just been so perfect so far. And he tells us, the viewer, maybe at this point or later, he says, you know, Lauren and I haven't really struggled. We haven't really been tested like Jojo. she hasn't seen my dark ass side yeah my very very very dark side when i was trying to figure out when were him and jojo tested and i guess it was the letter from chad and the brothers so there was a really funny edit when he was talking about like the merits of both of these women when and towards the end right before he um picked picked his his winner uh and he was like jojo and i you know we've been through some stuff together and this clip they showed when he said that exact line

was the part where the helicopter landed on the rooftop and knocked over their bottle of champagne it was like we've been through the shit man we had that bottle of champagne and i'm just gonna drink it and transform into fun bin that we all got to see so many times this season. But then a helicopter came and took my booze away, and that was really hard for us. Do you think that's why it was so awkward was that Ben was more sober on these Jamaica dates than he had ever been before? Because his parents were around, and he wanted to— It's hard to say. I'm the most sober I've ever been recording this podcast right now.

That's true. Yeah, that's true. And it is making it more, I'm more careful with my words and actions. So maybe that was it. I don't know. So they have the date on the boat. And then they have the second half of their date. the second half of their date and

the second half of their date for both Lauren and Jojo is just like in a hotel room with a plate of dessert and they're just talking and Lauren is emotional and Ben is like yeah I left confused today there's just so much I can

never imagined and Lauren's talking about how when they fell in love, that was the best day of her life. And I've never been more sure about something in my whole life. And Ben, instead of kind of reassuring her says, no matter what happens,

you made me a better person. And there was just this kind of reaction to that was like, somebody just like punched her in the butt. Like she was, she was not expecting that response and not especially happy about it. Yeah. Yeah. And so it's only after he leaves that she's like, I'm scared he's in love with Jojo too.

And she's like, and tonight was the last time maybe that I heard Ben say he loved me. Like she seemed really like, I don't know anything anymore. Sure. Yeah. And then it's jojo state uh also on a boat right i can't remember what they i don't i don't remember oh no no they they got on like a little four-wheeler vehicle that's right they went to another waterfall didn't they because there was a thing where he jumped out he jumped into a body of water that she just jumped in and i was like oh he just broke her neck like he definitely just landed right on her neck in the water definitely

did you see the the local rastafarian man that was chasing them in the four-wheeler and was like welcome he yelled he yelled welcome iry i don't think he said he did uh he did he said iry he did and and this is where jojo talks about how she could see where Ben's characteristics came from after meeting his family. Yeah. And that's when they started throwing the word babe around a lot. Babe. Babe. Babe, I broke your neck, babe.

Landing on you in the water. They get to the blue hole and she's like, babe, this blue hole we're about to swim in, babe. Babe. Babe, you jumped on my spine, babe. And Jojo tells the camera this is the best relationship i've ever been in compared to chad yeah i guess chad seemed like a great a ding dinger um and this is where jojo starts to be really like practical and really like an exceptional communicator i would say twice in Twice in this episode, when they first, like, ran into each other,

they, like, hugged real hard. And Ben goes, oh, your heart. Because he can, like, feel her heart racing. Oh, I missed that. He does it twice. Which is, like, again, like, I see that, and I'm like, aw. And Jojo says, when I was talking to your mom, this came up about where we see our life going together.

And, you know, I am in Dallas, and you're in Denver, and I just want you to know that I'll do whatever it takes. And, and she can sense that Ben is being kind of weird. And she's like, so you feel good about this? And Ben is quiet. And Jojo goes, Oh, God goes oh god like she just knows like something horrible is happening and then ben goes well i mean you probably know what this is and jojo immediately goes there's two people and you're confused like those two are so insane i know this is when i was like jojo wins this thing like they know each other but but but are they in sync or is this just more of jojo just knowing how the fucking game works like every every everything we saw like yeah it was it was they they became much more familiar and i've you became much more invested in the relationship

i think a lot of like the vulnerability that we got out of jojo which is like another thing that's really refreshing in these shows is somebody like showing actual emotion that you consider to be genuine i think a lot of that also comes from jojo like realizing how the show works and she's like in second place still yeah yeah but i just i don't want that to be a knock i actually think that's great it's like the thing i actually like the most about JoJo. And it actually made it the saddest when she didn't win. So they go back to the hotel for the dessert plate. And they talk more.

And JoJo is like, you know what? What are your concerns? Like, tell me what your concerns are. And Ben's like, I don't have one. At which point I have a dave quote uh this is going to be your whole life that's a good point dave because ben could not decide on anything the entire episode yeah like everything was just like well i don't know i mean i guess well let's do this and you know and so jojo's, I need something from you.

And they go into the bathroom to have their bathroom chat. Bathroom chat was rough to watch and hear. Yeah. And this was teased a lot on the episode. But it's the two of them in the bathroom. The door's closed, but we can still hear because they're mic'd. And JoJo's, you know, Ben is saying, I'm in love with you. You know, I'm sitting here on the bathroom floor.

And JoJo says, but you love her too. And Ben says, yes. And then JoJo says, but you told her that too. And Ben says, yes. So now JoJo knows everything. Yeah. It is all out on the table and jojo starts telling the camera this goes back to our theory that she was a mistress uh because she's like i

feel like i'm always competing and i just don't want to be competing anymore and this is when i was just like i was team jojo all the way oh my god i was so team well especially because after he said like yes i'm in love with her and yes i her that. And he's like, well, don't get, and she's like, well, no, I feel foolish. I feel like an idiot. Because, like, if you take into account, if you really view JoJo through the lens of this, like, student of the show, you realize that when, God, this is like, I'm just now thinking about this right now. If you think about her that way, when he told her, I'm with you more so than lauren b i would argue she probably went i just won the patch like i just that was her face that was her reaction on her face was like not only like i'm so

happy but also like this never happens right i was i at first i was just considering that surprise to be like the kind of surprise you get when you hear somebody say I love you. But knowing like she knows so much about this show. She knows how it works. She knows the meta of it. For her to hear that, she was probably like, it's me. And so to find out that another woman probably had that, that was genuinely devastating. Yeah.

