Wonderful! - Ep. 82: The Final Rose

Episode Date: August 9, 2017

Rachel's season of The Bachelorette came to a close earlier this week in an infuriating three-hour finale. Join us as we discuss the heartbreak and frustration of that conclusion, and hear ALL ABOUT the exciting new programs debuting THIS FALL on ABC!!!!!!!!! MaxFunDrive ends on March 29, 2024! Support our show now by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join.

Maybe you should go and do some contemplating. Right reasons, right reasons. Me and my girl were all the right reasons. Right reasons, right reasons. Me and my girl were all the right reasons. I'm the bachelorette and I'm rapping to your poolside. Here to find true love, one man's life. Hi, this is Rachel McElroy.

Hi, this is Griffin McElroy. And this is Rose Buddies. It's a podcast about... The Bachelorette. Yeah, that show and sometimes The Bachelor. This is Griffin McElroy. And this is Rose Buddies. It's a podcast about... The Bachelorette. Yeah, that show, and sometimes Bachelor. And we used to do the other one. We just ate a bunch of Chinese food.

Nobody wants to hear. No, listen. The way, like, literally, we chomped down on some nudes and beef. Beef and nudes. And we were watching American Ninja Warrior. That's how Griffin says noodles. We didn't eat nude people. And we were watching American Ninja Warrior, as we're wont to do.

Jessie Graff's about to get up there and do her thing. We're saving that as a little post-podcast treat for ourselves. And I'm feeling a little weighed down. And I'm feeling like i'm walking through quicksand a little bit and the reason i am saying this is to frame this episode of rose buddies because it is that summarizes how i felt all three hours and the the following one hour after we watched the finale of The Bachelorette on ABC from 7 to 10 fucking p.m. o'clock. Last night on ABC, primetime television. Holy fucking shit. What a slog.

What a joyless, joyless march towards death. Holy shit. Holy shit. All day today, it's been hitting me in waves i don't know if how it's treated you i was in like disbelief after watching the episode last night but today it was just like wow i had a really fucking bad night last night because of this bad bad fucking episode of television holy shit i think this whole season has felt kind of um messy in a way that the franchise doesn't typically do to us you know typically you can look back you know how they used to show you flashbacks of like the narrative you know on the after the final rose they would show you like some

of the best moments the couple had had they didn't have those this fucking time i i we i feel like we need to do our best to recap it because there's so much shit to talk about and either we can just like talk about what happened and spoil it up front and have that frame the discussion or we can just do it chronologically and i'm tempted to do that chronologically because there was a a story to how we watched it last night and like as things were revealed like we i i've never been so in denial about anything oh yeah um i did a fun little barometer with griffin because at one point griffin thought he had kind of figured out what they were doing and I kept checking in to see what percentage sure he was that his narrative was

going to hold true and it didn't and it kept going down so is that okay with you do you want to just recap it and then all right let's do it let's do it so we cut to opening moment with the live studio audience so I forget this every single time, but the finale is always watched with a live studio audience and Chris Harrison on a platform, kind of looking at the audience and saying, how was that right? And it keeps coming back to the,

usually just the same one woman in the audience who's like usually, well, not crying, but like mouthing to her friend. Like there's always a friend and she's always mouthing to her like, I know. What? I know. She always knows. She's a very wise woman in the audience.

But Chris Harrison tells us this time it's going to be a little different because instead of just him in the studio audience, it's going to be Rachel Lindsay with him on that platform providing some commentary. She comes out and I see this and I'm like, oh, this is great. This is going to be really fun. Rachel is going to be like providing more insight. And it's not just going to like, I thought it was smart at first. Or just like, oh, you know what was funny about that scene is the restaurant owner he was actually crazy and and smelly or like you didn't you didn't get to see

that you didn't see this that i expected any of that you didn't get to see this but um and you know it keeps usually the finale goes we get two hours that is historically usually starts off two dudes left and then they meet the families that happened last time and so like they they and and also after the two hours we get one hour of after the final rose and this is sort of incorporated the after the final rose into the whole yeah thing we didn't find out who won like there wasn't the ending of the thing they shot months ago until like 20 minutes were left in in in the episode well you know what they usually do too is is they they make you watch that last moment with the proposal and then they basically show it to you again with the happy couple watching little picture in picture uh just so you can see them

feel emotional together yeah they didn't do that either do that so much um i i thought when like they when they announced and brought out rachel i thought this was going to be a great idea i've never been quite so wrong about anything and it's because they just didn't have anything they had nothing for her to say you seemed really sad there is that the saddest you've ever been literally a quote literally a fucking quote have you ever cried that hard in your life what dad what the fuck are you talking about yeah hey chris harrison like you said that's not why we watched the show you said there was something wrong with you when when you uh were filming that is there something wrong with you is there something wrong with you chris what the fuck dude this literally that is

that it was i'm not i wanted chris harrison to be hey, that dress looked really heavy, Rachel. Was it really heavy to wear that dress? That's what I wanted. I'm not joking that these segments far outnumbered the taped stuff. There was more of this commentary. There were between two commercial breaks, there were two blocks of like the same was it hard yeah it was fucking hard yes yes yes it was hard how hard was it because we have another 45 seconds before the fucking downy ad that we have like holy shit it was bad it's like when they ask football players after the game like that looked pretty intense was that intense yeah yeah it sure was i if i

caught the ball we would have won the super bowl and i didn't it was intense it's about as intense as it gets jim fucker um it was it was um it was so bad they had they had fucking 30 minutes of episode that they stretched i cannot believe this was three hours this could have they could have done this format of like cutting into the after the final rose stuff in the middle of like the shit that they shot and done it in a tight two-hour package and even that would have been a little bit long-winded there was because when you think about it when you think about the shit that they taped it was like the end of uh fantasy suites and a rose ceremony they breezed through that shit and then one last date with both the dudes and then the ending they could have fucking easily gone through that stuff and done the after the final rose stuff and been done

with it that is how there was one fucking hour of padding it was miserable this is that could be if we were going to write a book about the bachelor Bachelorette franchise, we could title it like, this could have been an hour. One pound of show in a 10 pound bag. Can we get into it? Yeah. Okay. So after we find out that Rachel's going to be watching with us, we go back to her and Peter in Geneva, or not not in geneva sorry in rioja rioja um and um they're having this conversation uh to remind you all peter is not sure if he's going to be ready

to propose the next day at this point it's not the next day it's like two days it's uh well i mean no yeah this is fantasy suites and i i try i typically think it's like half half a week to a week between right with the other because they have to travel um but i mean you know a different conversation hi a week is still not very much time to decide whether or not you want to propose to somebody although maybe you should have had that squared away before you came on the proposing show. So this is, again, this is the fantasy suite night. Yes. And they're having a conversation where Peter says,

what if I'm not ready to say, will you marry me? And Rachel gets emotional and says that she had a five-year relationship that never left the girlfriend-boyfriend stage, and that this is really reminding her of that, and she doesn't want to get in that situation again. And hearing him say that, you know, that he might not be ready, made her realize just how deeply she felt for him,

because she got really emotional. And didn't he say something like, seeing you get emotional makes me that much closer to propose no he didn't that's the later conversation jesus christ we're gonna do this a lot because they have this conversation like three times it's the only it's it's it's i i we are going to have this conversation a lot because it's the only conversation that happened during the episode last night that we just kept coming back to oh you know what you're right i'm sorry oh that was this time yeah that's a really manipulative thing to say i feel like a little bit like oh seeing you cry

makes me want to do it he said you having these emotions has advanced this a lot uh and he's like i don't mean to push uh buttons um but yeah so he everyone's a fucking cyborg replicant. He did this after Hometowns, too, or after he met her family. He said, like, meeting your family really advanced this a lot. You've advanced my romance heuristics. They are now within 8% chance of what? So the fantasy suite card comes, and I'm thinking, like, oh, they must really be in the mood now. You were joking.

I was like, yeah, I bet they are. Like, this is their first time to, like, hang out overnight. But they just had a conversation about whether or not they should even bother continuing their relationship because they want different things. They're so fucking into each other, though. Like, yeah, of course they're going to go for it. Not even, like, I'm not even being nasty right now. I'm saying like a chance to like, for Rachel especially, if you don't know whether or not this dude is playing you, like this is some time.

Obviously they need the time. Yeah. I'm saying that traditionally the fantasy suite is all about boning. And this did not seem like a conversation conducive to that. That is fair. Romance. But then the next morning we get like a little charming shot of them uh making coffee and eggs and bacon and they seem in good spirits they stay in a cute little airbnb situation which she uh does fancy sweet with brian

next and he's staying like a fucking fancy ass hotel it's funny but they did do a really cute like poking their heads out the little, like barn door style windows, like looking at each other from the, it was cute. And they seem to feel great about each other. Yeah. So we just assume that they had a good night and that maybe things are better now.

