Critique of The Bachelorette (Season 19)

Disclaimer: The following content may contain spoilers from The Bachelorette 

(Season 19)

For season 19 of The Bachelorette, Gabby Windey and Rachel Recchia both embarked on a journey to find love. This is the first time in Bachelor Nation history that there are two leads who will appear for the entire season.

At the beginning of the season, the show had both of the ladies compete for the same men by making them pick from the same pool of men. As you can expect, this can cause a lot of tension between the women if they both fall for the same guy. I personally did not enjoy seeing this lack of structure. Although I do believe the men should have a fair chance at seeing which bachelorette they clicked more with, I feel as if they were playing the field for too long.

I also think this setup unintentionally gave the men power over the leads. It was really degrading to see The Bachelorette choose a man and then the man says “Oh, I can't date you. I like the other lead more.” As a result, we witnessed more men wanting to date Gabby than Rachel. The Bachelorette producers took WAY TOO LONG to intervene!

With the dynamic of two leads simultaneously trying to find love, it was hard not to compare their journeys. We can see this dilemma when Gabby and Rachel speak in their interviews. I enjoyed previous Bachelorette seasons more where there is only one Bachelorette. A single Bachelorette allows the woman to solely focus on her connections with the men that truly want to be with her.