Whether you’ve just finished Tuesday night’s Bachelorette or you keep seeing out-of-context content on your Twitter timeline, it’s time to talk about that wild episode. Specifically, the explosive end to Rachel’s Bachelorette saga, up first in the finale. Things got tense, but a very welcome face managed to turn the mood around.
Let me set the scene. It begins with Rachel, one of the two Bachelorettes featured in season 19. The episode includes both pre-taped portions and live bits in front of an audience.
During the former, we see Rachel tell her frontrunner, Tino, that he’s the only man left man vying for her heart. They get engaged, and all is well. Except, well, no it isn’t.
The engagement scene happens very early on in the whopping three-hour finale episode. On top of that, a little box in the corner of the screen projects Rachel’s very unhappy face, live, for all of us to see.
Host Jesse Palmer, who’s with Rachel during the finale’s live portion, asks her about the expression. “I can tell this wasn’t the end of what went on,” he offers. And no folks, it wasn’t. “Might need a glass of wine for this one,” Palmer adds before a commercial break.
When we get back, Rachel drops a bombshell: “Everyone knows obviously,” she says. “It didn’t really work out. He cheated on me.”
Palmer asks if she’s all right. She replies with a “no” to the tune of “Are you seriously asking me this right now?”
Somehow, Bachelorette cameras captured what happened next. “Today will be the first time that I speak to Tino since he told me that he cheated on me,” Rachel says. Soon, Tino appears, looking pretty disheveled and holding a mysterious brown notebook.
It’s tense. Tino says he messed up and kissed a girl.
He also reads out loud from the notebook — his journal — things he wrote down that Rachel had allegedly said to him previously. This could only go well for ya, bud. The conversation is long, heated and a bit confusing, but Rachel makes it clear that “yes, we were going through a hard time, but never once did we ever say we are broken up, we are not engaged.”
“I agree, I agree,” Tino replies.
Rachel ultimately tells him that she’s done and gives him her engagement ring. It feels right.
Then, it’s back to the live show. We learn Tino wrote her an apologetic letter in the interim. Then, we learn he’s about to come on stage. Excuse me, what?
Palmer says it’s the first time they’ve been face to face since Rachel broke off her engagement. This poor, poor woman. The second convo didn’t seem to yield much new info. However, they very obviously talked around some stuff. “We were going through a really hard time that’s deeply personal to both of us, and I think we both don’t want to air out maybe why those things were happening,” Rachel says cryptically.
Then, an unexpected, fantastic moment arrives. Aven, a fan favorite whose relationship with Rachel ended in last Tuesday’s Bachelorette episode, strides up to the stage. Rachel displays a much-deserved smile. (But Tino being forced to sit there while all this is happening — not cool, ABC.)
“I just was wondering if you maybe wanted to get out of here and just catch up?” Aven says.
“I would love nothing more,” she replies.
After that, Palmer and Rachel’s former flame stand awkwardly in each other’s company. In other Bachelorette finale news, Rachel’s co-Bachelorette Gabby got engaged to her frontrunner, Erich. Season 19 contestant Zach is the next Bachelor. Here’s more of what Twitter had to say about the Rachel and Tino portion.
