The most surprising thing about the three-hour finale of The Bachelor was that there were few surprises, though since this is The Bachelor that shouldn’t be surprising at all. There was potential from things like the letter, though both Sean’s parents and Lindsay gave the finale its most exciting moments.

To recap: Sean picked Catherine; Lindsay was upset; Sean and Catherine will marry on ABC if they don’t break up first; Sean is on Dancing with the Stars. Also: tease, tease, tease, nothing. Tease, tease, tease, nothing.

Sean’s dad was amazing and things, but I actually found Sean’s mother’s response to the process to be the most interesting and entertaining part of Meet the Parents, Sister, and Silent Hot Brother-in-Law. Sean’s mother started crying, apparently because she thought Sean was going to rush into a relationship too soon with either woman, although it seemed bigger, like that she was with the parameters of The Bachelor: stringing someone along, making a rushed decision. She basically begged him not to propose to one of them.

But of course he did propose to Catherine, after rejecting Lindsay, who should have figured things out about the time that she was assuming his kisses were an expression of his secret love for her. To her great credit, she told him, “this is my nightmare” and took off her shoes, as if to say, Screw this.

Why is she not the next Bachelorette star?

The letter was from Catherine, and although it was set up as a cliffhanger, and although Chris Harrison totally screwed up and said, “That was a brutal break-up for Catherine.” It seemed like he was spoiling what was to come: Sean breaking up with Catherine, or Catherine breaking up with him via letter.

But no, he just said Catherine instead of Lindsay. The letter turned out to just be something akin to what a third grader might write to her future husband, if she were to meet that man on television.

Catherine, after trying to gauge Sean’s interest using things like fireworks and holding kittens hostage (I kid, but almost), was so aghast that she’d been chosen that she stared at Sean with a scary face. Their big announcement during the live reunion was that they’ll marry on TV, because if they learned anything from this process, it was how to milk something for all it’s worth.