This season of ABC's "The Bachelorette" may actually be the most dramatic ever. Claire Crawley and Tayshia Adams both played Bachelorette this season, which finally began airing on Tuesday, October 13 (opens in new tab) According to a spoiler from Reality Steve, their season will feature cameos by multiple Bachelor stars and a new episode of "The Bachelorette," which will be broadcast on the ABC network on Tuesday, October 13, at least one major villain, and that two unexpected endings are in store. And that's on top of an unprecedented turnover in which Adams (open in new tab) takes over for Crowley (open in new tab) within weeks of the show's inception.

Now, to recap: first, Crowley was officially announced as the Bachelorette in March, then a pandemic interrupted filming until the summer, and then Crowley became enamored with contestant Dale Moss. (Opens in a new tab) Tayshia Adams, a fan favorite from past seasons, made an appearance. When Crowley left his own season to join Moss, Taysha took over the Bachelorette and a cast reshuffle took place.

Crawley replaced Adams at the end of July 2020 and was replaced in early August, and in early September Reality Steve stated that filming for Adams' season was finished (opens in new tab). So it appears that Adams' season was filmed in one month, a bit shorter than the typical 40-60 days. That makes sense-Adams started with fewer men than the typical Bachelorette and had fewer episodes to fill. 'Teisha was ruined on her end in every way. Everything felt very rushed," Reality Steve observed (opens in new tab).

According to Reality Steve, Adams' top four are: Ben Smith (opens in new tab), Zach Clark (opens in new tab), Brendan Morais (opens in new tab), and Ivan Hall (opens in new tab). (This is contrary to earlier rumors (opens in new tab) that Bennett Jordan, the "Harvard guy," might win.)

Fan favorite Smith is the first to return home. Then comes the fun part: while picking out a ring with Neil Lane - the only part of this season's "The Bachelorette" that feels reassuringly familiar - Morais cools off and realizes he's not ready to jump into another engagement. Morais, like Adams, has been married before and professes that she doesn't want another divorce. (It is possible that Morais' parents were also against it, as they did not show up for the fantasy suites.)

So Morais sends herself home; according to an earlier post by RS (opens in new tab), "By all accounts, Brendan was the one Tasia wanted. She was quite distraught when he left, but still chose someone in the end. (After Morais left, Smith made a surprise reappearance, so technically he is in third place.

Ultimately, Zach Clarke gets the final rose from Adams, although Reality Steve, the main source of spoilers for Bachelor Nation, initially reported that he and Adams were not engaged - which was a big deal, since, well, usually the lead actor gets engaged - but but a few hours before the finale, he reported (open in new tab) that the two were indeed engaged, writing:

"I'd be really shocked if she didn't get engaged at the end of this piece. So that (bit of information) was probably wrong. Taysha has mentioned the words husband and engagement many times in the last few episodes. The only two times that has happened in the past approximately 30 seasons have been Juan Pablo and Colton. That doesn't happen here. So she definitely chose Zach and there is a good chance they will get engaged."

But that doesn't mean it's smooth sailing in the finale, with a promo in which Adams' father tells her she may make the biggest mistake of her life (opens in new tab). Reality Steve noted in a candid blog post (opens in new tab) that he doesn't know exactly what's going on, but passed along this interesting information: "In the past month, I've heard from two different people that Taysha finally chose Zach, that they broke up at some point after the shoot, and that she is currently in contact with Brendan and they are slowly moving towards a relationship, I was told." He added, "This season has been very strange, and I think we know more about Matt's finale now than we do about Teysha's.

Although he won't win, Smith will be back, as promos for the finale confirm. According to Reality Steve, Smith tells Adams he's in love with her and she reconsiders giving him up, but ultimately chooses Clark.

The big question. Early in the season, RS writes Some say they are not together, some say they are still together but not as solidly, some say it won't last. She is a California girl who wants to be an influencer. He runs a sober living facility in NY. So that's kind of where we are at this point."

Since there is no After the Final Rose this year, we will use a different format to get these questions answered. (Open in new tab) RS: "I guess they thought that doing ATFR live was out of the question. It may or may not have had something to do with all the consequences. Chris Harrison will probably zoom in on the possibility of Adams and Clark and the other final four (who are not on The Men Tell All).

But a few weeks before the finale, Adams was spotted on his Instagram story wearing what looked like an engagement ring. Here's the proof:

Here's Reality Steve's take (opens in new tab): "If you're engaged, I don't think you'd be stupid enough to take a picture with a ring on it, but I've seen people mess that up in the past, so it's not that hard to believe. I don't think it is."

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On TikTok (opens in new tab), one sharp-eyed user discovered that the caption of Bachelorette's preview credits a line from Josh Bourelle (opens in new tab). This sparked a frenzy of speculation that Bourelle might appear this season (i.e., it's the Bachelorette, so how could it not be visible).

However, Reality Steve, Adams, and Chris Harrison have denied that Bourelle will appear on Adams' season, with RS writing: "Chris Harrison says, oh no, no. I don't know how her ex-husband's name showed up in closed captioning, it wasn't at the network level, and her ex-husband has nothing to do with this season."

Trigger warning: there is a reference to sexual assault allegations ahead. Reality Steve mentioned several times that Bachelor Nation should expect allegations to come out about Easy, who has been very successful this season and a fan favorite. These allegations came to light on December 18, when HuffPost announced an extensive investigation into the contestant.