The Golden Bachelor Season-Finale Recap: A Goddamn Close Second

On Wednesday, The Hollywood Reporter published an exposé on Gerry Turner that suggests he’s framed his post-marriage dating life misleadingly on television, quoting a former live-in girlfriend who says they started dating just a month after his wife died and that the future Golden Bachelor criticized her for gaining weight, among other not-so-flattering details.

You may be wondering, as I was: Will tonight’s (live!) finale address these allegations?

It will not! It turns out that Gerry managed to pull off a pretty serious heel turn all on his own. He’s not coming out smelling like roses; the bloom is off the rose; yada, yada, rose, yada, yada, thorns, yada, yada. I could go on.

Given that Gerry has essentially signed a You Are My Soul Mate contract in blood (and a No, With You I Really Mean It addendum) with both Leslie and Theresa, we knew going into tonight that, whatever happens, it wasn’t going to be easy. But I didn’t imagine just how gnarly it would get.

The Gatch’s daughters, Jenny and Angie (who looks so much like her dad that I momentarily considered whether she was really him in disguise, trying to get an undercover scoop on Theresa and Leslie’s true feelings), and granddaughters are on hand to vet the finalists. Gerry describes Theresa to them as a “professional businesswoman,” which is (a) possibly evidence that he still does not totally remember what she does, and (b) the kind of thing a second-grader says they want to be when they grow up. When she meets the family, Theresa recounts the frosting lips incident, which probably wasn’t strictly necessary, given that image has already been char-grilled into my personal retinas and I don’t share DNA with either party involved. She describes her 42-year marriage to her late high-school sweetheart, and everyone gets teary over their shared understanding of grief. This is all systems go, as far as Gerry’s daughters are concerned. Two thumbs-up!

But what does Leslie have to worry about? As she recalls it, in the fantasy suite, he told her she was the one. Surely Gerry wouldn’t — no. Of course not. Perish the thought.

Leslie hits it off with both generations of the family, who are taken with her free-spirited energy and her humor — she recounts that a highlight of the overnight date was when she heard him say “fuck” for the first time and was relieved that she finally felt like she could swear in front of him. They’re sold! But … is Gerry?

Once Leslie wraps up with the fam and it’s just the two of them, the Gatch proceeds to get weird. Like, so weird. “Okay? All right,” he keeps saying, while seemingly trying to extricate himself from the interaction as soon as possible. If you’re ever playing poker with Gerry and he starts repeating, “Okay? All right,” you’re going to want to go all in.

Leslie sensed he wasn’t “quite himself,” quite possibly because he is being, again, I repeat, so, so weird. Nevertheless, that night, she presents him with a book full of photos and other mementos from their relationship — with plenty of pages left blank at the end.

Then the evening takes an excruciating turn. She tells him she loves him “very, very much.” His response? “That’s such a special sentiment.” I am fairly certain that, according to the Geneva Conventions, this technically constitutes a war crime. “I can feel it,” he begins to say but trails off. “ … I can’t.”

Gerry segues into a speech that sure feels like he’s dumping Leslie. “It’s been so much fun … thanks for everything you’ve done,” he says, sounding like an HR rep in the middle of laying you off. “Be happy,” he tells her, and I can feel my blood pressure rise in real time.

If it looks like a breakup, swims like a breakup, and quacks like a breakup, then … it probably is a breakup. But while it’s painfully obvious what direction Gerry is going in, he just can’t muster up the nerve to deliver the final blow — even at Leslie’s urging. “Is there something you want to tell me?” she asks. He only shakes his head, referring vaguely to the “tough decision ahead” … and then kisses her good-bye? What? What is happening? Put this relationship out of its misery, dude.

In the studio, a shocked murmur runs through the audience. The crowd has turned on Gerry — even Jesse is visibly wincing.

Gerry returns to Leslie’s hotel room and finally shares that he’s made his decision: He’s picking Theresa. Or, rather: “That’s the direction I’m going to take.” Yikes.

Leslie’s anger is righteous and incandescent. She is a sight to behold. “So everything you told me the other night was a complete and utter lie,” she insists, and it doesn’t sound like she’s wrong. He’s sorry, but what good is that to her now?

