The great filter is only one of the possible explanations of the Fermi paradox however. There are other far less bleack including that there is actually no paradox at all: life is indeed frequent and but we are just bad at detecting it/have not been looking for it long enough.
I used to think that rare earth/rare life was the bleak option. As I get older, I think the bleak thing would be a galaxy full of technologically advanced species with morals potentially equal to, or worse than ours.