Yaaaaaaaay, another end to another season. Easily the most different, most bizarre, and most hate filled season I’ve ever dealt with. Even this morning, after the season is all over, woke up to a nice “you’re a racist misogynist” email. Merry Christmas to you too! It’s becoming hilarious at this point. You know the best part of that email was? That at the end, they said they weren’t hating on me. Ummmm, you literally called me a racist misogynist in your first sentence, Karen. Was that a compliment that I missed? Pretty comical. But, tis’ the season that was Clare/Tayshia. It was the first time in 40 seasons we had filming in one location for the whole duration. We’re about to embark on a second one with Matt, then I’m assuming a third straight one location shoot when next “Bachelorette” films in March. And yes, it undoubtedly makes breaking down each episode, date, rose, elimination much, much tougher. I’ve said that for 6 months now. This season, the spoiler was right, but the details surrounding it were wrong. I mean, I can sit here and lay down all the spoilers I gave this season that were right versus ones that were wrong, but it’s pointless. Those that know, know. And those that continue to hate, will email stuff like the one this morning, or ONLY point out things I missed. It’s nothing new really, but this season? Brutal. It’s become increasingly more evident in recent seasons that some people will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever be satisfied with what I give them. They’ll continually focus on what details I had that were wrong. Before the season, the overall spoiler that I knew about final 4 was: Brendan eliminated himself, Ben and Zac were final 2, and she picked Zac. All right. I said no engagement, that was wrong. 100%. I own it like I always do. But yesterday I told you what to expect in the finale (all right), then one hour into the episode I got it confirmed 100% they were engaged and still together.
What I’m saying is, going forward (at least for these next few seasons of one location shoots), my info is definitely going to be spotty. Not everything will be perfect. I’ll have stuff one day, then might not have something for a month. And some details will be off, but I think the general consensus is you’re going to get the spoilers you want. You’re just not going to have every single detail of everything that happens in Matt’s season. Just not gonna happen. Do I think I won’t have Matt’s winner until the night of the finale? No. I think I’m gonna have that one and some other details shortly. I’m just saying the usual episode-by-episode spoilers laid out for you before the first episode airs isn’t gonna happen. I’ll give you the episode details the day of like I did this season, and anything else I can give you a heads up on, I will.
So I wanted to show you this from yesterday. A series of harmless tweets I sent out which let you know exactly what you were going to see on last night’s finale:
(SPOILER UPDATE): The finale is not released ahead of time to media, just so you know. My guess today was wrong. Tayshia sends Ivan home at the final 3 rose ceremony tonight, making Ben and Zac her final 2 (cont)
— RealitySteve (@RealitySteve) December 22, 2020
She picks him, as originally reported, and I’m pretty sure they’re engaged and still together. Whew.
Go to bed Tayshia’s season. You’re drunk.
— RealitySteve (@RealitySteve) December 22, 2020
It all ends up happening, but you know what I received at least 5 emails on? The last sentence saying her season was drunk. It’s a joke? Ha ha. Get it? I think it’s safe to say having our first season in one location, no pictures of filming getting out, craziness of having the correct spoilers posted before, then seeing Ben eliminated at 4, only to come back at 3 and make it to final 2 (which made the initial spoiler of Ben is final 2 correct), me hearing no engagement at the beginning of the season and then there being an engagement and getting that out there yesterday – the whole season was just drunk to me. Like, when we’ve reached a point where a simple little joke like that gets people THAT riled up, you know you’re dealing with some people completely off their rocker. I was saying the season was crazy, I’m glad it’s over, but yeah, you’re drunk. Go to bed Tayshia’s season. Ha ha. Funny. It wasn’t an insult to anyone. Yet, people out there jumped down my throat for it. I’d tell people to lighten up, but good Lord, I can only imagine what kind of response that would bring.
One of the big things to come out of last night’s episode, was seeing the religion conversation between Tayshia and Ivan. That got asked a lot to me about what that was all about. We don’t know, since they only showed us, well, what they showed us. Which was not much of anything to deduce what role religion played in the break up. It came out on social media last night, and on Kaitlyn’s podcast being released tomorrow that Ivan is on, where Ivan said that Tayshia wants to date a Christian man and Ivan isn’t a religious at all. So there’s your answer as to what they were talking about. But the lack of context, the lack of attention this convo was given, and just the throwaway of eliminating Ivan that late in the process and keeping a guy you dumped at #4, I’d say is kind of a big deal, no? They gave it 2 minutes of air time. Just felt that it got brushed to the side for something rather important.
If that’s the standard Tayshia has set for herself, who are we to tell her who she can and can’t be with? The question then I guess just becomes should it have been brought up sooner and is finding that out when you’re down to 3 guys a little late? Probably. But if that’s the kind of man she wants to be with, that’s her decision. Not anyone else’s. Already people on social media are up in arms over that saying that’s pretty shitty of her to dump him for religious reasons. I’m not a religious guy. So no, it wouldn’t play a role in my relationships. But if I was dating someone who said they only want to be with a Christian, and that wasn’t something I was interested in doing, then yeah, as much as it sucks, that relationship would be over. Some things just aren’t meant to be. And in THAT environment, again, Ivan barely knows this woman. I don’t expect him to, nor should he, just immediately convert to what she wants, nor do I think she expected him to. She found out religion doesn’t play a role in his life, that became a sticking point, and they broke up. It happens. Neither were at fault.
