The sharp dropoff in episode quality that began with Captain Kim’s departure and has continued through every subsequent installment of The Golden Bachelorette hit its nadir this week. But if I look away from the TV I will think about the election on Tuesday, so here we are!

Three men remain, and it’s Fantasy Suites week, which means the contestants get time with Joan away from the cameras. Normally, this is when the contestants are allowed to have sex (the Bachelor franchise’s evangelical vibes are not subtle), but Joan says that won’t be happening. The Fantasy Suites are just for her to interview the men and then pick one to spend the rest of her life with, between attack ads in the Commissioner of Public Lands race, a Wegovy jingle that’s the most upsetting piece of advertising I’ve seen since Kendall Jenner Joined the Conversation, warnings about medication side effects like “tiredness” and “parasitic infection,” and David Muir’s handsome face!

Let’s get ready to see Chock continue his slow walk to victory. It’s embarrassing, but I almost never correctly guess the winner of a Bachelor Franchise season. I genuinely thought Pilot Rachel would win Clayton’s season, I was devastated when Jenn eliminated Jonathon (yes it is) on her season, and Clare Crawley’s truncated season doesn’t count, so this is a big moment for me!

But oh no! In the cold open, Joan is crying while engulfed in a giant blue fur jacket that looks like she killed a muppet. She says her hope is “down to nothing.”

Cut to Los Angeles, where LAX is still ugly and Joan is once again walking pensively to catch a flight, this time to Tahiti. She is shown getting onto a plane by herself, where a flight attendant gives her a flower. She is the only passenger. I hope this was just a promotional shot they got before the rest of the passengers boarded because otherwise this is bordering on Taylor Swift levels of environmental irresponsibility.

In Tahiti, Joan boards a cruise ship. But not just any cruise ship! “We are sailing on the Star Breeze by Windstar Cruises,” she says, and it sounds so natural to say the ship’s full Christian name. Of the final men, she says “I can picture a future with all three of them,” but I have doubts.

Surprise! Production brought Nancy from The Golden Bachelor to keep Joan company. “I am so, so thankful that she’s here,” says Joan, sounding a little like a hostage victim who’s been allowed one phone call home. She thanks Nancy profusely. “I know it’s not easy to drop your life,” says Joan, and I just want all my friends to know that I, too, would make many sacrifices to go to Tahiti for free to see them. Any time!

Joan gives Nancy the rundown of Our Story So Far, complete with desaturated flashbacks, like we’re in a movie from the ’90s: Guy is a handsome ER doctor! Pascal is like John: “He lives life big!” Chock makes Joan feel safe and is “a good kisser”! The only red flag, says Joan, is her own heart: “It just has to let love in,” and I am once again asking Joan to stop talking about searching for love as if it is a betrayal of her late husband and something she should not want and doesn’t deserve! Nancy agrees with me! She says Joan’s feelings are normal, and it’s okay for her to find love again. “Lonely is not a place you stay,” she says, with the quiet gravitas of the lead in a divorced lady-finding-herself movie. “Lonely’s a place you walk through.”

Okay, wow. Can Nancy be the Golden Bachelorette? I just know she’d bring that Nancy Meyers energy to the role.

Meanwhile, at the Mooréa Sofitel, Guy is “feeling like a million bucks.” He’s missed Joan. The Fantasy Suite date “brings incredible excitement.”

They meet on a dock and board a boat—historically not a great sign. “Hometowns was a turning point in our relationship,” says Joan, but was it? “Anything can happen this week that will sway kind of where I am,” says Joan, but can it?

“I am feeling mesmerized,” says Guy, and despite the restraining order news, I am feeling sorry for him, because he’s not going to get picked.

They go snorkeling and see sharks and stingrays, who honestly are the true stars of this episode. Maybe I should be watching Our Planet instead. Joan talks about her connection with Guy, but it’s in a voice-over played against B-roll, so I don’t trust it.

Time for Chock to have a chat with Jesse! Chock says he’s in love with Joan, and he’s not just saying that to say it! “It’s a little scary,” he tells Jesse, a man 15 years younger than him. Jesse nods sagely, his gelled hair unmoving. Chock says he feels he and Joan belong together, but he’s afraid of being heartbroken. He says he’s worried she might develop stronger feelings with someone else but I DO NOT THINK THAT WILL BE A PROBLEM, CHOCK.