Yeah. Now it is time for Brian's fantasy suite date. Yeah. It's not a good date. Was it? They ride horses. And I wrote down, this is one of those things about Brian. He's giving his little testimonial to the camera

before this date. And the way he is saying it, his patter is so clearly that he's answering questions. He's like, I am falling for rachel yeah i am excited about this date somebody pointed out uh in the in the group which i i had not noticed this before and it completely like it was all i could hear was a number of times that he referred to rachel as that woman or this woman like almost exclusively uh I don't know. It's such a, like, it feels like such a reality show. Like, that woman, this woman here, this woman right here. I'm in love with this woman.

Yeah. And so Rachel is a little bit off on this date. Because Peter really, quote, messed with her mind uh and brian kind of picks up on that and and that date feels kind of awkward for both of them and he calls her on that uh later in the date i love how she was like yeah you you really knew that something was bothering me and he was like yeah i always know when something's bothering you. And it's like. I'm very perceptive.

So we got back to Rachel and Chris in the studio audience. And Rachel tells Chris that it was hard to shut down what she had with Peter the night before. And Chris asks her, were you close to sending him home before that fantasy suite? And she said, yeah, I almost didn't want to do the fantasy suite at all because of that conversation we were having together. And so we get like a little insight. I guess a little bit, yeah. And then we go back to the night portion. And then we go back to the night portion.

Oh, but before that, we get a first look at Kevin Probably Saves the World, the hit new ABC sitcom. Yeah, with Jason Ritter. It's not out yet, but it'll be out. It ain't out yet, and he's doing his best in saving the world and stuff. Why did you, I don't know why you wanted to break that out. I just. There was a lot of Chris Harrison like, if you like this show, you'll love this. It's Jason Ritter and he's got powers. Or does he?

And is he going to use him right? Or is he going to fuck up? And he's like sitting on stage with Rachel and Rachel's in the shot. And it just like more than anything, it became clear to me throughout this episode, like The Bachelorette is a platform for them to sell stuff. The Bachelorette is a platform for them to sell stuff. And while it is a very real love story for this man or woman being featured, ultimately they are just a vehicle to shill the new fall lineup for ABC. So I just like, I found it very distracting when he was like. It was hysterical.

Like he was looking at Rachel in the eye like, wow, that's the saddest I've ever seen any person. Anyway, the good doctor coming this fall. Okay, night portion. So this is where Brian confronts Rachel about their awkward date and says that the day fell off and that there was a different energy. And he says that he felt kind of down. And she's like, oh, you felt down. And then she hugs and kisses him uh and says that she's glad he picked up on it yeah and that's kind of that's kind of it in that moment i'm sorry y'all

there's just there's not there's just not much stuff to work with here like there's not much stuff to there wasn't much footage to work with in this barren wasteland of a finale. I will say, and I remarked on this to Griffin, that moment where Brian says kind of like, you felt off today, and it made me feel kind of bummed, was maybe the first time I had ever seen him be vulnerable all season. And I did acknowledge that, like, oh this this guy is not 100 confident all the time sure i i i get that and like frankly if you are 100 confident or rather a thousand percent as he likes to say if you are a thousand percent confident at this point in the game like i cannot take you seriously yeah because that's wild yeah um i i i i hear what you're saying and it was like this was one of the very very few conversations where he like wasn't just being effusively complimentary of of rachel like

he actually brought up a concern and they and they dealt with it and that was and that was you know good that's like that but like that that's me, I feel like that should be the norm. Like, this was the first conversation that felt, like, super honest in a way. And it lasted, like, 15 seconds. I know. Fantasy Sweet Card, they do choose to forgo their individual rooms. Yes. The next morning, there's a lot of shirtlessness. They're actually eating strawberries in bed.

God, are you fucking kidding me? the next morning there's a lot of shirtlessness. There's, they're actually eating strawberries in bed. God, are you fucking kidding? She asks him what tastes better? Her or the strawberries? Yowie. Zowie. He of course says her and she says,

good answer. This is going to be an explicit episode on iTunes. Um, it was too much for me. What? In your mind, plus strawberries and white sheets. Thank you you thank you you've you've you've figured out my point exactly it's absolutely unacceptable you drop one drippy drop and all of a sudden next time you have a guest staying in your bed they see that it's like it's that blood why is the blood up in the corner of the sheet anyway what i i have known you for six years yes um we

started dating pretty much right away so we've been together for about six years what i've never seen you eat in bed before well you're very against it i'm extremely against it you've made that clear to me but but please don't make this sound like I'm fucking like laid down the law. I was like, no, no eating in bed. I've never like chided you for eating in bed or anything. Because I've never done it. Because of me? Do you love eating in bed?

I always thought you were just like on the same page as me. When I lived alone, I would occasionally eat in bed. I wouldn't eat like spaghetti or anything. But, you know, like a bag of popcorn or or like a like a little bowl of candy or something yeah sure something not super messy i would do that all right i guess so i feel bad if you want to eat in bed eat in bed babe don't let me stand in your way chase your truth and be with it i mean by the time i get in bed, I'm usually about three minutes from sleep. You fall asleep so fucking fast.

I legitimately think it is like X-Man mutation superpower level. You can fall asleep extremely quickly. It's very admirable. Sometimes I have to lay in bed and watch Tasty videos for 45 fucking minutes. Well, that's because I'm pre-planning for my evening, which will involve me waking up a couple times with Henry. Sure. So. Makes sense. I get ahead

of it. I'm like a distance runner. And I eat all that speed right before bed, which probably isn't good, but it helps my gamer reflexes. But you don't eat it in bed, which I appreciate. No, I eat it in the bathroom. and then i come to bed just fucking jacked out of my mind um so rose sarah rose sarah amoni i don't know why i shortened that i will say we go back to the studio rachel and chris again uh and this is where r Rachel talks about how she went into those fantasy suites with a list.

And she asked questions about things her family was concerned about. She asks, and she thanks Mila and Ashton for this. She says she asked about health insurance and credit scores. That's great. That's very good. Which I appreciate because it's like the kind of conversation. You should be having, yes. We didn't do that, though.

We probably should have. Well, because we didn't meet each other on this demented reality show, where I feel like I had a pretty good idea of what your credit score was before we got married. Yeah, we got an apartment together. Because we had three years or so to figure that shit out. Yeah. Not four months or however the however long this takes um yeah i thought that was very funny very charming um okay so now this is the rose ceremony and this

is where griffin sees rachel's dress and says quote he didn't even know clothes could be like this she's wearing like this. It's like an orange or salmon colored sort of dress. Beaded sleeve thing. But the sleeves are beaded in almost like a. They're like a heavy black. Like a jewel bead. Scale mail.

Like it looked like fucking like armor on the sleeves. Made a lot of clacking noises when she moved. She did when she was sending somebody home and like sitting next to him on a bench. Every time she moved her arms, she was sending somebody home and like sitting next to him on a bench every time she moved her arms it was slightly maraca like but um i thought it was like a wrap but it was actually attached to the dress anyway it was very very good uh so you may have forgotten but to remind you there's another there's a third man it's not just peter and ryan eric is there uh but not for very long no he um she sends him home yeah he i think he was just wearing a t-shirt and a jacket and i saw some people like giving him crap for that because i

guess he had done it a couple times in a row um well he might have been out of clothes they were that is possible and i'm totally not knocking the dude's style but people were pointing out like t-shirt and a jacket like Like, maybe Eric knows that, uh... That he's going home. Yeah. This was just like, fuck it. I kind of felt like he... I adored Eric.

And, like, I cannot think of too many people who have ever been on this show that have ever had quite the, like, growth arc that Eric had because it's been, it's been well last night's episode alone felt like it took about 12 and a half years to watch. But it's only been like, it's been a few months, right? Since we started watching it. And this is like,

Eric has changed dramatically. Oh, for sure. He was so insecure at the beginning. It was so, so insecure. And, and he was very insecure at the beginning it was so so insecure and and he was very very cool and confident even as he was being sent home and in the after the final rose stuff

and it was like that's a different dude and i like i would argue a better a better dude um and i was so like i don't know i was so inspired by that. I, I, I really, I adored Eric. I just like was a hundred percent sure he was going to come in third place. Yeah. Um, just because like she had this obvious, uh, physical and like instantaneous connection with Brian and had all of this like passion and like,

uh, chemistry with, with Peter. And while her and Eric had like a lot of fun together, like I just, and that happens every season where there's like somebody you really love to watch um it's kind of like the way caitlin was on chris soul's season um when you see them together they got along really well but there was no like passion there i think that we've definitely seen like that archetype

before and i think that they did have a connection. I think they definitely had more of a connection than, like, Caitlin and Chris Holes did. Yeah, that's not right. Who am I thinking? Like, Daniel, I guess, maybe? No, he got sent home pretty quickly. I get what you're saying of, like, the buddy. I don't really think it was exactly that, but maybe it was, you know, mostly that, and so it just didn't work out. But he was so gracious as she was sending him off.

