By Sars
Previously on Seriously, It Was JUST LAST NIGHT: Brad punted Jenni and DeAnna in order to make sweet sweet love to Chris Harrison on the Dais Of Dumpage.
Chris Harrison welcomes us by talking about how last night's episode shocked "millions of Bachelor fans." I guess he's counting all those bacteria in the Malibu house's hot tub as "fans." Chris recaps the events of last night yet again -- love you, babe, but leave that to the pros -- before introducing the evening's first egregious time-waster: Trista, Ryan, and baby Max. Chris describes Trista and Ryan as "America's favorite Bachelor couple"; given that, aside from Trista and Ryan, America really only has the one other couple to choose from, this is sort of like saying that George H.W. Bush is America's favorite Bush president. Anyway, the whole family troops out to the couch. Max is working his pacifier and writhing around as Trista answers intrusive questions from Chris about how long it took her to get pregnant. Then Chris asks what they thought of last night's finale; Trista feels "bad for everyone," and can sympathize with the girls since she went through that herself. She hands Max to Ryan, who doesn't seem terribly familiar with holding him; Chris offers to hold him instead, and unfortunately Trista doesn't take him up on it, because I would love to have seen Chris asking Brad the usual redundant questions in his best presidential-debate-moderator voice while dandling a drooling baby at the same time. Instead, Ryan dolts about how becoming a father is "the best thing ever" while Max flaps his arms all, "…Boring!"
Then Chris welcomes Byron and Mary to the stage. Byron does not order the salad very often; Mary's necklace looks like the neck irons you'd see in a New Yorker cartoon set in a dungeon; they're in love; Chris pressures them to just get married already, and Mary says they'll get married "in November" (which November is not specified), on their own timetable.
Back from the break, Chris introduces Jenni to the stage by reminding us that she got "rejected" last night. Once she's had a seat, Chris says that, last night, "we got to live your pain" (hee -- oh, Chris), and asks Jenni how she felt. Because the crying and confusion she expressed in the limousine implied a…sparkling underground spring of joy and contentment? Jenni: I was crushed and bewildered. Chris twists the knife with a reminder that she seemed like the frontrunner, but it "all ended in heartbreak." Jenni footage; nothing new, except a journal moment from last night where she gives Brad his own copy of her diary of all their moments together. Yikes. Picture-in-picture is back to record Jenni's reactions to seeing the footage again, and mostly, PiP Jenni is smiling sadly, but when Brad tells her goodbye, PiP Jenni fans her face to stop the tears, and the crowd murmurs sympathetically.
Back in the studio, Jenni admits that it's hard to watch, and says she "was being for real" in that moment, which she's proud of -- but it's tough to see since it didn't work out. Chris: You told him you loved him…aaaaand then he rejected you. Jenni's like, yeah, didn't need the refresher, but she's laughing; she says she had to put it out there, because if she hadn't and Brad had sent her home anyway, she'd wonder why she hadn't just said it. Still, it sucked to take the risk and not have it pay off. "Do you feel like he misled you?" Chris asks. Jenni says that certain "little things" Brad said "kind of got [her] hopes up a little bit," but she doesn't seem that angry. Then it comes out that, until she saw the episode last night, Jenni assumed Brad had picked DeAnna, and she felt "so disappointed" when she saw Brad tell DeAnna that he'd sent Jenni home, and DeAnna got all psyched, and then...badness. How did Jenni feel about Brad after that? She doesn't understand why Brad couldn't have pursued something, even if he didn't want to propose -- talking on the phone, going to the movies, giving it more of a chance. I suspect the producers didn't give him that option, but even if Brad had had the choice to do that, one of the folks on the forums made the point that Brad is 34, and by that age, you've had enough relationships, and you've had enough of them fail, and you've gone down the road of "giving it a shot" enough times despite knowing better on some gut level, that if you know it's not happening, you don't want to spend the time treading water.
