It’s the last day of Intimacy Week on the cultural black spot known as MAFS, so let’s get right into it.
A quick warning: you may want to have your spray bottles at hand.
Who’s this, kicking things off with a bang (har har)? It’s everyone’s favourite lizard, Jason! “Intimacy week, I don’t care what it is, I’m going to be a freak at it,” he says, and half of the people watching just slipped off their chairs.
do that thing with your tail again
Alana agrees that they have perfected the art of bonking, but reckons there’s room for more like, emotional intimacy. Jason is not perturbed by this prospect.
“I’ll just smash whatever it is,” he says, with the kind of confidence one can only gain from having one’s sexual prowess spontaneously broadcast on primetime TV. He doesn’t really know what Alana means when she says she wants a closer emotional connection, but the man is so buoyed by his recent orgasmic affirmation that he’s clearly prepared for anything. God speed, my reptilian lover!
I don’t wanna brag, but it’s like
Melissa and Bryce, meanwhile, are dealing with further fallout from Bryce’s absurd fixation on Liss’s eye colour. He’s gone and pulled a Cameron, and stormed off in a petulant huff for apparently no reason. Poor Liss is understandably upset – remember her whole “fear of abandonment” thing that this demonic show keeps leaning on?
she’s demonstrating weakness! get her!!!
Hotties par excellence Bec and Jake are still living apart after Bec moved out in a snit because Jake went on the town with Da Boiz instead of debriefing with her post-commitment ceremony. However, Bec is prepared to move back in if their first intimacy task goes well, and their digital boob window (Alessandra, via iPad) has instructed them to do the eye-gazing thing. Normally I’d pause here to rip on the very nature of this exercise but as I’d happily chew my own foot off for the opportunity to spend three-to-five minutes staring into this dreamboat’s storm-blue eyes I will keep my mouth shut (for once) (don’t get used to it).
[Unchained Melody intensifies]
They spend a refreshingly uncomplicated few minutes gazing into each other’s perfect faces, and even Bec, the Ice Queen, appears to soften. Sweet lil Jake has just been craving physical contact this whole time, having a concentrated stare-and-snuggle has really hit the spot for him. He reckons it’s probably the most intimate thing he’s ever done. I unreservedly love him, and Bec seems open to the idea also – she’s moving back in. Great work once again, Alessandra’s Boob Window!
Upstairs in the trauma zone, Melissa is trying to figure out what caused Bryce to flounce off. Apparently it’s because Bryce asked her what she was wearing today (…why?), and she responded, jokingly, “I’m wearing clothes.” This apparently constitutes “being a smart-arse”, and warrants a retaliatory walk-off. Are we about to see Alien Queen Melissa finally put up a boundary against Bryce’s shocking behaviour? God it’s been tedious watching him cheerfully walk all over her as if it were his God-given right.
photon torpedoes at 95%
She’s like, “Why didn’t you say anything?” and he goes – uuggghhh God it’s so MANIPULATIVE – “I just wanted my own space for an hour or so. What’s wrong with that.” Rubbish! He wanted to punish her by making her feel confused and uncertain about their relationship! All men like Bryce please go to the nearest toilet, put your head in the bowl and flush yourself the fuck away.
Oh hell yes, here comes the Celestial Wrath. “He’s made me mad. He hasn’t upset me, he’s made me mad,” she tells the camera, and I have found myself on my feet and wordlessly yelling. Get him, Your Majesty!!!! Jesus Christ, watching her come into the kitchenette and sit on that stool like a queen in her ready-room is stimulating beyond belief. Who needs nose beers when you’ve got this shot of confidence fired directly into your visual cortex.
take him to the brig
“Over the last few weeks, it’s been extremely challenging. Extremely. And I haven’t got upset over things like, things over my appearance. But how you react, how you shut down and you don’t talk to me, that’s what upsets me,” she says.
“But that’s how I process things,” snivels Bryce. “Is that you questioning how I am as a person?”
KILL HIM.
“When you shut down, that’s hurtful to me,” she says.
“You take it how you want,” says Bryce. “But that’s me telling you.”
Oh my gooooooooooouuurrrrdddddd I feel like every single man-dating woman in the entire universe, whatever galaxy Liss is from included, has had this exact conversation. As though every bloke should be allowed to ride roughshod over other people’s feelings because that’s “just how he is” and “you’ve taken it the wrong way”! The insensitivity! Why bother having civilisation, courtesy, etiquette, and modes of communication at all? Why don’t we just go around bonking each other on the head with logs and enjoying our traumatic brain injuries?
