The following represents the opinion of the student reporter and does not represent the views of Loyola University Maryland, the Greyhound, or Loyola University’s Department of Communication.

The Bachelorette finale came to another dramatic ending as the two leads, Gabby Windey and Rachel Recchia, concluded their journey for love. In the typical fashion of The Bachelor Franchise, the three-hour finale consisted of unexpected events such as Recchia’s winner Tino Franco cheating on her, and Windey’s winner Erich Schwer having to explain leaked texts in which he called the show “fake”.

The Bachelorette has followed a strict formula for the past eighteen seasons of the show where one leading lady sets out on her journey to find love. She is greeted by thirty young, attractive single men who are there in hopes of ending up engaged. For this 19th season, production changed the structure of the show by casting two leads. At the beginning of the season, the women were pitted against each other competing for the attention of the joint group of men, until they decided to split the men into two separate groups.

The new structure of the show seemed to lack effort from the production team, as it ended up being the two bachelorettes having individual seasons next to each other. It was a chaotic and lengthy season that lacked clarity as the two leads competed for airtime.

Moira McKinley ’24, an avid fan of The Bachelorette, was upset by the structure change. “They are always trying new things on the female-led seasons of this show, but never the male seasons. It shows that the production team cares less about The Bachelorette than The Bachelor,” said McKinley.

The lengthy season came to a shocking finale as it opened with the engagement of Recchia and Franco, only to lead us to one of their disastrous weekends together as a new couple. Franco and Recchia had been in a difficult spot early on in their relationship, and doubt was creeping into the idea of finding love on reality TV. Franco then admitted to Recchia that he kissed another girl, while Recchia was going through a hard time emotionally.

The tension only builds as the audience has to watch the live footage of Recchia reliving this breakup with Franco. Franco brought evidence to the confrontation by citing quotes from Recchia without context to what was going on in their relationship. Recchia was struggling emotionally with the process and Franco took that as their relationship being pretty much over in the defense of his kiss with the other girl.

“The fact that Tino was able to cheat on Rachel so quickly when there was doubt in their relationship, shows that he didn’t come on the show for a relationship. He came on the show to grow his platform as an influencer,” said Sara Palmer ’24.

Franco had to take a break multiple times and leave the room throughout their conversation. At one point, he even took a phone call saying that he needed to talk to somebody but never clarified who he was speaking to.

The show then cuts to the live “After the Final Rose” portion where Franco tried to talk his way out of cheating. It was a ‘he said, she said,’ battle between the two on the stage as they each fought for airtime. The host, Jesse Palmer breaks up the argument between the ex-couple and tells Recchia that Aven Jones, her runner-up, is here to talk things out between them. Things ended on a positive note for Recchia as she and Jones left, agreeing to see where things would go between them.

The show then proceeded to wrap up the second lead, Gabby Windey’s, journey for love in a rushed manner, seeming like an afterthought. Since Windey’s relationship and engagement between her and Erich Schwer ended positively, she was given less screen time. Schwer and Windey are living their reality TV fairytale, even after his texts with an ex about how the show is fake were recently leaked.

The season closed with the announcement of the next Bachelor, Zach Shallcross, who was the second runner-up for Recchia this season. The producers have cast their usual bachelor pick, the typical white “jock. They have long been pushed to be more diverse but have continued to recast a different version of the same bachelor. Season 27 of The Bachelor premieres in January and we’re looking forward to it.

Featured Image courtesy of Meaghan Parsons