By Daniel
After the Final Rose: It's six weeks later. "A lot has happened," Harrison tells us.
Normally on this show, we would talk to the happy couple and "celebrate their journey to love," he says, but there's no audience here, because what's happened is so "dramatic" and so potentially "emotionally difficult" that they wanted to make things as intimate as possible. As intimate as it can possibly be in front of television cameras recording you for millions of people to watch.
So he brings Jason out to talk to him. "How you been doing?" he asks. "It's been a crazy time," says Jason, reluctantly. Harrison asks him what's on his mind.
He says Melissa is incredible, sweet and beautiful, and everybody's been watching... He seems to be struggling. "And I've lived it. Since this all ended, things have been different. We're not right for each other." Harrison sits there, silent, letting Jason say everything. He says they've gone on trips and spent holidays together, but the chemistry's been completely different. He says he's done a lot of soul-searching, but it's completely different.
"What does she know?" asks Chris. She knows things feel completely different for me, says Jason. He says that over the last few weeks he hasn't been able to stop thinking about Molly. "I'm doing all I can to make this work with Melissa, but I can't control how I'm feeling," he says.
He says he keeps playing the moment over and over again when he let Molly go, and how it was like a piece of him was gone. Yeah, it sure looked like that when you proposed to Melissa, jerk. "So you're telling me you're still in love with Molly," says Harrison. Jason nods. He hasn't talked to Molly at all, because Melissa deserved that chance, and he tried to make it work.
Harrison says he knows Jason well enough to know that he's a good guy and hates this situation that he's in. Jason says he needs to talk to Melissa first and give her a chance to be mad and hate him and all that. Oh, don't worry about that. You didn't propose to me or dump me, and I'm angry at you.
"What are you telling me, are you going to end this tonight?" says Harrison, like he doesn't already know, like that isn't the reason there's no audience. Jason says he has to. He talks about how important it is to not have regrets, and how you can't worry about what people think or how they're going to judge, but you have to do what's right for you. And perhaps because he realizes how that makes him sound like an asshole, he adds, "and for people around you." Harrison asks what he's going to say to Molly, and Jason says Molly deserves to be angry with him too. I hope she tells him to bugger off, is what I hope.
After a commercial break, Jason's about to officially break up with Melissa. "How do you think this is going to go?" asks Harrison. Jason says he doesn't know, and Harrison reminds him how upset he was with DeAnna, so yeah, Jason thinks she's going to be upset.
So out comes Melissa, with a smile pasted on. "Jason, why don't you take the floor," says Harrison. Jason reminds her that their conversations recently have revealed how things have been different. And they just recently rewatched everything they went through, and all of that was real (god, shut UP, Jason!). He babbles on about how the chemistry started changing. She's not even looking at him. "We're not right for each other," he says. "I don't know what you want me to say when you sit there and say that, because I don't believe you," she snaps at him, and gives him shit for having doubts and then pulling away instead of trying to work on it. "Do you see where I'm a little irritated?" She's so angry, it's awesome. She asks what she did, and he says she didn't do anything. And then he talks about falling in love with two people at the same time, and that he still has feelings for Molly. She shakes her head a little.
"Have you been talking to her?" she asks. He says he hasn't, because he wanted to make it work with her. "Because you chose Melissa. But you don't want to fight for Melissa," she says. Awesome. She's using the third person, like psychologically she's already trying to distance herself from what's going on. He babbles on about living life without regrets. "You are such a bastard," she whispers. Ladies and gentlemen, the moment we've all been waiting for! He says he's not perfect. "I'll second that," she says.
"Why did you put a ring on my finger?" she asks him, and he says something about wanting to give them that experience. She tells him that finding that one special person and getting engaged was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and he took that from her. "I'm so mad at you!" she says. She hands him back the ring (no, keep it! Put it on eBay!), and says none of this makes sense. She's starting to get it! Since emotions are running high, Harrison wants to take a break.
"I hate myself for what I'm doing to Melissa," says Jason, adding that nothing else matters than what she's going through. Except for when Molly comes out and you try to make it with her now.
Harrison leaves so they can say goodbye. Melissa blasts him because both of them have been through a "ton of heartbreak," so this makes no sense: "You should know better than to do something like that. So, good luck in the future, good luck with Molly. Um... there you go." She tells him not to call her, or text her. "Leave me alone," she says. She gets up and leaves, and he tries to walk her out but she's an Olympic speed-walker at this point, and so he has to go back and make his anguished face on the set. Give me a BREAK with this shit, Jason. If you cared half as much as you're pretending to, you wouldn't be doing this now. You'd have broken up with her already, in private. Or at a moderately priced restaurant. Like normal people do.
1 2 3 4
In the limousine, Melissa allows herself some tears over giving herself to someone and then getting hurt. She says she put up the wall of being angry so he wouldn't see how much he hurt her. Well, now he can! You're on camera! Keep the wall up! "He's not the person for me, there's someone else out there, I get the silver lining, but it's hard to see that." My heart kind of breaks as Melissa talks about how she's always on this side of things, getting dumped, and she doesn't know why. She says she's going to count this as another lesson learned, and hopefully she'll learn from it and in time meet her real Prince Charming. "I can't be mad at Jason for not being in love with me, I can't," she says, adding that she doesn't even necessarily regret what's happened since it's a learning experience.
