‘The Bachelor: The Greatest Seasons—Ever!’ Episode 3 Recap: Ben Higgins' Season
Because she’s been there and done that, literally, former Bachelor contestant/tear fountain Ashley Iaconetti is recapping The Bachelor: The Greatest Seasons—Ever for Cosmopolitan. With insider insight as well as a clear eye for what actually went down both in front of and behind the cameras, her thoughts are not to be missed.
The most important part of Ben Higgins’ season re-airing was that fans watching back got to see that Olivia Caridi was never a villain.
I’m not trying to toot my own horn here, but if you can find my Cosmo articles circa 2016, you’ll see that I almost always said that Olivia was a villain towards herself and not towards the other women. She had some moments of self-sabotage where she let her insecurities get the best of herself. (She was a 23-year-old-girl!) She liked to “steal” Ben away and get extra time with him. She also liked to call herself the future Mrs. Higgins, which we all did at some point or another. The editors put scary or awkward music behind her. None of this makes you a villain.
My guess is that there wasn’t a real villain amongst Ben’s strong group of gorgeous, wonderful women so producers had to create one.
Olivia was bold, smart, sophisticated, and looked like a young Cameron Diaz, plus she received Ben’s first impression rose, so it was easy to put a target on her back. It was easy to get some of the girls’ jealousy toward her to evolve into cattiness. (When I say jealousy, I don’t want you to think I’m condemning that feeling. I think it’s very natural and fine to admit to having, especially in the Bachelor process.)
If Ben’s season was airing for the first time now, I don’t think the audience would ever interpret Olivia’s behavior as villainous.
I think the show has upped its ante throughout the past four years because the audience has gotten a little more savvy to production. Plus, contestants have so many more outlets now (i.e. podcasts) to quickly express their full selves. Olivia was actually a pioneer in this department. She was one of the first Bachelor alums to produce and host a podcast and anyone who listened to it, realized how sharp, kind-hearted and cool she is. Jared and I tell everyone what a catch she is.
I thought it was interesting that last week they didn’t show Kaitlyn and Shawn’s proposal moment, but this week they choose to show Ben and Lauren’s engagement.
On top of that, Chris Harrison wrapped the scene by saying, “That’s romance.” ***Insert cringe face here.*** Lauren is now married to country singer Chris Lane and Ben is enamored with his fiancée, Jessica Clark. I know I’m being sensitive because Ben’s a close friend and I know how much he’s dreaded the re-airing of this season. I just think it would have been nice to go directly from JoJo’s dumping scene to the present day interviews.
Guys, I did not remember Ben and JoJo’s breakup to be THAT heart-wrenching.
Holy crap! She was so invested and so in love with him. Ben seemed more torn between the final two “contestants” than I can remember ever seeing before or after this season. You usually see the lead relieved when the person they broke up with leaves, but Ben cried and reiterated his love for JoJo. There was so much controversy over Ben saying “I love you” to two women. The move inevitably led JoJo on and blind sighted her further. But I’ve just got to say, is there really a huge difference between “I’m falling in love with you” and “I love you”? The current leads often end up saying the former to the entire Top 3. Maybe for the sake of protecting hearts we should save the word ‘love’ in any instance to the final rose from now on.
Next week, I’m excited to watch JoJo and Jordan couple up.
They’ve been together for four years and I think it’ll be a nice celebration of their love story, which they deserve after having to postpone their wedding a year because of COVID.
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