Well, and you know what was interesting? And this is kind of a common trope that always bothers me a little bit. So she sends him home. And then she says it's hard to say goodbye with such strong feelings. I do love you. I'm just not in love. say goodbye with such strong feelings i do love you i'm just not in love and he thanks her for um just the experience and says that he'll always love her he said he was a boy and now he's a man because he has had returned love i was like man like it's it was it was it was really really great

and very um just really mature. But it always bothers me a little bit. And maybe I'm just thinking if I were the winner of this show, meaning that if I ended up engaged to The Bachelor, it seems like hearing you tell other people- I'm still in love with you. Yeah, I have such strong feelings. It suggests like, oh man, if things were different, if things were a little bit different, maybe I'd be choosing you. Like, I don't want to hear that. That's what the show is now. It definitely didn't used to be like that.

It definitely, definitely, definitely. I feel like even while we've been doing this podcast, because we've covered four Bachelor and Bachelorettes, like main main well we started with ben who was in love with both of them right i guess that is when it's i really feel like that season is when like saying i love you to more than one person or even i'm falling in love with you or whatever like variation on a theme you want it was it was simply not done before the proposal in every, in virtually every season before Ben. And now it's like every person. And it's such a, it's a really,

I agree with you. Like it is kind of a, a weird thing. And I think in terms of like a watching this franchise thing, like it's an interesting thing. It didn't used to be like this, like two years ago. And now every contestant that places a certain place,

you say I love you to. Eric, when he's being sent home in the limo, he just sets himself so nicely up to be the next Bachelor. I would not complain about that. He's like, I'm going to miss her. I can't imagine who the next woman to follow her is going to be. And says that he's happy he got to experience life with a person that beautiful. This is like right after he'd been rejected.

Yeah. It was that first line that really got to me. Because he looked really, he like lost his composure for just like a second. And he was like, I'm just going to miss her. Like, not just like, oh, I lost the show and now we don't get to get married. It's like, man, I'm going to miss being around that person. It was very like heartfelt. So then we go back to the studio and we are going to get to see Eric right away

because they're going to bring him out. To talk to Rachel. To talk to Rachel. To talk to Rachel. And I had this like secret hope that was totally unrealistic that he would come out and they would dance. And they would do their dance. They would dance one last time. And I think maybe read the room a little bit on that one. No, they didn't do that.

No, they didn't dance. Eric has a very nice beard. Great beard and a great suit. He looked fucking excellent. The Internet, man. People love that beard. And they were just as gorgeous as they were that that day that she sent him home. I can't remember too much about their conversation.

Yeah. He says that he was ready to propose and that he had talked to her mom and her dad, which was confirmation. That was the only hint we had on the actual show that her dad was there during the family meeting stuff. And she tells him as kind of closure that she had had stronger relationships with other people, which is, you know. Feels great. Thank you.

Yeah. I know how the show works. Thank you. You lost American Ninja Warrior because you were slower than the other person. I know. I know how the show works. Thank you. You lost American Ninja Warrior because you were slower than the other person. I know. I know how the show works. I didn't choose you for marriage because I loved someone else more. Yes, I agree. Sorry, 49ers, you lost the Super Bowl because you scored three less points than the Ravens. Yeah, I know.

That's how football scores. I didn't love you as much as him. Yes, agreed. I get what you're saying, Griffin. But think about how a breakup usually works. The breakup usually works where somebody tells you like, oh, we just wanted different things. Or, oh, I just had concerns because we had different interests. Or, you know, that's how a typical breakup conversation goes.

But this is, I loved two other men more than you, so sorry. How unsatisfying must that be as Eric? Yeah, probably not great. Like, don't you want, it's kind of like a job interview. If you don't get picked, don't you kind of want to know, like, what can I improve on in the future? I don't know. I just like Jerry more.

Get the fuck out of here. You're done. I liked Jerry more and I liked't know. I just like Jerry more. Get the fuck out of here. You're done. I liked Jerry more and I liked James more. So if you don't have a J name, get the fuck out of here. Eric goes on to say that, because Chris Harrison kind of pushes him a little bit, like, oh, were you super annoyed that Peter, this guy who maybe wasn't even going to propose, got to stay? And Eric says, yeah, I was really confident at that rose ceremony.

Like, I really thought, like, for the first time ever, like, it was for sure going to be me. And this is where he gives his little speech about saying that he was a boy, but now he's a man. And Rachel kind of confirms and says, you know, it kind of hurts me to say, but you're going to be so great for somebody else. And then we get a teaser for the good doctor. Great. Thank you. While they're still sitting there, probably, maybe. Yikes. so great for somebody else uh and then we get a teaser for the good doctor great thank you while they're still sitting there probably maybe yikes um let's keep let's keep trekking through because we're almost we're almost we're almost done in a weird way we're at least almost done with like the events that happened several months ago uh so now it is r and Brian's date.

Keep in mind, at this point, there's final two. And in any other season, this would be where the two remaining suitors would meet the Bachelor or Bachelorette's family. But we've already done that. And so really, we just get final date. And then the show ends. This is just the last date. They meet at sunrise. And then the show. This is just the last date.

They meet at sunrise. And I, because I've been watching this show for entirely too long, immediately know it's going to be a hot air balloon. It was, y'all, literally 50 frames of footage. And Rachel's like, hot air balloon. I was like, why would they be meeting at sunrise? That seems like a weird time to meet for a date. What could they possibly do at sunrise? Oh, I bet it's a hot air balloon.

And then, like, there we to meet for a date. What could they possibly do at sunrise? Oh, I bet it's a hot air balloon. And then like, there we were. It was wild. Um, this point Griffin revealed to me, he had been in a hot air balloon before. And it was like, I had told you that I was like, Jesus is great,

great, great grandson or something like some Da Vinci code shit. I went up in a hot air balloon. It was tethered. So it wasn't free flying. Yeah. And that's where my heart broke. Griffin noticed the light go out of my eyes when he said that i had her enthralled it was like the most proud of me my wife has ever been i was like well i mean it was there was a ground crew that

had it tethered to the ground she was like oh literally like turned back to her her ice cream like oh okay well because you know it's like i always think it's kind of cute and annoying when bachelor and bachelorette people will go up in helicopters and they'll be like this is my first time in a helicopter and it's like yeah of course yeah of course when would you ride in a helicopter and i kind of felt that way about hot air balloons so when griffin said oh i've been in one i was like what would you say what i guess i know the answer to this because i don't go around telling people, hey, I'm Griffin. I've been in a hot air balloon.

Because I agree with you. There's something about the tethering it to the ground that sort of removes some of the majesty. Yeah. It's like, oh, I've been in space. Actually, it was a space simulator. Well, no, that's different. It would be like if I went up into space, but there's a big rope connecting the spaceship to the ground. rope connected the spaceship to the ground

they here is the problem with them these two going up in a hot air balloon is that the camera person has to be right up on them and I I did maybe it was because I felt slightly

you know frustrated and hurt because of how quickly you turned on me vis-a-vis balloon adventures. Um, but I, uh, I mean, I feel kind of uncomfortable talking about this, but I did pause it and then make it go in slow motion while the two of them kissed because we had an angle that was so fucking extreme in this hot air balloon that in slow motion you could literally watch brian's like whole pork tenderloin of a tongue just unravel and yoshi right into rachel's mouth it was fucking visceral griffin you know i was taking notes and so i must have looked away for a second

and griffin was just like oh god that was so gross and i didn't know what he was talking about and so i must have looked away for a second and griffin was just like oh god that was so gross and i didn't know what he was talking about and so he rewound it and then frame by frame made me watch the make out right i i i want to be clear i do not want i genuinely do not intend to yuck any yums and i do not want to like cast dispersions that they're like very good physical connection it was just that the camera angle in this wicker basket that they were all standing in required this shot to be fucking inner space you remember the scene in inner space where they pass the dude off uh through their kissing fluids as they make out like literally that was fucking dennis quaid the man inside the tongues like holy shit it was pretty wild i would not want to watch anybody make out that closely would you want to watch yourself make out that closely

next to chris harrison in front of a crowd of hundreds no that i kept having all these moments throughout this episode where i was like rachel's fucking watching this for the first time in front of a huge crowd of people. And that's upsetting for, first of all, when we made the Bim Bam Bam show, we got the cuts and I was like, oh, this fucking rules. I'm so proud of us. We made a good thing. And then when we had the premiere party and showed it in front of other people, I was like, this sucks. This is the worst thing ever made. Look at all this dumb shit.

Nobody's going to like it. Can you imagine that? But for like how close you kiss in a hot air balloon and like also how this show weaves narratives that almost certainly do not represent the events as you saw them on the ground what a fucking cruel surprise that must be to have that like that veil lifted in front of your eyes in front of a live studio audience and chris harrison and the person who you dumped like i i i felt really bad for rachel watching this just because of like how intense that must be to to see this shit for the first time live in front of a big crowd. Yeah, I can't believe she agreed to it. I mean, I guess maybe she didn't have a lot of choice.

But yeah, it seems surprising to me that they would approach her and say, hey, we have this fun new idea. You're going to watch it live. And then we're going to ask you to react as soon as you see these really intense moments. And maybe she just didn't have a choice i mean you're probably contractually i guess i have to um yeah that was a complete non-sequitur it's just like i don't want to watch my fucking i don't want to watch any tongue play involving me on a big big screen next next to Chris Harrison and hundreds of people. Even if it was just the two of us in our house, I don't think I would want to watch it.

