Joan Vassos prepared on Wednesday night for her second shot at true love.
The first-ever Golden Bachelorette dubbed herself “the luckiest person in the world” on this show’s September 18 premiere, as she accepted the lead role three years after her husband passed away from pancreatic cancer.
Among the most memorable suitors… Chock brought some chicken noodle soup; Kim arrived in his Navy uniform; and Jack serenaded his possible future wife with a version of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way.”
Joan Vassos holds a rose on the first episode of The Golden Bachelorette. (ABC)
“This is a crazy journey, but people find love in lots of different ways,” Joan said to her group of contestants inside of the mansion. “Like, I don’t know if I’m being naïve, but I think it could really work, so I can’t wait to get this journey started.”
(Joan, of course, is being naive. It never works. Just ask the latest Bachelorette, Jenn Tran.)
The men then went ahead and made their pitch to The Golden Bachelorette.
“When I found out it was you, I was 100 percent in,” Pascal told her, for example. “If it wasn’t you, Joan, I wouldn’t be here today. I just want you to know that.”
Gregg and Joan, meanwhile, donned Hawaiian shirts and sipped tropical cocktails, while Gil played tee ball with her and Charles K. and Joan raced in motorized chairs.
“I just want to talk to her all night long,” Charles K. said to the camera.
Golden Bachelorette Joan Vassos with Pascal in the season one premiere episode. (Disney/Gilles Mingasson)
Another suitor said he got hit by lightning and needed 12 minutes of CPR to be revived, while yet another made dinner for Joan and another wrote her a poem.
Joan Vassos cornhole with Keith and felt an immediate connection. “
We have a lot of things in common,” she said. “It’s exciting. I can picture being with him.”
She then gave this aspiring husband her first impression rose.
“This journey is scary and you just made me feel safe,” Joan told Keith. “You have this calm voice and you’re just like, this big teddy bear kind of guy. I don’t know, it just felt good to me.”
Keith earned Joan’s first impression rose on The Golden Bachelorette. (Disney/Gilles Mingasson)
Cut to the rose ceremony, where Joan told her fellas that she’d been “dreading this moment.”
“If you leave, you have already won,” she said. “You are here and you have shown the world that you have heart and you have a sense of adventure and that you are looking for love and you’re doing it in your golden years. And you’re a great example to everyone.”
In the end, Vassos extended roses to Dan, Jonathan, Mark, Guy, Charles K., Gil, Gary, Pascal, Chock, Kim, Christopher, Gregg, Charles L., Jordan, Bob, Michael and Jack.
From there, a preview for the rest of the season featured Joan saying “I love you” to Mark, as well as Golden Bachelor Gerry Turner making his return to ask her:
“Have you considered the possibility that your guy is not here?”
The Golden Bachelorette Premiere: Who Did Joan Vassos Send Home? was originally published on The Hollywood Gossip.