Back on Guy’s date, he and Joan toast to “more memories and… potential long-term commitment.” Potential long-term commitment! The words every woman wants to hear! Joan says Guy is all-in on her, and “it’s making me feel the same way”—yet another case of Joan saying something that sounds agreeable and kind on the surface but is sort of horrifying when you think about it.

Guy seems genuinely amazed by the snorkeling. He says the stingrays “seemed comfortable with us,” which is a cute thing to say, but I hope he kept a respectful distance.

“We get to potentially find love,” Joan says, making no indication, for the millionth time, that she’s talking about love with Guy specifically.

He doesn’t seem to take it that way. He’s glowing. “I kind of want to talk to you about this evening,” says Joan, and there’s an abrupt tonal shift. Suddenly, she’s speaking in a stern voice and says that she won’t be having sex with anyone in the Fantasy Suites.

Guy seems initially flustered by this but takes it well. He says “emotional intimacy” is more important to him. The dinner was lovely, says Joan, even though they didn’t eat anything. 

We don’t see any footage of the Fantasy Suite. Normally, we’d see clothes suggestively strewn on the floor the next morning because this show is simultaneously puritanical and prurient about the idea of sex. Instead, we see Guy walking back to his room barefoot along the water in the morning, clutching his shoes and looking cheerful. Guy says he feels good about things with Joan, but now it’s Chock’s turn!

Joan and Chock get to go on an ATV. “I have strong feelings for Chock,” says Joan. Girl, we know! “I still have guilt about moving on,” she says. We know that too! Chock drives fast, and I bet Pascal is so jealous. Joan says she felt safe even though Chock was driving fast, and “it’s fun to picture a life with him.”

“I’m the luckiest guy in the world,” says Chock. “I didn’t know what was in your head,” says Joan, but didn’t she? This man cannot stop complimenting her, and he looks at her the way I look at David Muir. Get real!

Later that evening, Joan sprays hairspray on her already professionally styled hair. She’s excited for the evening ahead with Chock, but what if he’s “too good to be true”? (He’s not.) Their dinner that they don’t eat is in a dining room on the Star Breeze by Windstar Cruises. Chock says he’s crazy about Joan. He says he’s never had a doubt. “I started feeling unseen when John passed away,” Joan says in her direct-to-camera interview. “Chock makes me feel seen.”

When Joan explains that There Will Be No Sex in the Fantasy Suite, Chock says, “I am perfectly okay with that.” He likes her so much! Unlike with Guy, we actually see the Fantasy Suite, where Joan and Chock make a champagne toast. “I feel like I’m 25 years old again,” says Chock, his reverence for Joan practically vibrating out of his slightly damp eyes and right through the television screen.

The next day, Chock is journaling and drinking coffee with his reading glasses on, so I guess Chock and I have the same morning routine! “It was great,” he says of his evening with Joan. “We had champagne. We had a big, comfy couch. And I had Joan.” As for what happened: “My lips are sealed.”

Back on the Star Breeze by Windstar Cruises, Joan pretends to put makeup on over a preexisting full face of professional glam, while at Manava Beach Resort, Pascal tells Jesse that coming to Tahiti was on his “bucket leest.” He tells Jesse about the tumultuous relationship he ended before going on the show. He says he wants to move on from it, but he’s having a tough time. People think he’s happy and shallow because he leads such a glamorous life, he says, but he’s hurting inside. Jesse says those people have the wrong impression of him. “The Pascal I know is very kind,” says Jesse, and it’s embarrassing, but this former NFL player with immovable hair who is famous for saying the wrong name during a rose ceremony during his own season as the Bachelor… has really grown on me? I guess this franchise truly has corroded my brain. They say their goodbyes in beautiful French, because Jesse, like many stars of this franchise, is Canadian.

Time for Pascal’s date! Last week, Joan was worried about Pascal having walls up to love, but she thinks that people only have walls up until they find the right person, and wow is it depressing to hear a 61-year-old woman hopping on the “Maybe I can fix him!” train. Next stop therapy!