The other thing that seemed to bother people last night was no ATFR. I get it. We’ve ALWAYS had one. Hell, even Clare and Dale got a sit down interview after their 4 episode stint. But I don’t know, I wasn’t that bothered that we didn’t have one like most people were. Most were suggesting that they could’ve given them a Zoom or something. I guess, but do you know how many people would’ve bitched if they just got a Zoom update? Then the pissing and moaning would’ve been about, “I can’t believe we only got a Zoom of Tayshia and Zac and they didn’t give them an ATFR.” It’s never ending. I think people need to start realizing that social media is taking over when it comes to stuff like this. Asking the participants, and Chris Harrison, and a crew to quarantine for a week before Christmas to film an ATFR in front of no audience – I get why they didn’t have one and I’m fine with it. The second the finale finished airing on the West Coast, both Tayshia and Zac took to their IG to post they were together. They were both on GMA this morning. There was a People.com interview once the East Coast episode ended. There are other ways to consume and catch up with what Tayshia and Zac are up to other than an ATFR. It made perfect sense why they didn’t do one.
Not to mention, all the other relevant guys the last few episodes – Ben, Brendan, and Ivan – are all on podcasts this week with Bachelor Nation alums. I’m guessing you’d rather hear them have more time to talk about what they went through then a rushed, 1 hr show that would’ve given more time to Tayshia and Zac than the runner ups. All three of those guys have done podcasts, or are doing ones released today and tomorrow that you can listen to. If people really wanna know, they’ll find a way. But I wouldn’t jump down the show’s throat because they didn’t put together a Zoom call or give an update on Zac and Tayshia when there will be so much stuff on social media and online about them in the coming days. And lets not forget, it’s not like they just didn’t feel like it or were screwing over Tayshia and Zac. The schedule played a huge role too. We’ve never had a global pandemic before. We’ve also never had a season start airing in October and end Xmas week. It would’ve really been asking them a lot to do that so close to Christmas, so, I’m fine with it. Assuming things go as planned, everything should be back to normal next season.
I’m going to release the podcast I recorded with Emily O’Brien (the epidemiologist from Ben Flajnik’s season) later on tonight instead of tomorrow morning. She is great. No Bachelor talk at all. It’s all virus and vaccine stuff and I tried to ask all the questions the average person is asking about it. She knows her stuff, and answered everything as best she could, because lets face it, although there is light at the end of the tunnel now there are still things the scientists don’t fully know yet. But the interview is great and I’ll post tonight as an early Xmas present to everyone.
Ratings are in from last night, and her finale drew an overnight of 5.2 million and a 1.3 rating. I said before the season this “Bachelorette” would be the lowest rated one in recent memory and it was. But there were a lot of factors involved in that, mostly being it didn’t air when it normally airs, it aired on a different night of the week than it always does, AND it crossed over into holiday season. Look at these numbers of the most recent “Bachelorettes” ratings. It’s kinda comparing apples to oranges because all the other seasons ran during the summer, but the one difference you can can see is the uptick in first episode to last episode, and this season just didn’t have that:
Clare/Tayshia Season
Ep 1 (with Clare) – 4.7 million viewers (1.3 rating)
Ep 5 (Tayshia’s first episode of dates) – 5.4 million (1.6 rating)
Finale (Tayshia) – 5.2 million (1.3 rating)
Hannah Brown
Ep 1 – 4.67 million (1.3 rating)
Finale – 7.4 million (2.1 rating)
Becca Kufrin
Ep 1 – 5.5 million (1.4 rating)
Finale – 6.7 million (1.8 rating)
Rachel Lindsay
Ep 1 – 5.7 million (1.4 rating)
Finale – 7.5 million (2.1 rating)
JoJo Fletcher
Ep 1 – 6.7 million (2.0 rating)
Finale – 8.0 million (2.3 rating)
So as you can see, the amount of viewers and the rating don’t really compare to the previous 4 seasons, but that factor can really be attributed to the times we’re living in these last 9 months. However, seeing first episode to last episode, every season had a pretty good uptick from ep 1 to the finale. This season didn’t. Lets see how Matts does.
“Reader Emails” starts on the next page. Not a ton of them, and usually have months off in between seasons, so this is where I usually say that this’ll be the last “Reader Emails” for a while. Well, not quite since Matt’s season starts in less than 2 weeks and we’ll be back on normal schedule. Recaps on Tuesdays, “Reader Emails” on Wednesdays, and podcast on Thursday. Send in any emails with your thoughts on the finale and what not, and those will be posted next week.
