The second season of Bachelor in Paradise is underway and I can smell love in the air. Each week, former Bachelor nation contestants worry that they won't get a rose and will have to return to their very non-paradise lives back in the United States. The worry that the contestants have almost makes it seem like there is a prize on Bachelor in Paradise . Who wouldn't want to stay on the show for a few more weeks if there is some shiny prize with a nice big bow waiting for them at the end? Well, the contestants can beg for roses all they want, but a rose is not going to get them closer to a prize, unless they believe in the greatest prize of all: love.
There's a weird vernacular that goes along with the Bachelor franchise. More often than not, I catch myself referring to the people at the end of the season as "winners," when really, they're not "winning" anything. Sure, the hopeless romantic can argue that they're winning the hearts of those they fall in love with, but the title of Bachelor winner evokes more of "last girl standing" than it does "girl who found love."
For Bachelor in Paradise, it is no different. Because this show hopes to achieve multiple love connections at the end of the series, the "winners" of Bachelor in Paradise are just the couples that stay together for the show. You "win" an opportunity to spend the rest of your life with your soulmate... or spend the next three months "dating" someone and then breaking up because it wasn't right. (OK, fine. I'm a little glass half-empty when it comes to the success of this show.)
I guess, if we're really looking at this from an open mindset, one could argue that the couples that last until the end of the series might "win" an all-expense paid wedding by ABC if they actually last. But then, to play my own devil's advocate, Lacy and Marcus' wedding might not have even been official and legally binding, so who knows if that's even true.
So, yes. You do win something on Bachelor in Paradise if you make it until the very end of the season, but it's not cold hard cash. Then again, if you're lucky to "win" the love of another contestant, the money doesn't matter, does it?
Images: Rick Rowell/ABC; Giphy