Yeah, probably not that either. Now, if it was the two of us in our house and Chris Harrison was there, that changes the equation. Because I want to, he's probably seen some kisses and I want him to evaluate it. Chris Harrison is watching with us via Skype. Now that could be fun. Let's get his contact info um all right let's get at him let's get back into this this date uh okay so night portion of their date post hot air balloon uh they're having a meal somewhere i don't know i didn't write down the details it's not a hot air balloon so i'm over it uh and she tells brian that she is used to being in relationships where she feels like she has to

fix things or save a person um but that brian is really confident um and he to kind of reiterate how confident he is says that he thinks that she'd be making a mistake if she didn't choose him. Yeah. And then he gives her a gift, which is something I'd kind of forgotten about, but this is a thing that happens a lot. I actually thought this was really cute. They're kind of last night together.

Usually the contestant will give the bachelor or bachelorette a gift. So he gives her a Spanish dictionary with some key phrases like husband, spouse, forever, kind of on a little crib sheet. I thought that was sweet. Which is sweet. Yeah. Where was more of the, ah, whatever.

That could be the whole episode. Yeah, this was really nice. So now it's time for the date with Peter. Buckle the fuck up, strap on your seatbelt. Should we go to the ad break? Now would be the time to do it because once this fucking snowball starts rolling it ain't gonna stop rolling hey can i steal you away oh i was gonna do like a

ow that fucking hurts yeah that's why I don't do that. Ow, fuck. Why? I do it for the craft, baby. I do it for the vine. If you weren't clear, I was hitting my cheeks. Oh, we got it. One of our sponsors this time is Blue Apron. Rachel and I are happy Blue Apron subscribers. This is like, we like pay for it out of pocket.

It's not like a gratis podcast promotion thing. Like we pay for it because we fucking adore it. They send you packaged pre-portioned ingredients for less than 10 bucks per person per meal. And the meals are all so delicious and the recipes are always rotating. We've been doing it for like over a year now and we've never cooked the same recipe twice. What are some of the upcoming recipes? Sauteed shrimp and green beans with globe tomatoes, spinach and orzo pasta. Whole grain pasta and summer vegetables with heirloom tomato.

Caprese salad and miso butter salmon and lo mein noodles with cucumber and charmed tomatoes. I think we have that one this week. We got a lot of charmed tomatoes in the mail. So I might just be assuming. Yeah, it's really great. When I moved to Austin and started dating Rachel, I had never really cooked before and didn't still for a while. And now, like, I feel like I'm getting pretty good at cooking. Yeah, this is a big romance tip.

I think there's almost nothing better than having your partner cook for you. Yeah, and when you do it right, it's very erotic. And so Blue Apron just does that for you. What can our listeners do to get themselves a little slice of this pie? They've never done pie, actually. Well, you know, they may have done like a shepherd's pie or chicken pop. Anyway. Well, you know, they may have done like a shepherd's pie or chicken pop anyway.

You can get your first three meals free with free shipping by going to blueapron.com slash rose. That's blueapron.com slash rose. Thanks, Blue Apron. Who is our other sponsor this week, baby? It's Thrive Market. Hey, I know them. Thrive Market is the new convenient way to get high quality natural organic groceries like healthy snacks, supplements, and foods to stock your pantry at 25 to 50% less than even the discount stores. I actually just had a conversation recently with a friend who was considering going gluten free.

And I literally did recommend Thrive Market because- They pay us $50 every time. No, that's not true. Because the website lets you sort, and so you can view grocery items that specifically fit within your diet, which is tremendously convenient. So you can test drive it for three. For three what?

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I've got a jumbotron here. This one's for Casey and it's from Saskia. They provided phonetic pronunciation, please. Like I've never met a Saskia. It's from Saskia and the cousins. I mean, I said that I better have gotten it right. Saskia. I think that's right.

Hey, Casey, the Tally Dynasty decided to enlist your fave couple to congratulate you on your most impressive graduation. We know you're going to do some excellent stuff and couldn't be prouder. Welcome to the real world. It's always on fire. Love from Saskia and all the

rest of the good, good cousins. That's nice. It is nice, except that the preferred time frame was April, early May. So I think they've probably been out in the workforce for a minute here. Well, Casey still deserves congratulations. Yeah, absolutely.

It's laudable. And this is a very kind gesture. And we hope that everything's really just taken off for you out there. I hope you're, you know, CEO of the big company or, you know, in charge of the big bank. What are some other jobs? I know that there's people who are CEOs of companies and then in charge of the big bank.

Those are two jobs. Those are two jobs. Firefighter is a job. Doctor. And that's it. Those are the four jobs. I hope you're thriving in one of those. Florist.

No, that's not one. Oh, okay. I have another message here. This is a message asking our listeners to listen to the British Medical Adventures of Necessary Silence on YouTube. It is a podcast to record struggles through the medical systems of Great Britain. And there's a note here that it will probably be in an accent,

nothing like the one this message is being read in. I wouldn't be too sure about that one, mate. Well, be thankful that I read it, not Griffin. Which one is it then? Is it this one or is it this one? Or is it this one? Or is it this one? It all sounds a little like Michael Caine.

Or is it this one? Some people just want to watch the world burn. That wasn't it. That was almost a whimsical, you've got to get yourself back up master Bruce It's kind of like if Michael Caine was a Wallace and Gromit character Some people just wanna watch the world burn Lost some powers there

Oh no Here comes the Joker Master Bruce Some people just wanna watch the world burn I'm glad we had fun in the commercial break because Jesus, Jesus, pleases, creases, it's about to get heavy as fuck up in here. Are you sad and confused about world politics?

Worried about the upcoming inevitable nuclear war? Or maybe a rat is living in your house? There's a rat living in my house. How do you get rid of a rat from a house? Why not immerse yourself in a completely fictional, imagined podcast for the beef and dairy industries? It works for me. The Beef and Dairy Network podcast is the number one podcast for those involved, or just interested, in the production of beef animals and dairy herds. Don't worry, it's funnier than it sounds. Find us at

beefanddairynetwork.com or maximumfund.org, or wherever you get your podcasts from. Oh God, there's the rat. Oh God. The date with Peter is at a monastery. Good start. There is stained glass and mosaics and candles, and it's very pretty. And there is a man in a robe. And Griffin and I had a long conversation about this.

I was like, what is that man? What is his profession? And we went back and forth. And I thought maybe it was a monk, but I'm not confident. And Griffin thought maybe it was a priest. And then eventually Peter kind of gives it away and refers to him as a monk. I guess I don't understand what the difference between a monk and a priest and a friar. I don't really understand the delineation.

I know that priests have to, like, they go through some, like, specific stuff to be, like, ordained to carry out. Well, there's, like, a congregation, I always thought, with a priest. Whereas a monk... You hear about monks, and I think about, like, monasteries and being, being you know cloistered probably isn't a word that anybody uses really but like living living there with like the the the squad and just like yeah they're almost kind of like caretakers and and it's solitude like it's a solo sort of mission um yeah i don't know we just talked out of our ass for a few minutes there. Yeah. So the monk gives them a tour of the monastery, and then talks to them a little bit about marriage. And Peter talks a little bit about how he feels about marriage and the importance of

it. And the monk kind of reminds them that a lot of people separate because of the little things and the little things are not important. Yeah. I mean, yeah. It's hard to disagree with that. And then this is where they start having one of many conversations about where they're at in their relationship. Can we leapfrog over this stuff as much as we possibly can? Peter is just talking about how uncertain he is. And Rachel says that she doesn't want to get dragged around like she did in her last relationship.

And Peter said, well, it's tomorrow. So I have to figure that out. And it's not a lot of time. It kind of seems Rachel's kind of pushing him because at first she seems to think it's kind of a semantics thing. Because Peter is talking a lot about their future together, about going to farmer's markets and football games and being together. And she's like, you know, we've talked about like what bed we're going to buy and where we're going to live. Like, I don't see. Yeah, we talked about getting dogs together.

