“This Year’s Love,” Ben Flajnik has finally met his match.
Or rather, his “forever.”
The bachelor dropped down to one knee and popped the question to Courtney Robertson in what has quickly become reality TV’s worst-kept secret.
And surprise of all surprises, she squealed, twitched her mouth, and said yes.
Flashback to the beginning of this week’s journey, when we find our favorite floppy-haired Bachelor gazing out at the beautiful snow-capped mountains of Zermatt, Switzerland, reflecting upon the two women that he’s fallen madly in love with.
“Lindzi lights up a room,” he muses, as the camera cuts to a bashful Lindzi, nursing a cup of joe while gazing out into the distance.
“I’m worried about Courtney’s relationship with the other girls,” Ben hems and haws, as a montage of the model pouting throughout her magnificent mountain cabin dances across the screen.
But before he tumbles too deeply into reflective reverie, Ben’s mom and sister Julia pop up at his luxurious cabin to weigh in with their two cents, and presumably, to shake some sense into him.
“My backup has arrived,” a teary-eyed bachelor tells the cameras.
And how. Sister Julia wastes no time grilling her brother on his final two choices, and as Ben tepidly describes Lindzi (he can’t seem to say anything but “lights up a room” or other iterations of the same sentiment), she interrupts.
“Was there a girl that was more dramatic, that the other girls didn’t like?” she asks, before making a few faces when Ben launches into a description of model Courtney. She tells her brother that the woman-on-woman issues are a clear red flag.
At home, viewers breathe a sigh of relief. Finally, some common sense has arrived!
And so has Lindzi. The giddy Floridian bounds up the steps to meet her “boyfriend Ben” - and his mom and sister.
The poor gal is so nervous that she has a problem “eating proper” at the table, but her warm spirit and dimples quickly break the ice and Mama Flajnik takes a mild liking to her.
“So sweet to meet you,” she tells Lindzi after their conversation, in much the same tone someone would thank a stranger for giving up their seat on a crowded bus.
Julia is a little bit tougher to crack. She quizzes Lindzi on Courtney -- “We’re very different,” a diplomatic Lindzi says -- and launches into a long monologue about love and her brother and goodness knows what else.
The bottom line: “I truly feel that she would be a good fit for my brother.”She translates this sentiment to Ben: “She wants to give herself to you.” Wow, awkward wording much?
Then, the long-awaited Courtney meet-and-greet. Julia is already skeptical about this gal that her brother claims to be head-over-heels for because she models for a living, but hey, she’s willing to give the Arizona native the benefit of the doubt.
“Maybe girls are intimidated by her beauty,” she offers.
And Courtney wastes no time reassuring mom and sis that this was exactly the case.
“Some of the girls were a little judge-y of me,” she whines to Julia and Mama Flajnik as Ben looks on uncomfortably. “I was really making an effort from day one, but I could have tried harder.”
What now? Courtney says her piece with both of the Flajnik women separately, and shocker of all shockers - they buy into her baby-talk laden, pursed-lipped confessions of love.
“She’s an amazing woman,” Julia tells Ben.
Okay folks, it’s officially over. Courtney is clearly #winning. But to make it fair, Team Bachelor then tortures poor Lindzi with another date with bachelor Ben.
In a kind of twisted irony, Ben pulls up to pick Lindzi up in a horse and carriage, and they gallavant about town on their Date of Doom. And what better way to celebrate an uncomfortable fate than to dangle thousands of feet in the air in a gondola?
“I want to start a life with you,” a smitten Lindzi tells Ben. He mumbles something about being vulnerable before the two whisk down the side of the mountain.
“I feel like I could trust him, both on the slopes and in life,” she gushes. Why, Lindzi, why? And to cap it off, Lindzi finishes off her date with this zinger: “This is the first time I’ve been so sure about something.”
Womp womp.
Ben and Courtney’s last date, however, is more of the same standard “Bachelor” fare - the two board a helicopter, sit atop a mountain, and then make a few snow angels.
“I hope that our relationship is progressing to new heights,” one or both of them tell the cameras. Who can keep track anymore?
That night, Courtney surprises Ben with a wrapped present - a scrapbook of their journey, complete with “I love you Ben!” scrawled in crayon atop one photo.
Nothing says real, mature love like some arts and crafts.
Then, the proposal (or lack thereof) - prefaced with a friendly visit with Neil Lane (“Hi, I’m Neil Lane!”) that ends with Ben pocketing a diamond ring.
The inevitable happens.
“I want you to know that I’ve fallen in love with you, but I need those moments to last a lifetime and I’ve found that with someone else,” he intones to an inwardly crumbling Lindzi. “I’m sorry. I’m in love with someone else.”
At home, thousands of remotes are thrown at the TV.
A few seconds later, however, ominous music starts up, and a gloved Courtney emerges from her own whirlybird and literally steals Ben’s breath away.
After a lot of stalling and talking about “same path and wavelengths,” Ben cuts to the chase.
“You are my forever,” he tells her as she gasps like a small child and widens her eyes at the ring thrust in her face. “Will you marry me?”
“Yes, of course I will, I love you so much,” she breathes as she embraces her fiance.
Is it time to cue up David Gray’s “This Year’s Love” yet?
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