And so then they pretty soon after they part they just had this gut-wrenching conversation on the bathroom floor and then he goes and that's it that's how they leave things yeah and then ben goes straight to neil lane old old neil lane for diamond time 140-year-old Neil Lane, whose skin has been softened and brightened with a new sort of synthetic diamond cream. And you rub it into your skin, and your skin is just, you become full of diamonds, like that one Bond villain. So Neil Lane. None of that skin is his original skin he bought new skin for himself with his diamond money it's 24 karat skin 24 karat 30 year old skin he bought that skin off a 30 year old man um that man has no more skin but he does have a boat and a bunch of rings

um for those that don't watch the show or this is their first season, Neil Lane finale. Is a necromancer and a skin collector and a diamond halver. He has many of them. Neil Lane shows up on the finale every season with a tray of diamond rings to be selected. And a tool he uses to take just a little bit of skin from The Bachelor. Just like, you don't want to miss an opportunity like that. And so Neil Lane shows up. Let's talk about Neil Lane's tray of tricks.

Because he does. He always brings rings. Like a tray of rings. I have this theory in my mind. Because I realized it watching yesterday. I think there's fewer rings each time. And I'm worried about Neil and his business. I know he's the ring slinger to the stars, and that's great.

Yeah. And maybe it's just like the older he gets, the more he has to focus on the skin stuff. But there were like five fucking rings that he brought. When I picked out your engagement ring, I looked at, I was in that store for maybe two hours, and I looked at every i was in that store for maybe two hours and i looked at every fucking ring they had on the shelf they had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of rings and catalogs full of thousands of rings that i could have also ordered off so probably a combined total of like 3 000 rings and then i picked your one from that this dude's like you

got five go for it 20 chance they I mean, they're all huge. I think they look like... This is gonna... I've said stuff like this in the past, and you think I'm... He does every year. I'm trying to justify, like, the size of the ring I bought you, which I think is a nice, a fine ring. I know you hate it.

No, you don't. You like it. I love it. Yeah, it's a good ring. But it's not like these fucking keychain-sized rings that Neil Lane has. I feel like that shit looks stupid. When we watch it and the giant five-pound rings will come on screen, Griffin will be like, I mean, that's too big, right? Like, that's probably too big.

Okay, but that's not how you... You see a ring with, like, a fucking Super Bowl ring sized single gemstone. And it's the crust. It's like, I think that shit looks terrible. The crust? The crust. They like encrust the rest of the ring, which is like all diamonds, so that you're just wearing a billion diamonds on your finger with one gigantic diamond on top of it. Like that shit, it just looks like a ring pop, a juicy jewel of flavor.

I just don't get it. I don't think that that stuff looks good. But apparently I'm the only person in the world. What do you want me to say? You think that looks good? You think that big old diamond looks good? I mean, I wouldn't wear it, but I don't think it looks bad. Okay.

I mean, I think it's, you know, it's shiny. Imagine having that on your finger, though, all the time. All the fucking time and then also having to worry about you have a fucking quarter million dollar thing on your finger all the time yeah i don't know it just seems impractical and be the worst so neil lane typically comes and he asks kind of leading questions of the person in the chair of like, tell me about the person you're going to propose to. And this is when Ben unnecessarily but entertainingly lays his cards out. And when Neil is like, tell me about her.

What kind of person is she? She has blondish brownish hair. Ben goes silent. And then Neil goes, oh, have you have you picked yet and that's when ben's like well i'm in love with two women you know because that's yeah this this was the this was his sort of mental like terminus of like you got a really quick like flat series of flashbacks of him yeah they did like a montage because this was this was when he reveals i have picked someone um which like the way that they've edited the teasers for this you didn't actually know whether or not he was gonna end up with somebody because he kept talking about how fucking conflicted he was yeah but then he revealed to neil lane yes i have chosen

somebody i love them both but there's one who i'm fully in love with oh cool cool cool um and that i couldn't imagine my life without okay great hey hey ben do you what does love mean dog because you're like i love you but i could do without you really i love you but i could live without you oh oh cool listen jojo i want you to know something. I love you. But I could... I could do without you. You know, I do love you, though. What the fuck are you talking about? Now I'm just...

That makes me... That's crazy. Maybe it's like how I love the TV show Scandal, but if it went off the air, I'd be okay. Sounds like you like the TV show Scandal. I mean, I watch every episode. Isn't that love? It's just like, that's the one fucking word that you reserve for the most of the thing.

And to say that you love both of the women, but one of them more, then you didn't love the other one. Yeah. That's easy. That's an easy one. I love you, but you gots to bounce, and I'm probably gonna be okay with that. Eh, you know?

Eh. And the way that they interacted on the, the After the Final Rose, which we'll get to, was like, I'm not so sure, because you were like, basically, it's just like,

yeah. Oh, yeah. The After the Final Rose was brutal, because all of a sudden, he had to act like, eh, well's just like. Oh, yeah. After the final rose was brutal, because all of a sudden he had to act like, well, you know. Yeah, well, you know. Jojo. It was like she was an old neighbor of his or something like that. That like used to bring over like extra spaghetti when she made it. Or like his date to the middle school dance.

Yeah, like, yeah, I brought her to Cotillion. Anyway. So we go straight to the women getting ready in their fancy dresses. I literally never have a dog in this race. Hated JoJo's dress. Looked like a prom dress. Somebody on Twitter said JoJo was really dressing for the job she wanted, which I liked. What does that mean?

Oh, just because she was so sparkly and like glamorous yeah there was like a suggestion like she is dressing for the winning for the winning yeah i guess so i guess that makes sense i don't know because lauren's dress while also beautiful was much like less sparkly like more understated yeah whereas jojo came out like full spangle. Yeah. Didn't love it. Didn't love it. Didn't love it. And so this is when Ben tells us, because he's standing out in the spot in Jamaica where he is going to potentially propose, and he's

looking at the camera and he says, I told this woman I love her, but I love somebody else more. And I know, and you know, and anyone that watches the show knows that the first person to get out of the car or helicopter is the one that's being eliminated um he also brought up i'm about to i'm also about to ask somebody to marry me and i love somebody else yeah he was like even

conflicted about who the winner was even though he had obviously picked who the winner was going to be um and then what do we see stepping out of that helicopter but it's a spangly bright pink as soon as that happened literally four people in the room we were watching it with which is a much smaller group than we usually do because a lot of folks are out of town like four of us were like this is gonna suck like oh no yeah oh darn you know what sean low uh from a previous season that we love so much he tweeted hey just a heads up if you're getting out of the car or helicopter before sunset you're not the winner we brought that up too it's like high it was like high noon it was like well maybe they shot the other woman at like eight in the morning. No, but no, bud. And this is another moment where Ben, I think, really fell down.

