Another week has passed in the Bachelorette-verse and it’s another week that I’ve grown more convinced that Hannah B. should walk away alone in the end.
At this point in the game, I think it’s pretty safe to say that Hannah is clearly enamored with Luke P., probably more than she is with anyone else. I also think it’s safe to say that Luke P. can objectively be considered a bad guy. The manipulation and the gaslighting taking place every episode has already made that clear.
Everyone’s suspicions were reinforced when Luke finds out that Hannah and Garrett had gone bungee jumping naked (as one does) during their one-on-one date in Riga, Latvia. Luke explicitly tells the camera in a testimonial,
“Her body is her temple, and to expose it to anyone who isn’t her husband… That’s a slap in my face.”
With an aggressive Really Bad Guy aura like that, it’s no wonder that Luke’s personality overshadows the rest of the group. But if Luke were to depart, I’m not sure that any of the other remaining men are worthy of our girl Hannah.
Of the other top remaining contenders, there are a few standouts: we have Garrett, who can’t stop picking fights with Luke; we have Tyler, who speaks only in platitudes (that I’m admittedly somehow still charmed by); and then there’s Jed, who allegedly has a girlfriend at home this entire time.
Hannah has relegated most of the show’s more affable contestants to the background (save for Peter, who seems like he’d have a real shot with Hannah if he weren’t so transparently trying to become America’s First Pilot Bachelor. Doesn’t he know that title already belongs to Jake Pavelka?).
In Hannah’s own words, none of these guys know her or even bother to ask her questions. She has been reduced to tears more often than any Bachelorette in recent memory. And, her feelings for Luke aside, she doesn’t seem that crazy about any of them.
Even if Hannah were meeting kind, respectable guys who actually met the very low bar of asking her a single question, I don’t know that she has done the introspection necessary for a serious relationship, much less a lifetime commitment.
Perhaps even more troubling is that Hannah doesn’t seem to trust her gut. She has spent the past several weeks waffling over Luke, convincing herself that he is a good man when all evidence points to the contrary. Hannah can certainly date who she wants but her indecision makes me think that maybe she doesn’t know who she wants.
Hannah has admitted that she’s been in only a couple of serious relationships. She comes from a conservative background and it seems that she’s only beginning to reconcile how she was raised with who she wants to become. We’re watching a 24-year-old learn her self-worth and question her attraction to toxic masculinity in real time.
Luke is the bad boyfriend so many of us kept breaking up and getting back together with in our late teens or early twenties. The difference is that most of us weren’t dating a dozen other guys at the same time and we weren’t ignoring those relationship red flags in tandem with the expectation of an engagement in just a few short weeks.
Of course, only Hannah gets to decide how her Bachelorette reign ends. Maybe she isn’t completely hooked on Luke P. despite my suspicions otherwise. Maybe she’ll present the last rose to Jed after he plays her another song and reminds her that he’s totally not there to launch his music career. Maybe Tyler will get down on one knee and tell her how he wants to be there for her highs and, get this, also her lows.
There are so many ways Hannah can choose her ending. But I think the one that would be closest to a happily ever after would be if she gave herself that damn final rose and walked out of the mansion alone.
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