SPOILER ALERT: If you haven’t seen the “Bachelor in Paradise Canada” Season 2 finale there are spoilers ahead.
If Sunday’s “Bachelor in Paradise Canada” is the last episode we ever get at least it went out with a bang and by bang I mean an engagement.
Season 2 improved on the performance of the 2021 edition, which produced just one couple (who are no longer together). On Sunday, there were three: Austin Tinsley and Chelsea Vaughn (duh), Joey Kirchner and Tessa Tookes, and Garrett Aida and Meagan Morris.
And who got the brass ring, er, the engagement ring? Why, the Alberta cowboy and the Brooklyn singer. Despite having been an item for only a couple of weeks of Paradise time (six episodes for those of us at home), Joey and Tessa became affianced.
And not just that, they made “Bachelor” franchise history, according to Citytv, when Tessa became the first woman on any show to propose. More on that later.
First let’s rewind to the beginning of the episode.
They mysterious lady in red who interrupted Matia’s goodbye last week was — double duh — Celine. (And in the interest of pinpoint accuracy, she was wearing red shorts and a bikini top, not a dress or romper, as I said last week.)
Following Matia’s realization that a pair of comely breasts (hello Krissy) did not trump an emotional connection, Celine came back to get her man and, in a roller-coaster of an episode, this was one of the high points as Matia and Celine hugged, kissed and cried. (Not gonna lie, I cried too.) I’m a little fuzzy on the timing since we last saw Celine on FaceTime from the Edmonton airport on her way to Calgary, but apparently she made it home for one night and then flew back the next morning.
And anyway, who cares? As Austin said, “I’ve never seen a more beautiful moment here in Paradise than that moment right here.”
Hold that heartwarming thought.
Clearly, Paradise was coming to an end and the new cast spigot had been turned off, so Sam, having been dumped by Cole, and newbie Marilyn, who had one inconsequential date with Connor, wisely decided to leave.
They weren’t quite Humphrey Bogart and Claude Rains in the airport scene in “Casablanca,” but Sam said she and Marilyn had “kickstarted a beautiful friendship” and they left the beach with their arms around each other.
They left behind six couples, including Connor and Lisa, and Juan Pablo and Ana.
Cue an American Paradise couple come to give everyone a pep talk: Noah Erb and Abigail Heringer. If you’re a franchise watcher you’ll recall that they met in Season 7 of “Bachelor in Paradise,” broke up before the season ended then got back together again after.
“You guys are in positions where you don’t have to make it that hard,” Noah told the Canadian-American couples. “You guys still have the opportunity to, if you really are feeling that with somebody, go all the way, make sure they know it, or if you’re really not, make sure they know it.”
Alas, Lisa decided to take the latter part of that advice.
As the couples walked a red carpet as part of a casino night group date, Lisa said in her in-the-moment that she needed to get some things off her chest. “I so badly just want to have a happy ending with Connor. There’s just stuff I need to say about how I feel. I just can’t stay silent.”
As if that wasn’t foreshadowing enough, at a game that involved the contestants placing bets on each other, Lisa was singled out as the person most likely to get cold feet.
The question, I suppose, was how warm had Lisa’s feet been to begin with?
Not very was the impression left during a chat between Connor and his friend Noah. After Noah concluded that Lisa hadn’t fully invested in Connor, Connor started having “a slight panic attack” in his ITM, getting lightheaded and having trouble breathing.
Unfortunately, this was not a production fakeout; Connor was about to get his heart broken.
Connor and Lisa went to have a chat. When Connor asked Lisa if she wanted to see him outside of Paradise, she sighed and said, “Ah, Connor,” adding, “I don’t think this is good for either of us.”
Connor interpreted her response as her turtling to protect herself emotionally. Lisa said in her ITM that Connor checked a lot of boxes, but “something’s missing there.”
Whatever the case, they went their separate ways. “I’m leaving sad again,” said Connor, who previously struck out on both “The Bachelorette” and “Bachelor in Paradise” U.S. And honestly, that makes me a little sad.
Somebody else appeared to be struggling during the casino night. That would be Joey, especially after the other contestants voted him and Tessa most likely to leave engaged.
One never knows how much of what’s said in ITMs is what players really feel and how much is torqued to serve a plot line, but Joey seemed genuinely uneasy as the end of Paradise drew near. Although he is an actor so . . .
Joey said it was terrifying, despite the fact that he loved Tessa, since his relationship with Vay in the first season had come to such a bitter end and “there’s shit left over from that.”
Tessa reassured Joey that she was all in, but his uneasiness carried over into the fantasy suite.
Because yes, it was fantasy suite time. And, as host Sharleen Joynt made clear, that was no place for couples who weren’t falling in love or already there. So that ruled out Ana Cruz and Juan Pablo Osorio, and Matia and Celine.
