‘The Bachelor’ Needed Arie’s Excruciating Season To Reset The Franchise

It’s quite the coincidence that our country saw one of the worst cases of a flu outbreak this winter at the same time we were all trying to make it through Arie’s season of The Bachelor. But we never appreciate our health more than when we’ve conquered a virus, and in the case of Bachelor Nation, we can finally say we’ve never felt better.

After a season of Arie peppering in his fake laugh throughout eye rollingly boring dates and drama, The Bachelor franchise is back on track. Except it did take the torturous three-hour finale where Arie blindsided Lauren with zero rings or roses, proposed to Becca, and then spent over 30 minutes lurking around their “Happy Couple” house after he dumped her in order to pursue things with Lauren. Perhaps you joined me in yelling, “JUST GO,” as he sat there and watched Becca cry, and now, he’s finally gone. Sure, not without flaunting his new love and then proposing to Lauren during the After The Final Rose special, but hey, those two deserve each other.

Now we as Bachelor Nation emerge stronger than ever and with a Bachelorette we’re fiercely proud of. Becca Kufrin is our new lady looking for love and we’re all rooting for her to find it with someone great. In fact, there might not be a woman in all of Bachelor history that’s had the support of viewers the way Becca does. Whether it’s in the form of the billboards around the country, or the over $6,000 Venmo’d to Becca intended for wine, which she instead donated to Stand Up To Cancer (and ABC generously matched), or the endless tweets sticking up for the wronged woman, viewers are not only on board with Becca as Bachelorette — they’re excited.

You know, the way they would’ve been had last year’s Bachelorette favorite Peter Kraus been named The Bachelor. Which was the first sign that this season was indeed doomed. From the moment Arie was named Bachelor, viewers were annoyed at best. This was only compounded by the unnecessarily gimmicky limo intros, KRYSTAL, Bekah M.’s off-screen shenanigans (seriously, this STILL makes no sense, no matter how many dangly earrings she wants to shake at us), Arie’s bland as hell on-screen presence, and then of course the events of this week. It was a disaster of a season. It wasn’t fun to watch, it didn’t feel fun to experience, and it was actually painful to witness this mess of an ending.

But guess what? The line has been drawn. We know how bad it can get, and from this perspective, it can only get better. Right? It has to. Fans are thankful and relieved at the announcement of Becca’s new title. The Bachelor franchise feels back on track, which hasn’t quite been the case for some time now. But the fever has broken, and come May 28^th, we’ll be ready to dedicate our Monday nights to watching Becca find love with anyone better than Arie.

And we’ve already got some strong contenders! While this whole introducing a handful of the men at the After The Final Rose special isn’t my favorite move, what I was seeing gave me hope. There was charm, good looks, an accent, and even a banjo, as Brian emerged certainly as my very early favorite. And then Becca was awkwardly hoisted on top of a horse and it was made abundantly clear that the franchise still has a higher than average temperature that needs to come back down to normal (you know, if you’re still keeping up with this flu analogy).

Please, we beg of you, please correct these final mistakes within the franchise.

1. Give up the gimmicks. Becca is a gorgeous, accomplished woman. She don’t need no props. Tell the bros to leave them at home. This gal deserves a man with a winning personality, secure enough in himself that he doesn’t need to lean on the crutch of a gimmick.
2. Drop the divas. Krystal wasn’t nearly as fun as the producers thought she was. Dudes will naturally experience their competitive sides coming out; we, and Becca especially, don’t need anyone super extra and over the top. She deserves someone normal and nice. Lean into that.
3. Return to romance. Please ignore the ratings here, because guess what? No one really wants the “most dramatic”, “unedited”, crazy uncomfortable ending. We want a proposal we can believe, the smiles that can’t be contained, and a reason to happily discuss this show, sans eye rolls and UGHs.

The masterminds behind The Bachelor are either total geniuses or so much luckier than they deserve to be. After a shitshow of a season, they landed a lady almost too good for the role of Bachelorette. We can only hope they have as good of a feeling about this one as we do. It would be incredibly hard to mess this one up, so please don’t try to.

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