It's. Finally. Over. The Bachelorette Season 16, which saw Tayshia Adams take over as lead after Clare Crawley and Dale Moss got engaged in just a couple of weeks during the season, has come to a close. There were tons of surprises waiting for fans as Tayshia chose between her final three suitors during fantasy suite dates and after introducing a couple of them to her family. But, it's possible that there's one thing Bachelor Nation was really surprised by as the credits rolled on the season for the last time: the lack of a live special to wrap up her love story. Now, though, we know why The Bachelorette didn't give Tayshia an After the Final Rose special.
This has been one of the weirdest seasons of any Bachelor franchise show, ever. Cast and crew members had to wait several months for filming to even start, as the original timeline of the show was pushed back (along with all other filming) in March. Then former lead Clare found love with Dale about 12 days into her stay. Tayshia came in as the new Bachelorette, but the production, obviously, couldn't travel to any exotic (or even domestic) locales to help spice things up, and were forced to do everything from a resort in Palm Springs, and never even filmed at the famed Bachelor Mansion.
On top of all of those major changes for The Bachelorette in Season 16, there was no audience and far fewer men in attendance for the Men Tell All Special last week. While host Chris Harrison thinks that that happened to turn out great for the show, and believes they'll do something similar in upcoming seasons, he isn't so keen on there being no After the Final Rose, and took to Twitter to explain why they couldn't give Tayshia the typical send-off, saying:
It pains me there’s no AFR live special this #TheBachelorette season. Due to being pushed into the holidays and the difficulty of bringing people safely together during this time it just wasn’t possible. But hopefully we’ll be back for #TheBachelor
While it did suck to not get to catch up with Tayshia and her forever love in real time during a live AFR last night, it's completely understandable why it just couldn't be done. At least with the Men Tell All, they were still filming the regular season, and could have kept anyone recently sent "home" at the resort for filming in a few days. Part of the lengthy process for this season of The Bachelorette involved everyone quarantining at the resort and receiving a negative test before being allowed to film, and it wouldn't have been possible to bring people back for that process in order to film the AFR.
Spoilers ahead if you haven't watched the finale yet! Tayshia came into the last two hours of her two-part finale needing to decide what to do after Brendan Morais dumped her, Ben Smith returned to declare his love, and her two remaining picks from fantasy suites, Ivan Hall and Zac Clark, waited on her decision. Tayshia sent Ivan home (NOOOOO), and let Ben and Zac meet her family, but eventually chose Zac as her one and only, and they ended the season engaged. End spoilers!
While many fans (including myself) have complained about Tayshia not getting a full or even remotely normal season as she tried to find true love, it doesn't seem to have stopped her from making this already odd process, which was made even odder by the new rules of 2020, work for her. And, as Chris Harrison said, hopefully The Bachelor will be able to find a way to give Matt James and his ladies the After the Final Rose they deserve in a few months.
The Bachelor is filming right now in Pennsylvania, and will begin airing really soon, on Monday, January 4, at 8 p.m. EST, so be sure to stick with CinemaBlend for all of your Bachelor Nation updates! For more to watch in the coming weeks, check out our guide to all of the winter / spring 2021 premieres!
