This wild season of Bachelor of Paradise, that literally changed the game, comes to an end tonight. Was not a fan of how they changed the show and made it about half a million dollars instead of finding love. I know I’ve complained about previous seasons (besides the goldens of course) of all three Bachelor Nation shows. Sure this had it’s drama, as usual, but the entire show immediately turned into a money game. I did enjoy the challenges, but that’s not what this show’s about. I like the survivor style games on other shows, but it just didn’t fit this. The relationships this show create, which has had success, still don’t have a great chance of succeeding in the real world. You throw half a milly in there, it’s definitely not working out.

We’re down to the final four real couples going into the last rose ceremony, with the last goldens, Kathy and Keith pretty much guaranteed to go home. I did really enjoy what the goldens brought to this show, as I’ve loved everything with the goldens. Then it’s Andrew and Alexe, Jeremy and Bailey, Dale and Kat, and Spencer and Jess. With a vote to decide who goes home besides Andrew and Alexe, who won the last challenge. And with two alliances, that pretty much leaves the decision up to the goldens.

The goldens sit down with all the couples and evaluate them on their relationships and who Kathy thinks could use the money the most.

Alexe gives out the first rose, then Jess, and with the final rose of the evening goes to…

Kat.

That sends Jeremy and Bailey home. I think that was absolutely the right choice there, despite that I don’t think Dale and Kat are gonna work outside of here anyway either.

Following the rose ceremony, Jesse warns the final three couples that everything changes again tomorrow.

This challenge seems like a blast, with each couple holding a ton of weight on platforms over the pool that increasingly gets heavier. Dale and Kat are the first one fall off and lose the challenge. Spencer and Jess fall off next, and Alexe and Andrew win the challenge, getting them automatically into the final.

Spencer sits down with Jesse to talk about his relationship with Jess and look at rings. They couldn’t fly Neil Lane down there?

Then Jesse tells Kat and Dale and Jess and Spencer that their fate will be decided by all of the other eliminated couples of Paradise. A jury of their peers, or as Sean said, Parliament of Paradise.

Drama to come at the cocktail party. To get that drama going, of course its Sean that starts it. He calls everyone together and starts stirring up shit, with Kat obviously. Sean tells everyone that Kat did not go to Paradise for the right reasons and that she had snuck in a laptop and was texting her ex when she got there, and was just going on the show to get more famous. And he claims he has receipts.

Dale and Kat step away to talk. He asks her where what Sean said came from. Kat says she’s happy to talk to him about it in private, but not on camera. She has a complete meltdown about it, which makes what Sean said seem more and more true.

Dale comes back and calls everyone together to tell them that him and Kat were staying. He then goes back to the confessional and reads a letter that Kat wrote him.

Time to vote, essentially on if two couples could continue on for the chance to compete for $250K, or if Andrew and Alexe will be the only ones to have a shot at $500K.

Going into the last day of Paradise, Jess is still freaking out about a potential engagement while Spencer’s all in. Dale and Kat are still good together after the whole Sean ordeal, and Dale actually does a great job standing up for them.

The result of the vote is that Jess and Spencer will join Alexe and Andrew in the final round. So each couple has a chance to win a quarter of a million dollars. Kat and Dale leave Paradise together.

For the final relationship test, both couples are separated. They each individually walk up to Jesse with a bag of $250,000 in front of them. Jesse explains that the money is not the prize, but the final test. They’re asked the question of if it’s money or love. If the couples both choose love, they’ll meet again in VIP suites. Or they can choose money and the other half of their couple leaves with nothing. But if they choose differently, they both leave Paradise with nothing.

Andrew chooses love, and gets to stand at the top of the balcony, to see if Alexe joins him or he sees her on the beach choosing the money. Alexe ends up choosing love and walks up the steps. That is great that they chose each other, and it does exemplify that they’re a great couple. If you’re choosing to not take a quarter milly over a relationship that’s lasted a couple weeks, that means a ton. I haven’t really talked about them much in these blogs every week, but I do think they could be a couple that works outside of Paradise. And I do like the two of them.

Jesse comes to see Alexe and Andrew and tells them that since they both chose love, they get to decide as a couple that they could have another chance with three envelopes with a cash prize up to $250K. They end up choose the $125K check. That’s incredible. I do like that they did it that way. Let’s you not regret choosing a relationship that’s got a very high chance at not working out.

Meanwhile, Jess is very anxious about if her relationship with Spencer could work outside of Paradise. Obviously Spencer chooses love, and is so all in on Jess and their relationship. She does end up choosing love and they then win $190K.

Following that, Spencer proposes to Jess and she says yes.

Rather than the usual After the Final Rose, we find out that all of the final four couples are still together. Cute.

At least even through the decision of making it into a game show, it still led to successful couples, two of which made bank. And honestly, every vote pretty much went like it should have in the end. Which makes me ask, why completely change the show in the first place? Also, not sure they’ll ever be able to replicate this, because when other couples go in, now they know what happens, so either the game needs to completely change, or it goes back to just couples finding love, which is probably what it should be. It’s kinda weird just having mixed thoughts on this whole format and what Bachelor Nation should get in the future at 1:05 am. If anyone’s reading this far on this blog, hit me up on X and let me know, cause I truly appreciate it!

Also weird that after this entire season that would have been an ELITE After the Final Rose, we don’t get one. And they cut a lot out of the engagement stuff too, or didn’t do it at all, so we could watch challenges instead. Not a huge fan of that.

Later this month, I’ll be back to recap every episode of Mel (who I’m not thrilled about as the choice) trying to find love as now the second Golden Bachelor.

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