“You have a type, I get that. It’s upsetting, I let it go,” says Melissa. “This – I’m literally shaking over. If we’d actually had a full-on argument I’d expect you to walk out, but that was literally two words and you slammed the door and you were gone. So do you see why I was upset?”
“I thought you were acting like a smart-arse,” he mumbles. He reckons he’s dealt with that kind of thing in past relationships by removing himself from the situation, and while he knows it’s selfish and defensive he still does it. How enlightened of him.
“What do you wanna do? Do you want to be here?” says Melissa. “If you want me to go, I’ll go and give you space.”
“I don’t want you to go, though,” he says, and then he appears to have an actual revelation to the MAFS cameras.
“I’ve been trying to work on myself as a person,” he says, “but I’m not doing as well as I thought. If someone’s gotta spell it out to you – clearly I’m nowhere near where I want to be.”
could it be that I’m not the god among men I’ve always thought I was
He holds Liss’s hands and has a little cry, and acknowledges that today was his fault. He says sorry. Melissa receives this apology gracefully, and wins my eternal allegiance by not fawning over him for being a good boy and owning up to his mistakes. Seeing her step into her power, and the immediate positive impact it has on Bryce’s behaviour and self-awareness, is a heady drug. I need a minute. Maybe a cigarette.
Almost as good: it’s Coco putting Pig Sam through an intense Pilates workout i.e. exacting her revenge in the most delicious way.
*strained oinking*
They’re doing their best to reconcile. It’s forced but at least it’s not openly hostile. I’ll give Sam the Pig some begrudging credit for at least trying. Coco feels the same, but she’s not convinced that they’re ever going to get to the point of being an actual couple.
“I really wanted to try and build somewhat of a friendship with Sam, and yes we have had a few laughs today. But at the same time, I know what I want in a partner, and I know where my heart lies. And it’s with someone else.”
Going to pause for a second here and say that the above quote was delivered over a montage of Cameron, i.e. not with actual footage of Coco saying it, and the audio certainly had something of a… patchwork quality.
Let’s not allow ourselves to become too scandalised that MAFS is completely fake, as I for one am very much enjoying the forbidden love between Cameron and Coco regardless of how exaggerated it might be.
For his part, Cameron is still struggling with his lack of feelings for Samantha. Things feel forced. It’s hard to make a connection. He reckons he’d be better off matched with someone else – say, for example, Coco. It’s frustrating. Oh well, surely nothing’s being set up there! Let’s go gawk at Beth and Russell, the second-to-worst matched MAFS pair, as they attempt to navigate the horrors of Intimacy Week.
Things have been tough for our dirt bike king and his crystal-gift-shop bride, especially since Beth was like, I’m simply not feeling it at all. Soz. As Beth points out, though, the fact that they’re starting from square one means that any intimacy exercises they do will have to bring them a little bit closer. Right?
dirt bikes
Russ stares at Beth without blinking, which is unnerving to say the least. Beth is smilingly unimpressed. I am deeply upset at having to watch these two gentle souls, who only deserve happiness and respect and who will never find that with one another, be mashed together so callously. It’s like watching someone drop a moonstone necklace into a running two-stroke motor. Let them go their separate ways! You beasts!!!
Meanwhile in Jason and Alana’s MAFS Pleasure Palace, Alessandra’s boob window has shown up in person, presumably to check in on the validity of Alana’s claims about Jason’s studliness, and also to see if the two of them can actually emotionally click rather than just putting their bits together in exciting ways.
the boob window demands an orgasm of the MIND
Alana and Jason have to do the eye-gazing exercise, but with an added element to deepen their “emotional connection”. This element is that, on top of staring deeply into one another’s eyes, they also have to cup each other’s goolies while doing so. Just when I was starting to take Alessandra seriously!
“It’s just a cupping, there should be no caressing,” Alessandra trumpets, leading to this alarming screenshot:
knew I left me keys somewhere
They stare into each other’s eyes and the music gets all romantic while Alessandra goes on about emotional vulnerability and looking into each other’s souls. They have a big smooch. They both teared up a bit! It’s cute, especially because Jason is so guarded about opening up emotionally (remember this is the guy who got cheated on in every relationship he’s been in). Alana is pleased that they’re deepening their connection. Jason looks relieved, if slightly bewildered. I am disarmed and horny and very mad about it.
Oh thank god we’re back with James and Jo, whose off-putting energy has the same effect as a bucket of cold water. James is still feeling insecure, which is like, so weird, considering that Jo hedged her “stay” decision with a “for now :)”. The lucky ducks have received one of Alessandra’s “intimacy boxes” of leftover hen’s night props. They get to pick one item each, and Jo picks massage oil. This leads to the most tense massage I’ve ever seen televised.
so arousing
“Mm,” says James unconvincingly, and just like magic, my horniness is gone, evaporated, never to be seen again. Thanks, MAFS!
