And so, there's champagne and flowers and almost no passion in the air as Jesse leans in for stiff, camera-ready kisses again and again, reminds us again how great both women look, how really special they each are, and how he has to make "a really big decision" about which woman he wants "to spend the rest of [his] life with."

Strummy strum strum goes the weak "Bachelor"-style guitar. Jesse is overwhelmed and he's confused and he really doesn't know what to do. The girls, meanwhile, are scared and nervous and sad. It's stunning, really, that the producers bother casting new women and men each season, considering that the scripts for the finales are identical to each other, and that the protagonists so rarely venture far from the script.

"I think tonight, above everything else, the best thing that would happen is for me to hear Jesse say that he loves me," Jessica tells us, but it could just as easily be Tara or Trista or Meredith or any of the hopeful brides, past, present and future.

"I think we both came here for the same reasons, we're both looking for that person to spend the rest of our life with. And to hear that would just solidify everything for me." Even if he's reading from a cue card?

But then, at the last minute, Tara starts acting unexpectedly human. "I don't care about a proposal or anything like that," she says through tears. "I just want to be with him." And the next thing you know she's projectile vomiting by the side of the road.

See what happens when you go off-script?

But Jesse knows better than to improvise. Now he's reporting that he's completely sure about which girl to choose, in fact, it's been obvious all along. He wants to spend the rest of his life with this gal. He's always known that, really. Did he know the minute he saw her? It sure seems like it now.

While Tara's arrival is delayed by her vomiting, Jesse is spitting out lines from "Jerry Maguire," telling Jessica that she makes him a better person. "I believe that you and I were meant to meet each other." Amazing, how quickly we emerge from chaos, into the loving arms of fate!

"I will make you the happiest woman in the world," Jesse says, but we're less convinced. What if you get cut by the Giants, Jesse? Can you make Jessica the happiest woman in the world in Cleveland? Houston? Buffalo?

Finally, Tara arrives, showing the severe side effects of having cast out her script hours earlier. She asks for a minute to gather her nerves. She stumbles to the Proposal Area and asks for tissues because she's crying and flipping out. Then she makes "Bachelor" franchise history and tells Jesse that she's been having extremely bad feelings all day -- that's right, extremely bad feelings -- and she's not sure if it's because he's not going to choose her, or if it's because her friend Jessica is going to get hurt. But either way, she says, this whole thing is wrong.

"Wait!" Jesse's face seems to say. "This is not your line! This is the part where I'm supposed to reject you gracefully!" So he tells her that she can get all negative and psychic and human on her own time, because he's already told Jessica -- you know, the other one -- that he wants to spend the rest of his life with her.

Tara is angry. "Jesse did a lot of things that were completely inappropriate if he was going to end up with another girl," she tells us on the white limo ride to hell that follows. Like what things? Dirty things? Things involving butter knives and plastic twine and ripe fruit? Please be more specific.

But it's too late. Tara is no longer woozy, so she's reading straight from her script again.

Back at Proposal Alley, Jesse gives Jessica the final rose, which really makes him seem manly and decisive after all, at least until he announces their breakup on "The Today Show" a few weeks from now. Jessica, for her part, says she feels like the happiest, luckiest girl in the whole world.

Almost exactly like that, in fact.

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