After many shots of Jason sighing and looking sad, Harrison comes back out, so Jason has to make his sad face again. "I never lied to her about anything," says Jason, even though Harrison didn't say a damn word. How about we just sit in silence for the final half-hour of this bullshit? He says nobody can understand this unless they're sitting in his chair. "I never lied to her," says Jason. Except for how much you were in love with her, because you've said tonight that after Molly left it was like a piece of you went with her, right?
Harrison tells Jason that Molly's backstage, and hasn't seen or heard any of this. "You're going to get your shot, and that's all you're hoping for tonight," says Harrison. Yes, and then he'll get that shot, and then he'll try to tell us he was actually in love in Jillian, but he had to first give Melissa a shot and then Molly a shot.
So before Jason talks to Molly, Harrison's going to get her side of the story. She comes out in a dark brown dress. Harrison asks how she's doing, and she says she's a little nervous about seeing Jason. And we get a Molly retrospective, and watch her reaction (staring at it with her hands over her mouth).
Afterwards, she says it was tough to see, and after the non-proposal was the worst week of her life, and that it's still tough to watch on Monday nights. You've actually been watching? Harrison says from how she's talking, she's still in love with him, and Molly says those feelings don't just go away. Harrison asks what she wants to say to him, and Molly says she wants to know when he knew that he didn't want to be with her. She wants some closure and peace of mind so she can move on. Harrison asks if she ever wondered if he changed his mind, or "what if he changed his mind?" Oh, foul, Harrison. She says that thought goes through her head every single night. She says all she's wanted is for him to give her a call. But if he said he wanted her back, why did he let her go initially? I have an answer. It involves the word "idiot."
After a commercial break, Harrison says she's going to get some of the answers she's looking for. Jason comes back out. He looks like he's managed to recover from the agony of dumping Melissa. Molly looks happy to see him, and they hug. You know, I don't buy for a second that these two haven't been in touch since New Zealand. I call utter shenanigans on that.
She asks him "When did you know?" because of the incredible date they'd had the night before, and he says he didn't, and that after he let her go he fell to his knees (really?) and was really broken up, etc. He sort of trails off, and Harrison, the consummate professional, prompts Jason to talk to her about what happened that night, and what's happened since, and what's been on his mind.
Jason tells Molly that Melissa was out there earlier, and he ended things with her. Molly looks at Harrison. "Because I haven't been able to stop thinking about you," says Jason. He talks about what a crazy day it's been because he had to hurt a great girl because his heart was somewhere else. Blah blah blah what I was looking for blah blah blah right in front of my face blah blah blah. He says he thinks one of the most insincere things he could do would be to jump really fast from one thing to another. Well, lucky he's so insincere, then, because that's what he wants to do. Molly's just staring at him. She kind of snort-chuckles. But she doesn't say anything for a moment. Then: "What about Melissa?" Jason says what he did to her was horrible. But you know what? Jason doesn't want to live his life with regrets, and he'd have regretted not asking for another shot with Molly, and he blathers on about living in the moment, which he thinks about with her. "Are you still in love with Molly?" asks Harrison. "Yeah," says Jason, after entirely too much time than I'd be comfortable with if I were Molly. He babbles on about how it doesn't have to be on "fast-forward," and "more" and "how deep it goes" or something completely inane. Molly chuckles, and laughs, and dear God I hope she's about to tell him to get lost. Oh, that's right, I forgot:
After a commercial break, Harrison says, in case you're JUST JOINING US, for some reason, that Jason has changed his mind, and they're waiting to hear what Molly has to say. Molly laughs again. I think the question is, "Are we live? Because it's probably not cool to say 'fuck off' on ABC, right?" She eventually says that she's very confused, and they still have a lot to talk about, but her feelings never went away.
"You know, I think we can see where things go," she says. Jason smiles, and Molly mouths the word "what?" like she can't believe this. She says this is something she dreamed of but never imagined would actually happen. "I'm blown away right now, but I think there's discussions that we need to have," she says, talking about the difficult goodbye she was forced to have. "But I'd be lying if I said I wasn't glad that this is happening right now."
Harrison asks, "Where do we go from here?" and I hope the answer doesn't involve television cameras, and then the thing you know the two of them are making out, and it's nice to see that Jason is being really respectful of his minutes-old dumping of Melissa, and then Harrison tells us that America is watching. And parts of Canada! Sad, pathetic parts of Canada! How's America taking it, Harrison? "They are floored," he says. Well, not so much "floored" as "thinking, 'I guess that Internet spoiler was right on the money.'" Jason says what's most important is that they're following their hearts and doing what's right for them, even though it's "impacting" other people. "It's not the classiest or coolest thing in the world," admits Jason, but you can't control what's in your heart. No, but you can control how you share that, you narcissist. It's not like the only choice is to dump someone on national television.
"I am falling in love with you still, and it will never stop," says Jason, and they kiss some more. "My god, this is crazy," says Molly.
"I don't think we could end on a better note. That's as good as it's gonna get," says Harrison. Strangely enough, I agree with him. But not for the reason he thinks.
P.S.: Harrison, I looked up the word "historic" in the dictionary, just to make sure. IT DOESN'T APPLY.
1 2 3 4