Season 5’s “After the Final Rose“ episode started with everyone’s favorite girl, Melissa Rycroft, for an update we didn’t really need. We all know that getting dumped on television was the best thing that ever happened to her. She’s since had a really impressive run on Dancing with the Stars, where she came in second place behind Olympian Shawn Johnson, made Maxim’s Hot 100, got a job on Good Morning America, and now has a fiance she actually knows. Best of all, she doesn’t have to marry skeevy Jason Mesnick; we all know that is the biggest prize of all.
Melissa is now engaged to former ex-boyfriend Tye Strickland, who helped her through the pain of the Mesnick ordeal/jackpot. When asked if Jason made the right decision, Melissa answered with an enthusiastic “Yes!”
Click Melissa’s pic below to make it bigger:
Next Kiptyn was brought out to discuss the pains of rejection. Kiptyn calls the experience “crushing,” but I’m still not convinced that he was extremely let down by the whole event. It always hurts to be rejected, and I’m sure he felt something from Jillian after spending so much time with her, but I don’t doubt that she made a good decision in not choosing him.
Kiptyn says he doesn’t regret anything, and was glad that he waited to say things like “I love you” because he really meant them when he said them. When Jillian comes out to be reunited with him, he asks her if there was anything he could have done differently and she answers that he didn’t do anything wrong.
Next up is Reid Rosenthal, who “pulled a million strings” to show up at the finale to try to win Jillian’s heart. Reid says that a piece of him is still missing. Jillian comes out and gets misty eyes when she talks about the strong feelings she had for Reid but explains how happy Ed is making her. A girl from the audience then hits on Reid.
When Reid leaves, Jillian is on stage by herself and they bring Ed out to hug and kiss and watch the proposal moment. They reveal that Jillian has plans to move from her home in Vancouver, Canada to Ed’s apartment in Chicago soon and the pair plan to get married within the next year. They don’t plan to take anything slow, since they haven’t thus far.
An audience member asks Ed about his mankini and another one asks about his “performance issues.” Ed, who looks a bit like David Schwimmer, suffered from performance anxiety during an “intimate” date, but Jillian claims that that was definitely a one time deal.
So really no big drama. There hasn’t been any big hoopla in the media about Jillian Harris and Ed Swiderski breaking up, so we can safely assume that they’re still together and going forward with their plans.
According to Jillian:
“I think we’re just such a great team, whatever works for the two of us, works for the two of us.”
UPDATE 8/5/09 – There may be trouble in paradise!
~ Carrie Glass
