James Weir recaps The Bachelor 2019 episode 16: the finale

The Bachelor’s fairytale ending has been destroyed during the finale as the loser dishes out a putrid response to the rejection. James Weir recaps.

The Bachelor’s fairytale ending is sullied and destroyed during Thursday night’s finale when the loser decides to dish out a putrid response after she’s dumped on an African cliff face.

I haven’t seen the new Lion King live action movie, but I'm pretty sure they updated the storyline and it ends in a similar way.

Abbie comes undone tonight. Her unrivalled horniness morphs into pure rage. She tears off her own mask to expose the woman she has been hiding from Matt for the past two months. When she doesn’t get what she wants, she has nothing left to lose — and Matt can’t believe he has been fooled for so long.

Chelsie’s happy ending? It’s marred. Tainted! Besmirched! It’s polluted by the disdain that seeps out of Abbie as she makes her anger known to Matt before letting rip in an enraged back seat monologue.

She begins to fall apart at the seams early on during tonight’s finale. Her cockiness lets her down. She disses Matt’s best friend and it’s all downhill from there.

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When we arrive in South Africa, we take a safari Jeep from the airport to our campsite but, as we hurtle along the wide dusty plains, we spot Abbie perched on a rock in the distance. We look ahead and see a pack of lions roaming towards her, so we tell the driver to floor it because we don’t feel like dealing with other people’s problems.

Nice knowing you, Abigail.

As the hours tick down to a decision, Abbie is confident she will be crowned queen.

“I’ve never had anyone outwardly dislike me in my life,” she smiles.

“Allow us to bring you one,” we smugly reply. “Abbie, you remember Matt’s best friend Kate?”

’Hiya, bish.’

Because Matt’s parents don’t wish to be involved in tonight’s circus, Kate has flown to Africa to break the spell Abbie cast on Matt when she humped him in the mud. It’s a classic fairytale, really — the prince, the humper and the cock-blocker. Very Disney.

Anyway, Kate’s a no nonsense kinda lady and when she first met Abbie earlier in the series, she decided in an instant that she disliked her. Have things changed?

“I’m surprised she’s here,” she sighs to Matt while eye-rolling. We applaud Kate’s refusal to budge.

She then drags Abbie away and states this to her face. In fact, she gets so fed up about being in the presence of Abbie that she just stands up and walks off-set without explanation.

“I’m here to support Matt and she’s horrible,” Abbie spits to us about Kate, which is really unfair because Kate seems delightful and very level-headed with her snap judgments. “Why is Matt friends with her? It’s just all bullshit.”

Oh Abbie. Never dis the best friend. Particularly on television.

Matt’s other friend takes Chelsie away to chat but it’s barely worth mentioning because she’s completely lovely and polite and shows the right amount of vulnerability and nerves so it’s clear that she really cares.

Everyone loves Chelsie. But Abbie?

“We’ve seen Abbies before,” Matt’s other nerdy math friend sighs. “In my eyes, it’s between a wife and a girlfriend.”

Ouch. Burnt by a nerd. That’s gotta hurt, Abigail.

But Abbie’s so confident she doesn’t let nerd burns dull her horniness.

“Maybe we’ll do a bit of humping today. Maybe today can be the end of the longest dry spell in history,” she informs us as Matt whisks her away for their final date. Despite her best efforts to hump him on an African plain, producers intervene to prevent a giraffe stampede from occurring.

But she isn’t done trying. As a helicopter arrives, she whispers to Matt: “Mmmm take my chopper virginity.”

I wish I could see grumpy Kate’s facial expressions each time Abbie bluntly asserts her horniness.

Unfortunately for Abbie, the date concludes and not one hump is thrust. And she’ll be spewing when she finds out Chelsie finally stopped being a prude on her finale date and said she loves Matt and then humped him relentlessly in this hotel pool.

Way to go, Chels! xx

When the day finally comes for Matt to deliver his decision, we do it in a way that’s only appropriate: He stands on an African cliff face and holds Osher in the air, presenting him to the kingdom below, while singing, “Haaaaaaaaaaaaa sabenyaaaaaaaaaaa”.

Obviously I’m being silly. Really, the actual rules are: Matt will make his choice and push the loser off the edge and down into a pack of trash-talking hyenas.