Like, I don't understand why i think by the way we are into the night portion of the date as as we talk about this yeah so he i want i want to make it clear though at this point though like i am still thinking this is what happens every season and i i'll eat crow because last episode of rose buddies i talked about like oh this happens every season and And they try to make the winner out to like, seem like they're going through some big challenge right before they win. And at this point, like I was thinking like, wow, they're really driving this home hard, huh? Like this, this, this storyline, huh? They're really hitting us pretty hard, huh? Wow, they're sure hitting us pretty hard. Peter says that he has no fear of marriage, but that the idea of multiple proposals and multiple marriages scares him. And yeah, this is where they have the conversation where it's 24 hours out, like he's got to figure this out soon. he's got to figure this out soon um and this is where they allude back to something i didn't mention but at the previous rose ceremony she talks about how she is there for proposal

yeah looks real hard at peter and peter does not miss that which brian and eric how's your rose ceremony experience pretty good right now because this doesn't usually happen during it um so he he says at this point he is not ready to ask her to marry him straight up like lays it out but he doesn't want to stop being with her and and sees a future and wants to take steps but also wants to take his time there for the next like little bit here rachel had me keep like pausing it because they kept saying such genuinely real and heartbreaking shit that like i feel like we needed to like kind of do as good a job as we possibly could to capture it because this the the next 10 episodes the next 10 minutes of of of this episode were um

genuinely hard to watch and maybe the most real shit i've ever seen on a like reality romance show before in in my life yeah because they i mean it's a high stakes conversation like like they are being very realistic about what happens next when we talk about it please keep in mind that they are going to go to sleep and then potentially the next morning get engaged. Like, that is the, that is the, like, curtain under which this, this conversation was taking place. And you could feel it, like, on every single word. So Rachel's argument is that she's been in the situation before where she's been in a serious relationship. And the person she was with did not i also i also want to hop in here to say like during this

conversation a lot of things cemented for me and i realized like this has also happened on this show before of i mean half the relationships like don't make it past the after the final rose and it's people saying like you're my forever and then you get off the show and it's like, just kidding. I changed my mind. And I think Rachel was worried, like, in not wanting to propose, like, maybe Peter would be this. Like, maybe this could be Peter's whole game that he's running right now. Well, that's what she says. She says that if he doesn't propose, she will be leaving this journey without a guarantee. And that he

just doesn't have that level of commitment for her. And it's not just that he doesn't want to propose, but that he's just not, he's never going to get there. I think she doesn't, like, one way to read this, and there's so many ways to read all of the stuff we're going to talk about here, and so we should try to be as careful as we possibly can in discussing this stuff. But one way to read it is she doesn't want to get fucking embarrassed. She does not want to be one of those couples that doesn't make it to the final rose. She doesn't want to be one of those couples. Peter clearly doesn't either.

final rose like she doesn't want to be one of those couples peter clearly doesn't either maybe but like the problem is because they cannot seem to firm up this commitment that neither of them fully trust that the other person wouldn't just like get get the get the win and then go on to fucking sell t-shirts on Instagram. Like, use this opportunity as a way to launch their career, which has to be hugely embarrassing for the person who chose you. I think that's where Rachel is operating from in her insistence that there is a proposal on the screen in this final episode of television and i don't know i feel like that's that is like one of the many many ways that this kind of hit me because i couldn't understand like i didn't understand why neither of them would bend on this stuff and and to me like i just felt like rachel was like i don't want to get fucking humiliated out there. Peter makes the point, and I think it's a good one. He says that he is not able to act on impulse, and he has one opportunity to do this.

And she says, but you don't. And he says, I choose to, and that is my choice. So he's talking about how he only wants to propose once. And she's saying, well, that's, you know, there's nothing that says that it has to be that way. And he's saying, but that's how I want it to be. Yes, I understand what Peter is saying here. At the same time, this, you knew what the show was when you went on it and i know that i've been an advocate of like wouldn't it be nice to just like date after this

show and really get some real shit going before you make things official like isn't that in a way like kind of romantic and i think the answer is, if both people are into it, which is not the case here. Peter came on this show where at the end of it, you propose, and now he is making a choice that that is not what he wants. And so it is difficult for me not to, like, lay all of the, like, blame for how this situation goes like kind of at peter's feet yeah i get i like i understand tomorrow there's going to be cameras filming you as you win or lose a marrying game that's a wild sentence to say out loud but it describes the events like i i i understand the trepidation, but that's it. Like, this is what the thing is.

This is what the journey is all about. Yeah, no, and we can talk a little bit about the articles that we found in a second. But that's kind of the big thing that becomes very clear at this point, is that when Rachel signed up to do this show, she believed and bought into the, quote, process slash journey of the show. And so she knew day one, I want to get engaged at the end of this. That's my goal. Clearly Peter didn't, right?

Because this is as good of a connection as I've ever seen on this show. And yet he still won't commit to propose. And so he must have had that shit locked down day one. Let me get through the rest of this before we continue. I've been putting it off because honestly, it sucks really bad. So she says that she, at this point, Peter is pushing back on the proposal. She says she just wants someone who knows what he wants.

And he at this point pushes her again and says, do you know for a fact that I'm the person you want to spend the rest of your life with? And she says, I can't answer that question. And he says, why not? And she says, because I can't answer that question. It's again, it's the issue of what's the show, dude, like, this is the show, I can't do these things that you're asking me to do. This is how the show works. Is this where Peter says the really shitty thing? Yeah. And you know, I didn't write down word for word what he said he's he says something along the lines of um you know you would be really really happy with me with anybody else you would live a a media do you want to live a mediocre life um because if so send me home right now uh so they're kind of at an impasse at this point um after he asks her to say uh confidently that she wants to spend the rest of her life with

him and she says she can't answer that so they're at the impasse he says, or she says, you don't want to take the risk. I don't want to take the risk. What's going to change overnight? I wouldn't, I wouldn't trust it at this point. She says, if you propose to me, you'd be doing it so that you wouldn't lose me. And I don't want you to do it because of the pressure. And at this point, Peter is starting to realize like this is ending, like we are running out of time. And so suddenly he's like, I'll make that sacrifice. If that's really what you want, like I'll do it because I'll compromise because I don't want to lose you.

And he's like, you know, I'll go against what I believe to not lose you. Um, and she's like, if you don't want to do it, don't do it. And he's like, well, losing you hurts more. Uh, and Rachel says, would you feel resentful? And he says, I'd hope not, but I'm an emotional person, so I can't promise. So much shit. Babe, do you remember when I got down on one knee and uh compromised my integrity and my beliefs when do you remember when i got down on one knee and i made the greatest sacrifice a person

can make and yeah and you told me actually the night before you were like i am going to compromise so hard back there everything what i am so much shitty stuff was said in the like last minute at this point after he talks about um go find someone and have a mediocre life she says i can't i can't do tomorrow if you tell me you just want to be my boyfriend um and then he says well then i can do nothing but wish you the very best and he says i think we're both going to regret this decision uh and she says maybe and he says no i am he says if you change your mind you know where you can find me and then he walks her out and they like it takes a while the walking out takes like four or five minutes they say i love you to each other they they have difficulty saying goodbye there's some passionate kissing she starts to walk away and he's like i don't want you to leave like i don't want you to go

and then finally she just kind of like breaks breaks it off and runs down the stairs and out into the out into the rain as peter pulls his sweater off and what i thought was a fit of rage and then he used it to blot his his tears away from his face and he says what is wrong with me and then we cut to fucking fucking Rachel's face in the live audience as she kind of just said, say like, what do you want me to do right now, Chris Harrison? Uh, yeah, that was tough. Was it

the toughest? Yeah, it was bad. Was it the baddest? He says he's seen a lot of breakups in the last 16 years, but that that one was brutal. I gotta give the show some credit, though, because that was the most dramatic moment, possibly, in Bachelor or Bachelorette history. It was just also a huge fucking drag

and not fun even a little bit to watch. Just to set up what we're going to talk about next, I also thought it was a play-acty act, and that surely they teased, like, and here comes Peter. Peter's going to come out in a minute to talk about this. And I was like, and then he's going to come out, and he's they like tease like and here comes peter peter's gonna come out in a minute to talk about this and i was like and then he's gonna come out and he's gonna be like but then we patched it up and then we see the rest of the footage i was so sure i was in denial for so long

um do you want to read anything from the articles yeah sure um some of them might be kind of spoilery so we'll have to screen yeah i mean uh mean, so there was a Vulture recap titled Win by Default by Ali Barthwell, which was, like, frankly pretty hysterical throughout recapping some of the events. There was no grand love story. There was no romance. There was no happy ending. It all felt like a somber death march toward an inevitability that no one wanted. was no happy ending. It all felt like a somber death march toward an inevitability that no one wanted. ABC decided to mix the After the Final Rose ceremony into the episode and intercut the final episode with live footage of Rachel awkwardly watching herself cry. Do they think we aren't going

to be interested enough in sticking around to watch After the Final Rose that they have to trick us into watching it? They know we like watching Rachel, right? Why do they think we're so very invested in watching her squirm? And then there's some thoughts on peter uh he peter also wants her to tell him that he's the man she's going to spend her life with and she's literally not allowed to answer that i guarantee you if she had told him he was the one he would have proposed he didn't want to take it slow he wanted his sure thing just as much as she wanted hers. He didn't need time or space to think. He wanted control. Peter pulls the ultimate ain't shit move and tells her,

we're both going to regret this decision. She didn't decide, Peter. You did. You decided not to play by the rules. You want to stay with her after Rioja? You propose. Yeah, I thought that take was interesting because, you know, we've been kind of taught to root for Peter this whole season.

So it was real easy to be like, Rachel, what are you doing? But I liked Ali Barthwell's take of just saying like what we kind of mentioned earlier, which is this is how the game is played. She's not asking for anything that anybody else hasn't asked for every time this show airs. asking for anything that anybody else hasn't asked for every time this show airs we're going to talk about this is one thing i really want to try to stick the landing on in talking about this finale in that i absolutely it is of the utmost important to me that we respect rachel's agency and rachel's decision because by all intents and purposes she seems seems like happy, right? My beef is with the show as a construct and the show as like a three-hour entertainment thing that we watched last night.

