The Bachelor finale review: Did Nick Viall propose to Vanessa Grimaldi, Raven Gates?

Did Nick Viall propose to Vanessa Grimaldi or Raven Gates? It was the question at the center of The Bachelor finale on Monday night, and in this review, we’re going to do our best to break this down and figure out precisely everything that happened — and rest assured, there was certainly a LOT of drama and back-and-forth before these two hours.

Over the course of the night, we heard Chris Harrison specifically reference a HISTORIC moment coming — but it’s not here yet. That’s something that you should be watching for instead during the After the Final Rose special because rest assured, it’s almost certainly coming … and it will probably be far less significant that it’s being hyped up to be. That’s just the nature of the show.

As for the path to get us there, the only real source of drama was Nick choosing to play his cards close to the vest throughout the night, not saying “I love you” and not doing anything to get someone’s hopes up that they could be the person he would choose to be with at the very end of the show. He wanted to make the proposal feel special, and we also feel like he remembered how much it stunk to be told so many sweet nothings and then get rejected right before the proposal. We do admire him for that, even if there does seem to be a lot of TV gamesmanship going on in the episode where he says what he thinks that the produces of the show want to hear. (To be fair, it probably is what the producers want to hear, so he’s doing a good job there.)

Probably the funniest part of the first hour (the entire family segment was lifelessly boring beyond Raven being painted as Bella’s best friend, even though they maybe spent a couple of hours together at most) was Nick and Vanessa having to act like some random Santa Claus had an opinion that actually mattered. He didn’t.

Did Nick propose to Vanessa Grimaldi or Raven Gates?

The answer is … Vanessa! The moment that we saw Raven get out of the limo, it was very much clear that we were going to see this be the ending. This is a show that is certainly predictable more than anything else! He eventually proposed, and she said yes!

Also, we want to make sure that nobody missed out on this quote, after Nick asked Vanessa if she was ready to start a new life: “Let’s go do it. Literally.” Hey-o.

Overall, a very good finale for the show, though it’s probably among one of the most predictable finales ever. Yet, they are always, right?

Check out the remainder of our Bachelor finale coverage!