Spoilers for the finale of The Golden Bachelor ahead.
If one had any doubts about whether ABC planned to invest in The Golden Bachelor’s future, they need look no further than the live studio audience for Thursday’s finale and After the Final Rose special.
It’s typical to spot a few Bachelor Nation alumni in the crowd during a franchise finale—a scattering of Bachelor in Paradise favorites here, our next Bachelor, 28-year-old Joey Graziadei, there. But Thursday night rallied even more high-profile troops, including the franchise’s last two successful couples: Charity Lawson and Dotun Olubeko, as well as Zach Shallcross and Kaity Biggar. Also in attendance were O.G. Bachelorette couple Trista and Ryan Sutter and a smattering of celebrity guests, from Reese Witherspoon’s daughter Ava and mother Betty to a very emotionally invested Jennifer Love-Hewitt. Even former Bachelor Peter Weber’s parents, whose performance at their son’s After the Final Rose evidently secured them a lifetime invite, were there.
It all felt like a Bachelor State of the Union—a show of triumph and unity for a spinoff that has reinvigorated the recently stale reality TV dating enterprise by swapping twentysomething Instagram influencers for a crop of over-60 suitors. ABC launched a full-blown marketing blitz ahead of the season, and their efforts paid off: the series premiere was the most watched debut for a Bachelor franchise season since 2021, and the most watched of any premiere on ABC’s streaming partner, Hulu.
72-year-old widower Gerry Turner’s pool of 22 contestants came down to finalists Leslie Fhima, a 64-year-old fitness instructor who says she dated Prince and inspired his 1979 hit “Sexy Dancer,” and Theresa Nist, who celebrated her 70th birthday on night one and received the season’s first kiss.
Each woman brings a unique perspective to their relationship with Gerry, whose wife of 43 years Toni died suddenly in 2017. It’s a tragedy Theresa knows well: she also lost her partner of four-plus decades, Billy. And while in an earlier episode, Theresa frets about being a 70-year-old “competing” against 60-somethings, Gerry makes it clear that it’s her life experience that attracts him to her. In the finale, Gerry says that he likes hearing stories from her marriage because Billy was such a huge part of making Theresa who she is. When she meets Gerry’s daughters and granddaughters, Theresa tells them just how high the stakes are: “We want to make the most of the time that we have left,” she says, both more romantic and realistic than most of what gets said on the original Bachelor.
Meanwhile, the idea of “til death do us part” strikes fear in Leslie because she’s lived through two marriages that didn’t go the distance—though neither divorce was her choice, she tells Gerry’s daughters. That’s evidently something that worries Gerry, who refers to Theresa as the “safe choice” in front of his family. Later in the evening, Leslie notices that something is off. When she tells him, “I love you very, very much,” Gerry replies, “That’s such a special sentiment.” The looming rejection seems to sink in as Leslie asks, “Is there anything you wanna tell me?”