Colton Underwood did something few Bachelors or Bachelorettes have done before him: He might have actually made good on Chris Harrison's semi-annual verbal clickbait promising the "most dramatic season of [insert Bachelor franchise series here] EVER."
If you didn't watch the show or see any of the memes and jokes that followed the (admittedly very) dramatic finale, Colton professed his love to Cassie Randolph during her fantasy suite date (but on camera, before the fantasy suite portion of the evening) as she simultaneously and gut-wrenchingly dumped him.
After a lot of shaking tears and awkward breakup talk, Cassie left, confident-ish that she had made the right decision. Her reasoning: Colton was in love with her, but she (like many a Bachelor(ette) contestant before her), just wasn't sure she could "get there," which is show code for "I'm just not that into you and, TBH, probably still won't be by the end of filming so...see you at Tell All, k?" Colton responded like any anyone would—by jumping an eight-foot fence and then disappearing into the Portuguese countryside in the middle of the night, prompting Chris Harrison to drop the F-bomb on camera.
It was amazing. All of it. The next morning, Colton, wrangled by PAs, broke up with the other two finalists, Tayshia and Hannah G., and went to win Cassie back—which he did, although without The Bachelor's standard finale proposal. The drama of Colton and Cassie's fantasy suite date was shocking, but it probably shouldn't have been. Cassie's hometown date was, in retrospect at least, pretty rough.
Not only did her dad refuse to give Colton his permission to ask for her hand in marriage (before flying to Portugal to basically convince Cassie to dump Colton), but their pre-family date was pretty awkward too. It was already clear that Cassie was having some doubt-y thoughts about the whole thing.
Now that they're openly dating, however, Colton has traveled back to Cassie's hometown of Huntington Beach, CA for a do-over. And both Cassie and Colton are Instagramming the hell out of their real hometown date.
"Here goes our actual hometown date :)," Cassie captioned a short series of photos of her and Colton hanging out with some of her friends.
Colton and Cassie might not be engaged, but they have the trust of an engaged couple. Case-in-point: Colton lets Cassie post to Instagram for him. It's like sharing a toothbrush, practically.
Colton also shared proof that Cassie's dad doesn't hate him anymore (not that he ever hated him, but you know):
In maybe his biggest show of love, self-declared dog person Colton posed with a cat and shared the photo with the world:
And, as a grand finale, Colton and Cassie made out in a bar, which was apparently another Colton first that Cassie got to claim:
Congratulations to the happy couple!
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