Hello and welcome to your MAFS Australia recaps for 2022, which I’m dedicating my life to for the next 84 years. I’m Chantelle and, while I’ve never tossed my Savvy B on anyone at a dinner table, I have dated some heinous people in my time.
The first person we meet is Jackson, a 31-year-old plumber from Melb, and he’s the opposite of heinous. He grew with a single mum and three sisters, and knows that “women should all be treated with respect”. I like him but have an awful feeling his wife-to-be won’t. They throw the tradie straight into the Bucks night thing they do, and he looks like he’s shitting bricks.
The first wife-to-be we meet is 28-year-old makeup artist and divorcee Domenica, who makes her screen debut by calling the producer “Bro” and telling them she’s slightly shitting herself. I mean, at least it’s not her first aisle rodeo, right?
She’s Italian and giving off real pocket rocket vibes straight outta the gate. She’s the first one at the Hen’s and is off it because there is no bartender, even though there is a literal bucket of grog with glasses next to it. Honey, serve yourself?
Next we have Selina, a 33-year-old hairdresser whose parents weren’t 100% supportive of that career path. Dad also doesn’t 100% approve of her impending arranged marriage, even though that’s how he got married. Seems like mum’s sweet with it as long as the dude’s rich.
Back to the Bucks we have ANDREW FROM THE DEEP SOUTH – so I can only assume he’ll have terrible choice in footwear that’s anything other than boots. He’s been living in Australia for the last five years, and is a 39-year-old motivational speaker, who has motivated two people to marry him before.
Then comes Brent, who I remember as the foot-phobic guy from the trailers. He gets sexy music (TBC why) and is apparently very successful but very lonely, and keen to just go ham on spooning activity during this experiment.
He’s super into being Little Spoon, which is great news for anyone whose over being woken up with morning wood thrust upon thy tush. He likes legs and arms being wrapped around at the same time during his cutlery role-play. I’m not sure how this works with the foot phobia – maybe a pillow fort between the ankles? He says if his wife recites movie quotes he’ll be in love, and I really hope he’s not into obscure 90’s references because I would be in trouble.
Cue the A Night At The Roxbury music for 25-year-old Al, who is acting like this is the first Bucks party he’s ever gone to. Friendly reminder that he’s on primetime TV and bebe Woo Boy is in for a tame shock to the cock. He reckons he’s a Party Boi who lives life on the edge and I feel like I’m watching Love Island.
Al rates himself an 11/10 whose only insecurity is that his legs aren’t as muscly as he would like them to be but fun fact: he can’t grow facial hair.
And THERE IT IS.
He’s never been in a relationship before. But honey you’re such a dream??? Why not??? Why must you resort to finding it here??
The hubbies instantly behave like Woo Boy is 12 years old and take him under their wings of misguided romance advice. Blind leading the blind vibes. Drink every time this bloke says Da Boiz.
Back to the Hen’s, we have a 36-year-old who can’t believe she’s this age without a husband and a baby. One half of me is like “fuck the timeline expectation” and the other is like, “I get it”. I’m not under the impression that she thinks she should want these things at her age, but that she genuinely does want them. I like her and have decided she deserves the best out of this experiment.
It’s now known that we have a single mum and a single dad in the mix, and here’s hoping they put these two together for a cute consolidated Brady Bunch style pairing. Daddy is taking this shit seriously, and if I were single, I too would take him very seriously.
Now a babyface named Mitch has walked in. Mitch is an objectively hot person who likes to avoid the fact that he’s an objectively hot person.
I predict they’ll pair him with someone who wants to like him but can’t, or that walks all over him. Woo Boy is clearly threatened but maintains he’s the best looking person in the room.
Back to the Hen’s party we meet Holly, with a storyline producers have decided should revolve around her body image insecurities. I hope she is paired with someone who makes her feel like the sun shines out of her bum, or that she learns to love herself in the process a la Connie circa-2020.
We wrap up the Bucks and Hen’s with a focus on a girl names Tamara who says things like, “I’ll break a guy, honestly if he’s too weak, I’ll break him,” and it’s clear they’re setting us up for the weddings now.
We cut to single mum Selin, who is a living, breathing angel. She is divorced and “shut off”, saying she hasn’t put herself back out there because of the past and that her son is her main priority. She comes from a big Turkish family and please, please put her with Daddy.
THERE HE IS. THEY’RE PUTTING THEM TOGETHER. MY HEART.
The editors were good at simply planting the seed of this man’s big ol’ heart early on, because as we learn more about him, he keeps getting better and better. Anthony’s daughter is on the spectrum and he’s her biggest fan. “Everything she touches turns to gold”.
But wait! He has edge! By day he’s a saleaman and by night a wrestler. Meow. We stan the range.
Holy shit, they’re putting devil Tamara and Spooning Boy Brent together. This is going to be a hellfire of epic proportions.
Now the producers are humanising him, which is nice, as he was living the high life in Dubai before COVID fucked things up for him and he had to return home and reassess. Tamara’s a Ballarat-raised career women who moved to Queensland, who has walls and need for control, and owns a Chihuahua. I’m getting real Paris Hilton & Tinkerbell (RIP) vibes.
Alright, the moment this whole experiment truly rides on – the first reaction, and it’s a bloody good one for the DILF and MILF. He’s chuffed (and rightly so) and they’re so flipping nice to each other straight away which I mean, we saw coming.
