I thought today I was gonna start off talking a little football with NFL season starting tomorrow night. I’m on the Rams (+2.5) because it’s kinda bizarre the defending SB champ is a dog a home to start the season. I believe the last 22 SB champs are 19-3 in that opening night game. And you’re giving me 2.5 pts? I’ll take it. Anyway, that was the plan. Until it wasn’t. Jesse Palmer comes on the end of last night’s episode and basically throws a wet blanket on the whole season by telling everyone the final two episodes are going to be (fill in the blank with whatever superlative you want). Once I saw that, I knew he wasn’t messing around. Just like last season when they hyped up the ending and it wasn’t something that anyone saw coming, there’s a reason they teased what they did last night the way they did. And it’s certainly not because everything is all daffodils and rainbows in Bachelorette world. It’s not. This show wrapped filming in May in Mexico. Today is September 7th. It’s the longest the Bachelorette has ever had from final day of filming to final reveal – over 4 months. A lot can happen in 4 months. And as I found out last night after the show, it most certainly did.

I’m releasing both my column and podcast together at the same time today since it didn’t make sense to give the spoiler out in the podcast and then readers had to wait 2 hours for it. So…

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Here’s the breakdown of what I found out after last night’s show went off the air:

-The spoiler of Rachel being engaged to Tino in Mexico are correct. I think that’s pretty obvious based on what’s been shown.

-The preview last night showed Rachel talking to someone (clearly Tino even though he wasn’t shown), and this conversation happened post filming during a Happy Couple visit. Cameras were there to catch it, and we see her saying to him, “I want an answer for why you did, what you did.”

-While I don’t know exactly what he did (if anything), what I was told was that, well, her name is Rachel. And it’s kind of ironic because it somewhat resembles the Ross & Rachel situation from “Friends.” You know, the “We were on a break!” ordeal. Not fully the same situation, but it’s close. Again, I don’t know if any cheating occurred and that’s what she’s questioning so please don’t make that your narrative. The Ross/Rachel reference is more about her name being Rachel, and I was told there was definitely some ambiguity in regards to what was happening in the relationship. But what I do know is her just even asking him that question came about because they were definitely at a weird point in their relationship where they were still engaged but weren’t talking.

-You can also almost kinda link it to what happened with Ben and Courtney. I was told at some point post-engagement, Rachel and Tino basically stopped talking. I don’t know why, I don’t know who stopped talking to who, but there was definitely a “what the hell is happening here, I thought we were engaged” kinda miscommunication happening.

-These are the details that I’m sure will be filled in once we get the final two episodes to play out, and Rachel and Tino are live on stage. But I’m sure people will turn this into their own narrative of what happened because they’ll be too impatient to get the real answers from Rachel and Tino during the live finale, which sucks for both of them. If I knew, I’d tell you. I don’t.

-What I do know is that Rachel broke up with Tino and they are no longer engaged. Again, I know you’ll have questions, but outside of the “something happened and they stopped talking post-engagement,” I don’t know any more exact details. But they’re broken up, and there won’t be any sort of reconciliation at the ATFR from everything I’ve heard. It’s over.

-I’m just as curious as you as to how they got to that point. Tino is someone Rachel clearly wanted from night one. He got the first impression rose. He was obviously a front runner all season. He gave her the engagement that she also wanted in the end. So your guess is as good as mine as to why it ended. Not saying couples from this show always last, because clearly they don’t. Breakups happen all the time in this franchise. But not being able to get to your finale airing still engaged (even though it was a long four months), is pretty surprising. Is it something major? Is it something small that got blown out of proportion? Are they just not compatible? Your guess is as good as mine. But we’ll know once they’re live sitting on that couch in the final two episodes, because it’ll all get shown.

-As for Gabby and Erich, they are still together. Nothing new to report there. Whatever drama goes down in Mexico, it’s not like anyone else comes back for her. He’s the only guy left. They work through it and are together today. Now, I did hear a possibility that maybe they didn’t get engaged in Mexico and they just left dating, but I was never able to confirm that. The main thing that I doubled checked on was were they still together and I was told they absolutely are.

Once I saw Jesse’s announcement last night at the end of the episode, I figured something was up. I’d heard rumblings, but I hear rumblings every season. Until I get stuff confirmed, it’s hard for me to run with. But the Rachel and Tino breakup was confirmed to me last night, so that’s why I’m telling you today. Should be an interesting last couple weeks.

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