This week’s episode starts with an extended recap of last week’s soap opera-esque drama and Jojo’s indecision. Luke comes back into the airplane hangar looking super smug, and Jordan is pretty pissy about it. Robby seemed to be under the impression that Luke was going to just leave and not come back.
The first rose of the ceremony goes to (surprise) Jordan. Robby gets the second rose, and the last rose is between Chase and Luke. In any other world, Luke would be the obvious choice, but Jojo’s taste is apparently in favor of an actual pile of cardboard. Luke looks actually stunned, and the other guys don’t do a very good job of hiding their glee that it’s not them. Luke mumbles his way through a goodbye while Jojo sobs more tears than all of the boys have in their bodies combined. Unlike most goodbyes on The Bachelor(ette), which are generally piles of self-pity, Luke does a pretty bang up job of making Jojo feel bad about sending him home instead of an actual Ken Doll. Luke’s limo-cam goodbye is surprisingly eloquent for a guy who didn’t speak above a mumble for most of the season, but it seems suspiciously like he’s prepped to be the next Bachelor.
We next find Jojo and her three remaining suitors in Thailand for her fantasy suite dates (AKA they’re allowed to touch each other now). Her first date is with Robby and honestly if you had asked me even two weeks ago, I would not have guessed that Robby would make it to the final three. He and Jojo get pedicures together.
At the evening portion of the date, Jojo asks Robby what his family thought of their relationship, and Robby pulls out a note from his father that seems just a little too perfectly framed to be real. Their date is honestly super boring until Robby calls Jojo “Joelle,” which is jarring because pretty much everyone has forgotten that Jojo’s real name is actually Joelle. They choose to forgo their individual rooms and stay together in the fantasy suite and Jojo tells the camera that she loves Robby, but she doesn’t tell Robby himself since she doesn’t want a Ben Higgins situation to arise.
The next day, Jordan arrives in a boat and it takes me a solid two minutes to figure out if it’s Jordan or Chase. They get sporty and go for a hike and at this point my mom says, “all those guys seem gay to me.” Jordan and Jojo climb up a mountain and into a cave and into a temple and talk about Jojo’s family. There’s a family of birds outside my window and the momma bird is actively attempting to throw the baby birds out of the nest while Jordan and Jojo talk about their families and the bird family is truly more interesting than this conversation.
At their nighttime dinner date, Jojo expresses her nerves about whether Jordan is there for The Right Reasons. For some reason, whenever Jordan talks, the camera zooms up really close to his teeth and you see that he never actually closes his mouth. Jojo asks Jordan what the next year would be like if they were engaged and he gives a total non-answer and basically says that he has no futures plans of any kind. At this point, it seems like everyone just assumes Jordan and Jojo will end up together even if they no longer want to actually be together. Regardless, they also choose to forgo their individual rooms and use (hopefully) a different fantasy suite. Jojo also tells the camera that she’s in love with Jordan.
The post-overnight time with Jordan is almost identical to the post-overnight time with Robby, down to Jojo walking away with Jordan watching her from a balcony. Chase arrives on a motorcycle because apparently in Thailand anybody can have a motorcycle. These dates are seriously becoming formulaic and asking for some producer meddling. Chase and Jojo go for a boat ride and they are both incredibly sweaty. Chase uses the words “sex appeal” to describe Jojo and I have to try pretty hard not to gag, and then he just says a bunch of nouns to describe Thailand.
Between Jojo and Chase’s nighttime date, Robby shows up at Jojo’s room for no reason other than just to meddle. He says something about “country clubs and coloring books” which apparently has some inside-joke meaning between the two of them. He leaves, and now Jojo has some emotional turmoil to deal with in her date with Chase. Chase dresses like Prince Eric from The Little Mermaid. It took me the entire season to figure it out, but Chase reminds me of Ryan Lochte in the fact that he is good looking but doesn’t really say anything when he talks and has a sort of vacant look whenever Jojo asks him a question.
Chase tells Jojo that he loves her, and Jojo tells the camera that she doesn’t know if she feels the same way. It looks like she’s going un-forgo her individual room, and she leaves Chase sitting by himself for awhile when she goes to figure her shit out. She tells Chase that she doesn’t feel the same way and he tries to down an entire glass of wine in one go. Chase is deeply offended by the fact that Jojo turned him down after he jumped through the Bachelor hurdles. Chase is pretty outraged, and his handling of rejection seems way more petty than Luke’s, who seemed actually confused and hurt, whereas Chase just seems like he feels entitled to a relationship. Newsflash dude: just because you check all boxes in your to-do list, it doesn’t always mean that you win. The weirdest part of this rejection is that it means that ROBBY will be in the final two next week with Jordan. ROBBY.
At the rose ceremony, it’s just Jordan and Robby. Jojo tells the boys how she sent Chase home and how mad he was. Except then Chase just shows up. Because that’s the normal thing normal humans do after they get broken up with. Literally nobody knows what’s going on, including Jojo, but Chase undoubtedly had to walk past Chris Harrison on his way in so someone knew what was happening. Chase comes in to apologize for flipping his lid and tells Jojo that he thinks she deserves something great even though he also thinks she’s wrong for not choosing him.
Jojo gives the first rose to Jordan and the second rose to Robby, then talks for awhile about she’s excited for them to meet her family. If her family does a repeat of last season’s interrogation of Ben, I am also excited for them to meet her wine-chugging reality-show indulging family.
Image via screengrab.