Watching The Bachelor is always an emotional roller coaster, but this season in particular has been all over the place. Episodes have been starting with Rose Ceremonies, if they happen at all, and now it's starting to seem like women are absorbing that spirit too. For example, does Taylor come back during The Bachelor hometowns? The preview for the Feb. 20 episode showed a long-haired brunette knocking on Nick's hotel room door, and the voiceover revealed that, whoever the mystery knocker is, she's someone returning to the show. So is it Taylor Nolan, the mental health counselor from Seattle, Washington?
Much as I'd like to see that drama unfold, the answer is no. My best guess is that the returning woman is Andi Dorfman, back from Nick's original season of The Bachelorette to give him some much-needed advice. (And probably also to reassure viewers that they're totally chill now and ready to bask in new-found maturity, sans all that old tension.) But, hey, you'd also be forgiven for thinking that the lady in question was Taylor; not only is she a much more recent figure in Nick's past than Andi is, but this also wouldn't be the first time that she reappeared after being sent home.
After her elimination on that fateful two-on-one date, Taylor swallowed her pride, squared her shoulders, and stomped off to interrupt Nick and Corinne's private date. She wanted to try one last time to make Nick understand why she thought he was making a mistake choosing Corinne. And, since the latter is still on the show, it's conceivable that Taylor would give it one last shot, showing up in a last-ditch effort to get the nanny-having blonde sent home.
But, if that were the case, I think ABC would be marketing the showdown very differently; in all the previews leading up to Taylor's confrontation with Nick and Corinne, the situation was made very clear in advance. I think, if she was coming back yet again, producers would have been teasing it all season, like they did the rest of the drama. As a result, I think it's very likely that the returnee is Andi Dorfman, coming back to give her former lover advice, a la Jillian Harris and Ed Swiderski advising Jake Pavelka in 2010 and Ben Higgins and Lauren Bushnell weighing in on JoJo Fletcher's finale episode last year.
Once you've watched as many seasons of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette as I have, you start to be able to pick out these patterns and identify the ways they promote things in advance. So, if our mystery guest is anyone but Andi Dorfman, I'll eat my shark costume.
