Season 28 of the television show The Bachelor kicked off its finale on ABC and Hulu. Over the season, Joey has the chance to fall in love out of a pool of 25 women. The bachelor, Joey Graziadei, is a tennis pro from Pennsylvania who is ready to put his heart on the line on live television. His goal is to find his future wife at the end of the show.
There are a variety of group dates and one-on-one dates each week to grow Joey’s bond with these women. The producers set up a variety of different settings of dates to keep viewers interested.
This season has a good way of introducing viewers to what Joey is personally looking for in a wife. There was trauma shared, relationships formed, as well as predictions rising.
Over the season, some emotional scenarios dragged viewers in to join the conversation over social media. Shortly after the first dates started, the girls started to have conflicts that made the show intriguing to watch and allowed viewers to connect and pick sides on who they think is right. For example, there was an ongoing conflict with Maria, Sydney, Lea, and Jess. This problem arose from Sydney inserting herself into a small argument between Maria and Medina over a comment that was misunderstood and was cleared up between them. Sydney started making up lies and got Lea and Jess to attack Maria as well.
This conflict ended up going back to Joey which made him confused so he set up a 2-on-1 date with Sydney and Maria to try to get both sides of the story before he had to make the tough decision of sending one of them home to defeat the drama happening in the house. He quickly comes to his senses and realizes that Sydney’s stories do not add up and sends her home which makes Bachelor fans rave in happiness for Maria.
Social media was quick to go viral about being “Team Maria” because she handled herself with class and got her points across without putting other women down or spreading lies. Maria was a good role model for girls dealing with this in the real world because she showed how to get through tough times.
On the other hand, some viewers have gotten annoyed with the constant drama being shown instead of showing the connections between Joey and the women. The conflict has been especially prevalent in the latest episode, “Women Tell All.” where Maria was able to get her emotions out about the drama that has happened with the girls, and the rest of the women in the house had a chance to stand up for Maria for the first time. Maria takes the high road and hugs the women she was fighting with and tells them that she does not want to go on without them making up.
After the “Women Tell All ” episode the final two women, Kelsey and Daisy got to go to Joey’s Hometown and meet his whole family. Viewers felt that there should have been an obvious choice between the two women with how they interacted with his family. When asked about their readiness to be engaged to Joey, Daisy was excited and said that she was in love with him and would be ready that day. On the other hand, Kelsey sounded not confident with their relationship and phrased it as “I think so”.
On the last 1-on-1 dates, Daisy finally told Joey that she was in love with him and she felt the vibe between them was very off by his responses so at the end of the day she knew that she was not gonna be the one. On the morning of the proposal, she goes to Kelsey to tell her she knows it is her and that she is going to break up with Joey before he has to so Kelsey can be happy.
For the first time in Bachelor History, these girls held hands and rode together to the breakup and proposal. This showed true womanhood on social media and it showed a lot about their characters, especially Daisy to pull through heartbreak so someone else can be happier.
Daisy walked out with a quote that stuck with a lot of people watching: “If I can love the wrong person this much, imagine how much I can love the right person.” That quote gave goosebumps to all of Bachelor Nation.
Overall, Daisy proved in different ways that she was more ready to be with Joey and felt a deeper connection with him. Many fans rightfully agree that she would have been the better option due to all of their dates over the season and she was always one of the first women to get the rose.
Fans were rooting for either Maria or second choice Daisy to be the next Bachelorette for the upcoming season since they were very powerful this season. There would be more fan involvement with the Bachelorette if one of these two characters were chosen so it would have been a good approach.
However, at the end of the finale, they announced that Jenn was the newest Bachelorette. This had fans raging because she was one of the women on the show that we did not know much about and she had no fan base. Usually, the bachelor or bachelorette are chosen from the past seasons for being memorable.
To tie together this season, the drama put women in uncomfortable situations, created meaningful friendships through heartbreak, and ended with a newly engaged couple.