Because the understanding is whoever is about to be proposed to gives like a little speech about how much they care about you. Yeah. And if you are trying to save that person some energy and face, you stop them right away. You say, don't give me this speech because I have bad news. That is not. So that happens more on The Bachelorette because on The Bachelorette, we had a long talk about what is worse. Let's talk about this because you weren't there. What's worse? The Bachelor, where the Bachelor is the one guy, and then the two final women pour their heart out, and they either get a proposal or they don't.

Or in Juan Pablo's season, they just get covered in a layer of slime either way. But you either get that proposal or you don't. Or the Bachelorette, where the final two contestants usually propose. The Bachelorette, and I'll tell you why. Okay. Because the men do the physical move of getting down on one knee. Yes, and they both have to pick out kneeling rings, which- It's because you can't play it off. Like with the bachelor, the lady, after she gives her speech,

doesn't have to move, just stands there. Stands there and awaits her judgment. But the man has to start to go on one knee and almost every time the lady will grab his hands and keep him from doing it and that's when so that is more common that that that mercy killing that rachel just described is way more common on the bachelorette because they they do not want to get proposed to yeah like don't open that box don't like no put it back in your fucking pocket yeah um i don't i don't actually think it's that common on The Bachelor for them to, like, stop and be like, stop, you're embarrassing yourself. Like, no, that doesn't have a very obvious. They should, though.

They should, absolutely. Because JoJo. Here's some notes from JoJo's speech that she gives. These speeches, by the way, because, again, this is our first season. We should lay this out. It's like vows. It's like the amount of work I mentioned that you and i put into like preparing and practicing and writing our vows like this is it this is the final tribal council

you're like this is like your plea and this is like what you spend days working on yeah because you want to fucking crush it and you want to prove that you are a an eloquent thinker and writer and speaker uh in front of a national television audience. I can't imagine how fucking terrifying that must be. Yeah, well, and plus, and you'll see, and I didn't write her whole speech down word for word, but a few things she said is she's like, Ben, you told me love isn't supposed to be easy. It's supposed to be worth it.

And she tells him that he's become her best friend. And then she says, I love you and I trust you. And I'm never going to run from this. When she said, I trust you. I was like, oh, dang. Heartbreaker. Because she was telling us, the viewer, before she got out there of like, I really don't want to be blindsided. And I don't think Ben would do that to me.

And he let her get through that whole speech before he gave his butt speech which is the butt speech he oh the axe man he buried that butt didn't he he was like he like went for a while i spent this whole time not thinking i was gonna find love yeah not wondering not and he said with you it was real always and i found love with you was he used what actually for me the the was came before the butt when he's like it was always real i was like always and i found love with you was he used what actually for me the the was came before the but when he's like it was always real i was like oh and he said i found love with you but i found it with somebody else more and then she was like who no just kidding it's larry b and then jojo's upset and ben says i like i still don't question that i do love you

like he's telling her he did not back off that shit like at all. And she's like, where did it all go wrong? And Ben says, it never did. And Jojo says, I trusted you. And Ben says, my feelings haven't changed. I fell in love with two people. And it's just like, Ben, pretend at least like you realized, realized oh i actually wasn't in love with you or something this he was the saw man here just like very slowly and very painfully

this was a saw um yeah it was bad it was bad stuff it was as bad as i thought it was going to be and and what was bad about it is that jojo didn't, like, break down in hysterics instantly and just, like, fall to pieces. And she didn't do the— She wasn't, like, real angry. She didn't do the—who was that on Juan Pablo's season that came in second? Claire. Claire. You had to remind me of her name earlier today.

I just can't keep that one locked in my head. But Juan Pablo—Juan Pablo sucked. We've talked about him before. But the woman that he sent home was the woman who he told in a helicopter, love fucking you yeah uh and but she's still like hung in there and then she he sent her home and she was like fuck you you're garbage yeah like like you're a terrible father or like i would never want you around yeah you know uh then get that we got a very much like it was again like like i can't believe like disbelief is what it was like oh my god well and jojo tells like when she gets in the limo she's like you know i was getting my heart broken and

i still didn't want to see him cry jojo she she just like she's a classy lady and very classy and let's eulogize her for just a second. Like, I haven't, I haven't, I really liked Caitlyn, right? Because she was, like, a funny person. Like, genuinely a person who I actually laughed at. And above the caliber of humor that this show usually brings to the table. Like, she was doing some stuff that I thought was really funny. JoJo I liked for a reason I never, like, really liked a contestant before. There was a little bit of that audience surrogate stuff, but there was also, like, an authenticity to it.

You're saying this, though, but did you really like her before last week? Yeah, before last week, I did. Starting from Water Pig Date, I started to become a JoJo fan. But, yeah, I mean, most of the work did get done in the past two episodes. Yeah. Which, again, is, like, a like a testament to how like great this finale was they took a story they've been working on the whole season and then made you think that that story wasn't gonna happen um in a way that wasn't like cheap at all it was it was genuinely very very manipulative and gross but like very well done yeah and so ben tells us the viewer he's like you know i don't

deserve jojo you know whenever things got tough for me who would be the first to sit down next to me he seems really broken up and then we cut back to the studio audience yeah and the studio audience is like awkwardly clapping because they know the camera is back on fucking terry terry gary what's his name denny denny kenny is just shaking his head ben no ben no um and then and then we come back and ben says i could have married jojo and been really happy like how does lauren watch that episode i know i wondered that basically the whole time um which is always something you think about. Like, people get engaged at the end of these seasons, usually. How do you, the fiance, not go back and watch the other stuff and be like, hey, remember that episode where you had sex with two other women?

