Whether you were dragged into watching by your friends, you are a Bachelor Nation fanatic or you don’t even know what this show is, you are a Wake Forest student, so you had a reason to care about Hannah Brown’s season of The Bachelorette. That reason is Tyler Cameron, a former Wake Forest quarterback. My sole motivation in continuing to watch this show was Cameron. Each week I looked forward to seeing how far he made it and made predictions with my friends about the show’s finale. But, the season did not end how many people expected or hoped — including Brown herself.
Though I disliked Brown on Colton Underwood’s season of The Bachelor, she began to grow on me during her season … a little bit. On The Bachelor, she caused unnecessary drama with fellow contestant Caelynn Miller-Keyes, put Colton through a lot of stress and aimed the spotlight on herself. On this season of The Bachelorette, she strived to be as authentic as possible. I appreciated her quirkiness and down-to-earth demeanor, but I think she made some detrimental decisions over the course of the season. In my opinion, she had one of the best groups of guys in Bachelorette history. Not only did she have Cameron, who is genuine, chivalrous and (of course) beautiful, but she was lucky to have Peter Weber, Mike Johnson, Dylan Barbour, John Paul Jones and Connor Saeli as well. Many of the men on her season had so much to offer her: stability, love, kindness, spunk, humor and truthfulness. Yet, she paid most attention to and ultimately fell for my least favorite men: Luke Parker and Jed Wyatt.
Why Brown kept giving Parker a rose week after week baffles me. He lied to her, manipulated the other men on the show, refused to be vulnerable and even “slut- shamed” Brown. Parker was possessive, controlling and narcissistic throughout the show — so narcissistic that he refused to go home on multiple occasions and convinced Brown into letting him stay. Each week that Parker returned, I questioned Brown’s judgment for choosing a man like him.
My biggest problem with Parker was that he used religion as a vehicle for judging people’s characters and condescendingly justified these accusations with the Bible. Knowing Brown shared the same faith as him, he capitalized on this advantage whenever it was convenient. Thankfully, Brown finally came to her senses and saw through his lies during the fantasy suites round after he told her he could not have sex with her if she had been with other men. Brown called him out on his belittling accusations, stood up for herself and told him that her husband would never say what Parker just had. Finally, she ended with this quote which is now all over the internet, “I have had sex, and Jesus still loves me.” This moment was satisfying and empowering to watch because Brown refused to allow Parker to minimize or control her.
After this moment, Brown finally appeared to have clear perceptions, but then, she sent Weber home. While saying goodbye to America’s favorite pilot, Brown told him that their relationship had been “perfect” and “easy” and said that Weber was “the dream guy.” So what was the catch? In the following episode, as Cameron is nearly on one knee with a ring in hand, Brown tells him that she chose Wyatt. Cameron had done everything right, but she still felt stronger about Wyatt. If I was in Brown’s shoes, I never would have made the decision she made, but people can’t change the way they feel.
Shortly after their engagement, the media released photos of Wyatt and his girlfriend back home, who had been waiting for him during the entirety of the show’s filming. As frustrating as it was to watch Brown make these mistakes and go for men like Parker and Wyatt when she had so many other amazing options, hindsight is always clearer than foresight. In the end, it is truly sad that Brown went through two seasons of reality TV dating and still did not find her person.