And by extension, like a season of television that we've watched where we were shown this narrative and then that narrative was the show like uh 538 did does those recaps where it shows like screen time per person and peter fucking owned it every episode even ones where he didn't have dates it was the peter show um and then for it to for it to end this way like is going to be unsatisfying no matter what and infuriating no matter what and maybe there's an element of truth to that because i'm sure it was that to rachel and maybe also peter um but as a fucking television viewing experience like

it was it there's no other word to describe it it was miserable it was miserable so there so there's the peter part of it obviously and So there's the Peter part of it, obviously. And then there's the other part, which is Rachel was set up to be this one of a kind bachelorette for a lot of reasons. I mean, obviously, because she is the first African American bachelorette, but also her at but also uh because she was just kind of remarkably great to watch and seemed to have a very clear picture of what she wanted and was just funny it's a tough job right it's a we've seen so many people be most of the time 95 of the time they're just mediocre and you are a you are a sounding board for the wild and wacky characters who come in and throw their garbage at you and if anything this season was the inverse where rachel was

fucking great the whole time and a lot of the dudes were shitty well and so what what is fundamentally unsatisfying about this show i would say every season but especially this season is that you are sold on how unique The Bachelor Bachelorette is. And these last few episodes, you always see them go through the exact same routine. Even if it's a little different, even if somebody's like Peter dragging their feet, or, you know, like Brian's super eager, you are still watching the same show every year regardless of how unique the bachelor bachelorette is and i think for me being as attached as i was to rachel it was just extra heartbreaking and i mean it was it was it's it's bad in a lot of ways in that like um a lot of people were watching this season and excited to see a um you know black woman

in charge of her romantic destiny as it were like making making these these calls in her quest for love and ultimately like i feel like the package that was presented here in, in, in the, in the ending was unsatisfying. Like it was almost like you were rooting for there not to be a proposal. Like, wasn't it? Did you feel that's kind of fucked up, but like, I mean,

I didn't feel that way necessarily, but like, I guess because I was kind of interested in Peter's point is that maybe they do the thing that most couples do, which is let's not get engaged super quick. Let's take some time. And so I kind of got excited about like, oh, that would be like a fun new thing. And so when Rachel was like, no, like I'm doing what the show does. I want to get engaged. I mean, it's not doing what the show does. I want to get engaged. I mean, it's not just what the show does.

It is what she wanted. Again, like, I want to make sure that we respect, like, what her. I'm so exhausted talking about this show because, like, and I hit this every episode, but, like, we are viewing this thing through a very specific lens. And that lens was carefully curated to tell the story that the producers of this show want to tell and so reading into anybody's like desires and motivations and whether or not they're satisfied with x y or z ultimately to me feels like a largely futile effort but at the end of the day like i i i adore rachel i thought she was a terrific bachelorette. And I want to respect the fact that she made this decision and she is happy, right?

My frustrations with the show, my frustration is the fact that like this show told a love story that it then like disappeared in the last 30 minutes of the show um which you know maybe it's not necessarily up to the people who edit and decide what goes into the show but they certainly decided that like peter was going to be this grand magnificent love story in the in the edits that were there while brian was just sort of seen as this like fairly vacuous dude which again maybe that is all that he was giving them or whatever it's hard for me not to be frustrated that like well because it's not fair to rachel like it's not fair to rachel she didn't get ultimately she didn't make a choice there was one guy left because peter peter peter stopped yeah um here's another one from the Daily Beast

uh from uh Ira Madison the third the Bachelorette finale was absolutely infuriating yep uh the entire episode soured me on the Bachelorette's idea of love it's already absurd enough to imagine two people falling for one another in such a short span and getting engaged but when there was such a visible passion

between Rachel and Peter on screen and it fizzled out simply because Rachel wanted to play by the show's rules and get proposed to on camera, it made the whole operation seem fraudulent. And make no mistake, this show is about selling a manufactured fantasy no matter how cynical, unemotional, or depraved it may be. And I've read a lot of takes on the finale that were very disappointed in was so adamant that she get proposed to is because she wanted the the the visual image of her wearing a big shitty neil lane ring um on a mountaintop or whatever the fuck um because like that's what the show wanted i i feel like i i don't feel comfortable talking about what rachel wanted except except for what she said she wanted and how ultimately satisfied she seems with the conclusion of the show. Well, so many people turned on her, I feel like, in this last episode, just on social media and in the cultural criticism we read.

Because the show made it impossible for you to like Brian and Peter at the same time. It was almost like you had to pick one. And if you were on Team Peter and she chose Brian, that said something about Rachel. And if she had picked Peter, then you would have believed that Rachel was a certain kind of person. And the fact that she chose Brian made her a kind of person that you didn't want her to be. And so a lot of the criticism we read was like, Rachel picked Brian. And so that means that she doesn't really care about all the things that Peter cares about. And she doesn't have the depth that we thought she did.

I think that sucks. That's a really, really shitty way of reading the situation. But a lot of people did. It's shitty reading it based. That's a shitty read on what we saw even. And it's an extremely shitty read of like what we didn't see. Obviously. Um,

I want to, I want to try to put like kind of a positive note on this. And we have one, I think really great article, um, that I want to read a little like kind of a positive note on this. And we have one, I think really great article that I want to read a little bit later, but I'm, I'm hoping we can talk about the after the final row stuff with Peter and then get into the ending. If we want to get into that real quick.

So we cut back to the studio. Rachel talks about how frustrating that conversation with Peter was and how they had come that far and he was still so uncertain. They did so much planning over the weeks, but that he wouldn't take action on their plans. And this point,eter comes out i don't know when i don't know if it was i i think it was maybe before he came out but she mentioned that there were some red flags during geneva i don't know if you have that in your notes and it's coming up later but that really stuck out to me as like yeah she says it wasn't just the fact that he wouldn't propose there were other issues that came out in geneva what oh um let's let's talk about this and then we'll get into like peter stuff uh so peter kind of talks a little bit about the timeline

kind of outlining the number of dates um that they had had such a good first date and then he had to wait and wait for a second date. And that he just got really in his head about the whole process and that he wishes if he could go back, he wouldn't be so in his head. But he basically outlines kind of adding to his case a little bit. You know, there were only a few dates. You know, I just didn't have the time i needed um and she says hey you were true to yourself you took your time um i just don't think this journey um or this show is for you um i just think you need more time that is a um so he she basically shoots his blimp towards bachelor out of the sky um yeah

i mean a lot of people read it that way i i i think that is i don't know if there was quite as much malice behind her words as that but like it's not hard to see it as a i will say this is the point so as as we mentioned earlier uh griffin was pretty sure that this was all a ruse. Literally, still like... And at this point, Griffin, who had been 99% sure this was a ruse, I asked him after this conversation, where are you at now? And he said, I'm about 60% sure. In my defense, when she came out, Chris was talking to her, and they were both using language that sounded strangely-committal to the fact that they were broken up like she was like yeah you know i haven't seen him since uh and but like didn't put like a date on it and like there was some stuff like that where i was like

oh y'all are playing coy we're gonna cut back into the episode and he's gonna come running back in the hotel room and then we're gonna cut back to the live audience and they're going to be like, Psych. Yeah. But no, he didn't win the show. He lost. Yeah, he apologizes for the mediocre life comment, which he says he doesn't even remember saying. She comes back with, Good, because I'm living my best life. I'm living my best life.

Which a lot of people were like, Boy, Peter looked like he was like dying up there like he yeah he says that he felt attacked okay yeah i want to get to that separately but peter looked like he was like a fucking like ghoul up there like the flesh was just falling off of his bones and so i think a lot of people thought that like rachel was being too um like snide with him i guess but i i don't know i didn't read it like that it was a really his comment was super super shitty and she just watched it again in front of a whole bunch of people and hasn't like never saw it on camera and hasn't probably thought about it in a couple months like i get being um a little bit frustrated about it and

then he he does say like they go to commercial when they come back chris is like so peter how you feeling he's like i gotta be honest i'm feeling pretty attacked right now and like a hush falls over the crowd and rachel's like why do you feel attacked and he says like you know i can't i can't i can't expand on that right now. And that was such dog shit. I feel like she is literally just like, they are literally just asking Peter, like, I don't think this ever hit a point where Rachel was being, like, going hard on Peter. I really, really don't. I think that this was, they didn't have the same level of warmth and familiarity that they had when they were like falling in love on this television show. I will give you that. But like, I think that she was super, super hurt by this and wanted some answers. felt very exposed uh and i don't know if that's what he was trying to say but i understood why he wasn't able to articulate in that moment why he was feeling the way he felt because it is a

totally foreign experience for somebody to have to on stage confront somebody uh that they had a very painful breakup with for sure i totally get it and and he went this entire season and has had this huge online following because he has been this pure and perfect angel that, like, everybody was in love with. And then this is his debut as the guy who ultimately, you know, disappointed Rachel and didn't follow through on the show's promise. And I get the discomfort that comes with that. But being asked why you did the things that you did, and then saying that this black woman is attacking you on television, that sucks the moon right out of the sky. No, you're right.