They go to a ceremony that she says is about letting love in, but first! A Tahitian feast! Joan thinks the breadfruit tastes odd, but Pascal loves everything and speaks French with the hosts, which reminds me of when I was in Mexico once, and I met a woman from Tahiti, and I was so happy we had a common language in French because my Spanish sounds like a drunk French person trying to show off after a very brief Duolingo streak.

While sampling one of the dishes, Pascal asks if it was made with a chicken (poulet) or rooster (coq) and says, “Cocorico!” in a little cooing voice because that’s the sound a rooster makes in French. The host insists it’s rooster meat. “C’est un coq!” says Pascal, then translates for Joan but only makes it halfway: “It’s a coq!” Ha! Ha! They all laugh.

After the feast, it’s time for a traditional Tahitian bonding ceremony, where Joan and Pascal stand in the ocean and say something they want to release. “I want to release my wall and fear as well,” says Pascal. “I want to release the fear of letting somebody in my life” and “the fear that I won’t be honoring John’s memory,” says Joan. Oh, Joan. You should not have agreed to be the lead of this show. But who cares, because immediately after the ceremony, she says her heart is “completely open.” That was fast!

Sadly, Pascal, who seems a bit more self-aware, says it didn’t work: His wall is still up, and he’s not ready for the compulsory engagement that’s coming. Before the second part of their date, Pascal stands pensively on a little red boat headed out to the Star Breeze by Windstar Cruises. Moonlight on the water. Abysmal vibes. He wants to be all in, but “the cérémonie really freaked me out! It freaked me out!”

In an opulent dining room aboard the Star Breeze by Windstar Cruises, Joan is waiting for him. In the muppet jacket of doom. Joan says she feels good about where they are, and Pascal says it’s time for a “deep conversation.” He says what I sort of suspected all along: that he didn’t think he would make it this far on the show—he’s “not a fighter, he’s a lover”—and he doesn’t think he can get to the place where Joan wants him to be.

“I care about you as a friend, but I’m not in love,” he says, which is way harsh, but also maybe the first time someone on this show who has these ambivalent feelings has been honest about them? Usually, they just fake it. Also, if he’s really not feeling it, he can’t afford to stay another week because what if he wins? What THEN? It’s much more respectful to tap out now and avoid risking making things even worse, kind of like what Ramses did with Marissa on Love Is Blind, a show I am very grateful no one is paying me to watch and report back on because its editing makes the Bachelor Franchise look like true cinema.

Joan says it’s fine, which of course, it isn’t, and Pascal knows it isn’t. He feels terrible. “I’m not okay!” he says in his direct-to-camera interview. He is so sad that he’s been truthful to Joan about his ambivalence. As he leaves, he tells her to reach out if she ever needs help.

Like many of us would, Joan holds it together as long she can, then breaks down in private. Her takeaway from this is that “I wasn’t loveable” and that her walls are up again, so I guess the ceremony didn’t work after all. The violins of rejection and heartbreak play as Pascal rides away guiltily from the Star Breeze by Windstar Cruises. Joan says dolefully that she could end up with nobody. She’s afraid again, and I’m losing my patience with Joan’s illegibility as a lead. Are her walls up, or are they down? Does she feel guilty or reassured? Is she just saying what she thinks we want to hear? (Or the men, or the producers—who can say?) Is 80 percent of her heart open to love, or is it actually zero? And why is her strongest connection on this show with Nancy?

We will never know the answers to these questions, so my congratulations in advance to Chock, and in the meantime, we get Men Tell All next week! There will be male bonding! Gary’s cool glasses are back! Captain Kim will be seated in the second row! And I truly can’t wait for these goofballs to break up the monotony Joan’s season has devolved into without them. Will Jonathan or Mark be announced as the next Golden Bachelor? Will Charles L. tell us more about his beautiful friendships? And most importantly, will Captain Kim force the men to perform a song? We’ll find out next week, when we get a much-needed break from Joan’s journey! Anchors away!

Captain Kim sightings: 1! He was in the promo for Men Tell All!

This week’s rating, out of 10 anchor emojis: ⚓⚓⚓⚓⚓