The ciiiiiircle of liiiiiiiiife.

With happiness or heartbreak just moments away, the girls begin the torturous pilgrimage into the African desert to meet their fate. Their safari jeeps hurtle over rough terrain and jagged dirt gutters. By the time Chelsie arrives, the wheels on her car are actually deflated.

“It would completely break me if he didn’t want to be with me,” she whispers to us, holding back tears.

She’s obviously at breaking point. So we make her wait even longer to let her self-doubt soar and then cut to an identical dirt mound on the other side of the desert where Abbie’s arriving.

She hikes up a dirt path and clamours on top of a rock to meet Osher and Matt.

“You make me happy,” he gushes. But things take a sharp turn only a second later and it becomes immediately clear Abbie is about to be thrown to the trash-talking hyenas.

“I’ve struggled with my emotions. This is the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make — I have to be honest with myself and you. My heart belongs with someone else,” he exhales. “It devastates me to lose someone so incredible …”

Abbie snaps her hands out of his and the colour drains from her face. She is livid — and she wants to create a scene. We’re sincerely grateful for her dedication to the cause. She gets so angry it looks like she’s this-close to pushing Matt off the cliff and down into the pack of trash-talking hyenas. Or at the very least, she might call him a dog cantaloupe.

That’s not a horny face.

Matt isn’t quite sure whether to risk his life but ventures on with the dumping.

“ … Um … I’ve loved every single moment we’ve had … and … um … you deserve …” he stumbles until Abbie cuts him off.

“OK! So … OK … that’s fine,” she snaps. “Can you explain further … why? I really don’t understand how …”

Cut her some slack, guys. Remember: she’s “never had anyone outwardly dislike” her in her life. This must be difficult for her.

“It’s just that my heart belongs with someone else,” Matt adds.

“I don’t know what to say. Completely heartbreaking. Completely absolutely heartbreaking,” she mumbles.

The dry African wind picks up and blows her hair across her face. She pushes it back with one hand and breaks the fourth wall in the process — shooting a death stare right down the lens of the camera as she swoops her fringe out of her eyes.

“OK, as long as you’re happy, that’s all that matters,” she snips and we’re totally convinced she means it. She’s made to clamour back down off the dirt mound by herself and trod along the rough track back to the car.

“I wanna get the f**k away from him, I wanna go home,” she mumbles as a mound of guinea grass swats her in the face.

This is the Abbie we wanted all along. The angry, spiteful, vitriolic Abigail — no facades, no fake pleasantries. Just this kind of authenticity. It’s a shame she dropped the mask so late in the game.

It’s at this point we realise we’ve left Chelsie waiting on that other random mound on the other side of the African desert. We should probably hike all the way back there and tell her she’s won, I guess?

Soz, caught in traffic.

“I’ve never believed in finding the perfect woman until I met you. Chelsie I love you,” Matt beams as Chelsie breaks down.

“I thought you were going to dump me,” she sobs. “I thought you were going to break my heart. I was crying all morning. And now you didn’t break it, you made it whole again.”

Aw. She’s so sweet and we couldn’t be happier for her. But don’t pretend like you all came here for a happy ending. Let’s check back in with Abbie and end this fairytale with the ultimate bitter back seat monologue. She doesn’t let us down.

“I feel fine,” she lets rip, getting defensive and denying she ever had feelings for that bloke. “I’m mad about the flight home now. I couldn’t cry if I tried now.”

“Your mascara’s running,” we say, looking back her smudged face in the rear view mirror.

“Maybe I don’t love him. I’m not even upset,” she shrugs, her reflections descending into manic ranting. “I just wanna forget about it. I’ll get over this before it even airs.”

“You seem angry,” a producer observes, stoking the fire one final time.

“I’m just embarrassed!” Abbie corrects her. “I feel silly. I feel horrible. I will get over this and I’m so resilient!”

As she declares her stoic resilience, she immediately breaks down.

But we’ll forgive the tears. It has been a rough day. Abbie is absolutely resilient. If Abbie is one thing, it is resilient.

Well. That and horny.

For more observations on trash-talking hyenas and instigating a giraffe stampede by humping, follow me on Twitter and Facebook: @hellojamesweir