And Rachel was understandably frustrated. And the fact that he couldn't even explain what he meant by it. It's frustrating. I mean, her whole interaction with Peter, like her last half dozen interactions with Peter were frustrating. That was the word she used. And it was very obvious to watch is that this couple being Rachel and Peter

that had always had such a clear understanding had always been able to communicate so well which was part of why everybody was rooting for them yeah suddenly neither of them were able to get anywhere with each other and it was heartbreaking this and this ultimately comes back to the fact that like this felt real this felt more real than anything happened the rest of the season this breakup feels more real than what we're going to talk about next like and and i think the show thought that too because they spent probably one and a half hours out of this three hour thing just like talking about this one thing and watching this one thing fall apart and then doing a play-by-play post-game show about this about this breakup and it was it was frustrating and it it

was it was hard to watch and like i i let's let's let's talk about how the show ends because um they took about eight minutes to get through it on the television show so i think we'll move pretty quickly too yeah so now after this big confrontation and this debrief in front of a studio audience, we go back to Brian picking out a ring with Neil Lane. There's such a, yeah. Like the romance is gone at this point. Like you're not giddy watching this. You're not thinking like, oh, yay, you're still coming down off of this like really brutal conversation. Chris tries to sell it.

He's like, stay tuned because we're going to see Brian get down on one knee. But is it going to go the way you think it's going to go? Yeah. So then we go to the standard proposal shot. Rachel is on a cliff. It is very, very windy. Brian is getting out of a car. For some reason, they do the thing

they always do, which I guess, just to breed a little more doubt, they shoot his feet first getting out of the limo. And I'm like, why are they doing this? We know it's Brian, and it is Brian. And he gives his speech, incorporates a little bit of Spanish which I thought was kind of charming he uses the term no I'm sorry this fucking sucked I liked it no not his Spanish

it was very charming but on the whole his whole there was more passion in the breakup that we just saw than there was in this proposal i know that's a horrible thing to say but he says the words like from the moment we first met it was like a chemistry bomb and it was like what the fuck you're about to ask this person to spend the rest of your life with i just thought the spanish was charming the spanish was very charming

i didn't mean to make it sound like his spanish bad, but the whole thing was just so it wasn't any more substantial than I feel like the rest of their interactions have been. And like they haven't been very substantial. So she responds, says that she in the past has always been drawn to people and things that were damaged. And that when things were so good with Brian that she spent all this time trying to find cracks in the perfect foundation. But right here in this moment, she can see spending her, or she can't see spending her life with anyone else. And she says that she loves him and he proposes and she jumps up and down.

And he shows her the ring and she says, what does she say? Give it to me. Give it to me. Give it to me. She's like, it's so pretty. And then she offers him the final rose and he, quote, a thousand percent accepts the rose. So that's the proposal. And then they come out and like.

Yeah, he puts the ring back on her finger. He reproposes. And that was kind of weird. Like it was a joyless. She's not allowed to wear it in the interim. And so he pulls out the box again and proposes and says, will you remarry me? You haven't gotten married already. Yeah.

Go ahead. And then they talk about the standard things, you know, that they've had three months of limited contact, that they are talking about a winter wedding, but they haven't picked where they're going to live yet. Not only that, Chris Harrison said, so have you talked about where you're going to live yet? And their answer was so noncommittal, like, so, like, it honestly seemed like they should have just said no. non-committal like so like it honestly seemed like they should have just said no because brian was like uh you know we haven't really well you know we've talked about it some uh we haven't made any decisions but we could do you know we could do la or we could do miami or we could do dallas and it's like you're engaged and you haven't ironed that like yeah and then they also have the standard like what are you looking forward to? And they say, oh, it'd just be so nice to get coffee or go see a movie or, you know, walk Copper together.

And then the show gives them a trip back to Rioja as a gift. Okay, that's it. that's it. Um, I, I, I wanted to be there for this. Like I wanted to be on board and I wanted, I wanted,

um, I wanted to like be happy about it. Right. And I didn't, I wanted to read it. It's really, really, really,

really hard for me to watch this show and watch the engagements that come out read it. It's really, really, really, really hard for me to watch this show and watch the engagements that come out of it. And this is going to sound fucking horrible, and it probably is. But it's really hard for me to see that and not envision what I think the expiration date's going to be. And if that sounds cruel, I've watched a lot of this show now, and it almost always doesn't work out. Almost always. it almost always doesn't work out almost always almost always it doesn't work out right and I I think the way that I judge that is I just like look at it and I'm like oh is this does this feel real right does this feel like a real thing beyond like let's merge our social media brands or whatever. And I'm not saying that that is what that is.

It's just really, really tough for me to have a positive feeling about this after we spent a season seeing a relationship develop that I thought was one of the most real I've ever seen on this show. Yeah, you're talking about Rachel and Peter. I'm talking about Rachel and Peter. Right. And so, like, I really wanted to, like, get on like get on board right and again i really want to drive this home rachel seems really really happy they're on the couple of cover of people magazine and they seem really really happy um i i just like i can't it he gave us nothing the whole season i would argue that the show part of the success of the show is that as a

viewer, you project, you know, you, you see yourself in different contestants, you align yourself with people that think like you think, or that say things that you can relate to. And Peter and Rachel had a lot of very, very clearly communicated conversations where you felt like you really knew both of them. You knew what they had in common and the chemistry was there and you could feel it. And you, they said things that you could hear yourself saying,

or hear someone, you know, saying we didn't get any of that with Brian. We super like, I'm sorry. I know there's Brian fans out there and I don't want this to read as like me rooting against like Rachel's happiness or anything like that. It's just, I watched his show all season, and they had almost no substantial conversations the entire time, and almost all their conversations were limited to him just flattering.

Yeah, Brian was like the fairy tale prince, you know? fairy tale prince, you know, and that's actually something that Rachel says a lot when she talks about Brian is that it's like a fairy tale with him, which is, is the kind of thing that a lot of people dream about, you know, and I think a lot of people get excited about Brian because he presented this kind of pure, uncomplicated love that people want to believe in. And it, that people want to believe in. And it didn't speak to me. I don't think that makes it any less valid. But I think things are more complicated.

And when this complicated situation with Peter didn't pan out... Peter didn't pan? Peter didn't pan. I just didn't know what to do next i want to i want to leave it with this um this this article i i talked about earlier it's uh from the atlantic um and it's from megan garber and it's called settling versus settling down two ways of looking at the bachelorette finale because i feel like it kind of puts into thoughts like how ideally like i want to come away from from this season thinking about what happened um megan says in one way yes it was a disappointment for many many viewers rachel after all is an especially great bachelorette she is especially smart she's especially successful in her career she is especially funny she's especially charismatic she's especially kind

and brian is fine he had received rachel's first impression rose certainly and had chemistry with rachel from the beginning that has only grown but again the stakes here weren't presented as matters of chemistry they were presented by the show itself as matters of practicality it wasn't just that brian had previously been on another reality show i don't know if you've even talked about that we haven't brian been on another reality show. I don't know if you've even talked about that. We haven't. Brian was on another reality show. Something like UPN shit, I want to say.

He had been on another reality show, A Red Flag, right reasons wise. It was also that he, per the show's setup, was not so much the soulmate as the rebound guy. And it was also that Rachel, who has always been too good for this show, once again deserved better. You could also read Rachel's choice, though, in the opposite way, as an outcome worth celebrating, and not just because it was Rachel's Choice, which should perhaps in itself be the end of the discussion. Rachel also, after all, stuck to her guns. She refused to compromise her desires. She refused to settle. She took a long uh history women being made to settle women of color in particular being made to settle and looked it in the eyes and said not today she

wanted to be proposed to the bachelorette is a show that will give a woman her pick of men today but they cannot envision her being the one to pop the question that's in like a parentheses explaining why this show sucks um and she got in the end exactly what she wanted yeah i i this has been a season about rachel right and for a while there was also a season about rachel and peter and their obvious like connection and oh he's gonna win and this is the love story and to be fair like i was into it and i talked some shit about like how obvious is it that they're trying to lead us off the path because he's so clearly gonna win and isn't this boring and then it didn't happen and now i'm saying well this fucking sucks too um but this is rachel's season right i was excited for

rachel to be the bachelorette and i still think she was the best bachelorette um and it ultimately like i want to come away from this saying like she is happy she got the ending that she wanted and that's great it's it's tough for me to like divorce my like feelings as like a television viewer who bought into this one narrative so so so deeply and then it didn't happen right well and i was saying this saying this to Griffin before we started recording, because neither of us wanted to take issue with Rachel. And I think ultimately

what we're taking issue with, and this is what I said to Griffin, is the show. I mean, every time this is what happens, we get frustrated with an aspect of this franchise. And sometimes it's easy to blame the people on the show, because we're being told, you know, how they think and feel. And if we can't relate,

then we blame them. But the show is what is telling us, you know, what to think and how to view these people. And so when I when I feel like I don't understand the choice Rachel made, view these people and so when i when i feel like i don't understand the choice rachel made i'm recognizing a lot of that is because the show didn't make it possible for me to and let's also be clear like we say the words the choice rachel made and obviously she made the decision to like say yes to brian's proposal but peter bailed there's no other there is no other way to like i i don't think there's another fair way to read what happened there peter practice practice some frankly shitty brinksmanship knowing that he didn't want to propose and letting it get this far before he said 24 hours before i'm definitely

not going to propose um and ultimately like that's why shit fell apart between the two of them it felt we've we've talked about this and a lot of uh other folks have brought this up too uh it feels kind of like desiree's season uh brooks was this front runner the whole time and they got to final three and brooks was just like i gotta go and des was fucking heartbroken because brooks was the peter of that season um they had a super super tight connection and then when it got real brooks dipped and and she ended up picking chris and she's still they're still together yeah and and and so like obviously that's that's very great but like the point i'm trying to make is I think that this happens. I think that this happens a lot.