Cool, cool, cool. Hey, cool, cool, cool, cool stuff. And this is the phone call. This is when the phone call happens that we know is coming. I want to set a timetable from him sending JoJo home, her in tears, him saying, I love this person, and I don't doubt that. And she was always the first person there. And how devastated he was. Commercial break, say maybe, what, like two and a half minutes? You did about the length of a commercial break.

Then this phone call happens, which is probably about like four minutes. We'll say six and a half minutes from the devastation to the thing that happens after the phone call. But let's talk about the phone call. I just want to set a timetable because it was one of the craziest fucking things I've ever seen. Well, it's not real time, though. It's just the TV show. Doesn't matter. It was real time for us as the viewer.

It was some fucking emotional whiplash. So Ben makes the phone call. And at this point, had guessed i don't know if you would guess but you know that he's calling lauren's dad yeah sure okay uh yeah i mean they made it very clear like from the moment he said he made his decision say okay well he's not going to call back the woman he sent home he's not going to call somebody else he's you know i thought maybe he was going to call jojo's brothers and be like, hey, I'm sorry. Hey, hey, the Axeman always pays his debts. Click.

The Axeman remembers. He calls Lauren's dad. He says, hey, Mr. Bushnell, I love your daughter a lot, and I'm really going to try and make her the happiest person ever or something. And then the dad says, yes, you know you you have my blessing you have our family's blessing you know we've thought about this moment and we're just so happy uh and ben gets off the phone and then ben makes a move that i'm guessing griffin wants to talk about after the phone call move as much as it is a fucking full-blown ejaculatory Ric Flair.

Woo! A full-blown fucking... Air punch. There was an air punch. It was a straight-up Howard Dean. Yeah! Literally, I just, I can't. I sent her home, and it's just like, I love her, and it's just like, I can't believe it.

Beat, beat beat beat full-blown super mario 64 triple jump like i did it um what would he have done if lauren's dad was like no sir i can't give you my blessing if Lauren's dad was like, no, sir, I can't give you my blessing. No! And then he just slowly head down, like good grief style walks off camera. Like, well, I guess it's not going to happen. I was checking to see if Lauren Bushnell is related to Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari and the creator of Chuck E. Cheese.

I was thinking of Candace Bushnell, who I think wrote the Sex and the City stuff. Oh, I don't know. Either way. What a power family. So then Lauren gives her. Woo! Broke a woman's heart. Extra good.

Lauren gives her speech. Here are some of the things I wrote down. That was the last first kiss I ever wanted to have. You're the person I want to spend my whole life with. You're my person. And then Ben says, Woo. Lauren, I never want to say goodbye to you.

And that's when she knows that he's going to propose. Maybe. Here, let me try. Let me try out an alt universe. I never want to say goodbye to you but there's someone i don't want to say goodbye to less less or more i had not i'm not sure it was a confusing sentence anyway get the fuck out of here hey mr bushnell we're even no marriages for me i got no strings to hold me down that'd be a fun season finale wouldn't it

just like since both of them home like here i go to jamaica gonna hit a bar up get some strange brad womack his first season he didn't propose to either of them and then he was vilified apparently and then he was given a second chance and they let him come back a second time how'd it work back a second time. How did it work out the second time? I think it was him and Emily. And... It didn't go great either. No, Emily broke up with him after the final rose.

And then she married the race car driver? Who died? Or, wait, was he a race car driver? Emily's whole story with The Bachelor started after the race car driver. That was her, like, her entry. Was like, I have this tragic story and this daughter. I'm sorry i just i just searied tragic story and she said i'm sorry i'm sorry about your tragic story hey hey siri hey griffin okay i didn't think so maybe she's still working on the tragic story narrative yeah probably and when you wooed she's like oh yeah i didn't think so okay then yeah that's exactly how i reacted

last night watching the bachelor that was the same amount of time anyway uh so they get yeah they have these cute little love moments where they talk to the camera. They call each other fiance. I'm your person. Yeah, I am. And then it's after the final rose. So Chris is out there. Chris calls Ben out. And this is when Ben starts talking a lot about his stomach hurting.

Just like over and over again. Because Chris is like, so how did it feel to be in love with two people and how was it watching it back and he just kept saying like oh man you know it made my stomach hurt chris harris was trying to collect on this idea of him being in love with two women and that the whole time you're watching it having this question in your mind of like well fuck like he's gonna have to deal with this when he's like really engaged to one of these two women. Yeah.

That he was in love with two of the women. And Chris Harrison was like, yeah, I'm gonna really put the irons to him based on that. And the fucking ax man, though, cuts off his own arm to get out of that bear trap. Well, it would be his leg if it was a bear trap. Unless, I don't know, maybe the bear trap was on a wall and he just poked it. Anyway. And so Chris asked Ben what we're all wondering, which is like, how did you make up your mind? And Ben says, well, actually, it was a conversation that you and I had, Chris.

And then we realized as a viewer, we got ripped out of seeing that convo. Which like, what the fuck, guys? I would have loved to see that convo. I would have loved to see any fucking convo with Chris Harrison. But Chris said, apparently Chrisris told ben is there somebody here you can't picture life without and that's how ben was like immediately was like it's lauren okay but that's let me just go ahead and say i love chris harrison i really like ben see what i did there because i actually love chris harrison i can't imagine my life without chris harrison

well you don't throw love around like ben does right ben i like a lot i love the way he does stuff as a person when he'll be gone now and that'll be sad he'll come back for his wedding special if he makes it that far and i'll be excited to see him again but i i can live without him yeah i can i don't i'm not crazy about the idea but i can live without him chris harrison can't he gets love bing is like um forgot what i was gonna say it happens so you're talking about how you loved chris harrison yeah but i i was there was a point to it that i oh i love chris harrison but the idea of who can't you live without and base your decision on that that's not exactly the fucking wisdom of solomon as much as it is like a baseline level of like understanding the deepest level of human

