This was the first half of what Chris Harrison calls “The heartbreaking two-night season finale.”
The first 10 minutes of the episode are just a recap of the season of Colton with all the other girls, but after Colton’s confession last week, when he admitted that he was in love with Cassie and thought of her on every date he was on, it feels kind of gross to watch him with the other girls.
After a few minutes of Blair Witch style filming, with the producers and Chris Harrison looking for Colton, they find him walking down the road. A woman, presumably his producer, jumps out of the van to talk with him. There are a few minutes of footage of just him walking in the dark. They finally send Chris to talk with him. Colton tells Chris Harrison that he wants to be done with the whole thing. Colton admits that whenever he puts himself out there, he gets rejected. And he’s hurt that he told Cassie he loved her, and she returned the sentiment, which made it harder for him.
Chris Harrison meets up with Colton the next day. Colton tells Chris that every time something good happens to him, something bad follows. Hearing that Cassie was leaving was the peak of Colton realizing how much he cared for her. He said he was falling in love with Tayshia, and he was falling in love with Hannah, but he was definitely in love with Cassie. Chris asks, “What if the bottom line is that she’s just not that into you?” and Colton basically says that he can tell she loves him. Colton also says, “I feel like life without Cassie wouldn’t be complete.” In the end, Chris asks him what he wants to do, and he said he wants to fight for someone that he loves.
Colton knocks on the door of a house, and Tayshia answers. She’s all smiles to see him, albeit a bit confused. At some point you can see on her face when she realizes he’s there for bad news. He flat out tells her “I love Cassie” which, you can see in her eyes, hits her like daggers. She’s speechless and asks if they can talk without the cameras, so they go inside the house. We lose visual, but there’s audio of Colton crying and Tayshia comforting him. Then she starts sobbing. “So this is like, it?” Tayshia asks, and Colton responds with “Yeah”. They hug a number of times and he walks out. They then show her sobbing and telling herself “It’s ok”. She then gets into a limo and is sent off.
Tayshia is live in studio with Chris Harrison and she looks great. She said it was difficult to watch the scene happen. Chris asked her what went through her mind when Colton knocked on the door? She said she was shocked, but the look on his face made the whole demeanor change. She started talking about how she saw a better version of herself and grew tremendously because of Colton. When he told her that he was in love with Cassie, she said it hurt, especially since she put everything out there for him.
Chris Harrison said it was interesting that during the breakup she was taking care of him and only broke down after it was over. They then bring Colton out and he hugs Tayshia before joining her on the hot seat. Chris asks Tayshia if there’s anything she wants to ask him. She smiles at him and asks, “I thought we had something special, what was missing?” and he tells her that in that moment he was giving all of himself to Cassie and didn’t feel it was right to not give Tayshia 100% as well. She wishes the best for him and cherishes the memories that they’ve made. They seemed to have ended on a good note.
Colton then knocks on Hannah’s door. She has the same excited/shocked look on her face that Tayshia had. He tells her he wants to talk to her about something and you can see on her face that something is wrong. He’s much better at conducting this breakup than he was with Tayshia’s breakup. He says, “Where my feelings are in another relationship is at a stronger point than with you. I realize that I love Cassie” and again, those words are daggers.
He tells her that he thought it was going to be her. She asks him what didn’t work, and he tells her that he doesn’t have an answer for that. “You’ve helped me so much, you made me better” he says, and she replies, “That’s what I do, I make people better and get nothing in return” and she seemed shocked that someone had a better relationship than what they had.
After some hugs, Colton leaves Hannah’s room and starts walking away. He gets down a corridor and is sitting on the side sobbing. Someone, presumably Colton’s producer, walks up and hugs him. He says, this just shows how much I love Cassie, to walk away from something that great, referring to Hannah. They show Hannah in the hot seat live with Chris. She’s sad because she said she was blindsided by Colton.
She said no one wants to have to watch that because it was one of the hardest moments of her life. She felt her safety net was that she reminded him of home, but once he used that phrase in his breakup with her, she said it lost all meaning to her. The hardest thing she’s been dealing with while home is people asking to see her engagement ring. She’s been looking for closure, and still doesn’t know how he could do that to her.
They bring out Colton again. Hannah tells him that she loved him and thought he felt the same way about her. She basically asks him why he didn’t give her a full chance, referring to him not having a Fantasy Suite date with him. He tells her that he doesn’t want her to be a backup plan. He admits that jumping the fence and quitting the show was a bit selfish. She then confesses that she was hoping he’d come back for her even a week after he broke up with her.
>She apparently told her producer to tell her if Colton was stopping by so she could brush her hair. And that this whole thing has been really difficult for her. She said, “It is what it is” and also mentioned that it sucked that he told Cassie that he thought of her while on dates with other girls. She concluded by saying that going through this hard heartbreak showed her how strong she is and showed her what she deserved in a relationship.
At this point in the show, there are no women contestants. Garrett, Jason, Ben, and Blake join Chris Harrison in the live audience. The guys are talking about how when it gets to the end of the season there’s always pressure. They talk about Colton’s new hairstyle and joke about how it can poke someone’s eye out. Ben said he hopes that Colton gets something out of this. Jason said he’s talking about risk and reward with giving up two great girls to pursue someone who dumped him. Jason said he needs closure. Garrett said that he needs to listen to Cassie and what she wants. He has to take a leap of faith. Quite frankly, I think he’s already leapt pretty far.
With seven minutes left to the episode, they show one last scene from tonight’s part 1 of the season finale. Colton in a confessional says, “I just want to be with Cassie, and I do not want to say goodbye to her, and I won’t leave without her”. They show Cassie packing and she said she missed Colton, but she said she can’t be here because she can’t make a commitment. She said she wants him to have that, but she can’t handle the pressure.
On the drive over to Cassie’s hotel, Colton says, “I just want to be loved back the way I love somebody.” He also says he’s willing to do anything and everything because that’s how much he loves her. They show him drive up to Cassie’s hotel, walk to her room, and knock on the door. Someone answers and of course, it’s to be continued.
Chris Harrison says that tomorrow will be the most shocking season finale we’ve ever seen. And I’m always inclined to disbelieve him, but he’s never wrong. Chris also mentioned that tomorrow they will be revealing who the next Bachelorette will be.
Virgin Count: 4