“I must’ve died and gone to heaven,” he said, and I’m glad he sees this woman is a damn angel like the rest of Australia presumably does right now. I just hope she doesn’t get turned off by sweet talk.
He says he’s 6″3 and I can see on her face that it’s going things to her lady parts because I know the feeling. Now the fact that they’re both parents is out there and everyone’s happy as larry. This is the real deal. I’m into it. This DILF and MILF deserve each other. I hate that this show makes me smile like an idiot even though it does me dirty every time. I’m going to ignore the fact that the fist-pumped to officiate their vows.
Over to Ballarat Paris Hilton, she’s done with guys sliding into her DMs referencing Bruno Mars songs, because there is no good Bruno Mars song in the history of the universe, and she wants to just “get this over and done with” – just like having sex with your husband 15 years into a marriage!
She’s not after much, really, just: no dirty fingernails, an ironed shirt, fresh haircut, career goals, muscly, passions of his own, can stand on their own two feet, a “real” man, someone who looks really good next to her.
Meanwhile, Brent just wants some good, fresh feet that he never has to look at, touch or think about. Any dreams Ballarat Paris had of selling foot pics for $20 a pop on FB Marketplace are out the window.
She’s going to try and not judge him based off the 17,324 boxes he needs to tick, which now includes someone who can caress her feet. Doomed.
OK so Ballarat Paris is actually happy with the outcome, which seemed impossible for a moment there, and he’s stoked too, based off looks alone + the fact that her dress is floor-length. The poor guy keeps trying to scope out her feet but no more than a toe is popping out.
Imagine getting married and not being able to stop thinking about… feet? What a dream. It’s like the mystery of her feet aesthetics is sending him even more mad, though. Hold on, did he must manage to work “feet” into his vows? He did. Feet really be on his mind. I feel bad for this guy and his obsession with feet.
She’s not impressed with his “club” job and I feel like this is where it all goes south for these sorely mistaken match up. She said no Party Bois, experts! How dare you do this to her?! Do you not know who she is?!
At least her vows about, ah, herself, are… self-aware? He called her “wifey” and I’m surprised she didn’t whip out her foot and rub it on his face just to piss him off.
They have a lil’ peck which is fine, I get it, they’re strangers who are well and truly on their way to despising each other. She’s now resorted to calling him “average”, which she doesn’t “do”, all because he works at a nightclub.
“I don’t work in a nightclub, I’m a Hospitality Specialist” he says, which is the most LinkedIn thing she’s ever heard. I hate that he’s having to prove his success to her, though. “I sound like such a bitch,” she laughs, and look, she said it, not me.
The photographer has now asked for a “Cinderella moment” which can only mean one foot-shaped thing, and he tries to get out of it by suggesting his pants are too toight. This is the entertainment value I come to MAFS for. Brent is literally freaking out.
He doesn’t know what to do, what to touch, what to say – so instead he says…
We cut back to the angelic MILF and DILF combo and they’re being cute and doing cute things and just slowly falling in love while taking sham wedding pics. How nice. Jules & Cam 2.0.
But it’s a bit boring so we go back to the shitstorm brewing between Ballarat Paris and Brent.
She’s measuring ambition in a really cooked way and says she’s been embarrassed before by dating someone in retail. Brent and his bestie aren’t having a bar of it, which GOOD. There’s knowing what you want and then there’s being downright awful to other people should they not match your expectations.
Now Ballarat Paris is telling the resident spooner how to use his forks, because she thinks he stabs his food like the caveman-ish bartender she’s decided he is or something. Oh dear. She reckons she’ll teach him to be a “better person” by doing things the correct way and if she saw how I eat, she’d think I was the fucking devil.
“Does that empower you?” he replied when being schooled about forking and well, bloody, done, Brent. You might have an unusual resistance to anything connected to ankles, but that was a good response – I’ll give you that.
Brent and his bestie have a pow-wow outside instead of in the toilets, because cameras, and Brent says that Ballarat Paris’ “pretentious way of thinking is not healthy”. The bestie polishes the turd that is their marriage with words like “challenging” and “learning curve”, because he doesn’t want Brent to miss out on the 20-30K Insta followers.
Meanwhile the girls are discussing that heels will have to be sacrificed because of Brent’s height and hun, if he had it his way, you wouldn’t have feet at all.
Brent declares war in the only way we know how: “It’s on, like Donkey Kong.” Meanwhile Anthony is embracing Selin’s Turkish culture through dance and it’s beautiful areas. They’re very hopeful.
Brent and Ballarat Paris put their differences aside to cut their wedding cake with a butter knife. He helps her slice though, which is very different to her management of his cutlery earlier. She was cutting with the knife upside down, but he can’t use a fork properly and got attacked for it. Let that sink in.
But wait. It’s Brent’s fault. He handed her the knife the wrong way. They proceed to fight about the knife for the rest of the episode, but they find a way to bond over it during the bride and groom dance, in some kind of weird PG-rated makeup sex. Will the #KnifeGate drama continue into tomorrow night’s episode?
TBC, but seems like we’ll get a break to instead watch divorcee Domenica and objectively hot guy (whose name has now been forgotten) meet their matches.
Chantelle Schmidt is a freelance writer. You can tell her how much you hate these recaps on IG here or LinkedIn here.