interaction you can have that's like the number one like sort of thing you know what i mean like can you live without them yeah okay well then there's your answer how'd you decide you wanted to marry me i actually had a phone call with chris harrison and he was like let me let's walk through this and that's what the book the perfect letter was is that the name of the book yes that's what it's all about you wouldn't know because you haven't read it and you have i don't have to read it i lived it uh so then so it's chris and ben on the couch ben knows it's coming we all know it's coming jojo is going to walk out don't call jojo an it well the it i'm referring to is the standard return of the the quote jilted lover yeah um yeah but like again i mentioned this earlier their interactions were exceedingly civil not just civil but like placid there was no like there was no tension between them like literally at all which i think probably

makes sense because of the big surprise yeah so chris uh asked her how it was watching it and jojo's really honest and says you know it helped me to see how hard it was for you uh and then ben says i want what's best for you forever. And, you know, a piece of my life is now gone. And this wasn't your fault. It wasn't my fault. And Jojo, you can tell, is just kind of upset, you know, but she's like holding it together. And then Chris says, you told her you loved her. You still do?

Question mark. And this is when Ben starts to like pull back in a big way. He's like, Oh, I moved on. You know, I'm right now I'm committed to one person, you know, and and that's part of my past. And, and all of a sudden, you can see Jojo like, Oh, this is this is horrible. This whole experience. No, but I mean, but that is actually a good indicator. So what's the just like rough give me a rough estimate how many how many relationships make it to even the after the final rose because this is like a few months out from when they actually film the finale because they have to like keep their shit discreet for a while

and then how many of these relationships even like last a year how many even make it to like the wedding i feel like there have been a couple after the final roses where it's like oh yeah we split up i feel like 80 make it to the after the final rose yes um but sometimes you can kind of see some hedging when they talk about weddings and next steps you remember ben and courtney like they were like are you guys still together and their answer was literally i don't know i'm like uh yeah courtney and ben and brad and em Emily were that way too. Yeah. It's not unusual. Juan Pablo and Nikki seemed like they were not going to make it.

Yeah. Because Chris Harrison was like, have you told her that you love her yet? Like, nope. And then I would say most of them, I mean, clearly most of them drop off. Like only like maybe four or five couples. I think we've gotten four or five, counting Marcus. Have been married. Marcus and. In like 20 plus seasons.

Yeah. And Tanner and Jade. We have two married couples who came out of fucking Bachelor in Paradise. Yeah, I was going to say, those don't really count as much though because they're not like the traditional format. I think they count. You're saying that Tanner and Jade don't count just because they didn't meet on the fucking Bachelor Prime? That their love doesn't count? Hey, sorry, Marcus and the woman.

Hey, sorry. Rachel. Marcus and Lacey. Hey, Marcus and Lacey. Hey, Jade and Tanner. Sorry. Your love doesn't count because you weren't on the main series. I'm saying they don't count in the traditional success rate.

Yeah, no. Marriage should be between a man and a woman who met on The Bachelor or Bachelorette, but fuck Bachelor and Pat and Bachelor in Paradise. That's what traditional marriage should be. That's what you're saying. That's what you just said? That is what you said. You said that out loud.

Okay, so JoJo says, watching back the show, I could see that you guys were really hitting it off from day one. And I'm good friends with Lauren. She's amazing. And she says, your relationship with her moved faster. And the only question she has for Ben is the question we already heard the answer to, which was, what was the deciding factor? And that's where Ben says, you know, I couldn't picture my life without Lauren. And he says, you'll always be a part of my past, which was like rough, pretty rough stuff.

Like, yeah, that sandwich that I ate yesterday and then pooped out this morning. That is also going to be a part of my past forever because that's how time works. Well, then you're saving that time i went to dollywood and i got pink eye from the log flume that's always going to be a part of my past because of time is that true i don't want to talk about it what were you doing to the log flume writing it writing the log flume into the log and the water got in my face well pink eye is usually because you rub your hands in your eyes not like or you get some stink ass doll and the water got in my face well pink eye is usually because you rub your hands in your eyes not like or you get some stink ass dollywood water up in there did anyone else

get pink eye for the log flume just me i think it was delicate you know what may have been from another thing now you bring it up never really gone csi on this never really gotten a fucking uh uh viral pathologist on the case but yeah i think it may have been from something else is that why you'll never ride log flumes again? Well, log flume water is the dirtiest water that there is. Like, you fucking go on that shit in, like, Camden Park in Huntington West, Virginia, and you ride the log flume there, and a fucking Doritos bag, like, washes up and splashes in your face. Two condoms, like, get on your ears, and it makes it look like some sort of droopy elf situation. condoms like get on your ears and it makes it look like some sort of droopy elf situation um and this is when chris harrison is going to announce the bachelorette jojo is still on stage

with ben and chris harrison starts off now for your next bachelorette she is a woman he stands up he stands up and like addresses the camera uh like he's turned his back on Ben and JoJo as though he's about to introduce some B-roll or something. Yeah. And then he first says, she is a woman, which I just thought was kind of a funny lead-in. Like we were going to get the real very slow build. She is a woman. She has two hands and two feet. She has hair, eyes, nose, and a mouth.

Her name has two letters in it, but they're in there a couple times. And when they announce it's JoJo, they immediately cut to the pastor. Yeah, and the pastor's, what? So let's unpack this just because I want to go into a history of like this thing because we mentioned last week like I can't believe they didn't announce who the winner was

we all know who the bachelorette is we know who it is there were multiple spoilers online saying it was Kayla lots of people posting in the group I guess I think it stemmed from so have we talked about Reality Steve? It's a guy, Reality Steve, whose whole thing is he has a knack

for, I don't know if he does like the investigation stuff himself. He probably does some of it, but a lot of it is just like reliance on social media because they shoot a lot of this stuff out in the wild. They shoot this show out in the wild and so they see it and then he sort of deduces like what week it took place and then uses that to put together a timeline of who gets sent home wire just from

deduction um and he usually predicts the winner um and i've i've gotten pretty good about like just staying off of it during the season um but these rumors about kayla being the next bachelorette all circulated all stem from from him because there were, somebody put up these pictures on Twitter of them shooting Kayla after she'd been kicked off the show. Yeah, like her in a gazebo, like out in her hometown. So like Us Weekly ran with it, like a bunch of the Bloids were writing

up stories about Kayla being the next bachelorette. And so obviously when they announced JoJo, it was like, well wait, what the fuck happened? Was that just a false flag situation? Like, how could they do that? Um, and so I went to Reality Steve's website and he wrote up a thing where he said that apparently Kayla found out that she was not going to be doing it this past Thursday, uh, i.e.

