Christopher Willard/ABC
The energy felt off from the beginning of The Bachelor finale, when host Jesse Palmer delivered the show’s “heartfelt condolences” to the people of Nashville in the wake of the mass shooting that took place at a private Christian school on Monday.
Without missing a beat, Palmer dutifully pivoted from sending thoughts and prayers to Nashville to introducing yet another Most Dramatic Bachelor Finale Ever—and the whiplash-inducing tonal shifts kept coming from there.
For the most part, this season of The Bachelor has been uneventful. There were some limo entrances here, many shots of our Bachelor Zach Shallcross showering there, and, inevitably, one racism scandal. The proceedings remained pretty bland until Fantasy Suites last week. It was then that our Bachelor made one tactless decision that would officially earn him the not-so-coveted title of “New Most-Hated Bachelor Ever.”