In the previous two episodes, McKinley was saucy and mysterious -- but in ep three, she got emotional after hearing the story of fellow contestant Emily Maynard, whose fiancé died in a plane crash.
At that point, McKinley began to reconsider her participation in the show, saying that while she wanted to find love, other competitors -- read: Emily -- needed to do so. She shared these feelings with Womack, removing her fangs to emphasize her intention to come out from behind her self-constructed facade. Then, during the rose ceremony, she walked away before he mentioned her name, causing him to scurry to catch her.
This was unfamiliar territory for Womack. After all, he's the one accustomed to doing the rejecting, having turned thumbs-down on every contestant in season eleven of the series. Indeed, McKinley's actions seemed to make her that much more desirable to him. But she was unwooable, saying she wouldn't feel right about taking a rose from women who were clearly more desperate than was she.Her words rang even truer after Powell got the Bachelor equivalent of the Heisman. She was clearly thunderstruck, sobbing so aggressively that one eye was practically lost in a blog of smeared mascara.
As for McKinley, she demonstrated the sort of emotional depth Bachelor producers seek. She may have been on the air for too brief a stint to guarantee a comeback -- as, say, a future Bachelorette star. But stranger things have happened, especially on reality TV.
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