Friday, Saturday, Sunday, four days before the, they announced it was going to be Jojo. Um. days before the they announced it was going to be jojo um that explains because when they filmed the women tell all which i imagine happened at least a few weeks ago yeah they were kind of making it seem like she was yeah absolutely they gave her they gave her time in the chair yeah they had like well she had also been she was third place so she'd just gone home so they're going to focus most of the attention on them um but also like the whole fucking season we thought it was gonna be kayla yeah we joked about how she was engineered to be this like i said that in the last episode she was engineered to be the next bachelorette of course like and then when they when us weekly like ran that a bunch of people in the facebook group like posted it yeah and i was like hey no spoilers here guys i'm gonna keep this off of our page yeah um and so

according to reality steve like thursday kayla finds out like it's not gonna be you and she is upset by this uh according to his sources like which like yes because which means they had one episode to make jojo the favorite i mean at least like one dedicated episode of like we are really gonna make the audience pull for Jojo but there had to be stuff throughout the season that people were already rooting for why would they put in the effort I just think

Griffin and I were watching this in different locations and while I watched Jojo on this last episode I literally texted him I hope she's the bachelorette because they had worked me so hard that episode rich lather yeah i was like all of a sudden i not only like jojo i want to watch a whole additional season with her as the star in one episode and they did it and then they and then they delivered on yeah

no it's fucking amazing like i felt like a dummy after they pulled off because like they had manipulated my desire and then they had created a desire and then fulfilled it and then i was like thank you for filling fulfilling this desire you created in me an hour and a half ago television show yeah i'm not comfortable with like it's amazing and like really well done reality television i'm kind of uncomfortable with how i know effectively not just on me but with everybody i watch the show with. Yeah, me too. But it's still cool. Like, it's cool psychology. Like, hey, well done.

You really got one over on me. It would be interesting if they shot, like, and edited multiple versions of the seasons as they were considering the next Bachelorette. So we could watch, potentially go back and watch a cut of this season that was a jojo focused season from top to bottom according to um reality steam um this was not the first time that something like this had happened um and he says that they uh and i i this is the first season

where i've like really put as much of a critical eye to this show as because now that we're doing this podcast and i want to sound at least a little bit erudite. They apparently did this with Nick V, Nick Vial, which I think is weird. Was anybody psyched about the idea of watching him be the... He was kind of lauded as like a sexy guy. Well, he was just controversial. Well, and also he did have sex with lots of women.

Well, just the one. No, two. Yeah. You got the lots of women. Well, just the one. No, two. Yeah. Caitlin. You got the two fantasy suite. Caitlin and Andy. Yeah. Yeah, I guess I can kind of see that.

But apparently they did that with him. They did that with. Well, and Caitlin before the fantasy suite, too. Yeah, sure. They did that with him. They did it with. Oh, my God. I forgot her fucking name again.

See? Claire. Claire. I keep wanting to call her Carly because I love Carly with my whole heart no i like carly i can't live without there you go it's important distinction um uh they've done that with people in the past where either as i don't know if it's like i don't i don't know if it's like spy work i don't know if this is sutterfuge i don't know if they actually changed their mind because this is like a big problem like whenever anybody interviews like a producer on this show they're like so this reality steve guy fucking ruins it every time

huh because like before well on the day that you air the first episode of the season he knows who wins it that's got to put a real thorn in your side huh that's really got to suck for you so like maybe are they laying this shit down as to like cover their tracks or did they actually pick kayla to be the bachelorette and then change their minds at the last minute was kayla in on it like but chris harrison did say when during this episode when they kept cutting to the live studio audience he's like we're gonna announce the bachelorette tonight it might not be who you think so he seemed seemed to suggest like, hey, we know what's out there and you all are still going to be surprised. To add to this, this idea of them transferring over to another woman like last minute based on just sort of the gigantic focus group that is the Bachelor consuming audience. The producer who said the next Bachelorette is going to be diverse

um and then chris harrison kind of walked that back didn't he because he was like no we're going to pick the person who's best for the job well and jojo is half iranian um so yeah they still yeah but they didn't play that up the way they did with kayla with no they made a huge deal which was filipino yeah um that's i don't know i mean we're not gonna figure it out you know like we're not gonna i was trying to put together at least context clues to like have a theory about it but i'm honestly it could be either thing it could be that they really transitioned at the last minute because people were starting to really like jojo and to be i think jojo's gonna do a way better job than kayla i liked kayla but i liked kayla

i think mostly because of this narrative i had in my head of just like she's so fucking good at the game that doesn't necessarily make an interesting bachelorette um an interesting bachelorette to me is somebody i think who's your favorite bachelorette that you've seen oh probably emily emily because emily is like legit like when she said shit when she sent that dude home because he referred to her daughter as baggage yeah that was the most that was some fucking choice yeah realness yeah i don't know i think they have old seasons of this show on uh youtube or something like that you have to like pay for them or something like that but if you want to put in the expense to like dig into the show's back history that's probably the best bachelorette uh season ever yeah because

she did have this kid had jeff with one f who i adored uh and it had some total skis bags that she was like had chris bukowski was on that chris bukowski was on the season and when she kicks off people like that like see ya it is awesome because she's like she's kind of fiery she's got she's west virginian isn't she yeah telling you man um well let's finish but anyway i think jojo's going to be more like that because she knows the show so well but also she was like a lot of her reactions to the things that the ax man laid on her were like legit as fuck and i think that's going to be way more entertaining than somebody who's just going to paint uh uh on a canvas and she's going to do a beautiful job of it, but it's still going to

be very much paint by numbers. Like this is what a bachelorette should do here. And this is what, this is how I should react to you. And these are the final three that of course I should, you know what I mean? Yeah. As much as we love our Kyla 001 goofs, and it would be fun to probably do a robot bachelorette season. And I don't, and let's put that to bed too. Cause that was, I think probably a little mean spirited the whole time that we did that because i also think she's probably a genuinely very sweet very kind person um uh who like i wouldn't have been upset if she was the bachelorette i think she'll definitely be on bachelor in paradise right like she's got to be uh but i just think jojo's gonna be the more entertaining person but again like i don't know because i was

so psyched when caitlin was the bachelorette. And then that season was kind of a dud for me. Okay, wait. Let's get to the end of this. So Lauren B. comes out. And the first thing Chris asks is, how was it seeing all this? And Lauren says, the night after he proposed we were in Jamaica in bed, and Ben told me everything. So told me about JoJo and how they were in love. Because apparently he did not hip Lauren to that before the proposal.

