Hi, I'm Paula Sanderson

Welcome back to another Bachelor related post.

As previously established – I’m a massive fan of the franchise from an industry point of view and as a viewer who loves romantic reality shows. I traditionally love The Bachelorette the best out of all the Bachelor related franchises and I loved this season.

I think this one will go down as a season we’ll never forget.

I’ve previously talked about Clare’s half of the season – you can catch up on that here. But today I end that conversation and talk about Tayshia and her half of the season.

My overall vibe:

I liked Tayshia on Colton’s season. I liked Tayshia on Bachelor in Paradise. I think she’s fun and I think she can really sell the ‘ready for marriage’ storyline better than others. I’m really into having more BIPOC leads. I think after Clare, Tayshia was the perfect substitute.

There were so many highlights. We actually got to meet the men. We got the full experience of ‘WHO WILL SHE PICK!?’ It made sense that the men would be interested in her too.

As a group of men, there was something for everyone and group dates were fun again! I cannot wait for them to all go to BIP or become Instagram celebrities. I secretly adored Bennett (he lost it at the end there, but I’m still into it for BIP), I loved Dr. Joe (he’s now using his insta clout to educate folks about the vaccine!), and I think Demar, Kenny, and Blake will all do fantastic on BIP. I just really loved all of them. There were truly no BAD guys (I’ll some credit to Clare for weeding them out).

The pool was so deep in fact that for the first time in years Tayshia’s first impression rose recipient Spencer didn’t make it into the final four.

IMO – it was the strongest final four in years and each of these men brought something extremely interesting to the table.

They had really valuable and important conversations. Ivan and Tayshia discussed the Black Lives Matter movement and Ivan’s personal experiences with anti-Black racism. Ben and Tayshia talked about mental health, PTSD, and Ben’s experience with suicide. Zac and Tayshia talked about sobriety and Zac’s history of substance abuse. Brendan and Tayshia talked in detail about their divorces. It was incredible. I was blown away by the vulnerability the men had with her. I am concerned future seasons will try to ‘beat’ this and share even more tragic stories and it will become a battle to share the ‘deepest’ story.

If I’m going to criticize the back end of the season – it’s that they didn’t show us the religion conversation between Ivan and Tayshia they alluded to during the final two rose ceremony. If I had a wish for the show moving forward I’d want a few things.

First – I want the Bachelor to continue to cast BIPOC folks as the lead (and bring in more BIPOC folks as viable contenders to feed that pipeline). I would like to see more diversity in general – say not just size 0 girls and men with washboard abs. I read a fantastic book called One to Watch by Kate Stayman-London which is about a plus-size blogger who becomes the “Main-Squeeze’ (aka Bachelorette). I want that on this show. I want folks with disabilities – Sarah Herron should not have been a one-off. Let’s see some growth here team casting.

Second – I want to see more conversations about ‘issues’. I want conversations about religion. I want conversations about politics. I want conversations about racism. I want to see people talk about big things. Bring it on Bachelor. We can handle it. I loved the conversations we had this year – keep it up and keep it going.

I’m curious to see what happens with Matt James’ season of The Bachelor. We know Matt as Tyler’s friend but we don’t really know him – I’m hoping that will keep the show fresh. However we’re going to need more. The last three seasons with the men at the helm have been atrocious. Arie was boring and then awful to Becca; Colton had a horrific storyline and after the show Cassie filed a restraining order against him; and then Peter switched his winner three times after the show. So… fingers crossed Matt will be different.

See you all on Jan 4th for the new season!