Chris asks Jenni if she thinks Brad was afraid, and she basically thinks Brad's expectations for true love aren't realistic, that you have to find someone you really like hanging out with and then work on it from there. This is not untrue, but I don't think the problem is that Brad doesn't think Jenni (or DeAnna) is perfect; it's that he doesn't think either of them is right for him long-term, which is a different issue. DeAnna is perfect for him on paper, he said so a hundred times, but…we don't live on paper. Chris asks if Jenni lost respect for Brad; she sort of did, because he wouldn't give either of them a chance, and she points out in that same vein that "there's more to" every girl in the house "than what he got to see." She probably means that he can't really know for sure who's right for him and who's not, based on the ginned-up circumstances the show puts them all in. Again, not untrue, but more the fault of the process than of Brad -- and if that's the case, why take it personally, then?
Then Chris changes the subject to the recent death of Jenni's crabby grandmother, and rolls some heretofore-unseen footage of Grandma -- including a segment where Jenni orders Grandma to show up to her wedding and Grandma tells her not to count on it. …Eesh. PiP Jenni is sad, but laughs at Grandma's antics. The audience "awww"s its sympathy, and all of you who dissed Grandma on the forums are going to hell now.
Just kidding.
Commercials, and then it's DeAnna's turn to vent to Chris. She's wearing a black satin sweatshirt-dress thing straight out of the Xanadu costume closet, and matching nail polish. Chris asks what happened. DeAnna doesn't know; she expected to fall in love, she did fall in love, and she's still confused. Chris reminds her that she expected a proposal, especially after learning Jenni had gone home roseless, but then…and he rolls the footage. At the part where Brad is about to take his little freak-out stroll around the garden, PiP DeAnna is full-on Ferdinand-the-Bull glaring at the in-studio screen. Despite having seen it a mere 24 hours ago, we have to sit through the entire sequence again.
Back in the studio, Chris prompts DeAnna that she told Brad she loved him, but he couldn't say the same to her. DeAnna asks how Chris would feel if someone told him she didn't love him. …Bad. He'd feel bad. You live long enough, though, that's going to happen. It's happened to me. It's happened to almost everyone reading this. It sucks, but it doesn't kill you. The difference is that it didn't happen to me on national television, and DeAnna is perhaps confusing humiliation, and the resulting anger, with genuine feelings of heartbreak. DeAnna goes on that she put her feelings on the line, and then it felt like she got stabbed in the heart. When Brad walked away during the Rose Ceremony, what went through DeAnna's mind? She felt relieved when Brad said he'd sent Jenni home -- but when he "got nervous and had to walk away" from her, she knew he'd be sending her home too. Chris says he sees sadness from DeAnna, "but also a little anger." She agrees that she's angry, "because it's so confusing," and because it's so hard for her to share her emotions that way. When Chris asks if she still has those feelings for Brad, she says she does. She doesn't understand how Brad could say he cared for her and then still let her go; she doesn't understand how he didn't pick either of them. I…really? You actually don't understand that? You don't get that, in the first instance, he can say he cares for you, or he can bluntly tell you some shit about yourself you don't want to hear -- you kiss funny, or you seem like you have unresolved mommy issues happening, or you don't have a sense of humor? Do you want to hear that, even if it's the truth? No, you don't. You think you do; you think you want an answer. But sometimes there just isn't an answer; other times there is, but it's an answer that's just going to make you feel shitty about yourself, and for no purpose.
And as far as the second point goes, that with so much to choose from Brad should have picked a wife…it keeps coming up throughout the show, and it's a ridiculous argument. "I just didn't understand how he couldn't choose one"? When Brad is on the record as saying that he doesn't love either one? It just makes no sense to couch it in terms of the numbers. It's like if I go to a shoe store, I can't find a pair I like in my size, and the salesperson gets all bent out of shape when I don't buy anything -- on the basis that the store has 25 different pairs of shoes in various appealing styles and colors. "But you don't have anything in a nine." "But we've got 25 different pairs!" "But you…don't have any of them in a nine." "Try the purple! What's wrong with the purple?" "It's…a size seven." "Fine, try the green then!" "You don't have it in a nine!" "Just buy it in the eight, they'll stretch out!" And this is not shoes. This is marriage. Why should Brad get the eight, if he knows it's going to give him wicked blisters? Not to belabor the simile, but it's a point that comes up over and over again in this episode, and I'm taking it apart the one time now so I don't have to keep doing it.
