George Burns/ABC
We made it, #BachelorNation! Well, almost. We still have a finale to get through this Monday, but we’re well over the uncomfortable bumps in the road that came earlier in this season, and now we’re able to simply focus on Rachel, who was a runner-up on the most recent season of The Bachelor, and her final three suitors: Eric, Bryan, and Madison’s very own Peter Kraus. Let’s catch up on how we got here.
Peter, who owns Worth Personal Training (soon to be located on the top floor of the Lyric building on East Washington Ave., as his Instagram followers have no doubt noticed), has been a frontrunner since the very first episode, possibly thanks to having brought along a couple of goodies from Gail Ambrosius Chocolatier. I know that’s the way to my heart. Having landed the coveted first one-on-one date with Rachel, the two were off to a fast start, shooting the breeze about how much of a gap their kids would have in their teeth.
An easygoing charm and emotionally mature openness has helped Peter outlast the more than two dozen other men who were vying for Rachel’s Final Rose™. He’s also been wise to duck the drama that drives a show like this — up until just recently, at least. In a house where producers push contestants to question each other’s sincerity (and this season infused an ugly bit of race-baiting), Peter kept his nose clean and never wasted a minute of his time with Rachel.
This season has had its share of fun though. In one episode Peter was bounced from an SAT sex-word spelling bee (never thought I’d write that sentence) by dropping the ball on C-O-I-T-U-S (the winner stuck the landing on P-O-L-Y-A-M-O-R-O-U-S), but that was after he jumped into a rap battle with some other potential beaus and rhymed “heart” with “fart.” If you thought he’d lose points as a paramour over that dubious couplet, you’d be wrong: later in the episode Rachel, an attorney who earned her Juris Doctor in 2011 from Marquette University Law School, casually mentions that she just so happens to be licensed to practice in Wisconsin.
Thanks to eagle-eyed folks at the Dane County Farmer’s Market who posted pics of the pair as they shopped flowers and honey, we all knew well before the first episode that Peter would make it to the hometown date and thus be in the top four. What people didn’t see in the pics that they posted to Twitter and Instagram was that Peter and Rachel were in the midst of the first turmoil to darken the doorstep of their burgeoning relationship. Leading into their trip to Madison, where Peter would introduce Lindsay to his friends and family, our hopeful hero had dropped the bomb that he might not propose if it comes down to him as the last man standing. There’s only one problem — that’s the whole point of the show.
By the time the potential hubbys are narrowed down to two, the couples, have cumulatively spent a grand total of 48 hours together (and that’s a conservative estimate) over the two or so months of filming. So on the one hand, yeah, you can totally understand Peter’s level-headed hesitancy to leap into such a big commitment. In the manufactured reality of the show, though, they need that big splash of a finish to seal the deal (and secure ad dollars for the inevitable wedding special). So, sadly, those of us rooting for Peter heading into the finale on Monday are having something of a crisis.. Rachel’s on record as having signed on to the show to find a fiancée, not just a boyfriend, so it really is anyone’s game. Except for Eric. Let’s be honest, we all know that guy doesn’t have a shot.
Regardless of how this shakes out, Peter’s done a magnificent job representing our fine city on such a big stage, one which has seen its fair share of contestants embarrassing themselves. And hey, even if he loses, we still might see him as the next Bachelor — which would certainly be something.