It's funny. I actually talked about this with Rachel, like, 20 minutes into last night's episode about, do you think that there's, like, dudes who do, like, practice brinksmanship and, like, get to the end of this thing and are like, oh, but I don't want to fucking win. I don't want to get, like, ooh, I don't want to fucking win. I don't want to get like, Ooh, I don't want to get engaged. Cause that's going to, I want to be on here and like have, have the good stuff about being on a,

a big, big television show like this, but like, I don't want to get engaged. And then maybe break that off and like have to keep, you know, keep, keep pretending or anything like that.

And maybe that's a cruel way of like looking at Peter's motivations, but like, it's gotta happen sometimes. Right. Yeah. It felt a little bit of like looking at Peter's motivations, but like, it's gotta happen sometimes, right? Yeah, it felt a little bit like ego to me. You know, it's a very public show. And I think, I mean, the way I interpreted Peter's move was, I don't want to propose to you on this very public TV show and have it not work out. I would rather propose to you in private when i feel like you know there isn't as much spectacle and as and as many people you know analyzing every aspect of

it um like us right like that's what's fucked up like us right now and and i we should we should maybe call it right because we're like an hour and a half in and we could do this we could do this all day we could talk about why peter didn't want to propose and we could talk about why rachel did the things that she did or if she is if she really was happy with brian or if she just like wanted to like make a good tv show or we like infinite people could write infinite takes on this and yeah ultimately like we'll never know really all we can do is like trust trust the people that we want to trust like i trust rachel and i'm glad that she's happy that's about as like thorough a thought as i can fucking put together because i don't know i don't

know what's real like i don't know what being presented represents the the truth or or not you know what else i can say confidently? What's that? I like that beard on Eric. Yeah, that beard on Eric was fucking great. Like it. Do we want to talk about the... Yeah, maybe this is a good time to talk about this because we're literally... I'm so fucking frustrated talking about this show

for this exact reason. I feel like a rube. I genuinely do. I'm not kidding. And I know there's lots of people who have been recapping The Bachelor and Bachelorette, like talking about it for so long. And I don't know how they deal with this. Like week in, week out doing this show, especially this last like year or so, I have felt like

a fucking dummy the whole time because we are commenting on a thing that purports itself to be a real experience that is obviously manicured heavily by by abc and the producers of the bachelorette and so commenting on it just makes it feel like i don't know i feel i feel like we are commenting on one percent of what is actually happening and then rebroadcasting that out to be the God's honest truth. Yeah, it's the experience trying to make assessments on the strength of relationships, which is just kind of the nature of criticism of the show. Right. of criticism of this show right um feels so naive because we're being shown specific narratives that benefit the success of the franchise so we're describing every reality show right now and i know that but you have to understand that like again we've been watching this show a lot and something's happening where um i can see its bones through its skin a little bit and it's in its

that's a gross way of describing it but it is gross like another straight up another thing like this show and franchise has become so it has become deeply problematic in a way that like we used to have fun with like ahaha we're the trash raccoons and we roll around in the trash. Like I, like the whole Lee and Kenny thing from, from the like entire middle chunk of this season, the rod thing, the rod ship and,

and, and the whole bip stuff. Um, uh, like it's, I, it's, it's super bad.

It's bad. It's bad. Well, well, well beyond the point where it's i it's it's super bad it's bad it's bad well well well beyond the point where it's like what a bad show um and while like i think rachel is a great bachelorette and i definitely think there were like redeeming moments of this season and i feel like ultimately it was a fairly good season if not like totally what I wanted before it started. Like our relationship with the show has gotten bad. And I think that's safe to say, like as people who talk about it weekly, like I don't enjoy it as much anymore.

Last night wasn't fun. I hung out with you all night and that was great. But I didn't have fun watching this. And I think that the podcast is also getting a little bit less fun to do just because we're talking about a thing that we don't love as much as we used to when we started this show a couple of years ago. So, yeah. So Griffin and I have had a conversation about how we proceed. about how we proceed. Because part of the reason we like doing this podcast is we like love.

We like being in love. We like making jokes about things that we like. We don't do as much. Yeah, a lot of those things don't seem to happen on this show anymore when we talk about it. So we kind of decided that this season of the bachelorette will be um our last season uh talking about on this franchise yeah yeah we're not we're not planning going forward we will um not be recapping the bachelor bachelorette, or Bachelor in Paradise.

Two things real quick. One, I know this is going to disappoint a lot of people. I get it. I've got to be firm here, though, and say this is not up to a vote. We are not going to reconsider this. I swear to God. It is more important to me that we do a show that we feel good about because I'm still largely uncomfortable with the fact that like a lot of people watch this show because we talk about it. And I have far past the critical mass of like starting to feel really bad about that fact.

We're not going to change our minds, though, because like. Even if Eric is The Bachelor. We're not going to change our minds, though, because like... Even if Eric is The Bachelor. Even if Eric is The Bachelor, like, folks are going to send us clips from Bip and be like, oh, but look, cool. Daniel is on Bip this summer. We love Daniel. We are still not going to cover that show. But fuck that.

It's just, I have loved doing this podcast. That's the second thing I want to get to is we're going to keep doing something. I swear to God, we're not going to miss a beat uh there's going to be another rose buddies next week and we're going to talk what do you want to do love connection yeah i want to talk about love we're going to talk about some stuff right we're going to do some rose buddies until we firm up what the new thing is going to be but i promise you there will be an episode of rose buddies one week and then a new thing the following week we are not going to miss it at at all and there will be something to listen to We are not going to miss it at all,

and there will be something to listen to. It's still going to be us talking about love things that make us love each other and love life. It's a rough, rough tweet and Dave fan cast. No. We had a lot of very, very positive reception to the Baby TV episode, which we sure do appreciate, but we also understand that it is not everybody's cup of tea and so we are not going to be moving in that particular

direction also because um i don't want to fuck with the the one bad mother podcast they would man those are some tough ladies they will fuck us up um i again like it means a lot this show means a lot to me this podcast means a lot to me. This podcast means a lot to me. Not so much the fucking Bachelor franchise anymore. And it means a lot to me that the community that has built up around it. And we've gotten a lot of support from people because honestly, I do not think this announcement is coming as much of a surprise to a lot of people who are listening because I listen to the episodes as I edit them. And I can feel our joy sapping away as we talk about this yeah um and at the same time like i know that this community has also sprung up around this other show and that there are live uh you know comment threads while people watch the episodes

and like i would encourage you like if you want to keep doing those live comment threads like keep doing them um yeah it's it's it's i think that is wonderful and i do not want you to feel like this is a betrayal but i um i i do not i do not look forward to watching this television show anymore straight up and i do not find myself like qualified to be a media critic of it and even if I was I just I don't really enjoy doing it and I think that's always always always going to come through in in the podcast and I would much rather do something with you that makes us both like super happy that we look forward to and are like super proud of and you know yeah um um so yeah next week love connection and then here in a little bit uh and we will definitely keep you updated with our plans i promise that it will be something that y'all

are gonna y'all are gonna be into and we'll let you know how we're gonna roll it out and stuff yeah um it's i think it's gonna be called called Ruff Ruff Tweet Dave, Rachel, and Griffin. My Ruff Ruff, my tweet, my Dave, my husband, and me. Do we want to say anything else about this season? I feel like we've really nailed it down. I mean, I will very quickly say that in this episode, we got to see another teaser with exclusive footage of the shutdown on Bachelor of Paradise. Oh, my God.

And it was so much worse. Yeah. You're welcome to go seek out that footage if you'd like to. It is just as frustrating and disappointing as you might expect it to be. Yep. Let's just end it. I'm so tired. Until next time, I'min mcelroy i'm rachel mcelroy when you're ready final rose stay with us on this journey of joy spoiler alert she is a wisoja boy MaximumFun.org

Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Listener supported. I'm Riley Smurl. I'm Sydney McElroy. And I'm Taylor Smurl. And together, we host a podcast called Still Buffering, where we answer questions like... Why should I not fall asleep first at a slumber party? How do I be fleek?

Is it okay to break up with someone using emojis? And sometimes we talk about butt. No, we don't. Nope. Find out the answers to these important questions and many more on Still Buffering, a sister's guide to teens through the ages. I am a teenager. And I was too.

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