Susie Evans won over Bachelor Nation with her chilly Bachelor departure from Iceland, but she couldn't stay gone for long!
After Clayton Echard admitted to sleeping with the two other remaining women—Gabby Windey and Rachel Recchia—Susie left him in the dust (snow?) and he was left to pick up the very messy pieces.
However, on the March 15 episode, Susie made her triumphant return. It wouldn't be the Bachelor without a dramatic twist in the finale!
It was Clayton who instigated the reunion, saying that he was "willing to risk it all to talk to her again."
Host Jesse Palmer traveled to meet Susie and asked if she'd be willing to sit down with Clayton. Despite Clayton's parents saying they thought there was a "slim to none" chance that Susie would show up, she agreed and met Clayton—and his parents!—at his Icelandic villa.
Once they began hashing it out, Susie was firm in her convictions. "I was really shocked by how everything ended," she said. "The way you treated me, like the way you turned? That's when my mentality on you changed. I couldn't even defend myself. I felt so vulnerable."
As she continued, Susie expressed some regret over her own actions. But she didn't think it validated Clayton's behavior.
"I felt bad about what I did," she confessed. "It was humiliating, if I'm being honest. I felt like a stray dog that had come into your home and you were shooing me out."
Clayton defended himself by saying it was all one big misunderstanding!
"I did not mean the things that I said," he argued. "When I said I thought that I didn't know who I was looking at, I got to that point because I saw myself losing you. I got scared and the fear overcame me. I just went way out of character."
Clayton insisted that if Susie left again, he would "lose everything." At the end of his mea culpa, Clayton begged Susie to stay.
"I know it can be a love that is worth fighting for and a love that will last a lifetime," he said. "I know it can be. I would do anything. In my heart, I'm asking you, is there any way you can give me a second chance? I love you and I don't want to lose you."
Susie refused to give him a definitive answer, saying she wasn't "at a place to make a decision right now."
Either way, it felt good to see Susie and Clayton have a civilized—OK, for Bachelor standards—conversation about their relationship. There was power in Susie's simultaneous vulnerability and stoicism.
There's nothing quite like a Bachelor contestant scorned. But it's even better when they leave with their head held high.
Of course, as the finale revealed, Susie initially turned down Clayton's plea for a reconciliation, but ultimately reached out to him after production wrapped. She happily told the After the Final Rose crowd, "That's my boyfriend."
As for Gabby and Rachel? They were named the next co-leads for season 19 of The Bachelorette. So, everything worked out for the better, we guess!