'Life Unexpected' Recap: Episode 13, 'Love Unexpected'

Oh, how I love a season finale! And a season finale with a wedding!? You can’t go wrong.

All season we’ve been teased with the Baze-Cate-Ryan love triangle. Cate and Baze sleep together, Ryan and Cate break-up, Cate and Ryan get back together. Feelings surface, are buried, are rationalized and then revealed. Engagements are on again, elopements are planned and then canceled, until finally, it is the day before the wedding. There are only 48 hours left for the adults to engage in some emotionally draining behavior.

Cate’s mother takes it upon herself to start trouble, guzzling champagne (she’s definitely an alcoholic this week), on the way to the rehearsal dinner (at Baze’s bar) she tells her daughter, “You’re a commitment-phobe, who eats her feelings and doesn’t believe in happy endings.” Are there better words for a bride to hear before her wedding?

Cate’s cold feet continue to freeze as her friends and family each stand to give cringe-inducing speeches, Math inexplicably singing Paula Abdul, Ryan’s parents expressing their disappointment in their sons choice in life partner and marriage in general.

But it doesn’t stop there, Ryan expresses concern over committing to the radio show for five years, understandably causing Cate to wonder if he can commit to her for the rest of their lives. Lux reveals to Cate that Baze is in love with her. Cate drives over to the bar in the middle of night only to have Baze deny he has any feelings for her. An emotional talk with Ryan leaves Lux wondering if she wants Cate and Baze together for her sake instead of theirs and so she finally convinces Cate that Baze will never change, that Ryan is the safe bet.

And all the while, Baze is going through a crash course in repressed feelings, realizing he can’t tell Cate he loves her because his father never said it to him. Finally father and son cry and touch foreheads and Baze’s dad (who owns the bar actually, I always wondered how Baze could afford that building) says, “I love you.” That was the key to Baze’s heart. Once unlocked, Baze runs to his beat up truck to stop the wedding. But damn the afternoon Portland traffic! As Baze honks his horn and curses his route, Cate walks down the aisle, accepting that life doesn’t go in the order you think it will and recites her vows to Ryan.

And just as the minister declares them husband and wife, the traffic clears and seconds later Baze bursts through the church doors! Cate, Ryan and Lux stare at Baze … until Cate kisses her husband. Lux’s face is stricken. She has made a mistake, pushing her mother into a lifetime commitment with the wrong man. Baze could change, he could tell Cate how he feels, but now it’s too late.

Unless there’s a season two?

What did you think of the "Life Unexpected" finale? Are you happy Cate and Ryan went through with the wedding or were you hoping Baze would save the day?

Tags Britt Robertson, Cynthia Stevenson, Kerr Smith, Kristoffer Polaha, Life Unexpected, Shiri Appleby, TV Recap