On The Bachelorette Finale, JoJo Picked Her Man, and the Show Picked the Tabloids
LatestAnother season of The Bachelorette has come to a close, and while the ending of this one wasn’t exactly surprising, the way the show’s producers tweaked the program to handle that non-surprise was, once again, more interesting than the alleged love connection formed.
Even those who didn’t read the spoilers could tell JoJo was going to pick Jordan; no edit to make it seem like she was super conflicted could distract from his degree of defensiveness about his shady past dating practices (or his own brother accidentally almost spilling the beans a few weeks ago). Most of the finale was devoted to JoJo wanting to make sure Jordan wasn’t going to break her heart (she missed the memo that in life there are no guarantees); even her parents pointed out that when they suggested Robby seemed more ready for marriage, she did not seem happy about that. On that note, there was also considerable drama about the fact that Jordan didn’t ask them for permission to marry her, which he skipped because (red flag!) he didn’t feel comfortable doing so without being sure of JoJo’s feelings about him.
Whatever, all’s well that end’s well—until we got to the After the Final Rose live special, which was, as usual, a masterpiece of untruths and a study of manipulation. Robby, accompanied by his new veneers, did a terrible job pretending he had been hurt when JoJo rejected him (it wasn’t even believable when she sent him home), while host Chris Harrison did what the show has gotten very good at: allowing JoJo and Jordan to rail against “the media,” while A) not acknowledging that the show was responsible for much of their unhappiness and B) publicly celebrating ties with “legitimate” news publications like People and Us Weekly, while ignoring their nemeses, the online spoiling community.
It’s hard to take Harrison seriously when he sympathizes with JoJo and Jordan for having to deal with media scrutiny over lingering gossip about Jordan’s dating reputation, and his relationship with his famous football-playing brother. After all, Harrison brought it up twice in teasers during the episode.