The Bachelor Season 23, Episode 11, Recap: Will Colton and Cassie End Up Together?

Let's get right into The Bachelor recap, because there's so much to discuss. Spoilers ahead, obviously.

Aside from a brief montage of the season's biggest moments, tonight's episode picks up with Colton's famed fence jump. It's hard to tell what's going on, it's so dark and the cameras are so shaky. It's The Blair Witch Project—but instead of a Maryland witch exacting her revenge upon hapless campers, it's Chris Harrison running around the Portuguese countryside yelling, "Colton?"

"Colton?"

"Colton!"

A van full of producers drives up. They're on the case, giving play-by-play walkie-talkie updates. It's like Live PD, but instead of brave police men and women arresting criminals, it's a producer saying, "I think we should go back and look in the brush more?"

"It's 11:40 at night!" Chris Harrison tells someone on the phone. At first I think maybe he's complaining that it's past his bedtime—those roses can't hand themselves out—but then he adds that they'll have to call the police if Colton doesn't turn up in another 20 or 30 minutes.

Ooh, maybe this really is Live PD.

Never mind, the producers in the van found Colton walking on the side of the road. "Are you OK?" a producer asks as she grabs his arm to get him out of the way of an oncoming car. "Don't touch me," he snipes back. "No, I'm not OK."

When Chris—out of breath, aw—catches up with Colton, the Bachelor says he's "done with this shit." Chris, correctly, is like, Sir, you can't just walk to the airport. At least get in the car. Colton repeats that he's done with the whole thing. Done done. When he finally gets in the car, Colton cries because he's been "reminded enough times" that he's "not enough."

"Every time I put myself out there I get rejected," he says. Um, tell that to Tia. Or, I don't know, all the women you've dumped this season. You want the one woman who rejected you—it doesn't take a full 40-minute therapy session to figure that one out.

The next morning Chris Harrison checks in with Colton. "Last night was wild," he jokes. Colton says he needed time alone, because "anytime something good happens to me, or for me, it's followed by something bad." (Again, can we get Tia's thoughts on this?)

He thinks Cassie left because she's confused about him still dating two other women, so he needs to fix that. "Do you really think that's what it is?" Chris asks, correctly. "What if the bottom line is she's just not that into you?"

Colton is all, Nahhh, she loves me. She's just too scared to admit it. Sure, Colton. Sure.

Time to break up with Tayshia, I guess. He shows up at her room and makes her just sit there, confused, while he sighs and looks at the ground. "You're incredible," he finally says, before dropping the bomb that he loves Cassie. She replies with a pursed lip and a simple "mmhmm" that says it all. "Can we talk without all these cameras?" she asks. They go into her room, but the mics stay on. (Thank God. The inevitable closed-door-microphone-on conversation scene is always a highlight on any reality show.) Nothing too juicy though—they just cry. At one point, Colton opens the door just wide enough to allow the cameras to see him hugging her goodbye.

When we return from commercial, Tayshia's in the studio with Chris looking ab-so-lutely fantastic. She says it hurt to hear he was in love with Cassie, but she knows it must have been hard for him to admit that. Chris points out that she was mainly taking care of him during the breakup, when it's usually the other way around. "I know that I deserve a lot," she says. If Colton loves someone else, well, that's his journey.

When Colton joins her on stage, Tayshia asks what was missing. He says it's not really something missing in their relationship, but rather what he had with Cassie. "I just wish the best for you," she says. "I hope you're happy."

Back to Portugal: Poor Hannah G. is out here talking about how in love she is with Colton. What a perfect time for him to show up at her hotel. "You've been my rock through all of this," he starts off. There's just one big but: "I realized that I can't be in love with two people." He drops the Cassie bomb, but then says, "I thought it was going to be you.... You still remind me of home." Wow, what an unhelpful thing to say to someone you want to move on. "I don't believe this is happening right now," she replies. "You made me better," he says, lamely. "That's what I do," she says. "I make everyone better, and they don't want to stick around."

"I don't want you to feel like that."

"Well, I do."

They both cry. "I don't know if I'm making the right decision," he says at one point. "What the f-ck am I doing?" (I don't know either, Colton, for what it's worth.)

They hug goodbye, and he breaks down crying outside her door. "I'm scared," he tells a producer, who gives him a hug. Colton is like, That's how much I love Cassie because I'm willing to walk away from someone as great as Hannah G.

In the studio with Chris, Hannah says she was blindsided. She really thought he felt the same as her, so she was patient throughout the process and held on to the fact that he said she reminds him of home. But as soon as Colton reminded her that she was like home, as he was breaking up with her, it made the word meaningless.

It's been hard to watch the show back, she says, because it made her feel rejected all over again. "I've been hoping for more closure as I watch every week." But now "I just don't know how he could go in there and do that." She's not in love with him anymore, though, and when he joins her onstage she asks why he didn't give her a chance for a final date. He says that he didn't want to move forward with her as a backup plan.

When Cassie broke up with him, he says, he realized their relationship was bigger than the show. "What Cassie did to you was exactly what you did to me," Hannah replies. She trusted that he loved her since, uh, he literally said he was falling in love with her. So it sucked seeing him tell Cassie that he thought of her while he was with the other women. In the end, Hannah says, this taught her she deserves more. "I want someone to jump a fence for me."

At this, Chris brings out the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse Garrett Yrigoyen, Ben Higgins, Blake Hortsmann, and Jason Tartick for…reasons? They don't add much insight, other than reminding me that Jason absolutely should have been the Bachelor over Arie. I'm not a Garrett fan, but I do appreciate that he ended the round table by basically saying, "Colton, maybe she's not that into you."

Back to Portugal: Cassie says, out loud and clearly, that she made the right choice to break up with Colton. She can't wait to be back with friends and family and move on with her life. Meanwhile, Colton's still sulking around whining that he "wants" Cassie. "Love is scary. Love is not simple. Love is messy," he says. (I think I saw that on a pillow at Michaels?)

He's going to fight for Cassie, he decides. So he shows up at her hotel, knocks on the door, and…who knows, because we have to wait and see tomorrow night! "What's the likelihood now of Colton actually losing his virginity?" Chris Harrison says before signing off. "Well, we'll find out tomorrow night!" What a time to be alive, that this is how we end a TV show in 2019. See you tomorrow.

Anna Moeslein is a senior editor at Glamour. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @annamoeslein.