Who’s Left On The Bachelor With Matt James Heading Into The Finale

Warning: Major spoilers are ahead.

If it feels like the past couple of Bachelor franchise seasons have had gargantuan cast lists, it's because they have. Clare Crawley and Tayshia Adams had a combined 35 contestants on The Bachelorette, and Matt James' Bachelor season started out with 32 women. And even more contestants joined The Bachelor later in the season have been everywhere — including former Colton Underwood contestant Heather Martin.

For context, early seasons of The Bachelor used to have around 25 contestants to kick off the show, but in recent years that number has continued to grow. Peter Weber, Colton Underwood, and Nick Viall all had 30 women to start their seasons. But Matt's 32 was the highest starting count for a Bachelor; for that number to have ballooned to 38 at one point is unheard of for the franchise. And there were even more women in contention for his season.

ABC Entertainment’s Rob Mills told Variety that backup contestants were flown to the show's filming bubble in Pennsylvania in case any of the prospective cast members tested positive for COVID-19. None did. "You just never know, so we always have alternates," Mills said. "Maybe next time, we don’t have to bring in as many people.”

Matt's casting as the Bachelor brought in a record number of applications for the show. At one point 6,500 women had applied to hopefully become his fiancée. Having to whittle it down to just 38 cannot have been an easy task. Now it's up to Matt to do the rest of the eliminating.