With each new episode of this show, we lose yet another entertaining character: Captain Kim, Charles L., Gary with the cool glasses, snoring Gregg, and fretter/overthinker Girl Dad Keith. That means we’re left with a rather beige set of men for this week’s hometowns, and so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
It’s week six! Let’s meet some girl dads and their daughters in between ads for the Good Feet Store, SHAG Senior Living, and Disney on Ice!
Joan is flying out of LAX (did we need these exterior shots? did we not already know LAX is ugly?) to visit Guy, Pascal, Jordan, and Chock in their natural habitats: Lake Tahoe, Chicago, also Chicago, and Kansas. “Hometowns look different for our age,” says Joan, and the ones in this episode are, but not in the way she means. Because one is a memorial service. We’ll get to it.
First stop: Lake Tahoe, where Guy lives. Joan says, “I don’t think I’m at the love place yet because I’m very protective of my heart,” which is a savage thing to say when you’re supposed to pick a person to marry in two weeks, but given the recent restraining order news about Guy, perhaps it’s for the best. Joan and Guy go on a motorboat, and Guy says Joan makes him feel “accepted, validated, and desired,” and sometimes I think Joan just listens a lot and doesn’t talk about herself much and the men on this show interpret it as her being in love with them. Oops! “I need to guard my heart,” says Guy. Perhaps more than you know!
Guy lets Joan steer the boat, unlike Pascal the driving chauvinist, then shares a legend of Lake Tahoe: You can make a wish on it. I’ve never been to Lake Tahoe, so I don’t know if this is true. If it’s not, don’t tell me! Guy wishes to make “incredible memories” with Joan, and Joan wishes to find someone to spend her golden years with. She does not specify that it should be Guy.
She brings up John again, because things she didn’t do with John remind her of John, and says she has feelings for the four people left, and feels guilty about this because they aren’t John. I am once again wondering if Joan should have taken some time off between losing her husband of many years and having to pretend to like four TV-handsome men at once. She could’ve gone to therapy and bought some nice Eileen Fisher cardigans, and spent time with her family and learned a new hobby, like watercolors or pottery, and maybe gone on one of those group trips to Italy and bought an ancient villa to renovate and returned to the dating pool only when she was truly ready, or when a handsome man came to a party she was throwing for her new Italian neighbors.
But it’s too late for Joan to be Diane Lane in Under the Tuscan Sun (a good movie!) so here we are. “It’s all about what’s in here,” says Guy, gesturing to his heart. Joan says she feels very hopeful. “Take all the time you need,” says Guy, as if he is not on a show where she has to get engaged in two weeks no matter what.
Joan says her life would be better with someone else in it. But she doesn’t say Guy specifically.
Now it’s time to meet his family! He’s feeling confident! He has a big family and they’re very friendly and welcoming. Joan tells the story of Guy and Charles’ friendship and I once again miss Charles and the Mansion Men who were actually fun. My kingdom for some Wrong Reasons Drama!
Guy has two sisters, Greer and Gayle, who sit around with big glasses of white wine and honestly seem like a great time. Guy’s adorable large adult sons, Hank and Glenn, ask Joan respectful questions. “You look happy as a lark,” Gayle says to Guy.
Now it’s time to go to Chicago! Joan wears a white sleeveless turtleneck sweater dress to meet up with Pascal at a coffee shop. Joan says Pascal reminds her of John, and I am once again thinking about how in Under the Tuscan Sun, Diane Lane makes friends with this woman who is a Fellini muse. It’s really a good movie!
Pascal welcomes Joan to his hometown. “I’m in charge today!” says Pascal, which means no women will be allowed to drive on his watch. At Pascal’s salon, Joan meets his employees, who seem to love Pascal, so he must be better at managing people than accepting that Joan is a licensed driver. “I’m in the feel good business,” he says. “I make people feel good! When they leave, they leave happy!”
For some reason, Joan is allowed to wash a client’s hair. Over champagne, Pascal tells her that he’s had his heart broken “many times,” so he can be guarded, and Joan says she’s guarded, too, because John died.
Over a charcuterie board no one eats, Joan meets Pascal’s children and family and friends. He tells them all about the Snoring of Gregg. Pascal tells his son, who looks just like him and who has a tendril of hair on his forehead that’s really earning its keep, that Joan is “a classy lady.” “I love you with my whole heart, Dad,” says Pascal’s son.
Everyone is extremely kind and welcoming to Joan, but she says Pascal has walls up.
