Whether you agree with Clayton Echard being The Bachelor or not, his time has come, and Season 26 looks like it’s going to bring the drama. For those of you who like to read the last page of a book first, we’re here to help you out by revealing the alleged three finalists of the upcoming season. But did ABC already spoil its ending, when it showed The Bachelor lead Echard saying “I love you” to three different women on the season preview? It might not be as clear-cut as they made it seem.
Spoiler alert! From here on out, this story will discuss rumors about the end of Clayton Echard’s season of The Bachelor. Consider yourself warned.
After failing to form a connection with The Bachelorette Michelle Young, Clayton Echard was chosen to lead his own season of the franchise’s flagship series. Filming for Season 26 of The Bachelor began in the fall of 2021 — before the Missouri native’s elimination from The Bachelorette had even aired — with Echard handing out his final rose (and possibly an engagement ring) sometime in November. So what’s done is done, and Reality Steve is doing what he does best: telling us how it ends.:
The final 3 women (Susie Evans, Gabby Windey, and Rachel Recchia) all made it to Iceland for Overnights and Final Rose Ceremony.
The season, which premieres this coming week, will start with 30 women vying for the former football player’s heart. According to Reality Steve, that will be narrowed down to the final three of Susie Evans, Gabby Windey and Rachel Recchia. The blogger reports that Serene Russell is the fourth woman who makes it to Hometown Dates, after which she is eliminated.
But was this already revealed on ABC’s preview for Clayton Echard’s season, which was shown during The Bachelorette finale? The footage showed Echard professing his love for three different women and admitting to two of them that he’d been intimate with both of them. It seems like that would make it pretty easy to figure out who makes it to the end. Check out the preview for yourself:
Although we see the leading man telling three women he’s in love with them, the preview didn’t show any of the women’s faces, and The Bachelor’s editors are known to be intentionally misleading in their previews. For instance, one of the women shown crying in the preview is Sarah Hamrick, who was apparently eliminated earlier in the competition.
The bigger clue, which some think revealed the final two, is that two women are shown from behind when Clayton Echard appears to make his intimacy confession. Reality Steve explains:
The venue Clayton is standing in is in Iceland (where we know the overnights and final rose ceremony are) and that the two women whose backs are [to] us (and he’s seemingly telling he was intimate with both) are Rachel and Gabby, two women we know had hometown dates. The shot of Sarah crying was squeezed in from another point in filming since we know Sarah didn’t make it to Iceland.
Those editors are tricky, though, so I don’t think we can assume anything based on the season preview. Even while Reality Steve was confident in announcing the final three, he cautioned against using the preview alone to predict the final two.
So there you have it! We may not know who eventually wins Clayton Echard’s heart, but we know which three we’ll be keeping our eye on as the season progresses. The drama all starts at 8 p.m. ET, Monday, January 3, on ABC. Be sure to check out our 2022 TV Schedule to see what else is premiering this month.
