I’ll never watch “The Bachelorette” or “The Bachelor” again.
“The Golden Bachelorette” had its finale on Wednesday and I’m already missing it. For context, I didn’t grow up watching anything from “The Bachelor” franchise. That was until this summer when I lived in Indiana and some church friends introduced me to the reality TV series. In the months since, I’ve made up for a lifetime of “The Bachelor” deprivation. You can often hear me quoting love advice from the show. I’ll remind friends, “Just as you think “so and so” is the perfect one for you, Lindsay thought Sean was the perfect one for her (and Sean Lowe is basically the on-paper perfect guy for everyone). But she was actually meant to marry Karl, the guy who was her cousin for a few dates, and you too, friend, are meant to marry someone else.”
When I heard Grant Ellis was going to be the next Bachelor, I couldn’t have been happier. I immediately began a countdown to his season and may or may not have thought of (or went through with) applying for a chance to meet this man.
However, during “The Golden Bachelorette” finale, I saw Grant’s season’s trailer and decided I couldn’t watch his season in full. Not after the pilgrimage I’ve taken these past nine weeks.
I think back to early September when I first thought about watching “The Golden Bachelorette.” I wondered if I could get into it. But when I watched these men, one by one, tell their stories, I connected to them like no other cast before. I think I was all in when Mark talked about his wife telling him to move on if she passed away. He explained, “it’s difficult for me because I know what perfect is. I had a perfect partner. She filled my heart…completely.” After hearing this I called my parents and told them, we have to watch this show.
It took some convincing but every Wednesday I managed to get my mom and dad to watch with me. I’ll admit, even for myself for a while I wasn’t sure how I’d connect to this. “Is it possible to be attracted to someone when you’re older?” I asked my parents. They told me it was. Indeed, I learned that at any age you can get butterflies, especially during those first impression limo arrivals. It’s so funny, thinking back to those 24 men that the Golden Bachelorette, Joan Vassos, started with.
My dad said it best, you couldn’t have picked a better group of men. (As a warning, from here on there will be spoilers.)
Even the ones who had restraining order allegations, I liked them. I’m not even joking, the men just brought out the best in each other.
Honestly, Joan became almost the b-plot. That’s no dig on her at all, she’s my favorite Bachelorette. I love her decision to forgo traditional fantasy suits and she wore the best dresses. However, the men’s friendship was just that watchable; something you’ll never get on any dating show. I’ve watched “Love Island,” “Love is Blind” and “It Takes a Church,” but the friendships there seem catty, shallow and forced compared to what these men have. These men needed each other and that was evident from the very start.
When a guy would be sent home, the other guys would cry. Guy (who my family was rooting for) changed fan-favorite Charles L’s life by proving to him his wife’s death wasn’t his fault. I kept waiting for the “villain” among the guys to come out but he never came. There were many distinct characters, but even Pascal, who paid one of the men $100 each time to do his laundry, added something to the show.
I kept waiting for a big fight to happen. It never came. The most tension was when some of the guys didn’t want to sing Captain Kim’s song (which actually led into one of my favorite moments), but then Guy sang it with him showing why he is so deserving of love…but anyway I digress.
You would think without the typical drama there would be no conflict to suck you in, but instead the conflict that existed was genuine (like meeting someone in real life versus on Tinder). These people all had experienced significant losses. Some were still grieving. One cast member, Chock, even lost his mother while the show was filming.
I really saw God redeem parts of these men’s lives throughout the show. Which leads into my family’s favorite contestant, Jonathan. Wow, I didn’t know anyone could be more beautiful in their golden years than most are when they’re in their 20s. He was sensitive, Christian, a loving father, charismatic…the perfect man for any golden woman.
Yet, rejection was sewn into Jonathan’s heart. He was stood up for prom and his wife left him. His prom experience might’ve been decades ago but on the show Jonathan revealed it still left him wondering if he was good enough or deserving enough for love. Joan healed this part of him, even crowning him Prom King for the golden contestants’ senior prom.
“How could anyone not love Jonathan?” I would think to myself. This is when I had a realization. Like Jonathan, in high school I had a dance date cancel on me at the last minute and like Jonathan I was finally realizing it wasn’t my fault. If someone could turn down Jonathan then maybe sometimes the world is crazy.
It was the same with Joan. She asked if she was loveable after being dumped by one of the contestants. I practically screamed through my phone, ”of course you are Joan!” I know it’s difficult not to base your value on who chooses you when it’s you getting let go of, but I agreed with Joan’s friend that you can’t give someone the power to steal away your worth.
Seeing these adults have the maturity and confidence to vulnerably process heartache and insecurities without drowning in them, taught me a lot. With “The Bachelor,” I can’t watch it at times because the contestant’s on-camera heartbreak feels too despairing. But with ”The Golden Bachelorette,” the pain is relatable, but they also have the life experience to see hope on the other side.
Hope was another large element throughout the series. I mean these contestants are all finding new life after death, whether the death was literal or metaphorical.
Some of my favorite moments of hope were when Gary wrote a prayer for Joan’s mom; when all the men brushed the cusp of injury during kickball just to spend more time with Joan; when Charles kicked the ball for the first time giving his team an RBI and when a live studio audience got to try all of Jack’s burgers.
Then there’s the time when Jonathan teared up about Mark getting up at 5 A.M. just to write Jonathan an encouraging note. I also saw the brotherhood embrace Michael who was diagnosed with cancer right before he started the show.
It’s hard to compare that to Grant’s previewed season, where right away the women started hissing at each other. It took me back to Jenn’s season. Like a toxic ex, for a while I didn’t even realize how horrible her season was. The men on that show acted like children and I hate to say it, but only one or two of the cast members felt like they weren’t just on the show to become c-list influencers. I’m no longer wasting my time watching grown adults fight over some producer planted drama, not when I can watch real love and conflict instead. I’m ready to watch something that actually seems close enough to earth to be considered reality, not some Kardashian show.
That’s not to say real love isn’t sometimes messy. No, as Chock described, with love you always take the risk of devastation. That said, when each guy left, I was sad I’d no longer see them but I wasn’t sad for their hearts. I could see they got the kind of love they really needed and would find romantic love down the road. But that’s until I saw the finale. When I saw the tears in the runner up’s eyes, I knew these weren’t the same tears I had seen from the younger generations on reality TV. No, these permeated more deeply. I could see the love was still on his face even months later, when he faced Joan, who’s now engaged to someone else. It doesn’t get much more real than that.
That said, as ZeeVee-t8g commented on YouTube, “Guy, your ship will come, this was just a preview,” I hope this season of “The Golden Bachelorette” is only a preview into the golden series. I’m looking forward to more of my dad’s sarcastic commentary fueled with bitterness that Joan didn’t choose Guy. I’m ready for my mom to offer her unsolicited advice to the Golden contestants. It’s crazy, I never thought I’d look more forward to a senior citizen’s reality TV season than I would for Grant Ellis’s, but “The Golden Bachelorette” was just that special, the kind of show I’ll never forget, even all the way into my golden years.