‘The Golden Bachelorette’ Episode 7 Recap: “My Hope Is Down to Nothing”

Guy is gaga for Joan

“I’m feeling mesmerized,” Guy said to the camera. His date with Joan, who rocked a white bikini, involved snorkeling together in the gorgeous blue-green Tahitian waters. Later, over dinner, she told him, “Today was one of the best days I can think of.” Then she dropped a bombshell: “I’ve put a lot of thought into the fantasy suites,” she said. “We can talk, and we can discuss intimate things, but when it comes to the physical part of that, I'm not going to do that with three different people. I’m not going to do it with anyone right now.”

And I think we all know what “that” and “it” is.

The declaration was totally on-brand for classy Joan. And Guy, of course, was gung-ho for whatever Joan wanted. They proceeded to spend a presumably chaste (but who knows?) night in a little bungalow together.

Chock

Disney

Chock got a chance to show Joan his exciting side

For Chock’s date with Joan, the pair went roaring around the island in an ATV, Chock at the wheel. “Go faster!” Joan shouted, and he floored it. Then they had a picnic lunch, and smooched a bit. “I felt safe,” Joan said. “He wants to have fun. Like, this could be our life.” (It could! Isn’t Chock’s hometown of Wichita, Kansas, often referred to as the Tahiti of the Midwest?)

Chock, meanwhile, continued his “fake it till you make it” strategy, talking to Joan as though their engagement were a done deal. “I don't want to be cocky,” he told her, “but I just felt that we were the right couple from day one.” Before closing the door of their fantasy suite, Chock held up his champagne glass, and boldly toasted, “to our future.”

Pascal

Disney

But Pascal was struggling

In a heart-to-heart with the show’s host, Jesse Palmer, Pascal finally explained why he’s been so guarded with his affections. (“My walls are up,” as he has often put it.) “I was almost engaged about a year ago,” he confessed, and it was a painful breakup. “I want to move on, but I’m having a tough time.”

Then he got stuck with a date that looked a lot less fun than snorkeling and carousing in an ATV

Pascal’s date with Joan was essentially a crash course in Tahitian culture. First, the pair were honored with a traditional Tahitian welcome ceremony, with music and island foods. That was followed by a traditional Tahitian bonding ceremony, which looked disconcertingly like a marriage ceremony. It included pouring water over each other’s hands, and having their wrists tied together, “to bond you with the earth and sky.”

It wasn’t really Pascal’s jam. “The ceremony really freaked me out," he said.   

Pascal gave Joan the horrible “let’s just be friends” line

“I care very much about you,” Pascal said to Joan, “I just don’t think I can get to the place where you want to be.” Then came the final blow: “I care about you as a friend, but I’m not in love.”  

Joan didn’t take the rejection well, to put it mildly

Poor Joan wept after she bid farewell to her former suitor. She was so upset, one wonders if Pascal wasn’t her top choice. “It hurts,” she said. “It's hard to be vulnerable again once you've been hurt, so, like, the walls are up again, and I feel like a failure.”

She added, “My hope is down to nothing.” You’d have to have a heart of stone not to feel for her.

“Coming up…”

Next week is “The Men Tell All” episode, where the 22 rejected and/or rejecting bachelors show up to rehash their experiences. The “coming up” reel, however, jumped to the finale. We saw Joan telling Nancy, “It just makes me feel like I’m unlovable”; Guy saying, “It’s not what I was expecting”; and Chock, intriguingly, declaring, “There’s a big problem. What do you do in this situation? I don’t know.”

See you in two weeks!