The first hint that Travis wasn’t choosing Moana in the finale of "The Bachelor: Paris" Monday came during his glowing speech to her in which he referred to their “beautiful connection” in the past tense.
There was the tense music too. And the big sigh. And the biggest signifier: "But..."
"If I listen to my heart I can’t choose you,” he said in an explanation that was singularly empty:
It isn’t because everything we had here wasn’t real because it was.
In many ways it was exactly what we came here for, this incredible French romance. I’m so sorry.
"It’s like I want to explain but there’s no good explanation," the poor doctor admitted.
Moana didn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her break down. She saved it for the limo, where between heaving sobs, she uttered one of those truths that only occasionally pop up on “The Bachelor:”
”The good girl always wins. Guys like that don’t marry girls like me.”
It was quite like the memorable point in a previous season of "The Bachelor" where a girl named Amber asked Andrew Firestone, heir to a California winery, what his favorite chain restaurant was. (Her’s was the Olive Garden). The snobby wine dude didn’t even bother answering.
Here was a doctor, Travis, who had fun going off on a jet-ski with this wild brunette with a huge tattoo on her back. But as carefully as he planned his career as an emergency room doctor in Nashville, he was just as carefully picking a potential mate in Sarah, the kindergarten teacher also from Nashville who’d look just right at all the society functions they’d attend. A dull life of blandly beautiful kids are ahead of them.
It seemed like they spent more time on the Moana kiss off than the Sarah acceptance because it was so much more dramatic (the final couple didn’t have anything much to say to each other but “I’m so happy.”) But building up a second runner up to believe she’ll be the choice only to cut her to the quick at the last minute is just about the meanest thing that happens to anybody on a network reality show.
“To be completely convinced that someone’s affections are 100 reciprocated and to be smacked in the face with a solid rejection like I received tonight is so hurtful,” Moana said between tears. “The pain I feel is so intense.”
Is there no consolation prize for this girl’s national humiliation?
Travis gave Sarah the ring she already picked out on a necklace as “a symbol of their connection” and never proposed. At least he didn’t say anything about “their journey together.”
I did not catch any hints Travis was making--I did notice that Moana's picture upstaged Sarah's on his mantle. I am so disappointed in the quality of relationships the show illuminates-- it's just superficial speed dating in my opinion. "the pain" Moana felt on national TV was not justified in my mind. Her two parting statements to T-man were guilt tripping.. and very creepy. At that moment she expressed all the devil woman qualities she had been accused of in Paris. Closed off, self defensive and desperate, the girl could benefit from some good therapy.
Posted by: Lady Base Camp | March 02, 2006 at 06:05 PM
I couldn't believe it! How could he pick the safe girl! You're in Paris on a national reality TV show, why not go all the way and make the leap with the girl you know you "really" want?...if worse comes to worse and it didn't work out with Moana...Sarah only lives a mile away and something tells me she would take him back.
Posted by: g | February 28, 2006 at 09:14 AM