Anyway, Chris suggests that maybe the problem is with Brad, not with the two of them as a couple. "Maybe. I think so," DeAnna says, which gets a laugh. Chris asks if she thinks Brad was afraid, and DeAnna says she doesn't know what it's like for Brad, meeting 25 girls and developing deeper feelings for two of them, but Brad never explained to her that there was something missing like he did to Jenni, so DeAnna doesn't know how he let her "walk out of his life that day." I believe she's trying to say that, because Brad didn't tell her something was missing, that means that there wasn't something missing; he was just afraid of his feelings for her. I mentioned it before re: Hillary, and I'll say it again -- you can tell yourself until you turn blue that he's "afraid of his feelings for you," but if that's the only answer you can come up with in a situation like this? What he's really "afraid of" is telling you he doesn't want a relationship. And that's it. Chris asks where she's at with her emotions, two and a half months down the line; DeAnna thinks Jenni had it easier, thinking Brad chose DeAnna so she could just "get on with her life," but DeAnna has spent "every day" thinking about Brad and reliving that moment. She also talks about how many people come up to her and ask if Brad picked her, and of course she has to smile and say something vague while it's killing her. That would get old fast, I'll grant her that, but…shouldn't somebody in DeAnna's life, after ten weeks, sit her down and tell her, "Honey, I care about you and I know this is hard, but he didn't like you like that, and you really have to let it go now"? Shouldn't her sister try to explain that telling herself Brad "made a mistake" and will "come to his senses" is a waste of time?
Chris does ask if DeAnna still has hope, which she confesses that she does; then he asks what she would do if Brad asked her out again today, and she says that, "as stupid as it sounds," she would go. Chris reassures her that "it's not stupid," although it really is, because Brad is clearly not going to do that, and DeAnna explains that if Brad didn't know a good thing when he had it, then maybe she shouldn't give him another chance. And I agree that she shouldn't. Because he IS NOT INTO IT, so it's time to give MOVING ON a chance instead. Chris must know he's poking the bear, kind of, as he deadpans that it would be foolish not to give Brad another chance if she loves him, and DeAnna nods briskly: "Any person would." Any person who didn't watch the show, maybe.
After the break, Brad comes out, to scattered boos from the crowd. Chris wants to know if Brad can explain what happened. Brad claims he's "more disappointed than anybody." Cut to a woman in the crowd rolling her eyes. …Yeah, I agree. Even if it's the truth, Brad should stick to expressing regret and saying he didn't want to pretend a love he didn't feel. Chris gives Brad an opening to discuss the fact that it's a touchy sitch when two women expressed their love for him, but Brad stupidly goes back to the defensive "I'm heartbroken too, ya gotta believe me" line, and gets kind of grumpy when Chris calls him on it: "I don't have a plan for falling in love, man. I didn't want to make a false promise when I just didn't feel it in my heart." Fine. Done. It's all he has to say, or should say. Chris asks if it would have been false, had Brad proposed to DeAnna. Dude, what did he just tell you. Brad patiently says that DeAnna deserves better than a guy who doesn't love her. Again: all he has to say. Chris presses him on why he didn't feel it, and Brad says they had "six amazing weeks," great dates and conversations, DeAnna has all the wifely qualities he wants, and it's a good question as to why he "didn't get the butterflies," but he doesn't know the answer. And who does, really; he didn't get them, is the point, end of story.
Chris reveals that production flew DeAnna's father out to L.A., at Brad's request, so that Brad could ask him for DeAnna's hand. Various members of the audience look disgusted as Chris hammers on how the proposal came that close to happening: "How does that make you feel, as a man?" "As a man"? Chris, it pains me, but: shut up. Brad says that, if a proposal "was going to happen," he wanted to talk to DeAnna's father, and Chris repeats that that was Brad's idea, not the show's, and Brad's like, yeah, which proves that I tried until the last minute to "make something happen." Chris has people asking him why Brad bothered buying a ring; Brad starts to say he wanted to give it his all, but Chris interrupts to ask whether Brad had made up his mind by the time he went ring-shopping. Brad implies that the ring-shopping itself kind of gelled it in his mind that "this just wasn't right." "Did you feel like a jerk?" Brad's response is prompt: "Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely." Who is right for Brad? He doesn't know; he admits that he "has a few problems," and Chris snorts that Brad just dismissed "25 beautiful women," so it does seem that way. See above. The number isn't relevant; it's the quality of the individuals who make up the total, not the total itself.
