HEY GUYS WE’RE BACK! As if this wasn’t enough of a ratings ploy, we kicked off the after show by watching THE EXACT SAME THING WE ALREADY WATCHED. Yanno, in case it wasn’t already hammered home that Becca got dumped, why not watch it all over again? Then we watch her fly home (coach) and sit on her couch looking at pictures and videos of her and Arie and sob. It’s almost like producers handed her these things and then turned cameras on…

Meanwhile, Arie is on a direct flight to Virginia Beach to get Lauren back and “have a panic attack” outside of her house. She obviously 100% expected him as she jumped into his arms and told him it was so hard being rejected that she moved back home with her parents. Must be nice to quit your “job” over heartbreak and move back in with mommy and daddy. She asks why he didn’t propose to her and Arie said it was because he saw a flash of doubt in her eye once and basically picked Becca because it was the safe choice and she seemed like she’d make a great wife. Could this guy BE a bigger asshole?! Apparently not to Lauren, who basically writhes all over him and demands the ring pronto tonto. PS Arie also tells Lauren he’s 1000% over Becca, like 3 days after dumping her. So that’s nice. Glad he has feels.

Now we’re back to the “live” portion, or as it quickly becomes evident, fluff on fluff on fluff. Not sure how Kendall, Bekah, Sienne, Caroline & Tia became the Peanut Gallery of this year’s finale but they’ve gotten more screen time than Becca herself and it’s getting REAL annoying (I’m looking at you Bekah, trying to stretch that missing girl, big chandelier earring, fame as far as it will go.) Chris brings the Spice Girls down to ask them what they think of all of this, individually, the question phrased differently each time. Lemme save you 25 mins, they all think Arie’s a douchenozzle, Becca is queen and dodged a bullet and Lauren better GET OUT QUICK.

Becca’s trucked back out to show everyone that she’s still a babe and she’s doing just fine, and to reassure the world that airing her breakup in full shouldn’t make us all irrationally angry. Once she confirms with Chris that it’s totes ok for producers to exploit her life and she signed up for this, Chris is like GREAT, let’s joke about it-check out these billboards, HAHAHA. Becca offers to donate all the drink money everyone’s been venmoing her and Chris is like YES WE WILL MATCH. Not for nothing but it sounds like Chris Harrison is speaking from a guilty conscience here after facing a little TOO much backlash on night one.

Becca gets her moment to face Arie and be the bigger person (cough cough because she’s being preened to step into Bachelorette) and all I wanted was for her to say, “First of all, how dare you?” Instead she forgives him and Arie is still a bumbling idiot who stutters, “I do regret regret proposing that day.” Becca responds that he robbed her of her first engagement and proposal which is SO true but like stay in this franchise and it won’t really matter in another year, girl.

In other useless television, Jason Mesnick and his 100 year old People cover that was once “SCANDALOUS” are also trotted out to waste even more time. Chris Harrison continues to make everything about himself saying he received threats after what they aired. Something tells me Chris has never faced a second of disapproval in his life and he’s really struggling with it. He would like Jason to comfort him.

Lauren and Arie come out next to try and get us all to like them again. It doesn’t work. Chris tells Lauren, “I can’t even imagine what’s going through your mind right now.” And she says, “Me neither.”

I want you to let that sink in for a minute.

This is the most truthful thing that has ever been said on this whole season. Literally not a thought in Lauren’s brain and she FULLY admits it. You’re so pretty, Lauren. Keep up the good work.

They reveal that their romantic story continued when Arie slid into her DM’s on New Year’s Eve. If I may borrow a favorite word from Lauren, WOW! WHAT A LOVE STORY. Lauren gets dumped for another girl, then they’re reconnected in the lush forest of DM’s. HOW much do you wanna bet it was after Lauren posted a babe soda I’m doing better than you selfie? The HAPPY couple is about to head out of the country and stay off of social media because everyone obviously hates them and also that’s what two people who don’t have jobs do. After they return, Lauren is moving to Arizona probably because she’s living with her parents right now and also because in this ass backwards franchise, the girl ALWAYS uproots her life and moves to the guys’ home city, which is preposterous, among many other things of course. Arie tries to sell everyone on him and Lauren like its a piece of real estate (see what I did there?) and not a living, breathing, relationship. Then he takes the opportunity to propose in front of an audience that is NOT having it, in the most staged and disingenuous way. I didn’t think anything could be more cringeworthy and tone deaf than him knocking on the bathroom door while the fiance he just dumped sobs and asking if she was ok AND THEN THIS PROPOSAL HAPPENED. What a joke. Obviously Lauren says yes, Chris Harrison wishes them at least one month more than Arie’s previous engagement and literally not one person in the audience gives a shit. PS you bet your bottom dollar I had my eyes glued to the TV to see if it was the same ring. How dirt city is it that Arie just 100% weaseled another free ring out of ABC/ya boy Neil Lane? I mean it’s not shocking at this point, because everything Arie does is terrible. BUT STILL I’M MAD ABOUT IT.

Oh, and also Becca is the next Bachelorette BECAUSE OF COURSE and we kill more time by asking what all her “BFF’s” (the peanut gallery) think of her being the bachelorette and then she meets 3 or 4 (honestly I don’t remember) of the guys from her season right onstage and it’s awkward and weird and NOW WE ARE FINALLY FINISHED WITH THAT WANKER ARIE! Thanks British contestant, who will only last longer next season because of your accent, for pointing that out. Can we all take a moment to laugh at the fact that Arie came out of this show looking like a total troutsniffer, no one even cared about his proposal and the finale was all about how flawle$$ Becca is. That makes me very happy. Now accepting over/unders on Lauren and Arie’s relashe. Something tells me escaping to another country to avoid a media shitstorm ISN’T A GR8 OMEN.