Back in Coco’s personal Pilates palace, she’s waxing romantic about her feelings for Cameron. She acknowledges that there is a spark between them, that she is attracted to him, that it’s so nice to have someone she can actually talk to and connect with. But she doesn’t know what’s going on with him and Samantha, and she’s been giving him space to figure that out.
Obviously, though, “If Cam came in here and said things were over with Samantha, and he would like to pursue things with me, that would make me happy,” she says. Fair call!
and then I’d grab his head between my thighs like THIS
Meanwhile, Cam is taking Samantha out in a last-ditch attempt to forge a connection between them. They sit down together at a high-top in some soulless Gloria Jean’s-style brick interiored cafe, and talk about their hopes and dreams over a deeply dispiriting ham and tomato sandwich.
ah, the food of love
Sam says she wants one more kid, Cam reckons he also wants kids. Christ these two are boring together. Cam says he doesn’t feel any chemistry between them, and I have jerked awake long enough to agree with him. Sing it again with me, friends: let them go!!!
Back in Beth and Russell’s fortress of pain, they have been assigned another intimacy task. This one is to just talk to each other about how they feel about sex. Here comes the clown music. My heart breaks for these guys, really it does.
Anyway: Beth is adventurous! She likes toys, she’s watched porn with partners before, she’s discussed threesomes. She’s explored tantra. Of course she has.
what’s that supposed to mean
Russell, bless his vanilla slice heart, is not into any of that. He is, he says, “into pedestrian sort of stuff.” (Unfortunately he’s not talking about doing stuff with this Pedestrian rep, to my great dismay.) “Just me and the chick. Don’t know much about the toys side. I’m useless with knots so I’m guessing ropes is out of the question.” Beth is laughing, but not for long: “Sex with me is kinda like going to a supermarket,” says Russ, “not the organic one, where I don’t know what anything is.”
yes I’m sure you always know what and where EVERYTHING is
Wasn’t the whole point of bringing the sexy sexologist on board to help pair these couples up with some degree of sexual compatibility? Don’t torture my sweet baby angels like this, you monsters! Let Russell find the over-sweetened vanilla frosting to his bland, crumbly vanilla cupcake! Let Beth meet a polyamorous yogi called Lars who will edge her for a whole weekend! LET! THEM! GO!!!
Thank god we get the sweet reprieve of revisiting Brett and Booka. There’s simply no better a palate cleanser than seeing a lucky little bloke consistently look at his magnificent wife with this expression.
my Amazonian queen
Their intimacy task is the ten-minute make-out session. Booka puts on a beret and they have a goofy little smooch for an impressively long time. Brett’s facial hair gets a bunch of screentime, which I approve of wholeheartedly.
mademoiselle loves monsieur’s moustache
Now it’s Jo and James’s turn to do the ten-minute make-out. James doesn’t wanna. Jo is a bit hurt. I hate every segment featuring these two. The vibes are bad. The insecurities are on display. The flags are red. They have an angry, very brief kiss. I feel like I’m watching my parents pretend they’re not getting divorced.
go back to bed sweetie mum and dad are just having a discussion
Back in the Terrarium of Love, Jason has taken Alessandra’s advice about vulnerability being a superpower to heart. He’s cooking Alana spaghetti bolognese. He has never cooked this before. I applaud his gumption but despair at the state of men in general. How do these empty-headed idiots live their lives unassisted? (They don’t; they have mothers and then they have girlfriends and then they have wives and then they die. The system is broken.)
He spends a lot of time looking at a sauce jar and seeming stumped by an onion. They’re deploying the clown music at volume 10. Be nice to my favourite lizard!!! His hands are good for climbing up the walls of his tank and making ladies scream with pleasure, not cooking human food!
where’s the clit on this thing
Alana is like, “Are you cooking dinner? That’s really sweet!” while Jason laughs about burning most of the spaghetti to the bottom of the pot. She gives his spaghetti a nine out of ten, which she admits to camera is a total lie but she is just so overwhelmed by the gesture and effort that he might as well be René Redzepi. These dummies are so god damn cute together!!! I am a now a lifelong member of the Jason and Alana fan club. Long may they screw each other’s brains out.
gonna bolog your nese later babe
Back in Beth and Russell’s room, they’re at their most adventurous yet: Russ has agreed to sleep on the other side of the bed. It doesn’t go well. He ends up back on the couch. Beth finds this difficult, unsurprisingly; despite all the intimacy week tasks, they’re still just friends. Beth deserves better, and truly I feel like a man this set in his ways is an impossible rarity these days, and Russ should be treated like the treasure he is. Will that happen on this show? We all know the answer to that. LET THEM GO!!!
