(Screen Capture from ABC)

Like the most capable of Formula One pit crews, the Bachelor producers pulled out every conceivable trick in the book for last night’s finale. They brought in Ben’s mother, a cross-examining answer to Barbara Walters. They imported Ben’s poncho-wearing sister, whose known model prejudice seemed a shoo-in for a Courtney face-off, then crowned her with a Fair Isle beanie for comic effect. They reunited Lindzi with Swiss horses in a bid to ignite her fighting spirit. They even outfitted the contestants in countless examples of monochromatic knitwear, commandeered Swiss airspace to make way for the show’s legion of helicopters, and filmed the Matterhorn from myriad angles. It was a heroic, no, super-heroic mission, and to underline it, they put their leading ladies in capes. Capes!

But in the end, it felt less like a dramatic race to the finish, and more like a Herculean effort to close the gap with frontrunner Courtney, whose car had time to do a victory lap before crossing the finish line with a purr. (Speaking of purring, we’d be remiss not to mention this bonus special effect from the show’s intro: an overt camera pan to Courtney petting a stray European cat, as if to prove she doesn’t kill everything she touches after all. Subtle.)

Yes, there was an air of inevitability to the whole thing, like the return of Ben’s very own Jawstheme song, “This Year’s Love.” Then there were his endless aviation-as-relationship metaphors (“We’re flying over the Swiss alps, and I’m hoping our relationship is progressing to new