Well, folks, it’s finally over. Gerry picked Theresa and her birthday suit and left Leslie heartbroken, hurt, and completely blindsided. It was a bleak two hours that left host Jesse Palmer looking like he’d rather be getting a root canal than dealing with this at certain points, but at least Gerry and Theresa seemed genuinely happy by the end. Well, happy enough to agree to get married on live television in a little over a month at least, so whatever kind of bizarro, reality TV-infused pre-marital bliss that is. Ah, true love.
All these years later, Bachelor(ette) finales are still as jarring as ever. The “loser” is forced to watch their rejection in front of a live studio audience, only to get approximately one commercial break’s worth of time to process before being forced to do a live therapy session with their very recent ex. While this would be enough to send anyone running, Leslie handles all of it with exceptional grace and extremely righteous fury. But let’s back up a bit.
The episode starts with both women meeting Gerry’s daughters and granddaughters for the first time. The visits seem to go equally well—at least in Leslie and Theresa’s minds—but Gerry’s daughters express a slight doubt about Leslie’s willingness to say “yes” if Gerry were to propose. This is when the alarm bells start to quietly drone for both Leslie and Leslie’s fans. Gerry is uncharacteristically withdrawn after this meeting, which Leslie immediately notices. How could she not? As Gerry should well know by now, she’s been through this before. In past episodes, Leslie has opened up about a history of failed relationships and never feeling like anyone’s first choice. At this point, both know that she isn’t Gerry’s either.
All that’s left is for Gerry to actually do the hard thing and break it off. After bizarrely telling the former fitness instructor to “be happy,” Gerry proceeds to rip the band-aid off by answering “only one of you is right” in response to her question of where things went wrong (yikes). He does, luckily, seem to at least begin to reckon with the consequences of his actions by quickly dropping the “I did love you in the moment” act when Leslie claims that everything he ever told her was a lie, and sincerely telling her “had I known this is how much pain I would cause someone, I would have never taken the first step on this journey.” As this is The Golden Bachelor, a lot of tears are spilled on both sides.
But Leslie’s not done. As they reunite live, the woman who this writer is declaring the real winner of this season proceeds to pull off one final dig. “After our overnight, I was 100% certain that I was his girl,” she says, revealing that she was so sure of her that she’d picked out a very expensive dress and even written her vows for the proposal. There were apparently private things Gerry said with the door closed that made her feel this secure.
A statement like that has got to wear down the fabric of trust in Gerry’s new relationship eventually, but for now, he and Theresa are at least playing the happy couple. “We are going to get married. We’re going to do it as quickly as we can, because at our age, we don’t have a lot of time to waste,” Gerry says in their live wedding announcement as the two giggle side by side. “So as quickly as we can put together a wedding plan, we’re getting married.” Hopefully for Gerry, tonight’s events paired with recent revelations that he might have been lying about his past don’t erode Theresa’s faith in him before any of this actually materializes.
The Golden Bachelor is available to stream now on Hulu.