She had no idea until after. And he basically showed all his cards so that she wouldn't have to watch it on TV and be totally surprised. Which is why I guess they were able to save him. Probably a rough night. Yeah. Yikes. And then this is when they start teasing, like, maybe they're going to get married tonight.

Because Chris starts asking her about the wedding. And Lauren says, I don't want a long engagement. And then Jimmy Kimmel shows up. And he's got Barbies. and did you see this yeah yeah yeah it's fine yeah i love that they have uh i love that they have like another member of the abc fan i love when jimmy kimmel shows up and it's because it's essentially a co-worker on the abc family who is, it doesn't strike me as like gross cross promotion.

It strikes me as like, Jimmy Kimmel loves the fuck out of the bachelor and is like psyched to interact with this product. You know what I mean? Like it was goofy. And like the best was the date that he went on with them. It was like in the hot tub eating chicken wings while they made out, which is still like, that was last season.

Yeah. It was fully scripted. It was a scripted dumb moment, which they obviously obviously like they even broke kayfabe during that whole scene because they were like laughing at how dumb it was but as a viewer i appreciated it because again i like it when they break they break the fourth wall yeah and real reveal like oh this is this is all you know this is all scripted but um yeah it's not the best thing but i still like i he has an earnest like love of this franchise that i really appreciate but yeah so he like he's like show me on the dolls where you two touch each other in the fantasy suite and he has like a naked doll and a

clothed doll and then the one thing he does ask is he says are you guys gonna watch jojo on the bachelorette and they both say yes and. And he's like, that's crazy. That was really good. Okay, so they bring out the pastor. Chris is like, we could do this right here, right now. And Ben says, this thing never stops, does it? Which I thought was funny. Yeah.

And he's like, you know, we owe it to each other and our friends and families to do a big wedding. This was the most interesting 15 seconds of the whole thing. Because Chris Harrison tries to keep selling this thing. Because he says the words, oh, you wish your family was here. Because the family was there. That was like another surprise. Yeah. Before he can even follow up on that thought, Ben Higgins stands up and walks over to his pastor and like hugs him

probably whispers in his ear like you son of a bitch uh and then does this next thing but he completely cuts chris harrison off completely stops this idea of let's get married here right now and like completely puts an end to the rest of his pitch and does this next thing which i thought was really interesting of the axe man like again squirming his way out of another situation so ben gets the family all around the stage and he's he's like you know last time i didn't you know these people didn't get to be here and then he asked lauren if he can have his ring back and then he gets on his knee and proposes again what if he'd been like let me get your ring back. And then he gets on his knee and proposes again. What if he had been like, let me get your ring back.

And he's like, bye. Or he'd given it to Jojo. Oh, damn. Yeah, you can't. I guess my only problem with that is you fucking can't do that. You just can't. Why do you think he did that? Probably because he was looking for a way out of this awkward.

I think it's because the proposal episode is so shrouded with him being in love with another woman that he wanted to do it again now that he's very clearly in love with one woman so that it was not as tarnished. Possible. I also think it could just as well be he wanted to put a stop to this let's get married today thing and so he did another thing, another way to end the episode, but then that resulted in all of the families coming up it's like a cast party it was like a fucking cast call oh yeah like the last episode of home improvement everybody zachary

ty bryant like everybody came up on stage and just kind of fucking stood there for a while both families all came up on stage i think it was i think it was like an exit strategy that he didn't have an exit strategy bro and then ben's dad was like we've strategy that he didn't have an exit strategy throughout. And then Ben's dad was like, we've gotten to know the Bushnells and they're fantastic and we're all so lucky and happy. We get all the Chuck E. Cheese tokens we want. It's sick as hell. And all the copies of Sex and the City. And then Ben asks if he has more time.

And he says, you know, I've only got about 10 more minutes while i'm still relevant which i loved and then he just thanks bachelor nation and he thanks everybody for class act for being with him and being so supportive and chris says you're a good egg you're on your own from here on out and that's the end of the season put him up on mount rushmore get i'm not saying bachelor let's call it mount benmore well no that seems it'll just be the two bends no we're not putting ben fucking flujanic up there fuck that no way um put him up on the mountain and i'm not talking about some sort of figurative leaderboard i'm saying go up onto the real Mount Rushmore, fucking blow it up, start over. Get rid of – I don't even know who's up there anymore. Ben Franklin, fucking – I mean, Alexander Hamilton has definitely got to be up there now, right?

George Washington. George Washington, and then George Washington Carver. Those are the four that are up there right now. And we're going to blast them off there and start over. And we're going to put up. Ben holding a football. Ready to throw it. Ben holding a football.

Sean Lowe. He didn't really have a fun thing that he did, did he? Holding his virginity. Sean Lowe having, and I don't know how we're going to realize this. Maybe we'll have to like stain it or spray paint it but just having a horrible sunburn um and then i think we put up uh can we put some ladies up there yeah that's what i'm thinking i'm trying to think of the two emily emily uh what would she be maybe caitlin for the trailblazing with the uh lovemaking outside of the fantasy suite yeah but that that didn't work for her as much as it did um that

wasn't her fault no i know i just that was the lowest point of the show possibly ever for me i don't so i don't want to immortalize it and and granite um emily would be i don't know emily would be holding her little ricky emily holding a baby yeah um and then that woman whose name i already forgot um if you say claire again and then claire just like shouting one pablo down and then we could have a smaller mount rushmore like with like a little sort of like andy supplicant andy didn't do anything for you um i don't remember a lot about Andy. I remember that she had the final two, and then while she had the final two, one of them did something that really soured them in her eyes. Do you remember that?

