The final episode of season 25 of
The Bachelor promised to be a finale unlike any other. It was coming after a season defined by offscreen racist controversy surrounding photos of front-runner Rachael Kirkconnell at an antebellum plantation party in 2018 and host Chris Harrison's tone-deaf defense of her in an interview with former Bachelorette and
Extra host Rachel Lindsay. The "After the Final Rose" special would not be hosted by Harrison but by sports analyst and author Emmanuel Acho.
But some things remained the same. As the preview played, a familiar, paternal voice explained to viewers what to expect from this shocking night of television. It was the voice of Harrison, who had stepped aside from the franchise to get "educated" after that disastrous interview. Yet…he was still there.
This decision was indicative of the show's fundamentally shallow approach to racial progress: We weren't going to see
The Bachelor engage in honest self-reflection about the ways in which the show actively inflicts harm on the people of color who pass through it, and we certainly weren't going to see them institute substantive, lasting changes to the franchise.
Instead, we saw producers try to perform a clever sleight of hand: give the audience just enough progress to quiet them for a while.
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