ABC
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Watching The Bachelor/ette in a very large group, as I did last night at the Majestic for the finale, gives reality TV the unexpected feeling of being at a live mixed martial arts fight. There’s an real electricity in the air that you just won’t get sitting at home, regardless of how big your TV is or how good your sound system might be. Reactions can start small and roll across the whole room in mere moments, or the crowd can swallow a lone dissenter whole. Peter mentions the Dane County Farmers’ Market and it builds steadily to an unexpected applause break. I like farm-fresh eggs and Swiss chard as much as the next guy, but this was a next-level response, obviously helped along by Majestic’s $20 buckets of canned rosé. When Bryan makes his entrance, a lone “Woo!” is met with deafening silence — because this room is #TeamPeter or GTFO. Also worth noting: I have never seen an emptier Majestic men’s room in my life.
Ok, guys. It's time for some game theory. Over the past couple episodes, we’ve been hurtling towards this inevitability. Why would Rachel opt to stick with Bryan, the reality TV company man willing to tell her all the comfy things she wants to hear, over the actually dynamic human being Peter, who isn’t going to sign off on a marriage proposal just because it would shorten the distance between two points? Perhaps you were in denial, but the anticlimax of Rachel breaking up with Peter before he even gets a visit from the engagement ring guy was a profoundly unsatisfying way to bring the Peter diehards crashing back to earth.
The producers, after all, have given the audience no choice but to hope like hell for Peter to find a way to make it work. Look at the recent graph over at FiveThirtyEight and you can see that Peter has dominated the camera time since the jump. I’m willing to believe that Bryan’s good enough for Rachel, but the pudding-to-proof quotient, so far as we’ve seen, is... thin. Even now, in this episode designed to get us psyched for Rachel and Bryan as they set a course for wedded bliss, we’re looking at a hell of a lot more of our sensitive Wisconsin boy than the rough-around-the-edges Miami man.
Listen. I love Rachel. You love Rachel. We all love Rachel. We loved her when she was in Nick’s top three, and we loved her for the vast majority of the season that’s right here in front of us. That said, I feel like she made a mistake. It’s difficult for me to not interpret her repeated comments about how "Peter messed with my mind" as “He was challenging me with reasonable arguments.” Reality shows, as we all know in our collective heart of hearts, have a significantly-less-than-sterling track record when it comes to generating deep and lasting love — so Peter’s hesitations when it comes to popping the question (as I’ve said previously) make perfect sense to my ears. But you don’t have to take my word for it. Here’s some sage wisdom from my mom, pulled from last night’s running text exchange: “If she loves him the most she should pick him. There are never any guarantees in life and she shouldn't be basing this relationship on all her past ones. Peter is the one who has integrity... I think she's put too much emphasis on getting engaged.” As always, mother knows best.
On Good Morning America today, Bryan, a guy who kisses women like he’s licking the plate after a pie-eating competition, threw some shade at Peter by calling him “indecisive” and “wishy washy,” but I really hope that isn’t how he ends up being remembered. He was put in a tough situation and ended up sticking to his guns. Rachel maybe said it best when she told him “I don't think all of this is for you,” meaning the whole fabricated romantic reality that is The Bachelor’s cottage industry of shows. It’s a bummer, but ultimately I think it’s true. We were maybe deprived of a satisfying end to their wildly promising relationship, but our guy, with his new personal training facility being installed in the top floor of the Lyric building, is going to be the real winner. If you’re wondering what’s next for Peter, you need look no further than his bootcamp (and VIP brunch!) next Saturday at at Breese Stevens Field, which benefits the Boys and Girls Club of Dane County. See that gap-toothed smile up close and personal.
It’s going to be interesting to see where Peter goes from here, but sadly, given his trepidation about shotgun proposals, I don’t see him returning as The Bachelor. Nor do I see him hopping on the Bachelor in Paradise gravy train for any reason other than to hang with the buddies he made living in the mansion (in between the incessant “Whaaabooooms”). My money’s on Peter sticking around town and building up his personal training business (when he’s not partaking in the fine honey selection on offer at the farmers market), but time will tell.
