The Bachelorette Finale: Becca Has to Choose Between Blake and Garrett

Yet another season of The Bachelorette is drawing to a close. As Becca tries to choose between stalwart Blake and Instagram xenophobe Garrett, host Chris Harrison veers from script and doesn’t promise viewers the most dramatic finale ever, but the most emotional one. (Did he not see Rachel cry her eyelashes off on the last Bachelorette?) He claims that Becca’s choice will leave one contestant so broken-hearted and devastated that we haven’t seen anything like it before. Before we can get to the clean-cut white man tears, though, Becca has to introduce both men to her family and the only place to do that is in the Maldives. Why the Maldives? Because, as Becca explains, it’s the perfect place to finally tell one of the men that she loves them (also, money). Becca says that she loves both Blake (“Our hearts just recognize each other”) and Garrett (“It’s been slower”) and can’t wait to introduce them to her family, an assortment of which have been flown to the Maldives to vet Becca’s boyfriends. Upon arrival, Becca tells her family that she loves both Garrett and Blake and while her family Googles whether bigamy is legal in the Maldives, Uncle Chuck reminds viewers that they saw Becca get publicly dumped by Arie last season, so it’s all uphill from there, right?

Here’s what happened on The Bachelorette:

Garrett Meets the Family

Garrett rolls up with an awkwardly large bouquet and a bottle of something and Becca loudly reminds her family that this is Garrett (not Blake). The family is charmed enough. When Becca and her mom go off to talk, Becca asks her mom if she has any advice, and her mom asks her about how Garrett makes her feel. Becca says about herself, with Garrett, “I can be all of Becca.” Okay then. Elsewhere Garrett talks to Uncle Chuck about his feelings and they all start crying for some reason. Then Uncle Chuck asks him, “Have you cried with Becca?” which sounds like something he may have picked up at a fire circle. Garrett assures Uncle Chuck that Becca knows he has emotions. Then Garrett cries while talking with Becca’s sister, Emily, and she immediately goes to tell Becca that she made Garrett cry. Becca is impressed.

Blake Meets the Family

Becca begs her family to treat Blake exactly the same way they treated Garrett, so Emily does her best to make Blake cry. She doesn’t quite pull it off, but she does have a good chat with him and comes away thinking he would challenge Becca and be a good teammate. Sounds like a great choice… which probably means Becca will choose Garrett. Becca’s mom asks Blake what he would do if Becca didn’t choose him. Blake didn’t like that question very much at all. Then Uncle Chuck asks Blake about Garrett, which Blake also did not appreciate. Blake then gets edited to make it look like he is going into a deep, dark spiral about Becca’s feelings for him. It’s not looking good for him.

The Family Weighs In

Uncle Chuck thinks Garrett has a really “beautiful soul” and is a “poet.” Emily, the straight-talking sister, asks Becca if she really thinks Garrett would challenge her, which seems like a low-key way of pointing out that Garrett may not be all that smart. Becca just smiles. Later, Becca and her mom talk alone and she admits she always thought it would be Blake, but now she’s not sure (translation: it’s Garrett). Then she cries that she doesn’t want to hurt anyone and her mom basically says, lol, yeah, someone is definitely getting hurt — and it’s probably Blake.

Garrett’s Final Date

Becca greets Garrett one last time with the official Bachelorette greeting of jumping up and wrapping her legs around his waist. (Do they practice that?) After they say hello, they hop on a boat and go sailing. They are having a serious talk until Garrett does his best impression of Dug from Up and is all “Your sister… ooh dolphins!” Then they jump in the water, ogle the dolphins, and make out in the water while the dolphins ogle them. Later, Becca and Garrett talk in a dolphin-free zone and chat about their future and how they are “weird” (readers: they are not) and about what their life would be like together. Garrett says he doesn’t have butterflies around Becca, because butterflies are too small. Instead he has eagles. Eagles! Then Becca admits that Garrett reminds her of her deceased father and Garrett tears up talking about he thinks her dad is watching them and, well, game over.

Blake’s Final Date

Does it even matter? Garrett’s definitely winning this thing.

Becca’s Decision

Becca loves two people and thanks to Neil Lane parachuting into the Maldives, both those men have giant engagement rings tucked into their pockets just in case she lets them propose to her. Before Becca can make her choice, though, there has to be a montage of Blake, Becca, and Garrett staring off into the middle distance as they get ready for the proposal — or public humiliation. Chris Harrison pops in to tell viewers to brace themselves for a “raw,“ “real,” and painful dumping. Obviously she is dumping Blake, but Becca pretends that it’s a complete surprise. Blake gets out of the boat that delivered him to his doom. The editors helpfully show a clip of Blake talking about his bright, happy future with Becca and the overwhelming feeling he will have when he she says yes to his proposal. She lets him give his speech and when he asks her, “Will you let me spend the rest of my life making you smile?” She takes a deep breath and says, nah. Blake is stunned. He may be the only person in the world who is stunned, though. When he asks a heart-wrenching why, Becca explains that their “connection was so strong” it didn’t allow her “to see connections with other guys,” which is normally a good thing in a relationship, but is apparently a bad thing in this situation.

Becca asks if she can walk him out, mostly because he would probably walk directly into the ocean if he didn’t have a chaperone. Blake finally snaps to enough to say, “I love you. Bye.” He then openly sobs, adding a little more salt to the Maldives’ waters. In a scheduling shake-up, instead of watching Becca get engaged, the show instead cuts to Blake sitting live next to Chris Harrison. After being forced to watch himself get dumped, Blake simply nods his head and says, yeah that sucked. Chris Harrison nods supportively and then tells Blake Becca is coming out so they can talk. Blake and Becca then rehash their conversation, minus the crying. Becca doesn’t look all that upset.

The Final Rose

Now that Becca has confronted her ex, the show cuts back to Garrett stepping off the boat. He tells Becca that he loves fly fishing with her and she tells him that he reminds her of her dad. She tells him that she loves him and they kiss. Then Garrett proposes, Becca says yes, and they are engaged. Becca gives the Final Rose to the man she gave the First Impression Rose to — just like JoJo, Kaitlyn and Rachel before her.

As for those problematic Instagram double-taps, Garrett told Chris Harrison that they were just “mindless taps” and he didn’t mean anything by it and doesn’t understand why people would “attack [his] character” over liking memes claiming Parkland school shooting survivors were crisis actors. Becca defended him, saying that it’s not who he is. Basically, Garrett had no idea people would track his social media activity if he signed up for The Bachelorette. He says that he didn’t mean to offend anyone and didn’t want to hurt Becca, but doesn’t clarify whether or not he believed the content in the posts that he liked online. Chris Harrison doesn’t push, but instead offers the new couple a mini-van to drive off into the sunset.