Chris Harrison Blogs 'The Bachelor' Season Finale
This journey ends right where it began, in the cornfields of Iowa. Actually, we all spent this final week back in Dubuque about an hour and a half away from Chris’s place in Arlington, Iowa. (Gotta give a quick shout-out to the people of Dubuque especially the crew at the Hotel Julien!) There’s really no reason to go blow-for-blow on what happened in this final episode, so I’ll just break down my thoughts on the final two women and how it all turned out. One brief note before we begin: This blog entry will cover what happened in the final episode only, and later on Tuesday morning Yahoo TV will post my second blog, which will cover everything that happened on the After the Final Rose special — including the big announcement of our Bachelorette.
Let’s get started! I found Becca and her relationship with Chris to be one of the most interesting things to come out of this season. It’s so easy to relate to what’s going on here because we see it every day. Becca is a great woman; she is incredibly kind and sweet and there’s really nothing negative anybody could ever say about her. We all enjoyed having her on the show and Chris fell for her in many ways, but…
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This is a classic case of two people caring for each other and two people essentially wanting the same thing, but two people in very different places in their lives. Chris is at the point in his life where he’s ready to settle down, but Becca is on a different train, on a completely different track, heading a different direction. They both tried to fight it but the more they did, the more apparent it became that it just wasn’t going to work.
There were two questions Chris asked Becca that really summed everything up for me: “What do you want?” Becca replied, “I don’t know.” Then Chris asked her what it might take for her to fall in love, and again she just didn’t know — she’s never been in love. Again this is in no way an indictment of her, but rather just a fact of where she is in her life. Chris’s entire family could see this, as could most of you. And Chris actually knew this, too, but when you’re falling for someone, you tend to look past obvious warning signs. This show truly is a mirror image of what happens in every day relationships.
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It’s hard to explain to people outside this situation how it’s possible to be falling for two people at one time, but this show can do that. What happens is there are certain things that you tend to fall for in each person. There were a lot of qualities Becca had that Chris found attractive. Part of that attraction, as his brother pointed out, was the chase. But in the end, Chris was intrigued by Becca — but he is in love with Whitney.
Directing traffic in Arlington
Whitney absolutely blew Chris’s family away during her visit. Like Becca, she’s a sweet woman but there’s a huge difference between the two of them. Whitney is at the exact same place Chris is in his life, she knows what love is, and she knows she feels it for Chris. She is so perfect for Chris it was almost hard for him to see it. Why we make life and love so difficult for ourselves I’ll never know, but we all do it. Chris came into this looking for someone exactly like Whitney, and luckily he found her. They are great together. I couldn’t be happier they got engaged and I wish them nothing but peace and happiness. Whitney is a woman who will be able to handle the life that Chris represents. It won’t be easy, but I know she sincerely loves him and will do everything she can to make it work — and that’s all you can ask for.
As I said there’s much more to discuss including the big news surrounding The Bachelorette. I can only imagine the debate going on right now about our choice. I will give you my thoughts on that in a separate post tomorrow.
The Bachelor airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on ABC.