Despite their heartfelt reunion, Celine noted, “We’re not in love with each other yet. We’re not boyfriend and girlfriend.”
So they left Paradise arm in arm hoping for the best. I have no idea if they got it. Too bad we didn’t get a reunion show to figure this stuff out.
As for Ana and Juan, Ana wanted to go to the fantasy suite, but it was clearly game over as soon as Juan told her, “You genuinely are an amazing person” — without even making eye contact. “To go into the fantasy suite and explore this with you, I’m not ready,” he added.
They left, definitely not together.
Austin and Chelsea seemed the most solid as they ventured into the fantasy suite. Chelsea sent Austin on a scavenger hunt of Paradise places where they had key moments, including her Episode 1 “nip slip,” their first kiss, the first place she said she was falling for him, etc., culminating in the prize of her and a bottle of champagne, and a toast to “leaving here together.”
Garrett and Meagan also made it to the fantasy suite, with Garrett telling Meagan, “We’re genuinely, like, on the road to falling in love.” I’m not sure if, like the road to hell, that one is paved with good intentions, but it worked well enough for Meagan.
And then there were Joey and Tessa. Joey was still expressing doubts, specifically in his own emotions, but they went to the fantasy suite nonetheless. “We at least owe it to ourselves to see what it would be like to be with each other and then from there we can decide what we’re gonna do,” he said.
The theme of Joey being afraid he was going to break Tessa’s heart continued into the ITMs, even as they sat on the bed together. The next morning, Tessa told Joey that when they discussed what they’d do outside of Paradise, “I didn’t expect one of those options to be leaving here without me.”
But Joey said Tessa had “talked me off the ledge.”
Whether there really was a ledge, or just an effort to build some suspense going into proposal day, only they and the producers know for sure. But it’s not a stretch to think you’d be scared out of your gourd at the thought of potentially proposing to someone you’d known for two weeks.
As for Austin and Chelsea, he said waking up next to her was “bliss” and “I can’t wait for whatever tomorrow brings and the rest of the years.”
Garrett said he and Meagan had “cracked the code.”
They were first up on the final rose deck. And apparently that road to love of which Garrett spoke was more like an autobahn, because he told Meagan, “I love you” and she said it back, both of them shedding happy tears, and they exchanged final roses and walked off hand in hand.
Next!
Chelsea told Austin that “falling for someone this quickly in an environment like this is something that scares the shit out of me, but I’m gonna try to take a page out of your book and lean into that instead of running away from it, and I can confidently say that I love you Austin.”
“I love you too,” Austin said. And that was a feeling “I’m gonna run towards every day of my life.”
No, there was no ring, but it was a sweet conclusion for Paradise’s longest standing couple.
Finally, we came to Joey and Tessa. The former had put his cowboy hat and boots back on for the big occasion, which was fitting since Tessa called him her “disco cowboy.”
There were feels right from the get-go as a clearly emotional Joey told Tessa, “You’ve only known me for a very short period of time and you already made me a better person, and I can’t thank you enough for that. And I love you.”
After saying the L-word back, Tessa told Joey that “through the ups, the downs last night, us just trying to figure it out, I’ve just got nothing but confidence that you and I can take on the world.”
And then she posed a question: “Joey Blake Kirchner, will you be my Joey for the rest of my life?” A choked up Joey said “Yeah” and she slipped a woven orange and yellow and brown ring on his finger.
No, what? I’m not crying.
“As hard as you can try you’ll never be able to one up me,” said Joey, pulling a ring box out of his back pocket and getting on one knee. “Tessa Tookes, you want to go to the disco with me?”
“Let’s go baby, ” Tessa replied.
It was lovely and totally on brand. You wouldn’t expect Joey to say anything as conventional as “Will you marry me?” would you?
How can you not be grinning ear to ear after a finisher like that?
The episode ended with the three happy couples hanging out and cheers-ing to “finding love in Paradise.”
So even though we didn’t get a reunion, I do have a little intel on what happened after the fact. The good news is that Joey and Tessa, and Austin and Chelsea are still together, the former in Toronto, the latter in New York. If you hop over to thestar.com/television you can read my interview with the four of them.
Garrett and Meagan did not last, unfortunately, and I have no further info about that.
All in all, it was a good season. Since Citytv has put the show on hiatus for at least 2024 there’s no telling if it will ever come back. If this is all we get at least we went out on a high.
Good luck to Joey and Tessa, and Austin and Chelsea.
At some point I hope to start recapping “The Bachelorette” if my crazy schedule allows, but it won’t be till late July at the earliest.
Everyone have a good summer in the meantime.
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