Leslie cries that this is how her romantic life always goes, and Gerry weakly attempts to reassure her: “No, don’t think that.” Her rejoinder instantly secures itself a place in the great reality-TV canon. “Gerry, no offense — I can think whatever the fuck I want.” Fuck. Incredible. The studio audience cheers and applauds.

So, to review, Gerry told three whole human beings that he loved them and then proceeded to choose the one it took him the longest to actually say it to. The premise of The Golden Bachelor was that, yes, there is at least one good man out there. But ultimately, if this season contains any such lesson at all, it’s that even 72-year-olds can act like little boys.

My heart breaks for Leslie, whose devastation is clear and understandable. “No one chooses me,” she cries. “You made it sound like you chose me.” It’s “mind-boggling” that he could change his mind in the course of a day. Not even a day, but 12 hours. At least this spares her the singular, spectacular shame of a non-proposal, she says. “The only good thing is that I know I don’t have to walk down in that $60,000 dress with diamond earrings and get on that platform and be completely embarrassed.” Someone, please, God, leak me a photo of her would-have-been $60,000 proposal dress immediately.

Gerry stumbles out of her room, sobs over a balcony for a while, and then hugs Jesse, who may very well have been summoned from a dead sleep in his hotel room, while he continues to cry and cry. “I took a really good person and fucking broke their heart,” Gerry says, and yeah, like, not no. The only time he’s ever felt worse is when his wife passed, “and this is a goddamn close second.”

Cut to Leslie in the studio, looking glamorous — and quite the part for the first all-but-announced Golden Bachelorette. (It’s the least they can do!)

She declines to share exactly what he said to her when they were alone but explains that words were exchanged on the overnight date that left her “100 percent certain” that she was “his girl.” What followed was the happiest day of her life. She even wrote her vows. The fall was so much harder because of how high he built her up, in spite of her usual instincts toward emotional self-preservation.

When Jesse Palmer invites Gerry to join them, I’m genuinely unsure if he’s going to be booed — he isn’t, but the vibes aren’t great. Leslie is better prepared for this confrontation than most presidential candidates are for debates. She quietly destroys him by noting that, of all the reasons she fell in love with him, the most important was his “integrity.” Whoops! (Throughout this, his family is doing their best to maintain the most neutral faces I have ever seen. If I were them, I would have gotten complete, nipple-up Botox lest the camera catch me making a single revealing micro-expression.) He certainly didn’t have to pick her, but he certainly didn’t have to make all those assurances, either.

Gerry offers a mealymouthed apology about how his desire to give every woman his undivided attention ultimately backfired and led him to get too caught up too fast. It’s not that their relationship went wrong, but it was just “better with someone else.” You’re not acquitting yourself well, friend — and if you don’t believe me, then let the (highly satisfying) eye rolls and head shakes from our beloved eliminated contestants watching from the audience be your guide. “I don’t know if I accept your apology, but I understand,” she says.

Well. From there, it’s one hell of a hard pivot into the proposal. Theresa delivers a monologue about how love isn’t just for the young, and also, I don’t know, she loves him? No offense to Theresa whatsoever (she, like me, is from New Jersey, which means her happiness is ultimately my happiness), but I don’t know how they can expect me to focus on this right now.

Gerry has a little fun dropping in an intentionally misleading dramatic pause mid-proposal — “You’re not the right person for me to live with … … … you’re the person I can’t live without!” — which would be approximately 10,000 percent more charming if he had not already blindsided two women he’d proclaimed his love for with a surprise breakup already. Anyway, she ecstatically accepts both his proposal and the final, golden rose, which every time I see it, I wonder if it’s secretly chocolate and I could take a big chomp out of it like floral gelt.

The lovebirds finally make their first appearance together IRL, and sure, they do seem smitten. Jesse Palmer asks what really happened during the overnight date. “Subtle realizations,” Gerry says. “I knocked his boots off,” Theresa says. Jesse promises to send them off on a romantic vacation to Italy — or, should they say, a honeymoon? The first-ever Golden Wedding is coming to your TV in January. In need of bridesmaids? I have exactly 21 suggestions. If they don’t have better things to do, that is.

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