WARNING: SPOILER ALERT!

It’s finally here: After weeks of tears and kisses, Joan Vassos, 61, ABC star The Golden Bachelorettehas chosen the man she wants to marry. The big reveal came during the reality show’s finale on November 13 (airing live from Los Angeles on ABC, 8-9:30 p.m. ET and streaming on Hulu starting November 14). He is Chock, 60, an insurance executive from Wichita, Kansas. He is perhaps more affectionate and sincere than wildly exciting. But what if Joan is happy? We are happy.

Joan, a widow, mother and grandmother from Rockville, Maryland, had once winnowed a field of 24 men in pairs, with lots of crying (on the part of Joan and the guys, many of whom were widowers) along the way.

Are we shocked?

Not really, although after the drama of Episode 7, she seemed so ambivalent that we started to wonder if she might just pack up and go home alone, thank you very much.

On the one hand, the man for whom Joan really seemed to have fallen is the one who managed to escape: the Frenchman Pascal left Tahiti, the scene of the penultimate episode, because, he told her most great possible kindness: “I care about you as much as possible. a friend, but I’m not in love. Our hearts broke for her.

His final choice therefore fell between Chock and Guy, 66, a doctor from Reno, Nevada. Both seemed smitten, but Chock in particular seemed to love-bomb her. “I just felt like we were the right couple from day one,” he told her in a recent episode.

Joan, meanwhile, barely seemed to recover from the death of her beloved late husband of 32 years, John, who died in 2021 from pancreatic cancer. “I will always love him,” she said repeatedly.

And the experience of her male predecessor on ABC’s new adult dating franchise, 2023’s Golden Bachelor, Gerry Turner, 72, would dampen anyone’s enthusiasm for the process. Turner and his partner, Theresa Nist, 71, divorced less than four months after their rushed, made-for-TV marriage, surprising no one but the most die-hard romantics. We hope for better luck for Jeanne’s wedding.

Here’s how it all went down in the season finale:

A crying Joan received a pep talk from her friend Nancy.

Joan told Nancy, her close friend and last year’s competitor Golden Baccalaureatethat Pascal’s rejection made him feel “that if he couldn’t love me, then how could anyone love me?” Nancy hugged her and replied, “You are SO deserves to be loved, and I know you’ve had it before, and you can have it again.

Joan still didn’t know if she would leave with a proposal

On exotic Bora Bora, she told the camera: “I just have to trust that this ends in an engagement.” We won’t ask the obvious question. Okay, we will: For what does this have to end in an engagement? Nevermind.