Bachelor Nation followers watched with bated breath as Joey Graziadei’s journey to seek out love got here to an in depth on March 25. Within the last moments of the Season 28 finale, Graziadei bends down on one knee and asks Kelsey Anderson, 25, a junior undertaking supervisor from New Orleans, for her hand in marriage — which she fortunately provides. Graziadei lastly tells Anderson he loves her. Anderson tearfully says it again. They kiss they usually hug and all of it appears like a fairly run-of-the-mill Bachelor finale. Besides that it wasn’t.Now we have runner-up Daisy Kent to thank for that.Breaking ‘Bachelor’ protocolKent, 25, made her mark on Graziadei’s season, from her entrance — she arrived in a truck crammed with Christmas bushes, a nod to having grown up on a Christmas tree farm — throughout the competitors as one of many last two contestants vying for the Bachelor’s last rose. Within the finale, she desires to be “the final particular person” on the finish with Graziadei however has doubts that the Bachelor will decide her, a concern that’s solely heightened by her final date, which she stated felt “off.”In a franchise first, Kent goes to Anderson’s resort room simply earlier than the proposal, and the ladies have a heartfelt dialog about their last dates with Graziadei. Whereas Anderson says she felt reassured, Kent says she felt as if Graziadei was very cautious along with his phrases.“That is so arduous, listening to Kelsey say that she acquired validation. It simply hurts as a result of I put 100%, all the things I might, into this,” Kent says to the digicam.Viewers then see separate pictures of Kent and Anderson within the limo on their approach to the proposal location, solely to study that they’re truly in the identical limo collectively and are holding fingers.Kent is the primary to exit the limo to fulfill Graziadei, who acknowledges that she was his first actual connection. However earlier than he has an opportunity to let her down, Kent says her piece.“I do love you, however the factor is, you’re not going to decide on me,” she tells Graziadei. When he presents to stroll her out, she replies, “I feel it’s one thing I ought to do alone.”Kent makes her method again to the limo, the place Anderson is ready outdoors the automobile, one other franchise first. The ladies embrace, and Kent tells Anderson that she is aware of her mom, who died in 2018, is proudly wanting down on her.Within the time of Barbie, the Period’s tour, a brand new ardour for girls’s sports activities and many others we get proven essentially the most lovely show of feminine friendship this franchise has ever proven #thebachelor pic.twitter.com/JmxcL7tKFE— Camp Actuality Pod (@camprealitypod) March 26, 2024Typically on Bachelor franchise exhibits, the finale marks the one time through the season when the ultimate two contestants are remoted from each other. They keep in separate resort rooms, go on particular person dates and arrive on the proposal ceremony at completely different occasions. However Kent and Anderson connecting forward of the proposal, driving collectively to the ultimate location after which embracing after Kent’s self-elimination was, for a lot of, a welcome departure from the norm.“It exhibits that these two ladies didn’t see it as a contest however actually as ‘discovering the right match,’ which is what the present is meant to be about,” Kay Brown, co-host of the Betchelor podcast, informed Yahoo Leisure. “We see so many examples of individuals simply desirous to win and never seeing it as ‘Is that this the best particular person?’ And the truth that Daisy didn’t inform Joey she did all this exhibits how a lot she knew that’s what it was actually about.”Yahoo Leisure reached out to ABC for remark however didn’t instantly obtain a response.‘Battle and scores’Danielle Lindemann, an affiliate professor of sociology at Lehigh College and creator of True Story: What Actuality TV Says About Us, informed Yahoo Leisure that Kent and Anderson’s therapy of each other within the finale is “in some methods” a departure from what Bachelor Nation is accustomed to.“The very premise of the present performs into the cultural stereotype that ladies are in competitors with one another for a scarce commodity — enticing, profitable males — on the heterosexual marriage market,” she stated. “A key ingredient of a lot [of] actuality TV is battle, and traditionally this present has relied on stress between the ladies as a central driver of battle and scores.”Maria Pramaggiore, division chair of interdisciplinary research at Appalachian State College, who makes a speciality of sexuality and gender in actuality tv, defined that the ladies on The Bachelor are traditionally confronted with a double commonplace.“Conventional gender norms dictate that ladies will not be female in the event that they compete, in order that they face a double commonplace to start with. They’re imagined to ‘win’ the hand [or] proposal of the Bachelor whereas not showing to be ambitiously aiming for that and competing with the opposite ladies,” she informed Yahoo Leisure. “If the present weren’t about competitors, they’d give the Bachelor the opportunity of courting 32 ladies in serial trend, one by one. He would cease when he ‘discovered his particular person,’ as they are saying. This construction is explicitly comparative and due to this fact aggressive.”Kent and Anderson’s resolution to forgo protocol, Pramaggiore added, is a testomony to their sisterhood and a rejection of the present’s aggressive nature.“The truth that Daisy and Kelsey selected to avert the end result of this situation in a ‘winner’ and a ‘loser’ is critical, however the present frames it as a private selection — in different phrases, it’s not characterised as a second that undermines this system’s premises,” she stated. “This can be a doubtlessly important second however might be attributed to particular person personalities and, maybe, the yr of Barbie — when ladies select solidarity over competitors as a result of it’s what’s circulating within the in style zeitgeist.”On Kent’s termsKent’s resolution to place herself first has been counseled by followers on social media. Contemplating that she was in a “pretty unhealthy” and “aggressive state of affairs,” Pramaggiore stated, Kent appears to have made a wholesome selection for herself.“It appeared essential to her confidence to really feel there was a risk of being chosen by a person for romantic love,” Pramaggiore stated. “On the similar time, that confidence appeared to present her the braveness to decide on herself on the conclusion — to declare brazenly that the match between her and Joey was not what it ought to be and due to this fact she was not making an attempt to win the ultimate rose in a situation that may deem her the ‘loser.’”What Kent and Anderson have proven viewers, although, is that self-love and love to your mates are equally as essential, if no more so, as getting the man.