We can’t dwell on the presence or absence of Pascal’s walls, though, because it’s time for even more footage of the Chicago River and the condo buildings that appear on the cover of Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Joan gazes out pensively at Chicago’s most boring business district. She mistakenly says she’s in the heart of Chicago and she’s getting together with Jordan, who “has a very young attitude,” which is the kind of vague compliment you’d only give to a contestant who won’t be coming back next week.
Jordan and Joan go to Lou Malnati’s for deep dish pizza, which is perfectly good but probably not what someone from Chicago would actually choose, and then they eat cake that I’m guessing is from Portillo’s. They eat this cake while standing outside near the Clark and Lake L stop, which is one of the least romantic places in Chicago, then take a shot of Malort, which, if you’ve never had it before, one of my friends once described as the essence of dry-erase marker, but abrasive. It seems cruel that Jordan’s date is basically a standing picnic, but even crueler to make anyone drink Malort outside during the day. It’s really only something to drink in wood-paneled bars under a Schlitz sign in a large group of people as a ritual of friendship, but that would be too fun to be allowed on a hometown date.
As they drink down the disgusting wormwood liquor, Jordan tells Joan she is “now an official Chicagoan,” and this is also not true, because you’re not an official Chicagoan until it’s so cold out your eyes water and then the water from your eyes freezes on your face. NICE TRY, JORDAN!
Jordan and Joan have drinks with Jordan’s family, who seem lovely and who we will never see again. Jordan says he’s not ready to get engaged in two weeks, which is a smart decision when you got the last one-on-one and aren’t in serious contention to stay. Oops, Jordan is accused of having walls up now too! If everybody on this show has walls up including Joan, can it even exist?
Joan says she feels confused. “Do I take a leap of faith with Jordan?” she asks, as if this is a real possibility, but we all know it’s not. She says she probably can’t break down Jordan’s wall, and that’s so true: I also can’t do things I don’t want to do.
Now we’re in Wichita, Kansas to meet Chock, who walks down the driveway of his friend’s ranch to meet Joan in cut-off shorts and loafers. They don’t always pay off, but I enjoy Chock’s occasional fashion risks! Joan is happy to see him, and I think Chock is going to win. Chock’s children are like mini Chocks, and they’ve also invited the father of Kathy, Chock’s partner who died.
“I’m a hugger,” says Joan. She loves everyone instantly and says she loves Chock, and makes no mention of walls. The hometown date quickly turns into a memorial service for Chock’s mother, and the way he talks about how much he loves his mother is so touching it almost makes up for the strangeness of this choice.
“This is actually really special that I get to be here,” says Joan. Chock says Joan is a fairy princess, and Joan says she sees a future with Chock. Kathy Sr. gives his blessing. “You’re family if you wanna be,” he says, and you can tell from the score’s sweeping violins of triumphant romance that Chock is going to win.
Joan says when she’s with Chock, she feels like “the big black hole doesn’t look like a big black hole anymore,” and I definitely think these two should go on a third date.
Back in LA, it’s time for the rose ceremony, and Jordan’s ritual execution. At Beach House Malibu, Joan pretends to put on makeup over her full face of professional glam. She feels unsettled. I don’t though, because we all know Chock is the one. She enters the Mansion in a sparkly red very Bachelorette mini dress and says she doesn’t know what to do, even though it’s obvious what will happen next.
Jesse Palmer is here to police the roses, and he sounds kind of congested. Hey, remember how briefly in 2020 we decided it was actually cool to stay home from work when we were sick? That was nice.
The men arrive and hug each other. Guy and Chock are both mixing it up in blue, but Chock is in the more daring shade.
“This is a huge, huge, huge rose ceremony,” says Joan, because it means they’re taking the next step. The next step, for those of you without brainrot, is fantasy suites, when the contestants get to spend time with Joan WITHOUT CAMERAS PRESENT.
Chock gets the first rose, because of course he does, followed by Guy and Pascal, which means after several weeks of seeming like he’d already been eliminated, Jordan will finally be going home for real. The men all hug Jordan, and Joan walks him out, saying “Time is not our friend,” as if she had really been very interested in Jordan but he was suddenly called away to war before they could truly bond, when really he was given so little screen time his main storyline involved falling down while ice skating.
The remaining men raise their glasses to fantasy suites in Tahiti. “We get out of the mansion, and that’s big!” says Joan. It’s something.
Captain Kim sightings: 0 (but he’ll probably be back the week after next!)
This week’s rating, out of 10 anchor emojis: ⚓⚓⚓⚓