Lovers, Part 1

Stopping at a kebab stall in Karachi, the group discovers the shopkeeper is Steely Dan, master of the Lovers Stand. He gloats as Enya dies before them, killed by the flesh buds he planted at DIO's behest to keep her silent. Loyal to DIO to the last, she perishes without revealing the truth about his Stand. When Jotaro sends Star Platinum to strike Steely Dan, Joseph is flung backward at the very same instant.

Steely Dan explains that his tiny Lovers has crept into Joseph's ear, where it relays any pain done to Dan straight into Joseph's body and amplifies it. To prove the point, he even pays a child to beat him with a stick. Worse, the Stand has begun planting a flesh bud set to kill Joseph within ten minutes.

Seething but powerless, Jotaro reins himself in and submits to Steely Dan's every whim to keep his grandfather safe. While Jotaro plays the servant, Joseph sets out with Kakyoin and Polnareff to find a television, planning to use Hermit Purple to project an image of the inside of his own skull. With that map in hand, Kakyoin and Polnareff can shrink their Stands down, enter Joseph's body, and hunt for the Lovers before the flesh bud claims his life.

Commentary credited the voice performance for turning Steely Dan into an exemplary object of hatred, introduced subtly through the earlier haggling over kebabs. The episode unfolds in Karachi under a pink sky used as the base color for every scene, a bold choice the staff felt held together without clashing.

The installment also marks a shift in how the group operates, with Steely Dan splitting them through words alone, keeping Jotaro on one side and Joseph's rescue party on the other while the story alternates between the two.