The Bachelorette’s Finale Was an Exercise in Needless Cruelty

The Bachelor franchise patted itself on the back earlier this year for selecting its first Asian American lead in new Bachelorette star Jenn Tran. But based on the way Jenn was treated in last night’s season finale, we wouldn’t blame her if she now wishes they selected someone else.

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A quick recap: Jenn had to choose between her final two men, Devin and Marcus, in Tuesday’s finale, and midway through the episode, she realized that Marcus would never be able to give her the love and reassurance she needed, so she broke it off with him. And in a Bachelorette first, Jenn was actually the one to propose to Devin first, with the two getting engaged. ( Click here to get our full, blow-by-blow recap .) All pretty standard Bachelor stuff so far — and we got a happy ending, right? Well, not so fast.

The “After the Final Rose” live reunion show kept dropping hints that something was wrong… and sure enough, a tearful Jenn took to the stage to reveal that Devin had dumped her in the weeks since they shot the finale. He kept pushing her away, she said, until he finally broke off their engagement a month ago — over the phone, no less. Devin showed up to face the music, but he didn’t do much to help his case, getting defensive and making excuses and generally looking like an ass. (His desperate cry of “Am I not allowed to live a life?” after being confronted for going clubbing with a co-star will live forever in Bachelor infamy.)

Now none of that is unprecedented in Bachelor history. We’ve seen plenty of relationships implode on “After the Final Rose.” ( And more and more of them recently, it seems .) But what followed was truly unprecedented — and, frankly, heartless. The producers didn’t show us Jenn’s proposal to Devin until after she had already sobbed about their breakup on stage, and even though the relationship was in tatters and Jenn was in tears, they decide to air the proposal in full anyway. And Jenn had to just sit there and watch it, sobbing the whole time. She even asked first, “Do I have a choice?” but they didn’t wait to hear her answer — which just shows how much control she ultimately had in all of this.

Host Jesse Palmer offered some empty platitudes about wanting to show the world what a “strong and powerful” woman she is, but airing the now-broken proposal felt like a cruel twist of the knife to an already hurt woman. For a franchise that boasts about how empowered its leading ladies are — the tagline of Jenn’s season was literally “The power is in her hands” — it sure didn’t give Jenn any agency on how her final episode played out. It’s baffling to longtime Bachelor fans, too, because we’ve seen plenty of sweet proposals followed by swift breakups. Why switch up the order this time? (ABC had no comment when reached by TVLine.) Fans and even Bachelor Nation alums like Ben Higgins took to social media to slam the show for making Jenn sit through that.

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The Bachelorette also made a big deal of Jenn’s groundbreaking decision to do the marriage proposal herself, but the chaos that followed just exposed how meaningless that milestone is. It was gut-wrenching to watch a sobbing Jenn watch herself propose to Devin, and see how happy she was in that moment, and now know how horribly everything turned out. With Bachelor producers recently owning up to past mistakes and expressing regret that they didn’t “protect” their stars as well as they should, we have to ask: Why didn’t they protect Jenn? They knew how this was going to end. (The early hints they sprinkled in prove that.) So why not save Jenn the humiliation of having her failed relationship rubbed in her face?

Even more callously, the finale wrapped up by abruptly switching gears and bringing out new Golden Bachelorette star Joan Vassos to introduce a trailer for her upcoming season — while Jenn dried her eyes backstage, no doubt. But after witnessing that debacle, who wants to dive into another Bachelor season right now? (Especially after The Golden Bachelor’ s couple went down in flames so spectacularly .) We truly hope that Jenn finds someone to give her the love she deserves — and her surprise casting in the new season of Dancing With the Stars feels like a consolation prize, at least. But we also hope that Bachelor producers can listen to the fan reaction to this finale and work on doing better by its stars in the future. Not all of the couples are going to stay together forever… but at least they can leave the show with their dignity intact.

Bachelorette fans, let us know what you thought of Jenn’s finale in the comments.

The Bachelorette Finale Recap: Jenn Makes Franchise History -- But Did She Get a Fairy Tale Ending?