The Bachelor/Bachelorette is a bit of an odd TV franchise and this season it got even stranger, with the up-close depiction of a classic abusive relationship.

Ever since the show became a vehicle for those chasing celebrity, the Bachelor or Bachelorette of the moment has had one more thing to worry about when trying to decide who gets a rose and who goes home. They not only have to figure out who might be a good match for them, but also who might be on the show for “the wrong reasons.”

This season’s Bachelorette, Hannah Brown, was determined to connect with someone who was sincerely interested in her, but her fear of being duped by a self-promoter might have led her into a different kind of trap, with a contestant by the name of Luke P.

As we watched the season unfold, Hannah seemed oblivious to Luke’s true nature. She always wanted to see the best in him, even when he kept making it incredibly difficult for her to do so.

Luke P. kept behaving like a total jerk. He was super-aggressive with the other men and early on, they all started to hate his guts. He was pathologically dishonest, always saying one thing and doing another, and yet Hannah kept giving him chances.

It was incredibly frustrating to the other men, who sincerely feared for Hannah and wanted this jerk to get what he deserved and be sent home. It was equally frustrating to Hannah, who wanted to make her own decisions and who resented the other men trying to tell her what to do.

Luke P. lingered in the mix for far longer than he should have, often high-jacking the cocktail parties and making it impossible for Hannah to connect with the other guys. He stole the bulk of Hannah’s attention and his antics ate up a good deal of airtime on the show, as well.

In the “Men Tell All” episode, Hannah explained that she’d felt an instant connection with Luke because of their shared faith – something deeply important to her – so she held on to that feeling for too long.

She said that she didn’t listen to all the negative things the other men had to say about Luke because she wanted to make up her own mind. I think that this was a mistake on her part, because her insistence on independence in this case deprived her of essential information.

In the same episode, Hannah explained that she’d been “insecure” when walking into the show, wondering if she was going to meet anyone who really cared for her. She said that when Luke P. declared his feelings for her early on, she took it as a sign that he was sincere.

That was another mistake that Hannah made, because when someone professes to love you a minute after they’ve met you, this is a huge red flag, not a sign that you’ve found “the one.” Instead of being reassured, Hanna should have been terrified.

A typical abuser will profess their love for you almost as soon as they’ve met you. For those of us raised on rom-coms this might sound romantic, but instantaneous declarations of love almost never have anything to do with romance. They’re almost always about the need to possess the other person.

The word, “love” is simply the hook with which the abuser catches their prey.

Luke P. demonstrated a disturbing pattern throughout the entire series, in which he’d say or do something controlling or insensitive to Hannah and then when she got upset he’d back-pedal like crazy.

Hannah, who wanted so badly to give him the benefit of the doubt, allowed him to convince her over and over again that he wasn’t as awful as his behavior demonstrated.

Sadly, many people are willing to give an abuser the benefit of the doubt. They do it because they feel some sort of attachment to this person or because they don’t want to believe the truth about them. They tell themselves that the abuser didn’t really mean what they just said.

For Hannah, it was also because she had found Luke so physically attractive from the start, and considered him “the best kisser” in the group. We should never underestimate the importance of chemistry when it comes to keeping someone around who otherwise shouldn’t be there.

Fortunately for Hannah, she eventually saw the light. When Luke made outrageous demands around her sexuality she got mad, real mad, and she let Luke have it, right between the eyes. The audience breathed a collective sigh of relief that Hannah had finally gained the clarity she’d been hoping for and sent Luke packing.

And then everyone got to see the true extent of Luke’s abusiveness, because if he’d been a normal man, the rage-fueled break-up he experienced with Hannah would have been more than enough to deter him from ever contacting her again; let alone showing up at the next rose ceremony with an engagement ring, as he did.

For Luke, Hanna telling him to “F$%# off” at the end of their date was merely a minor setback on his path toward achieving his goal.

What everyone should know is that an abuser who says “I love you” after a minute is also typically someone who’ll refuse to take “No” for an answer.

That’s because he sets his eye on the prize and he won’t let go of it. Persistence like this isn’t romantic; it’s contemptuous, as it fundamentally disrespects the other person’s wishes. It has nothing to do with love and everything to do with winning.

Most of the men on the show seemed to care about Hannah and value her as a person. They frequently mentioned how they enjoyed her humor, her independence, her strength and her forthrightness.

Interestingly, as much as Luke said that he loved Hannah, he never commented on any qualities in her that he appreciated.

That’s because Luke didn’t see Hannah; not really. He just saw her as the “prize” to be won. As soon as he was on the show, he fixated on Hannah as the “object” to be obtained and he saw the other men as competitors to be defeated.

Whereas the other guys respected Hannah, wanted the best for her and hoped that if she didn’t choose them, then at least she should be with someone good for her, Luke P. wanted to possess her regardless of the cost to her. His behavior clearly demonstrated that he never once put Hannah’s feelings or needs in the forefront.

Everything Luke P. did was designed either to advance his cause or to get him out of trouble. This isn’t the behavior of someone in love; it’s the actions of a predator, hyper-focused on catching and keeping his prey.

Luke P. was an unusual character for the Bachelor and Bachelorette franchise but sadly, this type of abuser isn’t rare in the real world. In real life, an abusive partner will often get away with his horrendous behavior precisely because there’s no-one there to call him out and to make him stop.

Typical abusers will isolate their partner from their friends, family and support system so that they can keep undermining their partner’s self-confidence and keep on using and abusing them.

Luckily for Hannah, there were millions of witnesses to Luke’s abuse.

It was chilling when we observed Luke P. being a jackass toward the other men and then immediately afterwards, acting like a sad puppy dog in front of Hannah. Being two-faced is typical behavior for a deceitful, manipulative abuser but it was only because Luke P. was on TV that so many of us got a glimpse of how such people behave in real life.

At the end of the “Men Tell All” episode, Hanna expressed how she hoped that her interactions with Luke P. would be helpful to anyone else who might be in a “toxic relationship.” I applaud her sentiment and hope that her viewers might be able to recognize any abusers in their lives and realize that they deserve much, much better than this.

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