Then Chris asks if Brad has started dating again, and Brad is maybe a bit too quick to say no. Chris mentions rumors about it -- and I just read the one today about Brad going back to his ex -- but Brad says he's heard every possible rumor about himself, that he's dating his ex, that he's gay, that he has a love child, but he swears up and down he hasn't so much as had coffee with anyone since taping ended. Protesting too much, I think.
It's time for Jenni to come back out to the stage. Brad gives her a big hug, whereas she's sort of patting him all "all right, that'll do"; he whispers that he's sorry about her grandma. Aw. After some awkwardness, Chris reminds us that Jenni hasn't seen or spoken to Brad since leaving in the limo; what does she want to know? Brad said a lot of things that got her, and DeAnna's, hopes up, and Jenni wonders why he wouldn't at least take a chance on one of them? Brad thinks that's misleading, and Jenni gets a look on her face like, "You mean besides the other misleading you did?" as Brad says, basically, that he doesn't feel comfortable dating them both at once. He goes on that, when he was with one, he was thinking about the other, and about how unfair that was to them both; he said that in the episode, and I don't think it's all that scandalous, but a couple women in the audience shake their heads disapprovingly. Jenni tells him he doesn't have to propose to take a chance -- on one of them, even, not necessarily both. She says again that she's "disappointed" by how it went down with DeAnna, which I still don't get, quite -- if he didn't pick Jenni, how does it make a difference that he didn't pick DeAnna either? It doesn't mean he would go back and pick Jenni on a do-over. Jenni has lost some respect for Brad because she doesn't know why he "said those things" to them. Well, okay, he didn't tell the unstinting truth, but he couldn't have; it's not how The Bachelor works. I think Brad said those things because he really wanted them to be true, and I think he tried to make them true as best he could.
Brad says he's not saying he didn't feel anything; he felt something, but for both of them, and if he felt something for both of them, then it means he didn't feel enough for either one of them. The crowd murmurs its displeasure, and Jenni isn't buying it either, saying that if one person caught her attention more than another, she wouldn't let that person get away. "Okay, and that's you," Brad says agreeably, and adds that it's hard for him to explain why, but he "just didn't see anything" that would work in the longer term -- and he went on the show to find a long-term relationship. Jenni thinks he didn't give either situation enough of a chance, Brad thinks he showed the women respect by not pretending they had a chance -- it goes on like this for a while, but it's just a difference in style. I can see Jenni's argument; I can see thinking Brad handled things poorly, or should have found a middle ground between "let's get married" and "let's get you into this limo and out of my face." To my mind, he did the right thing, but I'm like Brad that way; I don't like that sort of ambiguity, I find it exhausting. Jenni thinks maybe Brad is scared to commit, and wonders, if that's not it, why he hasn't found that special someone yet, and Brad regards her with a patient "I can't make you understand, so…okay then" look. Chris thanks her for coming.
Chris brings DeAnna back out. She and Brad hug awkwardly; audience members make "…Un! Comfortable!" faces. DeAnna is waiting for Brad in the high weeds and Chris is immediately like, "What?" Then Brad is like, "What?" and DeAnna claims she's "nervous," but her body language is 100 percent "I hate you." Chris tells DeAnna that she must have questions, and we return to the bone-dry well of "how come you couldn't pick one of us when you had two to choose from." Brad's like, Jesus H., fine, once more with feeling: "It has nothing to do with two women, why I couldn't pick one." My point; thank you. He says again how hard he found it to tell DeAnna he couldn't "continue a relationship" with her, and she jumps right back in to say that he never so much as hinted that "it wasn't there," and again, this is a valid point, in a real-world relationship. Within the Bachelor-verse, unfortunately, that law doesn't apply; he has to lie, or keep mum, or whatever, because what if it's "not there" with any of them? What, they just stop filming? He didn't feel it; that's baseball. He can't control the rules of the show; he can't make himself love you. Please figure these things out very soon.
