I see Tuesday night’s finale bacheloretteOne phrase kept ringing in my mind: the point of cruelty.
Adam Server of The Atlantic wrote these words To explain the appeal of Donald Trump’s particularly restless-spirited brand of politics in 2018. But the same principle can be applied bachelor That has always been true to some extent of suffrage; As an audience, you’re signing up to watch a bunch of hot, super-groomed 20-somethings for the right to bond with the main character in just two months.
Nothing about it is normal. You might even say it’s neither real.
But last night’s Jane Tran season finale, in which the show so brutally ripped off its main character, should be all you need to know about the real pain at the center of this brutal drama. The show’s promise of true love demands the threat of real heartbreak to feel earned. This means that, periodically, when the fairy tale ending fails to materialize and the show can deliver its big cathartic finish, cast members will be traumatized for our entertainment.
It can be just a television show for the producers, for the many contestants and for the viewers. But the tears streaming down Tran’s face are an uncomfortable, piercing reminder that at the center of all this competition is a real person who genuinely believes they have a chance to find the love of their life through this silly show.
You might find that ridiculous, but that doesn’t make it any less true — nor does it justify the utter disregard with which Tran’s ex-fiancé and the show that treated her in her lowest moments as the first Asian-American lead.
what happened bachelorette the end
Here’s a recap for the uninitiated: The decision to Tran came down to two men, Marcus and Devin. Both shared their painful childhood experiences with him. Marcus was more reserved, which made any move toward love feel authentic, but Devin was a fan favorite, an exuberant personality who was genuinely enthralled by our lead. It was almost shocking how vulnerable he was with his feelings.
The only question seemed to be whether Tran would choose the exuberant Devin – admittedly less conventionally attractive than some of the other men – or the more unavailable Marcus. That was supposed to be the source of the suspense.
Midway through the finale, Jane has a difficult conversation with Marcus where it becomes clear that she will never “get there” emotionally, so she chooses to end the relationship. That meant Devin—who seemed like the “right” choice, the guy who was actually there for the right reasons, who was truly into her—was the only guy left. The show had been leading us to an epic finale for months and many viewers speculated that Jane was proposing to her man. In Hawaii, after breaking up with Marcus, Jane tells Jesse that she plans to do it with Devin. It seems she was on the verge of her happy ending.
But then, instead of rolling the proposal footage, producers contacted host Jesse Palmer at the ABC studio, and it quickly became clear that between that moment of victory and the live taping of last night’s post-finale special, something had gone horribly wrong. It was a break from the norm when, even if a couple broke up after the season wrapped, the show allowed the proposal to be revealed before breaking the bad news to viewers. In the next hour, we’ll see how far the show is willing to go to exploit genuine emotions for cheap entertainment.
First Jane by herself and then Jane and Devin together recount what happened after the proposal which has yet to be shown. The story, as presented to us, is that as soon as the cameras are off, Devin switches up and goes cold. When they returned from filming to real life, he was noncommittal and absent. Jane said he dumped her in a 15-minute phone call where he said he never loved her and then refused to discuss it in more detail until they were back in front of the TV cameras. For his part, Devin insisted that the feelings he expressed to Jane during filming were true, but he otherwise did little to refute her allegations about his behavior after production ended, only saying repeatedly that he had “failed” her. She also copied previous season contestant Mariah on Instagram, who was widely rumored to be the next Bachelorette before Jane announced.
Perhaps we viewers should have seen this coming. At the beginning of the episode, Palmer asked Jane’s brother how he was feeling. “Angry,” was his reply. It was an odd response, but it made perfect sense after the finale’s true twist was revealed.
Then came the final twist of the knife. After reconstructing their painful break-up, with Jane struggling to keep her composure, Palmer suggests that they should look into the proposal anyway. He tried to frame it as an empowering moment, saying that even though the engagement was settled, Jane still “chose herself” in that moment and that’s all that matters. Will he be okay with broadcasting it?
“Do I have a choice?” he exclaimed with a pained laugh. The answer was implicit: no.
So the producers move to the Hawaiian beach where Jen and Devin will get engaged, with Jen contemporaneously interjecting how happy she is. Meanwhile, in the corner of the screen, they showed a feed of Jane live in the studio, sitting next to her ex watching his proposal and learning that it had already been invalidated. Jane cried uncontrollably. Regardless of whether you think she was truly heartbroken or more embarrassed to be humiliated, the pain was real. (At this point a friend texted me, “This is torture. It’s actually a violation of the Geneva Conventions to promote it.”)
Over the course of her season, I came to believe that, regardless of her questionable taste in men, Jane is the real deal. He came to this absurd show for this elusive exact reason. To see everything ripped from him so openly was nauseating – and admittedly disturbing.
bachelorette A ratings win is needed, and Jane is crushed to get it
For the production team, making good TV was definitely important. bachelor The franchise has been struggling Average rating Jane has been dogged by seasons for a while now bad rumours (Unfairly, in my opinion, but that was the prevailing sentiment). They needed a grand finale and Jane’s emotional meltdown provided it. There’s no denying that ABC created a memorable climax — we can only hope they didn’t permanently damage a real person’s psyche in the process.
Because that is the real risk. There has been much discussion about whether reality TV participants deserve union representation and stronger legal protections. I think the argument against these measures is that these people know what they are signing up for. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t vulnerable to trauma as part of the experience. Jane’s final appearance, quickly stepped aside so Palmer could introduce new leadership for the franchise next season, is a painful reminder.
This is the same show once ambushes a competitor Who thought she was going to see her fiancé only to learn that she was also going to lose the man she loved (or so she believed). that show A racial slur may be intentionally thrown For the first season with a black bachelorette. that show mocked the virginity of its main character.
This morning, reflecting on last night, I thought again A 2022 essay by Catherine Horowitz on bright walls/dark rooms where he analyzes a moment in which a “character” bachelor Appears to suffer genuine emotional pain and stretches the fabric of the show to the point of being torn apart. This leads him to this critical insight, which is easy to forget in our age of ubiquitous reality television: these narratives may be disposable entertainment for us, but they are part of another person’s lived experience, which they will carry with them long after. The lights went down and the studio audience went home.
“For those who participate in it, reality television is not made at all; It is a real part of their lives, affecting them permanently,” Horowitz wrote.
And almost paradoxically, these format-breaking moments give us a story that “maybe, just maybe, people can believe.” The cost, however, may be the well-being of the show’s cast.
bachelor No instruction to be humane, just for entertainment. Cruelty has always been a feature of this show. That’s the point.
