Juan Pablo wooed Andi with a day spent playing soccer and buying juice for random Saint Lucian children followed by a date inside a waterfall. He seduced her with sexy, accented pillow talk about whether she’d be a good mother. She slept over. They probably had sex.
“It’s a dream that I couldn’t even fathom,” she gushed before the fade to black. Then she woke up. And with the light of day came the gift of rational thought.
Though they talked and laughed for “hours, hours, hours,” Juan Pablo is a narcissist who only told stories about himself and never asked her anything. He lacks the interest, and the ability, to get to know her. He even mentioned dates with other women. “He thinks that he can say whatever wants to say and people will laugh and fall in love with him,” she said. “It’s not funny, it’s not cute, it’s just wrong.”
Juan Pablo really is the worst. And on the penultimate episode of The Bachelor, Assistant District Attorney Andi became the second to reject him. On her way out, she made an impressive case for just how insane a show that ends with the engagement of two virtual strangers actually is.
“Do you have any idea, what religion I practice? What my political views are? My views on social issues? Things that matter? Do you have any idea how I want to raise my kids?” When Juan Pablo countered by asking her about his religion, Andi deadpan replied, “Catholic.” And for the first time ever, Juan Pablo was speechless.
This was the infamous fantasy suite date episode, where each woman faces an important question: Are you ready to be intimate with the man who might ask you to marry him in less than a week? And despite the dozens of candles, champagne, and a producer-drawn bubble bath, these final dates are as romantic as a sexual test drive with a man who could dump you the next day can be. There’s the handwritten note, which reads the same as it did in the first season: “Should you choose to forgo your individual rooms, please use this key to stay as a couple in the fantasy suite.”
It began with Clare, who got slut-shamed by Juan Pablo for having some form of sex with her sort-of boyfriend in South Korea. The 32-year-old hair stylist was unsure if she’d succumb to the fantasy suite’s siren song. “It’s exciting and scary,” she said over symbolic footage of the pair jumping from a yacht.
Luckily, Juan Pablo successfully allayed any lingering humiliation by reminding Clare that other ladies would be going on overnight dates, noting that there’s “no better” place to learn about people than talking in bed. He did his trademark clumsy face-touching thing (his large digits swatting at each woman’s nose, chin, and eyebrows) that he does so well.
After Andi, there was Nikki, who came dressed to horseback ride in a sexy Pocahontas costume and disco pants. Juan Pablo showed just how well he knows the Kansas City pediatric nurse. “Nicki could be a good partner for me,” he said, “because she's honest, pretty and sexy.” And into the fantasy suite they went.
In the morning, Juan Pablo was conflicted about which one of his three lovers to send home. Andi made his decision for him. Her goodbye rant was epic. She tells him all the things he needed to hear: He’s rude, self-centered, and obviously doesn’t actually have romantic feelings for the women on the show. She basically called him an asshole and the Internet cheered (#teamAndi). With that, there was nothing left to say. Juan Pablo gave her one last face grope and she was gone.
Her spirited departure was satisfying on its own, but it encapsulates a bigger problem at the heart of The Bachelor. Juan Pablo does not know these women. These women do not know Juan Pablo. They may go on three or four orchestrated dates in exotic places, including one agreed upon sex-date, to which the ladies almost always agree, because they’ve likely watched the show before. That’s just what you do on the sex episode. Bachelor creator, Mike Fleiss, said on 20/20 that most men end up doing it with three women during the season.
Season 13 “winner” Melissa Rycroft (who was later dumped on-camera for the runner up) said that days after accepting a marriage proposal, after the show and all its trappings had moved on, she and bachelor Jason Mesnick realized they were practically strangers. “If you were to ask me a handful of questions about him, I couldn’t answer them,” she said.
The type of man who would upend his life to go on a reality show where he tries on different women is probably not marriage material. That’s just common sense. Just look at The Bachelor track record. A single man from 17 seasons is married to the woman he chose. (That’s last season’s Sean Lowe.)
As for the finale, Juan Pablo is so in love with himself, it’s unimaginable that ABC’s first Latino Bachelor will choose either of the remaining contestants, much less get down on one knee. Maybe he’ll pull a Brad Womack and reject both Clare and Nikki. Maybe he’ll propose to himself. What’s obvious is that the one true winner is Andi, who knew well enough to get the hell out.