Meanwhile Cam has been conveniently left alone while Samantha goes to the hairdresser. He’s texted Coco to see if she wants to go for “a drink and a catch-up”. You dog, Cameron!
Coco has got her cute floral number on again and is saying something about how she wants to find out what the situation is between Cam and Samantha. She doesn’t want to step on any toes! Sure babe!
*laughs in manufactured villain*
Bec and Jake have been assigned another intimacy task, and ugh, gross, it’s the laughing one. You have to stand in front of the other person and just laugh at each other. Jake reckons it’s his “worst nightmare”. I didn’t realise our favourite himbo was so serious!
Bec reckons she laughs at herself all the time, which sounds… implausible, but okay. It’s profoundly upsetting to watch these two ultrahotties appropriate my culture. Leave the humour to us uggos! You already have everything else!
stop biting my style you babely motherfuckers
Happily for me, this exercise goes badly. Jake is too in his head to really get into it, and Bec judges him for his reticence. Good! Don’t be funny! Just be hot!!!
At some other anonymous Sydney venue, Cam and Coco are flirting like their life depends on it. Cam asks if Coco and Pig Sam have done any intimacy week stuff (good question, actually) – she says she’d rather stick hot needles in her eyes. Correct response!
And how are things with Cam and Samantha? It’s been a rollercoaster for Cam. He finds it so uncomfortable to sleep in the same bed as Samantha. And then: “Would have been easier if you were there,” he laughs. Keep it in ya pants mate!
not just the ears that need to remain tucked at all times, big fella
He’s really laying on the compliments – she’s bubbly, she’s confident, she’s good looking – and god, how nice it must be after spending weeks listening to that pouting piglet whinge about her every characteristic. I also want to give them both props for just coming out and saying that they like each other, because we all know everyone on this show is too old to be playing coy.
“The spark I feel with you, I haven’t felt that in like… all year,” Coco tells Cam. “I almost know what you’re going to do before you do it.”
“Do ya?” laughs Cam. I have spit my drink and am gasping for air.
pictured: illegal levels of wanton smouldering
This is by far the horniest MAFS has been all “Intimacy Week”. There’s visible electricity flying around. My hair is standing on end. I’m only a feeble desk-monkey, I can’t handle this kind of tension!
help
There is a very graceful hand touch, some prolonged eye contact, and then the tension breaks and we can all take a deep breath: they don’t kiss. Instead Cam appeals to their shared morals.
“It’s hard, it’s very hard,” he says. “There was a big part of me that wanted to kiss her then, and there was also a big part that was thinking about the situation and, and others as well, so…”
He’s all like, This is how it’s supposed to be, and if we were matched together it would have been ideal, but – “There’s a line for me that I’m not comfortable crossing at all. I’ve still gotta deal with the relationship that I’m currently in, or the wife that I currently have. I would hate to be continually going behind people’s backs to catch up.”
Coco agrees. It’s a shit situation but she understands. “I don’t want to be seen as ‘the other woman’, sort of thing,” she says.
To camera, she says that Cameron is everything she asked for coming into this experiment, which seems suspicious at best. MAFS producers intentionally not partnering up two people who’d be perfect for each other in order to manufacture infidelity drama?? Say it isn’t so!
yes this is just as good as taking each other’s clothes off
Anyway they have a cuddle and then go home, presumably to disperse the tension via frantic masturbation.
Samantha comes home with some nice-looking hair, and asks Cam how his arvo was. “Good,” he says. “Just went to the gym.” Then we get to watch an excruciating to-camera segment in which Sam talks happily about how much better things are feeling and how there have been no hiccups. This is such a dog move – don’t make Samantha look like a pitiable idiot here, MAFS! They’re not listening, their ears are plugged with hundred dollar notes. Oh well.
In Coco’s Pilates palace for one, she’s feeling even more confused about things, so she’s got her tarot cards out. I didn’t think I could love this woman any more. I was wrong. She lets a single card fall from the deck, and it’s the ten of cups, “which means happily ever after,” she says. How desperately I want that to be true.
Anyway that’s it for tonight! Next ep is the dinner party, and if the previews are anything to go by, it’s gonna be the boys flinging the savvy b for once while the gals cheer them on. Bring your goggles. See ya then!