…Alas, no. DeAnna reminds Brad of various things he said that turned out not to hold much water, and Brad responds patiently that he did his best to get it to catch fire, but it didn't happen. She's confused and angry and hurt all at once, but she still has hope that "there's something there." Brad's like, I didn't say there was nothing there, it's that something was missing, and DeAnna snaps, "But that wasn't the case!" and reminds him that they "got together in the first place" and he kept her there for five weeks, and I start combing online directory assistance for DeAnna's sister's number, because…DeAnna. Honey. That wasn't the case for you. You made out with him a couple of times, in a hothouse atmosphere that doesn't obey our Earth rules emotionally, and the fact that he kept you through eight Rose Ceremonies may only mean that he found you slightly less unsuitable than others he let go before you. He doesn't love you; he won't love you; no evidence you think you have to the contrary will change that fact. DeAnna winds up her rant with, "I don't understand what you're scared of." Brad can't really say what I said several paragraphs ago, namely that he's only "scared of" getting involved with a woman he doesn't care about that way, so he dodges by saying DeAnna deserves a guy who loves her and knows for sure she's the one. Then we have another off-point exchange about Brad's expectations before DeAnna goes back to harping on the "I didn't see this coming" aspect. Brad makes the mistake of saying that he's as heartbroken as she is, which DeAnna doesn't believe; nor does she believe that he's sad to see her crying. Chris asks if any feelings remain on Brad's side, and he says of course, that he thinks about DeAnna every day, and DeAnna jumps all over that -- she doesn't know what that means, that he thinks about her every day but still let her get away. He's like, are you seriously asking? She grumps through the beginning of tears that she's waited two months for the answer. Brad's like, well, you asked for it, and says that if he'd seen "enough there on that day," he'd have fought for the relationship, but he's "very confident" in his decision. Angry murmur from the audience. He's sorry they won't have an "incredible moment" where they get together, but…
DeAnna refuses to get it. Flicking tears away from her lower lashes in that weird banjo-picky way she has, she grunts that nothing makes sense, and asks what exactly he thought about every day, then -- did he just feel bad for hurting her feelings? I…it's painful to watch, because she is desperate to avoid hearing the truth, and the truth isn't even her fault (except that she went on the show), or really anyone's, and I have had many horrid weepy versions of this conversation, steeped in red wine and self-loathing, and it just sucks. I want to shake her, but I feel for her. She's wailing about how she knew it was right between them, she's never been so sure of anything, she came there hoping he wouldn't let her slip away a second time…oh, DeAnna. Brad sees it's not going anywhere good, and tells her he can't apologize for not falling in love, and DeAnna's response is to say again that it just doesn't make sense to her. She struggles not to start sobbing outright, and the shot of her fighting her tears lasts about five years before she wheezes reproachfully that the one person she trusted broke her heart. Brad wisely says nothing for a minute, because…what can he say. The show requires him to play the women; she isn't getting that. He doesn't love her; she isn't getting that either. After a pause, he says it's his instinct to pull her close, but he knows he can't; he can't comfort her; he swears he thought he "was taking the high road." "You made a mistake, whether you know it or not," she bitches, and says she thought he would get that. Chris finally ends the vicious cycle by telling her gently, "I don't know if you're ever going to get the answer that you're looking for." "Apparently not," DeAnna sniffles. Well, as long as it's "apparent." Sigh. As we head into the last break, Brad and DeAnna hug goodbye; he whispers that he misses her "more than [she'll] ever know," and she tells him please not to say that to her right now, and -- for real. WTF? Come on, Brad. If you aren't in love with her, you need to let her stop being in love with you; shit like that just fucks with her head. Unless you're just an idiot. Either way: no.
In the final segment, Chris tells Brad that in six years of hosting, he's never seen anything so uncomfortable. Heh. Brad's like, yeeeeaaaaah. Chris asks what's for him. Brad blathers about getting back to work, thinking things over, and so on, and Chris compliments him on his "honesty and sincerity" before hauling out the other couples to say goodbye, and pimping the spring season.
Over the credits, audience members ask questions of…Chris Harrison? Or give their comments? I don't know. Or care. It's what you'd expect -- "he should have picked Bettina" this, "does this mean he's still single" that.
Thanks for taking this journey with me, folks; I've felt a real connection with you. Please accept this rose when we come back season. I'll choose all of you.