This whirlwind season of The Bachelor, filled with romance, love, and of course drama ended with a lackluster proposal. Zach Shallcross, the bachelor of season 27, returned to the franchise in hopes of finding the love of his life after his failed attempt on The Bachelorette.
Faced with 30 women, all competing for his attention, Shallcross remained hopeful throughout the first few episodes that his future wife was in this crowd of women. He immediately became close to certain women while others he clearly wasn’t connecting with. This is pretty typical with every bachelor, except the audience never learned any reasoning for why he was sending certain women home.
As with any other season, there were accusations flying around the mansion of women being there for the wrong reasons, not being nice to the other women, and a ton of jealousy. It was the same as every other bachelor season, overproduced and underwhelming.
Picking between the final two women, Gabi Elnicki and Kaity Biggar, proved to be a tough decision for Shallcross. Up until the final day in Thailand, many of his feelings seemed to be leaning towards Kaity. On his final date with Elnicki, she turned to the camera in tears and told the audience that she knew it wasn’t her. But Elnicki decided to show up on the final day and chose not to self-eliminate, with hopes that maybe it was her.
Of course with every bachelor proposal there’s lies and confusion about how that person was ‘the one’. Watching the finale live on television, Shallcross clearly seemed conflicted about who he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, telling the audience he hadn’t decided until the night before the engagement. But of course during After the Final Rose, where Shallcross and Biggar are joined on a stage in L.A. together, he claims he always knew it was her. So did the producers make him say all those things or is he just trying to do damage control?
All in all the season could be summed up in one word: monotonous. Each week, Shallcross failed to articulate how he felt about each woman during his private interviews. He continued to use the word ‘fun’ to describe his wants for a future wife, but couldn’t pinpoint what he was really looking for in a marriage.
Leaving this season behind, many are curious about Shallcross and Biggar’s future. Only time will tell if the happy couple will continue their life together in Austin, Texas and eventually get married. It seems hopeful as both appeared on many talk shows this week boasting about their relationship.
Announced previously in the Women Tell All episode, Charity Lawson will be the bachelorette for the next season. Let go by Zach after her hometown date, Charity’s still on the search for her future husband. Tune in on June 26 to ABC or Hulu to watch a hopefully more entertaining season of The Bachelorette!