Can the "nothing you've seen before" Bachelor finale overwrite the memory of Arie Luyendyk Jr.'s dull season?

Vulture

Really, it would take some effort to overcome the memory of Arie, "the most boring, underwhelming series lead in recent memory," says Kathryn VanArendonk. She adds: "After the falling ratings of the franchise’s first black lead, and the disastrous coverage of the most recent season of Bachelor in Paradise, landing on Arie felt like a deliberate choice to play it as safe as possible. Presumably the intention was that he’d be a return to Bachelor greatness, when the genre was new enough and contestants unrehearsed enough that a man-shaped wax figure in a suit was enough to fuel a reality-TV fairy tale. But we’ve now seen so many seasons of this show, so many identical buffed and polished people, that instead, Arie’s been produced and edited to become the mass-produced chain-hotel artwork of Bachelors. He’s anodyne, inoffensive, and unexciting. He’s not enough to really draw the eye, but he’s certainly not going to piss anyone off. Or make an audience feel much of anything at all." ALSO: What it means to be The Bachelor villain.