‘The Bachelorette’ Had Its Most Dramatic Finale Ever, But at What Cost?

Spoilers for the finale of The Bachelorette ahead.

Before footage of her failed engagement was played during The Bachelorette finale, lead Jenn Tran was asked by host Jesse Palmer if they should watch one of the most painful moments of her life unfold “all together.” As her tear-filled eyes glanced at the live studio audience—as well as the very man who broke her heart—Tran retorted, “Do I have a choice?”

If season 21 of The Bachelorette—led by the franchise’s first-ever Asian American lead—began as a slow burn, then Tuesday’s finale was a full-on inferno. Every Bachelorette season is lauded as the most dramatic ever, but this time, the show actually earned that label. Early in the three-hour live broadcast, it became clear that things had soured between Tran and the man she’d chosen to purportedly spend her life with: either Marcus Shoberg or Devin Strader. Several of Tran’s former suitors sat in the audience to offer support after hearing “rumors about how tonight might go,” they told Palmer. When the host asked Tran’s older brother James how he felt about the finale, James replied, “Honestly, at the moment I’m not too happy.”

That foreboding statement followed some tense interactions between Tran’s family and both of her final contestants. Tran’s mother Trinh worried that Strader wouldn’t fully embrace their Vietnamese culture; after meeting Shoberg, who had yet to even proclaim his love for Tran just days before potentially proposing to her, James warned his sister about her “history with unavailable men.”

In the finale, Shoberg’s inability to express his feelings for Tran ultimately led to his elimination. With that breakup out of the way, Tran set her sights on the future. Not only did she plan to get engaged to Strader, but for the first time in Bachelor Nation history, she wanted to propose to him. “I just want to make a big gesture so that he can really know where my love is,” Tran told Palmer.

But before viewers could see Tran’s proposal, Palmer cut away from the pre-taped Hawaii scene. It wouldn’t be “appropriate” to show the big moment, he said, before hearing from the leading lady herself. As ABC cut to commercial break, Tran could be seen crying backstage.

“Welcome back to a really tough Bachelorette finale,” Palmer said when the show returned. Tran then spent several seconds sobbing, unable to speak, while the host pried her for answers. Gathering some composure, Tran revealed that she and Strader left Hawaii engaged, after what she thought was “the happiest day of my life.” But once cameras stopped rolling, Tran said, Strader began pulling away and not prioritizing their relationship. He ultimately regretted getting engaged, and ended their romance over the phone last month.

Tran and Strader hadn’t seen each other in person since July—that is, until he walked onstage to booing from the audience. “I don’t even know where to start,” Tran told her ex-fiancé. “I just think this conversation right now between the two of us is not what I had wanted, and is not something that is going to be meaningful to me.”

During their strained reunion, Tran took issue not only with Strader’s pre-breakup behavior—claiming “everything you said on that TV show” was a lie—but also some of his post-split choices. The day after their engagement ended, said Tran, “I woke up the next morning to you following girls on Instagram. Not just any girls…but Maria.” That would be Maria Georgas, Tran’s former Bachelor castmate—and ABC’s rumored first choice for the next Bachelorette. Shortly thereafter, Tran said Strader was “in New York clubbing with Jeremy [Simon],” one of her top four contestants.

After the camera cut to a guilty-looking Simon, Strader insisted that he’d been in New York on a “work trip” and stumbled through a series of other half-baked apologies. “I failed you, and there’s nothing I can say to you other than that,” he said. When Tran pressed him to say when his feelings for her changed, he offered only, “I was regretfully late on letting you know.”

Many Bachelor Nation couples have called it quits in the months between their on-camera engagement and their season’s After the Final Rose special. These splits are captured by production, if possible, as seen on Hannah Brown’s season of The Bachelorette or Arie Luyendyk’s stint as The Bachelor, and watching them has always felt uncomfortably invasive. But never before have Bachelor exes been forced to watch their engagement after rehashing the implosion on live TV. As Tran and Strader watched footage of the day they got engaged, ABC helpfully included a picture-in-picture shot of Tran weeping. Strader said yes to her proposal, then got down on one knee. Months later, he struggled to look her in the eye.

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The Bachelorette can often make audiences feel queasy—but watching this twist unfold was uniquely brutal. And while making good reality TV has always meant ruffling some feathers, this decision has been met with swift backlash from all sides. “Jenn should have gotten up in the middle of [the] proposal showing and gave everyone the peace sign. Walk out of that studio and never turned back,” tweeted former Bachelor lead Ben Higgins. “Absolutely cruel and unnecessary to make her watch that back. Cannot believe it,” Bachelor pundit Steve Carbone, a.k.a. Reality Steve, declared: “This is literally the worst thing this show has ever done. What the fuck is the point of showing this?”

After a few empty platitudes from Palmer, Tran was sent away and replaced onstage by Joan Vasso—who leads the inaugural season of The Golden Bachelorette, premiering Sept. 18. Footage of Vasso meeting-cute with one of her senior suitors closed out the finale—the network’s best attempt at an emotional shot/chaser. But the inhumane segment that came before left a sour taste.

“I do not regret proposing to that man,” Tran said in the tearful aftermath of her short-lived engagement. “That man doesn’t exist anymore, and the truth of the matter is, I’m still that same woman I am.” Her final words to Strader: “I hope that you learn that the weight of your words matter, and that if you’re going to promise something, you should be able to fulfill those promises.” Sure, the Bachelor franchise fulfilled its promise of a truly unprecedented finale by once again rewriting its own rules. But here’s hoping the next time the series shatters the format, it takes more care to protect the person at the center of the debris.