I don't remember. There was a final three, and they had—no, it was a final three because they did fantasy suites. And the first two dudes, like, it was just normal fantasy suite stuff. And then the third fantasy suite, I don't remember who the dude dude was but then it showed her the morning after just like we had a fucking terrible night like are you sure you're not thinking of juan pablo because that did that was one pablo yeah no you're that's it andy was on one pablo season and yeah yeah uh i don't remember anything about andy's season okay she ended up with chris the baseball player josh josh the baseball yeah i see you i don't know um so that's the season that's the season uh closing thoughts uh next it starts again in may 23rd i

think um so we got i mean fuck we got eight nine weeks something like that it'll be a stretch um we got obviously we got ideas for doing this VH1 stuff. If you have other ideas, like what you want to see us do in the off season, what you want to talk about. Make sure you can find it on the internet somewhere, because we've gotten a lot of great suggestions that are not accessible. A lot of folks want us to talk about RuPaul's Drag Race. And it's like, for me, we haven't watched this week's episode, but I think it would

just be like sort of a Kim Chi fan cast. Well, we want to stay in our wheelhouse. Our dating show wheelhouse. Dating shows that everybody can watch on Hulu. If you can find something, like, sick. Let's watch it. Do you think there's like a Korean dating drama reality show out there? I mean, it would have to be subtitled.

I think that would be fun as hell. Yeah, just as long as it's... I saw one clip of a New Zealand Bachelor where a woman farted. I was like, hell yeah. We gotta get on this. What? Yeah, just make sure that it's accessible. Yeah, we want to do like a book club thing.

Should we commit to something right now so people can watch it for next week? I think we've got to start with flavor of love right all right flavor of love season one we'll start with the first episode and just see how deep we get into it maybe we'll do that tonight while we eat a blue apron okay you do not sound excited about this i am not excited about flavor of love what's wrong with it do you think you don't even know about pumpkin you don't even know about new york flavor flave i don't even know about pumpkin? You don't even know about New York? Flavor Flav. I don't like him. What don't you like about Flavor Flav? I don't know. I haven't spent enough time with him to know for sure, but I have not gotten a good impression.

You typically don't like people who yell unpredictably. Yes, that's a good point. If somebody is loud, like I get loud sometimes, but usually I speak with a, there's a sort of tempo to when I'm going to get loud and I'll build up to it i can prepare myself you can prepare yourself to hear my loudness but flavor of flame i could just be talking like this and just like just like yeah see you lean back you even knew it was coming he doesn't even give you that build-up that i gave you um yeah you're not gonna love it then probably not okay um i don't think we'll watch a whole season i think we'll keep hopping around gotta Gotta hop around. Gotta stay. We're like sharks, baby.

We're going to have a long-ass break after Bachelor in Paradise, so maybe we pick one of these shows that we can spend a little bit more time with in that long, extended break. But for now, let's just try some shit out. It's going to be very freeform, probably a little bit shorter than usual. We always think that, though. We always think that. We are at about 90 minutes for this episode.

But yeah, in terms of this season, this season the bachelor final thoughts what do you think i was originally not very impressed with any of the women or ben to be honest i thought they were all pretty bland uh and the women i did like did go home pretty early so i was not expecting a lot but i will say that this finale left me satisfied i feel like this was everything i wanted from a season for me it wasn't just the finale i would say the last i'd say the first four episodes were kind of a dud just because it was lauren b with a bullet the whole time and everybody else i got so frustrated with the women and like we talked about this infinitely just like not playing the game like not not like trying to get time with them not like i i don't want it to sound like i want like this brutal blood sport version of

the bachelor i just like you gotta have i've talked about this too you gotta have at least one percent of that fantasy of these people are trying to uh compete for love right and when they didn't even like put in a little bit of effort into that you you just don't get that so i thought it was boring just in that well lauren b is gonna win because nobody else even gives a shit um and then you had like the usual villain stuff which was kind of clumsy this season but this last half of it it was it was good man all the way up to this photo finish which is like one of the best finales i've seen maybe ever yeah of like of any show it beats the night court finale it beats what about boy meets world oh nothing that would be amazing if like chris

harrison like walked out of the studio and after the final rose and like put his hand longingly on the light switch and was just like, class dismissed. Click. Credits. Is that your Mr. Feeny? Class dismissed. No, he had kind of a higher, like, nasally. Thank you guys for listening and for watching the show and for commenting on Facebook and for reviewing us on iTunes. We started this show because we like to talk about The Bachelor together.

And Griffin has quite the internet following. So, you know, he was looking for me to have something to do with my time. That's probably not the most accurate way of putting the inspiration and starting the show. But you may be familiar with the other McElroy shows in which Teresa and Sydney are experts in etiquette and medicine, respectively. My expertise expertise you have a lot of expertise bachelor and bachelorette so many expertises but this is uh inarguably the most fun one to talk about um big thanks to uh molly at the mary sue who's also in the facebook group for writing up a very nice write-up about our show um it'll be interesting if somebody like reads that next

week it's like i'm gonna check this out and're like, what's up with fucking Flavor Flav? And people are like, is Flavor Flav on The Bachelor? What the fuck? No, I think they warned the readers that we would be. There's the finale tonight, yeah. Yeah. Thank you all for being patient with us as this episode's up late. Yeah, thank you all for listening. This was a fun season, fun podcast.

I'm not ready to end it yet. I am. Okay, well, I'm Griffin McElroy. I'm not ready to end it yet. I am. Okay. Well, I'm Griffin McElroy. I'm Rachel McElroy. Do you know what you say? Well, then we should start over. No, we don't.

We're supposed to say it. I'm Griffin McElroy. I'm Rachel McElroy. When you're ready. When you're ready. Final Rose. Stay with us on this journey of joy. Spoiler alert.

She ends up with Soulja Boy. Right reasons. Right reasons. Can't figure it out. All four seasons.